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the-infamous-coat-of-baron-zemo · 3 years

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Missed Opportunities | Helmut Zemo x Reader | Chapter 3

Welcome to Part 3! You've made it this far? I'm impressed. Thank you for sticking around. This is quite the long chapter so, I hope you enjoy the juicy action all around.

And this one was quite the doozy to write. It's 3AM now? Hah, I've spent the entire day writing two chapters. But definitely don't expect more at quite this frequency. But I appreciate you all none the less.

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Tag Requests: @lostghostgirl94 @neoarchipelago @fillechatoyante @fanfics-ig

Did I miss someone? For future tag requests: Please send me a direct message if possible, it's easy to lose people in the mix and I don't want to miss anyone!

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For previous chapters go here: Part 1 | Part 2

Word Count: 5.358

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It had been precisely three hours, forty-two minutes since two Avengers and a criminal mastermind had left the safe house you were staying in.

You were currently staring up at the ceiling with mild boredom waiting for the next round of texts to come in. An alert notification rang through the near empty residence, the noise echoed off the walls of the living room intensifying the reverberation of sound.

Rolling over, you flopped onto you stomach from your position on the couch, stretching your arm out to grab the phone off the coffee table.

Carefully, you read the incoming message. 'No recent signs of Karli, but following up on a handprint Bucky found a couple miles from our initial start position. Zemo has a theory it might lead to a section of tunnel that veers off towards the harbor. Will update again in another hour. - S'

Great.

So they'll easily be gone at least another couple hours, leaving you to your own devices. That's dangerous. There's no telling what kind of trouble you could get into without something to do. Your mind was always processing, constantly formulating new plans and calculating risk probabilities. It's why you were so fidgety and animated. You didn't inherently have ADHD, but your brain was so active the symptoms manifested as such. You had a genius level intelligence, you just chose to down-play it most of the time. You craved activities to keep your mind from going into overdrive; it's why you spend most of your mornings running. To drain your body of excess energy and let your brain rest.

You groaned in irritation, tossing the phone back onto the coffee table. Sam could have at least given you a pin point location so you could do some research on the area where the handprint was found.

Maybe you could read for a bit.

You got up and headed to your room at the back of the apartment. Zemo gave you the last room at the end of the hallway, it also happened to be the only room that had a half bath attached to it. Which in retrospect, was quite thoughtful of him.

As you reached your room, a chilly draft fell across your body, causing goosebumps to raise on your fair skin. You noticed you left a window open in the room and moved to close it. Often times, late at night you sat at the window sill and read to pass the time when you couldn't sleep. Sometimes, you'd crack the window open and simply listen to the sounds of the outside; they were just as soothing. There was no denying it was quite lovely where you were staying. Helmut Zemo had impeccable taste.

You grabbed your book and crossed the room, rubbing your arm to help circulate some heat back into your body, but before you got to the door, a patch of blue caught your eye. Zemo's hoodie. It had been left draped haphazardly over the back of one of the chairs in your room. A constant reminder you needed to give it back to the Baron, but you weren't ready to just yet, and funnily enough, he hadn't asked for it.

Shifting from foot to foot, you debated what to do. It was comfortable. Wearing it one last time couldn't hurt, right? There wasn't anyone here to cajole you about it anyways and you could just take it off before the guys got back. Perfectly reasonable. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you snagged the garment off the chair and pulled it on as you walked back out to the main living room, book in hand.

As you rounded the corner and made your way through the kitchen back to the couch, you heard a loud metallic bang against the entry-way door accompanied with the tell tale signs of door knobs turning. Caught off guard by the sudden intrusion, you had leapt off the ground, clutching the book to your chest.

You stared at the door in fear knowing it was way too soon for anyone to have returned yet. And they wouldn't have caused the disruption in the attempts to break in. Pushing down your apprehension, your senses started to return to you, and you realized you need to get to your phone. Now.

Your eyes moved across the apartment and landed on the coffee table a short distance away from you. Bingo. You took a step forward towards the table when the front doors suddenly swung open and a whirl of red, white and blue flew past your face. The projectile, nearly hitting you, caused you to stumble, knocking you backwards onto the floor. You landed clumsily, but thankfully caught yourself before your head smacked against the ground.

You didn't need to look up to know exactly what object flew at your head. The sound alone was unmistakable.

"Apologies for the erratic entrance, I only meant to use it to help open the door - I hadn't planned on Lemar here unlocking the them so easily. When the doors fell open, it kind of just flew right out of my hand."

Annoyance had now replaced your fear.

John Walker.

You had many opinions of the man based off what Sam and Bucky had told you, but you hadn't had the pleasure of actually meeting him. Until now.

This did not help sway your opinion of him in the very least. If anything, it only solidified that the government had made a rash decision. You don't just had over the shield to anyone.

You glared up at the intruders from your position on the floor. This was completely unexpected. How did he even manage to locate this safe house? Something nagged at the back of your mind that Captain Walker might have had help from people with a questionable background. You shoved the thought aside for the time being.

Lemar had gone around to the back of the couch and pulled the shield out of the wall embedded in between the two stained windows. Walker, who stood next to you, was offering his hand to help you up.

You didn't even make an effort to consider his gesture and got up off the floor without his assistance, dusting yourself off in the process.

Walker appeared undeterred by your dismissal of him and instead put on a winning smile and rotated his hand in the attempts of a handshake.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot. John Walker. Captain America," he proudly stated.

"I know who you are Captain Walker, as well as your friend here," you briskly answered, crossing your arms in front of you.

You could see the smile start to drop off his face and his eyes turn a bit darker.

"And I know who you are as well, you're well documented along with the Avengers, but I was trying to be polite," Walker grounded out with forced effort.

You didn't want to start an argument with the newly anointed Captain America, but there was something off about him that just irritated you.

"Polite?" you sarcastically question. "How is barging into someone's residence, polite? Please, do explain," you shifted your weight onto one side, giving him an expectant look.

"I don't have to explain myself to you. In case you've forgotten, I'm Captain America," he took a step towards you, his body language highly suggesting an intimidation tactic.

You held your tongue and took a step back to place more distance between yourself and Walker. You spared a glance at his partner to gauge his reaction, but his expression was guarded, although he was watching with rapt attention.

"What do you want, Walker?" you bit out. You attempted to keep some of the contempt out of your voice, but he had quickly turned your mood sour this afternoon.

"Where's Zemo?" Walker cut straight to the chase this time.

"Not here, obviously," you held your arms out, gesturing around.

"I want to know where Zemo is. He's coming with us," the captain took another step towards you, this time with a more forceful intention.

You furrowed your brow and took another step back. His posturing was starting to make you slightly nervous.

"Even if I did know where he was, I'm not saying either way. Zemo has been surprisingly helpful to us, and we need him to locate Karli along with the rest of the Flag-Smashers, including the missing vials of serum. And he's more likely to continue working with us, than provide you with any information at all. That I can say with absolute certainty," your words sounded confident, but inside you were trembling.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say to Captain America.

His entire demeanor changed. Once where there was some warmth and light-heartedness, there was only a cold emptiness left in his gaze. He reached back to grab the shield from Lemar, and then without any warning shoved you back against the wall to your left.

You heard the distinct sound of your right shoulder pop as is slammed into the wall along with the rest of your body. The rapid movement from Walker and impact from the shield knocked the wind right out of you. The pressure from the amount of force he was exerting pinned you to the wall and caused the shield to be painfully pressed into your side, separating you from Walker. You could feel the rim of the shield digging slightly into your neck, but not enough to cause any real damage.

"John!" you heard Hoskins shout with alarm from behind Walker.

You swallowed thickly; very real fear had settled into your bones. You were capable of defending yourself, but hadn't actually needed to put those skills into any use. Bucky and Sam had taught you some moves and hold to get out of, but it never crossed any of your minds once you'd have to fight Captain America. You tried to shift your head to the side to see how far away your phone was. What possible options you had. Maybe you could appeal to his partner and deescalate the situation before things got too ugly.

"I'm only going to ask this one last time. Where is Zemo?" Walker spit out, putting force against the shield, which in turn, caused you to grimace in pain.

"Hoskins, you really going to allow Captain America to torture an innocent citizen trying to help in a cause we're all aligned in?" you gasped out, trying to swallow as much air as possible through the pain wracking your body.

You refused to let it show. Holding back as much of the discomfort you were in. You didn't want to give Walker the satisfaction.

"John, ease up. She's not a terrorist, and frankly, I agree with her," Hoskins voiced, his footsteps bringing him closer to Walker with the hopes of gaining his attention no doubt.

The pressure from the shield against your form was lifted slightly, though the shield was still closer to your body than you'd like to admit. You closed your eyes to focus on regaining some stability and figure out your next course of action to get yourself out of this mess.

"Stay out of this Lemar," John replied, but his menacing stature had lessened minutely.

You opened your eyes to stare at Walker. He had removed the shield between the two of you and placed it on his back; however he stepped into your personal space instead and placed a hand against your collarbone, essentially rendering you immobile again.

Well, at least now you could breathe.

Walker peered down at you with distain, "You're really not going to give him up are you?"

You clenched your jaw and lifted your chin defiantly at him.

"No," you answered.

The wheels were turning inside Walker's head. You could literally see the fire burning in his eyes, realizing he wasn't going to get an answer out of you. Not willingly.

He dipped his head and released his hold on you, pointing a finger right at your face, "This isn't over. Not by a long shot."

You saw Lemar walk up and pat Walker's shoulder, "Alright, let's get out of here."

Walker straightened up and stiffly walked away, leaving Hoskins trailing behind. His ego had taken a blow today.

Hoskins gave an apologetic shrug, "He's under a lot of stress."

Before Lemar could fully clear your line of sight, you quietly spoke up, "He doesn't deserve that shield."

Hoskins didn't have a response to that.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

In wake of the aftermath, you had tried to clean up as best possible. You assessed your injuries were non life-threatening, though your right shoulder was most definitely dislocated. The arm was kept close against your body hoping to not jostle it too much. You felt spikes of pain as you cleaned the area where Walker had thrown the shield into the wall, but ignored it so you could get the place back in shape before Sam, Bucky and Zemo returned.

Sam had messaged not too long ago, they were roughly 20 minutes out from the apartment.

Your ribs were throbbing from where the shield had been buried into your side, but you didn't think they had been broken, only bruised. You were going to have to ask one of them pop your shoulder back into place.

You were dreading the conversation, but were determined to remain as calm as possible to help alleviate the immediate reaction they were going to have once you revealed what happened.

The events of the day had finally caught up with you and coupled with the cleaning efforts, your body was signaling it's exhaustion. You were in the kitchen, and honestly didn't think you could make the short trip to one of the sofas; so you carefully sat on one of the chairs in the kitchen and waited patiently.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later, the doors to the apartment opened and the guys swiftly came in to greet you.

"Did you even leave the kitchen?" James inquired, coasting around the kitchen to grab a drink.

You smiled tightly and responded in kind, "For a short while, yes. Did you guys find anything worth while?" You quickly wanted to change the subject but knowing you were only delaying the inevitable.

"Yeah, we think we've discovered a possible building Karli is using to hideout in. We had planned on eating something quickly and then leave again to check it out tonight," Sam explained.

As Sam was talking, Bucky had accidently bumped into you, causing you to wince and pull your arm tighter to you. Luckily, he didn't see your face, but Sam did.

"Hey, you okay?" Sam questioned, voice filling with concern.

You blew out a breath bracing yourself for what you were about to say.

"What happened to my wall?" Zemo piped up, giving you a curious glance, he had moved to run his hand along the diagonal cut, inches deep, in the space between the ceiling to floor windows.

Bucky left his glass and walked over to get a better look, as did Sam. Both of them would know precisely what caused a mark like that to become etched into a wall.

Sam and Bucky snapped their heads back to you as soon as they saw the indention, but it was Zemo who spoke first.

"John Walker was here," he stated, shrugging off his coat and hanging it over the back of the couch he was nearby.

"It was an, eventful afternoon here," you tried to put some overly cheerful, comedic tones into your voice, but failed pretty miserably.

"What happened?" Sam immediately asked.

The trio had made their way back to the kitchen to get answers from you.

Zemo came to stand nearby, eyes roaming your body, searching. With his expertise, there was no question that he would quickly figure out you were injured; so you tried to tell your story as concisely as possible.

"Um, so - Walker and Lemar showed up. He asked for Zemo. I told him he wasn't here aaaaand they left. The end," you hurriedly spoke, wanting to get this over with and not draw any more attention to yourself.

But you could see in Helmut's eyes, he knew there was more to your story. His carefully crafted mask was starting to crack as you saw his gaze drift down to you cradling your arm underneath the island away from Bucky and Sam's eyeline.

"You're hurt," Zemo said. His face showed open concern as he walked the remaining distance to you.

With more tenderness than you thought possible coming from him, he slowly and carefully moved your right arm away from your body. He kept his eyes trained on you for any discomfort or signs of pain.

Once your arm had left your lap though, you reached over with your left hand to grip one of his wrists to prevent him from moving your arm any further.

"Don't, please," you pleaded, gritting your teeth and swallowing down the pain threatening to erupt from you. You were panting now, and more clear than ever something had happened to you while they were gone.

Helmut released your arm without hesitation, but did not leave your side. You saw him exchange tense looks between James and Sam. Normally, Bucky would have been focused on keeping Zemo away from you, but with the current circumstances, he was no longer a priority.

"What actually happened?" Bucky softly called out, he and Sam had gotten closer to take a better look at you. Sam brought a chair out to sit next to you and give you a once over, while you explained.

The expressions on their faces were grim as they anxiously awaited your reply.

"It wasn't - it's not quite as bad as it seems," you started, stuttering out the words as Sam brought his hands up to check your head for any injuries first.

"He just barged right in and was insistent on finding Zemo. He was acting so arrogant and pompous, I just refused to give him any information on his whereabouts," you continued on. "He didn't like the fact I wasn't willing to cooperate with "Captain America" and he got a little.....rough with me."

Sam paused his surveying to meet your gaze. You could see the guilt beginning to creep into his eyes. He turned his head to look up at Bucky, who was angrily flexing his vibranium arm in displeasure. Probably only affirming his notion that Sam should have never given up the shield in the first place.

"What did he do?" Bucky's tone brook no argument. He wanted to know the truth.

You scrunched your face in unpleasantness when Sam checked your lower neck and collarbone, he had found the place on your body where the shield and his hand had met you.

"Is this from - ?" Sam couldn't finish his sentence and he looked away in anger. You could tell he just wanted to get up and throw something, and that was commonly uncharacteristic for him.

Zemo had shifted his position to take a peek at what Sam was doing while he checked you out. You saw how his eyes had darkened with quiet rage taking stock of everything. There was an outline of a thin scrap mark against the underside of your neck and jaw, but it was a clear demarcation that would only be caused from the shield itself.

You nodded sadly and focused on answering Bucky's question as you gave Sam the okay to keep going.

"Walker, didn't get what he wanted, so he did the only other thing he knows how to do," you cleared your throat and rubbed your hand against your forehead.

"Use brute force," Zemo darkly said.

"He used the shield to push me up against the wall over there," you pointed over as you continued re-telling what happened. "I was knocked into the wall pretty hard, but Walker lost all focus and nearly suffocated me from the force of the shield against my body. I think he -" you yelped like a wounded animal, not able to finish your story when Sam touched your shoulder.

Bucky's eyes had widen and became deeply concerned over your pained scream.

Your muscled were clenched tight as you tried to ride out the pain, face starting to turn red.

Zemo had placed a light hand on your back, leaning down to comfort you and remind you to breath.

You fumbled with your good arm as you tried taking in deep breaths and motioned to Sam what was wrong with your arm.

Even with your poor mime animation of pretending to have your arm pulled from your socket, James picked up on what you were getting at. He tapped Sam to switch places with him. Your eyes were watering at this point and you blinked back the tears wanting to fall.

"Alright doll, on the count of three, I'm going to raise your arm and put pressure on your shoulder, okay?" Bucky solemnly said.

Sam gave you a smile of assurance while Zemo ended up taking your good hand, letting you know you could use him to brace yourself. He and James shared a silent conversation before nodding at one another. If Sam had a problem with Zemo providing you comfort, he didn't show it. You figured he was letting some of his dormant humanity rise to surface in this moment.

You shook slightly trying to prepare yourself for the next round of pain once your shoulder was fixed, but James didn't give you any time.

"Three," he commanded, snapping your shoulder back into its socket before you had a chance to even reaction.

You let out another cry of pain, holding onto Zemo's hand tightly, but somehow, the fear of the oncoming pain dissipated as you let go of his hand and rubbed your shoulder with minimal soreness.

You cleared your throat and looked at everyone after a few moments of rest. Surprised at how efficiently James had handled your shoulder, but then again, he was the perfect person to do the job.

You scrunched up your nose at James, "What happened to one and two?"

He huffed out a laugh, "It worked didn't it?"

"Thank you. All of you," you gave a lazy smile through the tiredness that filled you up. "I think I'll be okay now - that was the worst of it. Promise. Walker didn't do any further harm to me. I managed to convince Lemar to get Walker to back down," you glossed over the section where Walker threatened you, but you could bring that up later.

None of them were satisfied with your response, but you're guessing they let it slide given the circumstances.

Zemo reached into the freezer to grab an ice pack. He handed it to you to place on your shoulder helping with your recovery. You accepted it from him extremely grateful. You mused your opinion of him was constantly evolving the more time you actually spent with him.

Sam had asked if you were sure there weren't any other areas you wanted to have checked over for injuries.

You assured him, you were alright, just tired and very sore.

Bucky had swiftly gotten up from his chair and made it known he wanted to go after Walker this evening. You knew he wasn't going to let this incident go any time soon. Sam had also been in agreement after fully understanding what transpired, but Zemo was eerily silent.

"You guys should follow your original plan. Don't let Walker distract you. I'm alive and I am going to be okay. Go follow your lead on Karli," you interjected, trying to be the reasonable one. There was no need for them to go off halfcocked while they were still very upset. You were too, if you were being honest with yourself, but your focus was on your friends first and foremost.

"Well, we're not leaving you here alone. I can stay behind and let Zemo and Sam check things out," James said.

"Actually, it makes the most sense if I stay behind," Zemo chimed in.

"Why is that?" Sam countered warily.

"The particular location you are going to, I have....a history there. It would be wise for me to not be seen in that part of town as to not raise any alarm bells," he reasoned with them.

"And why should we trust you with her?" Bucky asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.

"Because I have no motive to do any harm to her nor shall I allow any further injury come to her. On this James, I give you my word," Helmut replied, the seriousness of his tone was not lost on anyone in the room.

"Okay," Sam relented, moving about the kitchen to pack some food for their evening night out.

"Just like that, huh?" James said with disbelief.

"Yeah, just like that," Sam parroted back.

Bucky wasn't happy about the situation, but there was an urgency to find Karli, so he caved.

James leaned over on the counter to make sure you were 100% okay being left along with Zemo, reminding you at any time you can call and they'd rush back instantly for whatever reason.

You stood up slowly, balancing the ice pack on your shoulder and shuffled over a few steps towards him, "Thank you. Now, go."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

You waved to to your friends a second round of goodbyes for the day. You sagged against the counter, temporarily forgetting about Zemo for the moment. You really needed to lie down.

As if he read your thoughts, you suddenly felt his presence as an arm wrapped around your waist, resting firmly against your hip.

"Here, let me help you get someplace more comfortable than this," Zemo asserted, taking his free hand and dropping the ice pack from your shoulder onto the counter. He then grabbed your left hand, raising your arm and wrapped it around his neck to help support you. So now most of your weight is on your left side, allowing your right to have most of the pressure released from your injuries.

You were so close to him you could smell his expensive cologne and aftershave. It was intoxicating and caused your head to swim a little. You stumbled slightly, but Zemo kept you steady as you both made your way to your room.

In your exhausted state, you managed to sneak in a few glances to Zemo, who was concentrating on the task at hand, not wanting to cause any jarring movements. He deserved more credit than you had been giving him; he truly did seem to care in his own warped way.

Once you had gotten to your room, he guided you to the bed to lie down. Not once had you complained. A true testament of just how tired you were. You couldn't even muster a snarky reply at his disheveled state of being, from practically dragging you down the hallway.

You snuggled into the hoodie you were wearing and tried to lie in a position that wouldn't cause too much discomfort for your shoulder and ribs.

Zemo had stepped into the closet and when he returned he came back with a couple extra pillows. He propped them against your injured side to prevent you from rolling over during the night.

If nothing else, Zemo was incredibly thorough when he focused on something. And right now, that focus was you. It was unnerving, but also thrilling at the same time. Maybe you did have a head injury, because all you could do was smirk at how utterly adorable he was tending to you. It made you curious as to whether this was what Zemo was like before. For the first time, you really wanted to know more about him.

You saw how he was confident in everything he does, and this situation was no different apparently. He had been muttering to himself as he adjusted bedding and made sure there was nothing in the room that you could trip over if you had to get up. He was taking in all the possibilities, like you did.

He had been actively avoiding looking at you though since Bucky and Sam left. You weren't entirely sure why, as he's had zero problems watching you over the past several days. You have a feeling it's because you're one of a few people who have seen beneath the surface of Helmut Zemo, and he's reacting the only way he knows how to at this moment.

Distraction.

You were too sleepy to ponder this any further and turned your head to the side to see what Zemo was fiddling with now.

He had finished up the last of his tasks and looked around the room satisfied with his work. Only then did he turn to look at you.

If it had been anyone else, you would swear that Zemo almost seemed nervous. He was, at many times in your experience, hard to read; so all of these new expressions are a different side for you to see.

Zemo tentatively sat on the edge of the bed next to you.

"Do you need anything?" he genuinely inquired.

You shook your head, indicating you didn't.

All of a sudden he laughed. It ended nearly as quickly as it had began. You raised an eyebrow him in reply, but he simply tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie you were still wearing.

Too tired to be embarrassed about it, you simply mumbled, "Shut up. I still plan on giving it back, although, given it's track record, you should quite possibly get rid of it. After what happened today, I think it might be bad luck."

You saw Zemo dip his head and chuckle at your reply. He look much more carefree when he laughed. You'd have to add him to your daily list. Make Zemo laugh.

His expression sobered rather quickly though and became pensive after that, staring out the window briefly before resting his gaze back on you.

"You keep it. It looks better on you."

Not knowing what to say, caught up in the storm in his eyes, you give a small smile. You can feel your cheeks turning red under the intensity of his stare.

Zemo stood up, getting ready to leave when you stopped him by latching onto his wrist.

"Wait," you murmured.

The swift action caused him to furrow his brow in confusion.

You weren't sure exactly what you wanted from him, only that you didn't want him to go.

"Stay."

You could tell you startled him with your request. Your eyes grew larger realizing the potential double meaning.

"Just until I fall asleep?" you clarified, a yawn escaped as you covered your mouth.

Zemo visibly relaxed and had you relinquish your hold on his arm so he could pull up a chair to your bed. He turned his head around the room in search of something. He went to the nightstand and picked up your book.

Amusement flitted across the features of his face as he read the cover. Zemo sat down on the chair and propped his feet up on the side of the bed.

You shut your eyes and tried to block out the soreness covering your body. Tomorrow would be worse. The next day always is. You had begun to doze off, when ever so quietly, you heard Zemo's voice fill the room.

He was reading to you. Lulling you into a peaceful sleep and letting you know he was still present. Wanting you to know, in his own way, he was upholding his promise to Bucky and Sam. That you were safe with him. That you could trust him just as you had, when you asked him to stay in the first place.

With those final thoughts, you drifted off, listening to the subdued sound of his voice.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #tfatws #bucky barnes #sam wilson #my writing #team zemo #baron zemo #the falcon and the winter soldier #mcu imagine

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randomly-random-jen · 5 years

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Uncalled For Actions (2/?)

A Girl Genius Fanfic

When Gilgamesh Holzfäller is fourteen, he’s taken on as an apprentice to Baron Wulfenbach as part of a program to produce the next generation of leaders in the Empire–a group that will hopefully get along (although most see this as wishful thinking on the Baron’s part).

He’s learned a lot over the months of shadowing the Baron, but nothing has prepared him for his most challenging assignment: confronting the skeletons in his closet. [Part 1 | Part 3 ]

PART 2

Ten-year-old Violetta Mondarev prowled around the edges of the central courtyard of Sturmhalten Castle, keeping to the shadows, watching the parade of dignitaries from all over the Empire, and catching snippets of conversation as Tarvek had ordered. She bit back a curse she’d heard some of the older Smoke Knights using when talking about the self-serving, conceited Madboys they worked for and what they thought of their orders.

She shook her head–Tarvek wasn’t really like that, she reminded herself. Sure, they disagreed and he reprimanded her when she mouthed off, but of all their family, only he ever showed an ounce of respect towards her, and that was what ensured her loyalty above the solemn oaths she was forced to take–he was a prat, but he was a reasonable prat.

Violetta scurried up a tree in the corner and hid among its branches to get a better view. Spring had barely arrived, and although buds had begun to sprout, a bitter wind whipped down from the mountains, fluttering her bangs into her eyes. She could easily tell those raised in the lower elevations–they were the ones bundled in furs and multiple wool overcoats, hats with ear-flaps and lined, leather gloves. They were soft compared to the natives of Balan’s Gap and the surrounding mountains, two of which suddenly appeared at the open window next to her perch.

“But I want to go to the meeting,” said a young girl with a stomp of her foot.

Violetta instantly recognized the voice of one of her cousins, Seffie von Blitzengaard, so it didn’t surprise her that Seffie’s idiot brother, Martellus, answered back in his typical condescending tone–talk about a prat.

“Well, you can’t–you have to be at least thirteen to be an apprentice.”

“I’m almost twelve.”

“Still not thirteen,” Martellus answered, tweaking her nose.

Violetta waited until the sounds of her cousins’ footsteps disappeared in the distance before making her way down, but she didn’t get more than a couple branches before strong hands grabbed her cloak, dragging her in through the window with a yelp of surprise. On her feet inside, she spun around to find herself face to face with an annoyed, and therefore, dangerous Martellus von Blitzengaard.

“Well, well, what do we have here? The Littlest Smoke Knight. Don’t you know spying is bad for your health.” He gave Violetta a good shake for emphasis, and Violetta returned it with a quick kick to his shin.

Martellus dropped her to grab his aching leg, but before Violetta could make her escape, his hands twisted in her cloak, lifting her off the floor and holding her against the wall with his freakishly long arms so she couldn’t kick him again. “Listen here, you little brat-”

“Why would I spy on you? Unless you have something to hide, and now, I’m interested.”

Martellus shook her again, knocking her head against the hard stones. “You know, Violetta, one day your mouth is going to get you in trouble.”

Violetta struggled against his iron-clad grip. “Yeah, but not before the two cells you call a brain get you-”

He slammed her into the wall again, knocking the wind out of her. The fight was beyond unfair with Violetta being ten and Martellus being a giant at seventeen, but she was a Smoke Knight and Smoke Knights didn’t fight fair. She reached up to her neck like she was choking, getting a brief concerned look from her cousin, then undid the clasp to her cloak. Dropping softly to her feet, she rolled between his legs before he even knew what was happening then gave him a good kick to the back of his knee, throwing him forward–his face connecting with the stones in a satisfying crunch.

Somersaulting backward, she flipped onto her feet and ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, eyes frantically searching for a way out of the seldom-used part of the castle. Martellus recovered quicker than she’d hoped, and his legs had no trouble catching up to her. She tried to sidestep with a pivot move, but Martellus had twice the Smoke Knight training and anticipated it, his arms catching her around the chest like a vice.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he rasped, breath hot in her ear. “I think it’s time you learned a lesson about the dangers of climbing trees–one wrong step and-” He dragged her to a nearby window, threw it open, and made a whistling sound as he forced her over the sill.

“Idiot,” Violetta hissed, “a fall from this height wouldn’t kill me.”

“It will if you land on your head.” With that, he shoved her farther over–everything but her legs dangling above the five-meter drop.

Violetta calculated the odds of her surviving even as she struggled against the bigger boy, her fingers winding in the sleeves of his coat for support. She could scream and alert the delegates below, but Smoke Knights were drilled to be silent even in death.

“Put her down, Tweedle.”

They both froze at the sound of Tarvek’s voice. He casually strolled down the hall, hands in his pockets as if Violetta wasn’t moments from plummeting to her death.

A terrifying smile crossed Martellus’ face. “As you wish, your Highness.“

And he let go.

Violetta squeaked in shock as she tumbled back, but the expected fall never came. It took her several seconds of deep breathing to assess the situation–the highlight being her head not broken open on the stone steps below. She glanced up at Tarvek–his body pressed against her legs to keep her from falling–then let her head fall back against the wall with a silent sigh of relief.

* * *

Tarvek hauled Violetta back into the castle, made sure the hobnobbing dignitaries were none-the-wiser then slammed the window. “I thought I told you to stay out of sight,” he said, whirling on his cousin. Despite only four years between them, he towered over the smaller girl, but she showed no signs of intimidation with her hands on her hips, scowl set, eyes blazing.

Tarvek took a step out of her personal space–she might be small and young, but she was trained in the various methods to use that to her advantage in the most painful ways imaginable. He cleared his throat. “What happened?”

Violetta relaxed her stance some and straightened her hair. “I was staying out of sight until Tweedle stuck his nose in my business,” she spat before marching past him. “And I don’t need your help.”

“Really?” Tarvek fell into step beside her. “Because you were two seconds away from being the next family tragedy.”

She stopped to pick up her cloak in front of another open window and shook it out. “I can take care of myself.”

“Martellus is dangerous,” he told her, pinching his nose with a sigh.

“You think I don’t know that?” she said, flipping her cloak onto her shoulders and smacking him in the face with it, sending his glasses flying almost as if on purpose.

Tarvek stooped to find the glasses. “Then why do you antagonize him?”

“Because it’s fun,” she answered all too cheerily. “Besides, it’s my job to keep you safe, not the other way around.”

“But you annoying Martellus keeps neither of us safe.” He finally found the glasses and settled them on his nose to glare at Violetta who only shrugged.

“I told you, I can take care of myself–I didn’t need your help.”

Tarvek shook his head in frustration. “Violetta-”

Somewhere in the castle, a horn sounded, catching his attention and saving the Smoke Knight another lecture. He fished his watch from his pocket to check the time–he was late–but when he looked up again, Violetta was nowhere to be seen. He glanced up and down the empty hall then ran to the open window. Nothing. He’d looked away for less than five seconds. So maybe she was better than he thought, but it didn’t really quiet the foreboding building in his gut.

He had no time to worry about Violetta or where she went, though–his father was going to kill him for being late to the opening ceremony. He took off at a run despite all his lessons of proper decorum for a prince then darted around a corner into what looked like a dead end displaying an old set of armor. Pressing a code into the bricks behind the display, a door opened in the wall just wide enough for Tarvek to squeeze through into the darkness.

* * *

Gil followed their guide through the twists and turns of Sturmhalten Castle, filing the route away for future use. The room they finally entered appeared to be a grand ballroom with high ceilings, polished marble floors, and walls covered in rich tapestries illustrating the history of the Storm King. A dozen gas-lit chandeliers covered in shimmery crystals bounced light all around the room giving it a more festive feel than Gil thought appropriate for a political summit. The room was empty save for long tables lining the walls and several men standing at the head table.

The Baron marched right to the men and gave a curt nod to the stout man in the middle. "Aaronev, it is good to see you again.”

“Klaus, you’re looking well. I hope the trip was uneventful.”

“Indeed.”

Gil’s eyes flicked between the two as they continued their pleasant but obviously forced small-talk. He wondered if anyone liked his father considering all the barely contained hostility they’d encountered on their tour of the Empire.

“And this is the new apprentice I’ve heard so much about?”

Gil snapped to attention and bowed low. “Gilgamesh Holzfäller–it’s an honor to meet you, Your Highness,” he said in the measured tone he’d practiced for hours.

“And so polite. Wherever did you find him?”

“Yes, he shows great promise.”

Gil could almost swear there was a trace of pride in the Baron’s words, but then it was gone as he described finding Gil in a barn, orphaned in another Spark breakthrough gone awry that got the typical sympathetic condolences from the Prince. Gil hated this ruse–he was tired of pretending to be nobody, but more so, he was tired of being denied by his own father. He crushed the bitterness down, responding with all the correct phrases until a horn sounded, startling him and signaling the beginning of a procession of dignitaries from across the Pax Transylvania.

Gil managed to survive the hour-long receiving line saying all the right things and bowing to all the right dignitaries, and all without losing any buttons from his clothing. As they took their seats behind the head table, a young girl about Gil’s age slipped through the main door and made a b-line directly towards them.

She had long red hair, pulled into a swirling tail that hung over one shoulder and wore a startling blue dress. She curtsied respectfully as she approached.

"I’m here, father,” she whispered.

The Prince nodded at the seat next to him where she sat, gathering ink and papers in front of her–all with an effortless smile.

Her father leaned close, features drawn tight. “Where is your brother?”

“I’m not sure, Father. No one has seen him since this morning.”

“A problem, Aaronev?” the Baron asked?

The Prince glowered but recovered easily. “Of course not–this is my daughter, Anevka, she’ll be filling in for my son this afternoon.”

Gil smiled at the princess then felt his entire face flush in embarrassment before turning away. When he chanced another look, Anevka was grinning at him.

She looked so much like Tarvek it unsettled Gil more than a little so he focused on his own papers and pretended to be busy paying attention to the meeting that quickly got underway once everyone settled.

* * *

Three hours later, Gil could no longer feign interest in the proceedings and took to doodling in the corner of his paper much to his father’s dismay by the look on his face when he stood to make his speech.

Gil could only muster the good apprentice act for another twenty minutes after that before a caricature of the Baron joined the doodles in the corners getting a tinkling laugh from Anevka. Gil blushed again and tried to look more studious and less like a dumb fourteen-year-old–he rather figured he failed spectacularly by her continued giggles.

Anevka surprised him then by sliding a slip of paper across the empty seat the Baron had abandoned. Gil carefully opened it and barely contained the laugh at the much less flattering likeness of his father she’d drawn.

[Part 3 ]

#girl genius #girl genius fanfic #tarvek sturmvoraus #violetta mondarev #martellus von blitzengaard #gilgamesh wulfenbach #anevka sturmvoraus #klaus wulfenbach #aaronev sturmvorus #story: uncalled for actions #sentences #days 15-21

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lushscreamqueen · 3 years

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LADY FRANKENSTEIN 1971 on The Schlocky Horror Picture Show

OPENING: Why hello there, Welcome to the Schlocky Horror Picture show. Nice to see you again. You look great. Have you lost weight? But seriously folks. When only the monster you make can satisfy your strange desires you know the movie is going to be worthy of TVS. So when Dr. Frankenstein is killed by the monster he created, it's only natural His Daughter continues his crazy experiments. Well THAT sounds reasonable enough. So sit back kick of your shroud and enjoy with me now, Lady Frankenstein.

BREAK: I have a message for you from the great beyond. And then after the ad break more of our this movie, LADY FRANKENSTEIN.

MIDDLE: Lady Frankenstein, or to show you how incontinenal I am, La Figlia di Frankenstein opens in a graveyard by night. Just like me really. With grave robber Lynch played by Herbert Fux , and yes, that is his real name, transporting corpses to the big spooky castle on a hill. Hellloooo Castle Hill (waving) Anyway it's seems more than a little ironic that Fux left acting shortly after this movie to pursue his political ambitions as the local Representative of the Green Party of Austria. I guess it was the extreme recycling that inspired him. He came back to acting when he realised no-one voted for him. Baron Frankenstein is ably played by Hollywood screen great Joseph Cotton. I guess he needed the cash because it is a far cry from his AFI roles in Citizen Kane, The Third man, Fantasy Island and sadly return to Fantasy Island. Rosalba Beri began her film career at the age of 15 with a role in the film " I Pinguini ci guardano" The Penguins Watch Us in which the animals at the zoo watched the humans around them and cultivated some very interesting thoughts. Sounds like just another day the TVS studios to me. She changed her name several times in her career and by this time was called Sarah Bay . As Tanya Frankenstein she is not bad. But she's not great either, she does throw herself into the tacky role with such relish that she comes off pretty damned thrilling. Yay nudity. Baron Frankensteins's daughter Tanya is herself a super-intelligent scientific sort who dislikes being left out of the loop of her father's horrific experiments. Of course, as the movie was created by men, any supposition that it might serve as a truly Feminist tract or even a fair representation of how women think and act is rather suspect, if not foolhardy.

Paul Muller as Dr Charles Marshall is prettier than most "Igor's" tend to be. And even though the character is a Doctor in his own right he, is still that guy that fishes a brain out of a jar. It, it is a step up from his previous film Vampiros Lesbos, but not much. In fact most of Mr Mullers movie involve naked women and dead people and there are 232 of them. But then isn't that the reason we are all here on a Friday night and not SBS? Add the usual's suspect like Mickey Hargitay, aka Mr. Jayne Mansfield, aka The Crimson Executioner as the obligatory police officer to flesh out the cast and a few minor Italians and you have a reasonalble good movie. Ok I lied, but thankfully screen writer Edward Di Lorenzo did find his muse and move onto his truly talented writing with Space 1999 and then…he do have to blame him for some of Miami Vice.

The film is often compared with the Frankenstein cycle made by the Hammer Studios (1957-72), and may also have been an influence on Paul Morrissey's controversial Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) It was rescued at the last minute by a cash infusion from the notoriously tight-fisted Roger Corman, "Lady Frankenstein" is a low budget affair filmed in Italy by American Mel Welles. Screen veteran Joseph Cotton, slumming near the end of his career, gets top billing though he's killed off 35 minutes in. It's all sort of downhill from there really. The dubbing was apparently done in the States by Corman's people and this leads to the quirky anomaly of a film set in an early 19th Century England where the townspeople talk and sound like the cast of a post-Civil War western. All in all, It's bad, good, fast slow and has some sexy Italian ladies. And with that let's return to that 1971Classic Argentinian film "LADY FRANKENSTEIN"

CLOSING: So it's really Sarah Bay film at the height of her beauty, who really steals your heart, spleen, liver, and all the fun bouncy bits. Her Tanya is a calculating, self-centered bitch that's willing to drive a man to murder so she can enjoy a good-looking bonk. Who wouldn't? The scene in which she wickedly seduces the child-like Thomas was, for me, the high point of the film. Teasingly undressing in front of me…him…I mean him…Phew! Her lap dancing while a tortured Charles watches from behind a curtain. And then to have Charles then sneak up and suffocate Thomas with a pillow. It's just like that scene from with Scott and Charlene from "Neighbours". The bit that got cut out before it was broadcast. Tanya's reaction as poor dumbo Thomas dies, sensuously biting her hand to stifle her own …..(Silent stare at screen) ….. Evil never looked so sexy….and…ahem...cough cough on that image. So until next week from the Nigel Honeybone and the SCHLOCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. "Toodles!"

By Lushscreamqueen Nov 12, 2008

#by Lushscreamqueen Nov 12 #2008

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djatoon · 6 years

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The war between technology & democracy

Superb article from Jamie Bartlett.

Link to original article here: https://medium.com/@jamie.bartlett/the-war-between-technology-democracy-5ca57292956a

“My father was the first person any of us knew who owned a computer. A hulking IBM AS/400 B10, sturdy, expensive and imposing, sat in his home office in the late 1980s. My brother, sister and I mostly ignored it of course — it was dad’s ‘work’.

The problem was that the monster didn’t ignore us. My father, a creative disciplinarian, used his International Business Machine to design and print out the weekly chores in a 7-day grid: wash up, tidy bedroom, make beds, and so on. We called it The Schedule. Each day he would check off the tasks, and each failure would result in a 10 pence deduction from our weekly pocket money.

At the end of the week, the monster would churn out the numbers, and there was no arguing with its accuracy or fairness. All decisions final. Six months in, I was just about breaking even. My more laid-back brother owed dad a small fortune.

Maybe, even at this very young age, I vaguely sensed that machines aren’t just neutral tools that make your life easier. Much depends what existing power arrangements are in place. They can also be remarkably good tools of surveillance for those in charge and can make things possible that weren’t possible before.

Those childish thoughts are now a more serious preoccupation — both for me and society writ large. The last several years have been characterised by a succession of stories about how digital technology — especially the internet — is creating problems for our social, political and economic arrangements. You have doubtless read recently that our elections are being stolen, Russians are hacking our minds, fake news is duping us. If you’re feeling especially morbid, you’ll know robots are about to make us all obsolete.

Some of this hand-wringing is from liberals who are unable to understand how Trump won, and blaming the internet evidently makes them feel better about themselves. Some of the more outrageous news headlines — coming from both left and right — about Facebook and Google destroying everything are driven by the old barons losing ad revenue to these upstarts.

But nearly all of them miss the point. All the recent stories of bots, trolls, hacking, crypto, stolen data, are viewed in isolation, rather than symptoms of a much bigger problem we are facing. That bigger problem is the following: we have an analogue democracy and a new norm of digital technology. And the two don’t work very well together.

We rightly celebrate how the internet gives us a platform, allows new movements to form, and helps us access new information. These are good things, but don’t be blinded by to the other problems the same technology is creating. Our democracy relies on lots of boring stuff to make it actually work as a system of collective self-government that people believe in and support: a sovereign authority that functions effectively, a healthy political culture, a strong civil society, elections that people trust, active citizens who can make important moral judgements, a relatively strong middle class, and so on. We have built these institutions up over several decades — decades of analogue technology.

Now however we have a new set of technologies — digital technology — which is slowly eroding all of them. It’s not to blame one side or the other — simple to state there’s an incompatibility problem.

This structural problem is far more important than billionaires in Silicon Valley or troll farms in St Petersburg. And if we don’t find a new settlement between tech and democracy, more and more people will simply conclude that democracy no longer really works, and look for something else. This being a lecture series about dictatorship, you won’t be surprised to learn that some new form of dictatorship — a sort of gentle, benevolent data dictatorship — is the most likely candidate for replacing it. Something a little like my father’s efficient but depressing Schedule.

I’ll take three examples of how recently reported problems and explain how they are symptoms of this tech / democracy tension. Let’s start with Cambridge Analytica, one of the biggest stories of 2018, and also one of the most misunderstood.

You’ve probably heard something like this: Cambridge Analytica manipulated millions of minds with a magical technique called ‘psychographics’ — where people’s personality types were calculated, and then used to send messages which played to those personalities. Mind control and subliminal messaging! Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica called psychographics his secret sauce — while whistle-blower Christopher Wylie called it ‘Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’.

I don’t think any of it worked. I’ve seen no evidence it was effective. My strong hunch is that most of it was salesperson’s bluster. The truth is at once simpler and more worrying. Cambridge Analytica, using perfectly legal means, bought or collected 5,000 data points of about 200 million Americans from the huge data brokerage industry which trades data about you: magazine subscriptions, gun ownership, car ownership, web-browsing habits, credit rating, and so on. They combined this data with Republican Party data (known as ‘Voter Vault’), and modelled each voter — what they cared about, and how likely they were to be persuaded to vote Trump. They grouped these voters into ‘universes’, such as American Mums who hadn’t voted before. They then designed specialised ads for each universe, and targeted them with personalised adverts, based on what they’d pieced together about them.

Everything was tested, re-tested, re-designed. They sent out thousands of versions of fundraising emails or Facebook ads, working out what performed best. They tried donate pages with red buttons, green buttons, yellow buttons. They even tested which unflattering picture of Hilary worked best.

A few weeks in, analysis suggested there were enough persuadable voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan to bring these states in play, even though most commentators thought they were unassailable Clinton territory. Driven by the data, they started to bombard people in those three states with Facebook and television ads. (They spent the tens of millions of dollars on targeted Facebook adverts, especially using the ‘custom audiences’ option, which allows you to target specific individuals). A later internal study by Facebook found that the Trump team were far better than Clinton at running Facebook ads.

This sort of thing never changes everyone’s mind — but it can, in tight elections, make a difference. Trump won Pennsylvania by 44 thousand votes out of 6 million cast, Wisconsin by 22 thousand, and Michigan by 11 thousand. If Clinton had won these three states, she would now be President.

The reason this is worrying is because everyone is doing it. Anyone working in online advertising will tell you it’s industry standard. Clinton was doing it. The Brexit campaign were doing it. The UK Labour Party is doing it.

Elections are becoming a data science, based on profile building and personalised adverts. Where does this take us? By 2020 there will be around 50 billion devices connected to the net — quadruple what there is now — each one hoovering up your data: cars, fridges, clothes, road signs, books. Within a decade your fridge will work out what time you eat, your car will know where you’ve been, and your home assistant device will work out your approximate anger levels by your voice tone. Obviously this will be gobbled up by hungry political analysts. By cross referencing fridge data against the number of emotional words in your Facebook posts, a strat-comm team of the future will correlate that you’re more angry when you’re hungry — and target you with an emotive, law and order candidate just as you’re feeling peckish. Just received a warm message plus donation page from the Greens? That’s because your smart bin shows you recycled that morning, and an analysis of your tweets suggests you’re in a good mood.

Politicians have always sought to understand and persuade citizens. The Republican Party boasted in the 1890s that it possessed a complete mailing list of voters, with names, addresses and ages. But elections run with industrial scale data science throws up new challenges which we’re not really set up to deal with.

What happens when, in a decade or so, each person receives a completely advert that’s entirely unique to them. Is it still really an election if one candidate sends 1 million different adverts to 1 million different people? Aren’t elections meant to be about the broad debates of the day, thrashed out in public? How do you hold candidates to account in such a system? And how do regulators check on what’s being served up in such a scenario? During the UK EU referendum, voters were show Facebook adverts claiming that the EU was trying to stop British people from drinking cups of tea! It is a miracle that the vote was so close.

It might even, in the long run, help certain types of politicians to thrive. If politics becomes a behavioural science of triggers and emotional nudges it’s reasonable to assume this would most benefit candidates with the least consistent principles, the ones who make the flexible campaign promises. Perhaps the politicians of the future will be those with the fewest ideas and greatest talent for emotionally charged vagueness, because that leaves maximum scope for algorithmic based targeted messaging.

I’ll let you decide whether this has already happened.

This is hard to stop with our current model because social media platforms are essentially ad firms. That’s where all the money comes from. Their incentive is to a) keep you on the platform for as long as possible, since that means serving you up more ads and b) build up a better profile of your hopes, fears, thoughts and feelings — because those ads can be better tailored to you. In addition to making us constantly distracted — the reason we check our phones so often is because the apps are designed to keep us hooked in — it also means the long-term plan is to know us better than we know ourselves. And that will open us up to knew forms of manipulation. In other words, Cambridge Analytica is just the start.

These are the things — the challenge of ten years from now on the current track — that we should be thinking about.

***

Journalists often miss the longer-term trends that underlie the tech stories, because they are under pressure to meet insane deadlines and produce insane headlines. Here’s another example.

There is at present an understandable concern that social media has been exploited by fascists and bigots, who use it to spread their message of hate. There are good grounds for such concerns of course. But I think the bigger trend is not that fascists are good at social media: it’s that social media is turning all of us into fascists. Not in our ideology, but in the style of politics we adopt.

The fascist style of politics is one which creates alternative realities, prioritises reaction without thought, whips are rage and encourages tribal loyalty to the Great Leader. If Mussolini were to design a communications system to encourage a fascist style of politics, I suspect it wouldn’t look too dissimilar to some of our popular social media platforms.

Let’s take fake news, an obsession de nos jours. It is widely assumed that people like Tommy Robinson — former leader of the English Defence League — surrounds himself with ‘fake news’ and conspiracy theories. It’s not quite that simple. I’ve spent a lot of time with Robinson (shadowing him for my second book, Radicals). He does read and share fake news of course, but it’s more accurate to say he surrounds himself with cherry picked true news, which corroborate his world view of Islam and the West being incompatible. For several years he has therefore constructed a plausible and coherent version of this world view, through careful one-sided selection of truth. This is not the same as ‘fake news’. This is a problem of selectively omitting certaintruths.

The ability to construct believable alternative realities is an important component of any fascist mode of politics, because where there is no commonly shared truth, there is nothing upon which you can anchor political discussion and debate. All that remains is two groups screaming at each other.

This is something we are all doing, albeit in a less extreme way. Selecting some truth and omitting others, in order to build our own plausible and coherent realities.

I’m not blaming Zuck or Dorsey or Brin or Page. It’s simply that certain technologies lend themselves to certain behaviours. Part of the problem stems from a major miscalculation repeatedly made (in good faith) since the 1990s in Silicon Valley. These techno-utopians believe that more information and connectivity will make us wiser, kinder, smarter. Our politics will be more informed if have more information. However, we have too much information. We’re drowning in blogs and facts and charts and more facts. It’s too much to deal with rationally. All we can do is relying on gut instincts and heuristics: my guy / not my guy, that feels true, that confirms what I already thought.Essentially, these are all emotional responses.

That overload, in part, drives us to select our truths. (And to make matter worse there is some evidence that social media platforms are incentivised to show more polarising, aggressive content: because that is more likely to attract our attention and keep us online. This is not even done consciously, it’s simply an algorithmic reflection of what we tend to click on.)

It also drives us to reaction without reflection. In a print-based society, for all its flaws, there is at least a cultural predisposition for an ordering and coherence of facts and ideas, something the linguist Walter Ong called “the analytic management of knowledge”. It lends itself to reflection. Social media platforms however are built to a very different logic: an endless, rapid flow of dissonant ideas and arguments, one after the other, without obvious order or sense of progression. It’s designed for you to blast out thoughts or ripostes over breakfast, on the move, at the bus-stop. It demands your immediate, ill-thought through response. What’s on your mind, Jamie? Facebook asks. What’s happening? Demands Twitter. I’ve noticed people rush to get their denouncements and public displays of outrage in quick, without bothering to work out what they actually think.

Fascists have always worshipped action for action’s sake, because to think is to emasculate oneself with doubt, critical analysis, and reasonableness. “Action being beautiful in itself,” explains Umberto Eco, in a famous essay about the fascism “it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection”. It would be difficult to write a better definition of a mad rampaging online mob than this. This tendency has been brilliantly exploited by Steve Bannon, who makes statements designed to provoke a frothing-mouth response from liberals. They always oblige, which forces people in the middle to take sides — and that’s the goal. I’m not talking about left or right here, by the way. Both are guilty, since both are reacting to the same basic incentives and new information structure.

All this — the speed, the info overload, the emotive mode — is driving a very obvious re-emergence of tribalism. This combines to create a new form of tribalism in politics. In our hyper-connected, information saturated world, we are encircled by enemies and protected by fellow travellers. Joining a tribe is the only way to survive. And online there is always a fact or a comment or a hot take to prove your side is right and the other side is utterly wrong. When was the last time you actually changed your mind after discussing something online? I’ll answer that for you: probably never, because who has time online for the long, careful, respectful discussion necessary to see the other side of it? In such a world, opponents can’t merely hold principled differences of opinion, they must have sinister motives. Our opponent are liars, cheats, Machiavellians. There’s no compromising with any of them.

These are of course prefect conditions for the tribal leader to arrive and channel the rage, fix the world’s chaos, and bring order to chaos. Hannah Arednt warned us of this decades ago.

Is it all that surprising therefore that social media is helping politicians that embrace this style? Populists are far more in keeping with the philosophy and feel of today’s tech. They promise easy and immediate solutions to complicated problems, without compromise or failure. This is Tinder politics. (They all, incidentally, are in favour of some form of direct democracy — because they claim to represent the ‘real people’).

Is it surprising that, despite this apparently being an age without deference, there is a newly found hero-worship and total leader loyalty in certain quarters? Whether Macron, Trump, Corbyn, Wilders, Trudeau — we await the anointed one to save us, and thus swear total loyalty and fealty to them.

Is it surprising that surveys find growing taste for authoritarian leaders? Is it all that surprising that, in these conditions, truth appears less important than loyalty to the side you’re on?

***

My final example is the artificial intelligence revolution that’s coming. As with my previous two stories, there are some ludicrous headlines about machines taking all our jobs. Or perhaps going sentient and turning on us. These stories are usually stupid and misleading. We’re very good at working out all the existing jobs we’ll lose, but very bad at imagining the ones not yet invented. And machine sentience is probably best left to the philosophers.

The actual problem is more subtle. Last year I travelled 150 kilometers on a driverless truck in Florida, built by a Silicon Valley start-up. Self-driving taxis in city centres are still a long time off — for both technical and regulatory reasons — but self-driving trucks are likely to disrupt the trucking industry fairly soon. Take this as illustrative from other aspects of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people drive trucks for a living. For many people who left school without qualifications, it’s a decent, reliable job.

The actual as artificial intelligence and software play a far bigger role in our economy, who wins and loses? Will the losers — there are always losers in transitions — have opportunities to become winners? Whether the people who have the skills or the assets or the networks to take advantage of the inevitable AI-productivity boost to get wealthier relative to everyone else. Will the next wave of tech turbo-charge inequality?

In addition to favouring more skilled workers, digital technology tends increases the financial returns to capital owners over labour. Machines don’t demand a share of the profits, which means any machine-driven productivity gains accrue to whoever owns them, and that’s usually the wealthy. The percentage share of GDP going to labour relative to capital has been falling in recent years; for much of the twentieth century, the ratio of national wealth in the US between labour and capital was 66/33. It is now 58/42.

With this in mind, I always asked the self-driving technologists — who has created some good, well paid jobs of course — what the truckers should to do when the revolution arrives. I’d nearly always get the same answer:

They should retrain as machine learning specialists or robotics engineers.

I can’t decide if this is naive or devious. It’s certainly unrealistic. Some of them might: but not most. Far more likely, I suspect, is that they will smash these blasted machines up, as I used to imagine doing with the IBM. If you haven’t already done so, I recommend you read Ted Kascinski’s ‘Manifesto’, written in the mid-1990s.

“…machines will take care of more and more of the simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus of human workers at the lower levels of ability…”

“Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.)”

At the time these read like the ravings of a mad-man, because no-one even owned a computer. And his actions were detestable of course: he murdered three people and injured many more. But you can now find very similar thoughts in editorials in our most prestigious newspapers.

If people come to see machines as a serious threat to their livelihoods, and without realistic means of replacement or routes to prosperity, they will try to sabotage them. Armed with white spray paint and leaked instruction manuals, displaced truckers will change the road markings in order to make them crash or malfunction.

***

Where does this all lead? I don’t believe democracy is on the verge of collapse. We’re not entering a world of crypto-anarchy, fully automated luxury communism or libertarian paradise.

The threat, I suspect, is more subtle. Over the next 20 years, on the current trajectory, growing numbers of people will conclude that democracy doesn’t work. Elections can’t be trusted. Jobs can’t be created. And everyone is getting furious and not listening to each other.

You have perhaps seen the various surveys that show confidence in democracy is on the wane, especially among younger people. A recent survey in the Journal of Democracy found that only thirty percent of US millennials agree that ‘it’s essential to live in a democracy’, compared to 75 per cent of those born in the 1930s, and results in most other democracies demonstrate a similar pattern. It is no coincidence that according to the most recent Economist index of democracies, over the last couple of years over half have become less democratic. (In the 2017 Democracy Index the average global score fell from 5.52 in 2016 to 5.48. 89 countries experienced a decline — only 27 saw an improvement).

These stats won’t get any better if it can’t solve things or deliver the things people ask of it. We need a new settlement. I’ve proposed some ways of doing that in my book The People vs Tech. Democracy needs an upgrade — and we need to start re-shaping our institutions and expectations too. But tech needs to be brought more under democratic control too. And of course all of us need to change our behaviour too: since it is, in the end, our swipes and clicks and shares that are constantly feeding the data machine.

The idea of democracy won’t disappear, especially in an age where everyone has a voice and a platform. It won’t be a return to the exact conditions of the 1930s — too much is different today. History rhymes but doesn’t repeat. I can’t predict exactly what might replace it, but one version is a techno-authoritarianism — populists armed with powerful tech, promising to use it to solve every problem. We could even still have plebiscites and MPs and the rest. But it would be little more than a shell system, where real power and authority was increasingly centralised and run by a small group of techno-wizards that no-one else understands. That could be in governments, which rely on increasingly technical solutions no-one can hold accountable, or the private sector owning all the data and the capital — with control over public attitudes and debate which is all but imperceptible.

This is hardly a catastrophic dystopia, but rather a damp and weary farewell to democracy. The worst part is that if a less democratic system delivered more wealth, prosperity and stability — many people would be perfectly happy with it. But at that point, it might be very difficult to get back what we’ll have lost.”

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lindsaynsmith · 7 years

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Read This: The Mother of All Muckrakers

The Mother of All Muckrakers http://ift.tt/2jtzgXB

Ida Tarbell brought down, single-handedly, the first mega-corporation. Now that corporate morality has captured the White House we need her skills as never before.

I’m sure that in his forty plus years at ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson learned of the work of Ida Tarbell. I’m equally sure that Donald Trump has never heard of her.

Yet Tarbell is someone of immense relevance to the four years of living dangerously that this republic now faces.

Tarbell was the nemesis of John D. Rockefeller, the creator of Standard Oil, precursor of ExxonMobil. But she was a lot more than that — as a journalist she was the first to understand and challenge the power of the modern corporation, the first to dig deep into the way corporations bought and used politicians and the first to force a president to check that power.

And all this at a time, the age of the robber barons, when white males dominated not only big business and politics but also journalism. Indeed, there has never been a woman who so single-mindedly cleaved her way through all the male hierarchies and vanities and humbled them.

If she were here now Tarbell would surely have recognized what seems to be taking a lot of people too long to recognize: that the ethics and interests of the corporation have now totally captured the heights of the political system, including the White House.

Recognizing this is the first step in assessing whether today’s journalists are as up to the task as she was. This raises the issue of the technical literacy of journalism — are there enough reporters literate enough in the way that corporate power is developed and exploited, particularly the way in which it effectively covers itself with opacity and uses deliberate deception in the promotion of its policies?

Nobody could have started out with less knowledge of what she was going up against. Tarbell’s story is, among many other things, a lesson in how a journalist can build, by relentless diligence, a revelatory grasp of details and finally see them whole, as a picture that nobody was meant to see, least of all the American public.

Tarbell was the protégée of Samuel S. McClure, editor and owner of McClure’s Magazine, a man with a practiced eye for talent — among his discoveries were Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, O’Henry and Damon Runyan.

In the summer of 1892 McClure found Tarbell, a graduate of Allegheny College, working as a freelance writer in Paris, very much living hand-to-mouth. He assigned her to write a profile of Napoleon. It was such a hit that he brought her back to New York and assigned a similar profile of President Lincoln. That was a hit, too, and both articles became books.

But Tarbell wanted to move from research to reporting. In New York McClure had two of the most renowned reporters already on staff, Lincoln Steffens and Ray Stannard Baker. Steffens, in particular, epitomized the all-male clubbish journalism of the time, cultivating close relationships with politicians, lawyers and cops as he busted open big city racketeering.

Tarbell was just 32, and a relative innocent in the game, when she told McClure that she was interested in what she saw as a classic American innovation, the octopus-like consolidation of big business in the form of a corporation. She settled on Standard Oil as the most aggressive example. McClure thought that there might be enough material for six pieces. After Tarbell had done months of reporting he upped it to 12. In the end, after well over two years of reporting, the investigation went to 19 consecutive pieces, beginning in 1902, under the bland title of, “The History of the Standard Oil Company.”

It was a sensation. But an unusual level of intellectual curiosity shaped the narrative — far from the hysterical prose of traditional scandal-busting. Tarbell delivered a devastating record of how Rockefeller had ruthlessly and systematically created a monopoly of the oil business in the form of a trust — but she saw a kind of genius in its design. Her penultimate piece was titled, “The Legitimate Greatness of the Standard Oil Company.”

However, the admiration came with a withering moral assessment:

“This huge bulk…has always been strong in all great business qualities — in energy, in intelligence, in dauntlessness. It has always been rich in youth as well as greed, in brains as well as unscrupulousness. If it has played its great game with contemptuous indifference to fair play, and to nice legal points of view, it has played it with consummate ability, daring and address.”

The main reason why she was able to drill down deep into Standard Oil’s dark genius is that the corporation had given her unprecedented access. And this is where there is a salutary lesson for today’s journalism. Tarbell never got to interview Rockefeller, who was bitter about her view of him. Nonetheless his corporation decided to try some subtle damage control.

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Mark Twain was a friend of McClure. Twain contacted McClure to report that one of the most powerful men on the board of Standard Oil, Henry Rogers (he and Twain were close) wanted to talk to Tarbell. Tarbell said she would like nothing better.

Part of the calculation was that Rogers would vamp the lady. And that seemed to work — Tarbell wrote of her first meeting with Rogers, in his 57th Street mansion: “He was a man of about sixty at this time, a striking figure, by all odds the handsomest and most distinguished figure in Wall Street.”

In fact, Rogers was notorious in Wall Street, known as the Hell Hound, making himself rich from sudden coups on the market.

For two years, with the collusion of Rogers, Tarbell made many clandestine visits to Standard Oil’s headquarters at 26 Broadway. Rogers gave her a carefully vetted stash of documents, but Tarbell was not fooled. She made use of the material that Rogers disclosed without revealing to him that, by pure luck, she had stumbled on one meeting that unlocked the whole design of the trust.

It happened over breakfast in Saratoga where, Tarbell, revealed, Rockefeller had said to two co-conspirators, “Let us become the nucleus of a private company which gradually shall acquire control of all refineries everywhere, become the only shippers, and consequently the master of the railroads in the matter of freight rates.”

In that way Standard Oil was able to fix the price of everything from the oil well to the refiners and from the refiners via the railroads to the customers, through a web of 40 companies, controlling 80 per cent of the American oil market.

Across the country newspapers followed and reported on Tarbell’s revelations. Front page cartoons depicted Rockefeller as a frock-coated looter. A vaudeville routine of the time became a hit — “They say it’s tainted money. Sure it’s tainted. ‘Taint yours and ‘taint mine.” Rockefeller was jeered as he left church on Sunday and had to hire Pinkerton guards for protection.

In Washington the president, Teddy Roosevelt, felt he was being upstaged by Tarbell. He wanted to act against the business trusts himself, but to do so required building bipartisan support, and that needed time. Roosevelt called Steffens to try to get the magazine to slow down the investigation; Steffens said that was not possible, but Roosevelt summoned Tarbell to the White House, like Rogers believing that he could vamp her with his charm.

Instead, the president got an earful from Tarbell. She listed the names of senators in the pay of Standard Oil who planned to kill anti-trust legislation and warned him that the State Department had been infiltrated by Rockefeller stooges to help Standard Oil build its foreign oil interests.

No contest: afterward Roosevelt called Steffens and said, half in anger and half in awe, “That’s the damndest woman I ever met.”

In 1906 the attorney general opened a case against Standard Oil under the Sherman Antitrust Act, charging it with conspiracy to rig the oil market. In 1911, after years of appeals, the Supreme Court upheld an original ruling that the Standard Oil trust was to be dissolved. The outcome shaped all future anti-trust actions.

Even cut down to size, Rockefeller’s creation proved resilient and, slowly recovered to ultimately become the global octopus of ExxonMobil.

But Tarbell had instructed journalism with a lesson that remains the ultimate test of any newsroom now: do you have the ability and stamina required to pursue the forces that Teddy Roosevelt, his eyes opened by Tarbell, described as “the malefactors of great wealth?”

Nonetheless, Roosevelt himself demonstrated an ambivalence toward investigative journalism that all presidents, no matter how progressive they claim to be, seem to harbor. In a speech to editors at a gathering in Washington that was supposed to be private, he compared a crusading reporter with the man with the muck rake in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress: “…eyes fixed on the mire when he might have seen a celestial crown” and added, “if the whole picture remains black there remains no hue whereby to single out the rascals from their fellows.”

From this outburst came the term muckraker, happily adopted by some unapologetic editors but felt by others as a warning not to rock the Washington boat in case everyone went down with it if it was too damaged.

Suggesting that sometimes a collective interest, political, commercial, social or patriotic, should sometimes override the urge to rake the muck — however great its stink — is an insidious form of coercion. Indeed, sadly it was a factor in the way some of the finest of our newspapers were swayed into backing the invasion of Iraq, and even conned into buying phony stories about Saddam acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

But the stakes are a lot higher now. The disparagement of adversarial reporting began early with Trump. He has convinced legions of his supporters that any reporting that he doesn’t like is dishonest. Most threatening is that he has stacked his Cabinet with people who don’t apparently believe that the first duty of public office, as opposed to corporate office, is to be scrutable. Tillerson, for example, spent his entire career in a corporation that felt no shame in cooking up an alternative science of its own to undermine public policy on climate change.

For the moment, let’s leave this field of battle with an observation by Ida Tarbell as she completed her reporting on Standard Oil: “A large body of young men in this country are consciously or unconsciously growing up with the idea that business is war and that morals have nothing to do with its practice.”

via articles http://ift.tt/2g5ToNF January 13, 2017 at 01:55PM

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