timbin

Redraws from the hb comic of all time...

her whole story still deals with the original core themes—identity, the ouroboros, bodily autonomy and body horror, misogyny, dying and reviving and dying and reviving, and (what I wish was seen more in) PTSD narratives, recovery, etc.,

i’ve preserved the inspiration also, that being my (negative) reaction to reading Ovid’s metamorphoses at the part about Pygmalion and Galatea. That interpretation of “dear god imagine being built for a purpose without your consent, imagine coming to life as a young adult and never truly getting to develop as a person before someone integrates you into their life as a fantasy ideal” but I am still deciding where to place it for now with this more supernatural/cryptid bend I’ve put on her. I do want to keep the whole idea of “the idea of men in fairy tales falling for their creations is really distressing and downright horrifying from a female pov” for Themes and such, but fit that into new biology dweeb stuff I’ve incorporated into her design without it feeling cluttered, and I haven’t yet found the solution lol

So big one, Why Does She Look Like That?

Short answer: Mollusks are so awesome and I think people should draw more bug girls and snail girls and eel girls and weird girls

Long answer: It’s actually always been a part of her design! Some of my close friends will remember, June was never technically made as a woman’s body. She was grown as a mass and cut into the shape of a woman. Like papier mache being hung on a skeleton, all of which radiated from “the pearl” or her freaky little bone parasite in the center of her body.

Her biological traits are a hodgepodge of different mollusk traits, primarily from nudibranchs (sea slugs). I think you can see those most obviously when looking at her! (Stalks, glowing spots, goofy eyes, frills).

The main attraction being the regenerative abilities of mollusks! Basically, she was a walking organ farm. There’s so many characters with healing factors, I’ve always wondered why they weren’t just getting their kidneys harvested ad Infinitum

But, she’s not an organ farm or a living statue ideal girl anymore. My favorite thing about June has always been the switch—the sudden attempt to act as human and develop “personhood,” something she thinks she needs to acquire via activities because she thinks it wasn’t already inherent to her. The only way she knows how to interface with the world is mimicry. She has no solid identity, just as she did when she was a bunch of horrid fractal meat creatures dying over and over but remaining psychologically continuous. Because yadda yadda my personal belief is that all our internal conceptualizations of the self are constructs and not truly real yadda yadda but that doesn’t make them less important so on and so forth bla bla bla be who you want to be

And, of course, as a person with CPTSD, I really wish there were more depictions of it that weren’t entirely focused on pain and misery OR entirely focused on curing it. Narratively it’s often shown as a journey from fear/sadness/anger to happiness. But those emotions never really leave, and they shouldn’t. All attempts to do so make you less of a person than you where when you started. Recovery from abuse isn’t about happiness, it’s about learning to exist. You will always hurt. Might as well figure out how to do other things too.

It’s deeply personal to me! Always has been. But since I’ve finally gotten trauma therapy, I’ve been able to separate the story of June from myself. I don’t have to disguise bad shit happening to me through allegory anymore. So, now I’m getting to have fun. My snail daughter thing. She delights my friends and I.

Died April 17, 2003, at the age of 20

Her dead body and even her name twisted to suit an ideal, she no longer exists but cannot die

And June Myōga, a ?/statue/? from ?/Cyprus/?

born October 2006, born aged 20, age 20 she is and 20 remains and 20 she will be