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whump-bunny · 5 months

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Can't think

(tw: lab whump, nonconsensual drugging, restraints, nonconsensual medical procedures, fourteen year old whumpee, mentions of torture.)

He can't think.

He can't think and he doesn't know why.

They came in at dawn, when he and his roommates were fast asleep. (Well, Oliver probably wasn't.) The room was pitch black, save for the soft glow of Asa's skin.

They didn't give him time to wake up before plunging a needle into his neck. And then, when he did awaken only seconds later, it was already too late. Asa could only blink at them sluggishly as they picked him up and deposited him in a wheelchair.

And now he's moving, far too fast and far too slow all at once. The walls blur into the floor. The world spins. Nausea licks at his throat, and yet he can’t muster up the energy to say anything in complaint.

His head lolls down to his chest.

He can’t think. God, why can’t he think?

Vaguely, he knows that he’s headed to the lab. He knows that they’re going to hurt him. He should be afraid. But he’s lost in a place where the fear can’t find him. And all that’s left is an overbearing sense of calm, an inability to do anything but sink into his mind and allow his body to be carried away. It’s peaceful, in the same way that a room full of corpses is quiet.

They arrive quicker than Asa expected they would. (Even though the ride over seemed to have lasted an eternity.) The hum of the fluorescent lights and the murmurs of scientists blur in the background of his mind, and he finds himself drifting off to sleep. At least, until a familiar voice cuts through the quiet like a knife.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s early, but the quicker we do this, the quicker we can be done with it. Are ya with me?” Hamlin chirps, somehow as energetic as ever despite being up before sunrise. The rest of the scientists offer a chorus of unenthused agreement. It seems that Asa isn’t the only one who’d rather be in bed.

The doctor chats with a couple assistants, making her rounds about the lab, before finally turning her attention to Asa, as he knew she would.

“Good morning, Asa! Sorry about waking you so early, but I promise you’ll get to go back to sleep soon.” She gingerly brushes Asa’s bangs from his face, and while Asa would normally bristle at the touch, now he can’t bring himself to even care. He eyes Hamlin intently, as if staring at her might give him the strength to be angry. It doesn’t.

Hamlin says something else that Asa doesn't quite catch, and then he's being lifted. The sudden motion makes him want to vomit, but it only lasts a few seconds before he's lying on the lab table. He doesn't fight as they strap him down, not that he could stop them even if he weren't drugged out of his mind. All he can manage is a frustrated growl, one that gets Hamlin's attention.

"I know, the side effects of that sedative are pretty strong, but it's the only one that works well enough against your Light. We don't want you waking up during surgery, do we?" She explains, methodically sliding into latex gloves and goggles as she does so.

So it's surgery, then.

Amidst the murky haze of drugs, Asa feels a spike of fear at that. He swallows thickly, searching for his voice.

“H… H’mlin?" He mumbles, trying to ignore how big his tongue feels in his mouth. Hamlin's eyebrows raise.

"Oh, you can still speak? Huh, that's not particularly good. Might have to adjust the dosage…"

Asa speaks up again before she can finish the thought, "What are you g'na do t'me?"

It's a normal question, one that he asks every time he gets dragged to the lab. Usually Hamlin will grace him with a detailed explanation of exactly how she plans to study him for the next few hours. Be it a simple blood test or an appendectomy, she always tells him with a smile. But today, she just shakes her head.

"It's probably better if you don't know. We don't want you to freak out, do we?" She replies, punctuating her sentence with another ruffle to Asa’s hair.

Asa’s stomach falls, "Oh."

"Oh? That's it?” Hamlin laughs, “Damn, you're much nicer to work with like this. I wish I could keep you sedated all the time."

If he were more aware, Asa probably would have flinched at the implications of that. But exhaustion smothers his brain, derailing his train of thought

"I…" Asa mumbles, eyes drooping. "M'tired…"

Hamlin smirks, "I'm sure you are. Feel free to go to sleep, sweetheart. I'll get the actual anesthesia started in the meantime." She runs her hand along the side of his face, caressing his cheek like a mother would. As if she didn't cut him open without anesthesia a hundred times before now.

"O...okay…" Asa says, inadvertently leaning into her touch. He doesn't even notice as an iv is inserted into his arm.

"Say, Asa, do you have a favorite food? Something you want me to bring you while you're in recovery?" She asks. Her hand never leaving his cheek.

Asa thinks for a moment, landing on the first food that comes to mind. "...doughnuts."

"Doughnuts?" Hamlin laughs, "Well, it's not exactly healthy, but I suppose you can have a doughnut, for being such a good boy."

Beside her, an assistant scoffs.

"Of course he's being good, he's drugged out of his mind." He says, rubbing the healing wound on his arm from when Asa bit him a couple days ago.

Hamlin glares, finally removing her hand from Asa’s face. "Hm yeah, good point, Ted. Counterpoint: who asked you?"

The two bicker amongst themselves, while the rest of the assistants continue to prep Asa for surgery. All the while Asa's eyes scan the trays of scalpels and tweezers, gleaming in the too-bright artificial light of the lab. Fear is radiating and muted, muffled but there all the same.

"H-H'mlin…"

The scientist turns to face him, "Hm- yes, Asa?"

"I… m'scared…" He whispers, consciousness fleeting. "Pl'se don't… 'lease don't 'urt me…"

His voice breaks, tears threatening to fall. Hamlin clicks her tongue, wiping his eyes.

"Aww, don't worry, sweetheart. I promise you won't feel a thing. And you'll get to have a nice relaxing vacation while you recover. Sound good?"

"N-no…"

Hamlin smirks. "Too bad."

It's then that the drugs in his iv finally take hold. The world fades to darkness, and all the while Hamlin stares at him, smiling wide.

#whump #writing #lab whump #whumpee #whumper #asa #medical whump #dr. hamlin #surgery #nonconsensual drugging #nonconsensual medical procedures

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intersex-support · 2 months

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Hi, thank you sm for running this blog

I wanted to ask if you maybe had any resources to figure out if like, natal surgeries to "fix" intersex traits were done to someone?

I don't have acess to a doctor atm and I'm worried I might have genital scarring. Ik it's a legally mandatory practice here if the kid is intersex, but I can't find any resources on my own

Thank you so much again, sorry if my language isn't appropriate, I'm still new to this

Content note: discussion of genitalia and surgery

Hi anon,

Hope you're doing well. Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of resources out there, but I can try to share what I have. A lot of this will depend on what kind of variation you have and what kind of surgery might have happened.

One thing that can sometimes be a sign that you've had intersex surgery is if you had to see a urologist a lot as a kid, or if your medical records show that you went to a urologist as a baby. If you ever remember having any unexplained surgeries that might have been explained as for removing a cancer risk, or for fixing urinary function, or things like that, sometimes intersex surgeries are put in the medical record under those terms instead.

This article has a photo of an intersex adults scars from a surgery they had as a kid. This study has diagrams of clitoroplasty (tw for cissexist language, medical talk, and genital surgery diagrams). The intersex reddit has some people sharing photos or discussing scars in a way that might be helpful. If you have genital scar tissue, another way to notice it might be if you have a lot of unexplained pain down there or issues with urination such as frequent UTIs. In general, if you want to search to do your own research, the most common types of intersex surgery are gonadectomy, clitoroplasty, clitoral recession, vaginoplasty, hypospadias repair, and sometimes phalloplasty.

Sending all the good wishes your way, anon, and please feel free to come back if you have any other questions we can help answer.

💜💜💜

#asks #genitalia talk tw #intersex surgery #nonconsensual surgery tw #intersex #intersexism #<- referring to the surgery and the articles not the anon ask to be clear. you didn't say anything wrong

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theoestofocs · 2 years

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but the thing is, melanie hates jon because he is so very much like her.

they work in adjacent fields, they've got such similar temperaments - they both run straight for whatever supernatural horror they need to understand, they both suck at planning ahead (poisoned coffee, melanie?) and they both lash out as a primary defense mechanism - and jon wasn't qualified for his job, and martin's only "degree" was in paranormal psychology, so clearly the Institute was hiring from a broader pool than "qualified archivists." i can't imagine ghost studies are all that lucrative as a field. if melanie hadn't made it as a youtuber, what would she have done? we don't know a lot about her educational background but - she knows what it's like, to need to know. she walked into the Institute and got a job because Elias saw that he could use her.

If she'd had a legitimate encounter sooner, if she'd started her quest a few years early, if she'd come to the Institute to give her statement and stayed to use their library before Gertrude had died -

Or even if she just couldn't survive on a youtuber's salary, if she'd gone looking for job postings in relevant fields -

It could have been her. She looks at Jon, and she sees exactly who she could have been. It's only luck that it wasn't.

And that's the kicker, isn't it? It's luck, that she's in her shoes instead of Jon's.

And is she supposed to feel lucky? To feel thankful that she's had to suffer through attack after attack, Elias showing her how her father (her dad, who called her his little moth) died screaming, her body torn open by things that don't exist, her sense of self slipping as she ripped into flesh with no recognizable form, her trust violated as she woke up to two of the few remaining people who are supposed to be on her side cutting into her against her will - to feel lucky, because she had to gouge her eyes out just to have her body back in her control -

Is she supposed to be happy that she lived through all that? Is she supposed to be glad, just because she could have been Jon?

Nobody told Melanie she needed to feel sorry for Jon, or give him her sympathy, or any other kind of pity. She just wants to give it, because God, what he'd gone through -

(Thank God it wasn't her -)

- Fuck that, she isn't lucky.

She hates Jon, because she refuses to feel grateful for the horror show her life has been. (Because she's grateful, that it wasn't her; and she's furious, because - yes it was. she paid the price of the apocalypse in blood and scars and trauma, too. She wasn't Jon, and could have been - but fuck it, she was still Melanie. and the hell that she has lived through isn't nothing.)

It's just bad luck, that it was Jon of all people. It's just bad luck, that it was Melanie.

No one here is lucky.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #melanie king #linden's originals #i just have a lot of Feelings ok #tangentially related but one of these days i'm gonna write the post abt basira #bc i love to joke abt jon relying on the local lesbians to make good decisions! it is very fun. but also #incredibly inaccurate. jon made bad decisions (mainly due to a dearth of information and a wealth of fear)#but he didn't make better decisions when he let the wlw take charge!#basira was the one who convinced(/coerced? definitely pressured but details beyond that are lacking) jon into performing surgery #on melanie's leg. left to his own devices idk what jon would have done but it sure as hell wouldn't have been #''roofie my coworker to perform nonconsensual surgery''#if only bc that is Not something that would occur to him. & idc man it's a messy situation all around #there was no good choice there (there never was) but that? that wasn't the right one. and i think that's the other piece at play here #melanie didn't forgive him for that. i sure wouldn't. and she gets it - she does: there were no good choices -#but how is she supposed to care about the suffering that guy of all people went through? when it feels like it invalidates her own?#how are you supposed to feel about your reflection in a face that stars in all your nightmare memories?#melanie hates jon because he never gave her a reason to like him; and because he violated her (no matter how necessary it was); and #because she could have been him. because it's luck that it wasn't.#except there is no good luck in this world. not in this apocalypse - the one that's been going on for much longer for her - for them -#than since that final ritual. she's been living an apocalypse since she saw that monster in a hospital. and that matters too.#not one of them has been free in a long time. maybe ever #melanie can't pity him because feeling ''pity'' requires a level of distance she doesn't have #pity means ''there but for the grace of God go -'' but what grace?#there but for the grace of god go i? is she meant to thank someone for giving her the lot she got in life?#how is she supposed to feel glad about that?#she cannot pity him. and she cannot commiserate; those bridges have long since been burned. all that's left to feel #is a guilty kind of hatred and resentment. because in another life she might've been him; in another life still they might have been twins #linden in the tags

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llyfrenfys · 7 months

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Diwrnod Coffa Rhyngryw / Intersex Day of Remembrance

Mae Diwrnod Coffa Rhyngryw yn ddiwrnod i gofio pobl ryngryw sy'n cael llawdriniaeth heb ganiatâd. Mae plant rhyngryw yn aml yn cael llawdriniaeth yn ifanc. Mae hwn yn broblem fawr sr gyfer y gymuned ryngryw ac mae llawer o bobl yn erbyn anffurfio organau cenhedlu rhyngryw.

Am fwy o wybodaeth a chefnogaeth, gweler Organisation Intersex International.

Intersex Day of Remembrance is a day to remember intersex people who have undergone surgery without their consent. Intersex children frequently have surgeries performed on them at a young age. This is a big problem for the intersex community and many people are opposed to the practice of intersex genital mutilation.

For more information and support, see Organization Intersex International.

#intersex #intersex day of remembrance #rhyngryw #diwrnod coffa rhyngryw #intersex genital mutliation #mutilation mention #cw nonconsensual surgery

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toushindai · 1 month

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Hello it's me again~ I was thinking of one of your stories, in which Ganondorf tempted Rauru with the imagery of having him imprisoned and thus being able to do whatever he wanted with him. Ganondorf found his way out of his cell the first time he was imprisoned and put himself at Rauru's mercy in hopes of snatching the Secret Stone, which Rauru used as his justification for having his way with him, but what about if he had been able to contain Ganondorf and actually keep him imprisoned until he could have him put on trial? Would he take advantage of someone who is a prisoner without doubt, in the way Ganondorf painted that image for him? Does Rauru draw the red line between "I am keeping you here as a guest in this castle but I'm not letting you leave" and "you are my actual prisoner in an actual cell who very obviously does not have the free will to reject me as the king" when it comes to his justification of being involved with Ganondorf ? Does he just think that the laws he set for Hyrule don't apply to Ganondorf, prisoner or not, because he is evil and a warmonger and thus sees himself as free to do with him as he sees fit? Basically my question is that would he/did he ever entertain that fantasy once he actually put Ganondorf in a cell and how would he justify himself if he did.

Gonna stick this entire answer under the cut because wow this is going to be All About Noncon. If anyone who needs to Not See That hasn't done so already, it really might be best to just block the "and we were both kings 😳" tag, though I'll continue to tag for noncon when particularly appropriate.

So, I'm going to answer this in a few different permutations but I think--we'll see if this holds out as I keep typing--that all of them boil down to variations on no, that's not something Rauru would have acted on.

Especially not between the final sex scene of UAWTATR and its final scene/Ganondorf's escape; at that point, there are several glaring reasons why Rauru's not inclined that way. The fact that Ganondorf's just tried to kill him; the post-nut clarity horrible realization that what he's just done is past what he can justify to himself; the political considerations he is absorbed in. These are significant factors but also part of it is just that... the game is over. They're no longer pretending that it's anything other than pure animosity between them. (I mean, it is something other than pure animosity between them, by this point--at the very least there's a whole lot of desire there--but, for Ganondorf to have acted on his true intention puts an end to the need to relieve the tension between hating each other's guts and performing civility in public.) I think that at the end of the fic, something's cooled off significantly for Rauru because he's got this inarguable physical and legal control over Ganondorf. And because he's got a lot on his mind. Look, he's got a puppet chieftain to install and she doesn't even want to be his friend anymore. Bummer.

But let's say that Ganondorf doesn't hack out of his cell and into Rauru's chamber and instead stays docilely in his cell until he's ready to break out for good and cause havoc. (Well tbh that's what he thought he was doing in chapter three, but let's say he waited a few days for some reason.) Does Rauru arrange any trysts in this situation, in the meantime? Even then, I'm not sure does. Ganondorf's impression of Rauru's desire is a little off from accurate; the fantasy he describes in "Sheath" is

“Would you come to me in my cell or have me brought up to you like a concubine? [...]The cell, probably,” Ganondorf continues, spinning the image out for Rauru in spite of the way it makes his own skin crawl. “You’d want me chained to the wall, wouldn’t you, so you could use your magic on my shackles to put my limbs wherever you want them…”

and while that's close enough to accurate to give Rauru a +2 Horny/-2 Intelligent debuff, it's not the exact shape of what Rauru would prefer. It's got a little too much of Ganondorf's preferences in it, truthfully: too much physical force (magic counts) used to make it impossible to fight back. If anything, the concubine image is actually the more appealing to Rauru I'd say. But still not quite. Rauru is much more into the coercion. He's into putting Ganondorf into situations where he has to submit to Rauru because the fiction is that he's here to submit to Rauru--and because Rauru has caused him to behave in such a way, the fiction is temporarily made reality. So once this fiction is ended--once the public story is that Ganondorf has done something worth imprisoning him for--it's not quite scratching the same itch. Yes, Rauru has often thought of Ganondorf in chains, as he admits in that fic, but I don't think that's actually a sexual image for Rauru. That's a god my life would be so much easier if image. He has a lot of those.

Whether Ganondorf does not fall under standards for just treatment because of how evil he is is something I write Rauru struggling with a lot. His instinct is that Ganondorf is not protected by such standards. His instinct is that to subscribe to such standards in Ganondorf's case is to put himself and Hyrule at a disadvantage and probably in danger. But I think he's uncomfortable with that instinct as well, disturbed that he feels that way. He doesn't want to be that sort of king. It's never, for him, quite as simple as "he's evil therefore I can assault him with impunity"--I think not even in that moment in chapter three when Ganondorf is pushing really hard for him to admit just that. Even then, it's if I really do have this ugliness in me, I should vent it here instead of anywhere less deserving. And then he feels a deep horror at himself after (in the few seconds he gets for it before Ganondorf tries to strangle him). But it's still true that he did it. It's still true that he has this deeply potent fantasy of having the soft power to force Ganondorf into (sexual) compliance, and that he carried out that fantasy.

This answer is really jumbled, I'm sorry. tl;dr: for Rauru, it's all about "I'm not going to give you any choice to make but this one, but you still have to perform the act of choosing." And once he actually has Ganondorf literally captive, I think that flavor changes significantly enough that he wouldn't pursue it.

#noncon tw #rape tw #bloobluebloo #and we were both kings 😳#thanks for the ask!#hey. nintendo. I have a question. why did you give your king of light canonical issues with consent? why did you do that #repeated invitations yes but also #the second thing we see him do is perform nonconsensual magical surgery on the hero of the fucking game.#actually this is the last thing we see him do too. wack #bad and imperialist zonai get put in the goat wiggler

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badolmen · 8 months

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“I wasn’t assigned female at birth; I was female at birth! A doctor didn’t look at me and decide I was female enough at birth, I’ve been female since the moment of conception.”

*loud buzzer sound*

Given how common the intersex condition is (~2% of the population - how many redheads have you seen?) and the fact that genitalia is not the only physical manifestation of an intersex condition, yes the doctor very much did look at you and decide you looked ‘female enough.’ Indeed your genetic makeup is determined at conception, and your genetic makeup could very well result in the development of an intersex body that may not be externally evident at birth.

Don’t get me wrong, there are issues with the afab/amab dichotomy both colloquially and medically speaking (some people are marked intersex at birth, the dichotomy just reinforces the gender binary with different language, etc.) but it is true that medical assumptions are made at birth based on your external physiology, regardless of genetic or hormonal profile. ‘Biological sex’ is far from binary and pretending otherwise is ignorant at best and dangerously intersexist at worst.

#ra speaks #personal #found a t*rf on my dash. le sigh. still reaping the discontent of being young and stupid at 15.#some people don’t know they’re intersex until puberty. some people have the fact that they’re intersex hidden from them #either by their parents or hidden from them AND their parents by DOCTORS PRESENT AT BIRTH who perform nonconsensual cosmetic surgeries #without parental knowledge!!!! like the insistence that sex is binary and inherently obvious from birth is just wrong.#‘how dare the trannies mutilate children’ beloved doctors are butchering intersex infants to fit your narrow definitions of human sex.#maybe I’m just used to working with plants and bugs but like. no. lmao.#male and female are just two poorly defined spoonfuls in a soup of physical hormonal and medical markers of ‘gender’#which is further complicated and compounded by cultural and societal norms #I know it’s hard but maybe try learning about things beyond your middle school sex ed class??? you’re an adult. learn. grown. be better.

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aita-blorbos · 5 months

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AITA for committing dubious surgery on my little brother?

God I don't even know where to start with this. I guess I'll start by establishing the characters. Me (currently 20), my little brother A (currently 11) and my dad.

My family is... well it's always been a little weird. We never met my grandfather (my father's father) but my father spoke very highly of him and his experiments. He was a doctor. My father is also a doctor.

When my brother was around 7 (so 4 years ago) he got really sick. Really really sick. It's a genetic condition my family is predisposed to. It's terminal. Around this time, I started studying really hard so I could also become a doctor and maybe help my father find a cure.

We ended up moving to where my grandfather lived. He died very shortly before we got there.

Honestly I wasn't expecting much from his experiments but they were... honestly terrifying. He had a local nature spirit (who used to be regarded as the town's god) chained up and it was providing energy to the entire town. But the spirit was alive and looked just like a normal human! It was awful.

My grandfather had been researching these spirits. Since some of them are immortal, he waa trying to see if he could take advantage of that.

Well my father got the idea into his head that this could help my little brother. He started obsessing over it. Our mom left us because of his obsession. My brother's condition got worse and worse. When he was 10 he slipped into a coma and my father freaked out. He decided he had to save my brother then and there and. Well. This part is really hard to talk about.

Since I was studying to be a doctor, he had me help him with a surgery that would combine my brother with one of these nature spirits. And. I did. I feel awful about it. My hands were shaking the whole time and I probably messed it up. It was my first time ever doing surgery (I was barely out of high school!) The spirit was a lower level one but it was still alive and it could still feel pain. I don't know if it being combined with my brother killed it but I feel like I killed it. It's blood is on my hands.

But the surgery worked. My brother is still alive. But lately he's been. Really different. It's almost like he's a different person, like the spirit took over some part of him. Sometimes he stares at me like he doesn't know who I am. Sometimes he growls at me or bares his teeth. His canines have gotten sharper. He yells at our father a lot. He looks different too. He's becoming more foxlike. (The nature spirit took the form of a fox) Sometimes I look into his eyes and it's like looking at a wild animal. I don't recognize him at all.

I'm just. I'm really scared. Did I sacrifice a spirit to get my brother back, only to not even achieve that? My father's mental state is deteriorating, I have no idea how to reach our mom, and I can't go to anyone else in town.

Have I messed up really badly? Is my brother upset about the surgery? Does he hate me? I'm so scared he does. He's the most important person to me. I'm so scared I can't go back from this. AITA?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality #medical abuse #nonconsensual surgery

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gayvampyr · 2 years

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transphobes don’t care about nature or biology, they care about conformity

#that’s why they erase intersex people’s existence and struggles because ‘sex is (supposed to be) binary’#they’ll literally force normal natural intersex bodies into nonconsensual surgeries and hormone treatments to ‘‘correct’’ their anatomy #and force them into a box they were never supposed to fit #it’s gross

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othellotron9000 · 7 months

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[As he watches the video, people in white coats enter the room with the table. They start going about the room, pulling supplies out of cabinets and setting equipment around Toby.]

[Toby weakly struggles, her movements restrained by cuffs on the table. She seems sluggish, groggy.]

[One of the lab personnel barely glances at her before putting a mask over Toby's face. Her struggles grow more frantic before she slumps. The personnel then continue preparing for whatever they're doing.]

[A tray of surgical tools is brought over.]

@toby-the-crow

[Their heart beats faster and faster the more they watch the video, desperately wanting to intervene but being unable to do anything to help her. They grip the sides of their computer monitor so hard that the screen gets some wavy looking patterns on the edges from where he's holding onto it. He is shouting at the people who cannot hear him and who would not care anyway if they could.]

No no no stop, stop it!!

#ooc →#othellotron9000 #tw nonconsensual drugging #tw surgery #tw drugs #tw experimentation

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mantisgodsdomain · 1 year

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The greatest curse of Us, without a doubt, is the... us-centrism of the fact that we are Us and no one else. Our view on the world is limited and we are frequently subject to the logical fallacy of The Curse Of Knowledge and we're even more frequently beset upon by the fact that some people, like, are Genuinely Averse to depictions of things they've Dealt With themselves.

Like, what do you mean you're talking about this thing as a reason that this media sucks? What do you mean you actively avoid media that depicts things you went through? Do you not gain that feeling of connection from watching people go through something similar to what you did? Do you lack the feelings that are so easy to conjure up in a strong way from seeing a character dealing with the Same Damn Shit? Do you not look at art to feel things?

#this is a very long winded way to say that we got a media recommendation from a callout post again #we speak #“this media contains depictions of medical abuse and nonconsensual surgery and it puts heavy emphasis on these things”#“it highlights this transplanted thing and the difference from his body constantly”#and we're nodding along like “oh yeah sounds awesome”#and then they hit us with “i don't know why they thought this was appropriate for a family friendly franchise"#“other than the sheer ignorance of the developers about disabled peoples' medical experiences”#like HUH??? WHAT??? do you think that people only include fucked up shit that also happens to real people out of ignorance???#like. even ignoring the obvious “people can create depictions of real and fucked up stuff and that is in no way inherently bad” thing #have you never seen half of the family friendly things in the past decade? did you not read books as a kid? have you never revisited like #any kind of childhood books or games or movies or anything???#theres fucked up shit in kids media all the time! we'll go so far as to say that there should be MORE fucked up shit in kids media #because you need! to actually learn shit exists and figure out how to deal with it! and the earlier you can figure it out the better!#and even ignoring that like. its an AUTONOMY ISSUE. which is the one thing that kids will probably be able to connect to best!#because the single problem that kids and disabled fucks like us have in common the most is lack of autonomy!#a kid will be able to understand and connect with this issue because they have spent their lives surrounded by people #who sign them up to have things done with their bodies without first asking permission from them #who will have things done for them because they're kids and in their eyes cannot be trusted to make decisions of their own #even ignoring that disabled kids exist too and will be able to understand like. most of them will be able to recognize that kinds thing #theyre kids. they arent stupid. they can see this and relate to it as having problems Like Them but slightly more exaggerated #and maybe we're a bit opinionated about this but like #we're disabled! every word on this screen only makes us want to check this out because hey! sounds like the kind of shit we'd like!#we are VISCERALLY FAMILIAR with the kind of shit that people go through because guess what! we've been in the pits too!#we can appreciate the content warning for what its worth but the tone and the way youre saying it is just #look. we're sorry you didn't like it. different strokes for different folks and et cetera. what can help one person can harm another.#acting like medical abuse is a subject that should never be depicted in media for anyone but Mature Adults(tm) or whatever is just #bad #not to have opinions on childrens media but LACK of disabled people and such in media very much fucked us up more than them existing #let the kids have their medical abuse narrative and maybe itll give them a point to connect or get through something of their own #because let us tell you. having points to compare to? having even a fictionalized depiction to relate to?

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secret-bug-pain-blog · 1 year

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Febuwhump, Day 9 - Voice Loss

AO3 mirror here. So, the rest of these Will Not Be On Time. It's fine, we'll finish it anyways, the plague can't stop us forever. Here's your serving of Mothiva Making Really Bad Decisions, ft. another OC.

Mothiva regretted a lot of things, in her life.

Muddling her brand with her adventuring career was one. Letting the weevils she had for a marketing team talk her into some of those early shoots was another. Antagonizing Team Snakemouth – well, she didn’t regret that, not entirely. They had thrown the first stones, after all, but she admitted the Colosseum had been a bit much, and she was lucky the Colosseum’s acoustics hadn’t captured enough of that embarrassing display for anything more than her flaring her wings and posturing at the other team to make it to the Termanet.

Out of everything she’d done, though, that years-ago collaboration with Arc had to be her biggest regret.

He was pretty, of course. Easy on the eyes, like every other idol – he was bought and trained for it, after all, of course he would be nice to look at. Edgy brand, red and black and flashy, marketed more towards brats who wanted “cool” without deviating from normal.

Utterly insufferable.

Arc was a newer idol. Only a few years past his debut, and promising enough that he’d managed to get a slot on a late-night show with her. It was supposed to be quick – lending support to smaller idols, getting some of that valuable cross-pollination between their fandoms, getting in some banter by taking advantage of the contrast between their personas during an interview.

It had been, without a doubt, the biggest mistake of her career.

Of course, it had seemed like a good idea at first. Fans loved the interplay between their stage personas, the show had been a massive success, merchandise had sold out quickly, and she’d gotten a good few hundred berries of paycheck on royalties. All well and good for her, at least at first.

Unfortunately, Arc didn’t have the good sense to keep it a simple one-time collab, and Mothiva just had to be hit with the ill fortune of bugs latching onto their pairing.

There were bugs who wanted to see another show. There were bugs who wanted to see where their collective work would go, now that they’d shown they had chemistry. There were bugs invested in their relationship, and there was just enough of a crossover between their fans now that the higher-ups had decided she had to play coy enough to keep bugs guessing, never mind that the pest had springboarded to fame on her wing’s wake.

The amount of times they’d been scheduled for the same damn show was more than a bit infuriating, and she was getting exhausted with the number of times she’d had to dance around him in an interview room.

As far as Mothiva was concerned, Arc was a fame-mongering pain in her ass that enjoyed nothing more than needling her further, and he’d never done anything to dismiss the impression.

Which made it all the more unpleasant to find him knocking on her door all too early in the morning.

“Arc. How pleasant to see you.”

The moth grinned at her, lopsided and all too cocky. “Mothi! I was hoping you’d be home. With your pet out front, I thought you might’ve been palling it up with the other explorers.

“Always a pleasure,” Mothiva forced out. His smile didn’t waver. Of course, he’d choose now to darken her doorstep. When she couldn’t even call in Zasp to scare him off, when she…

He stood pointedly in the doorway for a few more minutes, leaning on the doorframe. She stared at him, waiting for him to take the hint and leave. Of course, he didn’t do any such thing.

He cleared his throat after a while. “…going to let me in?”

Gods, she didn’t want to. But given how he was… she probably didn’t have a choice, not unless she wanted some anecdote about her being a frigid bitch in the tabloids tomorrow. She still let him stew for a moment before opening the door all the way.

His smile was practically blinding. “Oh, good- we’ve got things to talk abut, you and I, and I wouldn’t want to make you have to smile for the camera.”

Mothiva gave him a dismissive huff as he trotted indoors. If she’d known who was going to be there, she’d never have answered that door. If Zasp wasn’t busy palling around with Team Snakemouth…

Whatever her teammate saw in the bugs was lost on her.

At least he didn’t have to deal with Arc.

“Go on, sit. I’ll make some tea.” He gave a disarming grin, leaning on the kitchen door. “Do you have a-“

“Kettle’s in the back of the cupboard.” The one under the sink, anyways. Hopefully, he’d have the common sense to leave everything else alone, or at least give up on serving anything before finding it. Mothiva’d had to leave a half-butchered aphid on the counter to answer the door, and aphid meat was expensive enough that she’d turn the carving knife on him if he did anything with it before she could finish.

He clattered around in the kitchen. Making a fool of himself, no doubt. Mothiva glowered at the door.

Who had even given him her address? This room was a rental – it wasn’t like she travelled with a trailer, or anything. Someone had to have told him- and if it was the hotel staff, she’d have to pick a new damn hotel again. Consider roughing it, maybe. She’d never had much trouble with anything besides fixing her fur afterwards, and she knew Zasp was more comfortable under a rock than in a hotel room…

Finally, Arc came back in, toting a tray of tea. A jar of honey sat atop the tray – ugh, really? Mothiva eyed it with disdain, hoping he hadn’t added any already. Tea was tolerable. Having to deal with some concoction that was three parts sugar and one part tea wasn’t.

“Well, you’ve been doing well lately, right, Mothi? I’ve seen your ratings- top of the board, across the board. It’s impressive, for any bug, and you know that”

Mothiva hummed a half-pleased tone, watching him out of the corner of her eye. Insufferable suck-up. She’d wonder how he’d made it out of idol school, but it was all too clear he’d spent his time sucking up to teachers instead of learning to sing. His voice grated on her. Still with that stupid nickname. Did he think a handful of forced collaborations made them friends?

She took a sip of the tea. It tasted… far from good, really. All too sweet, like trying to choke down raw honey, all too reminiscent of the Ahoneynation. The aftertaste coated her throat so strongly it nearly clogged it, making her feel almost as though she was choking on her own mucus membranes. How much honey had he added? She was all too familiar with other moths dumping too much sugar into any drink, but this…

She suppressed the urge to spit it back into the cup, taking care to keep herself from scrunching her muzzle. She couldn’t be seen starting a fight the day before her premiere, even if she was suspecting more and more that Arc had invited her with ulterior motives. She set it down after one drink, silently considering dumping it down the sink.

Arc watched, of course. Freak. She had half a mind to claw that smug look off his muzzle.

“I was thinking we could try something… special. For the anniversary, you know. I had some ideas, a few things that could help both of us out…” He waved a paw, almost dismissive- anniversary? What anniversary? Mothiva sifted through dates in her mind, half-confused-

He was talking about the damn talk show, wasn’t he?

Ugh. A full year, and he still hadn’t stopped being a thorn in her side. As if it was anything to celebrate- Mothiva had a show the day of, if she remembered correctly, so it wasn’t as though she had any time in the schedule, not unless he wanted to buy out half the tickets. She knew he wasn’t on the cast for it – she’d checked.

“I was thinking we could do something special.”

Well, he’d better spit it out, then. Mothiva was quickly running out of patience, and if he dragged this out any more, she wasn’t sure she could be held back from making headlines pasting his mangled corpse halfway across the Bee Kingdom’s doorstep. She opened her mouth, already fed-up, and-

paused.

Something felt- odd. Wrong. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled noise, as if the sound had gotten caught in her throat. Her hand flew to her throat, and she glared at Arc – just what had he done? It took all too much effort for her to rasp out the question.

“What did you do?”

Arc blinked at her slowly- almost bemusedly. “Me? Oh, I didn’t do anything- something wrong, Mothi?”

“What-“ Mothiva’s throat closed up, and her rasping abruptly cut off into a coughing fit. This wasn’t normal, she knew what she could expect from her damn body, and this wasn’t-

“Something got your tongue?”

Oh, that motherfucker.

Mothiva growled at Arc, baring teeth that could sink into his throat and crack him open like an egg. He scoffed at her, taking a casual step to the side. “You’re not going to do shit. The second something suspicious happens in here, you know the reporters are going to start swarming in. Bugaria’s most famous idol attacking a competitor like a rabid weevil? The tabloids would eat that up.”

Mothiva grimaced at the thought, casting a glance at the shaded window. Arc fluffed his wings, looking all too self-important.

“That’s what I thought. Now, about that show…”

Mothiva watched as he paced around the table. She gripped its surface – a bit too tightly, maybe, but the alarming creak it made was far from the most important thing in her mind.

Arc looked all too smug, and she hated how she had to wait for him to open his stupid little muzzle before she could get answers.

“I heard you got a spot in the Domingo de Grilo. You know, right on our anniversary date. Pretty prestigious, don’t you think? Now, I was thinking it would be a nice treat for the fans if I-“

Mothiva snapped at him, lurching forward just enough to make him flinch. He took a moment to recover, before laughing, tapping her muzzle.

“See,” he said, “it would be a very good boost for my band, to get to perform at Domingo de Grilo. And performing with you might be just the PR stunt we need. Besides, it would be worse for you if you did attack me, because if you try and take me out, then you’ll never get the counteragent for the little trinket in your throat there.”

That little fucking rat.

He only seemed to grow more insufferably smug as she glared at him, fluffing her wings. “You see,” he said, “if I just leave that in there, it’ll take… a week? A couple months, maybe, to make sure we’ve got the deal sealed. Just a bit, then it’ll dissolve.”

“You see, I can counteract it, and free it right now. All it’ll take is you putting in a few good words for me, maybe coughing up a place or two in a show, and then…” Arc grinned, making a flourish with his claw. Mothiva growled, deep in her chest.

“Fuck you,” she forced out, the words ragged and torn to ribbons. She started coughing the second the words were out, the damn accursed seed in her throat doing nothing but worsening the issue.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to call in sick next Sunday. Such a pity, you know, coming down sick the day before a performance, good thing that there’s someone on hand willing to take the job for half the price-“

The table cracked under Mothiva’s claws, and Arc’s words cut off as he skittered back, fluffing up his stupid little ruff like a startled aphid. She growled at him as he tried to recover his bravado, giving out a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, that’s the kinda thing you want to keep out of the papers. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were scared. So, about those roles…”

Mothiva glowered at him as he propped himself up over the broken half of her kitchen table. She wasn’t giving him shit, no matter if he begged for it. She bared her teeth at him, not caring if anyone saw anymore. She wanted him dead and gone, she wanted to lose control and spatter his guts across her fucking living room, she wanted to split him in two just like the living room table, she-

She couldn’t do any of that. And both of them knew it.

He waited a beat longer, before picking himself up. “Fine, then. Have it your way. I’ll be in my room, if you change your mind. Don’t beg too hard, please. It’s embarrassing to both of us.”

Mothiva kept growling, as he walked out of the room. Fucking piece of shit of a bug, absolutely useless insect, the goddamn…

It took her nearly fifteen minutes before she finally managed to pull her claws from the chair and draw herself back up. Arc was already long gone – waiting for her to come back to his trailer, no doubt. With his drugs, and his stupid little voice, and the way he…

Venus, Mothiva felt like a fucking idiot.

Sure, she was a top idol. Top of her game, most popular in Bugaria, one of the most desirable bugs in the entire Ant Kingdom, if you took your cues from gossip rags – but she was well aware that her situation was… precarious. She swayed on her feet as she forced herself forwards.

She was all too aware she wasn’t exactly what her handlers wanted – she was close enough, maybe, but not quite it. She was meant to be soft, gentle, approachable, the kind of bug whose fluff could stuff a plush toy – and once she’d hit her first few instars, she didn’t fit the bill.

She was too broad to be approachable. Too thick of a jaw, too heavy a frame, too strong of a bite – moths were meant to be delicate and breakable, and she’d never broken quite right. Her fluff fell in a shock-absorbent mess the moment she’d started to grow in an upper coat, the way her bulk had shifted as she grew only just avoiding uncanny, her fangs too long to file down and too thick to hide.

Her colors were a dime a dozen the second you started looking at anything towards the Forsaken Lands, her markings the only real mark of an exotic bug – and of course, most bugs would never care about how odd a mutation topcoat silvering was. Her wings were centimeters too thick, more of a heavy-duty cloak than the sort of fuzzy-woven cape that was popular, her muzzle too short to pull off the sort of natural elegance that sold for more adult audiences, the webbing between her paws-

She tried to make herself better, of course. She curated her appearance, she groomed herself back into shape, she made herself fit the mold – but she wasn’t quite what they wanted, and both she and they knew that the moment she started losing popularity she’d have half a dozen younger, prettier bugs lined up to fill the gap.

If she didn’t stay at the top, her career was as good as over – and she more than knew how little it took, to be knocked down the ranks.

Receiving a gift from a rival, no matter how nice of one, was never to be trusted.. Especially not from a rival so close to her on the rankings, even if she knew their fans were watching them for any hint of a spark, even if she knew that any interactions had to be polite-

Once the public stopped watching, she should’ve had nothing to do with Arc, and it was only her own foolishness that brought her to here. With her stage persona, she’d be reduced to fluttering around him and chittering every time he said a slightly off-beat word. Stuck to being a perfect little doll against the damn punk persona he was allowed to cultivate for himself – she hated him, and it was only the thought of the repercussions that kept her from storming out to wring his neck.

She wasn’t about to let him reap the reward from drugging her damn tea, and if he thought otherwise, he had another thing coming.

He’d done something. She could feel it. It lodged in her throat, blocking off her trachea – that was fine. She didn’t need her head to breathe, and her spiracles were more than enough to keep her up and moving. She just needed something to get it loose – anything would do. She scoured the walls, opening every drawer she could get her claws on, and came up with nothing – just more useless hunks of sound equipment that wouldn’t help shit. She moved into the kitchen in half of a panic, hunting for something, anything-

Her eyes landed on the kitchen knife, the one she’d used to butcher the aphid just hours before.

…than could work.

Mothiva was under no illusions, as far as injury went. She knew that anything too visible could end her career – what couldn’t, really? She knew that anything too strong could cripple her, she knew a hit to the wrong spot could fuck up a limb forever, she knew any kind of pierced shell could easily end up a death sentence-

But Mothiva had always been all too resilient.

Adventuring, if anything, had only made her more aware with it. The edges of her wounds stuck together, gluing themselves beneath her fur in a way that made it remarkably hard to tell just where she’d been injured, once she’d cleaned up the blood and the horrible matting that always cropped up. Messy scars realigned, after a few weeks hidden under her fur, reopening the wound but neatening up some of the damage. She’d never gambled her voice before, of course, but-

If she did this right, she might even be able to get on stage next week without surrendering her position.

She picked the knife up, testing its edge. Sharp – easily sharp enough for this, even if it would be a trial to get it through her fur. She carefully aligned it with the lump in her throat, pulling aside loose fur and skin to feel for it, fluffing her wings as she felt cold metal press against her carapace.

She poised the knife above her throat.

No turning back now, she supposed.

Mothiva cut.

It was harder to work the knife through her fur than it was to work it through her throat. It was good and sharp – but that meant little, of course, against her dewlap, let alone her ruff. The blade ground, struggling to cut through fur denser than anything it was meant to handle, and she had to run it back through the wound more than once to make it stick.

She forced her other hand’s claws into the wound, making it stay open- it took more effort than she’d thought, and she had to strain just to make sure it stayed. Flesh would try and stick to flesh the second she stayed her hand, gluing itself firmly enough that she’d have to force the knife in for another pass. Thick, red hemolymph stained her paws, sticking to her fur, to her ruff, to her everything.

She just needed a bit more.

Mothiva fought a wave of dizziness as she cut deeper, slicing past layer and layer of flesh. It really was caught in deep. She’d known she had… more to her, than the average moth, of course, but it was something else entirely to see it, much less cut through it. The air smelled both coppery and oddly sweet, like nectar-drizzled ant’s armor, like…

Her claws closed shut on something, and the lump in her throat shifted.

There. There it was.

Mothiva dug her claws in, drawing it out. It was more of a struggle than she’d expected – the meat of her neck resisted the very concept of giving way, holding rigidly in place. She had to force it with both hands- she buried the knife in the countertop, dedicating her claws to the task. Everything seemed to waver, and she had to force herself from falling on her feet. It was a small thing, all things considered, tiny against her claws, hard to pick up without digging her claws in. Built in layers, like…

With a faint, gurgling chirp of triumph, Mothiva held the pearl out, watching the thick layer of blood over it shimmer. There, done. Without any of the fuss, even! She gave a triumphant hum, fluffed her wings, practically preening as she held it out. No more need to grovel to Arc, now! She coughed, fighting against the sway of dizziness as she gave a triumphant look to the blue and gold moth in the doorway, swallowing a mouthful of blood as she…

Mothiva collapsed to the floor, unconscious, and Leif scrabbled to catch her before she could crack her head against the tile.

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