Rain
Comic 1457 - Time to Get Ready
Author Notes:
For anyone not so keen on Rain going to meet with her, it's worth noting that she herself made the choice. As panel three or four describe, she has her concerns, but this is what Rain wants. It's also what her dad wanted, which may be a contributing factor as to why Rain is doing this. But I want it to be known that this is Rain's decision first and foremost.
Like, if it were just because of her dad, I feel as though Rain would've jumped in recklessly back then. But the fact that six years have passed in canon, to me, says that Rain's probably been trying to make this happen for a while, but was never quite ready. It's taken some time to get herself into a good place, and now she's as emotionally prepared as she's going to get.
It's hard to say how things will go, but for now, we'll just have to wait and see. Even at the very end, we've gotta have a little bit of drama and suspense, right? :)
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It's hard to remember that Rain and Fara have had six years to get used to calling her purple-ribbon dad her dad.
/ I was kinda hoping that if he wrote his name in Rain's letter, we'd know it by now. But maybe he didn't, or maybe it will be revealed later /
Personally, I think six years is a long enough time that it's plausible Rain would want to try to remeeting Kellen. Kellen will still have work to do though.
I sincerely hope this ends well. On both parts.
And if you ask my opinion, I think Kellen will see a bit of her dad on Rain, and that will be a shock, but for good reasonsFamily connection, especially with siblings, runs deep even when there happens to be good reason for animosity. And trying to make amends while asserting clear boundaries really shows how much growth Rain has undergone. She's not desperate to please Kellen by any means, but she's also not going to hold a grudge if Kellen is also ready to move forward.
If she's ever talking about the other guy, she's gonna say Marc.
https://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/1439/
I hope that clears up any confusion. ^_^
Still, how Kellen reacts is the big question. While I'd love for her to come around (for Rain's sake), part of me feels like that might be too easy of a literary development...
I'm reminded of Yondu's line near the end of Guardians of the Galaxy 2: "He may've been yer father, boy, but he wasn't yer daddy."
Not what I expected but this should be interesting
The make-up on Rain's face is the same as a character from BWK; specifically it's the black winged dude who nearly overthrew the kingdom a couple hundred years ago. You see him on chapter 1402 and he has the same thing.
The difference is that you can dress your doll however you want, make it do whatever you want, cut its hair, smash it into the floor and break its head into a thousand pieces - not all these are good ideas, but you CAN do them, since the doll exists for your sake. In contrast, sib-lings exists for their own sake. You're under no obligation to put up with their crap. I even think it's right for you to step in if a sib-ling is making a catastrophic error, even though the consequences can be be devastating and often it's you who's wrong.
Sure, Kellen loves Rain, in the same way a lot of girls dearly love their dolls. But Rain the sib-ling? Has Kellen even noticed she has one of those?
And as Kellen thinks she's entitled to harm Rain for her own satisfaction, how much more damage would've she done if Rain hadn't promptly disowned her? Would she have broken Rain's arms? Outed her in the yard of St. Hallvard with a megaphone? Gone after her pills? Called CPS on Aunt Fara? Tried to have Fara's guardianship of Rain revoked? Would she have kept on going until she broke Rain, like a tantruming brat who breaks her own toy since she can't have every single thing about it arranged just so?
And who would trust her not to try it the next chance she gets?
But none of the other trans characters have their speech in italics, only Rudy when he's in drag as Ruby.
Rain even comments on Jessica's voice.
Would six years on hormone therapy have changed Rain's voice? Please understand that I am asking from a position of ignorance.
The italics are intended to denote that Rain's changing her voice when she speaks. That's also why Ruby's voice is italicized. There's probably a stray instance or two where other non-trans characters are italicized too, if they're supposed to be doing an impression or something (I think Emily is once, for example, because she's mockingly repeating something her mom said at one point). Italics, in this comic, just mark the active effort to change one's voice.
It's to my understanding that through a lot of practice, many trans women manage to permanently change their voice. This is why Jess and Ana, for example, are not italicized; they're voices just come naturally to them now. But I personally am someone who was never fully able change my own. While I can produce a good feminine sound, it's extremely hard for me to maintain, and has been a pretty constant struggle for me for the last decade.
So the idea is that Rain's text is italicized because she still faces that struggle. She can be on top of it enough to not get clocked, but the effort - the active constant struggle - is always there for her. And I wanted to depict that, for all the girls, like me and plenty of others, who can't change their natural voice. 'Cause even if someone can't get that desired vocal permanence, I want them to know they're valid. It's not a point of dysphoria for me, but I know it's a big deal for a lot of girls. And I think Rain's struggle says, "You're not alone", and that's important. :)