#violence *

[lowcountry-gothic]

The America that allows people—not even cops, but randos like Daniel Penny or Kyle Rittenhouse—to kill the homeless or protestors? The America that allows corporations to assassinate whistleblowers?

[cremsie]

Commission for mrbooingtin on IG!

[chaotic-orphan]

Intoxicating Fear (XXIX)

The difference between Abuse and Power

Read part one // Master-post // Continued from here

Sorry it took so long!!! But I made this chapter extra long to make up for it guys!!! I hope you enjoy💛

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!!! I hope you all have a great time and mind yourselves. Thank you all for your words of encouragement during the rough time and making me smile and laugh while I was stuck in the dreaded prison of writer's block, but we are back babyyyyyy.... enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*

Kit heard Ambrose walking behind him. He tried his best to ignore him, but it didn’t really work because Ambrose’s stupid socked feet padded close behind as Kit walked the length of the first floor, away from Nathan and Jude. Away from the stairs Jude threw him down. Away from the abomination of healing and power that Nathan possessed.

“Kit,” Ambrose said eventually. Kit continued walking. He went through the next door on his left which opened up into a nice cozy looking library or study, or something, and walked over to the soft, navy plush couch in the far corner. He dropped into it, deflating like a balloon or a marionette with its strings cut. That’s all he was really, wasn’t it? A puppet.

Black eyes appeared in front of him, pleading, dark brows falling over them like a pitiful, sad puppy. “Kit, listen to me, everything I said and did before… I—”

“Don’t want to hear it?” Kit suggested, his shoulders bunched up around his ears. He felt his eyes water as he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth to stop it from quivering like a child. He raised his blue, bloodshot eyes to meet Ambrose’s stupid fucking demonic black ones.

“I don’t—” Kit said, scoffed, shrugged and ran his hands through his hair until his fingers tightened on the strands and started tugging on them just to show the kind of storm that was roaring in his mind outwardly. Not that Ambrose had to see a physical representation of his desperation. His blue eyes burned and red flashed across them like the glint of moonlight off a blade. Ambrose shrunk away from his crouch. His eyes widened slightly. “I don’t want to fucking hear it! Any of it. Your apologies, your guilt, your fucking excuses!”

Ambrose sat back onto his heels, even his stupid chocolate curls bounced perfectly, and Kit scoffed exasperated, ran a hand down his face, and wiped furiously at his tears with his thumb and index finger.

“I don’t give a fuck if you feel some kind of fucked up bond to me or whatever, Oskar!” Ambrose flinched. Good, Kit thought bitterly. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to fucking affect this bastard somehow. “I don’t care if you feel bad now, because trust me, we both know you didn’t give two shits when you thought I was just some random hero to terrorise!”

“Kit—” Kit lurched forward, getting his face close to Ambrose’s, his nose curled up in disgust.

“What happened to puppet, huh? What happened to a dog that only exists to obey? I would rather you looked at me like… like I was some fucking plaything for you to break and discard, instead of whatever fucking way you’re looking at me now. You’re—” Kit sucked in a breath, struggling not to hyperventilate. “You’re fucking sick, Rosey. You disgust me. And now I’m on house arrest from your crazy ex-boyfriend, who you seem to hate, but let’s face it, Rosey…”

Kit said. He licked his lips as if he had to prepare them for what he was about to say as he leaned in ever so slightly closer, lowering his voice to a whisper as he got close to Ambrose’s curls covered ear. “What kind of sane person would love you anyways?”

The door to the room swung open. Kit slunk back from Ambrose, his eyes dead and lifeless, expecting to be hurt for daring to insult Nathan’s precious toy but he didn’t care. It was worth it to see Ambrose flinch… to see him crestfallen for once.

But then why didn’t it feel good?

Why did he feel worse than before?!

Why has he become this cruel, hard thing? Was he always this way? Did Ambrose just hold up a mirror and reveal that to—

A flash of hands. Kit didn’t flinch, but his gaze snapped up to cold, furious silver eyes and eyes as cool as a lump of coal. “No,” Ambrose said, his voice soft.

“But—”

“No.” Kit’s eyes flickered back to Ambrose because that wasn’t sad, pathetic guilt-ridden Oskar speaking, that was Omen; commanding, controlled, even. A smirk slid its way onto Ambrose’s face, his black eyes turned even darker, glinting like light off a shard of onyx or jet, filled with humour and sardonic knowing and cruelty. A shiver ran down Kit’s spine as Ambrose used his leverage on Nathan’s hand to raise himself to his feet.

He didn’t break eye contact with Kit as he stood to his full height, which Kit only remembered was a good head taller than him, and then there were two sadistic giants looming over him. Kit fought the urge to shrink back and swallow. He wasn’t going to show them he was afraid. What would they do? Kill him? That would give him his first peaceful night’s sleep in weeks. Months?

“Oskar…” Omen tightened his fingers around Nathan’s wrist and brought his hand to his lips. Nathan stilled as Ambrose wrapped a second hand around Nathan’s long fingers, curling them as he lifted and pressed a kiss to Nathan’s knuckles.

“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, darling,” Ambrose said, his voice roiling like smooth velvet. Black eyes slunk towards Kit’s. “Especially not with the likes of washed-up heroes before their prime.”

Nathan stepped closer to Ambrose, his back to Kit. “I could kill him for you. Make you a scarf out of his entrails.”

Omen chuckled. Kit’s blood ran cold at the sound. He forgot how silently terrifying Omen could be; how terrifying Ambrose could be.

“You’re sweet,” is all Ambrose replied. He leaned up on his toes to kiss Nathan. Soft, sweet, short, before he pulled away. “But no. He’s used up already. I thought he would be fun to play with, but you can see as well as I can…”

Kit swallowed audibly, his fingers tightened into fists on his thighs as he looked away from the statue staring him down, making him feel two inches tall. “He’s got nothing inside worth taking anymore. He’s given up. He’s not worth the effort.”

Kit stared furiously at the bookshelf to his left, eyes skimming colourful titles trying to ignore the stabbing pain of betrayal in his chest. Isn’t that what he wanted? For Ambrose to stop pretending? Isn’t that why he poked and prodded him until—

“Kit,” Kit’s eyes widened as he felt Omen’s ability ghost through his mind like brain freeze. He shot up off the couch, and grabbed Ambrose’s arm, tightened, pleading.

“Rosey, don’t, pl—”

Ambrose grabbed Kit’s cheeks in one hand and squeezed tightly until Kit’s lips were forced to form a small ring. Kit’s hand shot up and grabbed Ambrose’s wrist, about to beg and plead again. Weren’t they past this? Was this all his fault? Was Ambrose really—

“I think you need a nice, long nap, Kit, don’t you?”

“No!” Kit protested.

“Mmmm, your eyes are feeling so heavy though, aren’t they? And your limbs are exhausted, and you need a really good rest to recover and fight again when you wake don’t you?”

Kit let out a small whine in the back of his throat… because yes, he was feeling tired, and a blissful sleep sounded so fucking good right now. At least then he could turn off the blaring voice in his head screaming danger, danger, danger at him.

“What danger, Kit?” Ambrose asked, his voice so soft and so, so far… away, as if it was a distant melody floating through the air in the other side of the house. Kit swayed on his feet and fell into Ambrose’s open arms. What danger was right, what was he thinking about? His thoughts were liquifying quickly in his mind and sliding slowly away from consciousness. “There we go,” Ambrose cooed, putting his fingers through Kit’s hair. “That’s it, just relax. You want to sleep, don’t you, Kit?”

“Yeah,” Kit mumbled. He went boneless against the villain as Ambrose sat the two of them on the couch again. Ambrose sat down where Kit was before and dragged Kit down with him who was too tired to resist. Kit curled up on the couch as Ambrose gently put Kit’s head on his lap which was as comfortable as a luxurious pillow. Maybe shutting his eyes for a few minutes would be okay, wouldn’t it? He needed his strength after all and… he yawned as Ambrose brushed a hand through his wild, uncut hair.

“That’s right, just a few minutes sleep, and you’ll feel amazing when you wake up.” Ambrose said. Kit didn’t really hear him, but he hummed in reply as his eyes shuttered closed, blissfully unaware of the scorching silver eyes glaring down at him.

***

Ambrose continued to stroke Kit’s hair as the hero’s breath evened out. Ambrose felt his weight droop heavier against him, drifting deeper into sleep in a matter of moments. He could feel Nate’s eyes on him, but he didn’t bother to look up at him, keeping his eyes fixed on the boy’s sleeping head and soft breaths. It was easier to ignore the questions in Nathan’s head and eyes and just focus on the sleeping Hero on him.

God, if only Kit would stay this way forever.

Not that Ambrose would want that, but it would be easier. Why did he have to fight him on everything? Even things that were good for him! It was… exhausting. If this is what having children felt like, Ambrose was almost certain he didn’t want any of the vile things… especially not if Kit remained in his life after all this was over.

He was enough of a handful as it was.

“Why Oskar?” Nate asked, his voice suddenly, terribly vulnerable.

Ambrose didn’t look at him. “I don’t know, Nate. I guess… I told you already. I took too much from him already.”

“That’s a cop out. We both know it.”

Ambrose shrugged. “Think what you want.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Ambrose knew it the moment it left his lips in a tired, defeated sigh. He could feel Nathan’s demeanour shift from confused to defensive in a second, his stance tensing, the air changing around them, becoming thick in Ambrose’s throat.

“Well, if you won’t give me any straight answers, how about I wake him, and ask—” Ambrose’s head snapped up, black eyes catching silver in their void stare.

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Nathan scoffed and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You’re impossible when you’re protective. This is like the Catherine situation all over again.”

Ambrose stiffened. “Don’t talk about her.”

Nathan smirked. He crossed his long arms over his torso, silver eyes gleaming. “It’s true,” he said with a shrug of a shoulder. An attempt to be casual that was anything but. “You always liked to collect strays, Oskar, it’s like a passion project of yours.”

Nathan’s eyes went to Kit in Ambrose’s lap, his fingers wound through the boy’s hair. “Though,” he continued, his voice dipping as his eyes caught Ambrose’s again. “This one you and your father have to share.”

Ambrose’s nostrils flared. “You’re just being cruel for the sake of it now, Nate.”

“So, what if I am?”

“Well, what about you, then?”

Nathan blinked.

“You and all your posturing and grandstanding, how you can absorb so many people’s abilities— mine, Jude’s, my father’s, Kit’s…” Ambrose listed, shrewdness possessing his weighted gaze as he tilted his head at his ex. “How you pretend it doesn’t bother you to hold all that power inside and maintain it there.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

It was Ambrose’s turn to scoff. The edge of his lips quipped up. “You say that, but I saw how weak you were after healing his wounds. You went pale after, dearest. If you think I wouldn’t notice that then you don’t know me at all.”

Nathan stared down his nose at Ambrose and the sleeping Hero. His eyes softened. “No… maybe I don’t anymore.”

Ambrose swallowed as Nate unfolded his arms. He walked a step closer and leaned down. Ambrose barely suppressed the flinch, but it didn’t matter because Nate could feel Ambrose’s stiffness when he pressed a kiss to his forehead. He smiled against the skin and pulled back.

“I’ll leave you to it.” He said, one hand still lingering on Ambrose’s cheek. He froze midway, and his touch turned bruising as he tilted Ambrose’s head to the side and forced him to look into his swirling, silver eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid, darling. You know how much I hate bruises on your pretty face.”

Ambrose stared as Nathan released him, watching as his psychotic ex walked away, grabbed the door and slammed it shut on the way out. Ambrose couldn’t suppress the flinch that time as he stared down at Kit. He didn’t stir. Still sound asleep. Unaware of Ambrose’s tremors of fear at Nathan’s farewell threat.

Oh, he knew how much Nathan hated bruises on his face alright… he knew all too well just how cruel he could truly be.

***

Six years ago…

Oskar and Max stumbled out of the University pub and down the streets back to their apartment in Old Town. God, what a night. What a glorious night, and how long had it been since Oskar could just let loose with Max like that? Get absolutely hammered. He laughed as he threw an arm around Max’s shoulder.

“I love you, Max.”

“That’s really gay,” Max replied, and the pair burst into snorting laughter. Oskar craned his neck down and pressed a wet kiss to Max’s hair as they walked towards Fagan’s lot. They didn’t notice the group of four guys approaching them until one of them shoulder checked Max.

“Woah!” Max said and Oskar turned, about to tell the dicks to watch it when one of them muttered something that chilled him to the core and froze him in place.

“Fucking fags.”

Max grabbed at Oskar’s arm, sensing the shift in his posture. “Oskar come on. They’re small minded—”

“Excuse me,” Oskar hissed. The men stopped and turned. Oskar shrugged Max’s hand off.

“Oskar, just leave it.” Max said.

“No, I won’t just leave it. What did these pricks mutter but not have any fucking balls to say to our faces, huh?”

Oskar went towards the tallest, broadest guy and shoved him back. “Huh? What the fuck did you say?”

“Oskar!”

“You better back off, lamppost and listen to your boyfriend or you’re gonna get hurt.” The tall— well, tallest of the group — broad man stank of beer and had a truly hideous beard. Both of which Oskar personally took offence to.

Oskar straightened to his full height, a good head and shoulders taller than this piece of shit and grinned sadistically down at him.

“You tell him Mitch.” One of the others said.

“Yeah,” another chimed in, “run back to your boyfriend, faggot.”

Oskar’s head snapped to the offender. He was the shortest of the group, blond – obviously he was fucking blond – with tiny pubic hairs tweezed onto his chin in the mock shadow of stubble. He was stick thin and looked like a fucking weasel with a sharp pointed nose and tiny squinting eyes.

“Number one,” Oskar said, holding a bony finger up. “Ew. I wouldn’t date this man if he was the last man on earth,” Oskar said.

Max blinked behind him. “Uh, ouch?!”

Oskar glanced back over his shoulder. “Hush. You know I love you.”

“Fucking queers, I swear to—”

Oskar turned back to glare at the men again. “Two, it’s fucking homophobic to use the words faggot and queer in a derogatory manner towards my friend and I, and I think you should fucking apologise. Right now.”

“Or what?” Mitch challenged stepping forward.

Oskar’s eyes darkened. “Or else. You only get one chance to do the decent thing.” He said, holding his index finger up, his dark eyes searched Mitch’s face, trying to convey how serious he was. “One.”

“Show this fucking princess what real men do.”

Oskar sighed, his head dipped, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “I did warn you.”

Mitch went to throw a punch and Oskar stepped back. He caught Mitch’s arm and punched him in the face before shoving him back and kicking him away. Oskar brushed away the curls that fell into his eyes before throwing his arms up in defence of his face from another of the dick’s punches.

“For,” Max began, punctuating his sentence with punches, “fuck’s” punch and the guy went down, “sake, Oskar.”

Oskar grinned. “They’re little bitches, Max, what do—”

Oskar’s head whipped to the side suddenly. He didn’t see his attacker come upon him until he was already hit, fire raging in his cheekbone and someone was cursing as a fist drew back. Another blow came from below, knuckles cracking against his jaw. Oskar stumbled back. His head turned skyward as his bottom teeth snapped against his top and ricocheted through his skull.

He didn’t see the third blow come for his solar plexus. The fist landed and Oskar shot forward as he wheezed a startled sound. A hand caught his cheek and slammed a palm against his nose. Oskar cried out as blood gushed down his face, gasping as he stumbled back again, the world dizzy with tears as his eyes watered reflexively.

Then.

Heat in front of him.

Oranges and yellows licked against the air, standing between Oskar and the homophobes. Warm blood turned cold as it poured from Oskar’s nose and trickled down through his fingers and onto his clothes.

“Yeah, who’s the little bitch now?”

Max scoffed. “Fuck off, asshole.”

“Should’ve known you were freaks too,” one of them said. Oskar’s eyes narrowed, tears spilling over his eyelids as he straightened. He could feel his eyes go the same red as his blood and he put a hand on Max’s shoulder, stepping past him.

“Oskar,” Max said. Caution coloured his voice as Oskar stepped around the human fire ball. “Don’t.”

“Fuck it, why not?”

“Oskar! You can’t—”

“Mitch,” Oskar said. The words sounded as sweet as a melody. Irresistible, and why would you want to resist? He knew the moment it hit Mitch’s ears because he paused as the honeyed words swam into his ears. “Kiss the best looking of your friends.”

Mitch obeyed without question.

He chose the second strongest of the four, grabbed his cheeks and slammed his lips against them. The other two, including the little weasel looked a little annoyed more than angered by the fact that Mitch didn’t find them attractive.

Oskar tilted his head to the side and grinned horribly at them. “Aww, feeling left out, uglies? It’s okay. The two of you kiss too.”

“Itch… off…” the good-looking one said, trying to shove Mitch off of him.

“Oskar! Stop it!”

“Why should I?” Oskar demanded, his little finger twitching as rage consumed him. “Maybe I should make them fuck each other in the street like dogs. Maybe then they’ll learn some fucking manners.”

Heat singed the edges of Oskar’s ear, burning away the stray baby curls. Oskar gasped, jumping to the left and cupping his ear with his hand. He looked over his shoulder to see Max glaring up at him.

“What the fuck?” He hissed.

“What the fuck yourself! Tell them to stop! Tell them to forget!”

Oskar straightened. His pride getting the better of him. “Why should I?”

“You know right well why Mr Law major! You know how unethical this is?! I’m serious. Tell them to stop right now, or else.”

Oskar kept Max’s burning stare for a moment longer before the rage dissipated like smoke in the darkness. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Fine,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he turned back to the group of dickheads.

He walked over to the group and told them, “okay loverboys. Enough.”

The group pulled away from each other disgusted. The good looking one, the one that had gotten the punches in on Oskar’s face wiped furiously at his mouth. “What the fuck, Mitchell? Why did you do that? What about Diane?”

Mitch stared at his hands, his face a putrid shade of red. “I- I… I don’t know why I did it… I-” He looked up then at Oskar who stood smugly, hands in his tailored trouser pockets, reeking of expensive cologne and tangible satisfaction. All a farce, a fake, a falsehood, the Oskar that Oskar created after his departure from his legacy role as a hero. “You…” Mitch said, raising a shaking hand. “It was you! You told me… and I- I couldn’t…”

Oskar tilted his head to the side, his smirk widening, exposing his teeth in a wolfish grin. “Couldn’t resist? Maybe you just really fancied him.”

A sharp slap to Oskar’s arm and he yelped as Max stepped up beside him, smog rising from his ears and Oskar felt his blood run cold. “Ow!”

“Tell them to forget. Now.”

“Forget?” The weasel one asked, looking just as terror struck as Mitch and the others. “Make us forget?!”

“You’re a monster!” The other one said.

Oskar bent low and said: “boo.”

The weasel actually flinched. Oskar would have laughed if Max wasn’t about to roast him over the grills of hell, so Oskar clapped his hands together. “Okay, idiots, listen up. You will forget you ever met me or Max tonight. You will forget our faces. You will forget you called us faggots. And…” Oskar glanced at Max sideways and grinned. “Whenever you think of calling someone queer or gay, or faggots, you will remember kissing your friends today. And you will also donate your life savings to a charity for LG–”

Oskar flinched when he felt a lick of heat against his face. “Okay. Not your life savings, but you will donate a small donation fee to any LGBT charity in the city and be general allies to the queer community from now on, capiche?”

The four men nodded dumbly. Oskar straightened with a clap. “Good. Wonderful. Later losers.”

Oskar walked off down Fagan’s lot whistling a happy tune. “Happy with yourself, are you?” Max asked behind him.

Oskar laughed. “Yup. Pretty damn satisfied.”

“That was fucked up, Oskar.” Oskar paused, his smile dimming. Max walked around to his front. “You know that was wrong.”

Oskar let out a huff of breath. “They were fucked up, Max! I’m sick of walking around like I don’t have this power! Something I can use to–”

“To ruin people’s lives?”

“You’re being dramatic.” Oskar said, waving away Max’s dramatics.

“No!” Max protested, gathering Oskar’s attention. “I’m not! Did you hear that guy? Mitch had a wife, or a girlfriend, what if he had kids?”

“Poor kids.” Oskar replied coldly.

Max grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him back against the wall. Oskar’s black eyes widened with surprise at Max’s force. “Don’t you see how fucked up that could be? Telling him to donate his life savings to a charity? What about his wife? His bills? His kids?”

“Maybe being a shitty person means you deserve to have your life fall apart!”

“Is that why yours did?” Max demanded, eyes ablaze. Oskar stiffened under Max’s knuckles. Max may as well have slapped him for the reaction his words caused. Max’s grip loosened. “Oskar…” he said softly.

“No,” Oskar replied. He ran a hand through his hair that had fallen over his eyes, casting them in shadow. God, he really needed a haircut. “No, you’re right. I… I was reckless and I was irresponsible and… you’re right. I’m sorry.”

A silence fell between them. After a minute, Max let go of Oskar’s shirt and let him stand up properly. A grin cracked Max’s handsome face then. “But… it was satisfying to see how horrified they were after kissing each other.”

Oskar grinned and let out a little laugh. “Right?” And just like that they were back to normal and walking down to their apartment block, laughing up the stairs and into the dingy apartment, Max struggling to open the door, having to kick it once, twice, three times, but it stayed stubbornly closed.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Max cursed, and shouldered the door open. The door slammed in and Max stumbled and nearly hit the floor if it wasn’t for Oskar grabbing his arm at the last second, laughing as Max cursed.

“Fucking door!”

“About time you got home.”

The two boys straightened at the voice. Oskar helped to steady Max before he went looking for his boyfriend in the apartment. “Nate? What’re you doing here?” Oskar asked with a big smile on his face. When Nate turned his expression immediately darkened and he was in front of Oskar in a second, hands cupping his cheeks and tilting his head up.

“What the fuck happened to your face?”

Oskar waved him away and went into give Nate a kiss, he missed him he realised. It had only been a few days since they had seen each other, but still. Oskar was drunk and his boyfriend was here, and he was happy.

Nate’s strong hands stopped Oskar from kissing him and Oskar let out a small whine. “What’re you–”

“What. The fuck. Happened to your face?” Nathan asked again and Oskar shrunk under the tightness in his tone. His fingers dug uncomfortably into Oskar’s cheeks and Oskar grabbed Nathan’s wrists and tried to pull them off, but he didn’t budge.

“Nate… Nate,” Oskar said, gasping, eyes pained and pleading. “Nathan, you’re hurting me!”

“What happened to your face?”

“Get off me, Nathan!”

Max appeared between the two and Nathan released Oskar. Oskar took a heavy step back; betrayal pinched his features tight on his face. Oskar shrunk under Nathan’s glare, horribly aware that he had done something wrong and now Nathan was mad, and he hated when Nate got mad.

“Just some douchebags, Nate,” Max said, cutting through the thick tension in the room. “It’s fine. We gave as good as we got.”

“Whoever laid a hand on you…” Nathan said, his voice small, but holding back the ferocity of a storm on the sea. His eyes bright with a cold fury. “Whoever dare hurt you…” he said, his expression softening as he stepped forward and cupped Oskar’s face in his hand again. Oskar flinched when Nathan put his hands on him and wanted to curl up at the look of hurt that passed across his boyfriend’s face. “Your poor face…”

“I’ll live,” Oskar whispered and stepped out of Nathan’s hold.

Max looked between the two. He threw his hands up. “Yeah. I’m also fine, Nate, thanks for asking.”

“Oh shush,” Nathan purred, waving Max away. “You’re like a cockroach, you’ll never die.”

“You could still show some concern. It wouldn’t hurt.”

Oskar excused him as he walked down the hall to the bathroom, his hands shaking violently as he slammed the door shut and locked it. He put his back against the door and gasped when he saw himself in the mirror above the sink. Fuck… fuck… fuck…

Fuck, tears welled up in his black eyes and Oskar felt sick suddenly. A warm feeling climbed his stomach, and he lurched towards the toilet and threw up into the bowl. Not a second later a knock at the door and Oskar froze.

“Osk? Babe, you okay?” Oskar had to tighten his fingers on the toilet to stop his hands from shaking.

It’s fine, he told himself. It’s just a crash from the adrenaline of the fight. It’s fine. He’s fine.

“Oskar?” A rattle of the doorknob and Oskar flinched hard again.

Yeah… the fight, totally what he was afraid of…

The next day when Oskar was walking back to the University, he passed a bloody crime scene that made his skin prickle and crawl, and his blood run cold. “Do we have an ID of the bodies?”

“Good thing we had their IDs, or they’d all be John Doe’s.” One of the investigators said. “I don’t know what did this, but it looks too violent for an animal, too… vicious. Calculated.”

Oskar stopped walking. “Mitchell… Dawkins…” One of the lead detectives said and Oskar turned back, and half ran home and up the stairs to his apartment. He had to throw up again as he stumbled into his apartment, sick to his stomach as nausea climbed thick up his oesophagus. All he could think of was Nathan’s hands on his face, the fury in his eyes… the… oh god… no… there… Nathan couldn’t have done something like that… but somewhere, somewhere deep down, Oskar knew he was lying to himself and that thought made him hurl more than the crime.

***

Ambrose stared down at the sleeping Hero in his lap, his bony fingers gently running through his matted hair, combing out the knots of dirt and blood. “Don’t worry, Kit,” Ambrose whispered. “I won’t let him do that to you. I promise. We’ll get out of here. Together. I promise. Just give me time.”

*~*~*~*~*

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[st-rbiter]

a piece to commemorate the time solsunder dueled strahd and got knocked out in one turn </3

process under the cut!

[ultimatelygrey]

Copied from the article:

"I have no problem with women. One threw a slipper at me, so I gave her a kick here (pointing to the groin), broke all this here. She can't have children today."

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"I saw sadistic people there. People who enjoy causing suffering to others. … What was most disturbing was to see how easily and quickly ordinary people can detach themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they are in a difficult and shocking human situation."

"There is total dehumanization here. You don't really treat them as if they are human beings ... in retrospect, the hardest thing for me is what I felt, or actually what I didn't feel when I was there. It bothers me that it didn't bother me. There is normalization of the process, and at some point, it just stops bothering."

"The dehumanization scared me. The encounter with such dangerous attitudes, which has become more normal in our society, was traumatic for me ... I discharged myself from reserve duty with a psychiatrist's help."

[writingsforwinter]

Day 25 of my December daily poem challenge.

By Meggie Royer

[its-stimsca]

Merry Smissmas chat

🎄 🎁 🎄 / 🎁 🎄 🎁 / 🎄 🎁 🎄

Help Palestine with one click

[ofcrowsanddragons]

Rook failed to stop the dragon in Minrathous.

He leaves Neve with the others to help the Shadow Dragons. Nobody wants him there and that's fine. Looking at him must be like throwing water on an electrical fire: the betrayal just makes the fire consume everything faster.

If he had been faster, smarter, better, then none of this would have happened.

Already, the Venatori are engaging in drunken revelry in the streets. High on bloodlust, a mage cuts out the throat of a homeless elf who was attempting to flee. The mage crackles with power, cackling, and barely seems to register when Rook's blade pierces their chest in turn.

He has gentle words for a father seeking his daughter, and a blank facade of whirling blades for the monsters hurting her. He has frostbite that hasn't been tended to across his torso, and an endless supply of frantic energy for a city in chaos. He has the vague awareness that Lucanis and Davrin are covering his blind spots, keeping anyone from sinking a knife into his ribs as he charges recklessly forward. He has a pit in his stomach as the sky lightens into dawn and it becomes clear that Minrathous bows to a new order.

He can keep going. He goes to a knee in front of another bloody corpse, pressing his forearm bracer into his forehead as he breathes.

"Rook," says a voice, soft and full of gravel from breathing in too much smoke. "You can't keep doing this."

He looks up to see Lucanis, crouching just ahead of him, heedless of the Venatori corpse just behind him. Lucanis's hands are both holding fast to Rook's shoulders and Rook realizes that he's swaying.

The dizziness catches up to him and Rook's next moment of awareness involves messy strands of black hair over his nose and mouth. He's pressed uncomfortably into the smaller man's armour and—shit, he can't afford to come apart right now.

"Mierda, Rook," says Lucanis, unintentionally echoing Rook's thoughts. "You need to stop this now. We need to get back to the Eluvian while we still can."

"Yeah," breathes Rook, turning his face into Lucanis's neck, clutching at him like he's a lifeline. "You're right. I'm not arguing. Just... give me a second."

"You have it. Davrin!" Lucanis shouts. "Come help me with him!"

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Pantera - Floods

[prokopetz]

Don't be silly – it's only a cycle of violence if it's sustainable. This is a spiral of violence.

[marianne-rogue]

I do think a image of her in Hellfire not punching stuff and actively stopping herself from reacting to the Grey would be enough. Maybe taking off her mask and breathing it. Maybe watching civilians flee and looking away. Anything. But the timing is so tight, as Always...

Caitlyn and Vi weaponizing toxic air pollution against the undercity and then Jinx and Sevika using Janna’s temple to recreate her legendary miracle by blowing that toxic air back onto Piltover.

Jinx (and Sevika) just became the hero Zaun needs.

[kathaynesart]

It is done! *falls down*

BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT (SOON) MASTER POST

I have... so much to say on so many different things but it is 2:30 in the morning so I will keep this as brief as possible. First off, thank you to all my mom friends and mutuals who helped me with accurately portraying and normalizing the experience of giving birth. It is wonderful, and painful, and gross, and beautiful. I apologize if it made any readers squeamish (and I know there were a few gross jokes in there) but considering how gross the tv show got, I think it remained true to the overall vibe!

Second, I wanted to talk about the concept of "hope" in this story. When I first watched the movie, I felt like the idea of hope being their greatest weapon seemed sort of heavy handed and cheesy. However, after watching the ending of the show again I realized that hope is actually a huge reoccurring element in the story and a big part of what it means to be of the Hamato clan. Doubly so, I wanted Casey Junior in a way to symbolize that hope for Leo specifically, so when Leo talks about hope in the beginning of the movie, he's not just talking about some vague concept, but Casey Junior himself. He is their greatest weapon and he doesn't even realize it.

Thirdly, so uh... Casey Junior. I apologize if it had seemed out of left field, but do know that the decision of his origins was not made lightly. The shear similarity in his facial structure to Lou Jitsu as well as several other factors that I will refrain from stating due to future spoilers was too numerous to ignore! It is an integral part of his story for reasons that will go unsaid for now, and no, he does not know he's distantly related to them. Also, Big Mama! Been holding onto her concept for some time now! I loved the idea of her mystic broach becoming damaged so she can only be cloaked to a certain degree, making for an interesting blend of both her forms. She was really fun to figure out!

Finally thank you everyone for your patience. This special turned into quite the endeavor with most of the updates exceeding 20 pages each, but I'm so happy I was able to finish it... even if it did take so much longer than my projected hope. I can't wait to get back to the main storyline, though I shall miss these silly, overpowered boys. We got a lot of ground to cover and I'll likely be posting a summarized reminder before continuing. ...and after I finish work on some Zines and the holiday special winning commission!

[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/

[fawfulydoo]

he need some milk (follow up to this one)

[recoiloperated]

"oh, oh God really?" Moron- you just brought a gun into a conflict, you have no room to be surprised you got lit up