Sunny Haven

Then your egg cracks and for a little while things may get even harder, scarier, or darker. You gotta figure out how to be a person from scratch, oftentimes building up a whole life while your peers are already living theirs.

But then it's a year or two or ten later, and you're living in your own skin, in your own clothes, in your own love, and you realize that this is exactly what it's all about.

And you may realize it's been a few days or weeks or months since the last suicidal thought, the last severely depressive episode, and you may find yourself singing in the shower or car and dancing while making dinner.

Finally you're Alive. Finally you're You. Finally You're Right.

And the world gets a little warmer and brighter.

For some reason a bird speaking Japanese is mildly off putting.

> Literal translation

Bird:“ ‘Uhm Hello, this is the Ono family.”

Bird: “What’s wrong?”

Owner: “Abe-chan, you’re a little too early. Once the phone’s picked up, then properly say hello.”

Bird: “Okay, understood.”

Owner: “Do you really understand? I’m counting on you. Hello, this is the Ono family residence in Gifu.”]

Bird: “Okay, I understand!”

Owner: “Got it.”

> That’s clearly some sort of Pokemon.

> Off-putting? It’s like birds were meant to speak Japanese!

Shapeshifter but for personality as well if I feel like it. I guess? For some reason I don't identify with the term, it feels different, but I don't know how. Bweh.

Maybe that's why when my headmates front, it never feels like they're fully taking over and moreso that they're piloting me around/asking me to do stuff for them, and the feeling doesn't ever fully go away. Not only 'cause my control issues but also because I am enjoying being someone else for a moment. Though, if that's the case, that kinda opens up the opportunity for headmates to pop up left, right, and center. Like there would pretty quickly be a Siffrin from ISAT fictive right now if that was the case, for however long I want to be him.

Maybe I can have, like, some headmate who's just a blob, something I can mold into whatever I please and then I can puppet around, letting them front so I can experience being someone else, something else. And the headmate would be really nice and chill and would let me do whatever to it, would let me make it into whatever I want.

i guess i forgot i wanted something similar to this months ago... and i remember when i posted this, a part of me had been wanting this for a long while... definitely wish it was under my conscience control but uh... it's been... okay. highs and lows even out to "okay".

Taking in a lot of the themes about creation in deltarune and thinking about Pink in chapter 5 had me thinking about her cousin and how he’d want to get in on making his dream come true as well (who wouldn’t?). It would be nice if MTT and Tenna could come to Castletown with Pink in chapter 6, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

I puzzled over drawing Pink as another ghost in the early part of the comic since ghosts in utdr lore dubiously can’t un-possess a vessel once they’ve chosen/bonded with it, and post-ch5, she’s possessing Asgore’s Mew Mew figurine, BUT for the sake of emoting/gesturing and showing her and MTT coming from the same place, I just had her as her ghost form. One last “HEY GUYS IM MOVING. GONNA GO LIVE AS MY REAL SELF BYE” before she’s gone. Gotta get her goodies, you know? And take her depressed cousin with her.

When MTT and Ralsei meet in the comic, I had Ralsei ask his name and pronouns, not only because it’s a first introduction and Ralsei is polite like that, but because he’s sensitive to the emotions of the Lightners. I also just like to see this greeting expressed in media because it should be so normal and natural, but with certain people in my life (even not explicitly anti-trans people) it turns a conversation tense or awkward. There’s nothing weird or wrong with asking someone’s preferred name and pronouns! And as a trans person, it doesn’t feel awkward to receive the question if it’s out of genuine respect and curiosity to get to know me. In fact, (like MTT in the comic) I’d be pleased to be extended that question in an introductory conversation. It’s no big deal to answer, just like answering “what’s your name?” Or “what are your hobbies?” It’s just another part of me, my gender identity. Nothing to be afraid of!

As for trans Ralsei, I see that trans coding within that goat… I don’t know what his gender identity is (since it seems even Ralsei has not figured that out about himself yet), but it’s there. Maybe we’ll see him explore more about himself, what he likes, who he feels he needs to be, and who he wants to be. And maybe Ralsei will realize she’s a girl or that they’re nonbinary (my personal headcanon leans Ralsei demigender—demigirl, demiboy, idk. But some kind of in-between) But that’s for Ralsei to figure out! I can only speculate… Whatever happens next for Ralsei, I hope he comes to love himself as an individual.

And Spamton. He enters the comic since he also has ties to MTT, but like with the rest of his life, he’s excluded, and worse, defeated by the reality of his world. It’s fiction, all of it. You might be able to draw the perfect you, might be able to imagine a body that would perfectly align with who you really are, but it’s all imaginary. An image. A dream. He’s trans despair (at least in this comic) for that discrepancy between body and mind that will always remain in some degree. His despair is the same as Mettaton’s despair, who narrates alongside Spamton’s visuals. They’re in unison there because they’ve both experienced the same feeling, only now with the help, care, support, and love of his community, Mettaton is able to feel more like himself—the true him through creation. It might be an imaginary Dark World, but it came to life with the love they all share, with the excitement they bring together to see Mettaton’s dream come to reality. When he leaves Castletown, he might just be a drawing of a fancy body, and Pink may just be a figure of a catgirl, but everyone they love helped them feel more themselves than they have their entire lives. And that made their real selves a reality.

And THAT’s why you share the pen with Spamton. He may be little and weird, you may not know him very well, but wouldn’t you have wanted that olive branch extended to you? Wouldn’t you have wanted someone to hand you the pen and tell you “I see you.”

Noelle: I feel so stuck in place and unable to deviate from the role I've been assigned that I'm willing to literally kill myself just to prove I can change something about my life

Susie: Even if it's scary, I have to learn to make friends and be myself, and to hope for a better future!

I obviously think almost everything this country is currently doing/has done throughout history politcally is reprehensible and I in no way venerate the leaders of this country or what it stands on. But at the same time- the United States is the only country I'm attached to. My family has lived here for generations. Essentially all my relatives are just American. I've been asked, "no where are you really from?", or, "Where are your parents from?" and it's like. The same city I grew up in, in the United States. And I know that if I went far back enough I could trace ancestors outside of this country, but not in the way some Americans claim ancestry from abroad. It's lost, stolen, from most of us.