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seb-owns-these-tatas · 4 years

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Witcher Of The Night (Chapter 1)

WITCHER OF THE NIGHT MASTERLIST

Characters: Geralt of Rivia x small!Naive!Reader

Summary: You've woken up being hunted by an Alghoul. You were in a death race and hollered for help. Though, it seems like the human you've first seen didn't exactly appeared to look human all through out as his eyes glowed beneath the moon light. You've talked to him but he didn't seem friendly at all except for his awakened friend. The words coming out of their mouth seemed baffling because they were acting like they didn't live in earth, and deep inside you were in denial because they really weren't.

Warnings: Monsters? The word 'whores' and cusses? Blood? A lot of modern references because reader lives in modern day era in earth.

Words: 3,800+

A/N: Hello! Yes, this is my first Geralt fic! There will be eventual smut in the future chapters. I can just tell. LMAO. I ain't good with medieval things but I'm trying! I hope this isn't a failure nor a disappointment, spuds! 😅 Reader lives in modern day earth in this fic but magically woke up in The Witcher’s dimension, alright? This turned to be comedic because of the modern references from the reader. 😂🤣🤣 I had fun writing this! FOR REAL!

TAGLIST IS OPEN FOR THIS ONE! Heehee! Don’t forget to REBLOG, COMMENT OR GIVE FEEDBACK IF YOU DID LOVE THIS FIRST PART! IT’LL MAKE ME SMILE!

Taglist: @alyxkbrl @himarisolace @barkingbullfrog

Disclaimer: PNG's used in edits are not mine even the GIF's too. However, the edits and oneshots are definitely from moi. Characters and said monsters aren't from moi as well. (GIF taken from Tumblr!)

MY WORKS ARE NOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER WEBSITES. My official username in Wattpad is “TATATHEPOTATO” and that’s the only other site I have aside from Tumblr. Thank you, Tater tots!

Tweaks of branches echoed around the unspecified woodland. The satisfying crack of the frail wood felt on the soles of your feet which wore some nasty pink Havaianas slippers as the night sky became colder than from what you were accustomed with.

You were running away from god knows what as you've heard a loud thud beside the tree you've woken up with. Taking a trip down the memory lane, your forgetful mind could only recall a lake in which you were drowning in and the sudden flash of lightning occurred above you as the water rested upon your face.

Then after that terrifying nightmare, you suddenly woke up in the middle of nowhere. A slightly dead looking forest before you've heard the rustle of some twigs and leaves beside you.

Having a vacation in the forest of Switzerland has never been a dream and considering how God smacked you in the head unconscious and teleported you in Switzerland was entirely bewildering from the start.

Your heart was hurriedly pounding out of your chest as you sprinted as fast as you can. Abnormal shrills whistled with the wind that made you mewl as you ran for your life. There has been cuts and bruises across your knee from how you've stumbled upon a large log that hid beneath the earth-like soil. No pain has been sent to your nerves yet because of the adrenaline rush rising in every part of your veins with the need for the hushed voices to stop.

"Ah!" Another loss of one's footing, you've tripped over a large rock and fell face flat. Face now covered in grime and soot as you've heard the intangible whisper of words for the tenth time.

"Leave me the fuck alone! If this is a prank, it's not funny because I'm hurt!" you shrieked in the night and no one in particular. Limbs were turning feeble and shaky, but you've offered all your will power to survive in the damn forest if you were about to get murdered and be found after a year where your body has already been eaten by some wild animal.

The hushed voices were coming closer to a definite scare that took your heart out of your chest. You've pushed yourself up and began sprinting with a limp as you saw the end of the forest; like a meadow was waiting for your damn demise as you won't be outrunning the murderers behind you.

You stood in the middle of a grass field. So, this was the end for you. The voices inside your head spoke as you've scanned the whole area and saw a peculiar wooden house in the middle of the vast area.

The wooden house seemed to be made of Hazel twigs, daub and wattle. Its whole structure was darn weird to be seen in the era you knew you were in. Year 2020. It looked medieval, old and superannuated. The house's structure had a timber frame with a light glowing inside the open panels of its windows.

Human. Someone can help you. Based on the clothes that hung on the sides of a wooden fence in logs, you knew there was someone living inside the peculiar looking house.

Then, you've heard a loud roar. It was enough for you to spun on your heels and see who had been chasing you like a wild boar.

Yet, it wasn't a normal wild boar that could calm you down just a slight because it was just an animal.

The one chasing you didn't seem a murderer nor an animal. Its body appeared to live on the ground, like a zombie who came to life and had no lower body. Though, it had a large stomach and uses his burly arms to chase you down the forest. With Bright cardinal eyes wrathfully staring you down as you stood rooted on the ground in the middle of the field; your heart seeming to run out of oxygen because of what you were witnessing.

You didn't know if it was an alien or a zombie. Proper thinking thrown out of the window as you were running away from the nightmare that was bound to kill you in your sleep, if you were even sleeping.

Your feet ran a trek to the house; looking behind. Focal point completely at the fast carcass crawling to where you were, tons of disgusting looking saliva dripping out of its eroding jaw and you were screaming for help as you skedaddle away.

Until your head hit a hard wall, but not enough for you to fall unconscious.

Vision falling like a kaleidoscope world, you blinked repeatedly and squinted you eyes up at the wall. Though, you were met with a clothed robust chest and a strong warmth he radiated through the crispy, cold Autumn wind. You've scanned him from chest to face and noticed a coin-like silver necklace just a meter away from your face that had a symbol of a wolf.

You didn't know if you were just still dizzy from your newly awakened-self but it was as if your world spun around you as the brawny, marvelous man towered over you like a lion over a mouse. His jawline impressively great enough to cut a bitch; a prominent, cleft chin that can be quite tempting to poke at and eyes that were glowing in Aurum like a star in the night sky or a pot of gold in the other end of the rainbow, with majestic half-tied hair that ended below his shoulders tinted in ivory that stood upon the Tartarean night.

Though, despite of how dashing, grimy and haggard he appeared before you. The scowl on his face was enough to take you to step back from how disturbed he looked like.

You've seen him somewhere. In the movies back in your laptop when you were having a marathon of something.

Lord of the rings. Right, you were dreaming about it in the middle of being chased in your nightmare. That explains why he appeared.

You clapped excitedly as you lifted your chin to stare into his beautiful blazing gold eyes. The grumpy looking man cocked his head to the side as he scrutinized and studied your filth-filled face and you couldn't help but notice the concealed scrunch of his nose if you weren't staring a little bit too closely.

"Hmm," it was the first word you've heard from this intimidating man standing in front of you and hearing such an impossible, low timbre of a hum that vibrated from his chest could get your knees weak from such a tone because you didn't know if it was scaring you or telling you to run for the hills instead.

"Legolas?" your voice croaked out loud, voice turning small when you've received only a grimace that wouldn't be considered as a fake smile, much to your dismay. Your scrutinizing eyes noticed something different from one of the Lord of the Rings character and it was the maturity of his face, "--a middle aged Legolas! Help me! Use your arrow thingy--" he pushed your shoulders to stay behind him, making you stumble from the impact but not enough to ignite another bruise to your knees. Your eyes staring weirdly at his back as you studied the long metal knightly looking steel wrapped around his thick, large, powerful looking palms.

"---Oh, a sword would suffice." you muttered, suddenly uninmpressed because you wanted him to have an arrow instead of a sword to live in your fantasies and continued to hid behind the large build of his body, taking a peek as you saw the bizarre looking creature who screeched so loud that it echoed all over the meadow. You've unconsciously held onto the hem of the wool sweater behind the first human you've ever encountered other than the creature who planned to eat you alive.

"There's a zombie!"

Geralt felt the hand tugging at his sweater. He was close to jumping from the sudden physical touch because of how sudden you've reach out for him regardless of meeting him just tonight. His eyebrows in a tough knot and expression unreadable as he eyed the Alghoul running towards you. The hand holding the hem of his clothing was instantly right out of your hands as he prepared his stance and tread towards the critter like he was confident enough he could eliminate him.

He swung the sword, aiming for the head using just one hand as he lifted it with no trouble; like it was his own weapon and you couldn't help but watch the whole scene unfold before you. The Alghoul jumped using its arms but he was stronger, faster, braver and definitely had no sweat with the upswing of his sword as he slashed the head off the creature with one blow.

Well, he was great. Too great with the sword indeed.

Black blood spurt as he'd cut his head off with no remorse, some of its blood flying off to your grimy sleeveless top and face as you winced from the gore and stared at the head rolling on the ground till it hit your toes.

You just wanted to scream out loud but it seems like your jaw has been stuck and you had no voice to start.

The man seemed to be unruffled at the fact that he just cut the creature's head off with his sword, turning his back at face front that you saw black fluids on the smooth wrinkle of his forehead and cheeks.

"It's an Alghoul," he abnormally grumbled so deep that you mistaken it as a growl. You could feel your tongue stuck in your throat and heard his heavy footsteps coming close. Your eyes still focused at the monster's head scratching your feet that you haven't realized that the man who saved you was actually in front of you already, grabbing its head and throwing it away to save you from another nightmare.

Faded set of footsteps came echoing in. Lighting up a startle from you as you heard a door swish out loud in the open. Until, a budding pitch of a man has said the name of your gory savior in the middle of the night.

"Geralt?" Jaskier hesitantly stepped on the creaking, wooden porch. Eyes still weary of sleep and fatigue as he blinked to the both of you who stood at each other in just an arm reach.

Your savior mumbled another distasteful hum as he observed the short woman before him who seemed to be in total shock; staring at the ground where he'd took the head of the Alghoul away before sighing and taking a step back and away from you to take a look at his bloody sword. "Why, who is this adorable, small grimy lady here in the middle of the night?" the light tone of the man's voice made you blink twice; snapping you out of your reverie.

You turned your head and studied the somnolent man standing outside of the porch, hair disheveled like he'd been disrupted by such a beauty sleep. He looked younger, like he was in his 20's and had a youthful beam with lean muscles beneath the white undershirt wore under a Tunic. Jaskier placed both hands on his hips before pointing a finger at you, sending you a bright smile other than the moue you've received from the man named 'Geralt,' "You came here for Geralt, I suppose? One of your..midnight sashays with him?"

Geralt didn't need to look at his friend and ignored everything he said by walking towards a beautiful brown horse, "Jaskier," he lowly reprimanded as he eyed his horse with an indecipherable expression of his.

Jaskier deeply sighed, his shoulders going up and down from how he did and you eyed him with a baffling twist of your eyebrows.

"First and foremost, you ruined his nap and now he can be as grumpy as an--an Alghoul! An amputated Alghoul!" he blinked in surprise, peeking behind you to see the creature who had its head cut-off laying on the muddy ground.

Geralt continued to pet his horse as your eyes snapped to him, his back on you as you heard his horse neigh, the man named Jaskier still rambling about the creature who laid dead on the ground.

"Alghouls appear in old necropolises and crypts," he scratched his temple with a finger, walking down the path till he was studying the corpse on his foot, "It's a miracle that they've hunted you down. They seldom appear in the forest! Also, they knock down their victims and eat them alive. Right, Geralt? You've taught me these!"

Geralt ignored him and continued petting his horse.

You eyed the man named named Jaskier and watched him walk back to you, a solemn smile on his face because of your unfortunate experience with the forest. Suddenly, realizing about the information he'd uttered, you were sure it was just like those creatures in the movies like Resident Evil or The Walking Dead.

"So, it's basically a zombie!"

Jaskier stared at you like you've eaten a dead mouse. Forehead creasing as he tried mouthing the word you've said, giving his friend a once over as he does, "A zom--what? please do enlighten me, Geralt as to what is a Sombre when I can see with my own splendiferous eyes that the monster he'd killed is an Alghoul--"

You've huffed and bit the insides of your cheeks, fists tightening on either side as you stubbornly bantered, "Z O M B I E. Zombie."

Thus, at the retort; Jaskier had his hands on his hips with his chest puffed out like he was trying to intimidate you. But, it was a failure because he never looked intimidating from the start, "A zombie. Alright. I understood you but not entirely, dirty maiden. Geralt--" he looked over his friend who was now already on the side of you, startling the both of you and sky-scraping from your side as you lifted your chin to see him oddly closing his eyes, breathing you in.

Was he smelling you?

You eyed Jaskier like you were finding it peculiar and he just gave you a shrug, "Your scent..It's...It's...otherworldly, " Geralt uttered, completely resonant and low-pitched that vibrated your calming nerves, "It attracted the Alghoul," he continued with a frown and another sniff before humming in disdain.

"Very out of the ordinary," the latter muttered beneath his chest, a snarl coming out of his mouth as you swallowed the butterflies wanting to come out of your mouth by how monumental he was and you feel so small, "Who sent you?"

You took a step away from the man, eyeing him weirdly as he stubbornly took a step close like personal space wasn't known to the world you are in, "Uhm, no--no one?" a pathetic stutter came out of your lips and felt the tremble of your fingers because of a thought running in your mind that he was also as dangerous as the Alghoul they were saying; maybe even more treacherous, "I came out from my mother’s reproductive organ? You know what, Geralt--"

Jaskier suddenly cut you off, crossing his arms behind him as he watched his friend tower over you, an amused grin etched on his face because you were actually crumbling like a rat before the ginormous cat, "Geralt. A letter G. Not a J. G E R A L T---"

"---Alright, GERALT!" you stopped taking steps back and declared out loud, mocking their accent that you couldn't distinguish. Your palms were outstretched in front of you, ceasing Geralt from pushing you away but not enough to be touching his torso. A pleading look in your eyes that made him breath out of his nose, "---Just please tell me where the airport is and I'm off to my country,"

The man in front of you stared you down, completely uncanny at what you were voicing out. You winced and realized you wouldn't get an answer from him and tried to ask help from his friend instead, but Jaskier was fast to distract you and criticize the clothes you wore, "What even is that clothing?"

You blew out air out of your mouth loudly, not believing their words. They were acting like they weren't actually living in earth at all, "It's casual! Don't judge!"

Jaskier also gave a huff, not believing the outlandish behavior from a lady and continued complaining to the Witcher who seemed to never have the decency to give you space, "Cas--what? Geralt, this woman is foolish. Don't even attempt to ravish her in any way. Utterly not worth it! She's a cuckoo with that flimsy short trousers, an odd looking footwear and a thin top like the Alghoul has taken all of her silk. Unless, this woman is actually your type, well--I wouldn't judge you for your taste in women because most of the time it is utmost round the bend--"

His spouts were cut short as you managed to get a proper look at the strangely, beautifully rugged man before you, giving him one of those tired, puppy eyes that made his frown much less more like it as he waited, "I just wanna go home," your voice sounded so vindicated and you were sure his eyes were really glowing under the night sky, "---please tell me where the airport is and I'll go, or you can probably help me with my wounds first before you shoo me away,"

You've felt the burns from your wounds and ungracefully tried to avoid those glowing eyes that seem to suddenly make your heart pound. Damn you and your horrid types, "Do you...have a car?" you asked no one in particular as you watched the stars that also seemed to be peculiar because of how many they were.

His horse neighed from a distance which gave you an idea that their house didn't have a garage nor do they have a car. You peeked behind Geralt and saw his horse standing behind the stables, "Oh, you have a horse. A beautiful brown horse, I take it we're in a province, I see."

Again, no response from him other than Jaskier's sighs. It was like taking to the wind, but actually talking to a corpse.

You could feel the heat of his stare and it was making you conscious of how you actually looked like, so you continued to avoid his eyes and looked at anywhere but him, "We're in Switzerland right? Or in a province in the U.K, Scotland or Australia considering your accents?"

The only response you've gotten from him was a mere seven word that made you scrunch your nose by how weirder they get, "You aren't from here, I can tell."

"Way to tell her that she's a woman and not a man, Geralt. Stop stating the obvious,"

You ignored their utterance as they've also ignored your question. All you needed was an airplane to get you back to where you came from and escape from this madness. Yet, they seem like to be beating around the bush which began to slightly irritate you because you were sounding like a broken record, "So where's the airport, gentlemen? I still need to feed my cat at home and I'll tell the entire universe that its the end of the world with the zombies. Gotta' tell them a zombie apocalypse is happening--my phone!" you patted the pockets of your shorts and felt your Android phone inside. You've fished it out and pressed the home button, the bright light gleaming beneath the night and both men couldn't help but stare at you in oddity.

"Your what?" was the only thing Jaskier has muttered, looking at what you were holding. Geralt observed the unfamiliar looking thing in your hand and squinted his eyes shut at the bright light, "It's--there's no signal! Where are we?" you tapped on your phone repeatedly and found the GPS not working as the results were indefinite.

Jaskier marched till he was beside his friend, clasping a cold hand on his burly shoulders, cocking his head to the side and clasping his other on his own hip as he gave you a look, "Not just simply absurd but also a strange one, Geralt. You definitely pick the best ladies, First was Renfri; the rebel princess, second is Yennefer; that cunning beautiful mage in which you’ve been in love with and the other hundred are your whores--"

Geralt cocked his head to the side, an unexpected small smile lifting his lips as he continued laying his golden eyes on you, "Year 1268. In the far north kingdom of Kaedwen,"

You nervously nodded, crossing your arms at how exposed you feel from the man before you especially that your clothes were also thin for a weather you were in. Fingers were feeling like ice and you couldn't help but shiver, "Kaedwen? Padawan? Star wars references, I see. Okay, okay, this is getting out of hand and I know you're still in character but please tell me that this is a prank and you're just fond of cosplay,"

"Hmm," His smile was quick to fall, like it has only been a hallucination of your imaginations. Geralt studied you from head to toe. Your breath catching in your throat at how barren you felt with just a simple scan of his eyes and also by how beautiful he looked. Such a pain but soothing for the eyes. He caught the bruises and wounds all over your body and heavily sighed another one before turning his back away from you and letting Jaskier lightly stumble on his feet after giving him a manly tap on the shoulder.

"He's letting her in," Jaskier mumbled to himself and watched Geralt walk away, completely amused as he couldn't believe it, "He really is!"

He scratched his disheveled bed-head and huffed another one, pointing at the retreating man who entered their wooden cavern. "Based on how long I've been a friend with this grumpy Witcher, that answer was either a yes, or a no."

"---Unfortunately, it seems like a no because he took off without a word," he gestured with a finger and used his other to welcome you like a humble gentleman giving way for a princess, "---but also an approval that you can stay in our humble abode to cure that wounds you have which is oddly strange because he never lets anyone in, yet here you are. A grubby ground breaker,"

He eyed the Alghoul's blood on your top and face, his face morphing into disgust as he pointed a playful finger at you, "---And you, small rat. Need a bath," before waggling them around to tell you his point, "---However, you don't get to take my bed,"

The hopes of having your sleep or tightly shutting your eyes, repeatedly wishing inside your head to wake up on your mattress back at your apartment would definitely be a difficult task especially from what you've witnessed. Though, maybe closing your eyes shut and having a nap was the only cure to the nightmare you were living in; taking note at how long this dream of yours have been occurring. It was technically a nightmare full of magical creatures and magic that promised you would only be a mere dream of yours.

That is, when you've opened your eyes after repeatedly wishing up at the sky to wake you up in your dream and saw Jaskier walking in, leaving the door open for you to make yourself at home completely answered your questions.

You weren't dreaming and it appears to be like you were in a different dimension.

"Oh, I'll be damned,"

A PART 2? YES? Y’ALL WANT THIS TO HAVE A SECOND CHAPTER? HEEEHEE!! TELL ME WHAT YA THINK ABOUT THIS!

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bbyboybrock--archived · 4 years

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Payback (Colby Brock Imagine)

Summary: *REQUEST* “eyy! can you do an imagine where reader has a nickname for Colby which is embarrassing/silly and the jake, who clearly doesn't know that reader is the only one who can call him that heard it and decided to tease Colby and started calling him by the nickname, so one day he learns the consequences. Idk if you understand it but yeah 😄❤😘”

Written: 2020

Word Count: 1,303

Warnings: Swearing, slight fluff?

Masterlist

I woke up this morning to a camera in my face. Living in the trap house, this isn’t something that I’m not used to. It’s basically a non-spoken agreement when you start dating and living with one of the guys. Tara and Kat were smart to not move in with Jake and Sam. They get to get dress, do their makeup, and mentally prepare to film whereas I just have to hope nothing suspect ends up on the internet. And if I’m not in front of the camera, I’m behind it recording some dumb fuckery that the four idiots I live with have gotten themselves into. Lucky for me, today, I’m recording.

A couple of days ago, Jake overheard me call Colby “Baby Bear.” Jake being Jake decided to call Colby Baby Bear and Colby calmly told him not to call him that. Of course, Jake took this as an opportunity to tease Colby about his nickname. This resulted in Jake repeatedly calling him Baby Bear every chance he gets. To make matters worse, Jake recorded every time he did it and posted it on TikTok. Now I’m quietly helping Colby get payback on Jake. And boy does this prank have layers.

The nickname stems from the fact that Colby tries to be all tough like a bear. His inability to grow facial hair and his overall goofiness reminds me more of a baby bear. Ergo, the nickname.

“Y/N, did you grab the speaker from our room?” Colby whispered from inside Jake’s room. We’re working completely in the dark. When I said that Colby work me up in the morning, I meant he woke me up at 4 am to get started on this prank. It’s now 6 in the morning.

“Yeah, I already put it in the corner before we forgot. Now hurry up before you make one of the balloons set off the mouse traps. We still have to put up the duct tape door and water cups.” To make our lives easier and to work faster, Colby and I blew up the balloon yesterday and measured the door to make a sheet up duct tape. All we have to do there is to attach the tape to Jake’s door so we can do the final part of this prank.

To be completely honest, I’m surprised that Colby came up with this revenge prank himself. It puts all of his prank war pranks to shame. It’s like he’s the new Elton. First, we had to carefully put mouse traps all over Jake’s floor. Just in case Jake turned on the lights or saw the mouse traps on the floor, we covered them with the balloons. Colby and I had a mini debate about whether or not the balloons could set off the mouse traps. We tested it out and spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get the balloons in the room without ruining the prank early. Then we duct tape his bedroom door. This would force him to break down the tape wall and topple the tower of water filled solo cups. And to get the revenge going, we hid a speaker in Jake’s room to scare him awake.

“Okay, almost done. Are you almost done filling the water cups?” Colby asks in a normalize volume. He set up the GoPro in Jakes room and closed the door. For efficiency, We filled up two buckets of water so I can just start scooping the ice cold water into the red solo cups.

Sam walks out of his room, sees us and tries to not get involved.

“I saw you Golbach, get your ass over here.” Colby whisper yells. Sam back tracks to us and slowly walks to where we’re working.

“I want no part in this bullshit.” Sam says shaking his head.

“Too late, now help Colby get the tape up or you’re next.” I tell him. It’s a good thing Sam’s back isn’t broken anymore. I would have felt bad for threatening him.

“Hurry up though, I don’t want Jake to wake up before we’re done.” Colby orders.

“Maybe I should stop calling you baby bear after this. Kind of giving me papa bear vibes. Daddy bear, if you will.” I joke.

“Yeah, I’ll be right back, I’m going to throw up.” Sam says from the bottom of the ladder.

“She’s joking. Right, Y/N?”

“I don’t know Daddy Bear, you tell me.” I fill up the last water cup.

“I’m getting uncomfortable.” Sam pipes up.

“Sorry, I’ll go wake up Corey while you two finish this up.” I blow Colby an air kiss and take the camera into Corey’s room.

I barge in and close the door behind me in case he screamed. I started throwing whatever I could find until he work up. I pick up what I think is a shoe and hit what I hope isn’t his head.

“What the fuck?” Corey sits up and nearly jumps when he sees me.

“Get out of bed bitch, we’re raising hell.” To fuck with Corey even more. I leave the room and wait outside his door. I stick my head back in to be quiet when he comes out of his room.

A few minutes later Corey comes out and joins Sam and Colby while they stack the water cups. I set the camera up and put towels in a circle outside Jake’s door to hopefully control the damage.

“Can I know what is going on, please?” Corey asks as the last water cup up on the very unstable water tower.

“Just a little old fashion revenge. Come over here.” Colby said from his laptop. We used the GoPro that plays live footage. Colby opened it up on his computer so we could watch the inside of Jake’s room in real time.

“Watch and learn bitches, never mess with baby bear!” I whisper yell.

“Y/N…” Colby warns.

“Sorry babe,” I press play on the distorted Monsters INC. audio from TikTok.

The four of us huddle around the laptop and watch as Jake jumps up in bed. He covers his ears and looks around his room in confusion trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. He swings his legs off his bed and is immediately met with a mouse to the foot. This causes Jake to jump again and fall to the floor, no doubt getting hurt by more mouse traps. Jake climbs back on the bed and pulls off the mouse traps stuck to him. He grabs his comforter and throws it on the floor. Jake seems to have developed a working brain cell during that fall. He manages to make it to the door, slightly jumping as he continues to step on mouse traps.

Jake opens the door and the music gets louder for us. We get up from the computer and face Jake’s door. I run to quickly position the camera that was on us to get the new view of us waiting for Jake. I make it back in time to see Jake break down the tape wall collapse the water tower. Some water splashes on us, but most of it falls on Jake. He stays on the ground, stuck to the tape wall like a fly stuck on a fly trap. I turn the music off and the room is filled with our laughs.

“I’m in hell. What the fuck just happened?” Jake asks from the floor. Corey is also on the floor, laughing his ass off.

“Let this be a warning to everyone. Nobody is allowed to call me baby bear.” Colby says.

“Excuse me?” I ask slightly offended.

“…Correction: Nobody, except Y/N, is allowed to call me baby bear.” Colby comes up to me and places a kiss on my cheek.

#Colby Brock #Colby Brock Imagine #Colby Brock Imagines #Colby Brock x Reader #Colby x Reader #Sam and Colby #sam and colby imagine #Sam and Colby Imagines #trap house #Traphouse #trap house imagines #trap house imagine #traphouse imagines #traphouse imagine #imagine #imagines

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awhitehead17 · 4 years

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Whumptober 2020: Day 15 - Into the unknown

Prompt: Possession

Summary: When Kon comes to the Tower for the weekend, they instantly know something isn’t right with him. After checking up on him, they soon find that the situation is worse than they imagined

A/N: As a warning there is a bit of violence in this story. This consists of strangulation and head bashing, nothing too graphic however, I just want to warn people in case!

Enjoy! :D

By some coincidence they had all gathered into the media room over the course of the afternoon. It was only the start of the weekend but not everyone had actually arrived at the Tower yet.

Tim had been the first one to arrive from Gotham, while he could have easily spent time in his room he choose to chill in the media room instead and did some work on his laptop to pass the time.

Cassie had joined him an hour later, followed by Bart not long after. Tim had continued on with his work while the other two watched a film. It wasn’t until Kon comes strolling into the room that he finally breaks away from his computer.

The half Kryptonian enters the room with his face scrunched up in pain and a hand on his head. He walks over and flops down onto the opposite end of the couch with a groan.

“What’s up Kon?” Bart asks eyeing him up with a frown.

Kon groans again. “My heads killing me, has been all day. No matter what pain killers I take the headache won’t shift.”

Tim shares a concerned look with the other two. He glances at Kon, “Have you had enough sleep recently? Enough food and water? Been up against any freaky crop plants in Smallville this week?”

Kon shakes his head in denial. “I’ve been fine all week until this morning. School was hell to get through today.”

“Well dinner is soon, once you’ve eaten perhaps call it an early night. You might feel better tomorrow morning after some rest.”

The Kryptonian sighs and shrugs, “Perhaps, yeah? We’ll see.”

Dinner comes by half an hour later and they all migrate to the kitchen to eat. Despite how lovely the food was, Kon had barely made a dent in his food which results in everyone giving him concerned looks.

Once the meal was over, Kon retires to his room while Tim, Cassie and Bart clear up.

“Something’s not right with him.” Cassie stats putting the plates away.

“Do you think he’s been attacked in the week and isn’t telling us?” Bart guesses as he dries off the pans.

Tim hums from his position at the sink. “I have no idea. Once we’re done here I’ll go and check on him, he may talk when it’s just one of us with him.”

As Tim said he would, he goes to Kon’s bedroom after finishing up in the kitchen. He taps on the door lightly and lets himself inside the room.

“Hey Kon, I’ve come to check on you….” Tim’s sentence trails off when he stumbles onto a scene he hadn’t been expecting.

Kon was in his room, on the floor curled up with his hands clenched in his hair. His whole posture was shaking and he was muttering something underneath his breath.

“Kon?” Tim whispers with uncertainty. While he desperately wanted to go comfort his best friend something else felt off which stopped Tim rushing to his side. “Conner?”

In that moment he’s glad he hadn’t gone ahead rushed to Kon’s side because the moment the meta looked up, it was clear that nothing was right. Kon’s head snaps up to look at him and Tim instantly sees the bright red glow of his eyes.

Tim barely gets an “oh shit” out before he was being body slammed by his best friend. The force carries him backwards and out into the hallway, Tim’s back slams against the far wall and he crumples to the ground hissing in pain. He had no armour on, meaning there was nothing to help soften the impact of the concrete wall when he slammed into it.

He didn’t have time to recover however because Kon’s suddenly standing before him and clamping a hand around his neck, lifting him up off the ground. Tim scrambles at the hold, trying to push it off him because it was hard to breathe, he knows if Kon applies anymore pressure then his windpipe will break.

“Kon… please… snap… snap out of it…” he wheezes out. His best friend wasn’t there though, only whatever was now possessing him. His eyes were still burning bright red and Tim wonders if Kon (not-Kon) will kill him by heat vision.

Black spots were now dancing in his vision and Tim was seriously struggling to breathe. He weakly pushes at Kon’s unrelenting grip, trying to get free.

“Conner!”

The scream startles him and then suddenly Kon’s hand disappeared from his neck. Tim falls to the ground and sucks in precious air through his abused neck. He wildly looks around to find Cassie and Kon engaged in some kind of spar. The two meta’s and their super-strength going against one another in the tiny alcove of the corridor. They bounce off the walls, the floor and even the ceiling when their flight abilities kick in.

While Cassie handles Kon he scrambles up to his feet and starts rushing down the corridor. Kryptonite. He has Kryptonite stored in his bedroom. While he loathes the idea of using it on Kon, it’s the only thing that’ll weaken him enough for them to get the upper hand so they could work out what’s going on.

“Tim watch out!”

He barely gets a second to comprehend the warning before something collides with his back. He falls to the ground with a grunt and cries out when a heavy pressure lands on his back. Tim knows without looking that it’s Kon. He tries to buck the meta off but fails miserably as he couldn’t barely move an inch with Kon on his back.

A fist full of his hair was grabbed and his head is yanked up. He hisses with the movement and then screams when his face is smacked into the ground. Pain explodes throughout his head it becomes difficult to think. As his head is lifted up again Tim’s able to form some words that he desperately needed to share before he couldn’t.

“My room!” He shouts, hoping one of his teammates are listening. “My desk draw! In there is krypton-“

He’s cut off when his face is slammed against the floor a second time. Pain once again explodes through his head and he cries out. He’s mildly aware of a random harsh breeze of air rushing by him as his head is lifted up yet again.

It happens a third time and Tim knows he won’t be awake for much longer. The next one will either knock him unconscious, leave him extremely concussed or it’ll simply kill him.

When Kon goes to smash his head against the floor for a fourth time, Tim barely notices the room beginning to glow green. Before he could make sense of what was happening, his head collides against the ground and everything goes dark.

-----

As Tim comes to, the brightness of the room hurts his eyes, he has an extremely bad headache and his throat is sore to hell. It takes a lot longer than what it should have but he soon realises that he’s in the medical bay in the Tower.

He also eventually notices Cassie’s frowning face above him. Tim closes his eyes and groans, “What happened?”

Tim winces when he hears himself speak and the way his throat itches. That’s some damage done to his neck alright. Before Cassie could answer, Tim remembers everything and bolts straight up into a sitting position. He looks at her frantically. “Where’s Kon? What happened to him? Did you guys work it out?”

Cassie instantly pushes him back down onto the bed and keeps her hand on his shoulder. She gives him a stern look. “Don’t talk. You’re only going to hurt yourself.” Her gaze softens then. “He’s fine Tim, or will be fine at least.”

Doing the best he could to ignore the throbbing going on in his head, Tim stares at her, encouraging her to elaborate on what had happened once he was unconscious.

Cassie sighs and glances to the side, Tim follows her gaze and sees an unconscious Kon laid upon another bed. Bart was there too, he was currently looking at something on a tablet in his hands.

“Bart managed to get the kryptonite from your room and together we were able to knock Kon out. We’re still analysing things but we’re pretty sure it’s Luthor. Luthor had somehow mind controlled and possessed Kon into attacking us and considering it’s happened before it’s not a shock.” She tells him sullenly.

Tim frowns staring at his best friend’s unconscious body. Kon’s going to hate himself after this, he’s going to feel so guilty and they’re going to have to do a lot of convincing to stop Kon from isolating himself again like he did the first time.

Tim glances at Cassie with a raised eyebrow, hopefully she gets what he’s trying to convey without talking.

Finally letting him go, she runs a hand through her hair. “It’s getting looked into, various of league members are aware of what happened and the plan is keeping Kon sedated until some results appear because its unpredictable on how he’ll wake up. It’s not the best solution but it’s all we’ve got for now. He’ll be okay Tim and then we’ll be there to help him through it.”

Tim smiles sadly and reaches out to take her hand, giving it a squeeze in support. They’ll make sure Kon is okay no matter what.

#Whumptober2020 #day 15 #possession #bit of violence #Tim Drake #Kon-El #cassie sandsmark #bart allen #core four #Teen Titans #injury #friendship #worry #fights #not medically correct #but that's not the point #small strangling scene #fanfiction

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skyprincesscommander · 4 years

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A Heart in Crisis - Part 3

Happy New Year! I’m starting 2020 by posting the final installment to my small trilogy spanning Crisis (Part 1, Part 2), which, like the others, can be read as a stand-alone.

Summary: The multiverse is about to end, but with Kara dead, Lena had already lost everything. The silver lining? It was only up from here.

Earth one was the last remaining outpost in the entire multiverse. If they failed to defend it, life itself was over.

The stakes of losing the multiverse were enough to keep Lena moving, but they just didn’t seem significant when she’d lost the one person who made it mean something. Any action she took seemed more like computer programming rather than a natural survival instinct. How else was she meant to feel when everyone she worked with was surrounded by the people they loved, sharing comforting touches and speeches of hope?

It felt like the world was mocking her.

She tried her best to not think about it, but not thinking about Kara was like not breathing. If there was a hug, she heard Kara telling her she wasn’t weak. She couldn’t look at Superman for a longer duration than two seconds, lest the symbol on his chest strip her of all the hope she had left. Even eating...the simple act of consuming food brought a sickness to her stomach that stripped her of all appetite, because all she could think of were donuts and potstickers and late-night dinners from a different lifetime.

There simply was nothing on earth that could make up for the fact that Kara was gone.

Instead of reality, she tried to think of possibility. How many Kara’s had already died? What had they been like? Maybe another Lena had found that Kara and said all the words that were locked in a box. Maybe in another universe, she’d done it right. Or maybe another Lena hadn’t been such a mess in the first place and they’d found each other sans all the drama.

And yet, if there was any rhyme at all to the multiverse, Lena knew those Kara’s would have sacrificed themselves all the same.

It was hard to hope when they’d already lost so much. Despondency was the norm for all those who knew the odds. The rest were either in denial or too busy to obsess over statistics.

Eventually, the fight came to all of them (even to those without superpowers or an inherent skill in archery). As the last earth standing, there was nothing left to lose. They’d found a way to halt the anti-matter-wave, but the Anti-Monitor’s shadow demons were minutes away from destroying their device. Lena stood with the rest of the heroes as the last line of defense with a ray gun in hand. For once, she wished she spent less time fencing and more time at the shooting range.

When the roof began to collapse, Lena knew her end was near.

A strange peace fell over her. All her burdens felt the nearing of total release like a great tidal wave was towering over her, ready to wash it all away. It was not what she expected her last moments to feel like.

Lena closed her eyes as the roof engulfed her vision, but not out of fear. It just wasn’t the last image she wanted to see.

No. The last thing she wanted to remember was blue eyes, and a joyous laugh full of love. Kara Danvers standing on the balcony, aware of nothing in the world but Lena, and Lena aware of nothing but Kara in return. She allowed the warmth to spread through her, conjuring Kara’s laughter and voice into her ears. The sound got louder and louder, like an echo coming closer. Her name was whispered, no, called. And when it had been called for the third time, Lena finally realized the impact she was expecting hadn’t arrived, and that her name sounded like more than just a dream.

Lena opened her eyes.

Either heaven was real and someone had gotten the verdict wrong, or Lena was having serious last-minute hallucinations.

Because there knelt Kara, burdened by an entire concrete ceiling on her shoulders, grinning down at Lena with a smile so wide that it reached the very corners of Lena’s vision.

Lena may have rubbed her eyes if every limb in her body didn’t feel rooted to the ground. Oxygen stood still in her chest as she stared into those blue eyes, unwilling to even blink lest that beautiful color disappeared.

“Kara?”

Kara’s joyous, celebratory laughter sounded more beautiful than her imagination could ever have comprehended.

Sometimes, heaven can wait, because dreams need to be lived on earth.

***

Kara had to leave, of course. They were still in the midst of a battle with reunions on the backburner, but that reunion was all the occupied Lena’s thoughts. She hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to, or even touch the girl of steel (falling ceilings and a universe to save and all that). But there wasn’t a shadow demon, superhero, or even a goddamn God that could stop her from living to see that moment.

Losing didn’t even seem like a possibility anymore.

Kara was alive. That was the only truth that mattered, and that was all Lena needed to know that winning was a mathematical certainty.

Still, their victory couldn’t come fast enough. There was a superhero she needed to feel in her arms again, the multiverse be damned.

***

The battle had been won for a matter of seconds before Kara flew to Lena. When she arrived, Lena was waiting for her, standing alone amongst a crowd of people who were embracing in relief, joy, and triumph.

Yet none of the celebrations could have matched the elation both women felt. It like there was a secret in the room, one shared between their eyes from across the space, and no one could ever share it with them.

After being able to look at Kara long enough to convince herself once again that it all was real, Lena sprinted toward the Kryptonian. She barely moved her leg a second time before Kara disappeared before her eyes.

Lena didn’t even have time to feel disappointment. She was wrapped up in strong arms, toes lifted off the ground in an embrace that robbed her of air. It didn’t take long to realize that her toes weren’t airborne because she had been lifted. It was because they were flying.

Just barely, but Kara was either too happy to care or completely unaware of their elevation. It didn’t matter. She knew Kara wouldn’t let go either way.

Kara was in her arms. Kara was real. Kara was crying. Lena moved her arms up and down her back and over her shoulders. She squeezed Kara so hard that she may have caused herself pain if pain was even a feeling she was even capable of feeling it at that moment. She pressed her cheek and Kara’s, allowing their tears to mix. As something else real to share, something alive, it only made her feel happier.

They floated like that for what felt like a lifetime before Kara finally became self-aware and returned them to the ground. Nothing had ever been more physically challenging than unwrapping herself from Kara, but the Super took pity on Lena and kept hold her hands (though Kara had likely done it for her own benefit as well).

While looking into those shining blue eyes, Lena’s breath became trapped in her chest. She felt bloated there, like there was something that needed releasing. Like all her boxes had risen up from deep inside.

When Kara opened her mouth to speak, Lena knew exactly which box she had to open.

“I love you,” Lena blurted.

Kara froze, dumbfounded, but Lena rambled on ejecting each word as it shot up to her mouth, unwilling to allow her mind to interrupt. “It was the last thing I thought when you left and I should have said it. There are things that matter and things that don’t and loving you has been the only thing that mattered to me for years. I don’t know or care what happens after this but you just have to know--”

“Lena--”

“--that I love you and I am so sorry for how I reacted and for everything I’ve--”

“Lena!” Kara clutched the sides of her shoulders. She smiled, eyes swimming with adoration. Lena could have lost herself in them forever. “I love you too.”

Lena released a laugh (though it could have been a sob, she wasn’t sure). Kara’s hand moved from Lena’s shoulder to behind her neck, but the pressure was unnecessary. Lena was already tipping her chin upwards, searching for Kara’s lips.

The kiss was passionate; unyielding. After living for days in a universe without Kara, each press was like a plea from Lena for her to never leave again, for the kiss to never end. It was an attempt to immortalize a very feeling - it’s taste, the sound of Kara’s gasps, the feeling of their connected bodies, and the burning in Lena’s very veins. Even though so much was happening around them, they might as well have been standing alone on the moon.

They only parted for oxygen, and even then they pushed the limits. Panting, but still wearing smiles, they pressed their heads together.

Kara stroked the side of Lena’s face. “I know we have things to talk about--”

“We will talk about them--”

“--and pain to move past--”

“We will move past it--”

“--but no matter how long or how much work it takes, I will fight for you.” Kara searched her eyes, imploringly, but didn’t move her head back. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes, Kara. I do.”

Lena kissed Kara once more, and another twenty times after.

Of all the victories they’d achieved, this one surely tasted the sweetest.

***

For the rest of the day, their hands were glued together. Time seemed as much a friend now as it was an enemy, and they didn’t want to waste a single second of it.

But the universe was a cruel beast, and the monitor came with one final message.

“For balance in the universe to be maintained, chaos must be controlled, and order must be restored. I will leave the seven paragons unaffected, but all else must forget any knowledge of this Crisis.”

Before anyone can even process his meaning, before Kara and Lena can even look at one another, the monitor claps his hands.

***

Lena was in her apartment when Kara arrived. Her laptop was on, a scotch swirling in her hand. The landing on her balcony was unceremonious, and Kara did not wait for permission to enter. When she accidentally broke the door handle, Lena jumped from the couch, her scotch spilling all over the rug.

At first, Lena thought Supergirl might barrel straight into her, but the closer she came, the more she slowed down, until she completely stopped, barely five feet away, wearing a look of dread.

“No…” she mumbled. “You don’t remember.”

Lena, completely bewildered, crossed her arms. “Um...get out of my apartment.”

“Lena…”

Lena waited for her to continue, but Kara’s face betrayed that she had no idea what to say next. She looked lost, the tears in her eyes the only thing that seemed to know where they belonged.

“What’s...what’s the last thing you remember...about us?”

Lena scoffed. “Your super-hearing not working, Supergirl? Leave.”

“Please, I need to know!”

“And all I need is a life without you in it.”

A switch flipped in the alien’s eyes. The tears seemed to shrink back from where they came, an assured certainty springing forward to replace them. It wasn’t the reaction Lena had intended to elicit.

“I know that’s not true.”

“You don’t know any--”

“I know it,” Kara said with absolute conviction. It bothered Lena to no end, but Kara didn’t allow her to voice it. “And I’ll prove it to you. I’ll spend every day convincing you that I love you.”

A gasp passed Lena’s lips, but she hid it within a deep breathe as quickly as possible.

Not quick enough.

Kara took one more daring step forward. “I won’t ask if you believe me, we both know the answer to that. But I’m not going to stop until I do. I’m going to fight for you.”

Lena gulped. “So arrogantly persistent.” She tried to make her voice sound annoyed, but it sounded like a piece of glass one vibration away from shattering.

“I made a promise to someone. I’m going to keep it.”

With that, she was gone, though Lena did not miss her final smile.

When Lena dreamt that night, she dreamt of a falling ceiling and declarations of love.

She tried to erase those memories with a strong cup of coffee, but she couldn’t help feeling that her heart knew something she didn’t and that it was only sharing that secret with Kara. Thanks for reading! I wrote this as a version of what I would write as a Crisis story, keeping in mind that the show still has half a season to get through. I’m someone who wants the Supercorp angst to last till seasons end (but no longer, at least not the same angst, cause I’m an angst addict), so that’s why this fic has ended the way it did, rather than with a purely happy ending rather than just implied.

#supercorp #supercorp fanfic #my fanfic #kara danvers #lena luthor #if anyone ever wants to chat all things supergirl come say hi!#supergirl fanfic #supergirl

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carryonmywaywardcaptain · 6 years

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Star-Spangled Douchebag-- Part 2

CarryOnCap Masterlist

Series Masterlist

WC: 1,503

Warnings: none? Some Dean fluff, typical SPN mystery, and no Marvel characters in this one.

A/N: This is a flashback to help set up a little of what was going on in Part 1. Steve will be back in the next part! :) Catch up on Part 1 Here.

[minor edits made 8/4/2020]

A Few Weeks Ago

“Guys, I think I might have something.”

You stopped pacing and tossed the lore book you’d been reading on the war room table. It seemed like it had been ages since you and the boys had caught wind of a case and you were starting to go stir crazy.

As you made your way into the library, you saw that Sam was leaning forward, intently scanning the screen in front of him. Dean had his feet propped up on the table and was cleaning his pistol-- a habit that seemed to become more frequent when he was feeling frustrated or impatient.

“Whatcha got, Sammy?” you asked.

Stopping behind Dean’s chair, you snaked your arms around his shoulders and rested your chin at the crook of his neck. He hummed happily and twisted in your arms to place a soft kiss on your cheek.

“Ugh. Look, I’m glad you guys finally sucked it up and admitted you’re into each other. But can you try to keep the PDA to a minimum?” Sam groaned.

Dean smiled and wrapped a large hand around one of your forearms, holding you in place when you tried to pull away. “C’mon, Sammy. Can’t you be happy for your big bro and prettiest friend?”

“‘Prettiest friend?’” you swatted Dean’s chest lightly with your free hand and wriggled out of his grasp. “And here I thought you liked me for my personality, Casanova.”

Sam rolled his eyes while you took a seat in the chair beside Dean. “Of course I’m happy for you two, it’s just...whatever. Ok, so get this. Apparently there’s been so many bizarre incidents in New York City lately that people are demanding answers from the CDC. Everything from higher rates of people going missing to more crime-- and lots of reports of people acting out of character before turning up dead. Basically all the family members, friends, coworkers, or anybody else that knew the suspects say something along the lines of ‘none of us saw this coming,’ ‘they’d never be capable of something like this-- it has to be some mistake.’ The CDC’s claiming there hasn’t been like, an outbreak of anything to cause weird behavior and there’s no reason to panic but--”

“So New Yorkers are stealing stuff and might have a serial killer-- so what?” Dean interrupted. “Doesn’t exactly sound like our kind of thing, Sam.”

“See, that’s what I thought, but something still wasn’t adding up. So I kept looking into it and even for New York the rates are weirdly high. There’s not a link that they can see, but it’s like across the board these incidents are getting more intense. And the last body to turn up? Turns out it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.?” you asked. “Like...real life agents?”

“Yeah,” Sam continued. “And before that, an NYPD officer. There’s been other stuff with ATMs, convenience stores, and now jewelry stores and bank robberies.”

“Could be demons, maybe? Or even--”

“You guys can’t be serious.” Dean kicked his feet down and cut you off. “Do you have any idea how long of a drive that is? It’s gotta be at least 20 hours.”

“Oh, come on. You’re telling me you guys have never made that kind of a drive for a case before? And what if it is something? High stakes robberies and a dead S.H.I.E.L.D. agent? It’s worth checking out, especially since it’s been ages since we’ve had a case. Even if it does turn out to be nothing, we can at least get out of the bunker for a while. And how cool would it be to get out of the Midwest and go some place like New York for a case?? Pleeeaaasseeee?”

After stating your argument, you leaned over to wrap yourself around Dean’s upper arm. Resting your head on his shoulder, you peeked from under your lashes to give him your very best puppy dog pout.

“She’s got a point, Dean,” Sam said gently. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else going on right now.”

Dean sucked in a large breath and held it for a moment as he debated.

“Fine,” he finally sighed.

“YES!” You jumped out of your chair and pumped one fist in the air like the last scene of The Breakfast Club. “Think we’ll see any of the Avengers? Oh! We should go see the Statue of Liberty!”

Sam laughed as he shut his laptop and rose from his seat. Dean simply shook his head and tried to suppress a smile. When the two of you stood up, he casually slung an arm around your shoulders and guided you down the hall to pack.

***

You groaned, stretching your arms to the sky as you bent this way and that. “Jeez, that was a long drive.”

“Yeah, well whose idea was that?” Dean grumbled as he slammed his door shut.

“Oh, don’t be a Grumpy Gus,” you snapped.

Sam had made some calls to the NYPD to get more information on the robberies, believing they were the best place to start. When you were about 20 miles south of the city limits, he received a call that there had been another bank robbery so you had stopped off at a gas station to change into your FBI clothes before arriving to the scene.

“Agents.” An officer nodded in acknowledgment as the three of you flashed your badges and slipped passed the police barricade. “Your timing is impeccable. I’m Lieutenant Hunt.”

Dean shook the man’s hand as he made introductions. “Lieutenant. I’m Agent Rossington and these are my associates, Burns and Collins. Any leads so far?”

“This one more than past robberies, actually.” He waved for you to follow him and turned to lead the way up the steps into the bank. “I’m surprised the Bureau took an interest in these robberies, but I’ve gotta say I’m glad because I’m at a loss. We’re starting to suspect it’s the work of some sort of organization. Can’t find a link between any of the suspects, but their families are beside themselves. Genuinely believe the individuals were good people and could never do such a thing…”

When he trailed off, you saw Sam snap his head to the side as he made some sort of connection. “Lieutenant, do you happen to know anything about the deceased police officer or S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?”

Lieutenant Hunt cleared his throat and paused before answering. “Not the agent. But the officer… He and I were in the same class at the Academy years ago. Good man. We stayed in touch over the years, even got together with our families for barbecues once in a while. When I heard he’d robbed a jewelry store at one of the shopping centers…”

“You found it hard to believe,” Sam finished for him. Lieutenant Hunt nodded but said nothing more.

You arrived at the security office and the policeman ushered you in the door. “Seems these individuals keep getting bolder. They don’t even bother wearing masks or avoiding cameras. This one is particularly interesting.”

He motioned to the security guard to play the footage of the robbery. A woman entered the front of the bank with a large automatic weapon in hand. She fired a few rounds in the air, prompting the patrons to panic and duck to the ground with their hands in the air. She pointed the weapon at one of the tellers, presumably demanding money. When the bag was full, she looked up at one of the cameras with a smirk before darting down a side corridor.

“We know who she is?” Dean asked.

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Lieutenant Hunt answered. “We looked her up and she’s a lower level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Does some sort of data entry over at the Avengers Tower. Turns out she didn’t show up to work yesterday or this morning. She was in and out of here in just under 15 minutes and we’ve got no clue where she exited the building from. None of the alley or street cameras picked her up after she slipped through an office door in that side hall.”

“Can you run it back again and freeze on her face?” you asked.

The lieutenant quirked an eyebrow. “We already identified her but, uh, sure.”

The security guard ran the footage back and let it play through once more before hitting pause--at the precise moment her eyes flashed white. Dean shared a look with Sam before glancing at you. He licked his lips and pressed them into a firm line, trying to hide his impressed smile.

“Damn technology,” the guard muttered. He hit play before immediately pausing it again and the woman’s eyes returned to normal. “There we go.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” you said while committing the woman’s face to memory. “I think it’s time we pay a little visit to the Avengers.”

Part 3

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jazzviewswithcjshearn · 4 years

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A deeper look at: The Brecker Brothers- Live and Unreleased (Piloo Records, 2020/rec. 1980)

Randy Brecker: trumpet & vocals; Michael Brecker: tenor sax; Mark Gray: keyboards; Barry Finnerty: guitar; Neil Jason: bass & vocals; Richie Morales: drums

At the dawn of the 80's Randy and Michael Brecker had been one of the hottest commodities on the music scene. They initially made a splash in 1970 as part of the horn section on Dreams (Columbia) the self titled debut album from the studio driven band of the same name. Dreams, the brainchild of vocalist/producer/composer Jeff Kent is significant because like Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969, rel. 1970) and the Tony Williams Lifetime's pivotal Emergency (Polydor, 1969) it ushered in an amalgamation of jazz and rock that was completely fresh and something that would continue into the decade most notably with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and the Latin driven sound of Caldera. Dreams, featured luminaries like Billy Cobham, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Doug Lubahn (who appeared on three of the Doors' albums) and trombonist Barry Rogers, and with the vocal driven+ horns combination the group entered territory close to early Terry Kath era Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. The Brecker Brothers would then move on to join the Horace Silver Quintet-- Michael would only appear on In Pursuit Of the 27th Man (Blue Note, 1972) while the trumpeter would appear on three albums: You Gotta Take A Little Love (1968), The United States of Mind Phase I , That Healin' Feelin (1970) and the aforementioned In Pursuit Of the 27th Man. As the seventies wore on, the brothers would log valuable time as members of Billy Cobham's group and individually as session musicians running the gamut from Parliament Funkadelic, Frank Zappa, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Michael Franks among others.

At this time, the Breckers' had found themselves in the midst of something incredibly creative. As session musicians, there was a movement among several, including vibraphone innovator Mike Mainieri, the late pianist Don Grolnick, David Sanborn and Steve Gadd to fuse the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of jazz, with funk and other popular music. As a result of the fruits of these musical inventions Mainieri formed Steps, better known as Steps Ahead with Michael Brecker, Grolnick, and Gadd (later replaced by Peter Erskine) in tow plus bassist Eddie Gomez. The band would record the classic Smokin' In The Pit (Better Days/NYC Records, 1979) Step By Step (1979) and Paradox (1981). All this music was recorded during the Brecker Brothers' peak, they also owned the storied Seventh Avenue South club, an incubator for like minded musicians who were interested in exploring this unique style.

The recently unearthed two CD Brecker Brothers: Live and Unreleased recorded at the famous club Onkel Po's in Germany on July 2, 1980 features the band in their absolute prime. The set list consists uncompromising versions of well known tracks that are mostly drawn from the then recent George Duke produced Detente (Arista, 1980) and their other Arista recordings, including The Brecker Bros (1975), Don’t Stop The Music (1977) and extended, far superior versions of nearly all of the compositions that appeared on Heavy Metal Bebop (1978). The album is also the first chapter in a new phase of Michael Brecker's playing with this gig occurring just a month after taping Pat Metheny's 80/81 (ECM, 1980) and album that signaled a marked shift in the tenor man's facility and conception. As the sadly missed saxophone icon said in Metheny's podcast on the making of the album, “there was everything before 80/81 and everything AFTER 80/81”. This is also the first “new” music heard from him since the final album as a leader with Pilgrimage (Heads Up, 2007).

Live And Unreleased catches the group absolutely on fire. The group includes Randy on trumpet and vocals, Michael on tenor, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Mark Gray on keyboards, Neil Jason on bass and vocals and drummer Richie Morales. Over the ten selections which form a nice cross section of their catalog, they take on this spunky, New York rawness that eschews the slick heavier production of the studio albums. The tunes with their slick, and wry humored harmonic complexity and pounding funk are wonderful blowing vehicles for high octane solos. The saxophonist's “Strap Hangin'” from the band's yet to be released final Arista recording the next year, is a portrait in a nutshell of what this music is all about: fun. Often, within the problematic linear jazz narrative, upon it's release, outside of serious musician circles at Berklee and local levels where these tunes were oft played, jazz critics derided these albums as empty musical effluvia conforming staunchly to the decade's stylistic and production tropes. While yes, some of the music on the studio recordings is very of it's time, there is some serious meat on the bone in these tunes. The tongue in cheek intro conjuring images of the Queen's Guards at the British Royal Palace gives way to the composition's sinewy, tough street wise melody. The bridge chords allow for both Breckers' to glide with hard swinging, behind the beat phrasing in their solos. Randy showcases tremendous range and agility with a Freddie Hubbard like bravura, and Michael ravenously eats the changes, unfurling furious cascades that are now much beloved phrases that are much copied by his disciples. “Tee'd Off” is a sultry example of rhythmically driven funk, but the most significant piece on the album, is the 18 minute plus version of “Funky Sea, Funky Dew”. Each night, as Randy Brecker alludes to in the liners, the band would leave Michael on stage alone for a lengthy cadenza. Here, the saxophonist engages in the best solo of the entire set, dipping into gravity defying acrobatics, funky, swinging asides (with Barry Finnerty behind him) and most important, a display of pre EWI electronic experimentation. Many hallmarks of Michael's EWI approach are found here in this predecessor. Disc 1 finishes with the explosive “I Don't Know Either”, where Richie Morales is in his deepest Steve Gadd groove mode.

A Doobie Brothers style shuffle is employed on “Inside Out” where everyone lets loose soloing on blues changes for the most part, albeit with a trickier more ornate prelude setting up the blues changes. Mark Gray soars in particular with his Jan Hammer and George Duke flavored Moog solo, and Michael Brecker displays his affinity for Stanley Turrentine in spots. “Baffled” features a lengthy drum solo from Morales investigates the Mozambique and bembe rhythms, and an exploratory, angular, Randy Brecker solo in Woody Shaw territory. “Don't Get Funny With My Money” a Zappa-esque slice of absurd silliness closes the album with vocals from Randy Brecker.

Sound:

Taken from masters from the NDR Radio vaults, Live and Unreleased is about as pristine as one could get. Saxophone and trumpet timbres are particularly vivid, trumpet left center and saxophone right center. The drums, as the recording is from 1980, have that familiar dead punch familiar to the era, Morales’ toms had black dot heads with no bottom head, again typical of the era. Dead, deep snare in the center channel with equally dead toms across the sound stage, and shimmery cymbals. The sound stage though wide and nicely separated is quite close up. This is very amped up, electric music afterall!

Closing Thoughts

Live and Unreleased is a wonderful addition to the Brecker Brothers discography. The raw, stripped down nature is a conduit for crackling solos, and lockstep group interplay, with absolutely unhinged Randy and Michael Brecker at their absolute best. It's a reminder of how sorely missed the saxophonist is, and the towering influence he had on several generations of players that continues to the present.

Music rating: 9.5/10

Sound rating: 8/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Yamaha RS 202 Stereo receiver

Focal Chorus 716 Floor Standing speakers

Schiit Modius DAC

Musicbee (for WAV file playback)

youtube

#Michael Brecker #randy brecker #jazz fusion #jazz funk #chase baird

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miachanelparker · 4 years

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Title: Intro To Baby Carter And Mommy: MCVlogs Involved: Mia Carter Posted: Wednesday, March 4th, 2020 Subscribers: 5 Views: 20 Likes: 3 Dislikes: 2 Video #: 1

Mia set the camera up in their guest bedroom, making sure it was positioned on the tripod as it should be. She had bought one to use along with a cord from Best Buy to use her laptop as a monitor. She needed to make sure she was in the frame while she spoke to the camera and her potential followers. She chose their guest bedroom not sure if Tyler would want their home pictured on her channel or himself for that matter. She was happy about the set up and she could finally start filming for the day now, considering she didn’t have class this was the perfect time to make her first video and intro. She wanted to create these vlogs for their child originally, but she had discovered along the way that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to post the videos on YouTube as well. It would be great memories for the future and some of their friends and family could potentially watch on as they journeyed into parenthood together.

Mia got back up and shifted the camera a little zooming in before she sat back down in the chair in the room having shifted it to her advantage. She was so lucky to have bought Tyler a camera for Christmas, he had opened it and used it, but he didn’t use it as much as she assumed, he would when she got the gift. It didn’t matter now; she had a memory card in the camera and had gotten a tripod so there was nothing to lose and honestly, she had everything she needed. It was nothing to it but to do it, so here she was. “Hi” she said to the camera, it was so different because in all honesty she was talking to herself in the room. “My name is Mia Carter, welcome to my vlogging channel MC Vlogs and if you want to see firsthand me embarking on this journey into motherhood, just keep on watching” she said recording her intro. Did she like that? Was it too cheesy or maybe not interactive enough? To staged perhaps? It would do, she was new to this and she was sure it would become easy along the way but for right now that would work. She still had to learn to edit and that was a totally different ball game.

Once she did that Mia began to speak “hey guys, welcome to my channel. I am fairly new to Youtube” she said as she combed her hand through her newly washed and pressed hair. Mia had removed the wig she sported all while in Paris and had, had her natural hair pressed and parted down the middle. “My name is Mia Carter, I am a twenty-one-year-old married, University of Houston student” she said with a smile. “And I am expecting my first child with my husband” she lingered with a bright smile. “Um,” she paused thinking for a moment “I wanted to document my entire pregnancy, for myself and for our child” she said toying with her hands. “When I first found out I was pregnant, I pretty much toyed with the idea of documenting it all I just wasn’t sure how I’d do it or even if my husband would mind if I did” she said honestly. “However, I personally thought this would be very fun and very memorable, for a first-time mother and even a newlywed” she shrugged. “So, if you read the title to this video you know that this is pretty much our introduction to Youtube” she said.

“I got on my social media and made a poll asking people if I should do a Q & A video and a lot of my followers voted that I should do one as my first video” she said. “So that is what we are going to do” she said happily as she grabbed her phone. Mia unlocked her phone and moved to collect the questions she screenshotted into her camera roll licking her lips. She shifted in the chair and fixed her blouse before she said “okay, I am just going to dive right into the questions and try to get through as many as I can” she said to the camera lens.

“First question, what is your major?” Mia read off before she lowered her phone. “I am a Business Marketing major with a minor in Sales” she said to the camera. “I am a junior, so I am fairly close to graduating which I am very excited about” she said nodding her head. “It is a lot of math, a lot of business proposals and even more strenuous stuff but I love it” she chuckled.

“Second question how did your husband react to you being pregnant?” she breathed before she giggled softly to herself. “Honestly speaking, my husband is very attentive. So, he knew I was pregnant before I honestly did” she confessed. “Us finding out was more confirmation for him than anything” she stressed talking with her hands, her phone still in her right one. “So, he was very excited and very happy essentially. He wasn’t really shocked, but he was very excited and very, very supportive” she said with a smirk tucking some hair behind her ear.

“Third question, how did you find out you were pregnant?”, she sat her phone in her lap and said “well” another chuckle leaving her lips. “Well, honestly again like I said before I did not think I was pregnant” she told the camera. “I was sleepy all the time and just didn’t feel well. I threw up here and there” she listed “and honestly, I just thought that I was stressed. Like I mentioned my major is kind of tough sometimes and the current semester I am in has been kicking my butt honestly. So, I chucked it up as that” she said honestly. “However, one day while I was napping in the room my husband brought home some test and he made me some lunch. I think he made me soup, got me crackers” she said counting on her fingers “he also had something to drink for me and he brought it in on a tray into the bedroom” she mused at the thought of it even now. “We took the test together and I was too nervous to wait so he did” she said smiling “and he came in and showed me the test and said ‘we are pregnant’ which he kind of already knew anyway” she told them. “We were over the moon” she said picking her phone back up.

“Do you think you are too big to have a baby? You are just going to get bigger” Mia read off, she was trying to be transparent so though the question was hurtful she still read it. Looking up she sighed “um” she said thinking “I do understand I am a plus-sized woman and no I don’t think me carrying a child and me being plus-sized is a concern of mine and should not be of yours” she said outright her shoulders shrugging. “I am not the first plus-sized person to have a baby and I won’t be the last. So, no I don’t think I am to big” she said using air quotes “to have a baby” she answered. “Hope that answers that” she commented as she looked back to the list.

“Question number five, are you scared to have a baby at your age?” Mia read aloud before she looked to the camera seriously. “I am nervous” she said nodding her head “but I am sure any first-time mother would be, right?” she chuckled. “I don’t fear the labor and delivery as much as I just fear how much the human body endures during it. You have so many horror stories out there about what black women have to face and how a lot of them sadly enough pass during childbirth and other complications. I am staying steadfast and I know God is watching over us both and that’s what I hang on to” she said nodding her head. “Birth doesn’t scare me as much, if that is what you wanted to know” she shrugged easily.

“Number six, do you and your husband plan to finish school while having a baby?” she breathed out before she looked up again. “Yes” she said nodding her head “my husband and I will be finishing school” she said to the lens. “I guess I have to give some background about that, he and I both attend the same university and we both plan to finish school. I am still enrolled, and I still attend classes. We took a small break to celebrate both our engagement and pregnancy in Paris for the month of February essentially, but we are finishing off this semester and our next year in school” she said thoughtfully.

“Why didn’t your husband make you get an abortion?” Mia read and furrowed her brows before she looked up. She pursed her lips up at the camera before she said, “well why would he?” she asked in return very confused. “We were engaged when we found out. We have our own place. We both actively attend school. He works every day. And my husband wants to have children, so why would we not have this baby?” she asked again as she raised as brow before she looked back down chuckling, “next question” she said aloud with a snort and a head shake.

“When did you and your husband get married and why did you get married so young?” Mia said with a heavy sigh before she shifted in her seat and she brought one leg up in the chair before she said. “We got married on February 15th, 2020 exactly one day after Valentine’s Day and while we were in Paris, France. We took a trip to Paris like I said to celebrate both the baby and our engagement. Both were very fresh” she said factually. “He surprised me with a trip to the Eiffel Tower, I thought we were just going to tour the landmark and make take cute pics” she chuckled “but we actually ended up getting married in the Eiffel Tower, there was a dinner set up and priest there waiting for us. It was a total surprise for me” she said resting her hand on her chest. “My husband told me what was going on and we kind of just did it. It was very spontaneous and adventurous” she explained “and we did it because we wanted to and because it was on our own terms”, she told them. “Our age doesn’t really play a factor because love doesn’t discriminate, and it isn’t bias” she shrugged.

“Did you plan to start a family in Texas? If not, how do you feel now that you are pregnant and haven’t relocated? Question number nine” Mia said as she tapped her finger against her chin. “Honestly I have not thought much on that. I am not a Texas native which is probably why you asked that” she giggled. “Originally I am from Chicago. But I would never have thought to raise a family there” she said matter-of-fact as she pointed to the camera. “Texas it pretty okay” she nodded her head “I don’t mind it at all, and I am not sure if my husband and I would ever move. My parents are here and so is his, not to mention all of our friends so…. I am pretty okay with us establishing a family here for right now” she said with a head nod.

“I saw on your IG that you got your husband a dog, how are you guys going to handle a new pet and a new baby?” Mia read and she nodded “good question” she said with a chuckle. “I got my husband a pet Pitbull for Valentine’s Day. I just happened to notice that he’s keen to dogs and a Pit fits his personality” she shrugged “so I thought it would be a cool gift” she told them. “His name is King, and he is the cutest little thing right now I got him as a puppy” she said thoughtfully. “Far as the question goes, I don’t think it would be hard we can both handle him pretty well. He would have grown a lot by the time I actually have the baby, so I am sure my husband will make it his business to make sure he’d taken care of just so I don’t have to, but we would share the responsibility. I think King is going to be a big baby because he already acts like one” she chuckled. “He’s a cute little sweetie pie” she said already in love with the dog herself.

“Weren’t you a virgin?” Mia read and she rolled her eyes before she said “no” she said to the camera. “Wasn’t really a virgin” she said using air quotes “I had been with a few other people before Tyler” she said as she moved on not going into details about that at all. There was more to it but that was for her and Tyler to know, they had discussed it among each other and that, was that.

“Did you plan to get pregnant right now? Your best friend is also pregnant. It looks like you guys planned it” Mia read the next question from her phone and she licked her lips. “This question amuses me the most” she said pointing to the phone. “I have a best friend; we’ve known each other since high school. She is also pregnant right now, but we did not plan this” she chuckled as she lifted her hands defensively. “Plus, she’s about 13-14 weeks ahead of us so yeah no” she said shaking her head with another chuckle. “It is a lucky coincidence and I am very happy about it honestly. To both be pregnant now and experience it together is very surreal” she said happily to the camera.

“Do you plan on buying another house or staying in the same one you have?” she read as she thought about it before she shook her head. Mia looked at the ceiling before she said “honestly” shrugging her shoulder as she looked to the camera. “We live in a penthouse right now and it is comfortable for us. I am content with it. I am in the guest room right now, which we would be converting into a nursery when the time is right” she said with a head nod. “And it is just the perfect space, it’s a high rise, near the campus. I love it” she said shifted her posture in the seat. “So, no we aren’t looking for anything right now and I doubt we would” she told them. “It’ll just be us three for a while I am sure.”

“How did you and your husband start dating? What was your first date like?” she read, and she took another sip of her melting drink. “We have always known each other” she said outright, “we hung out often because we have mutual friends” she told them truthfully. “One day he just decided to make the move” she said shrugging with a laugh. “He sent me a text and asked me did I want to go to dinner with him and I was like yeah” she shrugged with a chuckle, “we were cool we were friends so why not?” she asked the screen. “We ate, we talked, did our normal thing” she breathed. “And if I can be totally transparent it was a passion thing” she shrugged “we had sex after our first date, and we’ve been hooked ever since” she said shrugging as she lifted her hands. “To know me is to understand that I just wasn’t raised that way, however I believe that is my husband and I’s love language” she said thinking to herself. “We are just two very passionate people and after our first time, everything else kind of fell in place” she said gesturing with her hands.

“How did your husband propose?“ Mia read off and she said with a smirk on her face “it was very intimate. Very straight forward” she said nodding her head as she recalled the memories. “My husband is a very straight forward person so naturally he said exactly what he had to. It was in the comfort of our own home which I loved because I can be outgoing” she chuckled at herself “but really I am very private and I am a stickler for small things. I did not need a lavish proposal at all” she said to the camera. “So I wish I could tell you guys about this huge hot air balloon extravaganza” she chuckled “but no it was intimate and very personal, which captures our entire relationship honestly” she said nodding her head eyebrows wiggling with a smile as she picked her phone back up.

“Next” Mia sung out sweetly “Are you going to finish school? “ she said her excitement fleeting “answered that one and again, yes we are finishing school. This baby will not stop the bag or the degree” she chuckled quietly as her fingers continued to scroll down her phone.

“Will your child wear all designer clothing? Since you are already buying the baby designer things and posting it?” she read licking her lips. Mia sat the phone down and she grabbed her drink and took another sip before she sat it down. “Uh” she said as she thought to herself “well, I don’t know” she said slowly before she smirked. “I bought the baby a cute Gucci robe and towel set. I thought it was cute as a ‘babies first’ kind of item” she said holding up to fingers suppling the people with an air quote. “Apart from that I also wanted to bring the baby back something from our Paris trip as well. I went into Gucci and thought like I said, it was a cute little set” she said. “Does that mean he or she is going to be Gucci down every day or their lives, no, but mommy and daddy do own articles of clothing that are pricey and designer. Baby or not I am firm believer that you can not only treat yourself to the finer things you should also treat your kids. I have a big problem looking on IG and seeing chicks with red bottoms on and their baby has on some damn keds” she said with a disgusted look. She held up her hand and made a gesture across her neck “cut it out” she said a hardy chuckle leaving her lips. “It’s not cute boo” she added with that “so though no I don’t intend to blow a bag on the baby because after all it is a baby. Don’t expect me to be dressed to the T and my baby not be. Nope” she said shaking her head as she picked her phone back up.

“Okay” Mia breathed as she shifted in the seat again “last but not least, question number twenty, the last question I am going to answer. Do you want to have a boy or girl?” she read aloud with a mountain of amusement in her voice. She looked back at the camera and she smiled brightly “honestly I don’t know. I have tried to will myself to not think about it too much” she said seriously. “And, for the most part I have not leaned towards one over the other” she said shifting. “My husband wants exactly one boy and one girl” she told the camera. “So, I know he’d be happy either way. I honestly would be happy either way as well. If I wanted to choose which gender came first” she said rewording the question with a grin. “I would say boy, only because I would love to have a little boy that looks just like my husband dimples, freckles, and all but I am truly happy with whatever we are blessed with” Mia said thoughtfully.

“So, thanks for checking in with me and baby Carter. Again, don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe, and hit that notification bell so that you can be notified of our latest videos. Bye” she said winking at the camera.

#tag: youtube #tag: mcvlogs #tag: vlogs

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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I am posting a series of articles on the misinformation campaign being waged by the Trump campaign and other nafarious actors including Russia, Iran and China..Its important we recognize, educate and share this information ahead of the 2020 election. The misinformation is 20 fold to the misinformation campaign waged in 2016. WE MUST DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP FOR THE SAKE OF OUR DEMOCRACY. PLEASE SHARE!!! TY🙏🏻🙏🙏🏼🙏🏽🙏🏾🙏🏿

THE BILLION-DOLLAR DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN TO REELECT THE PRESIDENT..... How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 Election

By McKay Coppins | Published MARCH 2020 Issue | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted February 13, 2020 |

(**Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET on February 10, 2020.)

(PART 1 /2)

One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.

The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

'THE DEATH STAR'

The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected—with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower—his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as “the Death Star.”

Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard. As the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Parscale didn’t become a household name like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But he played a crucial role in delivering Trump to the Oval Office—and his efforts will shape this year’s election.

In speeches and interviews, Parscale likes to tell his life story as a tidy rags-to-riches tale, embroidered with Trumpian embellishments. He grew up a simple “farm boy from Kansas” (read: son of an affluent lawyer from suburban Topeka) who managed to graduate from an “Ivy League” school (Trinity University, in San Antonio). After college, he went to work for a software company in California, only to watch the business collapse in the economic aftermath of 9/11 (not to mention allegations in a lawsuit that he and his parents, who owned the business, had illegally transferred company funds—claims that they disputed). Broke and desperate, Parscale took his “last $500” (not counting the value of three rental properties he owned) and used it to start a one-man web-design business in Texas.

Parscale Media was, by most accounts, a scrappy endeavor at the outset. Hustling to drum up clients, Parscale cold-pitched shoppers in the tech aisle of a Borders bookstore. Over time, he built enough websites for plumbers and gun shops that bigger clients took notice—including the Trump Organization. In 2011, Parscale was invited to bid on designing a website for Trump International Realty. An ardent fan of The Apprentice, he offered to do the job for $10,000, a fraction of the actual cost. “I just made up a price,” he later told The Washington Post. “I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything.” The contract was his, and a lucrative relationship was born.

Over the next four years, he was hired to design websites for a range of Trump ventures—a winery, a skin-care line, and then a presidential campaign. By late 2015, Parscale—a man with no discernible politics, let alone campaign experience—was running the Republican front-runner’s digital operation from his personal laptop.

Parscale slid comfortably into Trump’s orbit. Not only was he cheap and unpretentious—with no hint of the savvier-than-thou smugness that characterized other political operatives—but he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder that matched the candidate’s. “Brad was one of those people who wanted to prove the establishment wrong and show the world what he was made of,” says a former colleague from the campaign.

Perhaps most important, he seemed to have no reservations about the kind of campaign Trump wanted to run. The race-baiting, the immigrant-bashing, the truth-bending—none of it seemed to bother Parscale. While some Republicans wrung their hands over Trump’s inflammatory messages, Parscale came up with ideas to more effectively disseminate them.

The campaign had little interest at first in cutting-edge ad technology, and for a while, Parscale’s most valued contribution was the merchandise page he built to sell MAGA hats. But that changed in the general election. Outgunned on the airwaves and lagging badly in fundraising, campaign officials turned to Google and Facebook, where ads were inexpensive and shock value was rewarded. As the campaign poured tens of millions into online advertising—amplifying themes such as Hillary Clinton’s criminality and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism—Parscale’s team, which was christened Project Alamo, grew to 100.

Parscale was generally well liked by his colleagues, who recall him as competent and intensely focused. “He was a get-shit-done type of person,” says A. J. Delgado, who worked with him. Perhaps just as important, he had a talent for ingratiating himself with the Trump family. “He was probably better at managing up,” Kurt Luidhardt, a consultant for the campaign, told me. He made sure to share credit for his work with the candidate’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and he excelled at using Trump’s digital ignorance to flatter him. “Parscale would come in and tell Trump he didn’t need to listen to the polls, because he’d crunched his data and they were going to win by six points,” one former campaign staffer told me. “I was like, ‘Come on, man, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’ ” But Trump seemed to buy it. (Parscale declined to be interviewed for this story.)

James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale’s political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform’s new tools. “Whereas some grizzled campaign strategist who’d been around the block a few times might say, ‘Oh, that will never work,’ Brad’s predisposition was to say, ‘Yeah, let’s try it.’ ” From June to November, Trump’s campaign ran 5.9 million ads on Facebook, while Clinton’s ran just 66,000. A Facebook executive would later write in a leaked memo that Trump “got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”

Though some strategists questioned how much these ads actually mattered, Parscale was hailed for Trump’s surprise victory. Stories appeared in the press calling him a “genius” and the campaign’s “secret weapon,” and in 2018 he was tapped to lead the entire reelection effort. The promotion was widely viewed as a sign that the president’s 2020 strategy would hinge on the digital tactics that Parscale had mastered.

Through it all, the strategist has continued to show a preference for narrative over truth. Last May, Parscale regaled a crowd of donors and activists in Miami with the story of his ascent. When a ProPublica reporter confronted him about the many misleading details in his account, he shrugged off the fact-check. “When I give a speech, I tell it like a story,” he said. “My story is my story.”

'DISINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE'

In his book This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, a researcher at the London School of Economics, writes about a young Filipino political consultant he calls “P.” In college, P had studied the “Little Albert experiment,” in which scientists conditioned a young child to fear furry animals by exposing him to loud noises every time he encountered a white lab rat. The experiment gave P an idea. He created a series of Facebook groups for Filipinos to discuss what was going on in their communities. Once the groups got big enough—about 100,000 members—he began posting local crime stories, and instructed his employees to leave comments falsely tying the grisly headlines to drug cartels. The pages lit up with frightened chatter. Rumors swirled; conspiracy theories metastasized. To many, all crimes became drug crimes.

Unbeknownst to their members, the Facebook groups were designed to boost Rodrigo Duterte, then a long-shot presidential candidate running on a pledge to brutally crack down on drug criminals. (Duterte once boasted that, as mayor of Davao City, he rode through the streets on his motorcycle and personally executed drug dealers.) P’s experiment was one plank in a larger “disinformation architecture”—which also included social-media influencers paid to mock opposing candidates, and mercenary trolls working out of former call centers—that experts say aided Duterte’s rise to power. Since assuming office in 2016, Duterte has reportedly ramped up these efforts while presiding over thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The campaign in the Philippines was emblematic of an emerging propaganda playbook, one that uses new tools for the age-old ends of autocracy. The Kremlin has long been an innovator in this area. (A 2011 manual for Russian civil servants favorably compared their methods of disinformation to “an invisible radiation” that takes effect while “the population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon.”) But with the technological advances of the past decade, and the global proliferation of smartphones, governments around the world have found success deploying Kremlin-honed techniques against their own people.

In the United States, we tend to view such tools of oppression as the faraway problems of more fragile democracies. But the people working to reelect Trump understand the power of these tactics. They may use gentler terminology—muddy the waters; alternative facts—but they’re building a machine designed to exploit their own sprawling disinformation architecture.

Central to that effort is the campaign’s use of micro-targeting—the process of slicing up the electorate into distinct niches and then appealing to them with precisely tailored digital messages. The advantages of this approach are obvious: An ad that calls for defunding Planned Parenthood might get a mixed response from a large national audience, but serve it directly via Facebook to 800 Roman Catholic women in Dubuque, Iowa, and its reception will be much more positive. If candidates once had to shout their campaign promises from a soapbox, micro-targeting allows them to sidle up to millions of voters and whisper personalized messages in their ear.

Parscale didn’t invent this practice—Barack Obama’s campaign famously used it in 2012, and Clinton’s followed suit. But Trump’s effort in 2016 was unprecedented, in both its scale and its brazenness. In the final days of the 2016 race, for example, Trump’s team tried to suppress turnout among black voters in Florida by slipping ads into their News Feeds that read, “Hillary Thinks African-Americans Are Super Predators.” An unnamed campaign official boasted to Bloomberg Businessweek that it was one of “three major voter suppression operations underway.” (The other two targeted young women and white liberals.)

The weaponization of micro-targeting was pioneered in large part by the data scientists at Cambridge Analytica. The firm began as part of a nonpartisan military contractor that used digital psyops to target terrorist groups and drug cartels. In Pakistan, it worked to thwart jihadist recruitment efforts; in South America, it circulated disinformation to turn drug dealers against their bosses.

The emphasis shifted once the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer became a major investor and installed Steve Bannon as his point man. Using a massive trove of data it had gathered from Facebook and other sources—without users’ consent—Cambridge Analytica worked to develop detailed “psychographic profiles” for every voter in the U.S., and began experimenting with ways to stoke paranoia and bigotry by exploiting certain personality traits. In one exercise, the firm asked white men whether they would approve of their daughter marrying a Mexican immigrant; those who said yes were asked a follow-up question designed to provoke irritation at the constraints of political correctness: “Did you feel like you had to say that?”

Christopher Wylie, who was the director of research at Cambridge Analytica and later testified about the company to Congress, told me that “with the right kind of nudges,” people who exhibited certain psychological characteristics could be pushed into ever more extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking. “Rather than using data to interfere with the process of radicalization, Steve Bannon was able to invert that,” Wylie said. “We were essentially seeding an insurgency in the United States.”

Cambridge Analytica was dissolved in 2018, shortly after its CEO was caught on tape bragging about using bribery and sexual “honey traps” on behalf of clients. (The firm denied that it actually used such tactics.) Since then, some political scientists have questioned how much effect its “psychographic” targeting really had. But Wylie—who spoke with me from London, where he now works for H&M, as a fashion-trend forecaster—said the firm’s work in 2016 was a modest test run compared with what could come.

“What happens if North Korea or Iran picks up where Cambridge Analytica left off?” he said, noting that plenty of foreign actors will be looking for ways to interfere in this year’s election. “There are countless hostile states that have more than enough capacity to quickly replicate what we were able to do … and make it much more sophisticated.” These efforts may not come only from abroad: A group of former Cambridge Analytica employees have formed a new firm that, according to the Associated Press, is working with the Trump campaign. (The firm has denied this, and a campaign spokesperson declined to comment.)

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook was excoriated for its mishandling of user data and complicity in the viral spread of fake news. Mark Zuckerberg promised to do better, and rolled out a flurry of reforms. But then, last fall, he handed a major victory to lying politicians: Candidates, he said, would be allowed to continue running false ads on Facebook. (Commercial advertisers, by contrast, are subject to fact-checking.) In a speech at Georgetown University, the CEO argued that his company shouldn’t be responsible for arbitrating political speech, and that because political ads already receive so much scrutiny, candidates who choose to lie will be held accountable by journalists and watchdogs.

"Shady political actors are discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text message."

To bolster his case, Zuckerberg pointed to the recently launched—and publicly accessible—“library” where Facebook archives every political ad it publishes. The project has a certain democratic appeal: Why censor false or toxic content when a little sunlight can have the same effect? But spend some time scrolling through the archive of Trump reelection ads, and you quickly see the limits of this transparency.

The campaign doesn’t run just one ad at a time on a given theme. It runs hundreds of iterations—adjusting the language, the music, even the colors of the “Donate” buttons. In the 10 weeks after the House of Representatives began its impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign ran roughly 14,000 different ads containing the word impeachment. Sifting through all of them is virtually impossible.

Both parties will rely on micro-targeted ads this year, but the president is likely to have a distinct advantage. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have reportedly compiled an average of 3,000 data points on every voter in America. They have spent years experimenting with ways to tweak their messages based not just on gender and geography, but on whether the recipient owns a gun or watches the Golf Channel.

While these ads can be used to try to win over undecided voters, they’re most often deployed for fundraising and for firing up the faithful—and Trump’s advisers believe this election will be decided by mobilization, not persuasion. To turn out the base, the campaign has signaled that it will return to familiar themes: the threat of “illegal aliens”—a term Parscale has reportedly encouraged Trump to use—and the corruption of the “swamp.”

Beyond Facebook, the campaign is also investing in a texting platform that could allow it to send anonymous messages directly to millions of voters’ phones without their permission. Until recently, people had to opt in before a campaign could include them in a mass text. But with new “peer to peer” texting apps—including one developed by Gary Coby, a senior Trump adviser—a single volunteer can send hundreds of messages an hour, skirting federal regulations by clicking “Send” one message at a time. Notably, these messages aren’t required to disclose who’s behind them, thanks to a 2002 ruling by the Federal Election Commission that cited the limited number of characters available in a text.

Most experts assume that these regulations will be overhauled sometime after the 2020 election. For now, campaigns from both parties are hoovering up as many cellphone numbers as possible, and Parscale has said texting will be at the center of Trump’s reelection strategy. The medium’s ability to reach voters is unparalleled: While robocalls get sent to voicemail and email blasts get trapped in spam folders, peer-to-peer texting companies say that at least 90 percent of their messages are opened.

The Trump campaign’s texts so far this cycle have focused on shouty fundraising pleas (“They have NOTHING! IMPEACHMENT IS OVER! Now let’s CRUSH our End of Month Goal”). But the potential for misuse by outside groups is clear—and shady political actors are already discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text.

In 2018, as early voting got under way in Tennessee’s Republican gubernatorial primary, voters began receiving text messages attacking two of the candidates’ conservative credentials. The texts—written in a conversational style, as if they’d been sent from a friend—were unsigned, and people who tried calling the numbers received a busy signal. The local press covered the smear campaign. Law enforcement was notified. But the source of the texts was never discovered.

'WAR ON THE PRESS'

One afternoon last March, I was on the phone with a Republican operative close to the Trump family when he casually mentioned that a reporter at Business Insider was about to have a very bad day. The journalist, John Haltiwanger, had tweeted something that annoyed Donald Trump Jr., prompting the coterie of friends and allies surrounding the president’s son to drum up a hit piece. The story they had coming, the operative suggested to me, would demolish the reporter’s credibility.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this gloating—people in Trump’s circle have a tendency toward bluster. But a few hours later, the operative sent me a link to a Breitbart News article documenting Haltiwanger’s “history of intense Trump hatred.” The story was based on a series of Instagram posts—all of them from before Haltiwanger started working at Business Insider—in which he made fun of the president and expressed solidarity with liberal protesters.

The next morning, Don Jr. tweeted the story to his 3 million followers, denouncing Haltiwanger as a “raging lib.” Other conservatives piled on, and the reporter was bombarded with abusive messages and calls for him to be fired. His employer issued a statement conceding that the Instagram posts were “not appropriate.” Haltiwanger kept his job, but the experience, he told me later, “was bizarre and unsettling.”

The Breitbart story was part of a coordinated effort by a coalition of Trump allies to air embarrassing information about reporters who produce critical coverage of the president. (The New York Times first reported on this project last summer; since then, it’s been described to me in greater detail.) According to people with knowledge of the effort, pro-Trump operatives have scraped social-media accounts belonging to hundreds of political journalists and compiled years’ worth of posts into a dossier.

Often when a particular news story is deemed especially unfair—or politically damaging—to the president, Don Jr. will flag it in a text thread that he uses for this purpose. (Among those who text regularly with the president’s eldest son, someone close to him told me, are the conservative activist Charlie Kirk; two GOP strategists, Sergio Gor and Arthur Schwartz; Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor; and U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell.) Once a story has been marked for attack, someone searches the dossier for material on the journalists involved. If something useful turns up—a problematic old joke; evidence of liberal political views—Boyle turns it into a Breitbart headline, which White House officials and campaign surrogates can then share on social media. (The White House has denied any involvement in this effort.)

Descriptions of the dossier vary. One source I spoke with said that a programmer in India had been paid to organize it into a searchable database, making posts that contain offensive keywords easier to find. Another told me the dossier had expanded to at least 2,000 people, including not just journalists but high-profile academics, politicians, celebrities, and other potential Trump foes. Some of this, of course, may be hyperbolic boasting—but the effort has yielded fruit.

"PASCALE HAS SAID THE CAMPAIGN INTENDS TO TRAIN “SWARMS OF SURROGATES” TO UNDERMINE COVERAGE FROM LOCAL TV STATIONS AND NEWSPAPERS."

In the past year, the operatives involved have gone after journalists at CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. They exposed one reporter for using the word fag in college, and another for posting anti-Semitic and racist jokes a decade ago. These may not have been career-ending revelations, but people close to the project said they’re planning to unleash much more opposition research as the campaign intensifies. “This is innovative shit,” said Mike Cernovich, a right-wing activist with a history of trolling. “They’re appropriating call-out culture.”

What’s notable about this effort is not that it aims to expose media bias. Conservatives have been complaining—with some merit—about a liberal slant in the press for decades. But in the Trump era, an important shift has taken place. Instead of trying to reform the press, or critique its coverage, today’s most influential conservatives want to destroy the mainstream media altogether. “Journalistic integrity is dead,” Boyle declared in a 2017 speech at the Heritage Foundation. “There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information.”

It’s a lesson drawn from demagogues around the world: When the press as an institution is weakened, fact-based journalism becomes just one more drop in the daily deluge of content—no more or less credible than partisan propaganda. Relativism is the real goal of Trump’s assault on the press, and the more “enemies of the people” his allies can take out along the way, the better. “A culture war is a war,” Steve Bannon told the Times last year. “There are casualties in war.”

This attitude has permeated the president’s base. At rallies, people wear T-shirts that read rope. tree. journalist. some assembly required. A CBS News/YouGov poll has found that just 11 percent of strong Trump supporters trust the mainstream media—while 91 percent turn to the president for “accurate information.” This dynamic makes it all but impossible for the press to hold the president accountable, something Trump himself seems to understand. “Remember,” he told a crowd in 2018, “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Bryan Lanza, who worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and remains a White House surrogate, told me flatly that he sees no possibility of Americans establishing a common set of facts from which to conduct the big debates of this year’s election. Nor is that his goal. “It’s our job to sell our narrative louder than the media,” Lanza said. “They’re clearly advocating for a liberal-socialist position, and we’re never going to be in concert. So the war continues.”

Parscale has indicated that he plans to open up a new front in this war: local news. Last year, he said the campaign intends to train “swarms of surrogates” to undermine negative coverage from local TV stations and newspapers. Polls have long found that Americans across the political spectrum trust local news more than national media. If the campaign has its way, that trust will be eroded by November. “We can actually build up and fight with the local newspapers,” Parscale told donors, according to a recording provided by The Palm Beach Post. “So we’re not just fighting on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC with the same 700,000 people watching every day.”

Running parallel to this effort, some conservatives have been experimenting with a scheme to exploit the credibility of local journalism. Over the past few years, hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance, they look like regular publications, complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you’ll find that there are often no mastheads, few if any bylines, and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs, which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas—which is precisely what makes them valuable.

According to one longtime strategist, candidates looking to plant a negative story about an opponent can pay to have their desired headlines posted on some of these Potemkin news sites. By working through a third-party consulting firm—instead of paying the sites directly—candidates are able to obscure their involvement in the scheme when they file expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Even if the stories don’t fool savvy readers, the headlines are convincing enough to be flashed across the screen in a campaign commercial or slipped into fundraising emails.

'DIGITAL DIRTY TRICKS'

Shortly after polls closed in Kentucky’s gubernatorial election last November, an anonymous Twitter user named @Overlordkraken1 announced to his 19 followers that he had “just shredded a box of Republican mail in ballots” in Louisville.

There was little reason to take this claim at face value, and plenty of reason to doubt it (beginning with the fact that he’d misspelled Louisville). But the race was tight, and as incumbent Governor Matt Bevin began to fall behind in the vote total, an army of Twitter bots began spreading the election-rigging claim.

The original post was removed by Twitter, but by then thousands of automated accounts were circulating screenshots of it with the hashtag #StoptheSteal. Popular right-wing internet personalities jumped on the narrative, and soon the Bevin campaign was making noise about unspecified voting “irregularities.” When the race was called for his opponent, the governor refused to concede, and asked for a statewide review of the vote. (No evidence of ballot-shredding was found, and he finally admitted defeat nine days later.)

The Election Night disinformation blitz had all the markings of a foreign influence operation. In 2016, Russian trolls had worked in similar ways to contaminate U.S. political discourse—posing as Black Lives Matter activists in an attempt to inflame racial divisions, and fanning pro-Trump conspiracy theories. (They even used Facebook to organize rallies, including one for Muslim supporters of Clinton in Washington, D.C., where they got someone to hold up a sign attributing a fictional quote to the candidate: “I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.”)

But when Twitter employees later reviewed the activity surrounding Kentucky’s election, they concluded that the bots were largely based in America—a sign that political operatives here were learning to mimic Russian trolling tactics.

Of course, dirty tricks aren’t new to American politics. From Lee Atwater and Roger Stone to the crooked machine Democrats of Chicago, the country has a long history of underhanded operatives smearing opponents and meddling in elections. And, in fact, Samuel Woolley, a scholar who studies digital propaganda, told me that the first documented deployment of politicized Twitter bots was in the U.S. In 2010, an Iowa-based conservative group set up a small network of automated accounts with names like @BrianD82 to promote the idea that Martha Coakley, a Democrat running for Senate in Massachusetts, was anti-Catholic.

Since then, the tactics of Twitter warfare have grown more sophisticated, as regimes around the world experiment with new ways to deploy their cybermilitias. In Mexico, supporters of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto created “sock puppet” accounts to pose as protesters and sabotage the opposition movement. In Azerbaijan, a pro-government youth group waged coordinated harassment campaigns against journalists, flooding their Twitter feeds with graphic threats and insults. When these techniques prove successful, Woolley told me, Americans improve upon them. “It’s almost as if there’s a Columbian exchange between developing-world authoritarian regimes and the West,” he said.

Parscale has denied that the campaign uses bots, saying in a 60 Minutes interview, “I don’t think [they] work.” He may be right—it’s unlikely that these nebulous networks of trolls and bots could swing a national election. But they do have their uses. They can simulate false consensus, derail sincere debate, and hound people out of the public square.

According to one study, bots accounted for roughly 20 percent of all the tweets posted about the 2016 election during one five-week period that year. And Twitter is already infested with bots that seem designed to boost Trump’s reelection prospects. Regardless of where they’re coming from, they have tremendous potential to divide, radicalize, and stoke hatred that lasts long after the votes are cast.

Rob Flaherty, who served as the digital director for Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, told me that Twitter in 2020 is a “hall of mirrors.” He said one mysterious account started a viral rumor that the gunman who killed seven people in Odessa, Texas, last summer had a beto bumper sticker on his car. Another masqueraded as an O’Rourke supporter and hurled racist invective at a journalist. Some of these tactics echoed 2016, when Russian agitators posed as Bernie Sanders supporters and stirred up anger toward Hillary Clinton.

Flaherty said he didn’t know who was behind the efforts targeting O’Rourke, and the candidate dropped out before they could make a real difference. “But you can’t watch this landscape and not get the feeling that someone’s fucking with something,” he told me. Flaherty has since joined Joe Biden’s campaign, which has had to contend with similar distortions: Last year, a website resembling an official Biden campaign page appeared on the internet. It emphasized elements of the candidate’s legislative record likely to hurt him in the Democratic primary—opposition to same-sex marriage, support for the Iraq War—and featured video clips of his awkward encounters with women. The site quickly became one of the most-visited Biden-related sites on the web. It was designed by a Trump consultant.

'FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE'

As the president’s reelection machine ramps up, Democratic strategists have found themselves debating an urgent question: Can they defeat the Trump coalition without adopting its tactics?

On one side of this argument is Dmitri Mehlhorn, a consultant notorious for his willingness to experiment with digital subterfuge. During Alabama’s special election in 2017, Mehlhorn helped fund at least two “false flag” operations against the Republican Senate candidate, Roy Moore. For one scheme, faux Russian Twitter bots followed the candidate’s account to make it look like the Kremlin was backing Moore. For another, a fake social-media campaign, dubbed “Dry Alabama,” was designed to link Moore to fictional Baptist teetotalers trying to ban alcohol. (Mehlhorn has claimed that he unaware of the Russian bot effort and does not support the use of misinformation.)

When The New York Times uncovered the second plot, one of the activists involved, Matt Osborne, contended that Democrats had no choice but to employ such unscrupulous techniques. “If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” Osborne said. “You have a moral imperative to do this—to do whatever it takes.”

Others have argued that this is precisely the wrong moment for Democrats to start abandoning ideals of honesty and fairness. “It’s just not in my values to go out there making shit up and tricking voters,” Flaherty told me. “I know there’s this whole fight-fire-with-fire contingent, but generally when you ask them what they mean, they’re like, ‘Lie!’ ” Some also note that the president has already handed them plenty of ammunition. “I don’t think the Democratic campaign is going to need to make stuff up about Trump,” Judd Legum, the author of a progressive newsletter about digital politics, told me. “They can stick to things that are true.”

"EVENTUALLY, THE FEAR OF COVERT PROPAGANDA INFLICTS AS MUCH DAMAGE AS THE PROPAGANDA ITSELF."

One Democrat straddling these two camps is a young, tech-savvy strategist named Tara McGowan. Last fall, she and the former Obama adviser David Plouffe launched a political-action committee with a pledge to spend $75 million attacking Trump online. At the time, the president’s campaign was running more ads on Facebook and Google than the top four Democratic candidates combined. McGowan’s plans to return fire included such ads, but she also had more creative—and controversial—measures in mind.

For example, she established a media organization with a staff of writers to produce left-leaning “hometown news” stories that can be micro-targeted to persuadable voters on Facebook without any indication that they’re paid for by a political group. Though she insists that the reporting is strictly factual, some see the enterprise as a too-close-for-comfort co-opting of right-wing tactics.

When I spoke with McGowan, she was open about her willingness to push boundaries that might make some Democrats queasy. As far as she was concerned, the “super-predator” ads Trump ran to depress black turnout in 2016 were “fair game” because they had some basis in fact. (Clinton did use the term in 1996, to refer to gang members.) McGowan suggested that a similar approach could be taken with conservatives. She ruled out attempts to misinform Republicans about when and where to vote—a tactic Mehlhorn reportedly considered, though he later said he was joking—but said she would pursue any strategy that was “in the bounds of the law.”

“We are in a radically disruptive moment right now,” McGowan told me. “We have a president that lies every day, unabashedly … I think Trump is so desperate to win this election that he will do anything. There will be no bar too low for him.”

This intraparty split was highlighted last year when state officials urged the Democratic National Committee to formally disavow the use of bots, troll farms, and “deepfakes” (digitally manipulated videos that can, with alarming precision, make a person appear to do or say anything). Supporters saw the proposed pledge as a way of contrasting their party’s values with those of the GOP. But after months of lobbying, the committee refused to adopt the pledge.

Meanwhile, experts worried about domestic disinformation are looking to other countries for lessons. The most successful recent example may be Indonesia, which cracked down on the problem after a wave of viral lies and conspiracy theories pushed by hard-line Islamists led to the defeat of a popular Christian Chinese candidate for governor in 2016. To prevent a similar disruption in last year’s presidential election, a coalition of journalists from more than two dozen top Indonesian news outlets worked together to identify and debunk hoaxes before they gained traction online. But while that may sound like a promising model, it was paired with aggressive efforts by the state to monitor and arrest purveyors of fake news—an approach that would run afoul of the First Amendment if attempted in the U.S.

Richard Stengel, who served as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy under President Obama, spent almost three years trying to counter digital propaganda from the Islamic State and Russia. By the time he left office, he told me, he was convinced that disinformation would continue to thrive until big tech companies were forced to take responsibility for it. Stengel has proposed amending the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for messages posted by third parties. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter, he believes, should be required by law to police their platforms for disinformation and abusive trolling. “It’s not going to solve the whole problem,” he told me, “but it’s going to help with volume.”

There is one other case study to consider. During the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, pro-democracy activists found that they could defang much of the false information about their movement by repeatedly exposing its Russian origins. But this kind of transparency comes with a cost, Stengel observed. Over time, alertness to the prevalence of propaganda can curdle into paranoia. Russian operatives have been known to encourage such anxiety by spreading rumors that exaggerate their own influence. Eventually, the fear of covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.

Once you internalize the possibility that you’re being manipulated by some hidden hand, nothing can be trusted. Every dissenting voice on Twitter becomes a Russian bot, every uncomfortable headline a false flag, every political development part of an ever-deepening conspiracy. By the time the information ecosystem collapses under the weight of all this cynicism, you’re too vigilant to notice that the disinformationists have won.

'POWERS OF INCUMBENCY'

If there’s one thing that can be said for Brad Parscale, it’s that he runs a tight ship. Unauthorized leaks from inside the campaign are rare; press stories on palace intrigue are virtually nonexistent. When the staff first moved into its new offices last year, journalists were periodically invited to tour the facility—but Parscale put an end to the practice: He didn’t want them glimpsing a scrap of paper or a whiteboard scribble that they weren’t supposed to see.

Notably, while the Trump White House has endured a seemingly endless procession of shake-ups, the Trump reelection campaign has seen very little turnover since Parscale took charge. His staying power is one reason many Republicans—inside the organization or out—hesitate to talk about him on the record. But among allies of the president, there appears to be a growing skepticism.

Former colleagues began noticing a change in Parscale after his promotion. Suddenly, the quiet guy with his face buried in a laptop was wearing designer suits, tossing out MAGA hats at campaign rallies, and traveling to Europe to speak at a political-marketing conference. In the past few years, Parscale has bought a BMW, a Range Rover, a condo, and a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He knows he has the confidence of the family,” one former colleague told me, “which gives him more swagger.” When the U.K.’s Daily Mail ran a story spotlighting Parscale’s spending spree, he attempted deflection through flattery. “The president is an excellent businessman,” he told the tabloid, “and being associated with him for years has been extremely beneficial to my family.”

But according to a former White House official with knowledge of the incident, Trump was irritated by the coverage, and the impression it created that his campaign manager was getting rich off him. For a moment, Parscale’s standing appeared to be in peril, but then Trump’s attention was diverted by the G7 summit in France, and he never returned to the issue. (A spokesperson for the campaign disputed this account.)

Some Republicans worry that for all Parscale’s digital expertise, he doesn’t have the vision to guide Trump to reelection. The president is historically unpopular, and even in red states, he has struggled to mobilize his base for special elections. If Trump’s message is growing stale with voters, is Parscale the man to help overhaul it? “People start to ask the question—you’re building this apparatus, and that’s great, but what’s the overarching narrative?” said a former campaign staffer.

But whether Trump finds a new narrative or not, he has something this time around that he didn’t have in 2016—the powers of the presidency. While every commander in chief looks for ways to leverage his incumbency for reelection, Trump has shown that he’s willing to go much further than most. In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, he seized on reports of a migrant caravan traveling to the U.S. from Central America to claim that the southern border was facing a national-security crisis. Trump warned of a coming “invasion” and claimed, without evidence, that the caravan had been infiltrated by gang members.

Parscale aided this effort by creating a 30-second commercial that interspersed footage of Hispanic migrants with clips of a convicted cop-killer. The ad ended with an urgent call to action: stop the caravan. vote republican. In a final maneuver before the election, Trump dispatched U.S. troops to the border. The president insisted that the operation was necessary to keep America safe—but within weeks the troops were quietly called back, the “crisis” having apparently ended once votes were cast. Skeptics were left to wonder: If Trump is willing to militarize the border to pick up a few extra seats in the midterms, what will he and his supporters do when his reelection is on the line?

It doesn’t require an overactive imagination to envision a worst-case scenario: On Election Day, anonymous text messages direct voters to the wrong polling locations, or maybe even circulate rumors of security threats. Deepfakes of the Democratic nominee using racial slurs crop up faster than social-media platforms can remove them. As news outlets scramble to correct the inaccuracies, hordes of Twitter bots respond by smearing and threatening reporters. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has spent the final days of the race pumping out Facebook ads at such a high rate that no one can keep track of what they’re injecting into the bloodstream.

After the first round of exit polls is released, a mysteriously sourced video surfaces purporting to show undocumented immigrants at the ballot box. Trump begins retweeting rumors of voter fraud and suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers should be dispatched to polling stations. are illegals stealing the election? reads the Fox News chyron. are russians behind false videos? demands MSNBC.

The votes haven’t even been counted yet, and much of the country is ready to throw out the result.

'NOTHING IS TRUE '

There is perhaps no better place to witness what the culture of disinformation has already wrought in America than a Trump campaign rally. One night in November, I navigated through a parking-lot maze of folding tables covered in MAGA merch and entered the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Mississippi. The election was still a year away, but thousands of sign-waving supporters had crowded into the venue to cheer on the president in person.

Once Trump took the stage, he let loose a familiar flurry of lies, half-lies, hyperbole, and nonsense. He spun his revisionist history of the Ukraine scandal—the one in which Joe Biden is the villain—and claimed, falsely, that the Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams wanted to “give illegal aliens the right to vote.” At one point, during a riff on abortion, Trump casually asserted that “the governor of Virginia executed a baby”—prompting a woman in the crowd to scream, “Murderer!”

This incendiary fabrication didn’t seem to register with my companions in the press pen, who were busy writing stories and shooting B-roll. I opened Twitter, expecting to see a torrent of fact-checks laying out the truth of the case—that the governor had been answering a hypothetical question about late-term abortion; that a national firestorm had ensued; that there were certainly different ways to interpret his comments but that not even the most ardent anti-abortion activist thought the governor of Virginia had personally “executed a baby.”

But Twitter was uncharacteristically quiet (apparently the president had said this before), and the most widely shared tweet I found on the subject was from his own campaign, which had blasted out a context-free clip of the governor’s abortion comments to back up Trump’s smear.

After the rally, I loitered near one of the exits, chatting with people as they filed out of the arena. Among liberals, there is a comforting caricature of Trump supporters as gullible personality cultists who have been hypnotized into believing whatever their leader says. The appeal of this theory is the implication that the spell can be broken, that truth can still triumph over lies, that someday everything could go back to normal—if only these voters were exposed to the facts. But the people I spoke with in Tupelo seemed to treat matters of fact as beside the point.

One woman told me that, given the president’s accomplishments, she didn’t care if he “fabricates a little bit.” A man responded to my questions about Trump’s dishonest attacks on the press with a shrug and a suggestion that the media “ought to try telling the truth once in a while.” Tony Willnow, a 34-year-old maintenance worker who had an American flag wrapped around his head, observed that Trump had won because he said things no other politician would say. When I asked him if it mattered whether those things were true, he thought for a moment before answering. “He tells you what you want to hear,” Willnow said. “And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds good, so fuck it.”

The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most successful totalitarian leaders of the 20th century instilled in their followers “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism.” When they were lied to, they chose to believe it. When a lie was debunked, they claimed they’d known all along—and would then “admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” Over time, Arendt wrote, the onslaught of propaganda conditioned people to “believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.”

Leaving the rally, I thought about Arendt, and the swaths of the country that are already gripped by the ethos she described. Should it prevail in 2020, the election’s legacy will be clear—not a choice between parties or candidates or policy platforms, but a referendum on reality itself.

______

This article appears in the March 2020 print edition with the headline “The 2020 Disinformation War.”

______

MCKAY COPPINS is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

*********

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jacewilliams1 · 4 years

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Canceling IFR for the last time

I knew that trading in my IFR K35 Bonanza on a VFR-only Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) meant that my 38 years of flying IFR were probably over. No need to recite here the reasons for the move (if you’re wondering, no medical issues or bad IFR experiences), but the decision was not hastily made and there were no regrets.

One last trip…

I always enjoyed IFR flying, though, and my last IFR trip was one of the very best and most meaningful of all.

It was in late August 2007, a business trip from home base in Vancouver, Washington, to San Luis Obispo, on the central California coast, with a side trip to San Diego on the southbound leg to visit a dear friend who had been in failing health. Marine low overcast frequently invades the central and southern California coastal areas during the summer, so likely IFR was considered in preflight planning.

For the San Diego stop, I selected Montgomery Field (MYF), a few miles north of downtown San Diego. MYF had an ILS approach, and was more GA-friendly and less expensive than Lindbergh Field (SAN), the air carrier airport adjacent to downtown. Confident of this plan, I made a pre-paid reservation at the hotel on the southwest corner of Montgomery Field.

I planned to leave Vancouver mid-afternoon on Friday, August 24, 2007. Around mid-day I printed out the full DUATS briefing. With all of the security notices, forecasts, METARs and NOTAMs for the 860-nm trip, the printout (single-space, 10-point font) filled fifty sheets of letter-size paper. It said that the San Diego area was forecast to go 1,500 foot overcast right around my arrival time of 9pm. Had it been VFR all the way, I could have made it to San Diego with just one fuel stop, but the prospect of headwinds and night IFR at the destination suggested two stops to leave more than ample fuel on the last leg. I decided on Red Bluff, California, and Visalia, California, as fuel stops.

It would have been easy to overlook the single line among the dozens of NOTAMS on page 19 of the DUATS printout:

!MYF 08/007 MYF 28R ILS LLZ/GP/DME OTS TIL 0709112300

With some clouds around LA, an instrument approach is a must.

Montgomery’s entire ILS system was out of service for weeks. The only other IFR approach at MYF was an NDB/GPS procedure. I had neither an ADF nor an IFR GPS, so a Plan B was called for. I thought of Palomar (CRQ) about thirty miles north, which also had an ILS. I looked at DUATS again, finding this on page 47 of the printout:

!FDC 7/3592 CRQ FI/T MC CLELLAN-PALOMAR, CARLSBAD, CA.

ILS OR LOC RWY 24, AMDT 8C…

S-ILS 24 MINIMUMS NA.

S-LOC 24 MDA 1540/HAT 1214 ALL CATS.

CIRCLING MDA 1540/HAA 1209 ALL CATS.

TEMP CRANE 4196 FEET EAST OF RWY 24 THLD, 85 AGL/492 MSL.

CRQ’s forecast was for lower ceilings than San Diego, so this NOTAM left CRQ with no approach with minima below the forecast ceiling.

Plan C was Lindbergh Field, despite its heavy jet traffic, non-precision LOC 27 approach over Balboa Park and close-up views of downtown skyscrapers. At least there I’d be assured of finding a rental car to get me to my hotel, even late in the evening.

The VFR legs to Red Bluff and Visalia were pleasant and uneventful, other than an eye-stinging smoke layer at 8,000 drifting over the Fresno-Visalia area from brush fires near Santa Barbara.

With full tanks I took off from Visalia at dusk and picked up the clearance to SAN. The sun set through the smoke layer to the west while a huge, near-full moon rose in the east.

The clouds are moving in.

The route, LHS V459 SLI V23 MZB, took me over West Los Angeles, where I could see the coastal overcast was already making its move onshore in the darkness.

By Oceanside, there was a solid undercast, surreal and luminescent in the moonlight. Though my last IFR trip to San Diego had been more than a dozen years before, the vectors and frequency changes were all familiar. I was given the vector to the LOC 27 final, cleared for the approach, and was told to maintain at least 120 knots (Vle in my airplane) as long as possible for jet traffic following.

The runway came into sight from a couple hundred feet above MDA, I landed, and scooted off the runway as quickly as possible.

Parked at the Jimsair FBO, mine was the only piston airplane on the ramp—and for all I know on the whole airport. Service both on the ramp and at the desk was excellent if not inexpensive, and soon I made it to the hotel back at MYF.

On Saturday, I spent some treasured time on Coronado Island with George S. Alfieris, for whom I had worked for 15 years as a young lawyer, and who had been my friend and mentor in the practice of law. This visit made the whole trip worthwhile, and it occurred to me that it would not have been feasible but for a general aviation airplane and IFR. It was the last time I saw him.

The next morning, Sunday, August 26, I was to fly from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, where I would meet with my clients in advance of their depositions on Monday. Saturday night I checked the outlook forecast. It called for low overcast at both the departure and destination, and all coastal areas in between. If navaids are working that would not be a problem. So I checked NOTAMs—lightning couldn’t strike three times on one trip, could it?

Yes, it could:

!FDC 7/9016 SBP FI/T SAN LUIS COUNTY REGIONAL, SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA.

ILS RWY 11, AMDT 1…

PROCEDURE NA.

One last dip into the clouds.

Again, the forecast ceiling was below MDA on any other available approach at SBP. If the forecast proved accurate, I’d just have to go inland to Paso Robles and improvise ground transportation.

Sunday morning I pulled the hotel room curtain, and in place of the forecast stratus I was surprised to see towering CB to the northeast.

I fired up the laptop and consulted DUATS. Monsoonal moisture was seeping northward from Mexico. The cell I saw was drifting away from the route of flight, but there were others lurking offshore that might be a factor if I didn’t get a quick start. Otherwise there would be some mid-level clouds in San Diego and Orange counties; the good news was that SBP was VFR and expected to stay that way.

After a long hold short of the runway for a stream of airline traffic, I was cleared for takeoff and made the quick right turn to the northwest, the usual GA departure from SAN. The route was V23 SLI V459 DARTS V186 V597 V12 V27 MQO at 10,000. I was in IMC intermittently from 6,000 until the cloud layer ended just east of Long Beach, just occasional very light precip and no turbulence.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was likely my last IMC.

The rest of the trip was either clear or under a higher broken-overcast layer from about Santa Barbara to Santa Maria. Unremarkable from an operational standpoint (other than vectors around a TFR for the aforementioned Santa Barbara fire), the route of the IFR clearance was highly significant to me personally. It passed over places where I had once lived, went to college and worked, the beach where my wife and I met and the church where we were married, favorite weekend getaway spots—all places I hadn’t seen for years.

The landing at San Luis Obispo was in “severe clear” conditions.

Opposing counsel at the depositions on Monday had come from Portland to San Luis Obispo by airline, a journey that took considerably longer than it would in the Bonanza. He gladly accepted my offer of a ride back home.

A stunning end to a rewarding trip.

It was a textbook VFR flight from San Luis Obispo back to Vancouver, with a fuel stop at Redding. To top it off, as I was refueling after arrival at my home field Monday evening, the full moon made a dramatic appearance from behind Mt. Hood.

I’m retired and live in Arizona now, and in not much of a hurry any more. The 172N I have now is legal IFR, in a 1978 sort of way. But there aren’t many clouds here, and those that do show up often have turbulence and lightning and hail in them. So I’m content to remain VFR and have no inclination to get myself IFR recurrent, or to update the panel of my Airborne Museum of Antique Avionics—at least for now.

If that indeed was my last IFR trip, it was a good one.

The post Canceling IFR for the last time appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/01/canceling-ifr-for-the-last-time/

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kelsusit · 7 years

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