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Gold Dust Woman part 1

pjo x mcu fusion: annabeth is iron man

crossposted on a03

It’s been twenty eight day since she was kidnapped. Annabeth would know this even if she wasn’t scratching a line into the wooden boards she called a bed every day. In situations like this, it was important to keep track of time. It keeps her from becoming disoriented, it keeps things in perspective.

Like how tomorrow the car battery that she has hooked up to her heart, that’s powering her heart, will give out, spent, and she’ll die.

Unless her miniature arc reactor works.

It has to.

Annabeth has spent countless nights awake, pouring over the math and plans. she flips through the pages and pages of sketches. Carefully combs through the numbers for any mistake, any miscalculation, until her eyes swim. In some ways its not all that different from home, where she’d spent days shut up in her lab, dreaming up new technology only to turn around and sell it to the military.

The arc reactor had been written off as a publicity stunt. An inefficient source of clean energy. A pipe dream no one had bothered chasing. Not even her when the math hadn’t worked on to make it feasible, she’d just shrugged, downed her scotch, and moved on to the next big contract.

She’d been so caught up in research and development, in making weapons, that she had lost track of things. Or maybe she didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to think about the people she’d killed. The blood on her hands.

If she’d bothered to keep track, maybe no one in her company would’ve sold things to the enemy.

If If If. She was going to drive herself crazy thinking about all the things she shouldn’ve done.

Annabeth didn’t have time for that.

Not here. She won’t die here in this godforsaken cave, not before she can put things right. Not before she can start to make amends.

She refuses to let death be her legacy.

“I’m here if you need steadier hands,” Armeen Hephaestus utters over to her from his own spot, carefully stripping down the weapons and tools they’ve been given according to her own schematics.

Every moment they waste not working on her plan is another second in which the 10 Rings might turn around and decide to kill them.

“It’s alright,” she answers, not bothering to look up. Annabeth hates relying on others, hates that she won’t be able to insert the arc reactor herself, might die unable to do anything to save herself if it fails. “Just stick to the plan.”

The words tumble out harshly in the soft light of the cave, lightbulbs flickering. The  electric grid thats been rigged up is horribly inefficient, but Annabeth isn’t about to tell her captors that.

Her hands don’t shake as she places the last pieces in and waits for the flicker. For the arc reactor to power on if she’s rights about the math and she always is, this should generate more power than it consumes. It won’t be perfect.

But it’ll keep her alive and that’s good enough for now.

Annabeth sighs in relief as it flickers softly, before a steady white light comes on light. She can’t wait to see the look on Arachne’s face when Annabeth shows her what she did with their publicity stunt.

If she makes it out alive.

No. She puts the arc reactor down, turning to call over Hephaestus, she can’t think like that.

“Come on Armeen,” she tells him, “I can’t wait to stop lugging around this battery.”

It’s been twenty eight days and Annabeth wonders where Thalia is, leading the search over the vast deserts of Afghanistan.

It doesn’t really matter.

The 10 Rings was right, they’ll never find her here. There’s just to much ground to cover.

That’s fine. Annabeth’s only ever been able to rely on herself and she’ll get herself out of here and Hephaestus too.

Then she’ll make sure Chase Industries never manufactures another weapon again.

*

Six shots in, a glass of champagne in hand for the occasion and Annabeth is bubbly. Is open and friendly in the addictive way she can never manage sober. Her smile feels foreign but the man who’s wrapped his arms about her, his hand covering hers before they throw the dice and watch it hit the roulette before landing on one of their winning numbers, he’s fun and hot and she likes one night stands. They’re easy.

“Yay,” she giggles, turning to him, giving up on his name when her thoughts feel so disconnected.

“You must be my good luck charm,” he grins, looking boyishly charming as he does.

It’s such a cliche, fitting in perfectly in Vegas.

Grover rolls his eyes, clearing finding the line beyond cheesy, from his spot on her right, the rest of her bodyguards spread out around.

“Yeah,” she replies airily, downing her champagne and distantly wondering if its to late to upgrade the targeting systems on the Medusa Missiles. Her mother never acknowledged anything less then perfection. It was a trait she’d passed on to her, along with her grey eyes and height.

No, both her parents had been tall.

He kisses her, lips saturated with beer, and Annabeth mindlessly goes along, wishing men weren’t so into beer. It never tastes good. And cocktails were so much better at getting people drunk faster.

“Lets go again,” he suggests.

“I’m game,” she answers, signaling for another drink.

Annabeth doesn’t really have time for this, she’s leaving Vegas in an hour back to San Francisco. But maybe he’d like a free ride to SF?

“Annabeth,” Thalia calls out, meeting Jack’s? drunk and carefree gaze with her own steely one, the same look she gave Annabeth overtime she found her less them sober, falling over and refusing Grover’s assistance, “you missed the ceremony.”

It’s the chastising of someone who’s already given up hope of getting through, hand wrapped around a glass award.

The reason she’d come to Vegas.

“Vegas is so fun,” she replies, dismissing the man and falling into step besides Thalia, away from the gambling tables, “and yet you want me to spend my time here in a room full of corporate assholes?”

It does the trick, Thalia laughs, “so long as you make it to the plane for-,”

“I know,” she cuts off, “gosh mom there’s a reason I have a nanny!” She takes the trophy from Thalia before she can think to try and smash her head in with it, “I’m sure Katie’ll find a great place to put this were it’s not ostentatious.” Next tool the other awards.

“Pretty sure you gave up any hope of that when you built a hose overlooking the bay,” Thalia replies, her uniform looking nice and starched. She was at home in uniform more than Annabeth could hope to be in a dress, but it was Vegas and it felt right when she’d decided on the Cushnie. Now she was missing her comfortable suits. “do you have any clue how much real-estate is going for in San Fransisco these days?”

“It’s on the cliffs,” Annabeth adds with a grin at her old friend. They’d been at MIT together, back when Thalia had over-dyed black hair and  ripped band t shirts, perpetually wearing sandals even in winter.

“Let me know when you want to settle down,” Thalia teases, “I’d love to be a trophy wife.”

“I thought they’d reinstated don’t ask don’t tell now with the new administration,” Annabeth wonders out loud.

Thalia nudges her side lightly, “don’t even get me started. I risk my life serving this country and this is the thanks I get back home! This is who the country votes for?”

The limo pulls up and Grover opens the door up for her, forever the gentleman.

Annabeth laughs at Thalia, “You know what they say, there’s no rest for the wicked. See you in a few.”

Tahlia shakes her head as she walks aways.

Annabeth grins and steps towards the open car door.

Before she can slide into the car and head home, a voice calls out behind her, “Ms. Chase do you have anything to say on the situation in Afghanistan.”

She looks at Glover, who helplessly shrugs, “I guess he’s hot. I don’t know. I’m only Juniper-sexual.”

Annabeth turns around, facing a rather handsome man, tall, broad shoulders and chiseled chin. It just reminds her of everything she’s not. This is the person that the military would love to deal with, not her. Not another Chase woman.

“Go for it,” she says with a grin, forcing herself no to pull down on her dress, it’s supposed to be this short. Maybe she needed a new tailor?

“Annabeth Chase, you’ve been called the Da Vinci of our times,” he starts, making her beam despite herself, she’s always a fool for flattery, “what do you have to say to that?”

“I do what I can to contribute to society, to making a better world.” It’s one of those vague statements her PR handlers had drilled into her. Harmless regardless of any context.

“What about your other nickname? The Merchant of Death? What do you have to say to that,” there’s teeth to his smile this time, a crusader then. Another reporter out to change the world.

“Let me guess, Berkeley ,” she says in lieu of an answer, the school was infamous for their many protests.

“Boston U actually.”

Annabeth nods. “Well, it’s an imperfect world we live in. I guarantee the day weapons are no longer needed to defend this country and it’s peoples freedoms I’ll start making bricks and solar panels.” She pauses, crossing her arms in front of her. This was the thing about dresses, where was she supposed to stuff her hands into? “My mother used to say that peace was having a bigger stick than the other side,” Annabeth says with a shrug. Athena had never spoken those words to her, but she’d parroted them often enough to the press. “And isn’t peace what we all want?”

He grins like he’s in on the joke, only highlighting how handsome he is, dark skin and even darker eyes, “interesting words coming from the woman selling the sticks.”

Even she grins at this, genuine for the first time all night. “What’s you name?”

“Isaiah, Isaiah Levey from Vanity Fair magazine.”

“Well Isaiah,” Annabeth replies, liking the way his name sounds on her lips, liking the look of him even more, “My mother helped defeat the nazis, she worked on the Manhattan project, she developed technology that propelled us into space and is now used in computers and phones. A lot of people, including your professors at Boston, would call that being a hero.”

Isaiah fires back, “A lot of people would also call that war profiteering.”

Annabeth’s lips draw thin, as the alcohol that’s kept her buzzed for the last hour wears off, “Tell me, do you plan on including the countless lives we’ve save through advancements in medical care and agricrops? All those breakthroughs,” she says pointedly, “military funding.”

“Wow,” he says shaking his head, “you ever lose an hour of sleep your whole life?”

And just like the fuckboys Katie always complains about, like she didn't somehow incorporate flannel into all of her outfits, she utters, “I’m prepared to lose a few with you.”

She might be off-putting at the best of times, and not half as beautiful as the wives of her fellow billionaires, but confidence could more than make of for those shortcomings.

Isaiah shrugs helplessly, grin on his lips, and he slides into the limo with her.

*

It’s been seventy nine days since she’d watched a humvee blow up. It was a lot nastier up close then in testing facilities out in Nevada, where distance made the explosion look beautiful.

Before she could register that they were under attack, before she could react and put her drink down or maybe finish it off and hope it was just a nightmare, the solider in the front. . .R-something. . .Reyes?. . .maybe it was Ramirez? Was telling her to get down, the words barely leaving her mouth before a gunshot splattered her brains reminiscent of a Pollock, body falling over like a puppet that had its strings cut.

Annabeth had looked around stupidly. She didn’t know what to do. More gunshots. More blood.

There had been smoke and dust and she couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even see her enemy until she heard the gunshots, seconds before they made contact, ripping through the Humvee like it was made of cardboard.

She crawls out, dodging behind the nearest rock, in too much shock. Her hand goes reflexively to her necklace, thumbing over the beads. More gunshots. There’s no way to know where to go. Who’s her enemy and where she should run too so she just stays hurled behind the rocks.

Annabeth wants to slap herself, throat choked on a scream. Everyone likes to believe they’d react the right way in a fight or flight situation but theres no right way and oh my god she’s going to die.

Then there was the missile, landing just close enough for her to make out the logo, the same logo she’d learned to recognize when she was still learning to write, Chase Industries and then the explosion and then nothing.

It’s night.

And the 10 rings members are suddenly filing in, guns locked and loaded.

Annabeth knows its night because the shifts changed. Even with their rotating shifts and change in partners, she’d quickly memorized their faces. Besides, at night, they yawn more.

They yell in their various languages, strutting around and throwing their weight before a bald man clicks his fingers, his face hard, with a glee in his eyes that speaks to a sadistic nature.

They grab for Armeen, dragging him before the bald man, knocking him to his knees.

The bald man must be the leader. Head held high, back straight as though he’s looking down at everyone. He can’t be much taller than her.

Annabeth might be tall for a woman, but she’s only average in comparison to most men and Hephaestus is taller than most. He’s also lanky, hands rough from hard labour. Not a handsome man with his large nose and small chin, eyes lost behind thick glasses.

He’s her friend and when they bring a hot iron rod to his mouth she finds herself yelling, “NO,” moving forward against her better judgement.

All the guns in the room point at her.

She blinks, realizing that no matter how valuable she is, how rich she is, how smart she is, they won’t hesitate to shoot. Their patience has worn through.

“I need him,” she utters, her protest sounding weak to her own ears, “he’s a good assistant.” She won’t have anymore blood on her hands. He has a wife and kids back home.

Annabeth only has Thalia. People she pays probably don’t count. Grover and Katie’ve no doubt found a new job.

She would’ve.

Then again, there’s a reason everyone’s always found her cold.

“You have twenty four hours to give me a Medusa Missile  or I’ll shoot you both,” the bald man spits, “I don’t care who you are you bitch!”

She doesn’t wince anymore. The words cold bitch have long trailed after her.

The man kicks Hephaestus aside, before turning to leave.

Then their gone.

A look at him and they both know they’re in for a long night if her plan’s going to work, if they’re going to escape.

*

Annabeth wakes up at six in the morning on the dot the same way she has every day since boarding school.

Isaiah is still sleeping when she slips out of her room and down her lab.

Katie’ll take care of him later.

Katie’ll also let her know when it’s time to go, the only person aside from herself who knows the password down to her lab, her heels click on the glass steps.

“You are supposed to be halfway around the world,” she utters already scrolling through her ChasePad, a prototype of the latest version that was still in development, her tone leaving no room for argument.

“How’d she take it,” Annabeth says, pivoting while she looks over her latest engine, finding that the Lamborgini, no matter how nice it looked, handled like shit.

“Like a champ,” Katie replies.

“Why’re you trying to kick me out of my own house,” Annabeth asks, shifting her weight onto her other leg before it can fall asleep, the last few screws falling into places. At first it was just a matter of replacing the wheels and suspension, but once she looked under the hood, Annabeth knew she could do better.

“Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and a half ago,” Katie says curtly. Grover must have told her how much she drank last night.

“You know, I do know my limit,” she responds, “and it’s my plane so shouldn’t it take off whenever I want it to?” She’s being ridiculous, Annabeth knows this, but. . .she doesn’t know.

She won’t see Katie for a three days. It’s not long in the grand scheme of things. . .

Katie ignores her, barreling on, “Social drinking is a stepping stone to alcoholism and I need to speak to you about a couple things, before I send you on your way.”

“I mean whats the point of a private plane if I’m still subjected to boarding times.” Grover had told her once about commercial flights and Annabeth had felt something inside her wither and die. It probably came with never having to deal with anything money couldn’t fix.

Maybe she should get out more, talk to people other than her employees and those with a vested interest in her company.

“Xiao called, she has another Jackson Pollock lined up for the auction, do you want it? Yes or no.” Annabeth couldn’t see any point to splatter paint, there was no technique or point really. She much preferred the carefully rated indian and egyptian art pieces. There was the greek technical prowess in sculpture and paintings, coming the closest to lifelike. But her dad had lover abstract art and modern art.

So, “yes,” she answers, turning around and gladly downing the last of her cup of water. Her head was still pounding even after the two pills she’d taken this morning. Hangovers were the thing that would knock down any impending alcoholism Katie kept nagging her about.

“It’s overpriced,” Katie informs her, “and not a great representation of his later renowned work.”

“I said yes Katie,” she sighs, hearing the snap in her own voice, scrambling to add, “it’ll be like those parents who hang up all their kids drawing from preschool.” Her mother had never done that, waving annabeth away until she’d come back with her first circuit board, lines deep around her mouth as she’d frowned and told her the how inefficient it was.

Katie smiles, “Okay. The MIT commencement-,”

“Is in June,” annabeth says walking up to the main floor, “nice try.”

“Well if I have to hear it then you have to hear it,” Katie teases, easily, the clack of heels on concrete a tell tale sign that she’s following close behind.

“Didn’t I hire you to hear it so I don’t have to,” Annabeth snipes back, knowing Katie won’t take it the wrong way. They’ve been working together for to long.

“I’ll take that as a yes and I need you to sign this,” she says offering up a long and complicated paper with fine print as they reach the main living room, her duffle bag and carry on already prepared for her.

“Wow you’re really trying to get rid of me. Why?” It’s blunt, the way Annabeth has learned to be in the corporate world and military world where old men will look down on her and call her girl.

“I have plans.”

Annabeth makes a face, “I don’t like it when you have plans.”

Katie rolls her eyes, “first of all that’s why we have unions and workers rights and secondly I’m allowed to have plans on my birthday.”

Annabeth winces. She’d forgotten. She relied so much on Katie to remind her of all her appointments and meeting, and she could hardly tell Katie to reminder of her birthday. “Is it? This weekend?” It must be November then.

That explained all the christmas decorations that had been up in Vegas.

“Yes,” Katie responds, smothering a laugh, “isn’t that strange? It’s the same day as last year.”

“Well, buy yourself something nice from me.” Annabeth never knew what people wanted and it just didn’t seem practical to guess. That’s how people ended up with something useless, that they didn’t want, and then had to figure out what to do with; regift it, throw it aways, or have ti sit in the back of your closet.  

“I already did.”

“Is it a new and exotic species of plant,” She asks knowingly. Katie had a way with plants, managing to keep even orchids alive.

“Thank you,” Katie says with a soft smile, before thrusting Annabeth’s luggage at her and pushing her out the door where Grover awaits with the ferrari, one designed by the great Nikki Lauda, the splashiest thing her father ever owned. It had only needed minor adjustments.

Annabeth laughs and helps Grover throw her luggage in.

*

The suit works, she flies for a full fifteen seconds before crashing, just long enough to escape the fireball of explosions she leaves behind.

Along with Hephaestus.

Dead.

Another death on her hands.

Even in February, the deserts of Afghanistan are scorching hot, dry, her eyes are strained after spending almost three months in darkness, only broken by weak lighting.

In comparison the sun a entirely too bright, too much.

Her throat arched, a strip of fabric wrapped around her head as a makeshift hat, keeping some of the sun off her.

The sun keeps her going, orients her because the sun always east and sets in the west, no matter what part of the world she’s in, ignoring how everywhere she looks out to looks the same. Sand, and more fucking sand.

It’s been eighty days since she was kidnapped.

they must still be searching for her. Thalia wouldn’t abandon her. Besides she’d Annabeth Chase, billionaire wonderkid, child of the late great Athena Chase.

But the fear of wondering forever, until she collapses and dies nags at her.

There’s just so much sand.

Vast planes spreading out beyond her as she leaves the mountains at her back.

What are the chances of-Thalia. . .

. . .Thalia finding her. . .

She hears the sounds first, the beautiful roaring of army craft, too steady too be of any make other than the united states government.

It’s the most wonderful sound she’s ever heard.

Her hands spread out, waving over. . .

Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!

It worked!

Something in her chest loosens, a weight, the panic that’s been kept at bay by adrenalin, by need and focus, hummingbird panic that makes her arc reactor flicker in the bright daylight of the desert, worlds away from the gloomy rain of San Fransisco in the winter.

She can breath now.

She’s alive.

Alive.

A live.

It feels like something that belongs to someone else. The drinks and parties and work and billions in the bank.

That can’t be. . .her.

The image of her own missile landing right in front of her forever seared into the backs of her eyelids.

Thalia walks down and out of the aircraft, soldiers fanning out with heavy automatic arms pointed out into the desert plains.

Annabeth can breath now. She smiles, falling into Thalia’s arms, into her embrace. She’s never been more glad to see Thalia’s dark blue eyes, almost black in some light.

“How was the fun-vee?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Annabeth hears herself say and then she’s gone. Exhausted down to her bones. The weight of running for months on adrenalin finally catching up to her and she blacks out, sliding into R.E.M. sleep for the first time since SF.

Later Thalia’ll tell her she was debriefed and gave coherent answers before downing some crackers and a coke, getting a quick medical checkup, before they let her sleep.

She doesn’t remember a thing after she see’s Thalia. Her very own godly apparition.

[thisdaynews]

How 2 Midwestern College Kids Became Trumpworld’s Favorite DJs

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-2-midwestern-college-kids-became-trumpworlds-favorite-djs/

How 2 Midwestern College Kids Became Trumpworld’s Favorite DJs

James McElwain breezes past the line outside Joy District, a three-story nightclub in Chicago’s sceney River North neighborhood. The bouncer recognizes him, nods and points him to the VIP entrance. A black laptop bag slung over his shoulder, James cuts across the dining room to the employees-only back staircase, shakes hands with a security guard, climbs two flights of concrete stairs and emerges in the second-floor kitchen, where he’s met by a phalanx of cocktail waitresses in gold tank tops and black booty shorts. “Hi, James!” they greet him. A second security guard is elated to see him, and James wraps her in his meaty arms for a hug. He crosses the dance floor and climbs into the 4-foot-high DJ platform on the club’s western wall, ready to perform.

Sculpted, with a strong jaw and cheekbones, and standing 6-foot-2, James stands out, even among the horde of 20-something party bros who have descended on the club this Saturday night in October. And not just for the way he looks: All the while James snakes his way through the club, he talks about how Donald Trump possibly holds the secret to free, sustainable energy.

Story Continued Below

“Trump’s Uncle John was an MIT scientist, and he got access to the files the FBI got from Nikola Tesla,” James informs me.

It sounds like bullshit, but the part about FBI files is true. Immediately after Tesla’s death in 1943, the federal government seized hundreds of documents belonging to the legendary inventor. The files were subsequently reviewed by none other than John G. Trump, head of research at MIT and late uncle of the 45th president. Possibly included in those documents—in addition to designs for Tesla’s infamous intercontinental death ray—are plans for creating a sustainable, worldwide energy grid. Or so James and his fellow amateur internet sleuths believe. In his report about the files, John Trump called Tesla’s work “speculative” and unworkable.

Meanwhile, Paul, James’ identical twin, finishes parking their murdered-out Jeep Patriot down the block and joins James in the DJ booth. Together, they form the house DJ duo Milk N Cooks. Paul, the more baby-faced of the two, sits against the wall as James prepares his MacBook Pro for their set.

At 28 years old, they look like a Berlin nightclub version of the Winklevoss twins—black skinny jeans and complementary wide-collared, raw cut, crew-neck T-shirts (James’ white, Paul’s black). They have a decent fanbase, with tens of thousands of followers across their various social media accounts and millions of streams between their SoundCloud and Spotify profiles. They’ve played as far as Rome, Hong Kong and Hanoi. But they occupy an unusual, niche space in American pop culture: They’re the unofficial DJ duo of the loose-knit cohort of conspiracy-theorizing, mainstream media-hating, far-right voters who have risen to prominence in Trump’s wake.

In 2018, Milk N Cooks were the featured entertainment at A Night For Freedom, a conservative meetup organized by far-right provocateur Mike Cernovich, a friend of theirs, which drew more than 700 self-proclaimed “deplorables.” They wrote the score for Cernovich’s recent documentary,Hoaxed, about liberal bias in the news media. Their Twitter and Facebook accounts are filled with posts mocking Hillary Clinton, celebrating Trump and railing against the “deep state.” Last summer, they gleefully played a gig at Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago.

On an aesthetic level, Milk N Cooks defy the image of the stereotypical flyover state Trump voter. Their mix of culture and politics is so peculiar that it seems like a marketing ploy, but they insist it’s not: In fact, they say they lost about 15 percent of their social media followers after they started publicly supporting Trump during the 2016 campaign. People have called Milk N Cooks Nazis, white supremacists, racists, fascists and members of the alt-right—all labels the duo rejects. Artists have declined to appear with them because of their politics, and their management has publicly disavowed them. But the twins continue to mouth off on politics—everything from the Democratic presidential candidates (“Joe bye bye-den!”) to Robert Mueller’s performance in Congress (“insane and sad honestly”).

As it turns out, they supported Barack Obama in 2008. And for anyone curious about how two former Obama voters flipped for Trump—a topic of interest not just to EDM fans but a whole industry of political strategists heading into the next election—it was not initially because of Trump himself. The man who turned them on to far-right conservative politics was Alex Jones, the InfoWars founder who was sued by the parents of Sandy Hook victims for alleging the 2012 elementary school gun massacre was a hoax. The McElwains’ embrace of the fringe right shows just how deeply the cynicism and anxious thinking of alternative media and conspiracy theories have infiltrated American politics.

Whatever controversy might be swirling around Milk N Cooks, no one in the crowd seems to know or care at Joy District on this October night. James starts the set and plays a string of crowd favorites—Drake, Pitbull and Blink 182, “Tipsy,” “September,” “Mr. Saxobeat”—mixed over a house beat, and the dance floor swells. There are bros in flat-brim hats, plaid button-downs and Barstool Sports hoodies, and three women draped in white “Bachelorette” sashes. There’s zero indication anyone is here to see a MAGA DJ crew.

***

The first time I met James and PaulMcElwain was nine years ago in the beer garden at KAM’s, the grimy dive bar on the University of Illinois campus in Champaign. I was a senior, limping toward graduation, and the McElwains were sophomores. I had never spoken to the brothers, but their reputations preceded them. James had bought a pair of turntables the year earlier and taught himself, and later Paul, how to DJ. The McElwains burst onto the Illinois fraternity and sorority scene; before long, everyone knew about this pair of tall, jacked identical twins taking campus nightlife by storm.

Just as instantly, people hated them. They were conspicuously happy meatheads whom women seemed to love. They had begun making a name for themselves as Milk N Cookies (they later shortened it to Milk N Cooks to fit on a promotional flyer). They were dismissed by many as a novelty act—untalented hacks trying to capitalize on the late-2000s EDM craze with their twin gimmick.

But the brothers I met back then weren’t the self-important jerks others had made them out to be. I was in the beer garden looking to bum a cigarette, and James (or was it Paul? I couldn’t tell them apart) happily obliged. They seemed like generous guys who liked to joke around. They were the last people I would have guessed would get interested in politics.

James and Paul grew up in Palatine, Illinois, an upper-middle-class suburb some 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, where they lived with their parents and two older sisters. To hear them tell it, theirs is a classic tale about the hope and folly of the American dream. The McElwains were “broke,” they say, until James and Paul turned 5, when their father got into real estate and cashed in on the pre-crisis housing bubble. They moved into a McMansion in a development their father built, only to have the money dry up once the recession hit, when they were 18 years old. Still, politics was never discussed in the house beyond their dad telling them, “Vote Republican, lower taxes.”

Their awakening came in college. Like so many millennial voters, the McElwains say they were enthralled by Obama’s first presidential campaign, specifically his promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they quickly soured on him.

“I trusted Obama and CNN so much,” James says between bites of steak at Old Grounds Social, a bar-restaurant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park area where we met in September. “And then I remember the timetable to bring the troops home kept changing—from 30 days, to 90 days to six months. And I was like, ‘Dude, what the hell is happening?’ This was the entire reason I supported the guy, and now he’s adding troops?!”

“People assume conservatives want war all the time, but that’s not the case for us. We’re noninterventionists when it comes to foreign policy,” adds Paul, who’s having wings.

It was around this time that a member of their fraternity introduced them toLoose Change, the viral YouTube documentary that posits “9/11 was an inside job” and inspired a generation of conspiracy theorists.

“That’s when we got red-pilled,” James says. He and Paul became fascinated with the film’s notorious executive producer, Alex Jones, and gradually adopted his deeply cynical worldview.

Still, they remained “focused on school, girls, fraternity life, DJing,” Paul recalls. After a 35-day jail sentence for drug possession, the McElwains dropped out of college just before their senior year and moved to Chicago to earn a living DJing full-time. Their career highlight came in 2013, when their remix of “Animals” by Martin Garrix exploded and was played live by world-renowned EDM acts Tiesto, Afrojack and Hardwell.

Neither voted in the 2012 presidential election, but their political fervor was reignited in 2016. Like many InfoWars acolytes, Milk N Cooks were skeptical of Trump when he announced his candidacy. Paul thought of him as a “Sharper Image billionaire,” chintzy and shameless. But Trump piqued their interest with his emphasis on domestic manufacturing and slashing the corporate tax rate, and eventually with his pugilistic style. “I like him because he doesn’t give a shit,” Paul says.

They cheered in their living room when Trump told Clinton she should be “ashamed” of how she had attacked her husband’s sexual assault accusers. As the election grew closer, the duo’s social feeds, once reserved for sharing songs and information about live performances, turned into a mixture of Clinton-bashing, conspiracy-peddling and pro-Trump memes.

“We didn’t know it was a risk to start talking politics,” James says. “But if we could go back, we would do it again.”

***

Politically, the only concrete policiesthe twins advocated for during the time I spent reporting on them were lower taxes and a strong domestic manufacturing sector. They identify as “libertarian independents,” butmore than anything, theirs is a politics of grievance and skepticism—against the shadowy establishment and its amorphous, nefarious agenda, and against a mainstream culture they see as stifling free expression and obfuscating the truth.

I’ve scoured hundreds of Milk N Cooks’ posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and listened to much of their work. Their music is apolitical, except one song that samples a speech by Jordan Peterson, and that’s just a bunch of self-help babble. Online, the McElwains aren’t shy about retweeting fellow right-wing provocateurs like Cernovich, Jack Posobiec and Ali Alexander. They love to own the “libs,” often in ways that are vulgar and offensive. They clearly revel in stoking political tensions and amplifying the president’s dog whistling. In July, for example, they tweeted a poll asking, “Does ilhan Omar hate the USA”—milking a controversy over Trump’s xenophobic and racist comments about the freshman congresswoman.

Since Trump was elected, people have left negative Yelp reviews for the clubs where Milk N Cooks perform, calling the twins “racists.” In 2017, actress and singer Taryn Manning canceled an appearance with Milk N Cooks at the Summer Camp Music Festival at the urging of her publicist—Milk N Cooks believe it was because the publicist didn’t like their politics. Manning declined to comment.

Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, has studied Milk N Cooks since their performance at A Night For Freedom; she does not consider them white supremacists or alt-right, but rather “alt-lite.” “We’ve made a distinction between the alt-right and the alt-lite,” Mayo says. “The alt-right is very specifically white supremacist. The alt-lite may share some ideas with the alt-right—they may be against immigration and anti-feminist—but they’re not white supremacist.”

Still, when it comes to such labels, “the line between the two of them is very blurry,” says Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Center for Right Wing Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s much more of a distinction without a difference,” adds Peter Simi, sociology professor at Chapman University. “One of the goals among this fairly disparate of far-right extremism is to sow confusion. And the best way to do that is to rename yourself constantly so nobody can pin you down. You’re gaslighting people, in a way.”

James says he doesn’t buy this equivalency, and thinks it’s further proof of the media’s liberal bias: “If you are at all to the right, you’re labeled ‘far right.’ If you aren’t a liberal, you are ‘alt-right.’”

It doesn’t help the McElwains’ cause they both look extremely Aryan and rock the high-and-tight haircut co-opted by white nationalist Richard Spencer and his many alt-right minions. But Milk N Cooks deny they are white supremacists, or alt-right or even alt-lite. “There are a lot of great people who support Trump, just like there are a lot of racist, misogynist assholes,” James says. “I like the way I look. I’m not a fucking Nazi. I’m not going to disavow my haircut like Macklemore’s bitch ass.” When I asked them about misogyny—I’d come across a lewd tweet from the twins about Senator Kamala Harris’ relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown—Paul wrote in an e-mail, “Wouldn‘t it be misogynist to assume Kamala can‘t handle criticism about her political rise simply because she‘s a woman?”

Al Rothlisberger, who manages a sports bar in Chicago and met and befriended the McElwains through the hospitality industry, has left some scathing responses on their pro-Trump Facebook posts. “I love these guys, but I worry they’re part of a political wing that’s hijacked conservatism and just wants to burn the whole thing down,” Rothlisberger says. “I want a political stance a little more thought-out than, ‘Yeah, we have a fellow bro working for us in the White House.’” (“Digital schizophrenics,” the McElwains say, when I ask them about Rothlisberger’s comments—their term for people who attack them on Facebook but buddy up to them in person.)

Cernovich, who came to know Milk N Cooks in 2017, when the twins kept tweeting at him about their shared political views, says he has since warned the DJs against being so public with their political views. “There aren’t many pro-Trump cultural figures because the social cost is so high,” Cernovich says. “What creative person wants to be conservative? You’re young, you’re virile, you’re hot, you’re hip. You don’t want to preserve the status quo, you want to be creative, do new things, push boundaries.”

But the McElwains have not backed away from politics, and they maintain they’re being misunderstood.

“Even before politics, we were the bros easy to hate,” James says. “People would get pissed at us just for having a good time.”

“It shows how confidence threatens people who are insecure,” Paul adds. “They think, ‘Why isn’t this person bogged down with the issues I’m facing? Fuck them!’”

***

“There’s fluoride in the water,and it will turn you gay,” James tells me, laughing, as I go to fill a glass of water in the kitchen sink. “The water in the fridge is filtered.” It’s a reference to one of Alex Jones’ most indelible on-screen moments, when he railed about the government “putting chemicals in the water that turn the freakin’ frogs gay.” James’ comment might be a joke, but in the bathroom, the deodorant is aluminum-free; the toothpaste, fluoride-free.

We’re in Paul’s new apartment on Chicago’s west side in October. Paul had moved in with a friend, marking the first time the brothers, inseparable since birth, were living apart. On the ride to his brother’s place, James was listening to the latest episode ofThe Dan Bongino Show,another podcast with a conspiracy-minded host who has benefited from the Trump presidency.

Talking with James and Paul, it’s evident they’ve spent untold hours listening to conspiracy theorists. Like their idols, the McElwains are prone to tangents, can call up obscure “facts“ off the cuff and possess a seemingly endless reserve of energy for political discussion.

“I’m not saying kids didn’t die“ at Sandy Hook, James tells me at one point. “But you can watch the three-hourWe Need to Talk About Sandy Hookdocumentary and find over 50 different anomalies that are really frickin’ odd. … And it’s like, ‘Is anyone going to explain this?’”

I recently asked James if he stands by this comment, given the trauma these conspiracies inflict on the families of Sandy Hook victims. “We understand the pain it can cause to question the circumstances around that tragedy, but we don’t think it should be wrong to question things to find answers that are not clear,” he wrote in an email. “We wish no harm on anyone ever, be it emotional or mental pain from victims of tragedy… we are simply curious people looking for truth.”

When I asked if the twins think it’s dangerous to use their platform to propagate conspiracies, James wrote: “It’s dangerous for any platform to propagate conspiracy theories. Harassment aimed at Sandy Hook families due to Alex Jones, for example, or myself being called a Nazi because an MSNBC contributor said Trump supporters are Nazis by association. These examples are on different ends of the spectrum but both show why people, even ourselves, need to be careful when declaring facts regarding a theory versus opinions on a matter.”

Going forward, Milk N Cooks hope to find ways to blend politics and music more. They’re contemplating a YouTube show in which they analyze the news of the day. At one point, James muses about working with Kanye West—“We have the musical capability, but also because we connect on the Trump thing.” (Kanye has since distanced himself from the president.)

The McElwains have no such plans to abandon their Trumpism. In fact, they see a bright future under the current administration.

James’ partner is a Mexican immigrant. (The McElwains are “pro-immigrant,“ James says. “But I also think you should have a secure process to know who‘s coming into the country.“) On March 25—the day after the Mueller report’s release—his partner gave birth to their son, Leon. She has another son, Roman, from a previous relationship. The couple plans to raise both boys as one family, with the help of Roman’s father.

“I am very excited to raise these boys, and biracial boys at that, in this America,” James wrote to me via email after the birth. “It’s odd though. I see a vibrant economy, with a president who’s protecting civil rights, protecting the country, reforming prison sentences—tons of amazing stuff. Then you have people on the far left who see the complete opposite; a crumbling economy and a nation filled with white supremacists ready to kill you at any corner. It’s sad to see there may be no harmony between people anytime soon, but it is something we gotta live with.”

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[theconservativebrief]

Nike announced on Monday that the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign would star Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who famously began kneeling during the national anthem in order to protest police brutality, igniting a national conversation about race, sports, and the meaning of patriotism.

The ad, which features a close-up of Kaepernick’s face and the tagline “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything,” was met with praise from fellow Nike athletes like LeBron James and Serena Williams, as well as former CIA Director John Brennan. That “everything” refers to Kaepernick’s professional football career — following his departure from the San Francisco 49ers, he was essentially blackballed from the NFL for his political demonstrations.

The ad was also met with backlash, including a boycott, a trending Twitter hashtag, and viral tweets of customers cutting the Nike swoosh off of their stuff. Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the campaign “an attack on the country,” while others took issue with the term “sacrifice,” suggesting instead that the campaign should have gone to Pat Tillman, the NFL player who left the league to enlist in the Army in 2002 and was killed in Afghanistan.

Nike’s decision to feature Kaepernick in its campaign is part of a larger trend: Since the 2016 US presidential election, brands — once terrified of controversy — are more and more likely to enter the realm of politics. There’s never been a more popular time to be a brand with an opinion.

And the Kaepernick ad seems to be the result of an essential lesson from the past two years of brands attempting to take a stand in their advertisements: It actually takes a stand.

2017 was the year of corporations taking a stance. By the time the Super Bowl came around, commercials from Coca-Cola and Airbnb were making loose references to the necessity of diversity (Coke’s ad featured voices singing “America the Beautiful” in a variety of languages; Airbnb’s was called “We Accept”), while at the Oscars, Cadillac ran an ad featuring footage of protests with a voiceover saying things like, “We are a nation divided.”

That’s not to say that all these forays succeeded. Later in the spring, there was that Pepsi commercial, which featured a rather milquetoast protest/march/street party full of attractive, racially diverse millennials. It was an aesthetic that many brands were (and still are) co-opting, but it went disastrously wrong when the ad ended up insinuating that police brutality can be solved by Kendall Jenner giving a cop a Pepsi. The Pepsi ad didn’t fail because it used #resistance optics; it failed because it completely undermined the message of the protests.

CEOs also started to seem less afraid — and at times appeared to feel as if they were obligated — to make public statements about political happenings and social issues. After President Trump’s comments on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which he claimed that there were “some very fine people on both sides” and that “not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch,” Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier dropped out of the president’s American manufacturing council. He issued a statement that said, “As a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”

Patagonia, meanwhile, which has long been associated with activism, went so far as to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for reducing the size of two national monuments.

Apparel brands in particular have embraced politics through design. During New York Fashion Week in February 2017, the biggest trend was anti-Trumpism, with models walking down the runway in T-shirts that read, “Nevertheless she persisted,” and one show that began with a speech by the organizers of the Women’s March.

Nike’s choice to use Colin Kaepernick’s activism as the face of its campaign isn’t all that surprising — not only does activism often raise a brand’s profile (one study showed that about two-thirds of consumers thought it was at least somewhat important for brands to take a stand on social issues), but it’s well within Nike’s wheelhouse.

Journalist Jemele Hill — who, like Kaepernick, has been a target of Trump — noted that while Kaepernick is still a major draw in sports apparel despite not currently playing for an NFL team, Nike also has a history of working with black athletes, a move that, to some, was at one time considered controversial.

I’m just here to remind folks that last year Colin Kaepernick was in the top 50 in NFL jersey sales, despite not being on a roster. Nike made a business move.

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 3, 2018

Nike became Nike because it was built on the idea of rebellion. This is the same company that dealt w/ the NBA banning Air Jordans. They made Jordan the face of the company at a time when black men were considered to be a huge risk as pitch men. They aren’t new to this.

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 4, 2018

That’s likely why the brand figured that the backlash it would receive for choosing Kaepernick would be worth it in the end. And there certainly has been backlash: Some Nike customers responded by performatively burning their Nike apparel or cutting out the logos, which has long been a protest tactic particularly favored by conservative consumers.

First the @NFL forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country. I chose country. Then @Nike forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country. Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive? pic.twitter.com/4CVQdTHUH4

— Sean Clancy (@sclancy79) September 3, 2018

Chris Allieri, a brand expert and founder of the communications firm Mulberry & Astor, told Vox, however, that the average Nike customer will likely be supportive of the campaign. Of those who aren’t, he said, “Consumers are quick to outrage and quick to forget.”

“I think this is one of those decisions where [Nike] did look at positives and negatives and threw that out the window,” he added. “They wanted to be relevant and hit this controversy head on. They did that by putting Kaepernick at the center of the campaign.”

These days, an advertisement won’t make headlines simply for showing a diverse group of people at a vague protest-y setting or making loose claims about supporting diversity. The reason the Nike ad is even newsworthy in the first place is because it doesn’t fall into the trap of attempting to “unite” Kaepernick with the targets of his protests. It’s lionizing Kaepernick for the important work he’s done without flattening his message to align with corporate-speak.

Questions about whether the decision will “pay off” are twofold — there’s the question of how it will affect the Nike brand. Though shares fell more than 2 percent Tuesday morning and the hashtag #NikeBoycott trended on Twitter, that certainly doesn’t mean the ad is a failure. In fact, according to Apex Marketing Group, Nike has received more than $43 million worth of media exposure in the less than 24 hours since the campaign was announced, with the vast majority of coverage either “neutral” or “positive.”

But there’s also the question of whether a brand taking a stance on a social issue will have effects in the real world. When Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would stop selling guns to people under 21 in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, other stores like Walmart and L.L. Bean followed suit. It’s the kind of trend that can lead to changing ideas about what constitutes common sense, which could end up helping make gun laws stricter.

With its campaign that stars an athlete who gave up his professional career to protest racial injustice in America, Nike could end up doing something similar for that conversation as well. Maybe it already has.

Original Source -> How Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad explains branding in the post-Trump era

via The Conservative Brief