ty-bayonet-betteridge:

ty-bayonet-betteridge:

two of the transfems youre friends with have been talking to you about the clinic they got their bottom surgery done at. apparently its dirt cheap, and the surgeon – despite some oddities and, your friends admit, poor hygiene – is incredibly talented. theyre more than happy to give you her phone number when you ask, and while it sounds simultaneously incredibly sketchy and way too good to be true, at this point youre just so broke, desperate, and tired of gatekeepers that you’re willing to give it a shot.

you call on a thursday afternoon, and the call is picked up on the fourth ring, when youre just gearing up to hear an answering machine. the voice on the other end sounds like a middle-aged woman with a smoking habit trying to sound like a cheery, bubbly young girl, and mostly succeeding. hiiiii! what can i do for you? she asks. you say er im looking for a surgical clinic is this the right number? she says mhm! thats me. you say okay, i just have a few questions. she says shoot. you say do you take patients who arent referred to you? she says nobody refers patients to me so yes. then she giggles. youve never heard somebody pull off a giggle in real life. you ask okay, so ive been looking for a place to get my metoidoplasty done, can you do that here? she says i dont know what that is give me like five seconds. then the line goes silent. you can hear her typing on a mechanical keyboard and humming to herself as she reads. youre now convinced that this is not in any way a legitimate medical institution.

Keep reading

{{below the cut:}}

youre about to hang up when she comes back on the line. OH you need a dick she says. sure i can do that! does tuesday afternoon work for you? i have that morning free too but i HATE getting up in the mornings so id rather not schedule it if i have to. you say tuesday afternoon is fine, how long should i expect the visit to be? she says i dont know like seven hours? you say seven hours? she says yeah give or take a few, every person is different so i dont know what itll be like until ive got your cunt opened up. honestly probably best to take the whole day off just in case it turns out to be a tough operation. you dont respond to that immediately. she says oh shoot should i not use the word cunt, is that too gendered? sorry. you say no its fine. you say i thought i was just going in for a consult? she says i mean yeah if youd rather. i dont mind doing same-day but some people like having more time to think about their options. do you have somewhere to be tuesday night or something? you say no its just… no tuesday afternoon should be fine. she says okay great!

she gives you her address. she says knock three times so i know its you and not my parole officer. parole officer you ask? she says im being good i promise but i still hate talking to him hes boring. you say if you dont mind me asking what were you imprisoned for? she says the ones i plead guilty to at the trial were a hundred and ninety-two counts of first-degree murder with a parahuman ability, two hundred and fifty-six counts of physical and emotional torture with a parahuman ability, five hundred and six counts of intentional infliction of emotional distress with a parahuman ability, four hundred ninety-eight counts of aggravated assault and battery with a parahuman ability, four hundred twenty five counts of domestic terrorism with a parahuman ability and two hundred and twelve counts without, three counts of arson, two hundred forty two counts of burglary with a parahuman ability, three hundred eight four counts of robbery with a parahuman ability, four hundred twenty seven counts of abduction with a parahuman ability, a hundred eighty six counts of human trafficking with a parahuman ability, three hundred ninety counts of destruction of public property with a parahuman ability, eighty counts of possession of a controlled substance, more than three thousand conspiracy and complicity charges in various felonies, eighteen violations of the Geneva Conventions, and the unauthorized practice of medicine. i plead not guilty to the larceny, sexual assault, contempt of court, corporate espionage, and identity theft charges and the prosecutor didnt really try to fight it since i had already earned seventy life sentences from the other stuff so im technically innocent of those.

you dont say anything to that.

after three seconds of silence she says sooooooooo i’ll see you tuesday? you say tuesday, yeah. what was your name again? Riley, she says. Riley Grace Davis. you say thanks again and then hang up.

you debate constantly during the intervening days whether you should go on tuesday. youre grateful your friend group is so slutty; it means youve already seen with your own eyes that this surgery is real and not just a lure to murder you. still, you have some reservations, which you think is perfectly understandable.

you call one of your friends whos been there already. she picks up and you say if this is a joke its only sort of funny. she says if whats a joke? you say the clinic. you say you DID give me the actual number to the place where you actually had your bottom surgery done right? she says yeah, dont worry the surgeons so sweet. you say she admitted to doing two hundred murders when she was on the phone. she says i dont know anything about that but i trust her. you say if i end up dead, kidnapped, or mutilated, its your fault. she says dont worry about it.

tuesday comes. you never agreed to an exact time so you show up as early as you can and still have it be “afternoon” in your mind – 12:30. you climb the rusted fire escape to the third floor door and knock three times. the door is answered by a woman six feet tall in casual but very nice clothes with frizzy brown hair and an expression you cant read. you say er, riley? she says nope. another girl pushes past her, exasperated. she’s maybe five foot two and her wavy blonde hair is worn down, with a red bow in it. she’s wearing torn jeans – naturally torn, not the sort that you buy with holes in them that youve always hated but the kind that were once normal jeans and now have worn through much of the fabric on the knees. her tshirt is faded and has stains that you cant quite place on it, but youre pretty sure it was once Eidolon merchandise.

she says damnit amy let me answer the door next time. the taller woman, amy apparently, shrugs and steps aside to let you in riley claps her hands together once youre inside and the door is shut. introductions! she shouts. amy, this is, er… I never actually got your name? you tell them your name. she says right! hes one of my clients. and this is Amy, my sister. dont worry about her, shes just a little awkward. amy says can you PLEASE not introduce me as your sister. riley says make me. then she grabs amys shirt and pulls her down, standing on her tiptoes at the same time. they kiss in a very un-sisterly way. you clear your throat politely.

riley breaks away and says right, yeah, sorry! i get distracted easy. youre here to get a dick right. you splutter a bit, both at the bluntness of the question and the fact that amy is still standing right there. riley follows your gaze. she says oh dont worry about her! sorry, i wouldve run her off earlier, i thought you wouldnt come by for another few hours. you say sorry. she says dont worry, its her fault. amy says you didnt tell me you had a client. riley says you didnt ASK. you clear your throat politely again. you say er yes, i did come in for metoidoplasty. she bites her lip and furrows her brow. she says metoido… oh right. well i dont really do that here but i can give you a dick. you say uh im not really interested in phalloplasty. she says whats phalloplasty? amy says its the construction of a penis, usually via tissue flap taken from another part of the body, often followed by the insertion of prosthetics to allow the constructed penis to achieve erection. riley says oh, huh. yeah i dont do that either. i can give you a dick though. she takes a second then puts on an exaggerated scowl. who would want that she asks? amy says lots of people prefer it to metoido for aesthetic reasons or because they dont think theyll be large enough for penetrative sex with metoido. riley says but it wouldnt feel like a dick! man, some surgeons are talentless hacks.

you clear your throat again. you say so if youre- riley says youre clearing your throat a lot, are you okay? you say im fine, its just- she says oh duh were being so rude! why are we all standing around here. come sit down in the living room, do you want anything to drink? she leads you into the living room. it has the unmistakable air of a room thats been cleaned recently, with vacuuming marks present in the carpet and the unmistakable scent of air freshener. the sofa that you’re gestured to sit on is, by contrast, unbelievably filthy. stains of every sort are visible on it – some of them are obvious, like the patches of blood and vomit or the ring of a coffee mug. others take you a second to place, like the crusty streak along one cushion that you realize all at once is semen, or the sticky yellow parts that you hope to god are honey. some of them, like the muddy green handprint along one arm of the sofa or the deep black smudge along a seat, are completely foreign to you. you can smell it from several feet away.

amy notices your hesitancy. she says i keep telling her to throw that thing out. riley says and i keep telling HER that its a relic from earth bet! its an antique and itll be worth millions soon. it just needs a good deep cleaning. amy says what that sofa needs is a bullet, not a deep clean. you sit down. drink? riley asks. you say er what do you have? she says water, diet coke, vodka, coffee. no more beer though, SOMEBODY drank the last one. amy says you never said they were off limits! riley says they arent, im just teasing. you say waters fine. riley says aaaaaaaaaamyyyyyyy, could you pleeeeeeaaaaaaaase go get our guest a glass of water and me a diet coke? oh and can you grab the pill bottle on the second shelf of the spice cabinet. amy says sure, i’ll be right back.

riley sits down next to you. she says sooooooo what do you want for your dick? you say sorry, if youre not doing phallo or metoido then what exactly are you offering? she says no offense but it would take like literally eight years to give you enough background info for you to understand my explanation, and i dont have that kind of time. im not getting any younger. except for when i am. she laughs louder than you thought a human could. you have no idea how to describe the sound of her laughter. she says just tell me about your dream dick and ill give it to you. trust me, im a doctor.

except that youre not, amy says, returning with glasses and pills in hand. she sets the water down in front of you and you immediately take large gulps, feeling very much lost right now. riley says am TOO, accepting the pill bottle and diet coke from amy. she frowns. why is it can diet coke, she asks? she says glass bottle is so much better. she says why did i even BUY can. amy says they are literally the same liquid, what do you mean its better. riley says theyre not the same, stop deluding yourself. amy says which of us is the REAL doctor? riley says both of us! the PRT finally issued me an equivalency. youre talking to doctor riley davis, MED. amy says oh really? congrats she says. riley beams. then she unscrews the lid of the unlabeled, dark brown glass bottle, grabs three pills, and pops them into her mouth.

what is that you ask. ectasy she says. you want some? you say no thanks. she says you sure? you say i probably shouldnt take drugs before an operation, what if it interacts with the anesthetic? riley says dont worry, i made my own anesthetic that has zero drug-drug interactions. amy says except with sudafed. riley says ok YEAH except with sudafed, how was i supposed to know? she glances at you. you dont take sudafed do you she asks. you say no. she says good. it was such a bitch cleaning the pus off the ceiling she says. you say huh? she says dont worry about it, you dont take sudafed. she says are you sure you dont want any ecstasy? i promise its pure. you say i dont want to get addicted. she says i can surgically remove the addiction pathway from your brain if that would help. amy says riley, no means no. riley says fine. do you want any ecstasy babe? she says no thanks. riley frowns. she says you guys are a bunch of squares. she pops a fourth one and starts chugging diet coke.

she slams the can down after drinking what must be half of it, wipes her mouth with her arm and grins. sorry, we keep getting distracted! she says. she says im getting into the start of a manic episode and that always makes me roll right over people in conversation. what do you want for your dick? you say um. i hadnt really thought about it. its not normally a choice beyond the type of surgery, you sort of just end up with whatever the doctors are able to make work? thats lame she says. why are normal doctors all so lame she says. ok, rude amy says. OBVIOUSLY im not talking about you babe riley says. and stop distracting me from my client! amy holds up her hands in mock surrender, an easy smile on her face.

you didnt bring a toy with you did you, riley asks. you say huh. she says sometimes people bring a toy that they want me to model it after and that makes everything a lot easier. you say no you didn’t. you say i hadn’t really thought about my preferences, can we go dealer’s choice on this? amy pipes up. she says you REALLY dont want riley to go dealers choice. riley says shut up and get me another diet coke, i just finished this one. amy says yes princess. you honestly cant read whether it was meant to be mocking or endearing. riley turns back to you. ok, she says, lets start with basics. primate? canid? equine? suine? dolphin? i could give you a hyena pseudopenis but i dont know if that would be offensive. you say human is fine. she says please dont tell me you’re gonna just be boring this whole time. you say define boring. she sighs deeply and starts massaging her temples. amy, having stepped into the room in time to hear the last bit of conversation, tousles rileys hair. she says sorry babe, customer’s always right.

you work out the appearance of your soon-to-exist cock this way. riley asks questions about length, girth, hair, amount of semen generated, percentage growth when erect, and you try to give what you think are average answers every time. amy watches, bemused, the whole time. halfway through she leaves to get the bottle of vodka. she drinks five shots in fifteen minutes. you say i didnt think the human body had that much capacity for alcohol resistance. she says it doesnt. riley swats playfully at her arm.

eventually, riley grabs a set of crayons and a cocktail napkin. she says ok, i think we got it, scribbling furiously. she shows you a crayon drawing of a dick. this look good she asks? you squint at it. there are no measurements given and the medium does not allow you to make out any fine detail. you say yeah thats fine. amy tries and fails to hide a smile. riley chucks the napkin aside and rubs her hands together. boring parts done! she says. time to get messy she says. amy pours a sixth shot of vodka. she says dont forget the anesthetic first. riley rolls her eyes. she says OBVIOUSLY i didnt forget the anesthetic. she says ill be right back. as soon as she leaves the room, amy knocks back her shot. she turns to you. she says you mind if i stay and watch? she says i dont want to make you uncomfortable, but i like watching her work. shes cute when shes working. you say at this point youre not sure you would mind anything at all. you say at this point you dont think you would be fazed if she came back with a fully-formed dick wriggling around in her hand like a fish and sewed it onto me. she says dont tempt fate.

riley comes back with a black bag the size of her head, which she sets on the coffee table with a thunk. she points at you and says okay, clothes off. or pants off i guess. you can leave the shirt on. or take it off. i dont care. you take it off. she tells you to lie down and starts pulling things out of the bag. amy stands up from the sofa to give you the space to stretch out and sits on the coffee table instead, one leg pulled up to her chest with her chin resting on her knee.

riley pulls out a syringe from the bag, filled with pitch-black fluid. she says okay this will hurt for a second but only for a second. you say huh? she flips you over onto your belly and jabs the needle against your lower back, into your spinal column. it hurts like a bitch for all of two seconds and then you stop feeling anything at all in your lower body. you also cant move your legs, you realize. what just happened you ask, as she flips you onto your back again. she says i just killed all the cells in the nerves in your lower spine. she says its the easiest way to make sure none of the pain signals slip through, and she’ll just replace them with living ones when she’s done. you don’t know how to respond to that.

she pulls more things out of the bag. a cartoonish array of different cutting implements come out. most of them are various sizes of medical scalpel, ring cutter, or saw, but you also see a pair of chunky pink safety scissors, a pizza cutter, a serrated bread knife, an x-acto, a drill with a comically long bit, a pair of wire cutters, gardening shears, and an awl. she says okay im gonna start operating so look away if you dont wanna see how your crotch looks while its being rearranged. especially if you think you might puke, i hate having to stop to clean up puke in the middle of surgery. you look away. you notice amy is watching transfixed.

for a couple of hours things go on like that. amy and riley make light conversation, with riley filling any silence by humming a wordless tune you dont know. the sounds and smells youre getting are enough to make you slightly sick; you continue not looking.

in the middle of hour two, riley stops. oh goddamnit, she says. what amy asks? riley says she forgot that shed need extra meat. amy says you started a surgery to give somebody a whole new organ and forgot youd need more tissue to do it? riley says shut up, im dumb. amy says no youre not babe. riley says ughhhhh now what. amy says just get his stem cells to grow the tissue you need. riley says nooooooo thatll take forever, and i have places to BE tomorrow, and if i stop putting pressure on him here hes going to bleed out through his cunt. you say wait, what? amy says well i dont know what you want me to do about this situation, i gave you my solution. riley says baaaaaaaaaaabe. amy says whaaaaaaaaaaaat. riley says i think we have some bacon in the fridge, will you pretty please with sprinkles on top go get it? amy says and what do i get in return? riley says a kiss. amy says id get that anyway. riley says my undying love and affection. amy says i have that already. riley says not making me angry at you so you can sleep under my roof without having to worry that ill turn your sweat glands into acid glands in the middle of the night. amy says that, plus i get to top tonight. riley says fiiiiiiiiine, just go get the bacon. amy gets up.

you say look uh i know you said not to question what youre doing but i kind of dont want a dick made of bacon, not to sound ungrateful. also did you say something about me bleeding out? riley says dont worry, if you bleed out ill put the blood back in, im a professional. you say thats not as reassuring as she thinks it is. riley says whos the doctor, mister? you say technically both of us. i have a phd in social sciences you say. she says wow, theyre just giving out doctorates for anything these days, huh? you say hey, rude. she says only teasing. you say anyway, uh, you didnt address the bacon dick thing? she says oh dont worry about it, my amys amazing, youll see.

amy comes back in with the package of bacon. do you need this in any particular shape she asks. riley says nah just give me a good amount of it. and make sure its spongy, so when he gets hard the blood can- amy cuts her off. she says dont worry, ive given you enough penises at this point that i think i know what penile tissue is like at this point. you say given her enough penises? what the hell does that mean? riley says hey, dont kinkshame! she sounds legitimately offended. you say sorry. amy pulls the bacon out of the package, holding it aloft in her left hand. you watch as the familiar look of a half-pound of bacon shifts and warps into a strange lump of fatty, spongy tissue of a waxy color. she hands it to riley. riley says thanks sis youre the best, love you! amy says no problem. riley says id kiss you if i wasnt elbow deep in this guys cunt right now. amy says kiss me after the surgerys done.

another two hours go by. the sounds of flesh being chopped, sawed, and stitched underscore riley and amys meaningless conversation about whether they HAVE to attend their acquaintance lisa’s birthday party. riley says lisa probably wouldn’t throw a birthday party if there wasn’t some sort of scheme going on. amy agrees but says that doesnt indicate whether they should get involved with the scheme or not. you wonder dimly if you will ever feel your lower body again. you wonder if this is purgatory, an endless afternoon of lesbians bickering affectionately while one of them does surgery on you. you turn your head enough to look at the clock. its 5:26pm. where the fuck did the time go?

another hour passes. riley stands up. she is soaked up to her elbow in various bodily fluids – mostly blood, but youre not looking too closely. she says finally! she says just need to regrow your nerve cells now. you say is that going to take long? she says like twenty minutes maybe as she flips you over. you say ok. she jams a different needle into the same spot, injecting a strange yellow paste into your spine. she then flips you onto your back again. you feel brave enough to finally look at your crotch.

there is a completely normal human penis of average size there. you reach a hand down and touch it. you dont have any sensation in it yet since your nerves are all still dead, but it feels warm and soft under your hands. you smile, feeling tears come to your eyes. its over.

rileys talking. she says i followed your specifications except i had to cheat a bit on the nerves, you actually didnt have very many in your clit for whatever reason so your glans has maybe eight thousand fewer nerves than you wanted, sorry about that. she says i gave you balls in your scrotum for shape but since you said you didnt want kids they dont produce sperm. let me know if you want that changed she says. she says it should be fully functional in every respect, but if you notice any erectile dysfunction, incontinence, discoloration in urine or semen, priapism, or any other issue come back and we’ll sort it out. if you notice it bleeding in ANY capacity, call me immediately. if im not answering call Amy, ill give you her number. if SHES not answering either then you can start seeing normal doctors, not that those idiots will know how to help you probably. if you want any changes to it call me and ill pencil you in to get it adjusted. get all that she asks. you nod. she says cool. she says itll be like $200, no rush if youre not able to pay right now. you say it might be a bit since youre still trying to pay interest on your student loan debt. wait, she says, they have student loans again? you nod. she says the world ended like thirty years ago, when did they set up student loans again? fuck, how much do you owe? you say a little under eighty thousand. she says jesus fuck, nevermind, its free. goddamn. you say thank you so much. she says yeah of course. do you want us to dress you or do you want to wait until you can move and do it yourself?

ADDENDUM:

by the way she says. whoever did your top surgery was a total fraud. i can see the scars. you say top surgery always leaves scars. she says not when i do it. she says do you want me to fix the scars? you say i actually kind of like the scars. she says oh. she takes a sip of her diet coke.

she says do you want me to give you more scars?


Tags:

#Wildbow #(despite never having read Worm I caught on to it being future-Bonesaw in like paragraph 2) #fanfic #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #medical cw #unsanitary cw #body horror? #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

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dailyunsolvedmysteries:

This is a metal snail (Volcano Snail) that lives on underwater volcano vents in the Indian Ocean. Its shell and scaly feet both are armoured with layers of iron, making it the only animal to incorporate iron sulfide into its skeleton.

todaysbird:

damn right. that snail is metal as hell

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/03/discovered-in-the-deep-the-snail-with-iron-armour:

In 2019, scientists worked out that the scales on the snails’ foot are not to protect against predatory attack but to avert a toxic threat that comes from within. The bacteria stashed in a scaly-foot snail’s throat release sulphur as a waste product, which is deadly to snails (it’s a common active ingredient in slug and snail-killing pellets).

The internal structure of their scales acts as tiny exhaust pipes, drawing the dangerous sulphur away from the snails’ soft tissues and depositing it as a harmless iron-based compound on the outside.


Tags:

#snails #biology #the more you know #poison cw? #body horror? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

derinthescarletpescatarian:

“X bodily fluid is just filtered blood!” buddy I hate to break it to you but ALL of the fluids in your body are filtered blood. Your circulatory system is how water gets around your body. It all comes out of the blood (or lymph, which is just filtered blood).

derinthescarletpescatarian:

“Okay but why is it always so chemically roundabout and unnecessarily complicated” well buddy, that’s because your blood is imitation seawater. See? It’s very simple.

badwificonnection:

Blood is what now?

derinthescarletpescatarian:

It’s imitation seawater what part is confusing

badwificonnection:

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derinthescarletpescatarian:

#are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums?

Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital.

Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces.

badwificonnection:

4614df65c84bd09ccffc7f765ecae6034b2d298d

Thank you that’s…very disturbing

derinthescarletpescatarian:

It’s not my fault you’re human.

apatheticshipwreck:

Ok but “It’s not my fault you’re human.” Is the best comeback ever.

derinthescarletpescatarian:

You can use it against anyone except children that you biologically helped to create.

derinthescarletpescatarian:

#/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing

Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow,” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs I can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that’s the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so I don’t explode or shrivel up) so I can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.”

“Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about I put it in tubes? I can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything I want to keep goes in my water! Anything I don’t, I dump back into the outside water! I’m a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that’s a GENIUS!”

“Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is so great. Look how big I’m getting. I even have a special pump to move my seawater around, and these cool filter systems to keep the chemicals in it right, and that control and chemical concentration has let me grow so many energy-intensive, highly specialised organs! Being big is so hard. I need special cells just to carry my oxygen around now, to make sure my enormous, constantly-operating body has enough of it.”

At this point you are embodying a fish, and eventually, fish start straying into water with different pressures and salinity levels. (I mean, they do that since befor ehty’er fish, but… look, I’m trying to keep things simple here.) “What the FUCK,” you think. “My inside water is at a different salinity and pressure to the outside water?? How am I supposed to deal with that? I can’t have freshwater inside my seawater tubes! My cells have a set salinity and they would explode! I need to start beefing up my regulatory and filter systems so that my inside seawater STAYS SEAWATER OF THE CORRECT SALINITY even if the outside water is different! Fortunately, adding salt to my seawater is a lot easier than removing it, and I want to be saltier than this weird outside water.” At this point you beef up your liver and urinary systems to compensate for different salinities. (Note: the majority of fish, freshwater and saltwater, have a fairly narrow band of salinities they can live in. Every fish doesn’t get to deal with every level of salinity; they are evolved to regulate within specific bands.)

You also, at some point, go out on land. This is new and weird because you have to carry all of your water inside. “It’s a good thing I turned myself into a giant bag of seawater,” you think. “If I wasn’t carrying my seawater inside, how would I transport all these important chemicals between my organs and the environment?” As you specialise to live entirely outside of the water, you realise (once again) that it’s a lot easier to add salt to water than to remove it in great quantities. Drinking seawater in large amounts becomes toxic; your body isn’t specialised for removing that amount of salt. Instead, you drink freshwater, and add salts to that. The majority of your organs are, at this point, specialised for moving your seawater around, protecting it, adding stuff to it, or taking stuff out. You have turned yourself into an intelligent bag for carrying and regulating a small amount of imitation seawater, and its salinity (and your commitment to maintaining that salinity) is based entirely on the seawater that some early animals started to build tubes around a long time ago.

And that’s what a human is!

elodieunderglass:

Well, there’s another few steps, of course.

Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal.

A mammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is a tremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals slosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system,

and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good-“

“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha)

“My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS,” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, I shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. I shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life – using some of my own material, of course-”

“Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!!”

And you’re like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically I’m going to take some cells and brew them up-“

“Like an egg.”

“Like an egg. An egg but internally.”

“Yeah,” said the viviparous reptile, “yeah, like, that can work really well. I’ve always said it’s the highest test of one’s chemical know-how. It’s a lot of work. And forget about support from your family – forget about support from your PHYLUM – all you get is criticism.”

“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said. “The highest chemical, thermoregulatory, immunological, everything-logical challenge. It’s gonna be my thing.”

“I’m with you,” said a viviparous fish, stoutly. “Representation.”

You kindly don’t point out, once again, that you’re planning to do this outside the ocean, in a range of temperatures; carrying the dividing cells in a perfect 37.5• solution of saline broth in all terrains, breathing oxygen in a complicated matter, you know, bit more difficult; but you need your allies.

“It’s solid,” says the coelacanth.

“But is it metal?” says the deep-vent organism.

“Oh, it’s metal. I will feed the young,” you say, magnificently, “on an echo of the mother ocean. The first rich feast of cellular matter, the first hunt for sustenance, the first bite they sip of our liquid planet-”

Everyone waits.

“Will be a blood byproduct. My own blood byproduct.”

Everyone looks uncomfortable.

“But,” a hagfish says carefully, “don’t you outdoorsy guys still need your blood?”

You cough and explain that if you stay wet enough internally and hydrate frequently, you should be able to produce enough blood byproduct to sustain your hellish new invention until they can eat your peers.

The outrage that follows includes questions like “is this some furry shit?” And: “milk has WATER in it?”

And you won the bet. “My inner ocean is such a perfect homage to the primordial soup that I can personally cook up an entire live hairy mammal in it. And then generate excess blood byproduct from my body and give it to the small mammal until it gets big.”

That is an absolutely bonkers pitch, by the way, and everyone thought you were a showoff, even before the opposable thumbs. When the winter came, and the winter of winters, and the rain was acid and the air was poison on the tender shells of their eggs and choked the children in the shells; when the plants turned to poison, and the ocean turned against you all; when the climate changed, and the world’s children fell to shadow; your internal ocean was it that held true. A bet laid against the changing fates, a bet laid by a small beast against climate and geography and the forces of outer space, that you won. The dinosaurs fell and the pterosaurs fell and the marine reptiles dwindled, and you, furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship, held hope internally at 37.5 degrees. Which is another thing that humans do, sometimes.


Tags:

#I have been wavering on whether to reblog this for several months #I am not altogether comfortable reblogging something that self-describes as‚ quote‚ ”dangerous inaccuracy” #but think of it as something more like a creation myth #storytime #biology #that one post with the thing #(…I think the 37.5 degrees bit is *trying* to evoke a post-luteal body temperature) #(but I run cold and 37.5 is *definitely* a fever) #(anyway) #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #discourse cw? #unreality cw? #body horror? #unsanitary cw?

vexwerewolf:

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What if i just posted all 26 of the Lancer mech memes I’ve made so far all at once

What if I did that


Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #Lancer #violence cw #death tw #body horror? #infohazards? #I don’t go here–in fact‚ I have never heard of Lancer before in my life–but this has some great lines #I especially love that Blackbeard description #and ”a shotgun as designed by the personified physical avatar of OSHA violations” #ooh‚ and the bit with the simple purpose of the Iskander #and more! #(the ransom-note formatting works weirdly well‚ too) #(the kind of…uneven‚ English-as-spoken-by-a-being-that-does-not-naturally-have-the-concept-of-language mental voice it evokes…) #(…like‚ I don’t think it’s *inherently* funny in itself‚ but it often augments the comedic timing)

dankmemeuniversity:

9f39036a68bd280c367cd14b73ca8e7274c1033d

Tags:

#I kept wavering on reblogging this because it feels like tempting fate #but the fact is: #that one post with the thing #(I found out yesterday that a month ago I spent two hours in a room with a maskless COVID-positive person) #(and emerged unharmed) #(God bless P100s) #(best sixty-two dollars I ever spent) #*knocks on wood* #illness tw #covid19 #transhumanism #proud citizen of The Future #body horror?

{{previous post in sequence}}


rustingbridges:

one the one hand, washing my hands after moisturizing them kinda defeats the point

on the other hand, I need to use my computer. I’m not gooping my computer

 

brin-bellway:

Three useful tactics:

1. Moisturise in tiny amounts (so that it’s pretty much all been absorbed by the time you reach your computer), making up for it in frequency.

2. Moisturise at bedtime.

3. Wear gloves over the top. (Also combines well with 2, to avoid gooping your bedding.)

 

rustingbridges:

unfortunately there is no tininess of amount that will make my fingertips not feel goopy. if somebody else wanted to rub the moisturizer into the tops of my hands it wouldn’t matter because I wouldn’t have to touch my keys with it

I am extremely weird about hand cleanliness with my stuff and basically only my stuff. I don’t care much normally but if you are using my keyboard, controller, or guitar, you gotta wash them grubby little mitts

I can rub it into the backs of my palms without using my fingertips, by rubbing them together, but I can’t really get the backs and sides of my fingers well done, which is historically a problem area

I technically can use the computer with gloves on, and I have done it in cold weather, but I feel so much less competent at typing and mousing that I really avoid it when possible

I do moisturize before going to sleep and wear gloves over it, but since I prefer to do so after I finish reading on my phone, and I’m often very sleepy by that point, it’s less than maximally reliable

the best solution to this problem is to adequately humidify my environment such that I don’t need to moisturize at all, but until I get the right quantity and quality of humidifiers sorted moisturize I must, and deal with some level of goopiness I must also

the best time slot for moisturization I’ve found for me personally is before going for a walk, as I usually wear gloves anyway and don’t use my hands much

 

brin-bellway:

>>unfortunately there is no tininess of amount that will make my fingertips not feel goopy

I do hear some brands absorb a lot slower than others, so it’s possible switching brands would help. I’m currently experimenting with Live Clean’s “intense moisture” lotion and finding it decent. (A bit of poking at Amazon suggests that Live Clean *exists* in America but might be harder to find there?)

>>I technically can use the computer with gloves on, and I have done it in cold weather, but I feel so much less competent at typing and mousing that I really avoid it when possible

Same, TBH. Apparently it works well for some people, though, and sometimes I’m desperate enough to do it myself.

>>the best solution to this problem is to adequately humidify my environment such that I don’t need to moisturize at all

I run a humidifier in my bedroom overnight, and if I’m not working food service I generally find that moisturising once a day is enough (with larger quantities in winter). But I *am* working food service, so I need to break out the big guns in order to get anywhere near keeping up.

 

brin-bellway:

Also, while we’re on the subject:

I’m not sure where it falls on the absorption-speed spectrum, but in terms of *effectiveness* the best lotion I’ve yet encountered is Beekman’s honey and orange blossom: the only one that’s ever allowed me to actually *keep up* with food-service levels of handwashing instead of just partially mitigating the damage. Horrendously expensive, though, which is why I’m still experimenting with other brands. (Probably less horrendous in America, with domestic shipping costs.)

 

rustingbridges:

yeah some brands are better than others. even very good ones by this metric are imperfect, tho, and tbh I don’t want to spend that much money on goo

if I am only washing my hands for textural reasons I can use water without soap which is much less damaging to the skin, so theoretically with good enough humidification I don’t need any moisturizer. I have achieved this level in new york, it remains to be seen if it’s possible in colder & dryer places.

Update: Aveeno oat and shea butter is *also* good enough to keep up with food-service work, while being much cheaper and *much* more readily available than Beekman. It’s so nice to have fully functional skin again.

Next I’m going to try the store-brand knockoff with a *very nearly* identical ingredient list (even cheaper and almost as readily available) and see how that goes.


Tags:

#reply via reblog #oh look an update #recs #body horror?

batmanisagatewaydrug:

still thinking a lot about how I want sci fi and fantasy to coexist in more settings… mainly cause I want a warrior girl who goes into battle on the back of a dragon but can take also take apart and upgrade said dragon because it’s a masterpiece of bio-engineering technology and she’s a brilliant mechanic in addition to being a warrior 

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

the dragons’ memories, skills, and bonds with their riders are stored in their brains, which are gemstones that grow to sizes that make them virtually priceless as the dragons grow and age. no matter how badly a dragon is wounded, if the gembrain can be saved and installed in another body its essence will live on.

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

transporting the gembrains is dangerous as hell, though. as soon as word gets out that a dragon fell, the pirate ships start descending from orbit to try and steal the brain away.

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

whomst do you sell them to, though? because obviously if the citadel that grows/builds/raises (???) the dragons catches you, they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks, and you know there’s got to be a lot of political power there as well. only those living on the edges of society would chance it – witches living on isolated moons, warlocks whose towers drift, unplottable, among the stars

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

there’s this image haunting me of a dragon under construction. it’s not a machine, and this part is vital – it’s a living thing, jewel-colored blood racing through its veins even as it hangs, suspended, with most of its body exploded for examination. its head has been opened so the brain can be recalibrated but it watches the dracomancers work with calm, intelligent eyes, bred to accept this handling as calmly as a horse to a saddle. if you stand in the right place, you could look up right into its cavernous chest and watch its beating heart.

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

and if I could circle back for a second to the far-flung warlock towers

these terrifying towers turned free-wheeling independent of any orbit. the interiors are managed by entities that tread the line between AI and household spirit – both, neither, something else altogether. they grow sharp and dangerous under their dark masters’ direction, creating ever-shifting patterns of rooms that swallow unwanted visitors alive. open the wrong door and you find yourself staring into the maw of a black hole. 

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

when the most feared warlock in the galaxy is deposed, the gallant warriors from the citadel are able at last to force their way into her tower. it comes easier than they expected, disconcertingly so, and it isn’t until they reach the tower’s heart that they understand why: the AI wanted them to come inside.

the warlock left behind a child, you see. a small boy who’s been alone in the tower, cleaned and fed and tucked into bed by the AI’s black tendrils extended from the walls, who has learned to fall asleep to lullabies sung in an eldritch approximation of a human voice.

the boy is healthy, as far as the gallants can tell, if a little skittish. he has no idea how unconventional his upbringing is. but the AI has been downloading tomes on human development, and it is very aware that it is not a sufficient caregiver. the boy needs the light of a sun, the touch of human hands, companions his own age. 

the gallants agree to bring the boy back with them. it is advantageous, they reason. if the child has inherited his mother’s prodigious talent for magic, he will need watching. perhaps he can be trained in the ways of heroism, to use his power for the good of the galaxy. and if not, well, then that venomous rose will be easily nipped in the bud.

or perhaps not. the AI wants the boy to go, yes, but not alone. it leaves behind its any shifting rooms and tendrils and instead uploads itself into an archaic suit of armor, one that will become the boy’s constant companion in the citadel to ensure he’s never mistreated. the gallants are reluctant, but on this point there is no compromise. (good negotiation tactic: wait until you’ve them in the very middle of your murder tower to make your demands.)

they go fly away on their ship, and the tower falls dormant behind them, locking itself tightly away behind a layer of perfectly smooth ebony scales. despite the best efforts of countless gallants, fortune hunters, and rival magi over the next two decades, it will remain sealed. it waits for the boy, to come home and do with his mother’s power what he will.

 

w0wls:

U should totally make this a book or comic

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

great news – I am!

 

theirrationalfan:

Me: reads
Me; h-h-ho,,,holy sh-shit

 

batmanisagatewaydrug:

this is the only feedback I ever need on my writing ever again

 

exphautaz:

this is really, really, REALLY good!

 

alarajrogers:

Is this published somewhere or being posted somewhere?


Tags:

#story ideas I will never write #dragons #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #body horror?

glumshoe:

I think if Saharan silver ants had humansonas they would look like this:

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rowan-is-a-legal-derp:

Ship this is a really unsettling thought, please put it back lol

 

glumshoe:

no it’s a good and valid thought and objectively true

 

anomalous-heretic:

I’m more disturbed by the idea of Animals having “humansonas” like a deranged furry.

 

glumshoe:

No no it’s great. Think about it. Think about which traits non-human animals might value as most attractive about themselves that they would then attempt to… zoomorphize onto their human OC’s, in the way that humans give anthropomorphized cartoon animals boobs and hourglass figures and expressive faces.

Birds seem inclined to find us pretty sexy as-is, boy I imagine they’d give their humansonas brightly-colored hair and clothing and really loud voices. Bear humansonas would just be exhuberantly fat. Salmon human sonas would be huge and swollen and lumpy. Spider humansonas would have big women with wide hips and tiny men with disproportionately huge meaty hands.

 

draconym:

So as Ship (and now everyone in my patreon discord) is well aware I have unfortunately given a great deal of thought to the topic of “how would animal artists draw humans to make them more appealing in their own eyes.” I’m using birds as my example here because I agree that birds are already inclined to find humans very sexy, so I won’t have to drastically alter our bauplan to make it pleasing for birds to look at.

First, as a jumping off point for thinking about the ways in which humans alter animals to make them more appealing to human audiences, let’s look at the art of Don Bluth. You might remember the penguins from “The Pebble and the Penguin” (1995). They’re pretty emblematic of the way Bluth draws animals in general.

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Bluth’s birds are fairly recognizable as birds, but they move and emote like humans and they have a lot of un-birdlike features that humans find important to communication: eyebrows, hands, beaks that move like mouths. Teeth. Let’s not think too much about the teeth. Humans often add these features to fursonas, but they’re not things that I expect birds would find especially necessary to retain in a humansona design.

I do think that there are a lot of things that birds would keep as-is, because as mentioned, a lot of them already seem to think pretty highly of the human look.

In my experience, the things that birds find especially attractive about humans and want to preserve or exaggerate are as follows:

Big shiny hair. Birds are really into beautiful plumage so it makes sense that hair and plumage would be analogous in their eyes. The ideal humansona would have really big, colorful hair. Anime Hair. Miyazaki hair that can move to express emotion in the same way that feathers can.

Large, expressive eyes. I think they’d like big cartoon eyeballs as much as we would. Most birds use their eyelids and/or pupils to convey emotion.

Long skinny legs. Many humans already have these and it’s definitely something birds like about us. A lot. They might want to make our legs have more avian proportions, though, which probably means much shorter femurs and comparatively longer shins.

Clothes. My parrot calls his own feathers “shirt” and I think it’s reasonable to assume that birds find clothes and plumage pretty similar. They cover our bodies, they alter our silhouette in pleasing ways, they come in many colors, and they can be removed but we both generally would prefer that this not happen in public. Clothes can stay.

Feet. Every parrot I know has a foot fetish. This might just be because human feet are roughly parrot-sized and they’re a pretty nonthreatening part of the human, but I also think birds just have a thing for feet. We can still make our humansona’s feet look a little more relatable to birds, though. Certainly they should look like they’re able to pick things up with them.

Okay, so we have a list of things to keep. What to improve upon, though?

Beakier nose. I think birds probably do find our noses pretty appealing, but they might be more relatable if they were more evocative of beaks. Make the nose big and pointy, but keep the head nice and round. Chin isn’t very important. Mouth isn’t that important for expressiveness, either, so we can de-emphasize that.

Less Scary hands. Some birds probably find hands scary looking, considering they’re one of the most dangerous parts of the human. They’re a defining feature of primates, though, so we can’t just get rid of them or turn them completely into wings–but we can make them look less like big frightening paws. Make them cuter. More friendly.

– Rounder body. A lot of humans have long, bendy torsos that move in a decidedly unbirdlike way. A humansona with a more spherical body and a more rigid spine is going to read as more birdlike, which is better.

Longer neck. Making the neck a little longer would help our humansona emote more like a bird. A goose in particular might give their humansona an absolutely rokurokubian neck.

So now that we’ve got our humansona planned out, we’ll create a character that is still recognizable as a human, but which has exaggerated features that make it more likeable to most birds: brighter colors, big expressive eyes, longer neck and legs, clothing that evokes plumage, de-emphasized hands and fingers, rounder body. The ideal form.

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Yeah. Perfect.


Tags:

#birds #art #body horror?