#medication and maintenance

[animatedtext]

requested by laying-in-star-dust

[sir-fenris]

Year of Whump Tropes - Day 7

January 2025 - Week 1, Day 7

Maintenance | Not being acknowledged

(Drabbles' masterlist)

Content: medical whump, dehumanization, living weapon whumpee, resigned whumpee, "it" as a pronoun, sensory overwhelm, noncon touching (non sexual), small noncon body modification (nail), noncon drugging, eyes forced open, manhandling, loss of autonomy, restraints, needles, one scale yanking.

Whumpee would never get fully used to the maintenance room. It's too cold, too bright and white, with a too strong antiseptic smell, and his enhanced senses hated it.

His eyes, used to the night, hurt from all the light, and he wished for his blindfold back, for the blissful darkness. But not yet, because the doctors were still testing his eyesight. Whumpee lost count of how many machines and instruments were used just for that already.

No wonder maintenance lasts more than 8 hours. The doctors truly examined everything in their power to assure the living weapons were impeccable for the field.

"Tonometer testing done," a cold, clinical voice calls. Not to him, never to him. He was an object, or an animal, at best, during maintenance.

The tonometer leaves his face, but the head restrictions aren't taken away. Not done with eye tests, then.

Whumpee sees one of the doctors moving to the side, two handling machines, and one writing something down in front of him.

It's inevitable to scan around, being a reconnaissance and scouting weapon, but he barely had time to scan all the new medical tools before a machine is pulled in front of him by a movable table.

Oh, he remembers this one.

Whumpee's eyelids are held open with an eye speculum, and he takes a deep breath before the machine touches his face. Images immediately start appearing, and he doesn't need to do anything, the machine gathers information from his eyes by itself.

He feels an intern gripping his hands without any warning. Soon, he feels them sanding his nails back into a good length, short enough not to get in the way of tasks and long enough to be used as a short-range weapon. The sanding makes a loud noise. Whumpee tries not to move.

"Its nails are strong as ever." The intern says, almost annoyed. Must be a truly young intern to let any emotion slip through their voice.

"That's good. The general said to keep it sharper this time, they'll need it like that for the next mission." One of the doctors responds back.

The images are turning brighter, faster, and forms start shaping in front of him. He's pretty sure his eyes are watering. No one pays him any mind.

"We can get its second blood work while the machine goes, shorten the time." He hears before his arm is being manhandled to the side for the blood test preparing.

Whumpee really wants to blink, but he can't. His senses are overwhelmed, between the sight overload, the sharp hearing taking in even the breathing of the farthest doctor, the sanding too loud and too rough, the blood leaving his arm for each vial being filled...

He can't stop a small whimper. Whumpee shouldn't make noises, he was taught better than that. But it's been hours, and he doesn't even know when it'll end. It's just test after test.

No one even acknowledges his noise. Perhaps that's for the best, he would be punished if they minded it. But it still feels bitter.

The blood test is done, the intern changes for the other hand, and the machine is still in his eye. He can feel the tears pooling.

"Do we need scale extraction this time?" Someone asks, and Whumpee has to stop another whimper.

"It's complete maintenance and examination." Another doctor responds, and that's all the warning he gets before a scale is yanked from the back of his neck, one of the only places he has some scales.

He makes a pained sound. A small, punched out, and choked whimper that goes unnoticed.

The intern stops the sanding, but the machine is still going, bright and piercing his skull with its eletrical waves.

"Prepare the venom extraction. It should be 130mg." Whumpee hates venom extraction, despite it being done every non-mission day, but the trepidation is covered by relief once the machine is finally taken away, and so is the speculum.

He blinks repeatedly, feeling the pooled tears trailing down his cheek fast, but the burning doesn't stop. No one seems to care at all, but at least the blindfold is put back on. All eye tests are done, at last.

An acrylic tool is pushed inside his mouth, keeping it wide open. It's only thanks to the head restrictions that he doesn't move when a needle enters his neck.

Venom extraction would be fine if it weren't for this.

The headache starts almost immediately, and adrenaline surges all over his body, starting from the neck. More tears trail down, reflexive ones, at the same time he feels his venom gland pulsing reflexively.

Some head restrictions are unfastened so he can move to bite down when a glass with a film top. They don't even tell him to, a doctor just grips his nape and squeezes the sides of his jugular to force the reaction.

Venom flows out of his fangs into the round vial, and the hands only leave his neck when protective acrylic casts are pushed onto his fangs, and the head restrictions are fastened back.

After that, no one touches him. The headache is pulsing harder, body trying to react to the threat, but no venom flows out into the acrylic cast. They took it all. It feels terrible and gives him a heavy nausea.

He remains fastened on the chair. With the acrylic piece keeping his mouth open, blindfold on, full body restricted.

Whumpee hears the doctors speaking about the results, and eventually about their own routines. No one comes closer to him, not acknowledging him at all, now that maintenance is done.

It takes over 20 minutes for someone to come to him, but no restrictions are taken away. He hears the first x-ray machine start to move around his chair in a circular motion. Oh. Whumpee had forgotten about that machine.

And the doctors forget about him too. Even after the 5 rounds of scanning are done, no one comes to take him out of the chair for a long time.

Once two guards and a doctor finally unfastened all the restrictions and pulled him out of the chair, Whumpee could barely stay up.

"We'll send the results to you once they're all done," he hears a doctor saying to someone. Probably to his handler, if they're there.

Whumpee knows it's not to him. It's never to him.

-

(Last event-late post, promise :') I'm back on track now)

-

[crimeronan]

been thinking about the rabies condition in writing lately, which is a GREAT post about stakes and characterization. basically exploring how if there's a 100% chance a character is doomed, then they can and will do extremely dangerous/damaging/contraindicated things for the slimmest hope of survival. which is one of my Favorite narrative devices

but while we're using health metaphors, i've been thinking about another somewhat complicated means of introducing character stakes, which i'm tentatively calling 'the autoimmune condition' for reasons that are. obvious

the premise itself is simple: the character has Something that they need to survive. they either can't live without this thing or they will lose something vital about themselves if they lose this thing. there is no replacement or alternative for the thing. what's most important are that the consequences for losing it are Extreme, rabies-condition-style

in the real life allegory, this is the immune system. which is great for being alive!

then the problem is introduced when this thing starts killing the character.

the character still needs it to live.

so: there is a 100% chance that you will die if you destroy the thing killing you. if you impair it through other means, there is a 100% chance of consequences, though the severity of those consequences is up to the author. (these are medication side effects in the real life allegory.)

if you do everything you're supposed to then you'll PROBABLY survive, but you're gonna have to play lifelong tug-of-war to balance everything, and you are often going to have to choose between two shitty options. bc there is no alternative.

this is a counterpart to the rabies condition in terms of stakes; with this condition, your character has to make complicated and difficult decisions about what they're sacrificing for their future. it's not the immediate life-and-death stakes of rabies, it's a slow decay instead.

what side effect consequences are they willing to take on?? and what are they NOT willing to take on?? where do their priorities lie in terms of symptom management?? what other solutions are they looking for?? what are they willing to sacrifice??

and perhaps most importantly: what exactly do they need to lose before they'll Accept the side effects / sacrifices that used to terrify them?? how high do the stakes need to be??

at what point is this character going to look back at the choices they've made up to this point, and realize that they no longer recognize themselves??

[shamebats]

The new episode of Matt Bernstein's A bit Fruity podcast, which had Aubrey Gordon of Maintenance Phase fame as a guest to discuss Ozempic, made so many really good points but the one I can't stop thinking about is how we're now in a spot culturally where people are becoming conscious of the fact that dieting & exercising doesn't do much in terms of weightloss, that's why the appetite suppressing drugs are so popular to begin with & why ppl pay so much money to be on them, but we still have to pretend that losing weight "naturally" with diet & exercise is the good & virtuous thing to do. So you have celebrities going yes I'm on Ozempic but I exercise 5 times a week! I'm losing weight the right way unlike the other LAZY fat people (who are also on Ozempic & losing weight the same as I am because the exercise doesn't actually contribute much).

It's really revealing how much of diet culture is just proving your worth as a human by making yourself miserable to the point where even when there's a solution that works much better than the "hard work" we're supposed to be putting in at the gym & with how we eat ever could, people will still insist that they both work just the same. Even if they've spent their entire life dieting & exercising but were never able to actually lose weight & keep it off until they started taking the drug. They know that if they went off the drug but kept up the exercise & dieting, they'd gain the lost weight back. They know that weightloss is not a natural process and that the body will reverse it without medical intervention.

But it's still too early for the medical system & the media to start admitting that dieting doesn't fucking work & they've been forcing it on fat people for no reason other than bigotry, traumatizing everyone & killing many in the process.

[blurred-antics]

the election happening when I am in my pre-period and have crippling pmdd is. well it's certainly something

[pioneer-10]

The main characters of my story, Connection Lost! I'm not going to post too many details atm as I'm still putting everything together, but I'm excited to share it with you all!

[karokawwo]

also recently ive gotten the urge to redesign kari since I've been thinking about him and his background a lot lately

[nerditudes]

mfw i see a cringe ooc post i made over a decade ago.

[clonefandomevents]

Announcing Specialist Bingo Card!

This month's new Bingo is a little different to the others, in that there are no prompts to choose from. Instead, it will be the 25 different specialties the clone troopers have, and to make a fill you will have to create something for the specific specialty. They can be oc's or canon clones, as long as they suit each category.

Specialties are:

Snow, Sand, Flame, Dive/Aqua, SpecOps, Slicer, Heavy Guns, ARC, ARF, Commando, Medic, Pilot, Maintenance, CommTech, Bridge Crew, Riot Trooper, Paratrooper, Bomb Squad, Flight Crew, Cadet, Mess Crew, Trainer, Officer, Security, Shiny.

[snarp]

Kept hearing an irritating, high-pitched sound somewhere in the house since the 2nd day of floor work. It sounded like the wind droning in a cracked door or window, but I couldn't find the source. Finally figured out last night that it was the HVAC intake: the filter had gotten so choked with sawdust and other debris that one of the gaps had created a whistle.

[crimeronan]

I TESTED POSITIVE FOR LUPUS ANTIBODIES

[myrtaceaae]

I don't actually realise often how much anxiety I have because it's been my reality for like 15 years at this point.

But my therapist suggested today that possibly the fact that I'm constantly alert to triggers and to what my brain identifies as dangers is exhausting to me.

And like I never really thought that hard about it because it's my baseline normal but yeah. Much to ponder.

Anyways lmao I need to take PRN (anxiety medication) for the third time today haha

[stormyoceans]

MORK LOOKING AT DAY LIKE HE'S GIVING LOVE HE'S GIVING HUNGER HE'S GIVING DEVOTION HE'S GIVING YEARNING HE'S GIVING EVERYTHING

[little-eye-guy]

ohhhh this is about to be a real pain

[papookwrites]

Me: augh why does my body ache so much??

Also me: has not done the things that make my body functional for several days

*Headdesk*

[psychoticallytrans]

Me: where's that passive suicidal ideation coming from this time Me: wait I'm three days late on my shot. that'll do it.