#to be fair if the machine you specifically built to send people home keeps trying to send this man to your own universe

[leaffiii]

they barely tolerate each other

[adventuresnek]

[LFRP] Shas’shil Onfrai - Mateus

Latest Update: July 10th, 2019

THE BASICS ––– –

Name: Shas’shil Onfrai

Age: 23

Birthday: 4th Sun of the 6th Umbral Moon

Race: Xaela Au Ra

Gender: Female

Sexuality:  Homosexual

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ––– –

Hair: Lavender, straight, and often left wild as the wind.

Eyes: Violet, with seafoam green limbal rings.  

Height: 5′11″

Build: Living the life of a wanderer has given Shasha a fairly athletic form. Her arms and legs are slender, yet muscular, and her stomach is flat with only a subtle hourglass shape.

Distinguishing Marks: Three slim claw marks separate her right eyebrow into four segments. A shallow cut across her cheek.

Common Appearance: Shasha’s features can be described as fair with an twinkle of innocence in her eyes and ambition! Almost always wearing a smile painted pink,she keeps her scales polished and free of dirt, her skin smooth and hydrated, and her teeth sparkling white! Despite her adventuring nature, she maintains a presentable image and presses her cloths before and after every journey. She prides herself on looking fashionable with long leather boots, slim fitting jackets, and skirts to match her free lifestyle.

PERSONAL ––– –

Profession: Adventurer (Former Airship Mechanic Apprentice)

Hobbies: Tinkering, weaving, and cooking!

Languages: Hyur Common

Residence: Dravanian Forelands

Birthplace: Azim Steppe

Clan: Qetir

Religion: None

Fears: Growing old without seeing the world

RELATIONSHIPS ––– -

Spouse: None

Children: None

Parents: Vortrois Onfrai (Adopted Father), Qestir Merchants of No Importance (True Parents)

Siblings: Two Sisters, One Brother

Other Relatives: Kashin Onfrai (Adopted Brother)

Pets: Scraps the Pup

TRAITS ––– -

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Excitable

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Sneky Hooks — — — -

Technophile Despite her traditional upbringing in the Steppes, this Xaela has an almost obsessive fascination with Magitek. She spent some time learning basic engineering and mechanical repair during her apprenticeship under an Airship technician. The presence of the Garlean Empire and the ancient technology unearthed over the years has only strengthened her love of machines and the opportunities they can offer the world if placed in the right hands. She’s often seen tinkering with some strange device, making mild adjustments to her pistol, or working on restoring parts to a Garlean Reaper she had discovered in her travels, one she keeps hidden until the day she can fully restore its functionality.

Unbound Spirit At Shasha’s core, she is a free spirit yearning for adventure. She seeks to explore the deepest chasms of the earth to unlock their secrets, but her true calling is to soar the skies above and even dreams of the stars beyond! She enjoys learning of the difficult culture they inhabit the world, and doesn’t aspire to traditional, quiet lifestyle or her people. She dares to commit the sin of speech if it means a life unchained by the society that raised her.

Liar Truthful in nature, the brand she carries is one of shame in the eyes of her people. Born to the Qestir Tribe of the Azure Steppes, the name she introduces herself with is but two lies she tells, and every word after is a further deception to her people. Speaking of her tribe seems to be a bit of a sore subject, as she’s still conflicted despite her confidence in her path.

Eorzean Loyalty Though she is born in the Far East, Shasha’s loyalties lie more in Eorzea, specifically Ul’dah and Ishgard. After being disowned by her parents, she was adopted by a traveling, elderly Dravanian man who raised her as his own daughter. He taught her all manner of trade skills, Eorzean history and cultures, and of magic. She grew to love him as a father, and soon came to call Eorzea her new home. She spends much of her time exploring or performing odd jobs. Her free time is spent on her hobbies, learning new skills, repairing and caring for her father’s hold cottage in Dravania, or seeking new social experiences while visiting Ul’dah. She can also be seen exploring Thanalan, scavenging old battlegrounds and abandoned Garlean sights for Magitek, or searching the lands for Allagan technology and artifacts.

Onfrai Estate Built on the edges of the Goblet, the Onfrai Estate stands as a testament to Shasha’s determination and hardwork over the past few years (and the inheritance of her late foster father). Within the unassuming dwelling lies the heart of her operations, her basement workshop, filled to the brim with books, magitek devices, and other various engineering goodies that might tickle the fancy of tinkers and technicians alike. The pungent odor of whirling, well oiled gears fills the workshop, seeping out from the chimney above. To many, a fowl odor, but to Shasha, it’s the smell of progress! Outside the estate one might find the an astroscope looming over the fence, tilted high towards the sky with a twirling shard of Aetheryte transmitting the images it captures to the database below. Across from the scope is Shasha’s current project, the mobile workshop. She aims to outfit Beastman scraps and vehicles into a means to take her work on the road. Beyond the slapdash auto-carriage is a roaring furnace used to refine scraps and salvage the Xaela finds along her journeys. Those who live on the outskirts of the Goblet may have the misfortune of being her neighbor, and the issues that might come of it. Despite the possible disturbances, the estate is always welcoming new clients, guests, and employers, but be sure to check with her retainer outside before attempting to enter, else you might be tackled by the gaurd dog inside. (Goblet Ward 6, Plot 39 Mateus)

The Mun — — — -

I am a strange woman, outspoken and often blunt. I am new to FFXIV as for May of 2019, but I’ve been rping on WoW since the Burning Crusade. I am pretty jaded towards most subject matter, so I don’t shy away from mature or adult themes. (No matter how graphic). IC and OOC will always be separate l, and I have no intentions of judging you for how you rp your character unless it’s purposely meant to hurt others. For the most part, I try to be friendly, bubbly, and talkative, for I love conversation, especially things to challenge my mind! Erp is alright, but story and character development are key to me. I love dark themes and even horror! Here’s a little bit of what I’m looking for in terms of RP:

Story driven, worldly, and long term.

Para is fine, I’m adaptable!

Politics, exploration, drama, tragedy, comedy, romance is alright but it never should be the focus, slice of life is also okay, but again, shouldn’t be the only thing that’s offered.

Heavy fantasy, dark, mature, horror, and risk of character death is all perfectly fine. An immersive story is what I crave most.

My time is EST, but I do stay up relatively late.

Contact Info - - -

Feel free to send a tell to me on Shas’shil Onfrai (Mateus)

Tumblr messages are always welcome, I don’t bite, I’m a Boa after all, not a viper!

I do have Discord, but I prefer to get to know someone before I give out my contact info.

[howtohero]

#248 Countdowns

00:19:59

Well, it finally happened, somebody is trying to kill us. I suppose it was only a matter of time really. After all, we teach superheroes how to be superheroes. You could probably trace every foiled evil plot and captured supervillain from the past two and half years back to us. In fact, I recommend you do that right away. Any time evil has been defeated and the world has been saved is on us. We just haven’t been able to say that because we didn’t want villains coming after us, but like we said, somebody is trying to kill us.  (If you are a crime-fighter and take offense at the notion that all of your successes should actually be laid at our feet, please, stuff it, we’re the ones who are about to be killed. The least you could do is let us have this.)

00:19:34

About 26 seconds ago, we received a bomb at our offices. Well, technically we don’t know when the bomb was sent here. We are not good about checking our mail. We’ve all got our excuses. Parenthesis Guy is not allowed within 300 feet of any mailman in our city. (I got turned into a dog once and I was pretty jazzed because finally I could express my utter ire and hatred for mailmen in a socially acceptable fashion. Unfortunately, my colleagues here managed to break the curse just as I was about to pounce on our mailman.) Curly adamantly believes that if the Devil ever comes to collect on the debt Curly owes him, that he will do it through the United States Postal Service. {And I’ve yet to be proven wrong!} Lawyer Guy is a very lazy, good for nothing freeloader who can’t be bothered to pick up a few envelopes off the floor. [I… I don’t work out of your office. Are you guys ok over there?] No, we’re less than 19 minutes away from dying. Dr. Brainwave hasn’t been allowed to touch the mail ever since he built that army of origami robots out of envelopes with our address on them. <Honestly, even I was surprised that no superheroes came to take me away from here after that one.> And me? Well, I refuse to open the mail because I have a crippling fear of inadvertently starting a countdown on an explosive device. Validation has never tasted so sweet. (You were the one who opened it!) It was just my birthday and I thought somebody had sent me a present! {That seems fair actually, it did “Happy Birthday” on the package.} (Ok, but the “birth” part had clearly been crossed out and the word “death” had clearly been written above it.) I thought It was a hilarious gag! But honestly, this is fine. We can make this work for us. Today, for what may very well be our final post, we’re going to talk about countdowns.

00:17:03

I’ve often seen people wonder why supervillains would even include countdowns on so many of their evil schemes. Wouldn’t it be better not to give the heroes a clear timeframe for when their evil plot will be perpetrated? Would it not be better to simply show up, blow something up without warning, and call it a very evil and very successful day? Well, yes and no. While blowing something up with no countdown might result in a very successful and agonizing explosion, it causes the villains to miss out on being able to inflict an additional level of psychological torture on their victims as well. Think about all of us here, huddled around this bomb, watching it countdown. Why, we’re going positively mad. (We’re using this time to talk about the relative value of countdown clocks instead of doing anything productive to actually stop it so, yeah, that’s pretty batty.) Exactly! The mindset of villains is that their victims will suffer from fear, anxiety and desperation as the clock ticks down, and then they’ll get blown up! <Plus, countdown clocks are not really as useful of an early warning system as you seem to think. Most of the time, the numbers displayed on them are inaccurate and the explosive will go off much sooner than you think it will.> (Wait what?) [Seriously, do you need me to call someone?] Maximum torture. Maximum evil. {It’s maximum evil that our office is about to be blown up and you still won’t let us go home early for the day.} You should’ve thought of that before you used up all of your vacation days back in May! {For the thousandth time. I was mugged and in a coma.}

00:15:19

Curly makes a valuable point though. Few things are worth your life, and if you can get out of where you are, you definitely should without wasting any time trying to diffuse the bomb in the time you have left. One of the fun things about having foreknowledge of an impending explosion is that your adrenaline is going to be pumping through the roof. This means that many of your pain receptors will be dampened and you can get away with doing things you would not normally be able to. So you can hurl yourself out a nearby window. Kick down a door. Punch a wall down! Shrink yourself down and flush yourself down the toilet! When there’s a ticking time-bomb in your midst, any way of getting out is going to be safer than sticking around. (It should be noted, dear reader, that ever since our Escapology post all of our doors now lock from the outside and we have to come up with increasingly absurd ways to escape our own offices every evening. So we’ve very much backed ourselves into a corner here.)

00:14:01

If you can’t leave the room you’re in, perhaps the bomb can. Bombs are often much smaller than humans. (Shrinkers notwithstanding. Honestly, if you have access to shrinking technology, you should probably shrink the bomb before you shrink yourself and flush yourself down the toilet.) If you’re able to move the bomb, and you’re fairly confident that nobody around you will be injured, try throwing it out the window, or chucking it down a trash chute, or flushing it down the toilet! <Fortunately, our office is nestled in between two preschools, so no matter which direction we throw the bomb, we win.> That is obviously incorrect and we’re not going to do that, but there isn’t a preschool floating above us. (Wow, good thing we moved last year.) So what we’re going to do now is just pick up the bomb and throw it as high as we can. Worse comes to worst we accidentally blow up a bird or something, but honestly, they’ve had it too good for too long anyway.

00:05:59

Well that was a terrible idea, we should not have touched the bomb and we certainly should not have thrown it through our skylight because it fell right back down and we are 6 minutes closer to death and destruction. <Again, it’s going to be less time than displayed actually.> [Why do you guys even have a skylight that opens?] (When we first started How To Hero, we operated out of a car that had a dope sunroof and we’ve been chasing that high ever since.) If throwing the bomb doesn’t work, or it causes the timer to speed up, you might want to look into alternative methods of stopping the bomb from going off. Thankfully, we live in a world of superheroes and a world of superheroes is a world of fantastical science! We could use a time-dilation bubble to slow down the timer forever! We could open up a portal to a dead universe and drop the bomb through it! We could send it back in time! We could send it forward in time and make it tomorrow’s problem! We could use a technology neutralizer to neutralize the technology in the bomb! We could call upon our bomb-diffusing robot, Todd! The possibilities are endless! Well, not for us. Unfortunately, we keep our time-dilator, portal generator, time machine, and technology neutralizer in an offsite storage unit that is at least an 8-minute walk away. (Plus we’ve locked ourselves in.) And unfortunately, Todd the bomb-disposal robot is a disco convention in Tallahassee (he is a robot of many interests!) and it will definitely take him more than 4 minutes and 33 seconds to get here (and he has definitely been screening our calls).

00:04:29

If you can’t get rid of the bomb using the power of science fiction, you might have better luck simply disconnecting the timer from the bomb. If the timer isn’t connected to the bomb the bomb won’t know what time to explode and it probably just won’t! Maybe! I don’t know, we’ve only got 4 minutes to save ourselves. (Readers are encouraged to start playing “4 Minutes” by Madonna……….. Now!) If the timer is attached to the bomb with screws unscrew them. If it’s scotch taped just cut through the tape. If it’s a series of different colored wires… ah, hm. Which wire are you supposed to cut? Does anybody know? (Blue.) {Green.} <Chartreuse.>  So, no. Guys, come on, you’re looking at the bomb, you know none of the wires are those colors. Ok so we can’t remove the timer, we can’t move the bomb, and we’re stuck in here. (And Todd the robot who diffuses bombs won’t answer our calls.) Right, and Todd the bomb-bot won’t pick up the phone.  (Can’t really blame him though. You know how much he loves disco. He probably didn’t even bring his phone.) He is a robot his phone is in his head. {So, where does that leave us?}

00:03:30

If you can’t remove yourself, the bomb, or the timer from the situation, another thing you can do is to contain the bomb, and thus, the ensuing explosion. Look around you, see if there is anything that you think is powerful enough to lessen the effects of the explosion. You’re going to want something durable, so no glass display cases or wooden music boxes.  (Wait a minute... Something durable... Like something that can contain, among other things, unholy sky liquids, eternally damned souls, and all powerful cosmic artifacts?) Oddly specific but I guess. (Does anybody have one of Jerry’s Homegrown Condiment Jars????) Are you kidding me! (Do you have a better idea?) Well I guess not! Does anybody have a Jerry Jarman jar? {I’m pretty sure he blacklisted me after I yelled at him.} <Personally, I believe he’s the one who sent us this bomb!> Ah gosh.

00:00:50

(You know what? It’s really weird that “4 Minutes” by Madonna is only 3 minutes and 10 seconds long. Now what are we supposed to do? Just sit in silence like a bunch of idiots?) {Maybe one of us can eat the bomb?} Nobody’s eating the bomb! That’s stup- Wait, Dr. Brainwave’s Greatest Shame! (What?) {What?} <NO!> What, this can work! <You dare invoke that name!> Look, we’ve got a giant monster in our backyard that I’m reliably informed will eat anything. In my experience if something will eat me there’s little it won’t eat. She’s 38 feet tall, and a mile wide and an adorable abomination of science who I’m pretty sure will be fine if she eats this bomb! (I don’t know...) What other choice do we have! {Did you forget about the fact that all of her internal organs are sentient beings and musical theater professionals? We can’t risk them getting hurt in the explosion!} Oh, you’re right. I did forget about that. <That’s all right, I’ve figure out what needs to be done.>

00:00:10

<By my estimate we’ve got about five seconds left before this thing explodes and takes all of us with it. I don’t know about the rest of you but I find that completely unacceptable.> Yeah, the rest of us aren’t exactly pleased Brainwave. Though, if I’m honest. If I’m going to get blown up, I couldn’t imagine a better group to spend my last few minutes with. (Awwwwwwww. You love us.) {I think I’m gonna cry.} <All of you idiots shut up now. Listen, none of you are going to die. None of you can be allowed to die. You were right, this guide has saved the world, seemingly by accident, more times than I can count. And I’m a doctor, I can count pretty high. If you die here today, if this guide dies today, well that very well could be it. So I can’t allow that to happen.> What are you doing Brainwave? (I cannot believe it hasn’t been five seconds yet.) <Well, I guess you can say I’m saving the world.> Hey! Put that bomb down, every time we touch it it speeds up! <Well, t-minus three seconds then.> What are those? Rocket boots? Have you been wearing rocket boots this whole time? <I read what you said about air superiority being crucial, and it’s a good thing I did!> {Wait, you actually read this guide?} Put that bomb down right now. <Of course I read the guide, do the rest of you not read it?> (Only the parts I’m in.) {That doesn’t even make sense, your parts are all commenting on the other parts!} Brainwave, I don’t know what you think you’re doing but if you’ve really read through the whole guide then you know how stupid I think heroic sacrifices are! <Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a hero then.> You are missing the point! <Thanks for letting me live in your basement. The mutant alligators will need to be fed. Tell DBGS that I love her, and tell Professor Brain-Scrambler that he’s a hack and that he can suck it.> Frederick wait! (Whelp there he goes. Right through the skylight. The skylight that we just said is retractable. He just went right on through it. Pretty baller actually.) How likely is it that this whole thing was just some big prank? {Pretty likely I’d say.}

00:00:08

00:00:07

00:00:06

KABOOM

[Guys? Guys what happened?] Oh god. He’s dead. [Who is? What’s going on?] Brainwave- Dr. Brainwave... He... He sacrificed himself for us. That idiot. (Oh god oh god there’s- There’s blood and glass everywhere.) (Who better to clean up all that blood and glass than Jer-) NOT NOW! [Is it true?] Yes. Dr. Brainwave is dead.

[hulksmashin-bannerpackin]

Hearts Mend

Pairing:
 Bruce Banner X Reader

Summary: Sequel to Heartbreak! You do have to have read the first one to understand it so here it is:

Heartbreak

It had been a year and a half since Y/N L/N had disappeared, a year and a half since she had left a hole in the heart of the Avengers and a year and a half since Bruce refused to stop looking. Whenever he had free time he was finding new ways to track her down. He scanned the news for any sign of a glimpse of her, he built machines specifically designed to track her energy signature he even resorted to weaving codes into the internet he knew she undoubtongly would see asking her to come back.

Bruce sighed for the umpteenth time as yet again he came up with nothing again. His heart sank as he he heard the alarm signalling there was a mission, that meant he’d more then likely have to end his search for today. He thought about all the times Y/N never gave up on him, all the times she helped calm the other guy and all the times she noticed when he was having a bad day and did whatever she could to make him happy. He couldn’t give up on her, not after all the times she never gave up on him.

He stood and felt the bones pop in his crack as he stretched to his full height. He hoped there wouldn’t be a code green today.

————-

Bruce sat huddled in the corner of the jet listening to his headphones, he tried to calm down but all he could think about was how he and Y/N had sat down together and designed the playlist after Tony had bought Bruce a brand new iPod and pair of headphones. The other guy was getting harder and harder to come back from and Bruce knew that it was directly his fault, he almost wanted to stay and smash, vent out all his frustrations and stress at the lack of success in finding Y/N.

He clicked his iPod off and pulled off his headphones, there wasn’t much of a point it wasn’t working so he tuned into the conversation.

“You need to treat this more seriously Tony!”

“I am taking it seriously.” Tony said choosing to ignore Steve’s glare. “And I seriously think it doesn’t matter. Their weapons are always flawed in some way or another, we can still take them out.”

“Steve is right Tony. The fact is AIM’s tech has gotten significantly better in the last year and it’ll only mean problems if it keeps improving.” Natasha pointed out as Tony simply rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know Nat, I’m with Tony on this one.” Clint spoke up as he was fiddling with one of his specialty arrow heads. “They send em in and we knock em right out.” He simulated shooting a bow and arrow while making a little whoosh noise.

“I too agree! They haven’t made anything we haven’t been able to take out yet.” Thor smiled triumphantly in agreement.

Natasha rolled her eyes.

Men.

She turned her gaze to Bruce, noticing he was watching their conversation.

“What do you think?” She turned around fully to face the scientist, her eyes slightly softened.

Bruce gave a small shrug, averting his eyes and pretending to be disinterested. He ignored the rest of the conversation.

—————-

One day Tony ended up finding Bruce sitting pathetically on the floor of his lab surrounded by broken equipment. It had all just gotten too much for Bruce, he let go, he hulked out and ended up destroying all the work he put into finding Y/N.

Tony stepped out of his Iron Man armour and grabbed a lab coat draping it over his friend with a sad gaze. “Bruce, I think it’s time to stop looking for Y/N…” Tony said quietly and reluctantly. Bruce didn’t move or speak, opting to continue to stare at the floor for a while before he exhaled and nodded. He supposed the time finally came to give up.

I’m sorry Y/N, I failed you…

—————

Bruce tried to move on and for the most part it worked. He continued to work and fight and build. He helped Clint design arrows, he had movie nights with Tony and he spent evenings with Natasha. Everything was relatively normal again. Except the dull ache in his heart always remained. The tinge of anger that still flared when he saw internet articles with wild theories about what happened to Y/N, most of which did not put her in a good light.

He just felt incomplete again. He use to feel like this when he was on the run and he had honestly thought the feeling went away because he joined the Avengers, lived comfortably again and had friends now and to be fair most of it was but he lost the feeling of completion when he lost Y/N. It reminded him of the pain he felt whenever he thought about Betty.

How could he be so stupid as to loose two women who had loved him? How could he be so stupid as too continue his relationship with Natasha when he didn’t put his whole heart into it? He had always been close friends with Natasha, they understood each other on a deeper level so they had a stronger connection and he supposed it was because he was so selfish that he didn’t want to loose another important person in his life. It was times like this Bruce remembered what a terrible person he truly was.

————————-

“I don’t think this working out anymore.”

Natasha announced, startling Bruce and causing him to look up from his Starkpad.

“Wha?”

“Us.” She interrupted. “We should break up.”

“Natasha I-”

Once again Bruce was interrupted albeit in a gentle manner as Natasha sat down beside Bruce and held his hand. “I don’t want to loose the close friendship that we have, other then Clint you’re the only person here who understands me.”

She placed a USB in the hand she was holding. “I found her.” Bruce’s eyes widened as he looked almost dumbly at the USB in his hand.

“How?” His voice was quiet as he closed his fingers around the small device.

“There are some things that a computer can’t do that the Black Widow can.” Natasha said proudly.

Bruce pulled Natasha into a tight hug. “Thank you Natasha, you mean so much to me.”

She accepted the hug and allowed herself to enjoy the moment. “And you know I adore you.”

————–

And so Bruce Banner once again took the roads and traveled alone. The difference was he wasn’t running, he wasn’t heading anywhere without a direction or purpose. Now he had a goal and he was going to bring Y/N back.

It took Bruce awhile to find the little down in Alaska she was hiding herself away in. She was definitely off the grid, it was a wonder how Natasha had found her. He got off the bus he had taken and looked around breathing deeply. The air was so fresh. He smiled as he thought for a moment that maybe if he found her they could stay here together, so he could selfishly keep her to himself but he shook the thought from his head. Their place was home with the Avengers.

————

Y/N was sitting at her work bench drawing up designs when she heard her door knock. She narrowed her eyes and cautiously made her way to the door. She wasn’t expecting anyone so she she focused her energy ready to blast whomever the intruder was if they were dangerous. She opened the door and gasped when her eyes met the beautiful brown ones she knew so well. She quickly attempted to slam the door closed but Bruce quickly stuck his foot out, grunting slightly as it stopped the door, he channeled some of Hulk’s strength to force open the door.

Y/N squeaked as she stumbled backwards. She got her footing back and still backed away from Bruce. “How did you find me?” She refused to show how happy she was at seeing him. She scanned him quickly, he looked scruffier then usual, unshaven and he somehow looked more tired then usual and that was saying something as Bruce more often then not looked tired.

Bruce was doing the same as Y/N, eyes taking in her appearance, his hands twitched at his side at how much he wanted to pull her into a hug and never let go. There was so much he wanted to say to her. A thousand possible things words his lips wanted to spill but he could only manage out one small sentence.

“Come home.”

Y/N blinked in surprise before frowning and looking away from the man she longed to see again for over a year. “Bruce, I can’t. You shouldn’t of come.” She said quietly.

“No. You’re lying Y/N. I know you are. You have to come home. The team isn’t the same without you.” Bruce stated stepping closer to her, closing the door behind him.

“I can’t come back Bruce.” Y/N started to tear up and Bruce couldn’t take it anymore. He crossed the small distance between them and pulled her into his arms. Even if Y/N wanted to pull away and fight she couldn’t. Her body moved on its own as her arms wrapped tightly around Bruce’s waist. She inhaled sharply as her head dipped against his neck and she started crying.

“It’s okay.” Bruce placed a hand against her head, holding her in place against him, where she belonged. “I’ve got you now. It’s okay.” Bruce let her cry and held her, trying to remember everything about this moment, take in all the details. He felt the hole in his heart finally start to mend and he knew that she was the reason. “Please come home.”

Y/N finally pulled away, breaking from his grip and wiped her eyes with her palm. “I can’t Bruce. I’m sorry I can’t. Please, leave.” She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t be reunited with Bruce and have that taken away from her by knowing she could never have him. “I can’t go back…” She walked to her work bench, indicating Bruce to follow her as she placed her hand on the large sheet of paper spread across the bench.

“They’d never, accept me back…”

Bruce’s eyes followed her hand. “Y/N…” He knew what the drawings were as soon as he laid eyes on them. “Why?”

“They helped me fix my suit… I was out of control then. I could of killed myself but more importantly I could of killed other people.” She looked at her drawings of weapon designs, when she started running AIM approached her and she had reluctantly agreed to help them build weapons in exchange for a new suit that could channel her energy powers safely. “I always built in defects though, they never noticed. I always made sure they weren’t strong enough to stop you all.” She smiled sadly. “The Avengers would never take me back. You shouldn’t either Bruce. Forget me, go back with Nat and be happy.”

Bruce slowly approached her and once more pulled her into an embrace. “We broke up, we figured we worked better as friends. Besides I got a letter and I found out the one I loved more then anything had actually reciprocated my feelings.”

Y/N’s eyes widened and she craned her head to look up at Bruce only to feel his lips pressed against her own. She was frozen. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. So she shut off her brain and let her heart take charge for once and kissed him back, allowing all the hurt and all the passion to pass through her.

“Come home, if you don’t I’m staying here with you but… Everyone wants you home Y/N.” Bruce said after he pulled away from her lips, keeping his tight hold on her. Y/N smiled shyly as she allowed herself to enjoy the hug, for the first time in years she finally felt… Complete…

“Okay.“

Permanent Taglist: @insanityismysanity12345 @greenangrysnowflake @zadyalyss @kitchensink-to-me @becaamm @theweirdlunatic @itsjackothy @surfin-the-sun @bluebird-burning-gold

[xhuuya]

Chapter 7: Rectifier

Read on AO3

Sleep was easier to come by than Angela would have thought, and she slept sound until Fareeha shook her shoulder to wake her. She grumbled and muttered for half an hour, and it took two cups of coffee before she formed coherent enough sentences to converse.

Fareeha had heard enough horror stories about groggy Dr. Ziegler to stay quiet while the doctor moved about her morning routine. She had her feet propped up on a chair, studying a holopad while she waited, brows furrowing as she read through  reports from back home. Her second-in-command was taking care of things, and she reminded herself to respect the mutual trust between them. However, she couldn’t help but be as involved as possible from a distance, even if her team stressed the importance of protecting the prominent doctor in charge of the world’s best life-saving technologies.

“Frühstück?” Angela finished the last of her coffee and peered into the empty mug, not realizing she asked in her native tongue.

Fareeha knew enough of the basics to understand her request for breakfast. She stood and stretched her legs, rubbing the muscles above her prosthetics. “I could go for that. We’ll need the energy for whatever is ahead anyway.”

Angela grunted an affirmative.

- - -

The message Angela received at breakfast was simple enough to understand. It was a text from an unknown number with a time, location, and about as much attitude as Angela had expected coming from a hacker.

[[1046: Geneva. Dinner at 1800. Don’t be late, chica.]]

Angela started to slide the phone over the table to show Fareeha when it buzzed again.

[[1047: Also work to keep your hellhound muzzled, won’t you? ;)]]  

Angela bristled, suddenly quite awake and ready to send a curt reply, but Fareeha’s laughter interrupted.

“Is that how they see it?” Fareeha shook her head and shrugged, chuckling to herself. Noticing Angela’s confused expression, she clarified; “It seems our hacking friend has seen the newest model of the Raptora. The armor is a dark special ops model built to look like the jackal, Anubis.”

“No fair. I haven’t seen it.” Angela huffed and pouted, glaring down at the message.

“Neither have I.” Fareeha grinned, amused by Angela’s reaction. “I approved the idea and design, but otherwise, it’s been in development outside my radar.”

Angela noted that Fareeha was wearing the smaller pieces of the Raptora, and tapped a nail against the metal wrapped around her forearm. “I did always wonder if they would make a model that didn’t scream ‘shoot me’ in any light.”

Fareeha pointed her fork in Angela’s direction, “You say that like golden wings don't do the same.”

“Fair point. However, the issue remains that our mystery hacker has the audacity to say something like that.”

“They have the advantage here, and they know it. That's what it boils down to.” Fareeha shrugged again. She shifted eggs around with her fork, but abandoned the idea of finishing them. “Our options are to grapple in the dark and hope for the best—which is never a good option—or take what information we can and level the playing field. We're being tactical.”

“This is why you're a leader, and I prefer to work with machines, ones with no attitude specifically.” Angela leaned back and sighed. “Yet again I’m wondering why I’m even doing this.”

“Aside from or in addition to the obvious reason of closure?” Fareeha pushed away from the table, averting her eyes as she processed the emotions that caused the question to sound so bitter. She continued without pause to deflect any questions about it. “Talon is up to something, and it’s the only lead we have to follow right now. It’s the right thing to do, and you’ve always been one to follow the righteous route.”

I’m not sure what I’m seeking at the end this time around. Angela finished another coffee, pushing aside the thought of smuggling some of the Swiss grounds with them as there would be more in Geneva. She didn’t know how to respond to Fareeha’s assessment, unable to argue it, but not quite believing it about herself either. She ignored it for the easier reply. “I’ll check us out. Geneva is a good five-hour trip from here, so we should get moving.”

- - -

The wind whistling through the valley stuttered as it shifted, lifting snow banks against the cloaked edges of the building. A single window gave a view of the white-out beyond, broken by a silhouette that approached and lifted a hand to a shimmering edge.

Inside, Sombra chuckled and set her phone down. Helix had been harder to hack than Talon but not by much, and the results were interesting. Based on a quick scan of the files, she could imagine the conversation the commander was having with the doctor about the armor neither had seen yet. She had to admit that it looked good, and she couldn’t help but think she could modify some hardlight in similar ways to match the special cloaking angles that it used.

Her amusement was cut short by a low rapping sound on the safe house door. It was a measured sound, the pattern of the knock  unique to each agent individually. She opened the door with a small flourish and ignored the flurry of snow that chased after the guest. “Araña. So good of you to come.”

Widow didn’t provide the satisfaction of a response, moving instead to sit in the corner of the small room. Her fingers danced expertly over the sleek case she carried and placed next to her legs, managing to open the metal clasps with no more than a whisper of sound. It was obvious that she knew the process intimately, and was pulling her rifle and a cleaning cloth out within seconds of settling down. The motions were habit, formerly a uniform routine to keep her mentality grounded, but that had recently become a method by which to quell the overwhelming anxiety that her newfound past caused her.

“I’ve reached out to the doctor,” Sombra said as she brushed flecks of white from her coat and resumed flicking through screens a few feet away.

“You’ve selected a rendezvous point then.” Widow slid the cloth over the barrel of her gun, wiping away the moisture from melted snow. She thought about the way the steam curled in front of her as the heat of the barrel hissed beneath layers of cold, remembering that blood did the same thing as it splattered across the powder. She had let herself linger behind the scope far too long after this kill, not quite savoring the myriad of novel sensations swirling in her chest.

“Geneva.” Sombra saw Widow look up from the corner of her eye and couldn’t help but smirk. “I thought it was appropriate.”

“Indeed.” Widow returned her attention to the rifle and tried to ignore the pressure in her chest.

It had been seven years, and some of those she couldn’t remember. Even with Sombra’s help, there were moments, lapses in memory, that refused to return. Though she regained a lot of Amelie’s memories, most of her time as Widowmaker was a blur of confusing images and violence. Now she was something caught in the middle, trying to make sense of herself. Dr. Ziegler became a symbol of hope, a last ditch effort to figure out what she had become and if she could ever recover.

Her feelings were still something she struggled to rationalize, and she was quicker to frustration than anything else. Many days she thought to tell Sombra to stop, to let her return to being numb to the world. It was easier to feel nothing at all.

Selfish.

This wasn’t all for her. It wasn’t all for any one particular person. It was much larger than that.

Two rogue agents trying to dismantle a corrupt organization from within, working to save the world from declining into chaos yet again.

Widow was guessing there were at least two people that would doubt that.

- - -

I can’t do this. Angela paced, gnawing her chapped lip. She tucked her hands in the pockets of her large coat, pulling it tighter around herself. The movement made the outline of tucked wings bulge against the thick fabric.

Fareeha stood a few feet away, stoic as she scanned the crowd. She would occasionally glance over to watch thick snowflakes disappear into Angela’s white coat, melting instantly from the warmth of the Valkyrie beneath. As much as she wished to do something to help, she thought it best to give the doctor her space.

“They’re here.”

Angela whipped around, looking in the same direction as the commander. “Where?”

“They’re using a cloaking technology. The overcast makes it harder to see, but it shimmers. Watch closely.” Fareeha didn’t point but nodded her head forward in a general direction. Her arms stayed crossed over her chest, trying to ignore the chill slipping beneath her coat. The feeling wasn’t as intrusive when it was just the weather causing it. “I’m surprised they can keep it active this long.”

“Normally it only lasts a few seconds.” Angela finished the thought. She fought the urge to grab Fareeha’s arm and run, or at least sap some of her warmth to stop her teeth from chattering. Everything screamed wrong about the situation.The Valkyrie hummed, working to stabilize her erratic heart rate, but it couldn’t hope to keep up with the psychological symptoms.

The figure stopped.

The figure disappeared.

“Amigas,” Sombra said from behind them, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Please, follow me. This place isn’t safe.”

Angela stiffened, understanding that it was not a threat, nor was it a question. “Lead the way.”

Sombra was visible now. Bright purple cybernetics would draw attention anywhere, even in an international safe zone with a decent omnic population. The unease encompassing the entirety of the world made for a lot more insecurity and unresolved anger. Sombra suppressed the urge to cloak herself again as she led the two to a nearby building.

The house was old, built far earlier than the first Omnic crisis. (Location in relation to the water) White paint curled and peeled on the outside, flaking from the wood. Slatted boards were folded next to the windows, and deep green curtains blocked any view inside. A brass lion holding the door knocker greeted them from an equally green door.

Sombra fished a key from an inside pocket and fumbled with the deadbolt. The lock bar slid back with a screech, and the door opened with a similar cringe-worthy sound.

Angela expected a musty feel, to match the ancient exterior, but was surprised by the initial warmth and comfort of the interior. Her heels clicked on glossy hardwood floors and the foyer led to an open living space and kitchen, accented by soft lighting that felt almost natural. A fire crackled in front of plush furniture, arranged in a way that suggested company wasn’t uncommon, or at least wasn’t unexpected.

Angela found herself moving towards the kitchen without invitation, the familiarity of the smell rolling over her senses. It was soothing in a way she couldn’t explain if asked. Fareeha’s hand was on her shoulder before she could take more than a few steps, cautioning her and bringing her back to her senses.

“What is that smell?” Fareeha asked in a way that implied she knew, but wanted to hear the answer anyway. Her gaze tested Angela, reminding her of the situation. It became quite a stern look as Sombra hung her jacket and mosied her way inside, the invitation to follow unspoken but understood.

“Coq au vin,” Angela answered without hesitation. Her brows furrowed as she tried to think of the why behind her familiarity with it. She grabbed Fareeha’s arm again, bunching the fabric of the coat she was still wearing. “Oh no.”

Fareeha didn’t respond, letting Angela sort through the realization at her own pace. She couldn’t keep her eye contact when Angela’s eyes darkened, years worth of sadness catching up to her all at once through such an unexpected smell of all things. She didn’t move, though it would irritate her beyond measure if anyone else made her so unable to act.

“She’s…” Angela started, but stopped, afraid her own voice wouldn’t waver through the admission. The tears refused to come, blocked by a seething anger coiled around her grief, but she still hid her face in the coarse material of Fareeha’s jacket. The armor beneath was hard, unwavering like the person wearing it, and Angela tried to think about that instead of all the other thoughts rolling through her mind.

Fareeha reached for Angela’s hair, stringing her fingers through it to comfort her. The movement felt awkward, restrained by habit and force, but she hoped that Angela knew it was genuine. She considered humming a song, but the thought of anyone but Angela hearing it stopped her.

“Did you not invite them ins-?” Widow was speaking back to Sombra as she moved into the space between rooms, but cut the question short when she saw the two still by the door. She turned her back so quickly that the wine nearly sloshed from the glass in her hand and she mumbled incoherent but akin to an apology.

Angela forced her head up, staring at whatever it was that replaced her friend so many years ago.

She wore a deep red dress that dipped low on her back, the thin straps over prominent shoulder blades framing a large spider tattoo. It was eerie to think that the tattoo was highlighted by the severely cyanotic skin, but Angela couldn’t help think it. Another part of her couldn’t stand how domestic it felt, borderline casual.

What the hell were they playing at?

“Sombra did mention dinner, didn’t she?” Widow brushed her ponytail back behind her, obscuring the tattoo and snapping Angela out of her trance. She didn’t look but she could no longer feel the doctor’s gaze boring into her back. She left them standing there the same way Sombra had as she moved back into the kitchen.

“Angela,” Fareeha whispered, placing both hands on her shoulders and waiting for her to look at her instead of watch their host saunter away. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Angela shook her head back and forth. “Not at all,” she replied as she stepped back, looking from Fareeha to the open area, the kitchen obscured by the single wall, “but we have to do this. Like you said, it’s our only lead.”

And it may be my only opportunity for closure, as you also deduced.

Fareeha took a long last glance at the front door and sighed, moving to take Angela’s coat for her after placing her own on a nearby hook. “Well. At least dinner smells good, even if the name leaves something to be desired.”

Angela couldn’t help a small smile at the ridiculous grin on Fareeha’s face. For as much hell as both of them had been through, Fareeha continued to be the light in so much darkness. Angela would never understand the strength it took to bear the weight of such pain with a pleasant smile, as guarded and ungenuine as it might have been. The Amaris were an amazing bunch.

“Amigas!” Sombra looked up from her position splayed out over a loveseat. “You’ve decided to join us!”

Angela had to take a deep breath before moving to the bar that wrapped around the open side of the kitchen. As much as she tried to relax, her posture was stiff and the wings rippled in irritation at the Latina woman.

“So it’s Sombra then?” She tapped a finger on the counter and hummed, trying to remember if she’d seen the name anywhere.

“Don’t bother.” Sombra stood and brushed imaginary dust off her chest. She tilted her head and grinned, more than confident she knew what the doctor was thinking. “You won’t be able to recall hearing my name. I’ve made sure of that.”

It didn’t sound nearly as ominous as if the other person in the room had said it, and Angela turned her attention to the woman currently making up plates of food for each of them. “What do they call you now?”

“They call me a number of things. Killer, assassin, traitor, cauchemar.” Widow sounded bored at best, but felt the bitterness creep into her native tongue. She dared to hope that she could go by anything else, willing the words to hurt less if she said them first.

“Araignée du soir,” Angela said, referring to the French superstition.

Widow looked up, surprised by the knowledge of it. The ghost of a smile threatened her features, but was replaced by a snarl. “Look how they remind me of it.”

Angela felt sick as she looked at the scars covering the arm Widow lifted. The warped text looked to be both burned and inked into her skin, accented by jagged lines like broken glass. Even Fareeha made a sound of surprise in her throat, caught off guard by the brutality of it.

A quiet rage burned in golden eyes, but Widow turned back to her task to hide it.

Sombra took the prolonged silence as a good excuse to get another chilled bottle of wine, offering some to the guests, which they gladly accepted after watching her open it. She bit back a joke about poison not being her style, and moved to refill Widow’s glass last.

“This isn’t going so bad, yea, Araña?” She placed her hand gently on Widow’s shoulder as she poured, asking in barely a whisper as she watched the assassin struggle through an internal battle.

Widow scoffed but felt her shoulders relax. It was true, it wasn’t going as poorly as she’d expected it to. However, they’d barely touched on anything vaguely important, and she could feel the eyes on her again. “Will you explain?”

“Mm,” Sombra nodded, expecting as much. She doubted that the woman Widow was before Talon mutilated her would have wanted to have this discussion, and this broken version definitely couldn’t.

She spun back to the two standing at the bar and motioned to a lower table. “Let’s not ruin our appetites. We can enjoy our food first, or at least hopefully we can. I’ve never had Widow’s food, and it’s only for such a special occasion that she would cook, I’m sure.”

“Widow?” Angela quirked a brow. A bit too on-the-nose for her taste, but she waited for confirmation.

“Until I think of something better, it will have to do.” Widow was glad her physiology would hide a blush, embarrassed by Sombra’s confession. She wished she’d thought of something so simple as a name. Hearing the doctor refer to her in any way similar to Talon made her skin crawl, but she had nothing else and couldn’t go to correct it now.

Angela noted the blush, a slight flush in the cyanotic skin. It wasn’t obvious, but she was paying attention. As much as she wanted to believe this woman here was a monster, Widow was Amelie. A different version maybe, but she was there.

She was probably paying too much attention, and had to force her eyes away as they all sat down. The shit-eating grin that Sombra gave her confirmed her suspicion that she’d let the look linger too long.

Shit.

It would have been worse if she’d realized that Widow had also noticed.

[djatoon]

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.”