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[hivemuthur]

Nothing's New - Ch.4.

viktorxfemale!reader explicit!

AU modern era, lovers to enemies to lovers, getting back together, a lot of angst, smut present

Ch.1. | Ch.2. | Ch.3. | Ch.5. | Ch.6.

word count: 6,2K

warnings: angst (in case you haven't expected it), unsafe sex, dacryphilia

tag: #nothings new

author's note: a note, instead of summary - things happen fast in this chapter, but the inclination is, everything is consented to, even though not specifically stated. Actions speaking louder than words and all that.

Cross-posted on AO3

—

“Viktor, where is Julia? I need her for a minute,” Jayce asks, absentmindedly lifting a notebook from the desk, as if Julia could somehow be hidden beneath it.

“Oh. I gave her a day off,” comes the reply in a flat, unamused tone. Viktor doesn’t even glance up from his workstation, ensuring Jayce won’t catch the frown etched across his face. He bites his lower lip, his focus drawn to the shuffling of papers behind him.

“What? Why— You can’t just… uh,” Jayce stammers, his frustration mounting. You can’t just give your girlfriend a day off whenever you feel like it seems too accusatory, even for this. He settles instead on, “You can’t just give her a—” before Viktor’s deadpan voice cuts through.

“We split up yesterday. I thought it was the least I could do.” Viktor’s tone is dry, as if he’s merely informing someone they’ve run out of milk. Bracing for questions, he exhales a long sigh and swivels in his chair to face Jayce. His friend’s expression is a painful mix of surprise and—annoyance?

“W-what? Why?” Jayce stutters, his voice rising in a whiny pitch that Viktor instantly equates with a child pleading to stay at the park a little longer.

The truth feels mortifying, so Viktor lies. “It just… didn’t work out,” he says with a shrug, his eyes darting to avoid Jayce’s gaze. The gesture feels incomplete, though—his shoulders remain bunched up by his ears when he finally meets Jayce’s blinking stare.

“I thought you guys… fit?” Jayce offers after a pause, clearly searching for a neutral word to soften the blow.

“I suppose.” Viktor’s shoulders drop with a resigned sigh. “But I wouldn’t call it a perfect fit.” He spreads his hands slightly, a silent apology for the imminent awkward atmosphere this is going to cause during the next few weeks.

“Viktor, I thought you… um, are you alright? Do you want to take a day off?” Jayce asks, though he already knows the answer.

Viktor chuckles quietly and swivels back to his desk, resuming his work. “I’m fine. You know me—I’d rather work than dwell. I’ll adjust our schedules to smooth things over in the next few days,” he mutters, as if simply avoiding Julia will somehow ease the tension.

“Huh, sure. Whatever you need,” Jayce mumbles, scratching the back of his neck, his attention already drifting elsewhere. His phone vibrates. A text from Mel.

Fresh gossip! Paul is no more. Don’t tell V. XoXo.

Jayce clears his throat and starts shuffling papers aimlessly. Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Everything alright there, Jayce?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s nothing. Just Mel,” Jayce replies hastily, already backing toward the door. He gives Viktor an uncharacteristic salute and bolts before Viktor can press further. “I gotta get back to class. See you later!”

Of course, Jayce doesn’t stay quiet. By the end of the day, when Viktor is rubbing his eyes in the dim lab light, Jayce leans in and whispers, as if they’re sharing state secrets. “Listen, I feel like I should tell you something. But promise you won’t say anything to Mel. Or to—” He pauses, scrunches his nose, and mouths your name silently, as if it’s forbidden to say aloud.

Viktor’s jaw tightens, his grip on the pencil firm. He sighs, masking his unease, and turns to Jayce. “Well, I suppose. What is it, then?” The promise is weak, but Jayce is so anxious he takes it.

Jayce tells him. Viktor almost snaps his pencil in two. He utters a soft curse in Czech and presses a hand to his mouth.

“Are you alright?” Jayce asks, for the second time that day. Immediately, he feels like he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Eh, why wouldn’t I be? It’s hardly something that should concern me, Jayce,” Viktor replies dismissively, rubbing his temple. But the truth gnaws at him. It does concern him—so much so that his fingers itch to press the unblock button on his phone, to send you a text, to call you and ask you to come over. He forces himself to resist, for about a week.

Until Saturday afternoon comes, and he finds himself lingering by the windowsill, phone in hand. So he presses that button. And he sends the text.

We should talk. Come over.

***

You wake up, dreams askew, thoughts apart. Your hand rubs the sleep from your eyes, and you peek through your fingers at your phone. 11:45, Saturday. A text from Mel.

When you told her about breaking up with Paul, she was very serious, urging you to take as much time as you needed. Until she wasn’t. Now, the letters glare at you from the screen:

Time’s up, bitch. I’m picking you up at 12. Coffee and breakfast. XoXo

The entirety of the week had been a blur. You worked like a madwoman, taking extra hours at the shop. Your nails were ruined from all the old books you’d catalogued. You even exchanged a few texts with Paul—entirely dictated by his courtesy to remain friends with his exes. You didn’t want to deepen the wound, so you replied to each one and even sent one of your own.

And now, you’ve even managed to smile at Mel’s text.

Make it 12:15, just woke up.

Hurriedly, you skip around the flat, pulling out all the necessary things, grab a very quick shower, and sigh when it’s 12:08, just as you hear the buzzer. Mel smiles at you sweetly, extending her hand with a coffee cup.

“Just to get you there,” she chirps, and you accept the peace offering.

The walk to the bistro is relatively civil. Mel has enough decency to give you some time to grind through all the tea she’s expecting you to spill, waiting until you’re seated and have ordered. She taps her nails on the table and gives you an expectant look.

“Well?”

You snort, despite yourself. “God, you are impossible. Well what? Well, I’m single. There it is.” You stuff your mouth with a breadstick before she gets the chance to sigh.

“Some details, as to why and why now, especially? You guys seemed really cozy at the dinner,” she drags out her vowels, waving a breadstick at you. You wince at the thought of that dinner. It had been horrific, and you’d felt far from cozy.

You give her a summary of last week’s events, excluding Viktor, of course. She nods, interjecting with quiet comments when you describe Paul’s expressions and behaviour. Then she throws her best look of fake pity when you mention you’ve already been texting. You know she knows something more—you can tell from the way her jaw clenches when you try to justify your decision with a complete lie. Your jaw clenches as well.

“Is that all?” Mel asks, her eyes piercing through you. “Are you… feeling alright?” Her voice is careful, and you fall into the delicate battle of wits, suddenly aware of your body language and the wrinkles on your forehead.

“That is all,” you shrug and take a sip of your soda. Mel hums, and you can practically hear the gears grinding against each other in her head as she wonders how to strike next. Then she decides.

“Alright. So you’re telling me there’s no connection between you breaking up with Paul and Viktor breaking up with Julia on the same day?” She watches you carefully as you pause mid-sip, trying not to choke on your drink. She twists the dagger further. “Like, for example, something happening between you and Viktor didn’t cause this… perfect alignment?”

“I—” you stutter, your mind swelling, your head about to explode. “They broke up?” You lean over the table, searching for a lie in her eyes, but there is none. You scold yourself for how hopeful you sound.

“Yes. On Sunday. Just like you and Paul.”

“W-why?” you ask dumbly, as if you don’t know. The truth is you probably don’t know, but the absolutely pathetic, self-centred part of you hopes, hopes, hopes it’s because of what happened. The rational part of you kicks the pathetic one. Why would you hope for something like that?

“Apparently, Viktor thinks they weren’t a good match. That’s all I’ve managed to drag out from Jayce,” she smiles slyly, making a show of admiring her nails. “I’ve shown you my cards. Spill.”

“Mel, I… I’m not sure you’ll be able to look me in the eye if I tell you.” You wince, squeezing your eyes shut, momentarily blinded by your own stupidity. Mel grabs your hands and holds them tight.

“I will,” she says with the reverence of someone more than just a good friend. A comrade. “Spill.”

You inhale sharply and let your mouth fall open and close a couple of times, desperately trying to figure out where to start, how to start, how to justify it. Instead of starting at the beginning, you say simply, “We kissed.”

Mel’s eyes are full of questions, and she squeezes your palms to encourage you. So, you take another gulp of air, order a glass of wine, and tell her everything—from your encounter at the furniture shop to picking up your stuff from his apartment. You stop at the crying part.

“Meltdown?” Mel asks carefully, trying to hide the pity painting itself on her face behind concern.

“A meltdown. A very ugly crying session. Come as it may,” you sigh, thanking the waiter for the wine in a way that embarrassingly gives away just how much you need it right now.

“I was so fucking sure, Mel, that he planted that note on purpose, just to rile me up. But when he came into the room, he was so concerned. He was so worried that something had happened to me. He crouched and everything. So I thought… he wouldn’t act like that if it was fake. He would be glad that I was a mess. But he wasn’t, and I just, oh—” You bury your face in your hands, allowing the shame to devour you completely.

“Honey, you are not stupid, and this is not silly,” Mel says softly, pulling your palms away and caressing them, this time honestly. “Frankly, I would think that too, if I were you. What happened after?”

“He kicked me out.” You don’t recognise your own voice.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” you say it back, and your mouth stays in the shape of a little o.

“Well, yes, I didn’t expect that.” Mel’s brows furrow, and she brings a finger adorned with three gold rings to her lower lip.

“Really?” You scoff. “I expect him to clap when I die.” But you certainly hope he wouldn’t. You hope he would cry like a baby if you died.

“Oh, darling, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mel says, almost laughing you out. She knows for sure that Viktor would cry like a baby if you died. “He would probably die with you, knowing the dramatics,” she snorts, taking a sip of her wine and immediately correcting herself when she sees your dumbfounded expression.

“Sorry about that. So… what are you going to do?”

“Me? Absolutely nothing. I have my things. I am single. This is fine,” you recite, straightening the tablecloth with your hands. Mel… well, she doesn’t believe you for a beat.

She smirks, sighs, and stretches—a symbolic way of telling you she’s giving the topic a rest until you figure yourself out. You gossip about Jayce a bit. Bicker when you tell her your boss has hired a new guy with gropy tendencies. You crack a bottle of wine between the two of you. It’s 4 P.M., and by the end of the meeting, you feel significantly lighter.

You hold hands until you reach a corner that’s usually your parting spot. Mel kisses your cheek and walks backwards a couple of steps before waving you off, exuding lead-character aura. You check your phone, and your heart falls out of your chest and stumbles onto the pavement.

We should talk. Come over.

You’ve been unblocked. Moreover, you’ve been invited. To talk. When, though? Come over, when? Come over now? It’s been sent half an hour ago. Before you can think, you text him back.

Be there in 10.

But you are there in five, because your legs keep on running when you tell them not to. You pace in front of the building entrance for around three minutes, weighing the options and wondering whether you should walk in or bolt. You ring the buzzer, and Viktor lets you in almost immediately, without checking who’s doing the buzzing. Walking in on wonky legs, you chew on your cheek and tongue and try to make yourself look presentable in the elevator mirror.

When you get to the door, it’s ajar. You make sure to slam it shut loudly so Viktor knows you’re there. You kick off your shoes by the entrance, and the creaks in his floor announce your movements. He sits on the couch in the middle of the living room, reading. When you fidget by the door a second too long, he lifts his head and says, “You made it.”

You lean in the entrance to the living room, gripping the strap of your bag like it’s the only thing keeping you steady. Viktor hasn’t moved from the couch, legs apart, his fingers tracing idly over the top of his cane resting between them. He looks exactly like you thought he was going to look—he is staging being unbothered nearly perfectly, but somehow you know he actually has just sat down and opened the book on a random page. Makes you smile, internally.

“Sit,” he says after a beat, but it sounds more like an order than an invitation. His hand extends toward the empty spot on the couch, and you consider, for another beat.

In the end you don’t. “I’m fine here,” you reply, your voice tight and you are grateful for the door frame supporting your hip.

He raises an eyebrow at that, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Suit yourself.” He leans back on the couch and stares at his knees. Either he thinks of what to say next or how to start, but the silence begins to gnaw at you.

“You said you wanted to talk,” you blurt out and your voice raises a pitch with the last word, making you cringe. Your hands slide down on the bag strap and uh, you feel your dignity seeping through your pores.

“I do,” Viktor says in an infuriatingly calm tone. His eyes wander, from your hands, the bag strap indentation slightly reddened on one of them, then to your bare feet and you feel the urge to hide them, so you keep stepping from one to the other. “But it seems you’re in a hurry to leave.”

“Maybe I am.”

His eyes flick back to you, sharp and assessing. “Then I’ll keep this brief.” He shifts, setting his cane aside, the motion deliberate, like he’s buying himself time. “I wanted to tell you—to your face—that I didn’t end things with Julia because of you.”

The words land with an echo, and you feel yourself exhaling, even though you should’ve seen them coming. You manage to keep your expression neutral, but something in your chest tightens and you watch him, furious about how composed he seems to be.

“I didn’t ask,” you say, though the tremor in your voice betrays you.

“No,” he agrees, his gaze narrowing slightly. “But I suspect you’ve been wondering.” He knows you've been wondering, he just doesn't know how little time you had to do it. He's been wondering for an entire week and what's infuriating here, is that if forced him to show his cards, because his patience has worn thin. Completely unlike him.

You force a laugh, shaky and brittle. “You really think I’m that self-absorbed?”

“Not at all.” He leans back, watching you with an agonizing calmness. “But I know Jayce has a loud mouth and a pair of ears close to him willing to listen. And that between this pair of ears is another, even louder mouth." His lips curve into something that’s almost a smirk.

Your throat tightens, and you look away, focusing on a scuff mark on the floor. “So, that’s it? You brought me here to clear up some imaginary misunderstanding?” You look at your feet and you are suddenly very aware of how much you were sweating, your soles leaving steamy footprints whenever you stepped from one foot to the other.

“I brought you here because I thought it was better to address this directly,” he says, his voice low, measured. “Before you started making assumptions.”

“Assumptions about what?” That does it. You step forward, hands balled up into fists. “That this is some sort of… opportunity?" You scoff so hard you almost spit on yourself. "Because trust me, Viktor, I don’t care what you do.”

His jaw twitches at that, a tell he can’t hide. “Good,” he says after a pause, though his tone is clipped. “Then we’re in agreement.” And silently, in his head, Viktor curses himself, because a tiny part of him thought exactly that, once he has learnt about the news of you and Paul. Opportunity. He has killed that part soon enough, of course, but its whiny little voice still lingers in his memory.

You stare at him, your breath coming quicker now. You want to scream, to demand why he’s lying to you—or maybe why he’s so good at making you doubt yourself. Instead, you say, “Why do you even care what I think?”

He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes search your face, his usual calm slipping just enough for you to catch something—hesitation. But it's only another beat, after which Viktor settles on a lie.

"I don't. I do care about civility, that Jayce keeps asking us for." Yes, that one. A very good choice.

Your breath catches, and for a moment you want to just storm off. You feel pinned, while someone is pulling your skin off you. Viktor seems happy enough with the outcome. He exhales, leans back on the couch and sadly, opens his mouth again.

“If that’s all, you know the way out,” he says, gesturing toward the door without meeting your eyes.

You don’t move. Your legs feel like they’re stuck to the floor, and you hate how small his dismissal makes you feel. “That’s not all,” you say quietly, your voice breaking just enough to make him glance back at you. But that’s it, as your remark doesn't get to be dignified with a follow up question.

"Me and Paul split up. Not that it matters, but since you care about civility so much, there it is." You try to study him. But it's too hot, and you had half a bottle of wine with your breakfast and mind feels foggy. Until Viktor blinks one time too many.

"But of course… you already know that," you say quietly, you tone inflecting a question at the end. Jayce also has ears, it would seem. "Is that why I'm here? So you can clear the air and make sure I know that nothing I do matters to you?”

His gaze hardens, but he doesn’t bite. He’s silent for so long that you throw your hands up in exasperation.

“If that’s all, I’m going to go,” you say, already turning toward the door.

But his voice stops you cold. “It’s not.” And you hate, hate, hate the way it stops you immediately and gives your heart an extra pump. You turn back slowly, chest trembling, as you watch him push himself to his feet. He pulls something from his pocket, his movements wobbly, as he makes those few steps without the cane, and when he does, your breath catches.

He holds out his hand, and there it is. The star chunk.

“Take it,” he says quietly. Take it. Take it. Take it.

Something crumbles inside you. Anger flees. Sadness settles. Every last bit to be erased, everything to be cleaned until it squeaks. Your throat tightens, and all that crawls out of it is a whisper. "It was a gift. It's a bad luck to return them."

He frowns slightly, his hand still outstretched. “I can't keep it,” he mutters, reaching out for your palm, but you hide your wrist behind your back.

“Then throw it away,” you breathe out, barely. Viktor almost doesn't hear it, almost reads it from your lips. He moves closer, the box poking your arm now.

"I can't do that either." His voice shrinks to match yours. You can swear his hair is tickling your forehead.

You swallow something very bitter, tongue twisting. "Then it seems," an exhale and then, a shuddery inhale. "It's meant to stay with you."

"You were meant to stay with me," he breathes the accusation into your mouth. Hesitantly, like the last time, his lips meet yours. He kisses you gently, hand comes between your shoulder blades. "It reminds me, that you are gone," he speaks so softly, regret in his voice almost crushing you. His lips are warm against yours, each brush sending electric spark straight to your toes and you feel like you are drinking water on a hot summer day. Your brows furrow and mouth doesn't close, you are ready for his tongue.

"Viktor," you whisper against his skin and cup his face. He is breathing so heavily, as if there is a physical restraint stopping him from kissing you, from touching you. You can see his heart beating fast in the vein on his neck and you press your lips to it. He brushes your hair away, mouths touch again, eyes unseeing. His nails dig into your cheek, the grip stretches from his thumb hooked on your jaw to the index finger pulling down the skin under your eye, your face in full restraint.

His nose presses into you, breathing heavily, your own breath only as deep as he would grant you between the movements of his tongue, in and out of your mouth. The one, tremendous feeling flooding your veins, as you feel yourself belonging again, your mouth tongue-fucked by Viktor. There, where he drinks your breaths in his anger, in his yearning. There, where he bites your lips, growls straight into your stomach, pumps air into your lungs. There, where your thighs touch and you can feel how hard he is. Viktor's touch taking its righteous place back in the grooves on your brain, embedding itself in.

Your hands can't decide whether to fist his shirt of tangle into his hair, so they roam, making him look like a hot mess. You brace for this invitation being rescinded as well, but nothing comes. Viktor leans on you, kicks your feet to walk backwards toward the couch until the creases of your knees meet the edge. Your legs buck and you fall, pulling him on top of you. You wrap your legs around his hips, and he groans, fumbling with his fly for a moment, before he frees his cock and glues himself to your core, pulling your skirt up, underwear to the side. Kisses you all the way through. Everything is happening so fast. You breathe so heavily, each of your exhales gains a different sound and you are so, so, desperate, you almost cry when he enters you.

The initial stretch burns, as he covers your body with his. Hand snakes around your neck, another cups the back of your head in a firm grip. He thrusts and you moan, bracing your palms on his chest, closing your eyes but Viktor tsk-s at you.

"Look at me," he rasps into your mouth, noses touching as he hunches over you, and you can feel the friction of your clothes on top of each other making you unbearably hot. "Why did you break up with him?"

"He broke up with me," you strain, too many things happening at once.

"Why?"

"I told him we kissed," you confess, through breaths. Ah. So you did break up with him, Viktor thinks.

"And what else?" The feeling of his chest crushing yours, the press of his hips rutting into you, his hand squeezing the back of your neck tightly, crushing the tiny blood vessels under your skin, coaxing small bruises to the surface to remind you of this moment tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after. Another thrust, punching the answers out of you.

"He asked me if I want to get back together with you, ah," you pant underneath him, fixed in place with his hands, his weight and his eyes, studying you.

"And what did you say?" Another rough thrust.

"I said… no." It's the truth about what you've told Paul, but not the truth, which, of course, you are oblivious to.

"And what else?" He asks again, and you can see in his eyes how much he needs you to say something real. How scared he is. You can feel his heart thundering next to yours.

"He asked me if I still loved you," you mumble, tears pooling in the corners of your eyes. Viktor's mouth brushes against yours when he gives you the next roll of his hips.

"What did you say?" Patiently, he digs further, completely unready for the answer. When it comes his breath hitches.

"I said nothing." Barely a whisper pushes itself out of you, almost shameful, as you roll your eyes to avoid his gaze. But he fixes your neck back into place.

"Do you?" Viktor lets out his last breath and just keeps staring. You can feel him being close to cumming, his cock twitching inside you, stomach contorting. He keeps on giving you slow, deep thrusts.

You cup his neck and lick your lips, your tongue brushing against his. Your eyes fall close and open, as you give yourself back to him with a timid nod.

And Viktor breathes again, he kisses you again. He takes a shaky inhale, his brows knit together, and he can no longer hide the affection seeping from him. His kiss is so thankful when he whispers, "God, I love you," and picks up his pace. A couple of stuttering thrusts, his nails digging further in the skin of your neck, his belt buckle scratching your hip and he paints your insides with his seed, an audible moan escaping his lips. He drops on top of you, still inside you, breathing heavily. His entire body shakes, and his hands cling onto you, so you tangle your fingers into his damp hair and massage his temple. He sighs.

Minutes pass. Or eternity, you don't know. Thousands of blood cells die in your spleens in the moment when your eyes meet. With a grunt, he props himself up and places his chin on your sternum to look at you. Viktor looks at you the same way he used to look at you long ago, making your breath uneven. "Are you alright?" He asks you wearily, himself barely holding together.

"Yes," you mutter quietly. He slides up. Brushes your mouth with his.

"But you didn't come," he whispers, apology dripping from his tongue. "Would you like me to make you come?" He rubs his face on yours, fingers tangling into your hair. "Ask me."

You hesitate, feeling very exposed. Like you owe him your orgasm. You gather up your courage, lift your head to meet his lips and kiss him. "Please, make me come, please," you plead, giving him the rest of you. All of the clenched up, tensed up rest of you, as you feel his cock twitch again and him growing back hard.

"Ask me again," he hums, taking a deep breath, along with the smell of you, his hair tickles your face.

"Please," you say quietly, combing it back with your hands and fix your eyes on his. "Please, make me cum. Please, fuck me till I die." So very dramatic, so very fitting to this little moment of you giving up. Mel was kind of right, damn her.

Eyes roll back in Viktor’s skull. He disconnects from you with a growl, and you whine at the emptiness, despite the burn of previous roughness. He swings your legs off him and sits in the middle of the couch, tapping your legs, and urging, "Up, up."

Your thighs feel wobbly as you try to close them for a second, before straddling Viktor's lap. He slides you down and rubs his cock against you, causing you to shudder. He gives you his bedroom eyes before pulling you in for a kiss and you remember how crushingly beautiful he is when he's having sex. How absolutely stripped of all his usual practiced poise, how utterly naked despite still wearing clothes, how loving and open he gets when his face is flushed in pretty pink, when his lips glisten with your spit. And you think to yourself how this is different to anything else you've had.

Viktor's thumb brushes your clit, the most delicate, featherlight touch. You whimper against his mouth, and he wraps his free hand around your waist, grounding you. Your arms encircle his neck, face pressed into his as you lower yourself until your ass slaps against his legs. The rest of his hand is splayed flat on your navel, and he barely moves it so you can find your own rhythm.

It takes somewhere between a few seconds and another eternity before you roll on top of him. Before your mind registers what is happening, you take this time between few seconds and eternity to gasp at how your bodies slot in together. What he smells like and how quickly your scent becomes his and his becomes yours. And then you both move.

Your mouths fall open, faces squished against each other. You feel the painful stretch, the build-up of soreness as you rock your hips and Viktor's thumb begins to rub small circles around your clit and it hits you how he remembers where and how to touch you in an instant. His eyes give testament to his longing, half-lidded, gentle, glittery gold, when he looks at you and the dying sun of the day paints him in orange and pink.

Your rhythm stutters when he asks, "Will you leave me again?" You meet his eyes as his hand cups your face and all you can do is shake your head. It's not yet settled if you came back, but you know for sure you won't leave now.

He presses your pelvis forward, so you can rub against his pubic bone while rocking your hips. Arms cage around you, hands in a tight grip on your flesh, your waist and your neck, fingers digging into the crook of your shoulder. His face looks calm, almost encouraging. His palm massages your neck, almost lovingly. It’s all so good, almost as it always used to be. Almost better.

Yet somehow, you can’t come. You struggle on his lap, balancing on the edge of orgasm that refuses to come. You try to catch it, and it slips away. Your own gasps and moans distract you, so you can only breathe heavily. Viktor notices, untangles his hands from around you and cups your face. His mouth grazes your ear, his breath is hot and calm, when he tells you, “It’s okay.”

He inhales, slowly, then speaks again. “It’s not the same with other people, is it?” His hand caresses the back of your head. He gets the answer from your eyes.

It’s not. It’s completely different and he could be searching for something to never be found, because it was left with you. He allows himself to crack.

“Please, come for me,” Viktor pleads, and his voice is so soft in your ear you feel your walls crumbling. Clenching and squeezing him tight, painfully wrenching the pleasure out of you. And it takes over you for the longest time, verging on the border of too much. Your thighs tighten around him, back arches and you press your face into Viktor’s. Your vision blurs, as you babble complete nonsense about God, mixing it in with his name. His eyes remain open, gentle, mouth shaped like an o when he soothes you and whispers quiet praises.

And then you hear your whimper before you can feel it. Your body shakes with a heart seizing sob, as you feel all tensions leave you and only feelings remain. You need them all out, so you cling to Viktor, dampening his sweaty clothes further, sniffling and crying straight into his face, mumbling incoherent apologies. “I’m s-sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” An echo of a cramp still lingers in your lower belly.

Viktor collapses you both to the side, squeezes himself into the crease of the couch so you don’t fall off. “Shhh,” he soothes you. Your legs are tangled, his leg on yours, yours on his, then his on yours again. Your torsos are pressed together, your head rests in the crook of his shoulder as he cradles your face to his chest and whispers, “It’s okay, you are okay.” My beautiful girl, I’ve missed you so much, Viktor imagines himself saying. God, I love you, tries to slip out again, but he keeps it in, as innocuous as it would sound right now.

Nothing matters—you’re back. Viktor nudges you through your cries, asks about the bathroom, tries to detangle your legs and you answer by clinging to him further and wailing a “no”. A panicked, desperate sound, so he stops. Nothing matters, only this. And he’s shocked by how much you’ve been hiding from yourself. It all overspills now, pours into him, and his heart swells as he feels a strange pang, again, in his lower belly.

You cry, for a while. He kisses you and it’s so utterly gross. You lose control of your face, snot mixing with tears—it’s salt on Viktor’s tongue and you can taste it in your mouth. You wince, but Viktor doesn’t care. He kisses you like you are oxygen. Like you are the water he’s been denied. Like you are the answer he’s been searching for. He feels invincible with you fallen apart in his arms.

And because he feels like this, the words push through, and he doesn’t even bother to try and catch them as they leave. “My girl, I’ve missed you so much,” he hums placing a sweet kiss to your forehead. “Talk to me.”

“I’m so sorry, this is incredibly gross,” you snort an undignified chuckle, trying to wipe away the fluids with the back of your hand, but they only smear and leave a glistening slimy trail behind. Viktor looks at you with something that screams relief and pride and again, kisses your disgusting snotty mouth.

“I do not care about that,” he whispers softly and for once, the love and softness in someone’s voice doesn’t make you feel like vomiting. Completely transfixed with your tears, he smiles and coos at you, brushing damp hair away from your face, his hand between your shoulder blades steadying your thundering heartbeat. The feeling is indescribable to him. To hold something so fragile. To be given something like this.

Silence, for a while. Heavy breaths, that transform into lighter, calmer breathing. And when you finally sigh and move, Viktor rolls over on top of you to rest his head on your stomach. He holds you like a stuffed animal, while your fingers comb through his hair. A better type of silence falls between you. Kinder, calmer, safer.

He lifts your t-shirt with his nose and kisses your belly. You arch instantly under his hands splayed on your ribs and he chuckles. It’s different than with other people.

“I say we need to bathe you and feed you,” he mumbles against your skin, and you can feel long nasal exhales on you.

“Are you saying that I smell?”

“You smell of me. That I do not mind, but,” he cuts to push himself up to meet your face with his and then palms your core with his hand, knickers obscenely damp. “I fear that I’ve made you sore.”

“Yes. But that I do not mind,” you say with overwhelming sincerity. “I suppose you will want to talk, no?”

“Later.” A kiss that says Let’s keep this for a little while longer.  “I would like to stay like this… with you, for a little while longer,” Viktor says and his eyes gloss over you, searching if you want the same thing.

Feeling the scrutiny burning through you, you reply, “Viktor, I am not going to leave. Not yet, at least. I mean—” you stumble over words and pause to take a breath. “Unless you tell me to. But you just said you want to stay like this, so I hope you won’t. Tell me to leave, that is.”

Viktor chuckles, you can almost hear him muttering, “peculiar.”

“What if I tell you to stay?” He cocks his head and resumes staring.

“Then… then I will stay,” you reply, searching for anything, the faintest sign of hesitation within him and you can’t find any. If anything, Viktor appears to be high on something, and you can’t pin point what that is. But it compliments your weird, comfortable low.

[review-anon]

I haven't gotten those kinds of asks on my sideblog thankfully, sorry it's happening to you

//And I don't wish on anyone, its annoying af since you think people are liking you content but no its just some bot.

//I want humans to enjoy this, not soulless machines that want to take your jobs and make you poor.

[bixels]

While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

not a desert technically but I just visited the dunes in Monterey and gleefully trampled on some ice plant and I feel like you might enjoy that. if you wanna talk about the kinds of vegetation that grow in sandy soil or something I invite you to 👀

(also you're doing it! you're surviving! you'll get through that doctorate!)

ok ready this is my most important soapbox of all because soils in the desert are very special and have such cool organisms you don't find in these arrangements outside of drylands...

first lookee here. wauw beautiful utah

ok now look closer

no closer closer closer

CLOSER CLOSER CLOSER

WOW is that MOSS? you are thinking. the answer is YES. but doesn't moss like lots of water you are thinking??? WELL USUALLY. BUT in the desert you will notice that things like grasses and shrubs have lots of space between them unlike in more temperate climates-vegetation cover is not truly continuous. And there's less leaf litter than in forests obscuring the dirt. Which means all that soil is just sitting out in the open with nothing to protect it from being blown away by those harsh desert winds... except of course for our friends the BIOLOGICAL SOIL CRUSTS. also known as crypotbiotic soils, cryptogrammic soils, and biocrusts (for short).

These are communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria (aka blue green algae--yes, those are usually Wet too, but ironically so so common in deserts), and the tens of thousands of surface and subsurface microbes that are associated with them. It's easy to forget just how many organisms are living in one single scoop of soil, especially because science can barely identify 1% of these microbes. Like of JUST the ones we have enough info to classify enough to count in my own master's dataset left me with over 25,000 unique taxonomic units I had to manage. don't worry about what that means just know it was very annoying and makes statistics a headache. anyway you find them all over the southwest US states as well as in other deserts around the world (spain, australia, sooo many in china, incredible ones in the succulent karoo in south africa/namibia, plenty in argentina etc etc), if you know where to look...

anyway OUR HEROS THE BIOCRUST aren't just there to look pretty (though you will can see from photos they also do this :) ), but are a vital component to the dryland ecosystem! They literally hold the soil surface together to prevent erosion, they influence hydrology in terms of rainfall runoff + infiltration, they impact how seeds germinate, they contribute to nutrient cycling and what plant-available compounds are held at the soil surface... like i feel like Tumblr in general has been made aware of how fungi & root networks interact in large scale systems like forests, but that is also happening on a more microscopic level in deserts! just in the top couple centimeters soooo much is happening. Cyanobacteria in particular are tiny organisms that produce little nets of sugars woven in the soil to climb around on and protect themselves, and if you crumble a little bit of soil from the surface you can see how the little spiderweb strings literally hold together the sand particles.

Now that you're Aware of biocrusts, when you look at larger scale landscape photos taken in un-trampled areas of desert, you will notice them as darker patches and textures on the lighter soil:

Yep there's these tiny little communities all over, that many people never learn to see. And now what I said before about mosses & cyanobacteria usually preferring wet environments--they have in fact adapted to life in the desert in ways that means they're dormant for most of the year. They live in stasis until the rainy season hits (or in some cases, winter moisture from a snow layer--many will photosynthesize through a few inches of snow since it's clear/white), and then burst into color and life. Many patches of biocrust will look utterly lifeless and dried out at first and then become vibrant and swell up within a few minutes of being exposed to moisture. Lichens, while more vibrant even when dry, will also mostly only grow/reproduce while wet. And biocrusts come in all sorts of colors, shapes, and preferred microhabitats!

anyway this post is long enough already so i'll be quick. while beautiful and important as you can imagine these are FRAGILE. if they get trampled too much, by humans or cows or cars, that's it. you're back to bare soil that can blow away whenever it wants.

I was lucky to get to participate in a 2x/year survey of one of the very few places in Utah to NEVER have cattle grazing or development, a remote area the entrance is kept secret to inside Canyonlands National Park, where you can see just how dense and lush biocrusts once could be in the US southwest:

ah... glorious. what special little guys. this is why if you visit many of the national parks in Utah you will see signs & stickers around with slogans like "Don't Bust The Crust" and "Tiptoe Through The Crypto" and etc. so heed that advice but DO stop and kneel down and get a better look at them!

[vladdyissues]

Why does it matter what I think of the Trans-Danny headcanon?

Honestly, you're right when it comes to what you've said under this question, I won't say anything on that. But I come on here just like any other anon to discuss/ask whatever about pompous-pep because I can't with all the antis buzzing around. I had a question that I thought was reasonable to ask. You've drawn only a little bit of Trans Danny, and from what I've seen everywhere else you respond positively to it, so I thought it would have been safe to ask. I was curious about what you thought of it since it is one of the more popular fan cannons. I was still nervous when I first asked so I totally babbled my question, and reading your response about it you seemed a bit confused about what I was asking. So I wrote up another and when I was writing my first response I saw another anon post about my original question and I was a little ticked off with:

“the person who didn't like the trans Danny depiction you did just because they don't see him as trans themselves”

I never said I didn't like the art, I just said didn't see danny as a trans character. So I overloaded my next response when I shouldn't have. I was attempting to clarify my thoughts so It would be clearer on what I was asking. Treating it as if I were talking to that one anon through you, instead of you and whispering audience. You answered my question to the best of your abilities when I initially asked and I should have acknowledged that better in my following response, I shouldn't have taken that out on you when my problem was with another anon. I'm sorry for that, Hal.

3rd paragraph: this is actually what I was trying to get an answer for. Funny enough I do that too, hitting my faves with the trans beam is fun as hell, especially when it has a passion put into it.

5th paragraph: No, I don't really tell people openly, unless the discussion is about it. I'm also comfortable enough to be open about my transness when it comes to that kind of discussion like how I was in my first ask

“Personally, I can't really see his character as transgender as a transman myself.”

Most of these “discussions” happened in the polluted swamps that used to be named Twitter so…

Also I realized I muddled my in the last response “I don't see danny as a trans character” into “I don't like trans danny” My bad Bender. I simplified my statement like an idiot. I don't mind the fan cannon, I just don't agree with it. That doesn't mean I hate it.

This part was another bite at that other anon

“when the “representation” in your case is just porn.”

“How about the rest of us trans people who DO appreciate the representation”

My phrase “Just porn” was said because the only art of trans danny was nsfw. I'm not saying that's bad, but I read this off as I had to be grateful for the “representation” that trans people have in pornography. I wasn't thinking of the fact your pieces weren't made out of malice or disregard, because I was looking too into the words instead of who I was typing to. Which is so dumb on my part.

7th Paragraph: I'm sure you're implying something but I think I'm just too dense to see it. Because Trans Danny enthusiastically riding Vlad doesn't bug me. that's hot as fuck. I can and have always enjoyed media with trans characters, in both non-sexual and sexual situations. Draw him pregnant I don't care. Why would I want you to apologize for good drawing art when that is one of the main reasons I followed you???? I might need some elaboration on that…

8th? Paragraph: when I stumble onto trans danny stuff I don't interact most of the time because I don't care. I don't go out looking for it, because I don't care for it. I don't just go around asking about it and then tell yap about I don't care for the Trans danny fan cannon. Because that's annoying.

why should it matter what someone else thinks?: It doesn't, but I feel like a person looking for a option would probably just click the ask button to see what someone else thinks

Are you looking for approval?: No, Im not gonna get a golden star for this, or “win the internet” Frankly I'd be insulted if I were.

Someone with a similar view?: No, I just was interested in your opinion/thoughts. And yours alone because I admire your art, fanfiction, and your persona here

Why risk getting angry, or bashed again, or possibly triggering yourself?: Because I like having discussions about stuff that I'm interested in. If I'm triggered by someone/something I'd rather clarify the problem, then think about it on my own.

-

I don’t have much to add besides yeah you're right on the spot when it comes to the rest of your closing argument. Hopefully this time my response doesn't sound hostile. As I wrote this as straightforward I possibly could. Sorry sorry if this did nothing to expand on what I initially wrote.

Thank you for answering my questions, anon. It really helped clear up a lot of confusion and ignorance on my part. I appreciate your patience. You're definitely not "dense" or an idiot. All that happened here was a failure to adequately communicate with each other. You were struggling to find the right words, I was reading too much into your responses, it was a simple mistake on both our parts.

Please allow me to apologize for getting defensive and snippy in my previous response. I wasn't aware of all the details or your motivations for reaching out to me, so all I could do was assume—and making assumptions is where we get ourselves into trouble. As far as I'm concerned, we're on the same page now and everything is cool between us :)

If anything is to blame here, I think it's today's fandom environment. So much toxicity and meanness and bad-faith arguments happening over things that should be giving us joy. I never know when the next free-range anti is going to appear in my inbox, asking disingenuous questions in an attempt to bait me or harass me. At the same time, I shouldn't be so quick to raise my eyebrow whenever I receive an anon ask about a sensitive fandom topic. I'm letting suspicion and paranoia get the better of me if I do. Sometimes people are just genuinely curious, like in your case, and I apologize for interpreting your ask as something more than a simple inquiry.

That's something I'm working on these days, trying to be patient and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt before jumping to conclusions. And if it makes me look like a naïve, trusting dope, well... I think I can live with that. I'd rather be accused of being dumb and nice to people than suspicious and mean 😂

Anyway, thank you again for clearing things up, anon. All is forgiven on my part, and I hope you can forgive me for being presumptuous.

[notanotherinfjblog]

Texting habits per judging function

No one asked, but here are some observations I've made in my personal life.

*Note that this probably differs by age, gender, and culture (for instance, I have been told by several Americans that I use an insane amount of emojis, whereas it's not considered weird at all here in Germany).

FJ:

Generally very good at texting, will respond to absolutely every point you make. If you send them a long voice message, they can be found taking notes while listening so that they will not forget to answer any point you made.

Have a very hard time leaving someone on read and if they do, either something happened and they forgot, or they simply don't like you very much. If they open the message, they answer. If they don't have time to answer you right now, they simply will not open the message yet.

If the text conversation is done (i.e. you wrote something like "bye, see you tomorrow!" that does not require another response), they will still at the very least send you an emoji back for no reason other than letting you know that "Yes! I read your message! I'm not ignoring you! I love you!" (Literally every FJ I have ever known does this. Every single one, including myself.)

They will adapt to your style of texting. If you are the kind of person that likes to send a bunch of heart emojis to friends and the FJ friend is not, they will still pepper in a heart here and there. If you generally don't use emojis, they will use them only occasionally. If you reply in wallpaper long messages, so will they. If you break up your messages into several texts one after the other, so will they.

FPs:

Also generally quite good at texting and can actually appear a lot warmer in writing than in person (there have been several instances where I received really lovely messages from FPs who I used to think hated my guts whenever we met in person).

Prepare for emojis. Seriously.

You can have infinitely long text conversations with them. If you are willing to commit, the conversation between the two of you will never end. With NFPs, the conversations usually end up spiralling into nonsense scenarios, while SFPs keep telling you about their day and keep answering you about your day every day.

TPs:

(my texting experience with TPs is unfortunately very limited, so feel free to fill in my blanks)

Fe is very noticeable in the extroverts, i.e. they tend to go the FJ route described above, but in a more nonchalant and more relaxed way. Like with FJs, the focus of the conversation is on you and their dynamic with you.

The introverts (i.e. my dad, i.e. my only point of reference) are bad at texting and prefer to call, so almost all text conversations go something like this: TP: "Hi, I tried to call you, but you didn't pick up. I hope everything is alright with you?" You: "Yes, sorry. Everything's good here, how about you, everything okay?" --- end of conversation ---

TJs:

Generally bad at texting. Also don't really like it and see no point in it, so they usually prefer calling or talking in person.

Will appear colder in writing than in person, especially the STJs. Their answers will be straight to the point. No beating around the bush and no needless extension of a conversation in form of jokes/questions/anecdotes for a bonding experience. If they want to tell you something, they will tell you in person.

Have absolutely zero problem leaving people on read and usually don't mean anything by it.

STJs rarely use emojis, NTJs do but not excessively

If their answer requires them to type anything more than two sentences, they will send you a voice message instead. (Literally every single TJ I know does this, except my INTJ brother who is a complete maniac and calls instead.)

[jessiesjaded]

most interesting popular accounts to me are the ones that just post stuff like gifsets or art or writing but never ever say anything, like no tag rambles, no personal posts, no opinions, no rants. im always like surely.... surely you have something to say....

[arachnerd-8-legs]

its always the positivity bloggers lol

[imruination]

shadow and bone fans have me screaming

[coollyinterferes]

//day 43546576879809. i still miss the jonawagon pitters so much <;/3

[tiffanylamps]

i may have said this before, but i want all my mutuals to know that in my mind you have an english accent, even if i know you're from a different country. i'm sorry.

[foone]

A fun thing about computer skills is that as you have more of them, the number of computer problems you have doesn't go down.

This is because as a beginner, you have troubles because you don't have much knowledge.

But then you learn a bunch more, and now you've got the skills to do a bunch of stuff, so you run into a lot of problems because you're doing so much stuff, and only an expert could figure them out.

But then one day you are an expert. You can reprogram everything and build new hardware! You understand all the various layers of tech!

And your problems are now legendary. You are trying things no one else has ever tried. You Google them and get zero results, or at best one forum post from 1997. You discover bugs in the silicon of obscure processors. You crash your compiler. Your software gets cited in academic papers because you accidently discovered a new mathematical proof while trying to remote control a vibrator. You can't use the wifi on your main laptop because you wrote your own uefi implementation and Intel has a bug in their firmware that they haven't fixed yet, no matter how much you email them. You post on mastodon about your technical issue and the most common replies are names of psychiatric medications. You have written your own OS but there arent many programs for it because no one else understands how they have to write apps as a small federation of coroutine-based microservices. You ask for help and get Pagliacci'd, constantly.

But this is the natural of computer skills: as you know more, your problems don't get easier, they just get weirder.

[norrisainz33]

Party time || ln4

☆ summary: y/n throws a end of season party party and the grid find out ln and y/n have been keeping a little secret

☆ pairing: lando norris x leclerc!reader x platonic!grid

☆ fc & warnings: slightly suggestive! you are responsible for the content you consume

☆ requested: nope! this has been in my drafts for months

ﾟ. ✿ ୨❤︎୧⠀✿ . ﾟ

ynleclerc has made a post

liked by charlesleclerc, scuderiaferrari, landonorris, lilymhe, oscarpiastri, arthur_leclerc, and 765,235 others

ynleclerc: waiting for everyone to get home from this triple header so we can celebrate like …..

view all 999 comments

arthur_leclerc: i’m literally sitting next to you do i mean nothing

ynleclerc: uhh yeah you’re not alex or rebecca or carmen or lily or lily or kika or leo

arthur_leclerc: blocked

charlesleclerc: wow leo gets a mention and not me?

ynleclerc: oui

alexandrasaintmleux: leo and i miss you. we’re counting down the days 🤍

charlesleclerc: mon amour 😫 don’t encourage her

ynleclerc: f off charles! that’s my girl!

user1: the leclerc’s and their beauty needs to be studied

scuderiaferrari: you are always welcome to join us y/n 🤍

ynleclerc: merci admin 😘

user2: is the sun bothering you queen 🔫

landonorris: perhaps you should just come to abu dhabi?? ever think of that!

ynleclerc: omg no never thought of that once!!!

landonorris: y/n/n

user4: is it wrong to say i ship these 2

user3: y/n really said i’m bored pay attention to me and she’s so real for that

ynleclerc has posted to their private story

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logansargeant: who is on this private story?? need to know who is invited before i even consider showing up

ynleclerc: just abt the whole grid, my favorite girlies, kyle, patito, and bunch of my other friends - some you know !!

logansargeant: i’ll only go if kyle goes

yourbff: i can’t wait!!!!!!

ynleclerc: me either bestie i miss you

alexandrasaintmleux: i am so excited! i got the finishing touches for my outfit today 🤭

ynleclerc: yessss i can’t wait to see it!! you’re going to look stunning 🤩

alexandrasaintmleux: so are you gorgeous girl

charlesleclerc: Puis-je te convaincre de changer de tenue ? [can i convince you to change your outfit?]

ynleclerc: absolument pas [absolutely not]

charlesleclerc: mais mes collègues vont te voir et je ne peux pas les laisser avoir des idées [but my coworkers are going to see you and i can’t have them getting any ideas]

ynleclerc: tant pis pour toi 😘 [too bad for you]

landonorris: are costumes required for this party?

ynleclerc: no but wouldn’t be a problem because you’re already a clown?

landonorris: and ya know what i hate you

ynleclerc: no you do not muppet

georgerussell63: we’re all going to need this after the season 😫

ynleclerc: no doubt georgie especially bc you were stuck in that tractor

georgerussell63: 💀

iamrebeccad: carlos asked why he’s not on the invite and i said it’s because you love me more and now he’s pouting

ynleclerc: a big big baby he is

iamrebeccad: the biggest

charlesleclerc has added to their private story

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ynleclerc: you may as well have been!!

charlesleclerc: oh so you missed me?

ynleclerc: yes i don’t want to deal with arthur alone anymore

charlesleclerc: i knew it

carlossainz55: wow she didn’t show up to greet me like this???

charlesleclerc: you know the only reason she came to pick me up is because alex and leo were involved

landonorris: where tf was my invite

charlesleclerc: don’t think i don’t know about your little crush on my baby sister

landonorris: gonna have to have a chat w carlos huh

alexandrasaintmleux: my baby girl

charlesleclerc: yes yes you love her i know

arthur_leclerc: she’s so dramatic and for what

charlesleclerc: yes but she is our sister so we must be nice

arthur_leclerc: 🤓☝🏻

iamrebeccad: my two most favorite girls

carlossainz55 has posted to his private story

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ynleclerc: surprised you know what a grwm is

carlossainz55: i’m not that old hermana

charlesleclerc: how are you the favorite friend ?!

carlossainz55: my charm and overall superiority

charlesleclerc: 🙄

landonorris: sooooo carlos… you told charles about my thing for y/n??????????

carlossainz55: what? no i did not!

landonorris: but you’re the only one i told!!!!

carlossainz55: … i may have told rebecca and she may have told alex who may have told charles

landonorris: mate 😭😭😭

carlossainz55: i’m sorry

landonorris: do you think charles knows the full extent?

carlossainz55: rebecca doesn’t think he does

landonorris: great so i can at least keep some of my dignity 😔

alexandrasaintmleux: eeek so cute

arthur_leclerc: you forgot to actually mention that you’re on set up duty not grwm duty

ynleclerc has posted to their story

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user2: omg it’s annual end of year party time im so sat i hope the drivers are there and get messy

user3: bisexuality is truly a beautiful thing

alexandrasaintmleux: 😫 mon amour you are stunning

ynleclerc: i love youuuu

landonorris: i’m gonna miss you when i scroll……

ynleclerc: 🤭 good thing you get to see me in real life so no need for missing me

landonorris: so true y/n/n. see you soon 😉

yourbff: i’m foaming at the mouth

patriciooward: 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

ynleclerc: so excited to see you patty

user16: god ur perfect

user22: screw your brothers, i want you

carlossainz55 has posted to his private story

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charlesleclerc: that little gremlin better not be with my sister

carlossainz55: 💀💀💀💀

arthur_leclerc: trying the insta story means he must have really disappeared

carlossainz55: i can’t find him anywhere in this house

yourbff: i can’t find y/n/n either

carlossainz55: charles is gonna have a fit

iamrebeccad: hehhe i think i found him

carlossainz55: oh mi amor where is he?

iamrebeccad: he is with y/n

carlossainz55: where?

iamrebeccad: you can’t get mad at him

carlossainz55: it’s not me you should be worried about

iamrebeccad: they snuck out to get pizza and go to lando’s

alexandrasaintmleux: i may have kept somethings from you and charles 😔

carlossainz55: alex what do you know

alexandrasaintmleux: y/n/n and lando have been seeing each other on the down low for a couple weeks now

carlossainz55: mi amiga 😫 you better butter up charles or his head is gonna explode when he finds this out

ynleclerc has posted to their story

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user2: Y/N THIS IS UR PUBLIC STORY

user3: screaming y/n what is this

charlesleclerc: y/n y/m/n leclerc - this is your public story. where are you both right now?

ynleclerc: OOPS!!!!!!!!

charlesleclerc: yeah oops for sure… where are you??

charlesleclerc: ma sœur stop leaving me on read

lilymhe: ARE YOU BOYH AT THE PIZZA SHOP RN HAHAAH

ynleclerc: Y E S!! i wanted pizza and lando was kind enough to take me

lilymhe: so is this like a thing now?

ynleclerc: i think so yes 🤭

lilymhe: omg you’re an evil, sinister, orange girl now 😭

ynleclerc: SCREAMING

user4: y/n it’s 3am what are you two doing rn

carmenmundt: baby what is this

ynleclerc: 😔 i tried to simp on private but messed up

carmenmundt: obsessed but also how is this how i found out??

ynleclerc: i tried to tell you at the dior show but got scared. this is all so new

carmenmundt: no need to be scared darling!! i am very good at keeping secrets but you let this cat out of the bag it seems

user7: omg are you guys together???

user8: drunken hard launch? girl i love you so much you’re my idol

user9: raw! next question

alexandrasaintmleux: hehehe tea

ynleclerc: is charles breathing still?

alexandrasaintmleux: oh don’t worry about your big brother. he’ll be fine. tell me about LANDO

ynleclerc: he is a dream alex 😭😭😭😭

ynleclerc: we made things official 🥹

alexandrasaintmleux: YESSSSSSS LETS GO ITS ABOUT TIME

user5: y/nlando truthers are UP rn

georgerussell63: laughing hysterically at this

ynleclerc: george shut up

georgerussell63: never

user6: guess your party is going well 😂😂😂

[this post has been deleted by user]

landonorris has posted to his private story

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carlossainz55: mate why won’t you respond to your texts

landonorris: i’m sorry im sorry got a bit caught up

carlossainz55: are you having fun?

landonorris: yes 🥹 we got pizza and she admitted she liked me a lot and wanted to make things official

carlossainz55: why didn’t you tell me you two had been hanging out for a while now???

landonorris: i didn’t want to 1) jinx it or 2) put you in an uncomfortable position with charles 😭

carlossainz55: gracias for thinking of me but i’m always here for you cabron

charlesleclerc: no funny business lando or i’ll run you off the road

landonorris: wouldn’t dream of any funny business charles

lilymhe: i hope yall remember this in the morning 💀

landonorris: actually ☝🏻 we are basically sober

oscarpiastri: you stealing the host of the party to take her to get pizza then to your house is crazy work mate

landonorris: i didn’t steal her 😭

oscarpiastri: then why she not at her own party bro

landonorris: bc she wanted pizza

oscsrpiastri: yea so you stole her

landonorris: 😔

maxfewtrell: get that girl 😤

landonorris: i did mate 🤩

danielriccardo: and who is this?

landonorris: y/n leclerc

danielriccardo: a leclerc?!

landonorris: the leclerc yes

danielriccardo: good job kid

ynleclerc has made a post

liked by charlesleclerc, carmenmundt, landonorris, maxfewtrell, alexandrasaintmleux, and 644,927 others

ynleclerc: happy new year from me and mine 🥂✨

view all 888 comments

iamrebeccad: stunning 😭

user14: don’t think we don’t recognize those curls on the last slide y/n

georgerussell63: i’m still laughing btw

ynleclerc: and what if i said i hate you

georgerussell63: i’d know you were lying 😘

user23: y/n, alex, rebecca and carmen doing everything together is so important to me you don’t understand

charlesleclerc: wow i made the cut?

ynleclerc: *leo made the cut

charlesleclerc: a brother can dream huh

user45: i love how we are swiftly moving on from that story and back to our regular programming 😭

landonorris: yours you say?

ynuser: perhaps 🫣

alexandrasaintmleux: tea

user47: how am i supposed to be normal about this

user81: don’t edge us omg

landonorris has posted a story

view all story replies

charlesleclerc: please don’t post things like this with my sister

landonorris: i have to show her off charles. she’s too pretty to not be posted 🥹

charlesleclerc: you got me there but i don’t like it mate

landonorris: i’ll treat her right - i promise

oscarpiastri: i’m so glad i don’t have to hear you cry about her anymore 🧡

landonorris: you’ll still hear me crying osc dw

user4: HARD LAUNCH CITY

ynleclerc: you’re so cute im obsessed with you

landonorris: i am the luckiest man on earth

ynleclerc: lando 😭😭

user10: you calling her a gift is sickeningly cute

alexandrasaintmleux: be good to my girl ok? leo and i both will kill you if you hurt her

landonorris: i will! i promise! she is everything i have ever wanted and more and im not going to give that up any time soon

alexandrasaintmleux: music to my ears 🤍

user87: BOTH! i want you BOTH

ﾟ. ✿ ୨❤︎୧⠀✿ . ﾟ

a/n: thanks for reading!! likes and reblogs appreciated 🫶🏻

ﾟ. ✿ ୨❤︎୧⠀✿ . ﾟ

disclaimer: pictures are not mine and everything i write is fiction

© norrisainz33 || please do not rewrite, translate, or copy any of my works posted here on to any other platform

[starfilmz]

FEMININE URGE | a rafe cameron fic.

— when a pogue takes a liking towards a certain kook. named it “feminine urge” because everything she’ll do here comes from that.

a/n: no update for thoroughfare and famous!rafe today so here’s something. half text half smau which is actually pretty fun to do. (not proofread)

01 | 02 | 03

you couldn’t help but giggle at sarah’s reply on your tweet but chose to close your phone as you placed it inside the pockets of your apron. as much as you hated to admit it, jj was right. adding topper to your private instagram was a bad decision, and you’ve already removed him after seeing his comment on your latest post—though you couldn’t really blame him; if it were any of your friends who said it, you would’ve accepted.

topper was a nice guy; at least you assumed he was after he gave you a fifty dollar tip last week, but you weren’t shocked when he used it as some sort of leverage to get your socials. he had his chance, and he blew it up, so it’s his own fault.

you hummed as you cleaned the sticky countertop of the bar you’re working at. you're one of the few bartenders left in the place, the last one’s desperate to stay anyway. Sip N’ Dine paid well, which is why you chose to take the job, but you weren’t aware at the time the whole reason for their generosity was because kooks like topper and his friends raided the place almost every party they host. you met topper at one of his, another reason why you complied on his request to get to know you.

the night was still young, but luckily for you and the rest of your coworkers, no kooks seemed to have any interest in partying tonight. so, you took your sweet time organizing everything around you, unaware of the new presence behind your counter.

it was only when you heard a knock against it did you turn around. you almost tripped on your own two feet when you saw who it was.

“open a tab for me, will you?” rafe cameron said, sliding the card against the table, keeping his eyes on you—specifically your slightly unbuttoned uniform, revealing the layers of necklaces you wore. and maybe a bit of your tits.

with a swallow of nothing, you gave him your usual costume service smile as you went up to your station. “alright, what can i start you with?” you asked as you grabbed for his card, keeping it under the counter in a shelf where most of the cards are kept.

“your name would be nice, just so i know who to call,” he smiled, though it was closer to a smirk as it doesn’t exactly reach his eyes.

looks like someone had a bad day.

“most people call me ‘bartender’ since, y’know, i’m the only one here,” you glanced around between the two of you, raising an eyebrow at him. was this your attempt at flirting? yes, unfortunately. “but if you’re dying to know, my name’s y/n.”

“was i that obvious?” rafe replied with the same tone, and you might just throw yourself at him if you didn’t have an ounce of shame left in your body. “alright, y/n, i’ll have a miller lite first.”

“starting of easy, i see,” you commented almost instinctively, as it was encouraged by your boss to ‘challenge’ your customers so they’d buy more. “one miller lite, comin’ right up.”

you grabbed a pint glass from behind you, as well as one of your many miller lites on the shelves, placing it down in front of rafe as you poured the alcoholic drink in.

“holler if you need anything else.” you thought it was best to keep your distance before it became too obvious how nervous you were from his piercing gaze. you took this opportunity to entertain under customers arriving.

a few minutes have passed, and you’re already dealing with a bunch of drunks trying to take you home, though they weren’t the ones making you uncomfortable.

rafe, from the time he arrived, only called for you to refill his cup. nothing more, nothing less. you also know whenever someone’s staring at you from a mile away, so it wasn’t hard to realize rafe’s still on you this whole time.

“y/n?” he called, holding on to the bottom of his empty pint glass. just as you served two more shots for a customer, you went back to him with a smile, already grabbing for the miller lite.

“you don’t have to get that,” he said from behind you, making you turn around as he took a deep breath. “i’m closing my tab.”

“right, okay,” you mumbled to yourself as you grabbed his card. “enjoyed your beer?”

you wondered why you even attempted to make casual conversation as you swiped his card, but it was rafe cameron for fuck’s sake. you were creeped out by his constant staring, sure, but you couldn’t help but like the attention he’s giving you.

“i did, thank you,” he hummed as you handed his card back to him, your hands brushing against his calloused ones. “it helped me while i think of why topper, the loudest guy i know, would swear to secrecy just for a pogue.”

you physically froze as he smirked at you, standing up from his seat. “honestly, i was a bit weirded out by the comments, but now that i’m looking at you,” he tiled his head, scoffing out a grin. “maybe i’ll make an exception.”

with that, he left, leaving one hundred dollars under his glass.

“oh, shit.”

[prokopetz]

Tumblr 200-Word RPGs 2023

Last November, we did an informal game jam for folks who wanted to write something for Writing Month, but would prefer to write fewer than fifty thousand words of it. You can find the complete list of participants for that event in this post here. There's also an off-Tumblr archive of entries whose authors gave permission for them to be preserved here, if any of those links turn out to be broken.

Last year's collaboration went over well enough that I thought we might dust it off again this year. To be clear, this is just for fun – it's not a curated jam, and nobody's judging winners or handing out prizes..

If you'd like to throw your hat in, just follow these steps:

Step 1: If you're unfamiliar with 200-word RPGs, read a bunch of last year's entries (linked above) or browse the 200 Word RPG Challege archives at https://200wordrpg.github.io/ to get your brain-meats properly configured.

Step 2: Write your own 200-word RPG. If you're not sure whether you have 200 words or not (and with RPGs it can genuinely be difficult to tell!), you can use the word counter at https://200wordrpg.github.io/wordcount to check.

Step 3: Reblog this post and append your 200-word RPG.

Step 4 (optional): Please indicate in your post whether you're okay with having your 200-word RPG archived off-site for posterity – if you don't say anything one way or the other, I'll assume the answer is "no".

(As before, as a courtesy to anyone who's creeping the notes, please restrict non-200-word-RPG commentary to replies and tags until November 2023 is over – let's make the actual games easy to find!)

[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/