[Image Description 1: Comic, digital art cartoon style. To the left is a blue character and to the right is a red character. āPeople are sick!ā Blue yells with a concerned expression and a sweat drop forming. āPeople are hypochondriacs!ā Red yells back while rolling their eyes with an annoyed vein next to their eye. Below a tiny purple arrow points to two dots.]
[Image Description 2: āPEOPLE! ARE! SICK!!!ā Blue yells, their brow furrowed. āPEOPLE! ARE! HYPOCHONDRIACS!!!!!ā Red yells back in their face. The purple arrow pointing to to dots is slightly larger, unnoticed by Blue and Red.]
[Image Description 3: The words āPEOPLE ARE SICK)(HYPOCHONDRIACSā are extremely large, in a motion blur as they swirl around the yelling heads of Blue and Red. Their heads against each other like a yin-yang symbol, eyes budging, saliva dripping. Below the purple arrow is bigger and we can see the dots areĀ silhouettes.]
[Image Description 4: Below the purple arrow are two characters. On the left, a short character, tan skin, wearing blue pants, an oversized sweat-shirt with a heart mirrored by an upside down heart. Their head is half shaved and half short, curly, pale indigo color. They look shocked and annoyed, bags under their eyes.āHas a degenerativeĀ condition that took 5 years to get diagnosedā is written above their head.Ā
To the right, a girl nervous hold her hands in front of her chest, tears in her eyes, sad and frightened expression. She has on light green pains and a dark green tang-top dress shirt that ends above her navel. She has deep purple hair, long that fans out behind her head, and micro-bangs. Above her head āHas hypochondria, now called Somatic Symptom Disorder or Illness Anxiety Disorder.]
[Image Description 5: āHey-ā The short character says to the girl, their face still looking annoyed. āYes?ā Our hypochondriac responds startled, pupils tiny, forehead blue, and sweat forming on her arms. Afraid sheās about to be ridiculed for her anxiety disorder.]
[Image Description 6: The short character holds out a hand towards our hypochondriac, looking more relaxed. āYa wanna get away from this noise and learn how to support each other in healthy ways?ā They say. Turns out they have resting annoyed face, making them difficult to read. Hypo is more relaxed, but still has her hands to her chest nervously, her body closed off, more sweat, tears still in herĀ eyes, looking at the short person.]
[Image Description 7: A close up of our hypochondriac. Covered in sweat, her pupils shrinking again as she processes what the short character proposed. She did not expect a person with a physical illness to see her as someone who wasnāt an enemy- to see her as more than just a person who made it more difficult for those with rare disorders to receive diagnosis or be taken seriously, or to be treated with respect and even love. Sheās not smiling, but she is blushing as a sense of trust takes hold.]
[Image Description 8: *sniff* āI would love that.ā Our hypochondriac says, now smiling and taking the hand of the also blushing short character.]
[Image Description 9: They fly into the sky holding hands, a rainbow trailing behind them. *Ghibli type music starts to play* *laughter of relief* They are pretty far away from us now.Ā āI think Iām getting altitude sicknessāĀ our hypochondriac says, the short person responding āThat might actually be happening, weāll go lower.ā]
[Image Description 10: Downward at the bottom of the rainbow in script font are the words āHave fun with your word wars, ya Butts!ā. Blue and Red have their backs to us as their looking at it. āWhat do you think those people were talking about?ā says Blue, to which Red says āNo idea. Wasnāt listening.ā]
