#I enjoy doing this actually

[dandylovesturtles]

Okay, not sure if this but is under 500 words or not, but it’s probably my favorite snippet in the whole fic and maybe even all the rottmnt fics I’ve read. It’s just so good!

Awww, thanks so much! I'm still really happy with how this scene (and this entire sequence) turned out.

I end up spoiling the fic a bit in this so don't venture into the read more if you're a new reader and don't want spoilers.

Leo stayed on the ground, waiting for a hand to be offered to him. He didn't want to admit it, but his legs felt like liquid. The help would be appreciated.

Since Leo is out of his body, everything he feels is psychosomatic. But of course your brain controls everything about how you experience the world, so does not having a body really matter? It was important to me that while Leo experiences some physical benefits from not having a body (not getting tired, not feeling thirst or hunger, etc), he also experiences the physical effects of stress and dissociation and all the other mental illness he's currently experiencing. Poor guy.

No one extended a hand to him. Rejection twisted hot in his gut, burning him inside out.

This whole sequence, really from the moment he gets separated from Mikey, kicks off the "Raph arc" of the story (intermingled with closing out the "Mikey arc", as it were), and I turned the idea of Leo wanting someone to extend a hand to help him as a running theme for this arc (which is... maybe not the most cohesive since Raph doesn't get touch, but Raph is also his big brother and no matter who is in the leader spot, Raph will always be the person Leo most looks to for help when he's in trouble). I bring this line back in chapter 8 when the two of them talk out their feelings and Raph extends the metaphorical "hand" to Leo, and Raph keeps doing that for the rest of the fic, pulling Leo out of his dark thoughts whenever he sinks a little too deep and being ready to help him however he can.

"There you go, Leo," said Mikey softly. "Take a second."

Mikey ends up doing a lot of the caretaking of Leo in this fic, especially in the first part, because he can actually see Leo and can see how badly all of this is affecting him, even as Leo tries to act strong for them. Leo is Mikey's big brother, and he doesn't exactly love being this vulnerable in front of Mikey, but he doesn't have much of a choice. And Mikey is doing such a good job. Isn't it fine to swap roles now and then?

He looked at Mikey, then opened his arms for a hug. He'd write it off as being for Mikey later, because he looked upset. But he needed to grab something. He needed to know this was real.

Mikey's eyes brimmed with tears. "Leo," he said, and his voice trembled on his name. "Oh, Leo..."

He didn't hug him, and Leo felt the sting of it under his skin. His arms fell.

Ah, the part everyone yelled at me about.

This is actually the moment I got the idea for that inspired basically this entire section, from Mikey getting yanked off the tank all the way through this dissociative episode. In my interpretation of Leo, he doesn't ask for things very often, especially things like affection or comfort. Sure, he'll encourage them to chant for him or call him their champion or whatever, but this is different - it's a lot more vulnerable. To be fair, though, Leo doesn't usually have to ask; we see in the show that he's pretty touchy with his brothers and clearly feels like there isn't much of a boundary there when it comes to touch, and Raph and Mikey especially give hugs easily, so he doesn't really have to do much when he's feeling low to get affection. And the thing about asking is that you can be told no, and rejection when he really needs something is devastating. So if he's going to ask for something like a hug or some other kind of affection/comfort, it means he really really needs it and can't just wait around for it to be offered to him.

And Mikey would definitely know that. Poor Mikey isn't rejecting him on purpose, of course, he couldn't hug Leo if he wanted to (and he very much wants to!). He knows that rejecting Leo when Leo is being this upfront about his needs is something that will really hurt him, but he can't do anything to help.

No one is happy here, that's for sure!

(Well, except maybe me, the person who wrote it. See, the benefit of being the author is that I can write this scene while I also have the ending in my head so I don't have to be sad about it. ^^ )

"What happened?" asked Donnie.

"Nothing. Leo just..." Mikey sniffed. "We need to get him back in his body."

Mikey was trying not to embarrass Leo here, because Leo probably would get a little embarrassed by Mikey telling them he's asking for hugs, and besides, if he said that was what Leo was doing then Leo would have to be rejected two more times. So he's trying to help!

But maybe if he'd answered this question, Donnie would have gotten his act together a little faster later haha.

Everybody's doing their best but sometimes your best doesn't fix it. :c

Thanks for the ask!

[emberglowfox]

Keeper -- a short comic about an angel meeting a robotic lighthouse keeper that doesn't know the world has already ended. Made in about 18 hours for a 24-hour 24-page* black and white comic challenge (that I arrived late to, ha.)

*the actual submission does not include the cover, which was created after the fact for this post.

This was a really great learning experience as someone who's... never really made a completed comic. I ended up really attached to the story by the end of the project (possibly due to all-nighter deliriousness lol) and ultimately am very proud of what I made.There are some things I'd still like to change, particularly text placement, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge I've elected to leave it as is.

[mountainshroom]

They deserve to have a quiet moment for themselves (and Zuko is seriously questioning his taste in men)

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanny gets her sleepy FNAF guys mixed up,,

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[friedri-ce]

FORBIDDEN LITERATURE || comic

[ind1c0lite]

Redid my older Franziska design so I get to be a little gay, as a treat <3

better view of her outfit <3 (minus the pattern in her coat, I forgor

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[werewolf-transgenderism]

do you ever think about how a series of tiny choices like "I guess I'll watch that show" can like totally and entirely change huge aspects of your life

[egophiliac]

IT WAS ERIC AFTER ALL!!!! I'm so glad we got to meet him (before Vil snaps him away with those Infinity Gauntlets) (can't wait to see what happens when we get the matching Infinity Tiara to go with them, there will be no survivors)

(sorry to be so slow/rough lately, just got a lot of stuff on the ol' brain at the moment! alas, if only I could spend all my time drawing incredibly stupid characters I mean I do but)

[machinerot]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Not beating the allegations.

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[gertritude-art]

HEARTBREAKING: local food blogger thinks it's funny to put on a rude persona in their recipe videos

[hinamie]

domain expansion

[lil-vibes]

maid narinder my beloved