#&. i don't want to think about it ( past thread );

[the-fab-fox]

Okay so this has been something I've been chewing on for a long while. About making this post I mean.

This one is to those who actively ingest fanfiction but seem to think it's okay to just read free fiction that people have put time and thought and crafted prose for your enjoyment and do nothing in return.

All we ever ask for and all we ever want is for y'all to AT THE VERY LEAST hit that kudos button if you like the work. That is the BARE MINIMUM of what you SHOULD be doing. Especially all of you who say you're too nervous to comment or don't wish to be perceived. And if you don't want your account on the list, you can log out and send a guest kudos.

But as I said, BARE MINIMUM. If you loved the fic, if you got something out of it that left you feeling good and energized (or whatever angst does for y'all) then I want to take a moment and strongly urge you to comment, subscribe (if a wip), and bookmark those works. Did you know there's an option to even mark it as a Fic Recommendation? You can put notes in to and say why you liked it and things like that (DO NOT DO A RATING IN PUBLIC BOOKMARKS HOWEVER). And, you can indeed make them private! The writer still gets the number added to their stats but your bookmark we won't see.

Anyway, I now wanna turn your attention to Exhibit A:

This is a list of my best performing fics. Do you see the problem with this? The green highlights are the hits I've received for those fics. The red is the Kudos and comment threads. Now the kudos is obviously right?

Let's look at my number one fic right now, Accidentally in Love (a Malleyuu fic from Twisted Wonderland fandom). It's the seventh fic in a romance series. As you can see, it's doing great as far as hits, right? And I know it's an amazing fic from the comments I have received and just from rereading it myself. Note, I am probably the biggest bully to myself as @sunshineandteddybears and @mellosdrawings and @romantichopelessly can tell you in great detail. So when I am saying it's really damn good, you can probably trust it's gonna be pretty damn good. And yet, a fic that has 4K hits only has 119 kudos. And now to bring your attention to the comment threads. So honestly with how bad readers are on actually commenting (which by the way if you log off you can send anonymously as a guest—you'll have to put in your email address but we authors won't see that)... 107 seems pretty good right? But you guys don't see that. You see what's on the info for the story. Unfortunately, on the fic info at the top of the story, it counts every single comment (including the Author's). (The comment threads is just every single starting comment, i.e. the first comment received from each commenter.)

The thing is, I—and probably quite a few other writers—do respond to every single comment.

So that means where the info on my fic itself says 230 comments, in reality, I'm at half that when I subtract my half of the comments. So that's actually 115 comments from other people. So some people might see that 230 and think oh they got a lot of comments so I don't think they want to hear from me or I can't be fucked and they're already doing good so.

NO. NO. NO. Do not look at the numbers as a guide if a fic is good or not. Do not look at the numbers and think that we don't need or deserve to get any more. And finally WE WANT TO HEAR FROM Y'ALL.

Excuses need to stop.

Speaking of numbers. Here's my over all stats current on AO3.

In the 3 years on this AO3 account (I've had others in the past and accounts on ff.net and live journal. I'm an oldie fanfic writer lol. 21 years of fanfic. My gods. 🤣) It didn't used to be like this guys. Back in the day I'd get 12 plus comments on a chapter and this is on stuff a teenager wrote.

We have got to get back to the point of supporting each other and building each other up. Also while I'm at it, I have a huge beef with the fact that fanartists get so much more positive feedback and replies and comments, but the thing is, even their numbers are skewed. You can go into the notes of a fanart on here that has 10k notes to see they have maybe 100-1K reblogs (if that, I'm being generous) and maybe 10 or so replies (if turned on) and the rest are all likes. EVERYONE has been on here long enough by now to know that likes do nothing to get a post in the algorithm and tags only do so much. Reblogs are the only way their art (or our fanfictions for people who post them on here) gets seen! By sharing!

So y'all gotta get better. Yes, we write for ourselves first, but ultimately a story is meant to be shared with everyone and feedback should not be optional if you're actively reading the fics or viewing the art for free and enjoyed it!

TLDR:

IF YOU FUCKING LIKE A FANFIC. KUDOS AT THE VERY LEAST BUT BE BETTER. COMMENT. BOOKMARK. SUBSCRIBE IF IT'S A WIP YOU LOVE. (Like, comment and reblog if on Tumblr)

IF YOU FUCKING LIKE A FANART ON TUMBLR. COMMENT. LIKE. REBLOG.

DO BETTER AS READERS AND US WRITERS AND ARTISTS WILL GIVE YOU THE WORLD (AND MANY OTHER WORLDS TO BOOT)

That is all. Please reblog the fuck out of this if you agree.

(and tagging my current and last fandoms so this can get in fandom spaces where it needs to be.)

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Fanfiction anon again. Do you think I portrayed the dissociation aspect well enough? I don't have a lot of experience with writing in general, let alone things like that and I don't experience it myself very often so I'm not sure if I did it correctly? Does it show properly in your opinion?

I don’t have a dissociative disorder either, and it’s been awhile since I’ve heavily dissociated in that matter (used to in the past, big chunks of clear memories missing from my 20 year life span although I have a general idea of some events I suppose (and regained some memories at a later time)), but I could tell that you were describing dissociation pretty much immediately.

I’ve tried looking around for things to help writing characters with dissociative disorders (and trauma, as these things can tend to go hand and hand), and I’ve found a few things that could possibly help you if you want. I don’t know how accurate they actually are, but it’s a start:

How to Write a Character with a Dissociative Disorder when You Have a Dissociative Disorder

How to Depict Stress & Trauma by Narrating Dissociation

This Tumblr post, Writing Dissociative Characters.

How Can I Write About It if I Wasn’t There? 8 Tips for Writing About Dissociation.

Tips & suggestions in this Reddit thread. This one too.

[torgawl]

instead of just cross eyes and star eyes distinguishing dynasties in khaenri'ah, why do some khaenri'ahns cover one eye specifically? there’s many things that seem interconnected regarding the lore:

crimson moon turning around to look like an eye; irmin the one-eyed king; the unknown god’s cubes containing eyes in their design (same ones present in the cataclysm as well as the crimson moon), her glitching looking like arlecchino’s, and the four pointed star pattern that appeared when she showed up to the twins; forbidden knowledge and nibelung’s influence; fischl's auge der verurteilung aka eye of condemnation (crimson eye) and her skin's description "o holiest of sovereigns, high princess of immernachtreich (kingdom of evernight)!".

kaeya's note about the alberich saying "i saved this one memento from the fire 'father' made while he wasn’t paying attention. this was in violation of our principles. our clan's affairs should never be recorded" and "though we could not restore khaenri'ah to life, we of the alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers [small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire]", father being in quotation marks and references to fire and ashes; the orphanage in khaenri'ah that wanted to house children from destroyed worlds and non-threats that leaked into the kingdom, in hopes of finding beings from beyond the sky who could transcend the gods; perinheri's first memory being transversing something like a chimney, filled with ash and being asked if he wasn't dead just for him to see the eye (crimson moon) and being told he was reborn; dust and the blood of of dragons (or dragon-like beings like durin and elynas) being connected to rhinedottir and the art of khemia; fire as rebirth and life but also, the balemoon blood specifically being connected to loss of memories and loss of memory being equivalent to death (not physical);  despite the orphanage never being able to find that transcendal person, it had many unusual individuals who became knights of the kingdom.

irmin as the first divine halberd (that once pierced the axis mundi [cosmic/world axis, world pillar, center of the world, world tree, etc.] and connected the nine worlds), the prinzessin der verurteilungas (fischl) as the last one; fischl and kaeya comparing themselves to one another and their parallels to irmin and odin; der ring des nibelungen, in which the dwarf (or nibelung) alberich creates a ring capable of controlling the world, using gold he stole from the rhinemaidens (or rheintöchter "rhine-daughters"). the conflict that arises over the ownership of this ring eventually leads to the destruction of the gods and their home, valhalla.

irminsul (irmin + sul) meaning great pillar and being a reference to the yggdrasil, the tree that supports the universe; the description of the item silver twig – collected in the center of the world - talking about a sage that hanged himself upside down in the irminsul tree to gain knowledge of the runes and the cosmos, then going into a secret kingdom down its roots [also a reference to hanged man in tarot that symbolizes wisdom, divination, sacrifice, prophecy, etc.]; odin who hung himself upside down from the sacred world tree, yggdrasil, for nine days and nights sacrificing his eye and throwing himself on his spear (gungir) as a ritual sacrifice in order to obtain secret wisdom; memories, fire and crimson moon hand in hand with the irminsul, king irmin and the concept of fate; the fake sky, the stars and being able to see fate but also fate being a means of the heavenly principles to control the world (neuvillette calling it puppet strings); khaenri'ah, a supposed godless nation but the crimson moon dynasty revering the moon (and hilichurls worshiping istaroth); the crimson moon having an eye on humanity and always being present associated with punishment and destruction (fall of gurabad, remuria and the catclysm).

crimson moon's semblance (arlecchino’s weapon) implying the crimson moon sought vengeance (“few survived the utter destruction of their kind, hiding in the shadows where the sun did not shine, longing for the crimson moon to decree their desire for vengeance be repaid”); the design of the weapon and arlecchino’s boss attacks resembling the double helix present in deathly statuette material dropped by abyss heralds, abyss lectors and shadowy husks, which has a single red eye. it apparently whispers "see, my child. all that lies under the throne of heaven shall be destroyed by upheaval. the eternal peace of the pitch-dark void shall embrace us all.” as you gaze at it.

the abyss order being founded by chlothar alberich and pierro being the first harbinger; the "sinner" – the crystal in chains from the chasm, protected by an abyss herald - not being a god but still worshipped by the abyss order. the voice stating to chlothar and the traveler’s twin that he "[knows their] fate well" and urged them to become a "transcendent one" saying he would "shed a tear at the end of time... as i gaze back upon your life". he also imbued chlothar with the power of the abyss, which alleviated his worsening conditions. the “sinner” refered to chlothar as “dear creature”; dainsleif, pierro and kaeya being examples of khaenriahns who hide their right eye; dainsleif being called “bough keeper”, bough is a branch of a tree, but also his constellation being a snake ring like ouroboros – representing the eternal renewal cycle of life, death and rebirth; the loom of fate being an operation of the abyss order first encountered during "a herald without adherents" quest.

“the threads of your fate lie in my hands” a quote by fischl connecting to the weaves of fate; fischl stating that if she does not obtain the divine halberd “...this world and everything in it is going to burn in hellfire” (legend of the shattered halberd vol. ii). some other excerpts of the book also include: “but unbeknownst to him, this was the greatest cursed sword of all, that had once burned the entire world to cinders: laevatain [in norse mythology, a weapon crafted by loki and the only capable of defeating the cockerel viðofnir, inhabiting the top of yggdrasil], the sword had extinguished after the world was burned, but... it burned bright once more. ‘the whole world... destroyed again...’ weiyang [fischl] fell unconscious as she spoke” (vol. iv), and, "the world is beyond repair. it shall be born anew from the ashes of the last” (vol. vi); dainsleif saying “none will escape the flames. see for yourself” but also neuvillette’s character story including “the puppet strings glossed as "divine rules" would one day be burned away by the fires of judgment” when talking about constellations; burning away the old world, project stuzha by the fatui and the image of dottore burning the irminsul; nahida saying fontaine's prophecy was engraved in the irminsul, implying the tree also contains the history of the future; sibylla, a prophetess who guarded the irminsul in an ancient city located in what later became the high seas (referred to as abyssal depths). she sacrificed her life for the sake of creating phobos, remus' grand symphony, but her lack of a will ultimately caused the project to fail, as her vague desire to "grant happiness to all in the world who are called humans" caused phobos to attempt to satisfy everyone's desires — including destructive and selfish ones — and set remuria towards the course of its self-destruction (possibly tying concepts of will and fate together); thinking of dottore's plan, it would make sense to burn the tree that holds memories with a fire able to erase them (arlecchino's balemoon powers) so that the world can be born anew breaking away from the shackles of fate.

there’s also the improvisation kaeya does during the play in his hangouts. "do you believe in fate? if fate decreed your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do?". he then throws a prop and we interact, choosing if we would face our fate bravely or challenge it and rise above it. kaeya then goes on saying "then so must it be! yes, so must it be! i shall discard this intaglio and rid myself of the shackles of fate", "fate means to send the machinations of war to every corner of the land to fan the flames of conflict till they ungulf the entire world… fate would see my sword tainted with the blood of innocents, that the bright banner of my homeland might fly in every nation known to mankind. but i shall not bow to the will of fate i am no pawn in heaven’s plan. i, qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, 'till i breathe my last in a place far from home" and finishes the play with "but i must walk this path, or freedom dies by my hand. goodbye, my tribe and kin. farewell, sweet land of my birth". the prop we get from kaeya, the intaglio, symbolizes the noble origins of prince qubad in the play and the blood-red jewel (blood, red... funny, uh?) is said to be a crystallization of the question kaeya asked us about destiny. furthermore, an intaglio can be a type of engraved gem or metal signet ring.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Ikkaku's Scars Headcanon

Not sure if I've ever made an official headcanon about it, but Ikkaku has several scars. They're faint and well-healed thanks to Law's medical skills, but they are visible if you look closely. There are two sets of scars that are the most significant/memorable:

The ones on her back are from when she was captured and tortured by some of Joker's henchmen. Law and the Hearts thankfully rescued her, and after much healing, she was able to get a new narwhal tattoo (the old one got ruined by the lashings) to cover the ones on the right side of her back. She's not ashamed of these scars and will tell anyone who asks about how her amazing captain saved her and fixed her up, and they're a sign she survived a hellish ordeal.

The other most notable scar is on her left side, just under her breast. She got it from her oldest brother, Commodore Ushi of the Marines. It was during the time when Law was a shichibukai, so the Hearts were supposed to be under the World Government's protection. Instead, Ushi decided to gain the Celestial Dragons' favor by capturing and returning Jean Bart to Saint Rosward, and Ikkaku fought him to protect her crewmate. She got stabbed in the side for her troubles. Ikkaku nearly bled out and Law had to replace her spleen and left kidney. She doesn't like to talk about this scar as much, as she feels guilty about the circumstances and how Jean Bart could have been sold back into slavery because of her fucked up family feud. This scar is not covered by any tattoos, however, and is more visible than most others as it's the freshest.

[ruinakete]

A small letter could be find at the threshold of her rooms: it was finely decorated with handmade purplish flowers, with a very quirky drawing of what it seemed like a lizard-like creature - seemingly a wyvern - and at the center of the paper, a brief text written in a hasty calligraphy, almost as if she was in a hurry or as if she was very tense in writing this. The text was the following:

《 The glance you gave me that evening was fulminating: I was raptured by your words and your attention for the most amazing creatures among all animals - wyverns. You are like one of them: alluring, fleeting and majestic. 》

On the back of the letter, a signature; the Red Dragoon Knight [ wanted to send it as anonymous, but I couldn't ; v ; ]

NEVER HAD MAGE DRAGON ENTERED HER DEN WITH CAUTION, at least, not with the degree she held now; standing at the threshold with an unwavering, bland gaze, accentuated with emotion only by the arch of a brow. it could not be a student. there was a specific box she had set up outside her office for letters from students, as most were pity stories to twist at her heart until she lessened the strict drop of their grade; in which, none worked, and the repeated offers ceased whatever patience she held towards her pupils.

so, if not a student━━━or at least, a student who followed her manner of organization━━━then a fellow instructor or sister / brother of the church. possibly. most likely. she would have to waste away her time actually giving the letter her time of day. unfortunate but the promise of frequent downtime had not been in the admittance papers so she ought to not complain.

poised claws raise the letter to her face, lips pursed and throat humming a low grumble; the barest of factors announcing her minimal curiosity. on instinct, zephia's gaze had followed the spaces of the paper, singling out the presses of ink and their curved letters before registering the intricate, yet amusingly quirky decor of flowers and wyverns.

the letter was read in seconds.

the mage dragon's skin reddened after a minute.

she sighed, turning over the paper to divert her attention unto anything else━━━if not the signature placed carefully there. sangria eyes narrowed and her lips twitched into the beginnings of a grimace, a curt disgust so glaringly opposed to the abnormal heat rising to her neck and ears.

that evening? how utterly vague. she spoke to plenty this past week, not to exclude the many others who sought her out at different periods of the day.

You are like one of them: alluring, fleeting, and majestic.

as if she was not one of the closest beings to a pure-blooded wyvern!

the door to her room was slammed shut by her hand, given hardly a glance as zephia gripped onto the letter, half a mind to toss it into a fire. away and gone, it would be! but that only meant evidence of the stranger's advance would be destroyed... no, that wouldn't do. instead, after a trained breath, mage dragon carefully folded the letter and set it on her desk. though the stranger had an acute taste and a highly respectable eye for wyverns, their worship of her would be best in person rather than through ink.

another sigh. she turned from her desk, rubbing at her temple, "lord sombron, give me strength. to be fooled by a glance yet cower behind words... tsk."

[kuoddo]

Today will be the day that I will muster up my courage and draw someth- oh hey look the final Sonic Prime episodes dropped!

[sternbilder]

ok so today I had one of the most fascinating and enlightening discussions maybe of my life and I need to share bc it blew my MIND (warning: long)

here's the context. there is a friend I have. they are a pretty good friend of mine that I've known for many years now and I appreciate them as a person very much. lately I have noticed that they've been texting me fairly frequently. which, from my point of view, is once every couple of days. not because they had something specific to say, but just saying hello or asking how my day was.

I'm sure this was well-intentioned, but this was starting to get a tiny bit grating for me. we just met up in person literally two days ago! and you had texted me not long before that, too! nothing new has happened since then! my day has been quite boring, actually! I thought, in my mind, as I swiped away the notification—and immediately felt like an awful friend.

I knew from past experience that responding to the message would invite an immediate and not easily escapable conversation that, due to my poor multitasking skills, would distract me from work or require me to context switch away from whatever else it was I was doing at the moment—cooking, doing chores, watching TV—and worse, amount to little more than idle chit-chat about the same boring quotidian complaints as usual. I am not one of those people who thinks they're above small talk or don't see its social value, but I found myself thinking, am I the one who is being not normal here in not enjoying having this specific kind of interaction MULTIPLE times a week with the SAME person?

so recently, I've been finding myself routinely avoiding opening this particular friend's messages for fear of hurting their feelings if they saw that I had left them on read for a prolonged period of time. I had even gone so far as to avoid posting in a group chat in which we're both participants so that they don't realize that I have, in fact, been online, just not responding to them, specifically. my hope was that after enough slow responses, this friend would eventually get the hint and give up on trying to maintain a steady steam of conversation, but somehow this has not worked so far.

this was starting to weigh on my conscience. I realized that I will have to eventually fight my conflict-avoidant tendencies and just confront this friend directly, for the sake of both my sanity and our friendship. but how to do this gently? tactfully? without implying that I don't value their friendship or that I perceive them as needy or annoying? that was the tricky question. because I know that my friend isn't doing anything wrong! if anything it is probably me that is weird and antisocial and I probably just need to work on my social skills!

but not wanting to feel like a total asshole and hoping to go in with an informed and reasonable mindset (knowing full well that my understanding of social norms isn't always the keenest), I asked a different group chat for their opinion, hoping to gain some perspective on what boundaries they generally considered normal and acceptable to exercise. I phrased my question thusly:

how many friends* would you say you have where you text on a regular basis (say, multiple times a week) 1:1 just to say hi, about nothing in particular *explicitly a friend, not a family member or SO

y'all. the responses were eye-opening.

there were four people who participated in this discussion, all four of whom were in different camps and had wildly different experiences:

0, and assumed most others were the same

0, but assumed most others were not the same

multiple, and assumed most others were the same

multiple, but assumed most others were not the same

1 was me; in retrospect, I am realizing that because I had assumed that these kinds of interactions were not typical, I had interpreted my friend's gesture as something much more significant than it probably was in their mind, which is to say something that they just happen to do with everyone they know and like—which created a sort of pressure in my mind not to let them down and caused a sense of intense anxiety when I found myself struggling to reciprocate. I am absolutely floored at the revelation that it is apparently normal and common for people to have MULTIPLE friends (not even partners!!! or family!!!) that they are talking to on a constant ongoing basis at any given time, and at the possibility that I was treating my friend's feelings with kid gloves when it REALLY wasn't that hashtag deep for them.

2 clarified that they never initiate these kinds of chats, but when others initiate with them, they're fairly comfortable with simply letting these kinds of pings go unanswered, assuming the other person will just move on to someone else without taking it personally.

3 confessed to me that they once tried to do something similar with me, and eventually gave up, but had felt a bit hurt and rejected at my lack of enthusiasm, because they assumed that I was doing this with other people, just not them specifically. they sympathized very strongly with my friend.

4 also recalled that they had at one point tried something similar with me, but sort of got that I wasn't one of those people who would be receptive to this style of communication and wasn't particularly bothered by this, agreeing with 2 that the expectation is not that the recipient HAS to respond, and that my friend should probably pay closer attention to the face-saving social cues I was sending by not responding or responding slowly.

but yeah, the takeaway from this conversation is that people's preferences and experiences and expectations when it comes to digital communication are WILDLY varied, and because both communication technology and the social conventions surrounding them are changing CONSTANTLY (just a few examples: are read receipts good or bad? what about typing indicators? online status? are emoji reacts or gifs/stickers an acceptable substitute for an actual reply? group chats vs. 1:1 DMs? synchronicity and formality of various communication methods like email and chat and video? are phone calls are still socially acceptable?) there are either no agreed-on norms or different camps of people have vastly different understandings of what the norms are

among the other highlights/a-ha moments of this discussion:

Friend 4 asked another friend who is even MORE extraverted than they are what their # was and they reported somewhere in the ballpark of 20-40 people in any given week which is absolutely buckwild to me (importantly, all four of us in the original group happen to be software engineers, a class of people notorious for their lack of sociability, so I have no confidence that I have captured a representative sample size even within this particular group—the numbers both 3 and 4 gave were still both in the single digits, though they are definitely the warmest and friendliest of the bunch)

I realized that one difference between me and 3/4 was that we fulfill our social needs quite differently? specifically, I mostly connect with friends over group chats, of which I have a handful that are quite chatty and at least one or two that I'm actively posting in on any given day. I also typically have at least one, often multiple, real-life social plans every week! I am, in fact, very satisfied with my social life, to the point where it is almost maxing out my social quota (especially recently now that I've started dating someone)! but anyway—I find group chats to be my ideal form of day-to-day communication because there's less urgency and pressure for any individual person to contribute if they're not feeling up for it, and ALSO in the case of group chats where at least one member is a straight man (which is the majority of them for me, and I call out straight men only because they are the only demographic I have historically had this issue with) there is less room for platonic interactions to be undesirably misinterpreted as romantic

3/4 expressed that they prefer 1:1 conversations because they feel more personal and they can be more vulnerable about sensitive topics, which I would generally agree with—though in several of my group chats, I personally do feel comfortable enough with all the members to share things about myself with the entire group just by virtue of having known everyone for a long time and having built group camaraderie, but they seemed to not be comfortable with this without having previously established a consistent 1:1 pattern of day-to-day communication (or maybe they meant they were uncomfortable with the group forum itself, even if they were cool with sharing with everyone individually)?

they also expressed that for them, frequent unsolicited checkins and 1:1 attention from a friend would feel exciting/flattering/validating for them, whereas for me it would feel overwhelming, especially if we weren't THAT close

I do use 1:1 DMs also, but for a very different set of use cases: 1) if I haven't caught up with someone in a while (read: weeks or months), in which case we'll often just not text super long and make plans to call or meet in person instead, or 2) if I have something specific to say, like "here's this meme/song/piece of news I think you'd like to see" or "I need advice on X" or "guess what happened that made me think of you" or "I heard X happened, are you OK?"

I found that whereas I have a very clear distinction between communication preferences with a friend (someone I talk to on a regular basis but don't have a constant line of individual communication with) vs. a significant other (more or less willing to do this, unless they preferred not to), such a boundary between a platonic and romantic relationship does NOT exist for all people which boggled my mind

but yes anyway. I am learning so much about the way people view socializing in the digital age and I am so curious to know more and I kind of wish more people talked about this more openly (specifically among friends! because in my experience this is something that is fairly common to sort out explicitly in a romantic context) because I think this is probably the kind of thing that no one talks about because people are either afraid of potentially hurting feelings or everyone is just kind of assuming by default that their takes are universal without realizing that no actually, many people have strong opinions on this that are the polar opposite of theirs

but my gut feeling is that there is a lot of completely unnecessary friction that could just be resolved if only we could agree that it's cool to be more upfront about what our communication preferences are without worrying about that being taken extremely personally by the other party? bc idk, every single person I talked to about this today was like holy shit this was a whole fucking revelation actually, I can't believe I hadn't thought about this before thank you for bringing this up

[thetruthof]

So? It didn't even bother him he's totally fine he doesn't even think about it anymore what are you talking about he's completely over it and he's fine now it didn't even affect him he barely remembers it anymore it's such a blip he doesn't even care he's fine-

It will never not be funny how aa1 phoenix is like

The most tragic event of my life was when I was 7 and people thought i stole someones pocket money 😭

And in trials and tribulations he is like

Yea so my ex tried to kill me once in collage

[soaps-mohawk]

Summary: Task Force 141 operates successfully without an omega, at least that’s what Price has been saying since its formation. Two alphas and two betas balance the pack just fine, and they have the numbers to prove it.

It works for a while, until the Omega Initiative is born and the 141 find themselves having to adjust to the sudden addition of an omega to their pack. Fresh out of an institute, you’re hardly fit for their secretive, dangerous world, or so Price thinks. 

As each member of the team gets closer to you, things begin to come to light, not only about you but about the decision to force you into their lives.

Maybe, just maybe, Price was wrong and the 141 does need an omega after all. 

Pairings: Poly 141 x reader, Price x Gaz, Ghost x Soap

Warnings: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, NSFW content, explicit smut, fingering, oral (m and f receiving), knotting, biting, claiming, mating cycles, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, age differences, military inaccuracies, canon typical violence, blood, weapons, language, no use of Y/N, brief torture, hurt/comfort, let's be real this is so unrealistic but it's a/b/o you're not here for accuracy.

Chapters containing smut are marked with a *

Updates are posted on the weekends, either Saturday or Sunday PST

This fic can also be found on my Ao3 -> HERE

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**This fic is currently in progress**

NAVIGATION PAGE

CRCB DIRECTORY

Part 1 - The Omega

Chapter 1 - The Introduction

Chapter 2 - Adjustments

Chapter 3 - Speak Their Language

Chapter 4 - You Can Be Useful

Chapter 5 - What I Want *

Part 2 - The Bond

Chapter 6 - One Step Closer *

Chapter 7 - Sweet Strawberry

Chapter 8 - The Thing About Ghost

Chapter 9 - Save Me

Chapter 10 - Treat Me Gently*

Part 3 - The First Heat

Chapter 11 - It's Coming

Chapter 12 - Fire In My Veins*

Chapter 13 - Piece Me Back Together*

Chapter 14 - The Aftermath*

Part 4 - The New Normal

Chapter 15: Bonnie*

Chapter 16: Big Brown Eyes *

Chapter 17: Alone

Chapter 18: Don't Let Me Go

Chapter 19: Daddy Issues

Chapter 20: The New Normal *

Chapter 21: Crime and Punishment *

Chapter 22: I Won't Be Gentle

Part 5 - A Pack of Five

Chapter 23: Regrets

Chapter 24: The Last First Time *

Chapter 25: Animals *

Chapter 26: Fuck *

Chapter 27: Drown In It *

Chapter 28: Two Is Company, Three Is A Party *

Chapter 29: There's Something Wrong With My Omega

Part 6 - The Tragedy

Chapter 30: Butterfly's Wings

Chapter 31: Forced Proximity

Chapter 32: The Tragedy

Chapter 33: Ghosts of the Past

Chapter 34: The Whole Truth

Part 7 - The Aftermath

Chapter 35: Threads

Chapter 36: To The Sea

Chapter 37: The Silence

Chapter 38: Shattered

Chapter 39: Life

Part 8 - The Next Chapter

Chapter 40 - Where Do We Go From Here

Chapter 41 - Revenge

Chapter 42: Comfort and Joy

Title card made by the beautiful @141wh0re

[jadevine]

Preindustrial travel, and long explanations on why different distances are like that

Update March 1, 2024: Hey there folks, here's yet another update! I reposted Part 2a (the "medieval warhorses" tangent) to my writing blog, and I went down MORE of the horse-knowledge rabbit hole! https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/741423906984951808/my-post-got-cut-off-so-i-added-the-rest-of-it Update Jan 30, 2024: Hey folks, I've posted the updated version of this post on my blog, so I don't have to keep frantically telling everyone "hey, that's the old version of this post!" https://thebalangay.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/preindustrial-travel-times-part-1/

I should get the posts about army travel times and camp followers reformatted and posted to my blog around the end of the week, so I'll filter through my extremely tangled thread for them.

Part 2 - Preindustrial ARMY travel times: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask

Part 2a - How realistic warhorses look and act, because the myth of "all knights were mounted on huge clunky draft horses" just refuses to die: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/732043691180605440/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember

Part 3 - Additional note about camp followers being regular workers AND sex-workers: https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/740604203134828544/reblogging-the-time-looped-version-of-my

--

I saw a post on my main blog about how hiking groups need to keep pace with their slowest member, but many hikers mistakenly think that the point of hiking is "get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible" instead of "spending time outdoors in nature with friends," and then they complain that a new/less-experienced/sick/disabled hiker is spoiling their time-frame by constantly needing breaks, or huffing and puffing to catch up.

I run into a related question of "how long does it take to travel from Point A to Point B on horseback?" a lot, as a fantasy writer who wants to be SEMI-realistic; in the Western world at least, our post-industrial minds have largely forgotten what it's like to travel, both on our own feet and in groups.

People ask the new writer, "well, who in your cast is traveling? Is getting to Point B an emergency or not? What time of year is it?", and the newbies often get confused as to why they need so much information for "travel times." Maybe new writers see lists of "preindustrial travel times" like a primitive version of Google Maps, where all you need to do is plug in Point A and Point B.

But see, Google Maps DOES account for traveling delays, like different routes, constructions, accidents, and weather; you as the person will also need to figure in whether you're driving a car versus taking a bus/train, and so you'll need to figure out parking time or waiting time for the bus/train to actually GET THERE.

The difference between us and preindustrial travelers is that 1) we can outsource the calculations now, 2) we often travel for FUN instead of necessity.

The general rule of thumb for preindustrial times is that a healthy and prime-aged adult on foot, or a rider/horse pair of fit and prime-aged adults, can usually make 20-30 miles per day, in fair weather and on good terrain.

Why is this so specific? Because not everyone in preindustrial times was fit, not everyone was healthy, not everyone was between the ages of 20-35ish, and not everyone had nice clear skies and good terrain to travel on.

If you are too far below 18 years old or too far past 40, at best you will need either a slower pace or more frequent breaks to cover the same distance, and at worst you'll cut the travel distance in half to 10 or so miles. Too much walking is VERY BAD on too-young/old knees, and teenagers or very short adults may just have short legs even if they're fine with 8-10 hours of actual walking. Young children may get sick of walking and pitch a fit because THEY'RE TIREDDDDDDDDDD, and then you might need to stay put while they cry it out, or an adult may sigh and haul them over their shoulder (and therefore be weighed down by about 50lbs of Angry Child).

Heavy forests, wetlands and rocky hills/mountains are also going to be a much shorter "distance" per day. For forests or wetlands, you have to account for a lot of villagers going "who's gonna cut down acres of trees for one road? NOT ME," or "who's gonna drain acres of swamp for one road? NOT ME." Mountainous regions have their traveling time eaten by going UP, or finding a safer path that goes AROUND, so by the time you're done slogging through drier patches of wetlands or squeezing through trees, a deceptively short 10-15 miles in rough terrain might take you a whole day to walk instead of the usual half-day.

If you are traveling in freezing winters or during a rainstorm (and this inherently means you HAVE NO CHOICE, because nobody in preindustrial times would travel in bad weather if they could help it), you run the high risk of losing your way and then dying of exposure or slipping and breaking your neck, just a few miles out of the town/village.

Traveling in TOO-HOT weather is just as bad, because pushing yourself too hard and getting dehydrated at noon in the tropics will literally kill you. It's called heat-STROKE, not "heat-PARTY."

And now for the upper range of "traveling on horseback!"

Fully mounted groups can usually make 30-40 miles per day between Point A and Point B, but I find there are two unspoken requirements: "Point B must have enough food for all those people and horses," and "the mounted party DOESN'T need to keep pace with foot soldiers, camp followers, or supply wagons."

This means your mounted party would be traveling to 1) a rendezvous point like an ally's camp or a noble's castle, or 2) a town/city with plenty of inns. Maybe they're not literally going 30-40 miles in one trip, but they're scouting the area for 15-20 miles and then returning to their main group. Perhaps they'd be going to an allied village, but even a relatively small group of 10-20 warhorses will need 10-20 pounds of grain EACH and 20-30 pounds of hay EACH. 100-400 pounds of grain and 200-600 pounds of hay for the horses alone means that you need to stash supplies at the village beforehand, or the village needs to be a very large/prosperous one to have a guaranteed large surplus of food.

A dead sprint of 50-60 miles per day is possible for a preindustrial mounted pair, IF YOU REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO. Moreover, that is for ONE day. Many articles agree that 40 miles per day is already a hard ride, so 50-60 miles is REALLY pushing the envelope on horse and rider limits.

NOTE: While modern-day endurance rides routinely go for 50-100 miles in one day, remember that a preindustrial rider will not have the medical/logistical support that a modern endurance rider and their horse does.

If you say "they went fifty miles in a day" in most preindustrial times, the horse and rider's bodies will get wrecked. Either the person, their horse, or both, risk dying of exhaustion or getting disabled from the strain.

Whether you and your horse are fit enough to handle it and "only" have several days of defenselessness from severe pain/fatigue (and thus rely on family/friends to help you out), or you die as a heroic sacrifice, or you aren't QUITE fit enough and become disabled, or you get flat-out saved by magic or another rider who volunteers to go the other half, going past 40 miles in a day is a "Gondor Calls For Aid" level of emergency.

As a writer, I feel this kind of feat should be placed VERY carefully in a story: Either at the beginning to kick the plot off, at the climax to turn the tide, or at the end.

Preindustrial people were people--some treated their horses as tools/vehicles, and didn't care if they were killed or disabled by pushing them to their limits, but others very much cared for their horses. They needed to keep them in working condition for about 15-20 years, and they would not dream of doing this without a VERY good reason.

—

UPDATE January 13: Several people have gotten curious and looked at maps, to find out how a lot of cities are indeed spread out at a nice distance of 20-30 miles apart! I love getting people interested in my hyperfixations, lol.

But remember that this is the space between CITIES AND TOWNS. There should never be a 20-mile stretch of empty wilderness between City A and Town B, unless your world explains why folks are able to build a city in the middle of nowhere, or if something has specifically gone wrong to wipe out its supporting villages!

Period pieces often portray a shining city rising from a sea of picturesque empty land, without a single grain field or cow pasture in sight, but that city would starve to death very quickly in preindustrial times.

Why? Because as Bret Devereaux mentions in his “Lonely Cities” article (https://acoup.blog/2019/07/12/collections-the-lonely-city-part-i-the-ideal-city/), preindustrial cities and towns must have nearby villages (and even smaller towns, if large and prosperous enough!) to grow their food for them.

The settlements around a city will usually be scattered a few miles apart from each other, usually clustered along the roads to the city gates. Those villages and towns at the halfway point between cities (say 10-15 miles) are going to be essential stops for older/sick folks, merchants with cargo, and large groups like noble’s retinues and army forces.

Preindustrial armies and large noble retinues usually can’t make it far past 10-12 miles per day, as denoted in my addition to this post. (https://www.tumblr.com/jadevine/739342239113871360/now-for-a-key-aspect-that-many-people-often-ask )

[voyter]

CRIMINAL ! ... halloween special

pairing. jeon jungkook x fem!reader

your boyfriend ends up loving your costume idea for the two of you more than he initially lets on.

word count. 5.4k words warnings. jk and oc have matching costumes. vmin being the kings of halloween parties. slight crack. smut. roleplay dynamics. light bondage (handcuffs). oral (fem!receiving). handjob. unprotected sex (be safe girlies). switch!jungkook. switch!reader.

ana's notes. happy (late) halloween !!! this was originally supposed to be posted on the 30th but it wasnt finished .. so i was going to post it on actual halloween day but i got busy LMFAO IM A MESS !!! initially i wanted to do a kinktober but my ass couldnt even keep up with this so AINT NO WAYYY LMFAO IDK HOW YALL DO IT. BUT DONT FEAR ITS HERE NOW !! i had sm fun writing this, hope you love it as much as i do !! keep your comments positive or say nothing at all xx

For the past three years, Jimin and Taehyung have hosted their annual Halloween party. It's the one event they take seriously, spending hours planning the perfect invite list, décor, and food. Friends and acquaintances eagerly anticipate the night, knowing it'll be full of unforgettable moments, laughter, and chaos. Jimin and Taehyung always go all out, making their Halloween gathering the event of the season.

You and Jungkook have a tradition of matching costumes. The first year, you went as Harley Quinn, and Jungkook went as the Joker. That one's still one of your favorites — especially with Jungkook's green hair and tatted up face. He looked so good that night. The second year, you went for something bloodier: you, a sexy victim, and Jungkook as Ghostface. It was thrilling, especially when he made the night even better by fucking you with the mask still on. By the third year, you went classic as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Jungkook couldn't take his eyes off your tits spilling out of your corset. This year, you decided to skip the fictional characters and go with something a little simpler — but still hot. You were dressed as a cop, or rather, a slutty cop, and Jungkook was the prisoner.

"Don't you think this is a little basic?"

“Do you know how many people I’ve seen at these parties dressed as vampires and cats?” you retort, adjusting your costume and checking yourself out in the mirror. “Trust me, baby, no one cares.”

Jungkook, clad in an orange jumpsuit, glares at you through the mirror. "I just hate orange," he says monotonously.

You turn around and face him, giving him a smirk. "You'll survive. Besides, you make anything look good."

He smirks, leaning down to capture your lips in a heated kiss. Your arms snake around his neck, fingers threading through the hair at his nape. His hands roam from your waist to your ass, squeezing the soft flesh in his large palms, pulling you closer. But just as things start to heat up, you push him back with a playful grin.

"Not now," you say, breathlessly. "We have to be there in a few."

Jungkook huffs in frustration, but doesn't argue. And even though he's not thrilled about his costume, the way his gaze darkens tells you he's already imagining what's to come later tonight. He knows he'll get you out of that outfit later. 

When you and Jungkook walk into the party, it’s all familiar faces. Laughter and cheers erupt the moment they spot you two, with Jungkook’s arms handcuffed behind his back, the bright orange of his jumpsuit standing out in the crowd. You guide him confidently by gripping his arm, playing the role of the stern cop escorting her prisoner.

Jungkook looks equal parts annoyed and amused, his usual cocky attitude momentarily restrained by the handcuffs, though the way his lips twitch hints at his playful frustration. The room seems to buzz with energy as people start teasing him the moment you step through the door.

“No fucking way you agreed to this!” Jimin exclaims, eyes wide in disbelief as he takes in the sight of Jungkook in handcuffs. Without missing a beat, he grabs the camera hanging around his neck, the polaroid already set and ready to capture every costume of the night. “Oh, I have to take a picture of this. Tae, hold my drink!”

Without waiting for a response, Jimin thrusts his red solo cup into Taehyung’s chest, some of the liquid sloshing out and soaking into Taehyung’s blazer. Tae rolls his eyes but doesn’t complain, knowing this is typical Jimin behavior.

Jimin hurriedly pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and pulls out the polaroid camera, eyes gleaming with excitement as he positions himself in front of you. You smirk, grabbing your belt, keeping your expression serious like a true cop on duty. Jungkook plays along, tilting his head to the side with a playful pout, his lips pursed like he’s posing for a dramatic mugshot.

With a click, the camera flashes, capturing the moment perfectly. A second later, the familiar buzz of the camera sounds as the polaroid slowly rises from the slot at the top. Jimin pulls the photo out, shaking it lightly as the image begins to develop.

“Had no choice,” Jungkook grumbles. “Whatever girlfriend wants, girlfriend gets.”

Taehyung laughs, shaking his head. “Bro, you’re so fucking whipped,” he teases.

“Fuck off,” Jungkook mutters, though he can’t hide the small smile tugging at his lips. “What are you two supposed to be, anyway?”

Jimin looks genuinely offended at the question, pulling his sunglasses back down over his eyes as if that alone should make it obvious. “Hello? Men in Black!”

He points his plastic gun at Jungkook. Beside him, Taehyung pulls out a shiny MIB card.

“Aw, I was really hoping you two would take my advice and go as Dumb and Dumber,” you pout, crossing your arms dramatically.

Jimin and Taehyung exchange offended looks, grimacing at your suggestion.

Jimin puts his plastic gun back in its holster with a flourish, shaking his head. “Respectfully, fuck you,” he replies, a teasing glint in his eyes.

You playfully lift a hand as if to strike him, your expression mock serious. Just then, more people start to stream into the home, their laughter and chatter filling the air.

“Well, since we are so extremely popular, we’ll meet back up with you guys soon.” Jimin says, turning to Taehyung, “We’ve got more people to greet.”

“Don’t get freaky in any of the bedrooms! I swear on my life I will kill you both,” Taehyung exclaims, shooting a warning glance over his shoulder as he follows Jimin into the crowd.

You roll your eyes, amusement dancing in your gaze.

"Alright, baby, can you take the handcuffs off now, please?" Jungkook whines, eyebrows knitting in genuine discomfort. "My arms are starting to hurt in this position."

"Keep begging like that, maybe I will," you tease, enjoying the playful power dynamic between you two.

Jungkook smirks, leaning in closer to amp up the charm. "Oh, please, officer? I promise I'll be such a good boy,"

You scrunch your nose in exaggerated disapproval. "Never do that again," you reply, trying to sound serious but unable to suppress the smile tugging at your lips.

He chuckles, the sound warm and inviting, as you turn him around, your fingers brushing against his wrists. The thrill of the moment sends a rush through you as you unlock the cuffs with the small key, the metal clinking softly as you release him.

He turns around, his hands sneaking around your waist and pulling you closer, the warmth of his body igniting a spark of electricity between you. You smile up at him, feeling a thrill at the proximity.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” he says, his voice low and playful. “Now who knows what kind of crimes I’m gonna commit again?” He looks down at you, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips, his eyes glinting with mischief.

“Careful, prisoner,” you warn, narrowing your eyes playfully. “Don’t forget, I’m watching you tonight.”

He holds his hands up in mock defense, a grin spreading across his face. “I promise to behave… for now,” he replies, the challenge in his tone clear as he leans in just a little closer.

You can feel the heat radiating off him, and despite your attempt to keep things light, the air feels charged with unspoken tension. “You’d better,” you say, trying to maintain an authoritative tone but failing as a smile breaks through. “I don’t take kindly to rule breakers.”

“Oh, I know,” he replies, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “But I can’t help it if I’m naturally inclined to break the rules when I’m around you.” With that, he leans in, brushing his lips against your ear as he whispers, “What if I promised to make it worth your while?”

A shiver runs down your spine at his words, and you step back slightly to meet his gaze, your heart racing. “You’re incorrigible,” you say, shaking your head, but your smile betrays your amusement.

“Only for you,” he quips, and the way he looks at you… you just know this Halloween night was going to be wild.

You stood corrected.

A few drinks into Jungkook's system, and any pretense of annoyance about the costume was long gone. His hands seemed to find your waist every chance they got, fingers tracing the curves of your hips with a needy grip. His lips, once teasing, were now constantly seeking yours, trailing kisses from your neck to your lips whenever you were within arm's reach.

Even in a crowded room, Jungkook's attention was locked on you, his dark gaze following your every movement. And each time you caught him staring, he'd flash you a cheeky grin before pulling you into another heated kiss, making it clear just how much he was enjoying your costume — and the power it had over him.

Getting a drunk Jungkook home was a damn task. The moment you got him in the car, he was all over you. As you navigated through the quiet streets, his fingers slid up your thigh, kneading it with a firm grip that sent sparks of heat racing through you. Each touch made focusing on the road harder, especially when he leaned over the console, his lips grazing your neck in a series of lazy, warm kisses.

"Jungkook, you need to calm down," you warned, trying to keep your focus on the road as his kisses sent shivers down your spine.

He huffed, not wanting to stop but eventually relented, throwing himself back into his seat dramatically. He crossed his arms like a child who'd been denied his favorite toy, his lips forming a deep pout.

You glanced over at him, biting back a smile as he sulked in his seat. "Aw, I’m sorry baby. Almost home, then you can do whatever you want," you teased, knowing full well that his patience would snap the second you both stepped through the front door.

Like a bunny, his ears seemed to perk up at your words, his pout disappearing instantly. He sat back in his seat with a huge grin plastered on his face, the sudden shift in his mood almost comical. It was as if he'd forgotten all about sulking, now fully focused on the promise you'd made.

Surprisingly, Jungkook behaved as you both got out of the car and made your way to your apartment floor. He walked beside you quietly, though the anticipation was clear in the way he kept glancing at you, his grin never fully fading. His restraint was impressive, given how wild he'd been earlier, but you could feel the tension radiating off him, like a predator waiting for the perfect moment.

The second you unlocked the door, though, all that restraint snapped. Jungkook practically pounced, pushing the door closed behind you as he pressed you against it, his lips finding yours in a hungry kiss. His hands were everywhere at once — grabbing your waist, pulling you closer, one hand sliding up your back while the other dipped dangerously low.

Your sloppy kisses didn't break for a second as you stumbled through the apartment, laughter and heated breaths filling the air until you reached the bedroom. The second you got to the edge of the bed, Jungkook gave you a playful shove, making you fall back onto the mattress with a grin tugging at his lips. His eyes never left yours as he hovered above you, reconnecting your lips in a feverish kiss, his hunger for you palpable.

His mouth began its slow descent, trailing kisses down the curve of your neck, leaving a warm, tingling path in its wake. When he reached your cleavage, he paused, his lips lingering there as his fingers found the zipper of your bodysuit. With a swift motion, he unzipped it, freeing your breasts from the fabric. His eyes darkened with desire as he took in the sight of you, a low groan escaping his throat.

Without hesitation, he leaned down, capturing one of your nipples in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it in slow, deliberate circles. The sensation sent a shudder through your body, a sharp gasp leaving your lips as your back arched in response. Your hand instinctively found its way into his hair, gripping the soft strands, guiding him as he lavished attention on you.

Jungkook's mouth left your bud with a soft pop, his lips slightly swollen as he looked at you with a mix of desire and admiration. Without wasting a second, he pushed the rest of the bodysuit down your frame, his hands quick and eager as he stripped you of the remaining fabric.

“You seduce all the officers like this?” you tease, your voice light but laced with a hint of challenge as you looked down at him at the foot of the bed.

Jungkook paused for a second, momentarily confused by the question. But then it clicked, and when he realized you were still playing into the roleplay from earlier, his expression shifted. His lips curled into a mischievous smirk, eyes narrowing slightly as he fully embraced the dynamic again.

“Only the ones I can’t resist,” Jungkook murmured, his voice dripping with playful seduction.

His teasing words sent a shiver down your spine, the tension between you both thickening with every passing second. His hands moved with skilled precision as he unzipped your boots, tugging them off one by one. The boots were discarded carelessly, the clatter of them hitting the floor barely registering as Jungkook’s focus remained fixed on you, eyes dark and full of hunger.

With a firm grip, Jungkook tugged at the bodysuit, sliding it off your frame in one fluid motion, the fabric slipping away as easily as the last remnants of his restraint. He didn’t stop there — your fishnets followed quickly, leaving you in nothing but your panties. His gaze devoured you, his eyes darkening with each lingering second on your bare skin. He bit into his bottom lip, his excitement almost palpable as his eyes traced every curve of your body like he was committing each inch to memory.

Grabbing your ankle, he lifted your leg gently, a smirk playing on his lips as he began a slow, deliberate trail of kisses from your ankle up toward your inner thigh. Each kiss sent a jolt of heat through your body, his touch maddeningly slow, teasing you with every lingering press of his lips.

“If you’ll let me,” he murmured against your skin, his voice husky and full of promise, before kissing your thigh once more. “I did promise to make it worth your while.”

“Show me what you got, criminal,” you smirk, your voice laced with challenge and desire.

Jungkook’s smirk matched yours, his eyes darkening with intent as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of your panties. In one swift, fluid motion, he pulled them down, the fabric sliding easily over your legs. The second they left your skin, his gaze fixed on the damp spot left behind, a low moan escaping his lips as his hunger for you deepened.

“Look at that,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. His fingers traced the wetness left on the cloth before lifting his eyes to meet yours, his smirk widening. “Already so wet for me, officer.”

The playful teasing from earlier had melted away completely, replaced with raw, undeniable need. Without hesitation, Jungkook lowered himself between your legs, his breath hot against your inner thighs. His lips hovered just above your core, his eyes flicking up to meet yours one last time before he leaned in, determined to show you exactly what he had in store. His tongue made the first slow, deliberate pass over your slick folds, sending a jolt of pleasure straight through your body.

Your body reacted instinctively to the sensation, arching your back slightly as a soft moan escaped your lips. You melted into the bed, fingers gripping the sheets tightly as waves of pleasure rippled through you, the intensity of it all leaving you breathless. 

It was when he latched his mouth onto your clit, the cool metal of his lip piercing sending shockwaves through your body, that you felt a fresh wave of ecstasy wash over you. Your body shook involuntarily, a reaction to the exquisite pleasure he was delivering.

“So good, baby,” you moaned, your voice breathy and filled with longing as you looked down at the man between your legs. Jungkook’s eyes flickered up to meet yours, dark and smoldering, the corner of his mouth twitching into a playful smirk as he enjoyed your reaction to his ministrations. 

"Yeah?" he mumbled, his lips brushing against your slick heat, sending a shiver up your spine. "Am I a good criminal, officer?"

Though it had started as playful banter back at Jimin and Taehyung’s house, the way Jungkook was slipping into this submissive role now felt different — kind of sexy. The intensity in his voice, the way he was looking up at you, it was doing things to you that you hadn’t quite expected.

You bit your lip, nodding as you reached down, finding his hand and intertwining your fingers with his. "Mhm, so good for me," you whispered, the words coming out more breathless than you intended. The shift in the dynamic added a new layer to the tension between you both, and you couldn’t deny how much you liked it.

He hummed in satisfaction against your skin, his tongue working skillfully, each stroke more deliberate than the last, as if determined to draw every last sound of pleasure from your lips. You could feel the tension building within you, and with every flick and suck, he pushed you further into a state of bliss. The warmth of his mouth, combined with the gentle squeeze of his hand in yours, only heightened the sensations coursing through your body. You could feel yourself unraveling, bit by bit, under his expert touch.

You lift your other hand, your fingers tangling in his soft, raven hair, pushing it back to reveal his forehead. The sight of his knitted eyebrows makes your stomach flip — he always does that when he’s savoring something, and right now, that something is you. Your grip tightens in his hair, pulling him closer, pushing his face deeper into you. His nose brushes against your clit with each motion, and you can't help but buck your hips slightly, your body moving instinctively as you practically ride his face.

Your moans become louder, filling the room with the raw sound of pleasure, almost pornographic in intensity. The way his mouth moves against you, his tongue expertly flicking and teasing, drives you wild. You feel his moans vibrate against your sopping pussy, sending shockwaves through your entire body. The more you push him into you, the more he responds, his hands gripping your thighs as he devours you, thoroughly enjoying every second of it. You’re lost in the heat of the moment, each wave of pleasure building to something inevitable, your body teetering on the edge of bliss.

With one final buck of your hips, his nose pressing firmly against your clit, the pleasure overwhelms you. Your release crashes over you like a tidal wave, your body trembling as you cum against his face. A loud, raw moan tears from your throat, your back arching off the bed as the intensity of your orgasm takes over. Your thighs instinctively begin to close around Jungkook’s head, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest — if anything, it only drives him further.

He stays right there, nestled between your legs, his tongue continuing to lap up every drop of your release. If he had it his way, he'd happily stay there forever. His hand gently caresses your thighs, soothing you through the aftershocks as your body relaxes, your breathing still ragged as you come down from the high.

Jungkook removes his hand from yours gently, rising up from the floor. Fully clothed, he crawls up the bed, hovering above you with a smirk that sends a thrill down your spine. His mouth glistens with a mix of his saliva and your slick, a tantalizing reminder of what just transpired. 

Without warning, he leans down, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. The taste of yourself lingers on his tongue, and you can’t help but moan into his mouth, the intimacy of the moment amplifying the heat between you. You feel him grinding his hips into your heat, seeking relief for the ache in his cock, and it drives you wild. The friction ignites another wave of desire, your body responding eagerly to his every movement.

He leans back down, reconnecting your lips, unable to get enough of you. The urgency in his movements tells you he's craving more, needing the connection as much as you do. Without breaking the kiss, you smoothly shift positions, pushing him back onto the bed. His body sinks into the mattress, and now it's your turn to be on top, looking down at him with a teasing smile. You sit up, fingers working the buttons of his jumpsuit as he watches you, his eyes dark with desire.

"Do good prisoners get anything in return?" he asks, his voice low, teasing.

"Yeah," you say with a smirk. "Freedom."

Your giggle fills the room as Jungkook kisses his teeth in mock annoyance, rolling his eyes at your cheeky response. Still, a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, showing he's just as amused as you are.

"I'm sure there's other officers that'll give you something," you tease, your fingers still working on the jumpsuit.

"What if I want someone in particular?" he responds, his tone more serious, the heat in his gaze intensifying.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," you murmur.

With a smirk, Jungkook sits up swiftly, his hands making quick work of pulling the jumpsuit off his frame. The fabric falls away, revealing his toned, broad chest — the very sight that always makes your breath hitch. You can't help but admire him for a moment, your eyes roaming over every inch of him, from his sculpted chest to the way his abs tense under your gaze.

He catches the look in your eyes, his grin widening as he notices how you're practically staring. "Like what you see, officer?" he teases.

Ugh, slut.

"You know I do," you reply, your fingers tracing over the tattoos decorating his skin before you press your lips against his again, losing yourself in the kiss as your bodies draw closer.

Your kisses travel south, lips brushing over the warm skin of his neck, chest, and abs, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. When you kneel between his legs, you can't help but notice how hard he is. A wet spot glistens where he’d been grinding against you earlier, evidence of the friction that’s left you both desperate for more.

"Baby, hurry up," Jungkook whines, his voice thick with impatience, the need evident in his tone.

You raise an eyebrow, biting back a smirk. "Refer to me correctly," you command, wanting to tease him just a little longer.

He chuckles softly. "Officer, please hurry up," he says, playing along, his words dripping with need.

“Good boy,” you coo with a smile.

Your fingers hook under the waistband of his jumpsuit and boxers simultaneously, yanking them down in one swift motion. His cock springs free, hard and eager, the pink tip glistening with precum. It’s begging to be touched, twitching slightly under your gaze as you admire him, and you can feel the heat radiating off him.

You let your hand glide slowly up his thigh, teasing him with featherlight touches, savoring the way his muscles tense under your fingers. Jungkook's head falls back against the mattress, a low, desperate moan slipping from his lips as he exhales, his chest rising and falling with the anticipation building between you.

You giggle softly, enjoying how easily you’re driving him wild. Finally, you wrap your hand around his thick, hard cock, your fingers squeezing his length gently but firmly. His reaction is immediate — his hips buck slightly as he lets out a deep, shaky moan.

"Oh, fuck yeah," he groans, his voice low and husky, the sound making you smile even wider.

You start to stroke him slowly, enjoying the feeling of him pulsing in your hand. His hands grip the sheets, knuckles turning white, and his eyes squeeze shut in bliss. The way he reacts to every little movement you make has you feeling powerful, completely in control.

"My pussy turn you on this much?" you tease, your voice dripping with playfulness, a smirk tugging at your lips as you continue to stroke him slowly, deliberately.

Jungkook's moan deepens, his hips bucking slightly into your hand, completely at your mercy.

"Always," he groans, his voice breathless. "Can never get enough of it."

Such a sweet boy. You reward him by quickening your strokes, picking up the pace and driving him wild. His response is immediate — his body tenses, and a low, guttural moan escapes his lips.

Jungkook's hand darts to yours, gripping the one resting on his thigh, his fingers intertwining with yours tightly. His touch is needy, desperate, as if holding on to you will keep him grounded while the pleasure you’re giving him threatens to overwhelm him.

His breath becomes ragged as you continue working him expertly. He bites his lip, trying to hold himself together under your touch. You can tell he’s getting closer, every stroke pushing him toward the edge.

“W- wanna cum in your pussy, please,” Jungkook whines, his voice trembling with need.

You smirk, teasing him further. “Do you?”

He hums in response, the sound more like a moan, his desperation palpable.

“Okay,” you say, your voice soft but commanding. “Since you’ve been so good for me.”

You pull away from his cock, climbing on top of him, the hunger in his eyes unmistakable. Leaning down, you capture his lips with yours, and he responds eagerly, his hands sliding down the arch of your back, gripping your ass tightly, kneading it in his large palms.

Then, without warning, a sudden surge of dominance overtakes him. In one swift move, Jungkook flips you both over, hovering above you with a glint in his eye. He gives you a teasing peck on the lips, but before you can react, he flips you onto your stomach, effortlessly manhandling you as though you weigh nothing.

With your back turned to him, the sound of rustling heightens your anticipation. You can’t see what Jungkook is doing, but the moment you feel his grip on your arm, your heart races. The cold, familiar touch of metal against your wrist makes it clear — he's handcuffing you.

A soft gasp escapes your lips as he tightens the cuffs around your other wrist, pulling your arms behind your back. You’re completely at his mercy now, and the vulnerability only fuels the fire between your legs.

“Am I still a good boy?” he teases, his voice dripping with playful mischief.

“Bad boy,” you manage to reply, though the excitement surging through you betrays your words. The restriction, the control — it all makes your pussy throb with need.

The sound of the slap reverberates through the room, sending a sharp sting of pleasure coursing through your body. You jolt forward, moaning in response, your skin tingling from the impact. Jungkook grabs the chain of the handcuffs, pulling on it slightly, adding a thrilling sense of restraint to the moment. 

His other hand grabs his cock, and you feel the deliberate tease as he slaps it against your pussy, spreading your slickness over his length. It’s torturous — how long he’s making you wait. But finally, after what feels like an eternity, he slowly pushes himself inside you. 

You gasp, your walls stretching to accommodate him, while Jungkook releases a low, guttural groan, his breath catching at the sensation of being enveloped by your heat. He pauses for a moment, savoring the feeling, his fingers still gripping the handcuffs. The tension in the air is palpable, each movement sending shivers down your spine as he begins to move, his hips rocking into you with slow, deliberate thrusts.

Your breath comes out in heavy gasps, your face buried in the mattress as his pace quickens, his hips slamming into you with a steady rhythm. The sensation of being filled so completely has you whimpering, your body melting into the bed as you push back against him, craving more with every stroke. Each thrust is more intense than the last, the bed creaking beneath you as the slick sound of his cock sliding in and out of your wet pussy echoes through the room.

Jungkook’s grip tightens on the handcuff chain, yanking you back harder onto his cock. “All your other prisoners fuck you this good?” he growls. 

A smirk curls your lips. He’s still milking this roleplay. He doesn’t voice it out, but he feels your pussy clench around him. You like this.

“Only you,” you moan, your voice breathy.

“That’s right,” he groans, his tone low and possessive.

Jungkook's pace quickens, the slap of his hips against your ass echoing through the room, his thrusts relentless. The headboard bangs rhythmically against the wall. He yanks the chain of the handcuffs harder, pulling your body back onto him in sync with every deep, punishing thrust.

Your body trembles beneath him, your moans now uncontrollable as the pressure builds to an almost unbearable height. Every drive of his cock inside you sends a jolt of pleasure through your body, his roughness pushing you to the brink. His deep groans mix with your cries, the heat between you reaching its peak, and you can feel yourself getting closer, your climax just within reach.

“You’re gonna cum for me, aren’t you?” he teases, his voice rough and low, dripping with lust. The heat in his tone sends another wave of pleasure coursing through you, and you can only nod, your voice caught in your throat as a moan escapes your lips, barely coherent.

His cock drags against your walls, hitting that perfect spot over and over, each thrust igniting a fire within you. Your body is a live wire, every nerve ending alight with sensation as the pressure coils tighter and tighter inside you, building towards a breaking point.

“Come on then, baby,” he growls, pulling you back hard against him, his grip firm and possessive. “Be a good officer and cum. I deserve it, don’t I?”

“Yes! Yes! You deserve it so much!” you manage to reply, the words spilling from your lips like a prayer.

“I’m such a good boy for you, huh?” he presses, his breath hot against your ear, his hips driving deeper.

“Such a good boy, my baby,” you affirm, your voice trembling with need. 

With a few more final, deep thrusts, your body shudders as the last waves of your sweet release ripple through you, your pussy clenching tightly around him. That tightness pushes Jungkook over the edge, and with a loud, needy moan, he releases into you, his hips faltering as he shoots his load deep inside. His groan fills the room as his cock throbs within you, emptying himself completely, the warmth of his cum spreading through you.

For a moment, the only sound is both of your heavy breathing, the heat of the moment still lingering in the air as your bodies stay connected.

Jungkook carefully unlocks the handcuffs, freeing your wrists from the restraints. He tosses them aside, his concern immediately turning to you as he notices the redness on your skin. Gently, he takes your wrists in his hands, massaging them softly, his brows furrowed with worry.

“I wasn’t too rough, was I?” he asks, his voice tender and full of concern.

“No, baby,” you reassure him, leaning in to kiss his lips softly, easing the tension he’s holding onto. You give him a few more sweet pecks, including one on his cheek, his boyish charm making you smile.

After cleaning up and peeing to avoid an infection, he helps you settle into bed, pulling you into his arms. His warmth envelops you, his face nestled against your neck, and you feel the soft brush of his breath against your skin. Your arms wrap around him instinctively, holding him close as the moment quiets. The heat from your bodies mingles with the gentle stillness of the room, creating a cocoon of intimacy and comfort that lulls you both toward sleep.

As your eyes grow heavy, his voice breaks the silence, low and a little playful. "I think I enjoyed that costume more than I thought," he murmurs against your neck.

© voyter 2024, all rights reserved.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Predicting the present

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/#deny-defend-depose

Back in 2018, around the time I emailed my immigration lawyer about applying for US citizenship, I started work on a short story called "Radicalized," which eventually became the title story of a collection that came out in 2019:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250228598/radicalized/

"Radicalized" is a story about America, and about guns, and about health care, and about violence. I live in Burbank, which is ranks second in gun-stores-per-capita in the USA, a dubious honor that represents a kind of regulatory arbitrage with our neighboring goliath, the City of Los Angeles, where gun store licensing is extremely tight. If you're an Angeleno in search of a firearm, you're almost certainly coming to Burbank to buy it.

Walking, cycling and driving past more gun stores than I'd ever seen in my Canadian life got me thinking about Americans and guns, a subject that many Canadians have passed comment upon. Americans kill each other, and especially themselves, at rates that baffle everyone else in the world, and they do it with guns. When we moved here, my UK born-and-raised daughter came home from her first elementary school lockdown drill perplexed and worried. Knowing what I did about US gun violence, I understood that while school shootings and other spree killings happened with dismal and terrifying regularity, they only accounted for a small percentage of the gun deaths here. If you die with a bullet in you, the chances are that the finger on the trigger was your own. The next most likely suspect is someone you know. After that, a cop. Getting shot by a stranger out of uniform is something of a rarity here – albeit a spectacular one that captures our imaginations in ways that deliberate or accidental self-slayings and related-party shootings do not.

So I told her, "Look, you can basically ignore everything they tell you during those lockdown drills, because they almost certainly have nothing to do with your future. But if a friend ever says to you, 'Hey, wanna see my dad's gun?' I want you to turn around and leave and get in touch with me right away, that instant."

Guns turn the murderous impulse – which, let's be honest, we've all felt at some time or another – into a murderous act. Same goes for suicide, which explains the high levels of non-accidental self-shootings in the USA: when you've got a gun, the distance between suicidal ideation and your death is the ten feet from the sofa to the gun in the closet.

Americans get angry at people and then, if they have a gun to hand, sometimes they shoot them. In a thread /r/Burbank about how people at our local cinemas are rude and use their phones in which someone posted, "Well, you should just ask them to stop." The reply: "That's a great way to get shot." No one chimed in to say, "Don't be ridiculous, no one would shoot you for asking them to put away their phone during a movie." Same goes for "road rage."

And while Americans shoot people they've only just gotten angry at, they also sometimes plan shooting sprees and kill a bunch of people because they're just generically angry. Being angry about the state of the world is a completely relatable emotion, of course, but the targets of these shootings are arbitrary. Sure sometimes these killings have clear, bigoted targets – mass shootings at Black supermarkets or mosques or synagogues or gay bars – more often the people who get sprayed with bullets (at country and western concerts or elementary schools or movie theaters) are almost certainly not the people the gunman (almost always a man) is angry at.

This line of thought kept surfacing as I went through the immigration process, but not just when I was dealing with immigration paperwork. I was also spending an incredible amount of time dealing with our health insurer, Cigna, who kept refusing treatments my pain doctor – one of the most-cited pain researchers in the country – thought I would benefit from. I've had chronic pain since I was a teenager, and it's only ever gotten worse. I've had decades of pain care in Canada and the UK, and while the treatments never worked for very long, it was never compounded by the kinds of bureaucratic stuff I went through with my US insurer.

The multi-hour phone calls with Cigna that went nowhere would often have me seeing red – literally, a red tinge closing in around my vision – and usually my hands would be shaking by the time I got off the call.

And I had it easy! I wasn't terminally ill, and I certainly wasn't calling in on behalf of a child or a spouse or parent who was seriously ill or dying, whose care was being denied by their insurer. Bernie's 2016 Medicare For All campaign promise had filled the air with statistics (Americans pay more for care and get worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world), and stories. So many stories – stories that just tore your heart out, about parents who literally had to watch their children die because the insurance they paid for refused to treat their kids. As a dad, I literally couldn't imagine how I'd cope in that situation. Just thinking about it filled me with rage.

One day, as I was swimming in the community pool across the street – a critical part of my pain management strategy – I was struck with a thought: "Why don't these people murder health insurance executives?" Not that I wanted them to. I don't want anyone to kill anyone. But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone? This is an industry that is practically designed to fill the people who interact with it with uncontrollable rage. I mean, if you're watching your wife or your kid die before your eyes because some millionaire CEO decided to aim for a $10 billion stock buyback this year instead of his customary $9 billion target, wouldn't you feel that kind of murderous rage?

Around this time, my parents came out for a visit from Canada. It was a great trip, until one night, my mom woke me up after midnight: "We have to take your father to the ER. He's really sick." He was: shaking, nauseated, feverish. We raced down the street to the local hospital, part of a gigantic chain that has swallowed nearly all the doctors' practices, labs and hospitals within an hour's drive of here.

Dad had kidney stones, and they'd gone septic. When the ER docs removed the stones, all the septic gunk in his kidneys was flushed into his bloodstream, and he crashed. If he hadn't been in an ER recovery room at the time, he would have died. As it was, he was in a coma for three days and it was touch and go. My brother flew down from Toronto, not sure if this was his last chance to see our dad alive. The nurses and doctors took great care of my dad, though, and three days later, he emerged from his coma, and today, he's better than ever.

But on day two, when we thought he was probably at the end of his life, as my mother sat at his side, holding the hand of her husband of fifty years, someone from the hospital billing department came to her side and said, "Mrs Doctorow, I know this is a difficult time, but I'd like to discuss the matter of your husband's bill with you."

The bill was $176,000. Thankfully, the travel medical insurance plan offered by the Ontario Teachers' Union pension covered it all (I don't suppose anyone gets very angry with them).

How do people tolerate this? Again, not in the sense of "people should commit violent acts in the face of these provocations," but rather, "How is it that in a country filled with both assault rifles and unimaginable acts of murderous cruelty committed by fantastically wealthy corporations, people don't leap from their murderous impulses to their murderous weapons to commit murderous acts?

For me, writing fiction is an accretive process. I can tell that a story is brewing when thoughts start rattling around in my mind, resurfacing at odd times. I think of them as stray atoms, seeking molecules with available docking sites to glom onto. I process all my emotions – but especially my negative ones – through this process, by writing stories and novels. I could tell that something was cooking, but it was missing an ingredient.

Then I found it: an interview with the woman who coined the term "incel." It was on the Reply All podcast, and Alana, a queer Canadian woman explained that she had struggled all her life to find romantic and sexual partnership, and jokingly started referring to herself as "involuntarily celibate," and then, as an "incel":

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o

Alana started a message board where other "incels" could offer each other support, and it was remarkably successful. The incels on Alana's message board helped each other work through the problems that stood between them and love, and when they did, they drifted away from the board to pursue a happier life.

That was the problem, Alana explained. If you're in a support group for people with a drinking problem, the group elders, the ones who've been around forever, are the people who've figured it out and gotten sober. When life seems impossible, those elders step in to tell you, I know it's terrible right now, but it'll get better. I was where you are and I got through it. You will, too. I'm here for you. We all are.

But on Alana's incel board, the old timers were the people who couldn't figure it out. They were the ones for whom mutual support and advice didn't help them figure out what they needed to do in order to find the love they sought. The longer the message board ran, the more it became dominated by people who were convinced that it was hopeless, that love was impossible for the likes of them. When newbies posted in rage and despair, these Great Old Ones were there to feed it: You're right. It will never get better. It only gets worse. There is no hope.

That was the missing piece. My short story Radicalized was born. It's a story about men on a message board called Fuck Cancer Right In the Fucking Face (FCKRFF, or "Fuckriff"), who are watching the people they love the most in the world be murdered by their insurance companies, who egg each other on to spectacular acts of mass violence against health insurance company employees, hospital billing offices, and other targets of their rage. As of today, anyone can read this story for free, courtesy of my publishers at Macmillan, who gave permission for the good folks at The American Prospect to post it:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

I often hear from people about this story, even before an unknown (at the time of writing) man assassinated Brian Thompson, CEO of Unitedhealthcare, the murderous health insurance monopoly that is the largest medical insurer in the USA. Since then, hundreds of people have gotten in touch with me to ask me how I feel about this turn of events, how it feels to have "predicted" this.

I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I gotta tell you, I have complicated feelings.

You've doubtless seen the outpourings of sarcastic graveyard humor about Thompson's murder. People hate Unitedhealthcare, for good reason, because he personally decided – or approved – countless policies that killed people by cheating them until they died.

Nurses and doctors hate Thompson and United. United kills people, for money. During the most acute phase of the pandemic, the company charged the US government $11,000 for each $8 covid test:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/06/137300-pct-markup/#137300-pct-markup

UHC leads the nation in claims denials, with a denial rate of 32% (!!). If you want to understand how the US can spend 20% of its GDP and get the worst health outcomes in the world, just connect the dots between those two facts: the largest health insurer in human history charges the government a 183,300% markup on covid tests and also denies a third of its claims.

UHC is a vertically integrated, murdering health profiteer. They bought Optum, the largest pharmacy benefit manager ("A spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) in the country. Then they starved Optum of IT investment in order to give more money to their shareholders. Then Optum was hacked by ransomware gang and no one could get their prescriptions for weeks. This killed people:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/malicious-threat-actor-accesses-unitedhealth-groups-monopolistic-data-exchange-harming-patients-and-pharmacists/#

The irony is, Optum is terrible even when it's not hacked. The purpose of Optum is to make you pay more for pharmaceuticals. If that's more than you can afford, you die. Optum – that is, UHC – kills people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Optum isn't the only murderous UHC division. Take Navihealth, an algorithm that United uses to kick people out of their hospital beds even if they're so frail, sick or injured they can't stand or walk. Doctors and nurses routinely watch their gravely ill patients get thrown out of their hospitals. Many die. UHC kills them, for money:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-08-16-steward-bankruptcy-physicians-private-equity/

The patients murdered by Navihealth are on Medicare Advantage. Medicare is the public health care system the USA extends to old people. Medicare Advantage is a privatized system you can swap your Medicare coverage for, and UHC leads the country in Medicare Advantage, blitzing seniors with deceptive ads that trick them into signing up for UHC Medicare Advantage. Seniors who do this lose access to their doctors and specialists, have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their medication, and get hit with $400 surprise bills to use the "free" ambulance service:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-05-manhattan-medicare-murder-mystery/

No wonder the public spends 22% more subsidizing Medicare Advantage than they spend on the care for seniors who stick with actual Medicare:

https://theconversation.com/taxpayers-spend-22-more-per-patient-to-support-medicare-advantage-the-private-alternative-to-medicare-that-promised-to-cost-less-241997

It's not just the elderly, it's also the addicted and mentally ill. UHC illegally denies coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Imagine watching a family member spiral out of control, ODing, or ending up on the streets with hallucinations, and knowing that the health insurance company that takes thousands of dollars out of your paycheck refused to treat them:

https://www.startribune.com/unitedhealthcare-will-pay-15-7m-in-settlement-of-denial-of-care-charges/600087607

Unsurprising, the internal culture at UHC is callous beyond belief. How could it not be? How could you go to work at UHC and know you were killing people and not dehumanize those victims? A lawsuit by chronically ill patient whom UHC had denied care for surfaced recorded phone calls in which UHC employees laughed long and hard about the denied claims, dismissing the patient's desperate, tearful pleas as "tantrums" :

https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

Those UHC workers are just trying to get by, of course, and the callouses they develop so they can bear to go to work were ripped off by last week's murder. UHC's executive team knows this, and has gone on a rampage to stop employees from leaking their own horror stories, or even mentioning that the internal company announcement of Thompson's death was seen by 16,000 employees, of whom only 28 left a comment:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/unitedhealthcare-tells-employees

Doctors and nurses hate UHC on behalf of their patients, but it's also personal. UHC screws doctor's practices by refusing to pay them, making them chase payments for months or even years, and then it offers them a payday lending service that helps them keep the lights on while they wait to get paid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frr4wuvAB6U

Is it any surprise that Reddit's nursing forums are full of nurses making grim, satisfied jokes about the assassination of the $10m/year CEO who ran the $400b/year corporation that does all this?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/leading-medical-subreddit-deletes-thread-on-unitedhealthcare-ceos-murder-after-users-slam-his-record/

We're not supposed to experience – much less express – schadenfreude when someone is murdered in the street, no matter who they are. We're meant to express horror at the idea of political violence, even when that violence only claims a single life, a fraction of the body count UCH produced under Thompson's direction. As Malcolm Harris put it, "'Every life is precious' stuff about a healthcare CEO whose company is noted for denying coverage is pretty silly":

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1864471932386623753

As Woody Guthrie wrote, "Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen." The weapon is lethal when it's a pistol and when it's an insurance company. The insurance company merely serves as an accountability sink, a layer of indirection that lets a murder happen without any person being the technical murderer:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you. This is the entire pitch of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: that wealth concentration leads to corruption, which is destabilizing, and in the long run it's cheaper to run a fair society than it is to pay for the guards you'll need to keep the guillotines off your lawn:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

But we've spent the past 40 years running in the other direction, maximizing monopolies, inequality and corruption, and gaslighting the public when they insist that this is monstrous and unfair. Back in 2022, when UHC was buying Change Healthcare – the dominant payment network for hospitals, which would allow UHC to surveil all its competitors' payments – the DOJ sued to block the merger. The Trump-appointed judge in the case, Carl Nichols – who owned tens of thousands of dollars in UHC bonds – ruled against the DOJ, saying that it would all be fine thanks to United's "culture of trust and integrity":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-antitrust-shooting-war-has-started

We don't know much about Thompson's killer yet, but he's already becoming a folk hero, with lookalike contests in NYC:

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1865472577478553976

And gigantic graffiti murals praising him and reproducing the words he wrote on the shell casings of the bullets he used to kill Thompson, "delay, deny, depose":

https://www.tumblr.com/radicalgraff/769193188403675136/killin-fuckin-ceos-freight-graff-in-the-bay

I get why this is distasteful. Thompson is said to have been a "family man" who loved his kids, and I have no reason to disbelieve this. I can only imagine that his wife and kids are shattered by this. Every living person is the apex of a massive project involving dozens, hundreds of people who personally worked to raise, nurture and love them. I wrote about this in my novel Walkaway, as the characters consider whether to execute a mercenary sent to kill them, whom they have taken hostage:

She had parents. People who loved her. Every human was a hyper-dense node of intense emotional and material investment. Speaking meant someone had spent thousands of hours cooing to you. Those lean muscles, the ringing tone of command — their inputs were from all over the world, carefully administered. The merc was more than a person: like a spaceship launch, her existence implied thousands of skilled people, generations of experts, wars, treaties, scholarship and supply-chain management. Every one of them was all that.

But so often, the formula for "folk hero" is "killing + time." The person who terrorizes the people who terrorize you is your hero, and eventually we sanitize the deaths, and just remember them as fighters for justice. If you doubt it, consider the legend of Robin Hood:

https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/1865554985842352501

The health industry is trying to put a lid on this, palpably afraid that – as in my story "Radicalized" – this one murderer will become a folk hero who inspires others to acts of spectacular violence. They're insisting that it's unseemly to gloat about Thompson's death. They're right, but this is an obvious loser strategy. The health industry is full of people whose deaths would be deplorable, but not unsurprising. As Clarence Darrow had it:

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Murder is never the answer. Murder is not a healthy response to corruption. But it is healthy for people to fear that if they kill people for greed, they will be unsafe. On December 5 – the day after Thompson's killing – the health insurer Anthem announced that it would not pay for anesthesia for medical procedures that ran long. The next day, they retracted the policy, citing "outrage":

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits/index.html

Sure, maybe it was their fear of reputation damage that got them to decide to reverse this inhumane, disgusting, murderous policy. But maybe it was also someone in the C-suite thinking about what share of the profits from this policy would have to be spent on additional bodyguards for every Anthem exec if it went into effect, and decided that it was a money-loser after all.

Think about hospital exec Ralph de la Torre, who cheerfully testified to Congress that he'd killed patients in pursuit of profit. De la Torre clearly doesn't fear any kind of consequences for his actions. He owns hospitals that are filled with tens of thousands of bats (he stiffed the exterminators), where none of the elevators work (he stiffed the repair techs), where there's no medicine or blood (he stiffed the suppliers) and where the doctors and nurses can't make rent (he stiffed them too). De La Torre doesn't just own hospitals – he also owns a pair of superyachts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

It is a miracle that so many people have lost their mothers, sons, wives and husbands so Ralph de la Torre could buy himself another superyacht, and that those people live in a country where you can buy an assault rifle, and that Ralph de la Torre isn't forced to live in a bunker and travel in a tank.

It's a rather beautiful sort of miracle, to be honest. I like to think that it comes from a widespread belief by the people of this country I have since become a citizen of, that we should solve our problems politically, rather than with bullets.

But the assassination of Brian Thompson is a wake-up call, a warning that if we don't solve this problem politically, we may not have a choice about whether it's solved with violence. As a character in "Radicalized" says, "They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: that's only true so long as you ignore all of human history":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

FYI artists and writers: some info regarding tumblr's new "third-party sharing" (aka selling your content to OpenAI and Midjourney)

You may have already seen the post by @staff regarding third-party sharing and how to opt out. You may have also already seen various news articles discussing the matter.

But here's a little further clarity re some questions I had, and you may too. Caveat: Not all of this is on official tumblr pages, so it's possible things may change.

(1) "I heard they already have access to my data and it doesn't really matter if I opt out"

From the 404 article:

A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”

So please, go click that opt-out button.

(2) Some future user: "I've been away from tumblr for months, and I just heard about all this. I didn't opt out before, so does it make a difference anymore?"

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?” Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.”

It should make a difference! Go click that button.

(3) "I opted out, but my art posts have been reblogged by so many people, and I don't know if they all opted out. What does that mean for my stuff?"

This answer is actually on the support page for the toggle:

This option will prevent your blog's content, even when reblogged, from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models.

And some further clarification by the COO and a product manager:

zingring: A couple people from work have reached out to let me know that yes, it applies to reblogs of "don't scrape" content. If you opt out, your content is opted out, even in reblog form. cyle: yep, for reblogs, we're taking it so far as "if anybody in the reblog trail has opted out, all of the content in that reblog will be opted out", when a reblog could be scraped/shared.

So not only your reblogged posts, but anyone who contributed in a reblog (such as posts where someone has been inspired to draw fanart of the OP) will presumably be protected by your opt-out. (A good reason to opt out even if you yourself are not a creator.)

Furthermore, if you the OP were offline and didn't know about the opt-out, if someone contributed to a reblog and they are opted out, then your original work is also protected. (Which makes it very tempting to contribute "scrapeable content" now whenever I reblog from an abandoned/disused blog...)

(4) "What about deleted blogs? They can't opt out!"

I was told by someone (not official) that he read "deleted blogs are all opted-out by default". However, he didn't recall the source, and I can't find it, so I can't guarantee that info. If I get more details - like if/when tumblr puts up that FAQ as reported in the 404 article - I will add it here as soon as I can.

Edit, tumblr has updated their help page for the option to opt-out of third-party sharing! It now states:

The content which will not be shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models, includes: • Posts and reblogs of posts from blogs who have enabled the "Prevent third-party sharing" option. • Posts and reblogs of posts from deleted blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from password-protected blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from explicit blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from suspended/deactivated blogs. • Private posts. • Drafts. • Messages. • Asks and submissions which have not been publicly posted. • Post+ subscriber-only posts. • Explicit posts.

So no need to worry about your old deleted blogs that still have reblogs floating around. *\o/*

But for your existing blogs, please use the opt out option. And a reminder of how to opt out, under the cut:

The opt-out toggle is in Blog Settings, and please note you need to do it for each one of your blogs / sideblogs.

On dashboard, the toggle is at https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/blogname [replace "blogname" as applicable] down by Visibility:

For mobile, you need the most recent update of the app. (Android version 33.4.1.100, iOs version 33.4.) Then go to your blog tab (the little person icon), and then the gear icon for Settings, then click Visibility.

Again, if you have a sideblog, go back to the blog tab, switch to it, and go to settings again. Repeat as necessary.

If you do not have access to the newest version of the app for whatever reason, you can also log into tumblr in your mobile browser. Same URL as per desktop above, same location.

Note you do not need to change settings in both desktop and the app, just one is fine.

I hope this helps!

[caelivir]

synopsis. you’ve been deliberately dodging atsumu miya. he wants to know why.

pairing. atsumu miya x fem!reader | wc. 2.0k (it wasn’t even supposed to be this long) | genres. (implied) university au, tbh i don’t even know what this dynamic is, he calls us princess, reader’s kinda bad emotionally, rain confessions

notes. for my birthday (not gojo’s eff him (/j)) i decided why not take one of my favorite tropes of all time and pair it w the loml. you’re so welcome. this is very dialogue heavy, barely proofread, and a hot mess, but i hope you enjoy regardless.

"(y/n)." the very familiar, sultry yet aggravating voice says the moment you step out of the cafe.

"oh my god!" you jump, clutching a hand over your heart that skipped a beat. it's immediately followed with a glare towards atsumu. "what the fuck, miya? you don't just come up to people like that."

"sorry." atsumu apologizes but his nose scrunches at the word. "nah, not really. didn't know how else to get to ya."

"so you had to find me at my job?" you raise an eyebrow in disbelief.

he shrugs. "yer really not leavin' me with any other choice."

"what are you on about?" you roll your eyes as you take a sharp left, carefully exhaling out. the street is nearly deserted now that the sun sunk past the horizon, leaving only the street lights and the moon to illuminate what would be a pitch black scene. puddles of water are scattered along the walkways, remnants of the downpour that occurred earlier in the day. you had clocked out later than usual, and the next flash of rain is predicted to fall within the next few minutes. you want to get back to your dorm before the worst of it happens.

"ya know what i'm talking about." atsumu huffs. "yer clearly avoiding me."

your shoulders tense when he brings it up, and you pray that atsumu doesn't catch it. "i'm not." you lie, your heart speeding up.

"yer a shit liar. i hope ya know that." atsumu shuts you down right then and there. the fact he's able to makes you wince. that's one of the many bones you have to pick with him. he can always see right through you, and it allows him to get under your skin easily since he knows exactly what to say if he wants to get a reaction out of you.

it's because of that reason that you've been avoiding him. you know yourself well enough that if you were to stand face to face with atsumu miya as you are now, he'd figure out the secret that you've been hiding for two weeks.

atsumu presses his lips together, sighing once he realizes that all he'll get from you from this point forward is silence, but he tries his luck anywayy. "can we talk?"

you let his question fizzle out in the air, continuing down the sidewalk as atsumu follows by your side. the first drops of drizzle fall onto your hand and cheek. atsumu feels them too.

"look, it's gonna rain soon. could ya at least let me take ya home? yer gonna get soaked." atsumu gently reaches out for your hand. the sudden contact and its spark of heat makes you jump. instinctively, you yank your hand away from him. your widened eyes snap towards him, and shame washes over you. maybe the street lights are playing tricks on you, but you swear there's a flicker of hurt in his gaze. you turn away from him because you can't bear the sight of it.

"are ya mad at me? did i do somethin' to upset ya?" atsumu continues.

no, you answer in your head. you can't trust yourself to say it out loud without betraying anything else. it's not that.

"(y/n), please. talk to me." atsumu pleads. you don't think you've ever heard such desperation in his voice before. you've never seen him so raw. it's almost enough to break you, but you refuse to let go the threads of your resolve. the rain is picking up; it's cold as it soaks the threads of your clothes.

"princess." atsumu throws in as a last ditch effort. you know it is because it's the one nickname that gets you riled up the most. it sparks a reaction that atsumu knows will get you talking, but unbeknownst to him it's not for the reason he expects. he wants you to snap with anger, but all your heart does is ache. all it does is melt you into putty in his hands.

"don't call me that." you finally come to a stop, turning so that you can face him, defeat in your gaze. atsumu's blond locks are beginning to lose volume; they stick to his forehead as droplets continue to fall. his hoodie is littered with small, dark stains, a physical consequence of the rain.

"oh now i got yer attention." atsumu scoffs, poking his tongue into the inside of his cheek.

"miya." you warn, voice shaking. he ignores it.

"yer not being yerself, and ya haven't been for the last two weeks." he tells you as if you don't already recognize it yourself. "what's goin' on with ya?"

"nothing!" you deny. "i'm fine!"

atsumu rolls his eyes. "cut the crap, princess."

"seriously, stop calling me that!" you spit back at him.

you're shivering. you can't tell if it's because of your cold, wet clothes or your frustration that keeps reaching new levels. you can sense it; you can sense that your heart is about to claw itself out of chest and dump itself onto the feet of atsumu miya. your hand fists the fabric of your soaked shirt as if to keep it in.

"then tell me what's wrong!" the blond in front of you demands, running a hand through his hair. his voice projects over the brutal force of the rain.

you grimace. that's the one thing you can't do, especially since it involves him. you bite your tongue, hiding your face so that atsumu doesn't see the glassiness of your eyes. "miya... please drop it." you ask him pathetically.

"why?" he pries. this is the other issue with him. he's so damn stubborn to the point that it's infuriating. atsumu miya never backs down until he gets what he wants.

"because it's you!" the first wave of tears break free. they cascade down your cheeks, mixing in the stream of rain on your cheeks; all while your hand remains pointed at atsumu. "because i fell for you!"

atsumu shuts his mouth, going completely silent. you shake your head, laughing bitterly. "i bet you didn't expect that, did you? believe me, i didn't either. day in and day out all we've ever done was argue so i don't know how this happened. i don't know why i have these feelings for you."

wiping your face is a futile attempt yet you still do it anyway. a sob gets caught in your throat, and you choke on it. "i can't stop thinking about you. i can't be near you without my heart attempting to leap out of chest. and so yeah, i've been avoiding you miya, and it's because you've made me so damn weak."

your stare finds atsumu's. you can't get a read on him, but you don't have to second guess that he can see the pain swirling in your eyes. it's so humiliating that even now the first thing that crosses your mind is how good he looks even as you feel your heart being torn apart. his hair is completely stuck to his forehead. his blond ends that are soaked through and through drip their excess water onto his face. you want nothing more than to brush them out of his line of sight, but you can't. you fight that desire by balling up your fists.

"so please just leave me alone. stop trying to find me because i can't take this anymore." you beg through hiccups.

you wait for a response. you wait to see if atsumu will kick your heart aside. in an even better scenario, which is far from likely, he accepts it. you'll take either or.

but he does neither, and that's fine too. you leave atsumu by himself on the sidewalk, and your lack of presence pulls him out of his trance. he jogs to catch up to you, reaching from behind to clasp your hand in his.

"miya, let go-"

"no." he says firmly, a newfound fire burning behind his eyes, one that exceeds the one you feel on your hand. the sight makes you gulp. "ya can't just confess yer feelings for me and leave."

you chuckle weakly, trying to pull yourself free from his grasp. "i think i can."

"no, ya can't. ya didn't even give me a chance to say anythin'." atsumu argues. he doesn't relinquish the hold he has on you.

"what more do you have to say? you don't feel the same, and that's fine-"

"could ya stop assuming things?! i never even said that." atsumu squeezes your hand ever so lightly in frustration. "and by the way, i'm not gonna leave ya alone. i'll follow ya to the edge of the earth if i have to."

you're still crying at this point, and atsumu's words are only making you more upset. "why?! why are you so fixated on me?! why can't you just-"

"because i'm in love with ya!"

in that moment, you swear the rain stops in its place, suspended in the air. surely, you must've been hearing things wrong. atsumu miya, the guy who has everyone dancing to the tune of his hand, is- no that doesn't even sound right. how could he possibly-

"god, i've been in love with ya for so long." atsumu laughs, like it's a relief to finally get it off his chest. "but ya nearly ripped my heart to shreds over these past two weeks."

atsumu squeezes your hand before letting it fall to your side. his own flex by his side as if to hold himself back. "(y/n), ya can insult me to yer heart's content if that's what makes ya happy, but don't dodge me like i'm the damn plague. i hate it. i really do."

atsumu picks up his tear-filled eyes; it makes your own fall even faster because you realize that this hurts him. you want to apologize, but the words are backed up in your throat. your cries steal away your ability to speak.

so you pull him in, yanking him by the drenched fabric of his hoodie and closing the distance between you two. your lips crash onto his, praying that this action is enough for him to understand. it takes a moment for atsumu to react, he's unmoving against you, and once he realizes what's happening, he relaxes. his hands fly to your neck, resting one on either side as he kisses you back.

it's carnivorous. he kisses you like he's been deprived of you. you feel how badly atsumu's been wanting this, how long he's been waiting for this day. you can barely keep up with his hunger. it's hot enough to overpower the chill that comes with the rain beating down on both of you. you'd kiss him forever if you could, but your lungs are begging for air.

when you pull away, atsumu's eyes reveal that he's in a daze, a happy one, like he just came back from soaring through the clouds. his damp hair presses onto your forehead as you both catch your breaths.

he pulls back. atsumu wears a soft grin as he admires you, even though you probably look like a wet dog. one of his hands find their way up to your cheek. you look at him expectantly. "(y/n), i want all of ya. i want yer stubborn ass attitude and yer insults. i want ya to be the only person who can bring me back down to earth. i want yer smiles and all yer laughs. i want to continue lovin' ya." he professes with complete certainty. his flowery words make you beam so brightly that it makes your cheeks hurt.

"i'll give you all of that and more." you swear. "but miya, i need you to kiss me again."

"oh? it seems like i got myself a needy princess." atsumu smirks, but he's already leaning in.

"shut up."

"gladly." atsumu agrees, pressing his lips to yours, smiles on both your faces.

you catch the flu the day after, and so does atsumu. but man, it is so, so worth it.

[sweet-as-an-angel]

so! you mentioned in the 'p0rn preferences' post that Gaz is not the one who jerks off the most in the 141, and I humbly ask you, who would that be?

I don't mean this as a request, just a little discussion, cause I feel like Soap would just be going at it at any chance possible, like a bunny. he probably doesn't care much if someone hears it, but that's just me thinking too much into it.

Who Jerks off the Most in the 141 + König

Warnings: 18+, Heavy Mentions of Masturbation, Male Masturbation, Implied Reader in Individual Headcanons, Accidental and Implied Voyeurism, Edging, Brief Mention of Injury, Men Who Moan <3, No Pronouns Used For Reader Except 'You'.

A/N: As per Anon's question (which I just had to turn into a post of its own) I present to you the list of the 141 members (and König) who jerk off from the most to least <3

Soap

I have to agree with you here, Anon - Johnny is most definitely the king of self love when it comes to the 141.

He doesn't much care where he is or who he's with; when he has to satisfy his needs, he'll do so.

Though, he'll spare whoever's with him the sight of watching him throwing his head back, trying to stifle his moans behind gritted teeth whilst the wet sound of his hand slipping up and down the length of his shaft fill the room.

Unless they want to.

For one reason or another, he's nigh-insatiable when it comes to his libido, and the fact that his stamina affords him the luxury of beating himself off until his cum is practically translucent doesn't help.

The slightest thing can set him off.

Someone brushing past him ? Hard.

Someone stroking his ego a little too enthusiastically ? Bricked up.

He sees something that's shaped to be a little too curvy or phallic ? Stiff as a pole.

He remembers something mildly suggestive you did three years ago in that restaurant ? He's going to the Horny Realm.

Yes, his teammates have complained about his incessant moaning-come-grunting-come-whimpering through all hours of the night, his voice contorting through a spectrum of desperation and Johnny always ending up spent and overstimulated by the time the sun comes up.

And then he's ready to do it all again the second night touches the horizon line, giving his teammates a knowing smile when he walks into the room sporting nothing else save for a pair of boxers and a monster that looks to be trying to tear itself free from them.

Gaz

Dude's young. Of course he's throttling that rooster on a nigh-daily basis.

The only reason he's not at it as much as Soap is because he likes to believe he still has a few threads of his self-restraint intact.

He doesn't.

Especially when it comes to you (regardless of whether you're dating yet or not).

But he doesn't need to know that.

Honestly, the only thing that separates him from Johnny's unmatched libido is the fact that it takes a little more than the slightest provocation to get Gaz going.

Albeit, that line is a thin one.

If he so much as accidentally sees something explicit for upwards of three seconds, he's hard.

The only advantage of his need for satisfaction is the speed with which he can achieve it.

He and Johnny actually timed each other once to see who could get off the fastest.

Gaz won. Though, only by a slim margin.

Needless to say, that made for a rather interesting conversation with the Captain when he walked in on two of his best soldiers sat panting on the edge of their cots, an almost-translucent spray spattered across their stomachs, eyes half-lidded and hazy.

Ghost

The third-in-line for the Throttle Throne is none other than our beloved Ghost.

Unlike Johnny and Gaz, Ghost is more likely to leave himself alone at the first sign of trouble, toughing it out until he can will his mind to less lustful pastimes.

He won't make his jacking off known to anyone, either, often doing it in the shower where the water beats down so harshly that no sound can be heard for the water's fall.

That, and he's a master at keeping his voice low, no matter the circumstances.

More often than not, Simon makes quick work of jerking off purely because it’s a means to an end. However, if it’s you he’s thinking of, he’s much more likely to take his time — to immerse himself in the fantasy of your body around his, taking him so well in one capacity or another. Fucking yourself dumb on his cock.

During these times, he’s thorough — much more likely to edge himself, to throw his head back and growl between gritted teeth, to savour the sensation coiling in his stomach, his balls growing tight.

Otherwise, he’ll stroke one out as quickly as he can, getting back to business as usual.

And to look at him, on the surface, you'd never know that he just spent the last three minutes rubbing one out in the bathroom (yes, he is also a contender for first place in the 'Who Can Jack Off The Quickest Competition', but he'll never allow Johnny or Gaz the luxury of witnessing his unprecedented skill; that's for your eyes only).

Until he corners you, breathing down your neck, scolding you for tempting him - a man whose restraint lies only in his ability to hold off from reducing you to an exponential reflection of his prior state, breathless and covered in fluids.

König

Have you seen the size of that thing ? Man should be in the olympics for being able to throw that weight around.

Similarly to Ghost, König only gets himself off when it's absolutely necessary.

Only if he doesn't have you lying around to help him, of course.

Though, he lets himself have a bit of fun with it. Especially if it's been a tough day.

He's vocal, too. Though he tries not to be.

He just can't help it. Days' - maybe even weeks' - worth of unspent adrenaline and semen is hardly any way for a soldier like König to go about his life. So, he expels it in the privacy of quite literally any isolated space he can find.

König is not an adventurous spirit by any means when it comes to self pleasure, but when needs must, he's willing to shoulder the weight of the prospect that someone on his team could walk in at any second and catch him spraying his stomach or the wall white with, let's face it, thick ropes of cum.

Hong-Jin's actually caught him doing that before now.

That's actually how the two became friends: Horangi heard König grunting in the store cupboard and, knowing how stubborn his Colonel was with letting others know when he was injured, sought him out. Wanted to offer his help.

Catching Colonel König in the act of throwing his head back whilst growling the name '(Y/N)' into the darkest corner of the room was, suffice it to say, not what Horangi had been expecting.

Price

You just know he's cool with it. And by 'cool', I mean incredibly intentional, controlled, and not ravenous in the ways our other favourite military princesses are.

Sure, Price has gotten hard on the job a few times.

Who hasn't ?

But thanks to his level head, unwavering devotion to his work, and absolute refusal to acknowledge that he did, in fact, get a little bit of a chub during a shoot-out, he's managed to gain control over every facet of his body.

Until he comes home to you, of course.

Until he's able to loom over you like an omen and run his hands down your sides, stopping at your hips and pressing kisses that become more open-mouthed the further down the side of your neck he dips.

Pressing his hips into yours. Something demands your attention.

There have been very few occasions where a cold shower wasn't a quick enough fix for him.

When the days of having you milk him are too far out of sight, he's had to suffice with his own hands before now. Had to imagine - remember - what yours felt like in his place, your lips curled up as he gripped the chair arms, breathless as he moaned into the warm tones of your shared apartment.

But don't worry ! He'll be sure to catch you up on everything you've missed while he's been away once he returns.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist

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