#i really wanted to do this one though

[stranger-rants]

Disabled Billy & Steve Week Day 5 featuring Billy's OCD & Body Focused Repetitive Behavior

TW - discussions of self harm, intrusive thoughts, nausea & purging (non graphic)

Billy snapped the rubber band against his wrist for the hundredth time while in the waiting room of the doctor's office. His knee bounced up and down and he counted each second of every minute, glancing up at the clock every five minutes that ticked by.

It was all he could do to distract himself from the overwhelming desire he had to drag his fingernails down his arms, picking away at the thin lines of red scabs running down the inside. The thin lines he put there that week.

Something he tries to hide in public until the urge becomes too strong and he can't help himself but scratch and pick. He knows what people must think. He's not hurting himself, or rather he's not trying to. He's stopping it. Yes, that's it. Stopping it.

Every appointment is the same. "How are your wounds healing?" "Okay." "Oh, don't pick at the scabs. I know it's tempting, but they won't heal properly that way." A nod. "Are the pain medications working?" "Fine, I guess."

Hopper picked him up after the appointment. The ride was silent. It almost always is. There isn't much to say to one another, and Jim has given up trying to ask him how these appointments go. The answer is always the same. A shrug. It's fine.

It's not fine.

Billy's eyes fixate on the veins in his wrist. He rubs his thumb against it, tracing them. Hopper glances at him as he does this and it makes him feel uneasy. Coughs. Says they're having pizza and wings and soda tonight, "so think about what you want."

Another nod that doesn't tear Billy away from his fixation. His nails drag experimentally against the skin there. His thumb digs in like a dull knife, tracing the blue green veins, making half moons with his other fingernails that don't draw blood.

"What are you doing?" Jim says, irritated. That makes Billy jolt up, eyes shifting immediately away from his wrists. Getting caught floods him with a sense of shame, but he doesn't really understand what's so shameful about it.

"Nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing "

Billy closes his eyes. "Just leave it alone, okay."

"Can't leave it alone if you're hurting yourself, Billy."

"I'm not!" Billy snaps, because he isn't. He's fixing it. He's stopping it. Hopper just doesn't understand.

Jim sighs. Every day feels like one step forward and three steps back with the boy. He understands what he went through before The Mindflayer. He can even relate to some of it, but it's hard to understand everything else. He tries, but it's never enough.

That's what the therapist is for, but with Billy refusing to open up it's been hard for him to make any progress there.

Billy sinks into his seat. His brows furrow, and the thoughts pour. His arms tingle. His blood turning thick and black like tar. The smell and the taste of chemicals in the back of his throat nauseate him. He tries not to cry.

It's there inside you. It's in you, and you have to dig it out. You have to make yourself well. You have to fix it. You have to make yourself clean, and there's only one way to do that. The doctors can't fix it. Only you can. Only you can dig it out. Dig it out. Fix it.

It loops through his head, and Billy pulls and snaps the rubber band against his wrist again to make it stop but it wont stop. When he gets home, he slams the door and locks himself in his bedroom. He pulls out his tweezers and picks all his scabs off.

Billy comes out of his room for dinner. Jim hands him an unopened liter of soda. Billy wont touch drink he doesn't open himself anymore. It's one of a number of strange behaviors Jim has had to get used to, but he doesn't fight Billy on it.

He figures it has to be a control thing. The Mind Flayer must have put so many things into his body without his permission that Billy needs this. That's half true. The other half being that Billy thinks that everything and everyone is trying to poison him.

Billy knows that's not right or fair.

Hopper isn't trying to hurt him, but what if Hopper didn't know it was poison? What if he just washed his hands and the soap got in the bottle? What if he didn't wash his hands and germs got in the bottle? That could kill him in his weakened state.

So Billy takes his fate into his own hands and opens his own bottles. If he makes himself sick, then Jim doesn't have to feel bad about it when he dies. No one should feel bad about him getting sick or dying when it's his fault and he should've stopped it.

Billy eats a couple chicken wings, but when he finds a black vein standing out against the white meat of the chicken, he stops and stares at it. It's in there. It's in your food. Spit it out. Get it out before it's too late. Billy pushes away and runs to the bathroom.

He brushes his teeth after for what feels like half an hour, checking his tongue and teeth for black blood or discoloration. Satisfied with his inspection, he pulls his sleeves up to check the scabbing wounds on his arms. The wounds he put there.

Seeing himself and his work in the mirror, the guilt and shame rises in his chest threatening to choke him. God. How could anyone want to touch him like this? He just wants it to stop. He just wants it to all go away. He feels out of control and unwell and...

He needs help.

Hopper sits in the living room reading the paper when Billy shuffles in.

He looks up at Billy and frowns. Billy's eyes are red rimmed, screaming distress. His sleeves are pulled up. The angry red and raw lines stand out, and Jim tries to stay calm. It's hard not to react, but he steels himself just enough not to chase Billy away.

"What's up, kiddo?"

He's tempted to ask if he's okay, but that never goes well because he's obviously not and Billy's not good at answering that question honestly.

"I just want it to stop."

Jim stands up quickly and pulls Billy against his chest. Billy crumbles against him, sobbing. "Why won't it stop? No matter how hard I try. It just gets worse. I try so hard, but it just wont go away." He rambles on and on while Jim strokes his back.

"We're going to get you some help."

Billy snapped the rubber band against his wrist in Hopper's car. He was going to see a specialist in his condition. He had recently been diagnosed with OCD, and the past few months out of the hospital were starting to make sense.

The thoughts that were plaguing him all the time. All the weird things he did to make them go away. His inability to feed himself. The way that digging his finger nails into his skin felt good and bad at the same time.

Hopper pulled into the parking lot.

"You ready, kid?"

Billy took a deep breath.

"Yeah."

[heartorbit]

figure skating set right now please. thanks

[tubbytarchia]

got an urge to design ponies oops

[the-phantom-peach]

Meeting the Light Dragon ✨🐉

[tagged as spoilers!]

[ciderjacks]

despite Laios low self esteem making him think that if he’d been eaten, Chilchuck and Marcille wouldn’t have helped Falin,

theres a small part of me that thinks the reason Chilchuck stayed with the party and went back in the dungeon in the first place was because he didn’t want to leave Laios alone. That Laios was moreso the reason he stayed.

[imagine-too-many-books]

Imagine Annabeth and Percy have a kid early, unplanned and it kinda fucks with their finances so Percy drops out of school to get a job so he can care for the kid and support Annabeth in school. At first he gets a job teaching kids sword fighting but then he hears about underwater welding which pays well because it’s dangerous but Percy is a child of the sea so it’s much less so for him. His boss is even willing to give him flexible hours which means Annabeth doesn’t have to take their kid to class anymore and they can actually afford daycare (why does is it the price of a mortgage nowadays???). A huge financial burden is lifted and Percy doesn’t mind the work so it’s good all the way around.

Fast forward to when Annabeth is done her masters in architecture and lands a job at a top firm. They’ve got savings and have Annabeth’s income to rely on. Percy heads back to school and finishes a degree in marine biology, going on to research some really niche topics like how underwater welding impacts the environment and shifting from there until he’s a well known expert in the field.

Just them finding their way. Supporting each other and landing on their feet no matter what

[cosmicrhetoric]

my personal fave "luffy holds a mirror up to someone's soul" moments. aka the whole point i think

[brainmuncher]

The emergency

A good number of members within the Justice League have children. Not all of those kids are biological or adopted but they are their kids nonetheless. Some of those kids are even old enough to be adult heroes of their own, but even then they are still their kids. And the other kids tend to take up heroism at a very young age to most people's chagrin. Although as shown by the original child hero, now going by Nightwing, it’s not as easy as telling the kids to stop.

It was learned through intense hardship that smothering the child heroes was just asking for trouble. Despite how much the older heroes wanted to stay close to their kids, it was seen as overbearing and a show of mistrust. They would act out with even less backup in retaliation, which would only bring even more stress.

So to satisfy the need for protection without stepping on any toes, two new emergency meeting signals were introduced.

One was for the kids to send off. Each one was gifted a small device that could be hidden in their person. The device had both a mic and a tracking chip that could be activated when they were in extreme danger. As soon as the device was active a signal would be sent to the league for an emergency distress signal with the details of who sent it. Due to an outcry from the kids, the device could not be activated by the guardian of the child. The mic and locator could only be activated from the device itself. It wasn’t nearly as protective as some of the more worried leaguers would like, but it was at least something. 

The second signal was one that the leaguer with a kid in danger could activate. This signal could be activated with a single code into the communicators that every member owned. If the member who sent out the signal didn’t specify what kid was in danger, every member would receive a generalized notification of the emergency alert for one of the kids. This wasn’t ideal, but it was learned early on that the guardian of the child was often too distressed to make the code more complicated. It was best to leave it simple and answer questions at the emergency meeting.

Which was great in all, until someone who doesn’t have a child involved with heroics in their care sends off a general emergency.

In places all over the globe, an emergency meeting signal message was sent by Hal Jordan, one of the lanterns. He didn’t include what child was in danger in the signal, meaning that it could be any of the underaged heroes. And considering he didn’t have a child in his care, that made multiple members panic.

When was the last time they checked in with the kids in their care? Who was the one he was sending the code for? What happened to the child he had noticed was in danger? Why is he the one that noticed? Where were their kids? Who was in danger?

Because of the nebulous nature of the call, it didn’t take long for multiple heroes to find the nearest transport to the watchtower and tumble in. What they didn’t expect was the absolute haggard appearance of their friend. He was standing in the meeting room looking like the world had been destroyed before his very eyes. The way he sat without even cracking a sarcastic remark made multiple members pause.

“Hal?” Wonder Woman called, her face pinched in concern. “What has happened?”

The aforementioned member looked over who had already arrived before settling on her face. It was at that moment she knew that he was only looking so collected through willpower alone. This wasn’t just any child of the league, this was personal.

“My nephew Danny has been captured,” He began, sending a wave of different emotions circling the room. “I’ve been trying to find where they took him for a week now and I can’t get any leads. I need your help.”

The unsaid questions and emotions were nearly palpable. Multiple members turned to one another or stared with a million questions. Nobody had known that Hal even had a nephew named Danny. Sure he mentioned someone named Jason at times, but he never indicated anything else. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned him or the fact that he’d been apparently searching for a week was strange.

“And why are you only telling us now? Why did you wait so long?” Superman asked, speaking up the question that was on multiple minds.

A fire of anger curled in Hal's eyes. It was fierce and protective. It was a mixture of appalment for being questioned on his decision and fury for the reasons why he had to do it in the first place. He stepped forward towards the center table, slamming his palms down and leaning into it.

“Because any person that goes against the group will be declared an enemy of the United States. I’ve already had my account and housing connected to Green Lantern seized,” He explained with a deceptively calm tone. “I also needed to make sure that they didn’t have any connections with the Justice League. They have their agents everywhere.”

Unsurprisingly, Batman appeared from the gathered heroes from seemingly nowhere. Despite the feud between the two of them, the Bat was completely zeroed in on the situation. While he had a decent amount of distrust in the lantern, mainly because of the parallax incident, he could tell that the man was genuine. And the Bat always did have a blind spot for children.

“Explain,” Was all Batman said, staring Hal down.

The lantern in question looked at him with a grim face. This was it. Now or never.

“They’re called the Ghost Investigation Ward, or GIW for short. They hunt down and either exterminate or experiment on anyone they deem ectocontaminated or a ghost,” Hal started to explain, his hand curling on the table in frustration. “My brother Jack faked his death and ran off to be with another woman. Those fucks deemed my nephew as ectocontaminated and tried to take him from his home. He ran from his family so that they couldn’t be arrested for knowingly harboring an ecto entity. Told me that he remembered my face from a photo his dad tried to hide in the attic and sought me out.”

If the fire in his eyes were any stronger, they would probably become physical and burn down the room. It was undeniable that Hal Jordan was understandably completely pissed off. This situation was terrible from down to the very root.

“I tried to hide him but they somehow found him anyway. Now my civilian name is being heavily monitored and Green Lantern is being hunted down,” He finished his explanation. “If you join me in this, be prepared to lose everything.”

This was so much worse than anyone could’ve predicted.

[the-meme-monarch]

been rewatching hlvrai and drawing along :]

edit i fixed the last one (drew his gun on the wrong arm and it Ate At Me (yes i just flipped the drawing what are you a cop))

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Hi!! Your Cherik is so good and gorgeous 🤩🤩 If you don't mind wanna try to draw some Fall of X Cherik please?

thank you so much !!

i have a couple of ideas relating to the fall of x period specifically since theres. A Lot i wanna play with, so i hope this lil thing may be a satisfactory start :]]

and the obligatory bonus:

[thatgoddamngingerundercut]

Agust D 'Haegeum' MV

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[remorner]

train !!!!!!

[egophiliac]

I love your unhinged energy of your comics it's just *chef's kiss"

I wanna ask how you rig your chibi characters if you use a program or an app ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ

thanks! 💚💜💚

I use Spine (professional version)! I'm pretty sure it's the same program the Twst devs use for the chibis; I decided to try reverse-engineering 'em basically because my license was just sitting around gathering dust, and I thought it'd be fun practice (this was before I tried to rig Meleanor's cape). it is an industry-standard program and, unfortunately, is priced accordingly, so it's a bit expensive if you're not planning on using it professionally -- there is a free trial, though I think you can't save/export anything in it? BUT it is truly excellent and can do a ton of super cool stuff, plus is genuinely just fun to mess around in, so I 10000% recommend it to anyone who is serious about getting into 2D rigging!

behold...the BONES...Najma and her billion discrete tassels...don't pay attention to all the extra bones from my desperate attempts to control Meleanor's meshes

[kokoasci]

wip from like a week ago