#this is all fiction

[moonsghostwriter]

Types of Yanderes

The different archetypes of yanderes in media

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of Murder, Suicide/Self-Harm and Domestic Violence

•Mugai-gata: The Harmless Type

"As long as they're happy, I'm happy"

The most harmless type of yandere, the one where they've fallen in love in an unhealthy, obsessive way, but they don't do anything insane about it. They'll try hard to become your partner, but won't harm anybody in the way. If you get a partner, they won't attack you two, they'll be happy you found happiness, and maybe still have hope that you choose them in the end.

•Kanchigai-gata: The Wrong-Idea Type

"They gave me an eraser...they must like me!"

They get the wrong idea when you do something in order to match their expectations. If you say you don't love them, they'll think you're lying because you don't want to hurt them or something. If you do something out of kindness to them, they'll think it's out of love. And so on.

•Shuuchaku-gata: The Obsessive Type

"I sent you 50 messages, why didn't you answer? Where were you? What were you doing?"

Tries to learn everything about you. Personal info, hobbies, routine, etc. Sends regular messages to check on you, asks why you haven't answered if you didn't, wants to know what you're doing always. All the time. And, if possible, walks around with you all the time too.

The obsession type doesn't necessarily want to monopolize you. They'll let you hang around with friends, etc. but wants to know everything you do. They probably want to go with you, too. If they can't go somewhere with you, they might stalk you.

If they learn a person is too close to you, they might attack.

•Sutookaa-gata: The Stalker Type

Follows you around, often without you knowing. May be in broad daylight or at night, when you're walking alone on the streets. Maybe even online. A person of this type is also often of the obsessive type.

•Dokusen-gata: The Monopoly Type

"Why were you talking to them? I thought I told you not to talk to them."

They want to monopolize you. Will ask who you talk to and hang with, in extreme cases won't let you be with anyone else, not even your friends.

This type of behavior is unfortunately common in real life. It displays insecurities and lack of trust in the relationship which might develop into much worse yandere behavior.

•Ison-gata: The Dependent Type

"Where are you going? Are you leaving me? Please don't leave me, I need you! I can't live without you!"

Can't live without you. Begs you to not leave them or throw them away. Says they will die if you go away. May lose will to do anything if you aren't watching. If you do leave, they might go full crazy and end up doing something crazy like going on a murderous rampage or something.

•Touei-gata: The Projection Type

"You're just like them."

After their former love turned out to be a completely different person than they loved, or got a partner, or died, or something like that, and they can no longer stay with them, they searched for someone who was just like what their love was, and they found you.

This type of of yandere is very innocent at first, but if they're given power to dominate their new beloved, they might end up trying to make them more and more like what their old interest was. For example, wearing the same things, doing the same things, etc.

Sometimes, they might project her ideal lover not on someone else but on same person. That is, they might say "you are not them, they do this," to you even though you actually are them and you don't do "this."

•Shoushitsu-gata: The Disappearance Type

"They'll never love me, so what's the point in living?"

They love you, maybe you know that, maybe you don't, but unknown this gives them a crushing depression. They think you'll never love them and they have no chance, but they can't stop their unhealthy feelings of love. They think you're too good for them, or that they're too worthless for you. This makes them slowly fade away, disappear from your life. Until they snap and kill themself

This is an atypical yandere since it has so little effect on other characters' lives.

•Shuumatsu-gata: The Final Type

"I don't need a world where they don't exist."

After learning that you died or you left them, they lose purpose in life. The world for them was you, and you're now gone. What this results in varies. Most of the time, they become broken emotionally, as expected. They might also kill themself, or sometimes, they might destroy the world that let you die/"took you away from them", or just go on revenge killing spree.

•Boruyoku-gata: The Violent Type

"I'm hurting you? That's too bad, I told you not to do that!"

When jealous, feeling ignored, etc. uses violence against you. They'll beat you and say it's your fault. This can be either discharging pent-up rage through violence and you just happen to be their favorite punching bag, or deliberately punishing you for doing something they didn't like.

Both cases, unfortunately, are also common in real life.

•Haijo-gata: The Removal Type

"You don't need other people. You have me."

They will remove from your life everyone they think you don't need. Which means everyone else. This can include things like excluding your contacts and messages to even murdering everybody who approaches.

This type of yandere has two sub-types:

First, the one that removes people secretly. They see you hanging with someone, the next day that person has mysteriously disappeared. You are probably as clueless as a sheet blank paper about this incident, and the next several incidents like it.

Second, the one that removes people openly. This also ranges from removing messages to killing people. They might be expecting you agree with them, "yeah, you're right, I don't need other people," or they might just want to show you what they're capable of.

•Shinjuu-gata: The Double Suicide Type

"Let's be together forever!"

Why be always together in life if you can be forever together for all eternity? This type of yandere will propose what no sane person would: let's die!

Sadly, suicide pacts are a thing. Double suicide, lovers' suicide, too, is a thing. One of the most famous pieces of literature, Romeo & Juliet, sort of ended up in a double suicide.

One thing different in an yandere double suicide is that, often, you don't really want to die. It's more like they want you both dead and they'll kill you then themself. Although there are also actual consensual attempted double suicides involving yandere.

•Jiko-gisei-gata: The Self-Sacrifice Type

"I would die for you."

They'd make any sacrifice for you, as long as it means getting you to love them. They don't even mind dying for you or fighting bloody battles, sustaining multiple injuries, etc. as long as it means staying with you.

Unlike the self-harm type, the self-sacrifice type isn't seeking attention with their suicidal behavior. Instead, they want to make themself useful and support the one they love.

This is easier to visualize in anime where fighting monsters, etc. is normal. However, this kind of sickness also exists in real life. Some people do sacrifice themselves for a beloved one in an extremely unhealthy and unrewarding way, just because they "love" them.

•Suuhai-gata: The Worship Type

"I would do anything you ask of me, I am devoted to you."

They worship you and will do anything for you. Sometimes even without you asking. And more: they don't even mind if you love them or not, or what will happen to them. Killing, dying, committing crimes, losing respect of others, they'll do anything if it means providing support to your infinite greatness.

This is one of the least-harmful type of yandere since they would never do anything to harm you and will never be in your way. Nonetheless, it's also one of the most depressing types; it makes you feel sorry for the yandere, who thinks of themself less like a person and more like a tool who might get thrown away if they're not useful enough.

The difference between the "worship" type and the "self-sacrifice" type is that the "worship" type is also like the "disappearance" type. The "self-sacrifice" type wants to be useful so they can be loved, the "worship" type doesn't mind if they are not loved back, in fact, they probably thinks they are not worth being loved by the delusive greatness they consider you.

They wouldn't, for example, attack your partner or other people out of jealousy, but they might attack a person approaching you because they think the person is stepping out of your boundaries and being presumptuous by daring talk to your greatness without proper respect.

•Choukyou-gata: The Training Type

"Say you love me... come on, say it. Say you love me. SAY YOU LOVE ME! Good! Here's your reward."

The word choukyou was once only about training animals or breaking animals. In modern times, it's also used in BDSM contexts, dominate training submissive. It has nothing to do with training for sports.

They'll break you into loving them.Sometimes using torture, a punishment/reward system, brainwashing, etc. This probably involves you getting kidnapped and forced into it, although there might be more subtle ways to accomplish this.

•Koritsu yuudou-gata: The Loneliness-Inductive Type

"Shh it's alright. You didn't need them anyways. I'm here, you can always count on me."

They will make, induce, or force you to feel or be alone. By spreading malicious rumors about you that make others alienate you, by murdering your friends and family, etc. Then they'll jump in and present themself as the only one you can count on when you're most fragile mentally and in need of company.

Inducing things that don't make you feel lonely but give some sort of mental damage, trauma, also count as this type. Conversely, if your friends and family get killed on their own and you're alone but they had nothing to do with it, it's not the same thing since they didn't induce it, although an yandere might abuse your condition to get closer to you.

This type is similar to the "dependence" type, except it's not the yandere that's to become dependent on you, it's you that's to become dependent on the yandere.

•Kyouki-gata: The Bizarre-Seeking Type

"I love you, so... can you give me your fingernails? I want them so I can always have a part of you with me!"

Undeniably in my opinion the weirdest type of yandere. They will murder you, and not by accident, not by jealousy, not by revenge. They will murder you because they love you. And then they'll keep your rotting corpse in their bed, or home, or preserved in some way because there's no way they'd throw you away.

In a sense sane people are better off not even trying to understand, the bizarre-seeking type of yandere is purely insane, mad way beyond explanation.Undeniably the worst type of yandere, she will murder you, and not by accident, not by jealousy, not by revenge. She will murder you because she loves you. And then she'll keep your rotting corpse on bed or preserved inside a glass because there's no way she'd throw you away.

In a sense sane people are better off not even trying to understand, the bizarre-seeking type of yandere is purely insane, mad way beyond explanation.

The word kyouki, used in the type's name, is normally associated with disturbing imagery involving gore, blood and worse stuff. It's also related to "grotesque" art, guro グロ, which's dubbed "pornography involving gore" despite the fact nobody in their sane mind can figure out how the fuck can someone even get off to this

Likewise, nobody in their sane mind can relate to the grotesque love of bizarre-seeking yandere. Ranging from murder, mutilation, and maybe something ever worse us mere mortals can't even begin to imagine, their bizarre displays of love can only be summed up by: what the actual fuck?

•Mousou-gata: The Delusional Type

Similar to the "wrong idea" type above, but far worse.

When their insane love is unrequited (for obvious reasons), and you start literally running away from the crazy bitch, they'll think it's because you're embarrassed, and not because you don't want them. Their love distorts the reality they perceive. They see a bunch of delusions instead.

The delusion type may also be in denial something unpleasant happened. They'll just forget it happened. Their memories may also be replaced with delusions: they'll remember you being extremely nice to them when you were indifferent, you saying you liked them before you even met, or other people rubbing themselves on you like cheap sluts when all they did was saying "good morning"

•Jishou-gata: The Self-Harm Type

"If you leave me, I'll hurt myself!"

They harm themself, cutting wrists, etc. in order to get your attention. This often happens when they're ignored. The "dependence" type might evolve into this if they are abandoned.

There are two sub-types to this.

First, the one where they harm themself in secret and have you notice their injuries, then they say "it's nothing to worry about" hoping you worry about it more. This is usually something light like a knee bruise or small scratch, etc.

Second, the one where they harm themself in your face as a way to say "I'll kill myself if you leave me," forcing you to stay by their side out of guilt.

And that's all for now! If you find yourself or a loved one in a relationship with a person that seems to act similar to any of these behaviors, please, please, please leave them/help your loved one to leave them. This is all supposed to be about fictional archetypes, however sometimes someone who is severely mentally ill or simply a bad person can exhibit these behaviors and it is UNSAFE!!! If you find yourself relating to any of the yandere types themselves, please seek mental help.

And if you're reading this because you like horror/psychological thrillers then I hoped you enjoyed and feel more informed about the yandere archetype! I had a lot of fun compiling this list.

[talonsin]

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[very-uncorrect]

Edit: I've muted this post because apparently it reached some sort of higher plane of existence and is getting a shit ton of likes and reblogs and it's clogging up my notifs lol

[am3ya]

the issue with shipping aro/ace characters isn't putting them into relationships, it's the fact that no one adds how their sexuality impacts the relationship at large. And how it'll always be different from your average romantic relationship in some way.

[lazylittledragon]

steddie dads??? in my 2024??? it's more likely than you'd think

[gothamite-rambler]

"Who do we know that did drugs? I got it!" Batman said, calmly.

Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne stood in the Batcave, looking over some data on the Batcomputer.

Dick: None of us have done drugs or made drugs, but we need someone who's versed in it. Who?

Bruce (excited, sudden realization): I got it! Call Jason!

Dick: He blocked you again?

Bruce looked a bit sheepish, but quickly recovered.

Bruce (defensive): You’re not calling him?!

Sighing, Dick reluctantly pulled out his phone and dialed Jason’s number. Jason answered, but before Dick can say a word, Bruce suddenly knocked him to the ground and snatched the phone from his hand.

Bruce: Are you still friends with Roy? We need to learn how crack is made. We’re tracking someone!

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Then, Jason started laughing—slowly at first, then breaking into fits of uncontrollable laughter. In the background, a weary sigh can be heard that isn’t Jason’s.

Jason (laughing, catching his breath): I’ll ask him. Hey Roy—

Roy (in the background, exasperated): Fuck you!

Jason (chuckling, responds to Bruce): I think he can help us.

Bruce: Oh, thank God.

Dick, now back on his feet, glaring at Bruce with a mix of annoyance and disbelief.

Dick: You could’ve just asked for the phone!

Batman: Get over it.

Roy: You know I was on heroin not crack!

Batman: I will send you $6,000 if you are honest with me and tell me you at least know how it's made.

Roy (huffing as Jason laughs harder because he knows what's about to happen): Okay, you're going to need a pen.

[ghostsberry]

demoman!!

[actually-mentally-ill]

me after saying i’d get tasks done but i’ve just been reading fanfiction for the past 3 hours:

[autism-corner]

get off dating apps. the love of your life is from a video game!

[big-moon-little-moon]

so called TPK enjoyers once they realize their graph paper wife is a part of the P that's supposed to get TK-ed

bonus:

[nerd-elf]

I’m tagging all my favorites here, feel free to do the same

[marzipanandminutiae]

I hate "it's not trying to be accurate!" arguments for historical fiction or historically-inspired fantasy clothing choices that just. don't make sense logistically

why is that girl in Br*dgerton tightlacing her stays? what is she reducing- her upper ribcage? not only can you not tightlace in those (hand-bound eyelets can't usually take that strain, in my experience), but there's no reason to because your waistline is under your boobs. and unlike most of the series, they actually commit to the empire waistline for the court presentation gowns. small waists don't matter when NOBODY IS SEEING YOUR WAIST

why no chemise, in so many productions? fantasy/lack of concern for accuracy can't make things not chafe. chafing is not a matter of accuracy; it's a physical reality. did a wizard give everybody in the kingdom Anti-Chafing Spells?

just because you don't WANT a linen underlayer beneath a medieval tunic doesn't mean sweat won't get to outer garments and damage them- or make them need laundering, which weakens the fibers -at a time when all clothing is handmade, custom-fitted, and created from hand-woven fabrics and thus a HUGE investment

you're not just throwing accuracy to the winds as a design choice; you're ignoring How Textiles And Bodies And the Realities of Your Technology Level's Fabric and Laundering Capabilities Work

[aardvaark]

i don’t mind suspending my disbelief for leverage’s person-sized ventilation shafts bc that’s pretty standard for the genre, but that doesn’t mean i won’t laugh a bit at some of the egregiously large vents. particularly in the crowning acheivement job (lev: red s2 finale) because - well just look at this lol! harry and parker, two adults, can kneel side by side in those vents. parker can sit upright.

that museum was made for vent crawling purposes. that’s just an extra room in the museum they forgot to decorate. the leverageverse has a thief union that successfully lobbied for a better working environment. these vents double as a playground for museum-goers’ children. i was crying with laughter thinking about this and harry’s vent crisis was NOT helping me remember that there was a serious heist thing going on lol, i love this show.

[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/