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ur-mag · 6 months
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Boris was ‘bamboozled’ by graphs and data during Covid, claims ex-chief scientist | In Trend Today
Boris was ‘bamboozled’ by graphs and data during Covid, claims ex-chief scientist Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS
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therealtruthalways · 10 months
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🚨The former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has warned the public that Covid was engineered by scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to “depopulate the planet.”
Sir Richard Dearlove claims there was evidence to indicate that the coronavirus had been “tailored” to spread rapidly around the world before being deliberately leaked from the Wuhan lab.
Dearlove, who headed MI6 between 1999 and 2004, admitted that analysis of Covid shows that it had been “mucked around with” by virologists to be “highly infectious” among humans.
“All right, put it like this…” Dearlove explains.
“It’s a natural virus that’s been, as it were, mucked around with and the characteristics of things like the spike protein, which make it so highly infectious, also point in the direction of it being somewhat tailored,” he said.
Slaynews.com reports: Dearlove also slammed the cover-up of relevant data by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
He argues that any evidence from the Wuhan lab that proves the origins of the virus has already been destroyed by China’s communist regime.
The ex-spy chief blasted the recent investigation by the CCP-linked World Health Organization as “farcical.”
“I think there’s a balance of probability,” Dearlove asserts.
“Obviously, if it cannot be proven, and I don’t think it can because the evidence that could have proved it one way or another has been destroyed, because of the extent of the Chinese cleanup.”
While unlikely, he concedes that “it’s possible” the virus jumped to humans from nature.
However, the former intelligence chief argues that “it’s far more likely, if you’re a scientist, that it was put together.”
“I think the onus is on the Chinese to prove that it’s zoonotic because the evidence strongly suggests to me and a number of eminent scientists that the greater probability is that it’s a lab escapee,” he adds.
Dearlove is now calling for an “open debate” on the origins of COVID-19.
“I think that there is a significant Chinese influence active in this specific area,” he warns.
“China has worked very, very hard in terms of influence in finance to make sure their narrative is dominant,” he emphasizes.
Dearlove told LBC’s Tom Swarbrick that the truth about Covid’s origin will soon be exposed.
He said he expects forthcoming books to further outline the argument for coronavirus’ lab origin.
Meanwhile, in America, the lab leak theory was initially discredited by scientific authorities and government officials.
Recently, however, some agencies have endorsed the theory that the virus may have originated in a laboratory.
According to FBI Director Christopher Wray back in March, the agency has for quite some time assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident.
In February, the Department of Energy took back its initial assessment and now admitted that its stand was no longer “undecided” but rather “low confidence” in a lab leak being the origin.
In 2021, Democrat President Joe Biden revealed that the intelligence committee had “coalesced around two scenarios” of Covid’s origin.
One of which was the lab leak theory.
The news comes after Republican officials in Florida have just officially designated Covid and the mRNA vaccines as “bioweapons,” as Slay News reported.
The Brevard County Republican Executive Committee (BREC) passed a resolution in a landslide vote to ban the vaccines.
The resolution also declares that the COVID-19 virus itself is a “bioweapon.”
The committee is now soliciting support from registered Republicans in the county, state lawmakers, Florida’s Congressional delegation, and Governor Ron DeSantis.
thepeoplesvoice.tv/british-spy-ch…
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mariacallous · 6 months
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More details of Sam Altman’s sudden ousting as CEO of OpenAI have emerged, with several senior researchers quitting the company, and executives and investors from across the industry expressing shock and confusion at what is increasingly being perceived as a board coup.
Hours after Sam Altman was booted from the company by its board, Greg Brockman, another OpenAI cofounder and the company’s chairman, quit in protest. Brockman later posted details of Altman’s removal suggesting that the company’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, had orchestrated the effort to remove the CEO.
Brockman’s post claimed that Altman was told he was being fired by Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board. Several accounts from inside the company suggest that a disagreement between Sutskever and Altman centered around the company’s direction, and specifically its ability to build more capable AI technology safely.
“This was the board doing its duty to the mission of the nonprofit, which is to make sure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity,” Sutskever told employees at an emergency all-hands on Friday afternoon, according to a report in The Information.
Jakub Pachocki, a lead research on OpenAI’s groundbreaking language model GPT-4; Aleksander Madry, a professor at MIT recruited by Altman to work on AI safety; and Szymon Sidor, a researcher who has worked on a branch of AI known as reinforcement learning, all reportedly quit as the crisis deepened.
The fallout from Sam Alman’s firing as CEO of OpenAI has shaken the tech industry, and threatens to turn into a backlash against the remaining board.
Executives at Microsoft, which has invested a reported $13 billion in OpenAI, were said to be “blindsided” by news of Altman’s exit, and Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, was furious, Bloomberg reports.
OpenAI declined to provide further comment on the situation. Neither Altman, Brockman, nor Sutskever responded to requests for comment. Inquiries sent to the three researchers who quit also went unanswered.
Altman had led OpenAI on an incredible run of success starting with the launch of ChatGPT less than a year ago. He quickly became a figurehead for the generative AI boom, and he was courted by world leaders keen to learn about the remarkable potential—and the potential dangers—of more advanced AI.
Earlier this month, Altman hosted OpenAI’s first developer conference and announced a plan to create an app store for AI agents built on top of its technology. Altman was also courting Middle East sovereign wealth funding for the development of AI chips that would compete with Nvidia’s, according to Bloomberg. The Information has previously reported that Altman was exploring the possibility of developing AI-oriented hardware in collaboration with the ex-Apple designer Jony Ive with funding from Softbank.
Disagreements over the issue of prioritizing safe development of AI previously led several prominent OpenAI researchers to leave the company and found competitor Anthropic.
The development of OpenAI’s most powerful large language model, GPT-4, has sparked unprecedented debate around the potential for AI to advance beyond human control. In July, Sutskever became the colead of a “superalignment group” at OpenAI, dedicated to producing “technical breakthroughs to steer and control AI systems much smarter than us.”
Speaking at the APEC CEO summit in San Francisco last week, Altman indicated that the company had been making progress on developing a more powerful successor to GPT-4. “Four times now in the history of OpenAI—the most recent time was just in the last couple of weeks—I’ve gotten to be in the room when we push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward,” he said.
Many within the tech industry have spoken out to support Altman, or criticize OpenAI’s board for its actions.
“What happened at OpenAI today is a board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs,” Angel investor Ron Conway wrote on X. “It is shocking; it is irresponsible; and it does not do right by Sam & Greg or all the builders in OpenAI.”
“Sam Altman is a hero of mine,” Eric Schmidt, the ex-CEO of Google posted. “He built a company from nothing to $90 Billion in value, and changed our collective world forever. I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
OpenAI announced that Altman would be replaced by Mira Murati, previously OpenAI’s CTO, who is serving as temporary CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement.
Some employees at OpenAI seemed to suggest that Murati had been serving as de facto leader of the company for some time.
“In the craziness of ChatGPT forming, @miramurati was the one making final decisions in daily standups” Evan Morikawa, an engineering manager at OpenAI, wrote on X. “She’s been leading this company for years and will continue to do an amazing job here.”
Altman, who has little financial stake in OpenAI, took to X in the hours following his ousting to suggest that he might reveal more about the circumstances of his departure. “If I start going off, the OpenAI board should go after me for the full value of my shares,” he wrote.
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tearsofperseides · 11 months
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The Haunting of Creel House is the official name for my thohh stranger things AU and honestly it's a mix of both the TV show and the book and my own little ideas.
The old Creel house stood, uninhabited for years, closed off to the public. Rumours of it being haunted, some say it's a portal to another dimension. Dr. Brenner, a paranormal investigator and scientist, decides to conduct an experiment. How would this house affect regular people. He decides to rent the house for the summer, declaring it open to only a select few, he personally chooses, who he believes, are the candidates for this experiment, because of their experiences with paranormal events.
Steve Harrington, a skeptic ex high school heart throb, whose house is located near the Creel house; Nancy Wheeler, an investigative journalist, who was very adamant about coming to the house; Robin Buckley, an anxious girl who claims she's had multiple paranormal experiences; James Hopper, the chief of police; Joyce Byers, a caretaker of the house, who's a single mother of three, along with two of her kids William Byers and Jane Byers, who have been suspected by the town to have a weird connection to the paranormal occurring in the Creel house.
The Creel house is taken care of by Joyce Byers and Bob Newby, who refuse to stay at the house in the night. Bob tries to talk Joyce out of going through with the experiment, however she refuses, saying it's for the safety of her kids. The seven visitors begin to form friendships as Brenner explains the building's history, which encompasses suicide and other violent deaths.
Throughout the story, the seven visitors experience all kind of paranormal encounters. It starts out small, like tapping on the walls or sounds of walking, though it escalates very quickly to seeing dark figures in the corner of their eyes.
Because of the paranormal, the vistors start forming all kinds relationships both in and out of the group.
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The House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack will unveil new evidence at Watergate-style public hearings this week showing Donald Trump and top aides acted with corrupt intent to stop Joe Biden’s certification, according to sources close to the inquiry.
The panel intends to use the hearings as its principal method of revealing potential crimes by Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 election results, the sources said, in what could be a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president.
As the Justice Department mounts parallel investigations into the Capitol attack, the select committee is hoping that the previously unseen evidence will leave an indelible mark on the American public about the extent to which Trump went in trying to return himself to the Oval Office.
“They’re important for setting a record for posterity, but they’re also important for jolting the American public into realizing what a direct threat we had coming from the highest levels of government to illegitimately install a president who lost,” Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the conservative thinktank the American Enterprise Institute, said of the hearings.
The panel’s ambitions for the hearings are twofold, the sources said: presenting the basis for alleging Trump broke the law and placing the Capitol attack in a broader context of efforts to overturn the election, with the ex-president’s involvement as the central thread.
At their heart, the hearings are about distilling thousands of communications between top Trump White House aides and operatives outside the administration and the Trump campaign into a compelling narrative of events about the events of 6 January, the sources said.
In order to tell that story, the sources said, the select committee intends to have its senior investigative counsels reveal previously secret White House records, photos and videos that will be presented, in real time, to starkly illustrate the live witness testimony.
On Thursday night, at the inaugural hearing at 8pm, the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, and the vice-chair, Liz Cheney, are likely to make opening arguments, outline a roadmap for the hearings, and give an overview of the events of 6 January, and the preceding weeks.
The panel is likely to focus on broad themes for the following four hearings, such as how Trump used false claims of voter fraud to undermine the 2020 election and future races, and how he tried to use fake electors to deceive Congress into returning him to office.
House investigators are also likely to focus on how Trump directly pivoted to the 6 January congressional certification – and not the December deadlines for states to certify their electors – as an inflection point, and how his actions led straight to militia and far-right groups’ covert maneuverings.
The panel is then likely to reserve its most explosive revelations for the final hearing in prime time, where the Select Committee members Adam Kinzinger and Elaine Luria are expected to run through Trump’s actions and inactions as the 6 January attack unfolded.
The list of witnesses has not yet been finalised, the sources said, but it is expected to include top aides to former vice-president Mike Pence, aides to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and people with direct knowledge of militia group activities on 6 January.
From a legal perspective, the panel has already alleged in court filings that Trump and his external legal adviser, John Eastman, violated multiple federal laws to overturn the 2020 election outcome, including obstruction of Congress and defrauding the United States.
The Select Committee hopes that by revealing new evidence in hearings, the sources said, it can convince beyond a reasonable doubt the American public and potentially the Justice Department that the former president violated laws to reverse his 2020 election defeat.
Among the highlights of the already-public evidence include the revelation that Eastman, Trump’s external legal adviser, admitted to Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacob, that his scheme to obstruct Congress on 6 January was unlawful, but pressed ahead with it anyway.
The internal White House schedule for 6 January that the Select Committee obtained through the National Archives, meanwhile, showed that Trump would have known he had no plans to march with the crowd to the Capitol when he falsely promised that at the Ellipse rally.
House investigators are in many ways making their case to the American public, the sources said, since it is not certain whether the panel will make criminal referrals to federal prosecutors, given they are not binding on the Justice Department, which has the sole authority to file charges.
But that quest will come with its own challenges, and the panel’s greatest difficulty is perhaps not so much whether they can show wrongdoing by Trump and his top advisers, but whether it can get Republican and independent voters to care.
The repeated delays in holding the hearings have meant House investigators were able to finish most of the evidence-gathering they intended to conduct (the committee initially anticipated holding them sometime in “the spring, then in April, then in May, and now in June").
Committee counsel recently told one witness who had been assisting the investigation for months that it didn’t expect to ask for any more assistance, according to two sources familiar with the inquiry. “We are pretty much done,” the counsel told that particular witness.
But the consequence of the decision to delay the start of public hearings, and the constant drip of news from the investigation, is that it might have driven some “6 January fatigue” – which Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill are intent on weaponising to defend Trump.
The former president’s most ardent defenders in Congress and top Republicans led by the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, are planning aggressive counter-programming to the public hearings that slam the panel as partisan, according to party aides.
The Republican National Committee has also circulated a one-page memo of talking points, Vox earlier reported, requesting that Trump surrogates attack the investigation as “rigged” – even though multiple federal courts have ruled the inquiry is fully legitimate.
Overcoming counter-programming to cut through to Republican and independent voters could pose a challenge, the panel’s members have privately discussed. After all, the sources said, the panel is not trying to convince Democrats of Trump’s role in the Capitol attack.
The prospect of collective public exhaustion over 6 January-related news, with each new revelation seemingly more shocking than the last, appears to have also pressed the select committee to cut its June hearings schedule from eight hearings to now six.
According to a draft schedule reviewed by The Guardian and first reported last week, the panel anticipates holding just the first and final hearings – on 9 June and 23 June – in prime time at 8pm. The other four – on the 13th, 15th, 16th and 21st – will be at 10am.
Still, the target audience for the select committee is not Republicans but swing voters, Ornstein said. “I don’t have any expectation that Republicans who believe the election was stolen will change their minds. But it’s about the other voters and whether it will jolt the Democratic base into understanding what the stakes are.”
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sarnews · 6 months
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WEF Orders Govt’s To Begin Putting ‘Cigarette-Style’ Warnings on Meat Products
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The World Economic Forum has ordered government’s to begin putting cigarette-style warning labels on all meat products to discourage the public from consuming meat.The new labels will read: “Warning: Eating meat contributes to climate change.”
The WEF-funded scientists, who falsely claim meat consumption is detrimental to health and the environment, began pushing for the labels after conducting a study at the UK’s Durham University.
The scientists took a group of 1,000 meat-eating adults and put them into four groups. Depending on what group a participant was in, they were shown photos of hot meals assigned climate, health, or pandemic warning labels or no warning label at all.
“All the labels deterred meat consumption, with 7-10 percent of the participants choosing a non-meat meal.” However, when participants were asked how anxiety-inducing and believable they found each of the labels, they reported the climate change warning as the most believable.
Thefederalist.com reports: This prompted the scientists to advocate for government-mandated climate change warning labels on meat. “Reaching net zero is a priority for the nation and the planet,” said study author Jack Hughes. “As warning labels have already been shown to reduce smoking as well as drinking of sugary drinks and alcohol, using a warning label on meat-containing products could help us achieve this if introduced as national policy.”
Climate activists are ramping up their war on meat every day. Efforts to stigmatize meat-based diets as socially unacceptable and even unhealthy have become their latest strategy to curb consumption. Former UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres suggested in 2018 that society should ostracize meat carnivore eaters in the same way it did smokers. “How about restaurants in 10-15 years start treating carnivores the same way that smokers are treated,” she said. “If they want to eat meat, they can do it outside the restaurant.”
Some climate activists are embracing far more dystopian means to eliminate the more than two million-year tradition of meat as a staple in the human diet. WEF-linked “bioethicist” Dr. Matthew Liao proposed the idea of scientists genetically modifying humans to be allergic to meat. Liao also discussed shrinking the physical size of humans via eugenics or hormone injections so they consume fewer resources.
Few know that the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a globalist Michael Bloomberg-run climate organization made up of nearly 100 cities across the globe, including 14 American cities, has a goal of completely eradicating meat and dairy consumption by 2030. 
In June, the U.S. Agriculture Department approved the consumption and sale of lab-grown meat in restaurants and, eventually, supermarkets. Ironically, “Analysis finds the carbon footprint of cultivated meat is likely to be higher than beef if current production methods are scaled up because they are still highly energy-intensive,” reports New Scientist.  
Meat Is Good For You
By virtually every standard, protein from meat, which has been the basis of the human diet since the inception of the species, is far superior to plant protein. Dr. Benjamin Bikman, author of the 2020 book Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease–and How to Fight It, explained why on “The Ultimate Health Podcast.”
“By every metric, every single animal protein is superior to every single plant protein,” Bikman said. “A person can eat a modest amount of animal protein and know that they are literally getting every single amino acid they could possibly need in a good ratio. If it’s plant protein, well, then you kind of have to guess, and you hope you’re getting it all.”
Plant proteins, Bikman added, “are enriched with things called ‘anti-nutrients,’” which are “molecules that will inhibit the intestines’ ability to digest the protein.”
“So that’s kind of adding insult to injury,” Bikman explained, “because when someone’s trying to get all their protein from plant proteins, not only are they getting an inferior source of amino acids and an inferior profile of amino acids, they’re not even digesting the amino acids in the proteins they think they’re getting.”
While academic researchers on far-left campuses from Durham to Harvard lead the assault on meat, the evidence to suggest meat-based diets are detrimental to human health fails to stand close scrutiny. In her book, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, nutrition journalist Nina Teicholz spent almost a decade researching the science behind health authorities’ recommendations for a low-fat, meat-restricted diet. Her findings were breathtaking.
“Almost nothing that we commonly believe today about fats generally and saturated fat in particular appears, upon close examination, to be accurate,” she wrote.
Teicholz outlined how the data to support a low-fat diet was manipulated with selective findings to back pre-determined conclusions. The landmark Seven Countries study, for example, the legacy project of American Physiologist Ancel Keys to support a low-fat diet, omitted data from 15 countries that would have contradicted any correlation between dietary fat and heart disease.
Further, a paper published by the National Library of Medicine in April debunked the conventional narrative that red meat consumption is responsible for the proliferation of non-communicable diseases. Researchers assessed mean meat intake in different regions of the world and found that while some academics claim red meat is hazardous to human health, only slight increases in disease risk were reported in areas where meat consumption was well above the global average. Even then, “there is little to no effect on absolute risk,” they wrote, “and the certainty of evidence remains low to very low based on the best available summary evidence.”
“Regrettably, the scientific discussion on the potential associations between meat and noncommunicable diseases is often no longer a transparent assessment of the evidence, but is affected by agendas, including vested interests and ideologies,” they concluded.
Meat Is Good For The Planet
If there’s any confusion about environmentalists being on the side of big food, a quick glance at this year’s list of “100 Best Corporate Citizens” based on Environmental, Social, and Governance Standards (ESG) will remove any doubt.
The list ranks 1,000 of the largest U.S. public companies every year on their compliance and transparency efforts to “align with the Sustainable Development Goals and rebuild an equitable economy post-pandemic.” The nation’s largest food corporations routinely rank highly on the list despite their use of endocrine-disrupting pesticides that are terrible for the environment.
This year’s list celebrated seven major food processors, including PepsiCo, which was 6th, Hershey at 10, Mondelez at 45, Kellogg at 40, and General Mills at 49. Kraft Heinz was listed at 61, and Coca-Cola at 79.
Sustainably raised livestock, meanwhile, are actually good for the planet. In his book, Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet — One Bite at a Time, Dr. Mark Hyman writes about the important benefits of regenerative farm practices on both our health and planet.
“Regenerative grass-fed meat can restore ecosystems, improving soils while sucking carbon from the atmosphere and increasing water storage in soils,” Hyman wrote, urging readers to “choose regeneratively raised animal products whenever possible.”
“They are better for you and better for the animals and help draw down carbon and reverse climate change,” Hyman added.
Despite the fear-mongering over global livestock emissions, a trio of Spanish researchers published a study in April finding emissions from wildlife comparable to domesticated animals raised in natural grazing systems. In other words, contrary to climate alarmists’ warnings that livestock capital will pollute the planet into an environmental apocalypse, the elimination of animal emissions requires the extinction of natural species.
Warning Labels Belong On Biscuits, Not Brisket
If the government steps in to slap warning labels on anything at grocery stores to manipulate the American diet, it should be ultra-processed foods. Often saturated in seed oils and several different kinds of added sugars while deprived of fiber and healthy fat, these toxic ultra-processed products make up nearly three-fourths of the U.S. food supply. It’s no wonder 6 in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease while 4 in 10 suffer from at least two.
For years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed food manufacturers to market chemically processed grains drenched in sugary syrups as cereal with a “healthy” label slapped on the box. If you want to know why the most sugary cereals are lined up at waist height in the grocery store, take a look next time at who walks next to parents down the “breakfast” aisle. Hint: it’s exactly who cereal companies want to beg their parents to buy the Fruit Loops. 
Researchers from Spain, Brazil, and the United States published a paper in the British Medical Journal last month examining 281 studies across 36 countries and found the prevalence of food addiction “similar to the levels of addiction seen for other legal substances in adults.” 
While not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic guide on mental disorders, commonly known as the DSM-5, researchers analyzed food addiction using the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS). The YFAS assesses all 11 criteria for substance use disorders outlined in the DSM-5 to examine compulsive food consumption as a legitimate substance disorder. Researchers concluded in their October paper that levels of food addiction rival rates of addiction to alcohol and cigarettes. Ultra-processed products high in refined carbohydrates and added fats were the most likely to be found addictive, stimulating a dopamine response “seen with addictive substances such as nicotine and alcohol.”
But forget cigarettes. Let’s talk about cocaine. A 2013 paper from French researchers found sugar can stimulate a reward response in the brain stronger than that of even cocaine. Believe artificial sugar sweeteners are the antidote? Think again. The 2013 paper identified “sweetness,” not necessarily just “sugar,” as the culprit stimulant. Their findings corroborated similar conclusions in another landmark study on sugar and its addictive value by French researchers in 2007.
Beyond addiction, ultra-processed foods are dangerous. A February study from London’s Imperial School of Public Health linked consumption of ultra-processed products to early mortality. In other words, those Pillsbury Biscuits might not kill you tomorrow, but they may take over 30 years. If an ultra-processed diet doesn’t kill you early, it’s certain to make you sick. Another 2021 paper from Brazil found higher consumption of ultra-processed food and drinks was “positively associated with obesity and associated with the development of all [noncommunicable chronic diseases], mainly hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidemia.”
Ultimately, the scientists pushing for meat warning labels are anti-science. Meat is healthy and good for the planet. If labels are to be put on anything, it should be ultra-processed foods. Since these scientists are not interested in warning the public about the foods that are causing obesity and chronic disease, that suggests they are not interested in genuine wellness and are instead pushing an agenda and a dangerous, unhealthy one at that.
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ailtrahq · 8 months
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Christen Ager-Hanssen, once a firm supporter and former CEO of nChain, the driving force behind Bitcoin SV (BSV) infrastructure, has stepped down. Besides his surprising resignation, Ager-Hanssen has stirred the crypto community with grave allegations against Craig Wright, who claims to be the mastermind behind Bitcoin. In a tweet confirming his resignation, Ager-Hanssen reported numerous grave issues to the nChain Group board, hinting at a conspiracy involving a significant shareholder to defraud nChain stakeholders.  Moreover, concerns over the real identities behind the Cayman Islands-registered DW Discovery Fund, associated with the nChain Group, were also raised. Although specifics of the conspiracy remain concealed, Calvin Ayre, a close associate of Wright, was indicated as a central figure, described by Ager-Hanssen as the “shadow director.” ‘Faketoshi’ Allegations Intensify In addition, Ager-Hanssen, once a firm believer in Wright being the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto, disclosed finding compelling evidence pointing at Wright’s manipulation of documents to mislead the court. This shift in belief has sent shockwaves across the BSV community and beyond.  The ex-CEO teased a whistleblower report, “The Fairway Brief,” a likely reference to the thriller “The Pelican Brief.” Now, Ager-Hanssen stands convinced that Wright is NOT Satoshi, foretelling a bleak legal future for the self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator. Wright’s Association with nChain in Doubt The situation escalated when Craig Wright’s designation as the “Chief Scientist” disappeared from the nChain website after Ager-Hanssen’s outburst, although the board’s intentions remain unclear. Wright asserts a continued advisory role for nChain and other Bitcoin entities. However, the credibility of his statements is now under serious scrutiny. With Ager-Hanssen now gone from nChain and Wright’s claims shrouded in Doubt, the BSV sphere is witnessing an upheaval. The feud has propelled the term “Faketoshi” into the limelight once again, amplifying skepticism around Wright’s claims of being Satoshi. It’s a dramatic unfolding that has left the cryptocurrency community in anticipation of the promised revelations by Ager-Hanssen.
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denimbex1986 · 10 months
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'The film about the nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer is not just bad, noisy, hard to follow and far too long. It gets in the way of understanding one of the great events of our times.
I have been amazed by the way so many people have claimed to have enjoyed it. I endured it.
The only common complaints have been about the rather underpowered portrayal of the actual detonation of the first bomb on July 16, 1945. What were these complainers expecting? A blast-wave in the cinema? Apparently people think it is not spectacular enough.
I say, thank heaven for that. I have walked on the blasted nuclear testing grounds of the old Soviet Union in Kazakhstan, amid the total, desolate silence and seen the traces still left years afterwards: the vast, solid concrete slab, the size of a block of flats, tipped to a drunken angle by the blast; the shards of black glass all over the earth's surface, mementoes of the day the heat of the bomb fused the desert sands into a sea of such glass; and the soft warnings of the scientists who accompanied me: 'Do not linger here. Do not under any circumstances disturb the dust, in case you breathe it in. It is still lethal.'
Who needs another great big bang to know that this moment mattered? There is enough archive film of the tests and of the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for those who wish to know.
How can there be so little actual dialogue in so long a film? Why does the director, Christopher Nolan, feel it necessary to accompany conversation, when it happens, with loud, driving music (and sometimes with unexplained crashing noises) to tell us this is all important?
Why do we need to see Oppenheimer and his Communist mistress, Jean Tatlock, sitting in armchairs with nothing on or engaging in fantasy ghostly sexual congress during a committee session?
Why was this film even made?
Like Nolan's previous blockbuster and critical success, Dunkirk, I think it leaves the audience knowing less about the subject than they did before they went into the cinema.
Here is a rather simple story. The US government grasps that, with a huge concentration of brilliant minds and vast sums of money, it may be able to make a weapon more destructive than any in history.
The possibility is not a secret. Scientists in several major powers, including Britain, had been examining this since 1939. British experts have already made major advances but the country lacks the money to carry them through. A large team of British scientists go to the US to help in what they think (wrongly) will be a joint Anglo-American project.
Hollywood, typically, makes little of the British contribution or of the later freezing out of Britain, which led to the 1945 Labour government restarting the UK's own independent nuclear weapons programme. A brilliant, brutal bureaucrat, General Leslie Groves, has proved he can work wonders by building the Pentagon in no time. He is picked to build the bomb, and chooses Oppenheimer as his scientific chief, a Left-wing eccentric with a messy sex life and a tragic marriage (his wife is an ex-Communist who drinks too much), who reads the Hindu scriptures for relaxation.
He is not your ordinary suburban person. He has Communist friends but he is good at nuclear physics and managing scientists. Oppenheimer duly delivers the bomb, too late to be used on the Nazis but in time to be dropped on Japan.
Bang. Hurrah. The war ends. Sorry about all the innocent people who got burned to death but that's war and they shouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor. The end.
Except that it isn't the end.
All kinds of worrying things are buried in the story. At one point, in 1942, one of Oppenheimer's Communist friends suggests that Oppenheimer gets in touch with the Soviet Union about the bomb project through a British scientist (and Soviet asset). Oppenheimer realises the suggestion is treasonous and refuses it. But he does not report the contact for eight months. When he does, he tries to cover up his friend's role for four months.
All this matters because soon after the German defeat, it becomes clear Stalin has penetrated the bomb project, and has known for ages about it.
And the US, having been Stalin's close ally until 1945, violently switches to being Moscow's bitterest enemy.
Suddenly, now that the Soviet Union is the enemy, all those Communist dalliances in the 1930s start to matter. Just because the stupid, gristle-brained Senator Joe McCarthy says so, doesn't mean the American establishment hasn't been infiltrated by pro-Soviet Communists. Subsequent intelligence disclosures confirm that it was. Oppenheimer, later in life, ceases to be indispensable to the US nuclear bomb programme. Plenty of others can handle it. He has also become politically awkward as he clearly suffers from remorse over the uses made of his discoveries.
But why is so much of the film devoted to an attack on an obscure US politician, Lewis Strauss, who took part in the campaign to remove Oppenheimer's security clearance.
Hollywood was badly scorched by crude witch-hunts during the McCarthy years and has never really seen straight over such issues since.
The danger was not imaginary, or purely the result of American hysteria. The truth is that there were Communists, and fellow-travellers, in the US and in Britain, and that quite a few became agents of Stalin. Many probably got away with it.
In unhysterical Britain, the nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May, an actual Communist, was jailed for ten years for giving secrets to the Soviets. The German refugee Klaus Fuchs, who also gave British nuclear secrets to Stalin, was jailed for 14 years and went to live in Communist East Germany when released.
All of this has been known for years. But a film made in 2023 needs to get past these ancient 1950s Hollywood resentments. Here are several huge issues barely touched on.
The scientists knew they were building a weapon of mass destruction but excused themselves because Hitler might build one, too. We now know that Hitler never got near building a bomb.
The whole moral driving force of the project was a fantasy.
In the summer of 1945, British intelligence assembled a group of captured German scientists at a picturesque old house in Godmanchester, near Huntingdon. The house was bugged from basement to attic. The Germans were astonished at news of the bomb and plainly had never got within miles of making one. This has been public knowledge since 1992.
Even more devastating is modern historical research about Japan.
It is clear that Japan's surrender was not forced by the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Japan's fanatical leadership cared little about civilian deaths (they had not blinked when a firebomb raid in March 1945 killed 100,000 in Tokyo itself). By the time the bomb was ready, there were few Japanese cities of any size left standing.
The scholar Tsuyoshi Hasegawa concluded from Japanese and Soviet records that Japan's surrender was mainly caused by Stalin's decision to enter the war. The military leadership feared he would invade Japan from the north and seize large parts of the country.
It has long suited Japan and the US to pretend that the two A-bombs ended the war. Japan can pose as a victim nation. The US, which is embarrassed about being the only country to use the bomb in war, can soothe consciences by saying the action saved tens of thousands of Allied troops from death. But the worrying truth is known to academics and diplomats. So the second great justification for the use of the bomb in 1945 melts away.
President Truman's airy dismissal of Oppenheimer as a 'crybaby' for doubting the morality of using the bomb now looks callous and self-serving. Truman was a nobody promoted to power by the crooked Tom Pendergast machine in Kansas City, Missouri. For sure, he was no great intellect.
Oppenheimer, by contrast, was a powerful thinker. A great film could have been made out of this huge story. But this wasn't it.'
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the-book-queen · 1 year
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Hide your wallets, it’s that time again! #TBQsBookDeals
Your Friday thread of #romancedeals is ready, FREE to $1.99. Happy shopping! 📚❤
    FREE ✦ Turn My World Around by Kait Nolan
Single mom + attorney. They have a past and get assigned as partners in a local Dancing with the Stars style event.
Contemporary Romance (MF) | https://amzn.to/419QrSf 
FREE ✦ Tempt by Melanie Harlow
1st POV. Age gap. Wedding planner falls for her ex's father.
Contemporary Romance (MF) | https://amzn.to/3m8f4Qr 
$0.99 ✦ Spellbound in a Kilt by Anna Durand
1st POV. He's a scientist who only deals with facts and tangible evidence. She claims to have the second sight.
Contemporary Romance (MF) | https://amzn.to/3Kb5OTs 
$1.99 ✦ Sink or Swim by Annabeth Albert
1st POV. Age gap. Navy chief + single dad + snowed in.
Contemporary Romance (MM) | https://amzn.to/3MnrQFm 
$1.99 ✦ Midnight Alias by Elle Kennedy
He's part of an elite team sent to find a missing undercover DEA agent. She's the girlfriend of a mob boss and just wants out to live a normal life again.
Romantic Suspense (MF) | https://amzn.to/3Mnu3QZ 
 Putting these lists together takes time. If you appreciate this content, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi. http://ko-fi.com/danielletbq 
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dusk-dreaming · 1 year
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New Wales Colony Outpost [Torchwood]: Personnel Assignments 
Captain Jack Harkness
role: commanding officer; field officer, rank: consultant, non-starfleet; 
record highlights: claims to be born in the 51st century, immortal [see: bad wolf], associate of the doctor [see: time lords], has vital knowledge of many alien species and time periods
Ianto Jones
role: archivist, outpost services, security; rank: ex-starfleet, previously Lieutenant junior grade [note: would have been promoted had he not left the service] 
record highlights: fought in The Battle of Wolf 359; honored for exemplary service; resigned from starfleet after the battle 
Doctor Owen Harper
role: medical officer, biological scientist, field officer, rank: chief petty officer 
record highlights: requested this transfer from starbase 39
Toshiko Sato
role: computer analyst, engineer, field officer, rank: consultant, ex-starfleet [records classified]
record highlights: previously working for [redacted], assignment here as part of disciplinary action following operation [redacted]
Gwen Cooper
role: colony interests, field officer, rank: ex-civilian security officer
record highlights: last post as civilian security on Earth, assignment by request [note: shows strong initiative in investigation]
All personnel are aware Torchwood operations are classed “secret”. Access to current records for personnel restricted to “secret” clearance and above. 
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camslightstories · 3 years
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It's always going to be you
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Warnings: Angst, Fluff
Lena Luthor x reader
Taglist: @captain-josslett @multi-images
Request:  Anonymous - “Reader x Lena. Angst with a happy ending. Lena & Reader have been dating on the down low for a while when James decides he wants Lena back, maybe reader walks in on James kissing Lena in her office and leaves assuming Lena is cheating”
Notes: This is my first request writing, so I hope you guys like it. Thank you so much for your support. You guys are great. Part 7 would probably be out on Monday since I have a shoot tomorrow. I hope you guys have a great day. I’m open to any suggestions, comments, feedbacks or request. 
The smell of pancakes surrounded the kitchen. The sunlight was slowly coming in. As the cold of the penthouse hit you. The soft sound of the jazz coming from the speaker at the side of the stone. Barefoot on the floor, you did a small dance moving from the stone to the coffee maker, only to be caught by arms hugging from behind making you melt on the embrace.
“Good morning, Love” Lena commented as she kissed your head, tugging you closer, resting her hands in your stomach, under your shirt.
“Good Morning, honey” Turning around, you responded. Laying a small kiss on her lips, only to be pulled down for more, when you pulled away. 
Both of you with only shirts and underwear on, after a long night, stood there embracing each other, until Lena’s A.I. spoke up “Ms. Y/L, if the pancakes are not turned over in 1 min exact, they would be burned”
Lena released a laugh that lit the apartment, making you pout as she did. Walking over to the stone you pulled away from her embrace, and she shocked her head walking to get coffee. After you moved the pancakes to a plate from the stone, she stole a kiss from you, erasing the pout and putting a smile on your face.
“You are incredible, you know that right?” She whispered in your lips as both of you pulled away. 
You responded shaking your head as you gave her, the breakfast you had prepared. The blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes were placed carefully under a mix of berries accompanied by a small bowl of parfait on the side. “Bon appétit, nerd”
“Même amour” She claimed, giving you a small chaste kiss, before starting to eat.
The two of you spend the rest of the morning before going to work, giving small kisses, hugs, and affection as both of you did your things. You walked out of the door first, after receiving a call from Maggie, your boss, as she needed you on a scene. Lena leaves not long after, with the same happy expression on her face as you did. 
The National City Police station was completely out of control, officers walking up and down asking questions and bringing multiple people for petty crimes. Maggie and the Captain taking cases while trying to figure out the incident of this morning. As they pressured you to get results of the scene as you worked as fast as you could. 
Lena and you messaged through the day, every day when you started dating. Little check-ups on each other and small messages of affections were passed through the two of you. But today you hadn't had the chance to check your phone, and neither did it ring during the day. It worried you, taking you out of your head, Maggie dragged you out of your lab, as she spoke to you. Both of you shared a look before you were both rushing out on her police car. “There was an attack in LCorp”
Arriving at the LCorp building, to be met with the site of multiple police patrols surrounding the building. You guys entered to be met with multiple yellow bags on the floor and the lobby trashed. 
Kara as Supergirl, Nia as Dreamer, Alex, and a tall black guy, all standing with your girlfriend talking. The two of you approached them, jogging and grabbing their attention.
You immediately looked at Lena, as you blurted out “Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happen-”
“I’m fine, it was just in the lobby” Your girlfriend interrupted you, as she hugged you, pulling away too soon for both of your likings. But Lena wasn't a person of much PDA if you guys weren't with your closest friends, so you two kept your relationship on the low.
One of the officers went to move a body only to be stopped by Maggie’s shouting “Don't touch that”
You closed your eyes as you felt the yell in your ear. Kara, Nia, and Alex were about to laugh, while the tall guy observed you confused. Maggie returned her attention to the group speaking.“Supergirl, Dreamer can you walk me through what happens as Y/N does her thing”
“Yeah, sure” You nodded, before smiling at all of them with a small wave as you put the gloves on, Lena and you connecting glances, making you blush before walking away. While Kara and Nia responded. 
Doing your work, as you collected evidence and examined the crime scene. Kara and Nia had left after briefing Maggie with what had happened. It had been a fight between two robbing gangs, only to be stopped by the police. After they had killed 5 people, three gangsters, and two securities, and left 12 others in the hospital.
Finishing your work, you glanced to where Lena was now standing alone with the same tall guy. He hasn’t left her side since you guys arrived. Maggie now stood beside you as you briefed her with the evidence of the scene, only to glance at Lena again when she walked into the elevator with Jess and the man. You said moving your head in her direction asking your brunette friend.“Who's that?”
“That's James Olsen and he is… I think that Lena should tell you that” Maggie responded as she patted your back, slightly pushing you towards the elevator. You furrowed your eyebrows and looked at the Latina confused as she simply shrugged before walking away with your box of evidence.
“Ohh, Okay” You murmured as you walked to the elevator. Grabbing your phone checking the time to be met with ‘5:30 pm’ on the top of it. You shocked your head as an idea came into your head. 
Maybe you could make dinner at your apartment, and pack a few things to make a picnic with your girlfriend. Some Canelones of spinach and cheese, with a bottle of Lena’s favorite wine. Maybe a strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
After 5 months of dating your heart would burst every time you saw your girlfriend, Lena had won your trust, your love, your mind, everything. You would give her anything she wanted, she became your everything. You just wanted to burst it out but you were scared to saying ‘I love you’
The elevator stopped and you walked inside, going straight to Lena’s office. Jess was talking to one man, a scientist you could guess because of his white lab coat. You walked to the door only to be met with the sight of Lena almost sitting on the desk as the tall guy, James was in front of her. Both of them kissing. 
Your heartbeat stopped. Your breath got caught in your throat. Your eyes became watery falls. Your legs and hands became paralyzed only to regain consciousness as you lowered your glance before walking away. In automatic mode you walked to the elevator, letting all of the feelings sink. 
Your clouded mind made you lose focus, and work during the next few days. Days of crying and anger. Days you tried to work but failed, with work hours of more than 12 hours. Ignoring Lena at every cause. Even though you were ignoring her, the green-eyed woman wouldn't leave your thoughts.
Now standing in your apartment with bags and boxes of evidence and reports you had to fill out. With coffee in your hand and pizza in the other. Bags under your eyes and uncontrollable hair. You typed in your computer, as the results of the bullets came back. Only to be distraught by the sound on the door knocking remembering the coffee order takeout you had ordered a few minutes ago as your support. 
Walking to the door you sighed waiting for the delivery person to give you, your precious order only to be met with the sight of your girlfriend, with your order in her hand and a confused and worried yet loving glance.
You sighed before speaking, with a cold tone, meeting her eyes as you walked inside grabbing the coffee you didn't finish. Lena looked into them, and all she saw confusion, sadness, anger, tiredness, and more. “Don't look at me like that”
Lena went to speak, only to be interrupted by you.  “Darling, how-”
“Just cut the crap if you are going to break up with me” You exclaimed, while angry tears left your eyes. Lena looked at you shocked as she entered the apartment glancing around to see the mess it was.
“I never stood a chance did I?” You commented as you seated on the barstool, massaging your temples, not giving her a chance to speak. 
You cracked out, with an ironic laugh. Making Lena walk up to you, with wide eyes and fidgeting hands. “I mean in what world would a CSI top a national photographer, who was an editor in chief in CatCo and was part-time a vigilante?”
Before anything else could happen, Lena cupped your face and kissed you fiercely. You melted into her and kissed back. You stood up and Lena grabbed your waist pulling you into her, your arms went instinctively to her neck as both of you lost each other's embrace. 
Pulling away for necessary air, you leaned each other's forehead and connected your noses, sharing an Eskimo kiss as she whispered in your lips. “Why would I want anything else, if I have the love of my life right in front of me”
Before speaking again, she took a chaste kiss from you. “I don't want anyone else, Love”
“But I saw you kiss the tall dark guy, James!” You said standing up, walking away from her. Pain slashed through Lena’s eyes as you did as the memory of the last week came through her mind.
Flashback - 4 days ago
Lena was standing in the lobby of her company, glancing eventually where you stood working as the CSI of the National City Police. Paying little to no attention to what her ex was talking about. 
The green-eyed woman's heart would beat faster every time, you would smile up to her or even look her way. She was love-struck by you and the last 5 months of dating you had made her a lovesick puppy, but she was more than okay about it since it was because of you.
The black-haired woman had been on an interview with Kara, Nia and as a consultant James over the next project, LCorp was going to launch in the next month. When the fight had happened, Kara and Nia rapidly had made action when they changed into their superheroes attire, but James had stood by her as a bodyguard, it made her somehow uncomfortable as he tried to protect her even though she wasn't the one who needed its protection.
Bringing her out of her thoughts, her ex-boyfriend claimed. “Lena, Lena, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah, James. I am” Your girlfriend responded as she gave him a glance of annoyance which the tall man did not capture.
The photographer nodded and waited a few seconds before speaking up again, as he scratched his neck. “Can we talk in your office, Lena?. Is kind of important”
She looked at him, and over his shoulder saw you, distracted with Maggie working before she responded with a polite smile. “Sure, James”
“Jess, can you check on Mr. Hernandez report” Lena directed to her assistant, as the three of them walked to the elevator. 
Standing now inside of the simple and beautiful white office, Lena listened as her ex-boyfriend spoke. “Well Lena, and if you want me to stay. I will, I will do everything to get you back”
But the truth was that the scientist's mind wasn't on the conversation, she was thinking about you. How to tell you she loves you. How to give you all the world. With now the idea of the perfect date, the green-eyed woman came to her senses as she saw the closeness between her and the vigilante. 
Lena was about to speak only to be caught by her ex’s lips. She became paralyzed and pulled away after the shock felt of her.
Pulling away from James, before slapping him. As she exclaimed ”You do not have the right to do that, Mr. Olsen. Especially when I'm in a happy and healthy relationship with the love of my life. Now leave James, before I make security take you out and I filed a restraining order”
The tall guy looked at her in shock, before apologizing with tears in his eyes. Walking away immediately. 
Lena grabbed the tissue on her table before cleaning her lips. Without taking you out of her mind. How would she explain this to you? Was she going to lose you?.
Flashback ends
“So you didn't kiss him?” You said, your voice coming out as a scare and quiet whisper as both of you sitting on the couch. Tears coming down.
Lena with tears in her eyes, and fidgeting hands. She responded by cupping your face as she cleaned your wet cheeks. “No, Love. I don't want to kiss anyone else but you”
Her heartbreaking at the side of you begins vulnerable. Almost immediately you made her stumble on the couch as you cuddled into her. Clinging into her not wanting to let go. Scared she might go away if you do.
“Don't ever leave me” Coming out as a murmur from you, after you calmed down. Now blankets on top of both of you.
Lena as a response only brought you closer to her before kissing you softly. “It's always going to be you, darling”
Both of you stayed in your embrace, as the time passed. Having small affections during the way. Kisses and sweet words were exchanged. Catching up with the last few days you both stayed.
“I love you” Lena whispered in your lips after a long kiss. Both of you entangled in the other, having an intimacy that not only happens in bed but when you two are together.
You stumbled and looked at her astonished by her confession. Your heart busting out of your chest as you were left without any words. Lena looked at you scared, now with a frightened glance of your reaction as she tried to pull away from you.
You noticed her change, and immediately kissed putting all your love in there. Melting in her embrace as she pulled you closer. After the breathtaking kiss, leaving you both without breath, panting looking at each other, you spoke softly as you left small kisses around her face. “I love you too”
Lena's reaction was to pull you into a caring kiss, just to be broken by both of your smiles as you both looked into each other's eyes. With eyes and hearts full of love the two of you claimed at the same time “I love you”
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andrea-lyn · 3 years
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The Recs (Less Travelled)
I’m excited to bring you the first installment of my ‘roads less travelled’ recs! I will be doing another round of this, probably once the Ted Lasso fic tag hits about 25 pages, and then I’ll also grab a couple more fandoms to collect in there! 
The Rules:
Each fandom/pairing was sorted on Archive of Our Own by completed works. Anything recced here was not in the first ten pages when sorted by kudos at the time of reccing. There may be some more well-known authors on this list, but the specific fics I’ve picked are ones that didn’t crack that top ten or just didn’t get much traction and I think deserve it, so hopefully I have also balanced it out with other under the radar (and still great!) works. As ever, I have a pinned post of my other recs (none have been duplicated from there), so you can also check those out! Under the cut you’ll find 10 recs in each fandom for:
Raven Cycle
Roswell New Mexico
The Old Guard
Inception
Star Trek (mainly Kirk/McCoy)
The Raven Cycle
savor all the little pieces by littlelionvanz
“Since when do you garden?”
Ronan snorted, “Since I grew up on a fucking farm, genius. Jesus who gave you permission to pursue higher education.”
the old grip of the familiar by littleseal
"There is a single black feather and a printed out picture of Gansey, Blue and Cheng standing in front of some fucking monument Ronan didn’t care enough to remember the name of. Gansey sent it to Ronan’s phone some time ago, but it sat in his messages until Adam picked it up and grinned at it so hard that, one afternoon later, Ronan cursed and kicked and glared his old printer back to life in order to print it out.
Fuck, he thinks, I’m in love with a hoarder."
Adam collects things. Ronan is in love with him.
No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin by gansey_is_our_king
Ronan Lynch has wanted to kiss Adam Parrish for a long time.
(alternately titled: four times that Ronan could have kissed Adam)
Cheers to Another Seven Years! by skyermirth
Adam left Henrietta for Harvard and never returned. Now, seven years has passed, and an unexpected work assignment has brought him back to a place and people he hardly recognizes.
Row, row, row your boat by emmerrr
“What. Why are you smiling at me,” he says suspiciously.
Adam shrugs. “You’re cute.”
“I’m not cute, I’m terrifying.”
“Terrifyingly cute,” Adam says.
and now the world is ours to take / and every single move is ours to make by thatlittleblackcat
"Adam was the scientist, Ronan was the data, and Orphan Girl was the key that explained the strange outliers that Ronan presented, his previously unexplainable actions."
//
Adam sorts out his feelings, Ronan helps him, Gansey is the number one dad friend, Blue is the number one mom friend and Henry tries to make Ronan smile. Otherwise known as the story of how Orphan Girl became Opal.
All These Things You Make Me Feel by SilverOpals394
It was late. Adam could feel the long day catching up to him as he left Boyd’s, all his energy exhausted. When he started his car, the tape deck whirred to life once more. He sighed and raised his hand to turn it off, but before he did a soft melody began to play.
AU in which the mixtape Ronan made for Adam only plays the murder squash song until Adam realizes he's in love with Ronan, too.
Ways to Communicate by Jalules
Blue Sargent reflects on an early memory (and gets busy with her boyfriends.)
(The two things are related, trust me.)
Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms by actuallyronanlynch
“You wanna tell me why I had to hear from Henry Cheng that my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.
“You don’t have a cellphone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”
arts and crafts and the inevitability of death by sunshineinthestorm
Adam comes to the public library in search of a study spot, not a boyfriend. 
But it must be his lucky day—because he ends up with a bit of both.
 Roswell New Mexico
a conversation between insignificant others by Bellakitse
“Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"
“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement.
***
Forrest and Maria share a drink and a conversation and start a friendship.
Own Personal Hell by BeStillMySlashyHeart
Now that Isobel's getting the hang of her telekinesis, Michael decides to test out his telepathic abilities. It backfires. Badly. Now Michael's trapped inside his own mind and only one person can break him out.
Drop the Hammer by brightloveee
Max makes a new friend at the shooting range, who turns out to be even more bad-ass than he expected.
(Takes place mid-S1)
Boys Like You by forgadgetsandgizmos
Curly, dirty blond hair (the mere description ‘curly’ felt like an injustice) twisted in every direction off his head, a sharp contrast with the scruff darkening his strong jawline and scowl-ridden face.
Alex made a mental note to compliment Maria on her excellent taste in men.
Or, Alex has coffee with Maria's one-night stand, a man who he definitely does not have a crush on.
let's exchange the experience by lostin_space
Michael decides they need to quarantine.
OR
Michael floods Alex with love and care over and over and over.
This Is Hardcore by Anonymous
Michael makes a proposal. Alex accepts. Michael wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
i don't know what to think (but i think of supernovas) by Milzilla
michael discovers that the console can talk. then, he discovers it can do far more than that.
iridescence on skin by Lire_Casander
In a world where (almost) everyone has a tattoo on their right wrist with one set of coordinates that point to the place where their soulmate is born, Alex thought he wouldn't be any different. He couldn't be more mistaken.
He has two.
The Real Thing by elliebird
Max checks on Michael the morning after Michael saves Max’s ass from Wyatt Long and his dumbass buddies. He sees more than he’s supposed to.
Written for a Tumblr anon who one of their friends walking in on them or anyone of them finding out about Michael and Alex in an interesting way 
Sundering by romancandles 
“You know it was just an Air Force balloon, right?” says Alex.
Michael smirks. “That’s what they want you to think,” he says, with a wink.
The Old Guard
Peer Reviewed by ishandahalf
[From:] Journal of Medieval Studies ([email protected])
[Subject:] Ad-hoc note from the editor
I have noticed an uncommon level of animosity in your responses to your reviewers (or rather, one reviewer in particular). I am writing to ask if you would please do your best to keep your interactions civil. In fairness, I have also sent a similar request to the reviewer you seem to have this friction with. I trust you will both try and remain more professional in the future.
Again, thank you for submitting your work to this journal.
Sincerely,
James Copley, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
Journal of Medieval Studies
An (accidental) academic epistolary romance as (inadvertently) documented via a (theoretically) rigorously blinded peer review process.[citation needed]
third for a word and the song keeps going Macremae
It was honestly shaping up to be a pretty uneventful year before the Vatican got on Nicky’s bad side.
Or: three times in 2008 that the team genuinely thought about killing Nicky if only to get him to shut up about the changes to the Catholic English Mass and his unrelenting opinions on them, and one time Nile did.
Apex Predators In Island Ecosystems (Freeman et al., in press) by Sixthlight
Palaeobotany PhD student Nile Freeman and her supervisor Joe al-Kaysani are invited to billionaire Stephen Merrick’s new project – a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong?
This Rough Magic by Marivan
When Joe came to Scotland to study the sea, he did not expect to also encounter a beautiful man claiming that A. he’s a selkie and B. they’re married because Joe picked up his scarf.
It sounds like a fairy tale and that’s a problem. Because Joe’s a scientist. And selkies don’t exist.
Wars for the broken by Yuliares
Five years into his exile, Booker is joined by a companion he never expected to meet. Together, they try to work on healing.
Sometimes they go down to the sewers just so she can scream and scream. “I like to hear it echo,” she explains. “Underwater, you can’t hear anything. Here, at least I can be heard.”
“I don’t feel like a warrior anymore,” she tells him, throwing bread crumbs at pigeons. “I feel broken.”
“You’re still a warrior,” he says roughly. “This is still fighting.”
a good (eighth) impression by deanniker
Over the next few months, Joe runs into Nicky every so often at the farmer’s market. Some weekends Nicky doesn’t make it, because of his work schedule - Joe doesn’t understand it because he doesn’t ask, though he does start to recognize when one of those missing weekends is coming up because Nicky will stock up on things with longer shelf-life. When they do run into each other, they make small talk and move through the stalls together.
Joe doesn’t mention it to Lykon when he stops by, because it is kind of weird, that Lykon’s ex-boyfriend texts Joe things like - If you’re here, the apples look particularly good this week and thank you for that recipe, I did not know what I was going to do with that much couscous
Or,
Joe wouldn't usually consider starting anything with his best friend's ex, but as long as they keep it casual, it shouldn't be weird... right?
get back to where you once belonged by tenderjock
Nile takes a sip of her cappuccino and closes her eyes.
(Booker and Nile get that coffee. Life happens, along the way.)
a house; a home by mehm
“Is this a kidnapping?” Joe asks as Nicky checks both their seat belts. “Like, I don’t mind. It’s just not quite what I expected for my birthday.”
In which Joe gets a birthday surprise, because that’s the stuff you have time for when you and the love of your life become mortal at the same time.
the ties that bind by damaskrose
“There’s a story I heard many times,” Andy begins, “in the Mediterranean. Threads of fate and three sisters. One to spin, one to measure, and one to cut.”
Clutter And Croutons by flawedamythyst
Joe and Nicky have an argument, and then Nicky talks to Nile about what it really means to be in a relationship for 900 years.
Inception
My Big Fat Slightly Annoying Wedding by jibrailis
Arthur and Eames elope for ~tax reasons. Certain people in their lives are not happy at the lack of a wedding.
Remember Sydney by pathera
When Eames shambles into the safe house outside of London, he finds a red light blinking on the phone.
For the inception_kink prompt:
Arthur is on a plane which is about to crash. No way anyone is going to survive. Instead of panicking he calmly calls the team's office and gets the answering machine. He hangs up before the plane crashes.
Give me Arthur's last message to the team.
 (TW: Character Death / Angst)
Of Such Deceitfulness and Suavity by delires
In which emotions manifest themselves in unusual ways.
YO, K2tog (it's like a code) by lazulisong
“Oh my God,” moans Arthur. “I’ve paid less for Somnacin. Good Somnacin.” A horrible thought strikes him. “How much is the yarn --”
“I want you to have an unguarded reaction,” Eames tells him, and pulls him up from the floor.
(They run an extraction on a knitter.)
hit the ground running by orphan_account
"I travelled halfway around the world for you. I dealt with the French for you."
Valley by wldnst
It's an old story: a knight, a prince, a kingdom in peril.
If This Is Rain Let It Fall On Me and Drown Me by Brangwen
We used to be so brave, Eames thought. Of the two of them, Arthur had always been the more fearless.
a gentle familiarity by jollypuppet
Two weeks later, Eames is on his doorstep with bad Italian takeout and a grin, and Arthur tells him he can sleep on the couch.
Your Crisis Cannot Be Completed As Dialed by sevenimpossiblethings
Arthur doesn't do snow, Ariadne is determined to be as Midwestern as possible, and blizzards make cell phone service unreliable.
Let’s Say I Do (I Do) by xsilverdreamsx
There were, perhaps some things worse that this, Arthur thinks, as he glares at the letter in his hand with his name printed clearly in bold ink, indicating his presence in two weeks for his esteemed marriage to one William H. Eames, III, at St. Catherine's Church in London, England.
Star Trek (predominantly Kirk/McCoy)
Show the World That Something Good Can Work by knune
Leonard McCoy is a doctor, not a personal assistant, and maybe that's why he can't stand working for Jim Kirk.
It's in the little things by winterover
Bones is bemused by a persistent secret admirer.
"Wedding" Away with It by pendrogon
One morning, Bones wakes up and he's single. By the same afternoon, he's married to Jim Kirk for Arbitrary Fic Reasons(TM).
How Long Will You Stay (For Your Whole Life) by withthepilot
Jim Kirk, deputy director of the Enterprise parks and recreation department, sees all of his hard work fall to pieces when budget specialist Leonard McCoy arrives from the state capital to cut Jim's budget and threaten the livelihoods of his colleagues. But thanks to a major parks project, Leonard finds a place in the department, as well as in Jim's life—and when all is said and done, Jim doesn't want him to leave.
All-Time Favorite by mardia
What to do when your best friend suddenly starts making new friends. 
Joy Ride by Cards_Slash
While running for their lives from an alien species Kirk had accidentally enraged, they come across a car. And well, if you were to come across a car while being chased by aliens that wanted you dead, and you possessed some lingering knowledge of how to drive a car similar to said car, you would have decided to drive it toward the nearest cliff too.
Also a gunfight.
Syncytia by epistolic
He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – and second, and third, and fourth – big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.
Renovation by canistakahari
Jim has a whammy put on him by an alien death ray and he suddenly craves domesticity. He's crazy with longing to shop at space!Ikea and get potted bamboo and he starts looking into adopting AND HE HATES HIMSELF AND CANNOT CONTROL THE SHIT. Luckily, McCoy is drunk all the time and plays house.
17:08 by butterflycell
She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.
The Honey of Hybla by shrift
"Bones, prepare to be my date."
46 notes · View notes
hxroic-wxlls · 2 years
Text
Advent Cirno Info:
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Bio: An Ex-SOLDIER from Shinra, self titled as ‘Girl of Justice’. Works dutifully to protect Gensokyo with her Bastard Cirno Sword, and has a strong sense of responsibility. Reckless in the way that she’ll always charge head first into combat against any foe that threatens the lives or peace of those around her. For a bonus tidbit, she gets incredibly angered when called ‘Cat Tongue’.
Extras:
Taller than regular Cirno by half a foot, standing at 4′4″
Noticeably far more relaxed and much less mischievous. Her ‘strongest’ claims haven’t changed that much, but she says it for the sake of showing that she can protect everyone, rather than to just boost her ego like in the past.
SWORDS.
She’s quite a bit more powerful than her normal counterpart, being able to hold her own with Youkai and humans like Marisa, Reisen, and Mokou on much more even grounds. 
Relations:
Mei Ling Lockhart: The hostess of a tea shop and acts like a big sister for Cirno and Reisen. She works hard to keep her allies safe with her martial arts skills, which are quite deadly.
Reisen Udongein: A friend and partner of Cirno, and an Ex-Chief Executive Scientist of Shinra. She is a gunner with a rabbit shaped gun, and despite her intelligent looks, she has a good sense of humor.
Letty Fair (Letty Whiterock in OG!Verse): Cirno’s mentor and the one who Cirno aspires to be like the most. Has since gone missing after abandoning Shinra and Cirno still has no clue where her mentor has gone. She only hopes that Letty is still okay, wherever she is.
3 notes · View notes
thebibliomancer · 3 years
Text
Essential Avengers: Hawkeye #1-4
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September, 1983
Listen to the Mockingbird
Now for something completely different.
-OR- Further justifying why the posts are titled Essential Avengers when I’m just going to put a colon and then an Avengers to get Essential Avengers: Avengers. Its because sometimes its not Avengers!
Sometimes its Hawkeye.
Since I’m doing four issues in one post, I’m not going to go as in-depth as I usually do.
So, last times on Avengers as related to Hawkeye: Hawkeye was cut from the Avengers due to a limited roster. He eventually got a job as the security chief at Cross Technological Enterprises with the same lack of restraint that got him a job with the Avengers. He’s been doing that for a while, since pre-200. Recently the Avengers needed beef up their roster and Cap and Iron Man convinced him to rejoin, which Hawkeye has done while also keeping his security chief job.
During an Avengers mission TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT, he broke his leg and was put on medical leave from the team. He got one of the CTE people to build him a rocket-sled that he could putt around in. Judging by the lack of cast, his leg is better but he’s still using the cool rocket-sled.
And that’s where we are. Hawkeye has a cool rocket-sled and is actually holding down an actual job at Cross Technological Enterprises. He’s seems to still be on leave from the team despite his leg being better.
The miniseries starts with Hawkeye congratulating himself on getting a cool rocket-sled, even though it cost all of his money.
Hawkeye: “‘Bad guys beware -- Hawkeye’s in the air!’ Hmmm, not the worst slogan an aerial archer could have... but close.”
At least he’s self-aware. Some days that’s all you can ask of Hawkeye!
He spots three suspicious characters suspiciously sneaking and swoops down on the rocket-sled, taking them out with ease with his totally sweet trick arrows.
Hey, note to comic makers of our modern day. Trick arrows are sweet. I don’t need to see people getting shot in the eyes with arrows when I can see like a net arrow or whatever.
The three suspicious characters are actually CTE employees that Hawkeye asked to come in on their off time to help him get a hang of archering from the rocket-sled. Including the scientist, Jorge, who built it for him!
Wow, Hawkeye!
Jorge at least was happy to do build the thing because he feels like his talents are wasted at CTE and Hawkeye encourages him to go into business for himself.
Which is probably the kind of thing that’s going to get Hawkeye a reprimand but hey, good looking out, Hawkguy.
One of the other CTE employees asks why Hawkeye uses a bow and arrow instead of... a gun. Why not just shoot people with a gun.
Hawkeye: “The bow is quieter, more versatile, and in my hands the deadliest weapon in the state. Or hadn’t you noticed, Howie?”
He doesn’t mention that its also more believably non-lethal than if he were going around with a gun. Because Hawkeye says its the deadliest weapon in the state but he’s also a huge proponent of “superheroes don’t kill!”
But point being, you can buy a comic book guy pinning people to walls with arrows or using trick arrows or shooting weapons out of their hands without killing anyone way more than you could if Hawkeye was just using a magnum.
Also, this:
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I believe he is literally flexing on that dude.
CTE’s new public relations lady Sheila Danning shows up for a date with Hawkeye because I guess there’s no rule about dating co-workers. Or at least if they’re not in the same department?
Having a woman showing positive attention to Hawkeye is his cue to have a little internal monologue that’s a little bit sad.
Hawkeye: Man, this is the life! A ridiculously high-paying job, a fast machine between my legs, and a foxy lady who’s nuts about me. What more could a guy want? Until Sheila came along, I thought I was put on this world for women to dump on. Women... like the Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get them to care for me like I did for them. Sheila’s different. Even though we’ve been seeing each other for only a month, what we have is special, real, like nothing I’ve ever known.
I don’t want to ruin his good times but I will remind the audience that he once rage-quit the Avengers because Scarlet Witch didn’t want to kiss him.
Anyway, Hawkeye is pretty enamored. He’s even thinking maybe it’s time he settles down.
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He takes her back to his place and they start dancing to some Mantovani as he recaps his entire backstory to her.
In fairness. In faiiiirness. She asked.
But you should know the drill. Clint and Barney ran away from the orphanage to join the circus. Swordsman saw potential in Clint and trained him in archery and Clint began seeing Swordsman as a father figure so threw himself into training in hopes that Swordsman would be proud of him.
Which is funny in an odd way because there’s some same-face going on and Swordsman looks just like Tony Stark!
I wonder if Clint ever slipped up and called Tony dad and had to cover it up by continuing into a daddio.
Anyway, he caught Swordsman with stolen money and Swordmaster left him in a broken heap and skipped town when Clint wouldn’t promise to keep quiet.
Later, he saw the adulation that Iron Man got when he flew over the circus and thought wait I can do that. Got a costume and tried to become a hero. Oops, tripped into being a supervillain and enemy of Iron Man. Annd then joined the Avengers.
Hawkeye: “I’ve done many a stint with my Avenging buddies, but I think I’m finally ready to wing it solo for good. Much as I like ‘em, they cramp my style a bit too much.”
Sheila: “Fascinating story, Clint. Looks like I’ve got a real self-made man. How about if I try to unmake you a little?”
And then they’re about to do sexy times when Clint’s emergency beeper goes off. Because somehow the emergency always knows when you’re horny or mid-ablution.
Hawkeye has to suit back up and head out back to work
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Hah.
But anyway, he catches a lady in a very sleevesy costume prowling around and during some back and forth and further back and forth pinned you no pinned you action, she introduces herself as Mockingbird, an ex-shield agent and freelance crimebuster (I think that means superhero?).
Some underworld contacts of hers led her to investigate Cross Technological Enterprises under suspicion that CTE is manufacturing mass mind control technology right under a certain Avenger slash archer’s nose. I.e., Hawkeye.
She wants him to lead her to warehouse 10 but their conversation is interrupted by a security night shift who rush in and surround Mockingbird despite Hawkeye ordering prior to the action scene to let him handle it.
They cuff Mockingbird and take her away but oddly claim that they thought Hawkeye sent the signal for them to charge in.
Hawkeye is perplexed and vexed wondering if there’s anything to Mockingbird’s story. He doesn’t know the full extent of what CTE manufactures and there was some shady business in Marvel Fanfare #3 where a vice-president was using CTE facilities to manufacture a bomb.
Mockingbird’s story bugs him so much that he returns home to Sheila and tells her that there’s something he has to take care of and sends her home in a cab.
He returns to Cross on his sweet rocket-sled and investigates warehouse 10, finding it empty but with a lot of fresh tracks in the dust, like something was moved in only the past hour or so.
Also, a bunch of security staff show up and point guns at him.
That’s also a red flag.
When reminding them he’s their boss doesn’t settle them down, he rolls to the floor to shoot out the lights like a cool action guy and then starts taking them out in the dark just by shooting whenever he hears one of the idiots make a sound.
But one of the guards has Sheila hostage even though she was supposed to have gone home so Hawkeye has to surrender.
The guards toss him into a pit with Mockingbird. Just an oubliette that CTE has on premise, as ya do.
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Hawkeye demands to speak with Sheila so he knows she’s alright and whoops she’s in on it.
Sheila Danning, heartbreaker: “Barton -- you stupid fool! Why did you have to be so conscientious? It was my job to keep you distracted so you’d have no time to notice the operation Cross had been contracted for -- a very costly, deadly operation.”
Hawkeye, heartbroken: “What are you talking about, Sheila? Are you saying they paid you to -- to --”
Sheila: “Yes, they paid me. I was pretty convincing, wasn’t I? You never had the slightest idea that I could sooner love a dog than a cornball Romeo with delusions of adequacy like you.”
Hawkeye: “You can’t mean that! They must’ve brainwashed you, poisoned your mind against me! Or -- or maybe you’re not Sheila at all, an imposter, or a robot -- !”
Sheila: “Don’t kid yourself, Barton. I’m the one and only. The woman who could barely keep from snickering when you told her your carnival story this evening.”
Ouch.
I like to mock Hawkeye because he deserves some light ribbing but ouch, she slipped a knife right between those ribbings.
That poor dolt was thinking about proposing and she was paid to distract him by feigning interest. Oof ouch.
Anyway, since CTE has suddenly become Bond-esque, they start dumping liquid industrial waste into the pit to drown and/or melt Hawkeye and Mockingbird.
The stuff is like acid but Hawkeye is kind of wallowing in being dumped and doesn’t care.
Hawkeye: “I ain’t moving. All my life I’ve been dumped on. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”
Mockingbird tells him that if he lets himself be melted by industrial waste because he feels sorry for himself, his ex wins. But that doesn’t move him so she has to mock him into action. This is what she was named for!
Mockingbird: “So this is what they taught you in the Avengers? What a bunch of jerks! They should see you now. I’ll bet you let them down in a pinch, too. Whenever your feelings get hurt.”
Hawkeye: “SHUT UP! I’m gonna get us out of here, lady. Then I’m going to kill Sheila for what she did to me. Then you’ll get yours, too.”
Mockingbird: “Sure, sure. Get us out first.”
Hah, I like Mockingbird.
And I like Hawkeye too. He makes good use of what he has to escape this Bond-esque trap. He doesn’t have his bow or his arrows but he keeps a fifty foot length of cord in his boot and spare arrowheads in his tunic. He calls his rocket-sled with the remote control, ties the cord to a spare rocket arrow-tip and rockets himself and Mockingbird out of the pit and up to his rocket-sled.
Then Hawkeye says he has to go attend some private business and Mockingbird is like cool, I’ll wait for you and hops onto a roof.
Hawkeye rams the rocket-sled through the window of Sheila Danning’s office and jump kicks the guards she has with her and confronts her.
Hawkeye: “You hurt me, Sheila... More than anything ever hurt in my life.”
Sheila: “Stay back, Hawkeye! I - I --”
Hawkeye: “I could kill you for what you did to me. But I won’t. I... can’t. I just don’t care anymore... about you or about whatever scheme Cross is up to! Give me my bow and quiver back and I’ll go.”
Tangentially, like an anime, his shirt is a lot flimsier than his pants and melted off in the acid while his pants are tattered but intact. If only they made shirts out of pants...
And if only they made any outfit out of lady outfit. Mockingbird’s outfit has a few holes and tatters but her whole top didn’t dissolve like Hawkeye’s did!
Sheila does give Hawkeye his archery stuff but warns him that he Knows Too Much and Cross will come after him.
Kind of a weird flex to pull on AN AVENGER WHO KNOWS THOR but you do you, Cross Technological Enterprises.
Hawkeye just takes off on his sweet rocket-sled without responding, zooming past where he left Mockingbird who has to jump onto the moving rocket-sled because he does not slow down for her.
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Mockingbird: “Got your business taken care of, sport?”
Hawkeye, crying a little: “Shut up, just shut up. If you hadn’t shown up, none of this could have happened.”
Oof.
That’s the hurt speaking buddy. Ignorance wouldn’t have been bliss here because as soon as Cross didn’t need to distract you any longer, Sheila probably would have found some excuse to dump you.
Also, their scheme was asinine! They don’t have other facilities? Just build the mind control doohickey somewhere else instead of paying someone to distract Hawkeye with horny!
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October, 1983
POINT BLANK!
So after having his heart broken and wallowing in some acid sludge in the last issue, Hawkeye is in a bad place. Emotionally. And also geographically.
He’s standing on some abandoned railroad tracks under the West Side Highway and shooting arrows at a bullseye he crudely drew on a cement block.
And Good Archer Hawkeye has not hit a single bullseye because of all the emotional turmoil. Also, since he’s shooting at concrete, he’s breaking all of his arrows.
He’s also wearing his no-shirt acid-tattered costume.
And he’s been here for 42 hours without sleeping, eating, or managing to hit a bullseye.
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He’s in a bad place.
So he passes out and he’s eventually found by some random street toughs who recognize him as an Avenger (although they think his name is Nighthawk womp womp) and decide ‘hey lets kick his ass and do him a murder maybe.’
Hawkeye comes to, as one might when people are kicking them in the head, and manages to nail three bullseyes on the three toughs he didn’t kick unconscious.
Hawkeye: Three bullseyes. Two kayos. Five sleezos in dreamland. Thanks, creeps. You gave me a reason to go on living. I’m just not sure what it is!
But now Hawkeye is at a loss of what to actually do. He refuses to go to the Avengers for help because blah blah blah muh pride. He can’t go and “mooch” off of them. So he decides to go check out the apartment he had through Cross Technological Enterprises and see whether they’ve cleared him out or not.
They have.
Everything he had to his name except the clothes on his back and bow in his hand gone. Arrow-making tools and spare costumes gone too.
But he also finds Mockingbird waiting for him.
Mockingbird: “Hello, Hawk. Can I buy you some breakfast?”
Hawkeye: “MOCKINGBIRD! Lady, you’re not one of my favorite people, but I know a good offer when I hear one.”
A free breakfast is a free breakfast.
Mockingbird takes Hawkeye back to her apartment and apologizes for blowing up his life but also says that it would have happened eventually anyway even had she never come along.
Which, yeah, you can only pay a person to pretend to love someone they hate for so long before the mask slips.
She also offers to mend his costume. Not sure how she’s thinking. Its not torn. Its half gone.
Hawkeye says yeah sure but hey why don’t you narrate your ENTIRE BACKSTORY.
So Mockingbird introduces herself as Barbara Morse, Bobbi to her friends.
She was a biology whiz at Georgia Tech and went with her favorite professor when she signed on to a government project to recover the super-soldier serum that made Captain America so super.
SHIELD was one of the sponsors of the project so Bobbi got to know several SHIELD agents and realized ‘hey being a spy sounds AMAZING’ and signed up with SHIELD’s spy school.
She graduated top of her class and was sent on a mission to track down Ka-Zar who SHIELD wanted to hire.
Mockingbird: “I found the jungle man all right. Even got involved with him, if you know what I mean. But things never quite worked out between us.”
Oh my god, what a power move to brag about nailing discount-Tarzan while recapping your life story.
Later, she investigated SHIELD itself at the request of a Congressman under the identity as the Huntress. But not the crossbow one. But because of her actions, she gained the reputation as a traitor to SHIELD.
So she changed her name to Mockingbird and took the evidence of corrupt agents to Nick Fury. And got shot a couple times in the attempt.
She had to spend six months recovering and after turned down a SHIELD promotion to go solo.
Mockingbird: “Not that I had anything against S.H.I.E.L.D... I just got used to operating alone. It wasn’t long after I got back into circulation that I came across the lead that took me to Cross Tech and I bumped into you. So that’s my lifestory in a nutshell, Hawk.”
I don’t know why I thought Mockingbird debuted in this series because she has a lot of backstory here. She showed up in Astonishing Tales #6 unnamed, was introduced as Dr. Barbara Morse in Astonishing Tales #12, was introduced in her Huntress (but not that one) identity in Marvel Super Action #1, and even Mockingbird debuted in Marvel Team-Up #95! Geez, Bobbi!
Annnnnd then Mockingbird realizes that Hawkeye fell asleep on her while she was recapping her entire life!
Bobbi doesn’t hold it against him, realizing how exhausted he must have been.
She tucks him in and heads off to go pick up some supplies to fix his costume.
Later, someone picks the locks to the apartment door and silently comes up and puts a gun to the sleeping Hawkeye’s head.
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Perhaps it is instinct -- a survival sense honed in hundreds of life-and-death struggles... But somehow Clint Barton feels the cool gun metal at his temple, instantly recognizes it for what it is -- and reacts.
(We actually see a hint of this dingus at Hawkeye’s apartment when he meets Mockingbird there. Implying that he somehow followed them from there to Bobbi’s apartment. Somehow. Even though Hawkeye and Bobbi took Hawkeye’s sweet rocket-sled. Good tracking, this guy.)
Hawkeye manages to dive away from the guy’s gunfire and hide behind one of those tables that looks like a giant spool. He weirdly realizes that the assassin’s gun isn’t making any sound when he fires and the bullets aren’t making any noise when they hit.
He’s in a tough spot unable to reach his bow in time when Mockingbird comes back to save Hawkeye, flipping the assassin and telling Hawkeye to grab his gun.
The assassin jumps out the window rather than deal with the both of them (Bobbi speculates its because she’s not on his hit list).
Hawkeye tests the gun after and discovers that its not silenced which means that the silencer was all in the guy’s suit, muting all the sounds he makes.
He dubs the guy Silencer and he has a pretty neat gimmick but doesn’t seem to ever appear again after this issue.
Shame. Imagine this guy against Daredevil.
Anyway, Mockingbird also managed to make Hawkeye a new outfit while she was gone.
Mockingbird: “Here -- better put this on. Half-naked men with guns make it hard for me to concentrate.”
Hawkeye: “Sure.”
God. Hawkeye’s non-reaction to that blatant flirt makes me laugh. He may as well have Saitama meme’d.
So the new outfit.
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The blue is a lot darker now. The dangly part of the tunic is a lot less dangly now. And the outfit has some asymmetrical sleeves. Also, its not entirely clear on this shot but the gloves are weird. They don’t cover the sides of his fingers. I don’t know if that’s an archery thing or what and I don’t know if that’s going to be a detail that lasts once other artists start drawing this costume.
All in all, not a bad looking new outfit. Its better than that time he didn’t wear pants.
Later that night, Hawkeye figures that they need to return to Cross and figure out who hired them to build that mind-control thing. But, they’ll need help getting back into Cross.
(Hey, I just realized. Hawkeye was double Cross’d by his employer. Hah.)
They go to visit Jorge Latham, the guy who built a sweet rocket-sled for Hawkeye so probably the guy he trusts the most now.
Jorge: “What happened to you, man? We got a memo two days ago that you were fired for incompetency, and I haven’t seen you since!”
Aw man, insult to injury! They told everyone that Hawkeye was fired because he sucked too hard!
Hawkeye tells Jorge the story, in brief, about how Cross is up to something, gets information on where the special projects are done, and tells Jorge to maybe get his resume in order in case he accidentally shuts the whole company down in the course of blowing this thing wide open.
Jorge is a lot more chill about learning he might be unemployed soon than I think a lot of other people would be. Although he had already expressed he wasn’t really satisfied in his job.
Hawkeye: “The info he gave us is going to save us a lot of hassle. Sure is good to have a few folks you can trust.”
Mockingbird: “You still don’t quite trust me, do you, Hawkeye? Even after I saved your life.”
Hawkeye: “No offense, lady. But it’s going to take me a while before I can fully trust any woman again.”
Geez, really hope that doesn’t last. He already teetered into disrespect of women without becoming a full-on misogynist.
Drink your respect women juice, Hawkeye.
The two return to Cross Technological Enterprises and Hawkeye uses his electronic security neutralizer arrowhead to neutralize the security on a window so they can jimmy it open and get inside.
.... Why do you need an electronic security neutralizer arrow? The way he uses it is tracing the circuit in the window and I don’t think you could shoot an arrow in a way that did that. And if you did shoot an arrow at a security system in a window, I think you’d break the window and set off the alarm?
What a mystery.
Hawkeye has never been in the special projects department but it doesn’t take a genius to find some filing cabinets.
Mockingbird: “Locked, of course. It also doesn’t take an electronic gizmo to open a locked file. Just a hairpin. See?”
Hawkeye: “Showoff.”
This would be banter if Hawkeye didn’t look so somber.
But Hawkeye gets to be useful too when he pulls out his....... penlight arrowhead?
WHY WOULD YOU EVER NEED TO FIRE A FLASHLIGHT? WHAT PURPOSE DOES THAT SERVE??
Mockingbird: “I just don’t know how I ever got along without you and your handy tools, Mr. H.”
DON’T ENCOURAGE HIM
The Silencer guy sneaks up on the duo as they’re snooping the files and something cues Hawkeye in to swivel around and fire an electro-stun arrow. Couldn’t have been a sound so lets say air flow?
The electro-stun doesn’t stun the Silencer so him and Hawkeye end up grappling right out the window. Because that’s the kind of life Hawkeye leads.
Luckily the rocket-sled (although he’s changed the name to sky-mobile by this point) was hovering right outside so the two wind up grappling on it as it rockets around the CTE compound.
The two wind up falling off the sky-mobile and onto a smokestack... God, its starting to be like one of those giant chicken fights...
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Anyway, the Silencer catches the edge but Hawkeye misses and goes plummeting into a smokestack, hopefully not to find a Spider-Man skeleton.
The Silencer drops his guard to try to figure out how the heck he’s going to get down from here and Hawkeye reemerges, yanking the Silencer down and pulling himself back up.
Not sure if the implication is that Hawkeye killed him. Hawkeye is famously vehemently ‘Avengers don’t kill!’ and the Silencer isn’t confirmed dead but also never shows up again.
Hawkeye summons the sky-sled (the caption changed the name on me again) and rockets back to where he left Mockingbird and in the meantime she’s found all the information they need to find who hired Cross to build the thing.
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Hawkeye: “Run into any trouble?”
Mockingbird: “Not really.”
Hah. Apparently she beat up a room full of guards while he was gone. Good on you, Mockingbird.
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November, 1983
Beating the ODDS
Pretty neat cover.
Also, pretty neat logo. I didn’t mention it earlier but yeah you have a neat logo, Hawkeye.
Mockingbird and Hawkeye return to her apartment after breaking into Cross Technological last issue.
Something that they may have done well to ponder is whether maybe it wasn’t a safe HQ anymore if that Silencer guy was able to track them there.
What I’m getting at is that there are two more assassins - Oddball and Bombshell - watching from an adjacent rooftop as the heroes head inside.
And then the apartment explodes.
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Hawkey and Mockingbird manage to escape the explosion though because Mockingbird never sweeps and noticed footprints in the dust and Hawkeye used a thermite-tipped bomb-sniffing arrow.
... Okay, that gimmick arrow is valid.
Mockingbird watches her apartment burn “in increasingly sullen fascination” for two hours before Hawkeye suggests maybe coming back after everything is cooled down.
Alas, the sky-mobile was destroyed in the explosion. Alas, alas, we barely knew ye and now you’re gone.
Mockingbird has an odd sense of what’s romantic because she decides that her apartment burning down and losing all of her possessions is.
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Wow, she’s been friendly and flirty with Hawkeye but she’s downright into the lug. Right during the one period in his life when he wouldn’t enjoy that. How’s that for bad timing?
Also, someone is clearly shipping these two.
Mockingbird has assorted appearances before this miniseries so I wonder who got the idea to throw her together with Hawkeye. I’ve heard rumors that it was to copy the Green Arrow/Black Canary pairing. I don’t know if that’s true or just an assumption.
Anyway, Hawkeye also finds an 8-ball in the wreckage which is odd and a clue because Mockingbird didn’t have one of those.
The two heroes realize that Cross obviously sent more hitmen after them so they got to figure out this plot before they get got.
Mockingbird withdraws the rest of her money from an ATM (only $97. Freelance superheroing just doesn’t pay...) and Hawkeye insists on spending some of that money on some arrows since he’s down to his last one.
Mockingbird: “I thought you needed specially made arrows.”
Hawkeye: “My new modular arrowheads fit on any target arrow... get ‘em at any sporting-goods store.”
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This issue is a gift.
And since they now don’t have enough money to take a cab to where they’re going, they get on the subway.
Where in one of those amazingly contrived comic coincidences, Steve Rogers Captain America happens to be riding the same car!
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Cap recognizes that Hawkeye is on a mission and offers to drop everything to help him.
You’re a cool guy, Cap.
Hawkeye has concerns.
Hawkeye: Aw, no. Cap is Mr. Avengers himself. I know I’m at the end of my resources, maybe way out of my depth, but if I let Cap in on it, he’ll wind up running the show... and I’ll end up on the sidelines again, just like it was back in the Avengers.
Pride goeth before something, Hawks.
Although, knowing vaguely what I know is soon upcoming, its a very timely time for Hawkeye to worry about running the show.
Hawkeye: “Ah, it’s nothing I can’t handle, old timer. Just the same old bopping the bad guys stuff.”
Cap: “I read you, soldier. Anyway, you know how to reach me if you get in a jam.”
You’re a really cool guy, Cap.
Hawkeye and Mockingbird get off at the next stop and Mockingbird grills Hawkeye about the hunky stranger, recognizing that he was probably in the superhero biz. Adding some context to Hawkeye not wanting Cap involved perhaps. Although its still a lot of dumb pride.
Hawkeye: She meets Cap in his civvies and is bowled over. No wonder I always looked like a piker around him. You know, I never realized how second rate Cap makes me feel. I’ve just go to solve this whole mess on my own. If I don’t, I may never be able to stand on my own two feet.
Anyway, then an 8-ball rolls and bonks into Hawkeye’s feet and he sees one of the assassins lurking around the corner doing him a taunt.
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This issue is a gift for out of context panels. I swear.
Hawkeye realizes Oddball is baiting him but also is the exact kind of impulsive person who takes the bait. So he runs off after Oddball.
Oddball is..... apparently a juggling based assassin. Dunno why that’s such a common thing in comics. But here we are. He’s a juggling based assassin.
Hawkeye runs on ahead after Oddball and Mockingbird gets ambushed by a nun as she follows.
Its that kind of book, I guess.
Also, the nun is the other assassin Bombshell.
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She’s got a Black Widow style wrist launcher for incendiary charges.
Hawkeye and Oddball get into an archery vs juggling based standoff, yes really, and then Oddball jumps onto a subway train, further luring Hawkeye. Who should really know better but ignores the part of his brain that some call common sense.
Oddball, by the by, is somewhat of an oddball. He’s just giggling and joking his way through this mission to kill an Avenger. He’s definitely following the maxim that if you do what you love, you don’t kill for money a day of your life. Or something.
When he jumps on the train he goes with “We’re having fun now, all rightee! Care for another shot, sport? I’ll match my speed to yours anyday and twice on Sunday. Time’s up, gotta go. Ta-ta!”
Hawkeye jumps onto the back of a departing subway train to keep up the pursuit and you know what, he seems like he’s having a good time too?
Hawkeye: Man, there’s nothing like a good chase to make me feel great about myself again. Wonder if Oddball would consent to be my regular sparring partner? Cap’s got the Red Skull, Iron Man has the Mandarin. Me, I never had anybody all my own.
He must be feeling some chemistry with this dude if he wants to make him his archnemesis after only one fight.
Although after this
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Hawkeye decides that Oddball is way too much to be his nemesis. He’s got standards, dammit!
Oddball runs off the train, pursued by archer.
Oddball: “I could pick him off any time I want. I know I can throw faster than he can shoot. But I’m having just plain too much fun to cut it short.”
Sure, guy.
Oddball and Hawkeye wind up having a stand-off in the rafters of the subway station because that’s the kind of guy Oddball is.
Hawkeye manages to pin the guy down with an arrow to his throat but while he’s been chasing an oddball, Mockingbird got her ass kicked by a bombshell.
So a distracted Hawkeye gets knocked out via bomb to the back of the head.
Bombshell catches Hawkeye as he falls from the rafters and Oddball wonders why not just let him die.
Bombshell: “I just got a call from [the boss]. He wants these two birds brought to him to use in some kind of experiment.”
And so the third issue ends with Hawkeye and Mockingbird being carried off to the perpetrators which saves some time but being brought in as prisoners is less than ideal.
Shoulda taken up Steve on his offer, Clint.
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December, 1983
“TILL DEATH DO US PART...”
I guess Hawkeye fuckin’ dies.
He sure has a lot of friends but Johnny Storm looks like he’s annoyed that he has to attend. ‘What the heck, I barely knew the guy!’
Anyway, between issues, Oddball and Bombshell have dragged Hawkeye and Mockingbird to a place and strung them up on a thing.
The place is apparently a mortuary.
And they’ve been strung up for hours judging by how their limbs feel.
The man behind it all shows himself and guy knows how to make an impression.
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Not necessarily a good one.
The cross shaped codpiece is killing me.
As is Oddball juggling in the background to remind us that he is a juggler.
Crossfire: “I am Crossfire -- master subversive, brainwasher, and entrepreneur.”
Credit where its due, that’s a funny line.
Crossfire: “In the typical fashion of someone who holds all the cards, I’m going to divulge to you more than you will need to know about me and my business...”
I want to question this but he’s too self-aware about how stupid it is. I have no room to operate here.
Here is something I WILL make fun of.
Crossfire’s real name is William Cross. He is related to the guy that founded Cross Technological Enterprises. So them screwing over Hawkeye was like a family activity.
But he’s using Cross in his codename. Like if Hawkeye was instead Bartonman. It’s a choice.
Anyway, Crossfire was a CIA agent but when he realized that his real interest lie in fomenting disorder for profit, he decided him and the CIA weren’t on the same path.
Which. Guy. Dude. Fella. No.
Crossfire also realized that superheroes would eventually get in his way so he decided that his first goal is to eliminate all costumed superheroes.
Moon Knight and the Thing thwarted a prototype over in Marvel Two-in-One #52 but Crossfire managed to get away to refine his plan.
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(For bigger)
His plan is pretty ingenious actually.
He’s going to kill Hawkeye. So far so good. Then dump his body in Central Park where it will be easily found.
The Avengers will find out about his death and have a funeral for him. And Crossfire made sure they’ll use Restwell Funeral because it has the best name! But more seriously because its the funeral parlor the superheroes used for Whizzer’s funeral and because Crossfire will make sure every other mortuary is booked.
HE’S PLANNING EVERY ANGLE.
Then at the service, he’ll activate the Undertaker machine which will send a subliminal RAGE signal to all the superheroes and they’ll fight to the death.
Crossfire: “Yes, I fully expect my lovely chapel to be thoroughly demolished. Don’t worry -- insurance will cover it.”
This is such a hilariously mundane concern.
Anyway, probably the whole funeral party won’t kill each other but it’ll thin the numbers, the survivors will forever be traumatized at what they did, and the government will crack down on superheroes.
And as for why he chose Hawkeye?
Crossfire: “I would think it was obvious, Hawkeye. You are the weakest, most vulnerable known costumed crimefighter in town.”
Ouch.
There’s planning to kill a guy as part of a larger scheme to kill all his friends and then there’s just being hurtful.
Further insulting injury? Crossfire is not just going to kill them. He’s going to make Hawkeye and Mockingbird kill each other by testing the Undertaker device on them.
That settles it. This guy is a dick.
The Restwell mortuary has a super sealed room for testing the device. Twelve inch thick concrete and steel walls and a door sealed with electronic lock. It would take even the Hulk some effort and Hawkeye and Mockingbird don’t even have their weapons.
Plus, there’s three cameras watching the room and the Undertaker speakers are hidden and durable.
Alas, Crossfire wouldn’t make a good Bond villain. He’s too not leaving a blatant way out of his death trap out of arrogance.
Hawkeye and Mockingbird get up close with their backs to the camera so they can whisper and make a plan.
Unfortunately, they can’t really think of a plan other than ‘try to resist brainwashing I guess?’
Mockingbird knows some SHIELD techniques and Hawkeye just promises he’ll try really hard to resist.
Hawkeye: “I really don’t want to hurt you. In the last couple days, I’ve actually kind of started, well, liking you.”
Aw.
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Aww.
But Crossfire is a dick still and activates THE UNDERTAKER right after they kiss.
They try to resist but yeah that plan wasn’t a plan and wasn’t even a concept. They start fighting to the death. Ironically, Bobbi “I know SHIELD techniques” Morse throws the first kick while Hawkeye is still trying to resist.
And Mockingbird is a lot better at martial arts than Hawkeye whose muscle memory keeps tripping him up into using a bow that he doesn’t actually have.
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This issue is a gift.
But yeah, Mockingbird beats the crap out of Hawkeye. Not that he doesn’t get some hits in. He even manages to surprise Crossfire who was heavily betting on Mockingbird to easily trounce his ass.
Also, during the fighting, Mockingbird manages to kick one of the cameras, jarring it so it points at the ceiling.
And then double kicks Hawkeye in the dick.
Oof.
Watching two people fight to the death, Oddball has a question. How long does the brainwashing sound effect last after being turned off?
Crossfire decides hey actually that’s an interesting thought and turns off the machine to see. Plus, for dick reasons, giving them a brief respite will “make their plight all the more poignant.”
What a dick.
The brainwashing ends almost as soon as the sound does and the two heroes stop beating the crap out of each other to be disgusted by what they were doing.
In desperation, Hawkeye finally comes up with a plan.
It’s not a good plan but he had only a couple seconds and its impressive that he has a plan at all in that brief period of lucidity.
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Hawkeye huddles into the corner that the jarred camera no longer covers and goes through his spare (mispelled as space for some reason, shrug) arrowheads and finds a hypersonic arrowhead.
And if he puts the arrowhead in his mouth and activates it, it will be really loud and drown out the ultrasound! Also, shooting hypersonic frequencies INSIDE HIS SKULL will probably be bad for his hearing but what can ya do.
Crossfire reactivates THE UNDERTAKER and Hawkeye activates the mouth arrowhead with his tongue. Which feels like a “dull knife lacerating [his] brain” but at least he doesn’t want to murder all the time.
That’s something!
(Also, it’s a neat touch but the EEEEEE of the hypersonic arrowhead covers the NNNN of the ultrasonic signal. Good SFXing.)
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With his wits about him, he can actually beat Mockingbird by using his strength advantage, closing in, and not letting her use her fancier jumpy techniques.
After beating the shit out of Mockingbird and feeling like shit for having to do it, Hawkeye tosses her to misalign another camera, and then feigns that he collapses from exhaustion.
Crossfire thinks that there’s no way that Hawkeye could play dead under the effect of the RAGE NOISE so he’s really down. He sends Oddball and Bombshell to retrieve the two heroes to examine.
While being carried like a potato sack, Hawkeye grabs one of Oddball’s odd balls and knocks out the juggler and then bonks Bombshell unconscious as well before she has a chance to react.
Then, he runs to get Crossfire before the guy has a chance to figure out what’s going on.
Except, Crossfire has cameras all over the dang place and knows what happened and decides that Hawkeye is such a resourceful, worthy foe that he deserves to die by irony.
(Hawkeye has no idea what the guy is saying because he can’t hear a thing after sticking a hypersonic arrowhead in his mouth)
Crossfire tries to kill Hawkeye with his own bow but whoops, remember when Hawkeye was flexing on that guy earlier about his bowstring having an absurd draw weight?
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Yeah.
The dingus got irony’d by his own ploy at irony.
Hawkeye ties up Crossfire, grabs his bow and arrows because they make him happy, and runs back to check on Mockingbird.
Hawkeye: “Mockingbird -- ? You with me, sweetheart? We won. I beat them. Every last bloody oen of them. Mock -- ?” She’s not breathing. I - I killed her...!
Mockingbird: “Those tears for me, sport? Aw, shucks.”
Even beaten to hell, Mockingbird gonna sass.
And then they kiss. Which strikes me as... not a good time for it? Her face is all bruised up and she’s got a little blood going on. Ah, whatever.
Awww.
An hour later, the police show up to arrest Crossfire, Oddball, and Bombshell. Presumably Mockingbird called them as Clint still cannot hear a single thing.
Which is unfortunate because Mockingbird comes over to talk and Hawkeye is like ‘geez what is she saying right now? I hope it’s not important’ and decides to get out of the conversation ASAP before she finds out he’s gone deaf and gasp pities him!
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Mockingbird: “Look, I’m not much of a joiner or anything. But I must admit that the two of us made one heckuva team. I was thinking... maybe we ought to become an item, you know what I mean? After all, you are one of the cutest --”
Hawkeye: “Yeah, well, see you around then.”
Hawkeye, you absolute fool.
THANKFULLY
Thankfully, Mockingbird isn’t the type to just go ‘wow what a jerk’ without going and ripping a person a new asshole, verbally.
So she did do that. She ran after Hawkeye and ripped him a new asshole, verbally, forced him to explain himself, probably rolled her eyes, and then dragged him to get a hearing aid.
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And one week later, they’re married and relaxing in a heart-shaped tub!
Wow, they operate fast!
I mean, in fairness, we knew Hawkeye was like that. He’d known Sheila Danning for like a month before he was contemplating marriage. And we can assume Mockingbird was like that too considering she knew Hawkeye like a minute before waggling her eyebrows and insinuating sex at him.
Mockingbird: “You owe me, pal. Sure, you saved my life. But what I’m going to do to your life is more than just a one-shot deal. I’m not just talking about helping you get a hearing aid. Or the blood test, or the license, or even arranging for a quaint little cottage in the woods. I’m talking about the rest of your life, and the difference having me around is going to make in it. Maybe eloping was my idea, but I’m going to see to it that for the rest of your life, you believe that it was the best idea you didn’t quite hear.”
Hawkeye: “I hear you, Mrs. Hawkeye. I hear you.”
Awwww. They’re a cute couple. And I do like their chemistry.
So that was the Hawkeye limited series. And it was pretty good!
It introduces some lasting changes like ‘being deaf’ and ‘being married’ to the character. Of course, because comics, both of those things will come and go. And in some cases come back. Lets enjoy them while they last.
Next time on liveblogging: something a little different.
Follow @essential-avengers​ because I just covered a miniseries. And then I had to redo the fourth issue in just an hour because tumblr didn’t save it. Please reward me. Also, like and reblog if you’d like to reblog.
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newstfionline · 3 years
Text
Friday, June 25, 2021
The United States ranks last among 46 countries for trust in news (Reuters Institute) Trust in news worldwide grew slightly in the wake of the pandemic, according to the Reuters Institute’s annual Digital News Report. But not in the United States—it was one of the few countries that did not see an increase in trust from 2020 to 2021, and the percentage of Americans who trust news overall—29%—was the lowest among the 46 markets surveyed. The long-predicted end of the “Trump Bump” showed up clearly in the research, with Americans’ interest in news declining by 11%. National news outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC have all seen significant dips in their audience numbers.
Western drought brings another woe: voracious grasshoppers (AP) A punishing drought in the U.S. West is drying up waterways, sparking wildfires and leaving farmers scrambling for water. Next up: a plague of voracious grasshoppers. Federal agriculture officials are launching what could become their largest grasshopper-killing campaign since the 1980s amid an outbreak of the drought-loving insects that cattle ranchers fear will strip bare public and private rangelands. In central Montana’s Phillips County, more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the nearest town, Frank Wiederrick said large numbers of grasshoppers started showing up on prairie surrounding his ranch in recent days. Already they’re beginning to denude trees around his house. “They’re everywhere,” Wiederrick said. “Drought and grasshoppers go together and they are cleaning us out.”
Condo building partially collapses in Miami-Dade (Washington Post) A large oceanfront condo building near Miami Beach partially collapsed early Thursday morning, killing at least one person, injuring another 10 or more and prompting a mass search-and-rescue response as 51 people remain unaccounted for. Dozens of units from police and fire agencies rushed to Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Fla., at 1:30 a.m. after the northeast corridor of the building collapsed, assistant fire chief Ray Jadallah said. Rescuers evacuated 35 people from the 12-story building, including two recovered from the rubble. Fifty-five of the more than 130 units were destroyed. The partial collapse came one day after the building had passed inspection.
Calls grow to evacuate Afghans to Guam as US troops leave (AP) In the chaotic, final hours of the Vietnam War, the U.S. evacuated thousands of South Vietnamese who supported the American mission and were at risk under the communist government. With U.S. and NATO forces facing a Sept. 11 deadline to leave Afghanistan, many are recalling that desperate, hasty exodus as they urge the Biden administration to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters or otherwise helped U.S. military operations there in the past two decades. Despite unusual bipartisan support in Congress, the administration hasn’t agreed to such a move, declining to publicly support something that could undermine security in the country as it unwinds a war that started after the 9/11 attacks. The Biden administration for now is focusing on accelerating a special visa program for Afghans who helped U.S. operations. Even if the legislation passed immediately, the number of visas would fall far short of the estimated 18,000 Afghans waiting to be processed. And the average wait is more than three years. The process also has been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, which led the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan to suspend visa interviews.
Footage of Amazon destroying thousands of unsold items in Britain prompts calls for official investigation (Washington Post) British lawmakers are demanding a meeting with tech giant Amazon’s country manager after an investigation at a warehouse in Scotland revealed that thousands of unsold or returned items—including televisions, books, sealed face masks and laptops—were being destroyed by the company. Footage from the undercover investigation by ITV News at a warehouse in the Scottish town of Dunfermline, also showed drones, headphones, jewelry and countless other high-value products being placed into boxes labeled “destroy,” before huge trucks were followed carrying the stock to landfill sites and recycling centers. One ex-employee told ITV News that workers were expected to get rid of an estimated 130,000 items a week. The broadcaster described the practice as “waste on an astonishing level.” Amazon operates 175 centers worldwide, spanning more than 150 million square feet of space where employees prepare items to be shipped and delivered to customers around-the-clock. ITV News noted that the reason for the destruction of the goods may be attributable to Amazon’s business model. Companies worldwide store items in warehouses owned by the online shopping giant. However, if the items fail to sell, they are charged rising fees that some may struggle to pay, leading to piles of goods that need to be stored—or dumped—elsewhere. Many Britons, also concerned by the investigation, demanded to know why items that appeared to be in good condition were being dumped when vulnerable people or charities could have used the goods.
Black Sea tensions (Foreign Policy) Russia complained on Wednesday of a “blatant British provocation” in the Black Sea, as a British Navy vessel sailed near the Crimean peninsula on its way to port in Georgia. Both sides contest the facts of the incident: The Russian Defense Ministry said it fired warning shots near the British ship and dropped four bombs in its way, while the British Defense Ministry said no such obstruction occurred. A BBC journalist on board the British ship said he heard shots “out of range,” and that Russian military planes shadowed the vessel. Tensions in the area are expected to remain high as NATO conducts military exercises in the Black Sea starting on Monday.
It’s 118 Degrees in Siberia (Vice) The Arctic Circle is known for viciously cold winter temperatures that can cause frostbite within minutes—but this summer, parts of the area are so hot that touching the ground could burn your skin. The Siberian town of Verkhojansk recorded ground temperatures of 118 degrees on Monday, according to the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme. The agency’s satellites captured images of the record-breaking heat wave gripping the Russian north. The Siberian town of Saskylah saw an all-time peak ground temperature of 90 degrees, and other towns recorded temperatures near 110 degrees, according to the EU’s space agency. The World Meteorology Organization highlighted how dire the situation is in the Arctic, which is warming more than two times quicker than the global average. The fast rate is caused by a phenomenon called “Arctic amplification,” or the domino effect of the region’s highly reflective snow, large water volume, and fragile ecosystem. The high temperatures are causing wildfires in the Arctic too. As early as April, wildfires began to spark across Siberia, and got so bad the smoke could be seen from space, according to NASA imagery. In 2020, Siberia was also hit by record-breaking hot temperatures, dating back to 1885, according to National Geographic. “For a long time, we’ve been saying we’re going to get more extremes like strong heat waves,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, told National Geographic in 2020. “It’s a little like the projections are coming true, and sooner than we might have thought.”
Afghan government could collapse six months after US troops withdraw (The Hill) Afghanistan’s government could collapse as quickly as six months after all U.S. troops withdraw from the country, according to new analysis from the U.S. intelligence community. The latest intelligence assessment, reported by The Wall Street Journal, said that the Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, could collapse between six to 12 months after all American forces are pulled from the country. Some other officials, however, said that the government could fall as soon as three months after the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is finished, the Journal reported. Previous analysis, the newspaper noted, said that Afghanistan’s government could stand for as long as two years after the American troops leave.
China’s borders (Foreign Policy) China’s borders will remain closed to most visitors until at least the second half of 2022 over concerns of further COVID-19 outbreaks imported from abroad. Chinese officials are reportedly worried about two sensitive events: the Beijing Winter Olympics and the formal conferral of an unprecedented third term for Chinese President Xi Jinping near the end of 2022. It’s possible some restrictions will remain until after the annual Two Sessions in early 2023. But the move may also reflect China’s lack of confidence in its own vaccines. Although its domestic vaccination program has been highly successful, with more than 1 billion doses administered, case data from other countries shows the Chinese vaccines aren’t doing a good job at preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the spread of new variants.
China says after massed drills that Taiwan’s future lies in ‘reunification’ (Reuters) Taiwan needs to be clearly aware that its future lies in “reunification” with China and that it cannot rely on the United States, China’s military said on Thursday, responding to questions on a massed incursion by Chinese warplanes last week. Twenty-eight Chinese air force aircraft, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers, entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) last Tuesday, the largest number to date reported by the Chinese-claimed island’s government. The incident came shortly after Group of Seven leaders issued a joint statement scolding China for a series of issues and underscoring the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, comments China condemned as “slander”.
Japan proposes four-day working week to improve work-life balance (DW) Japan is attempting to buck its “salaryman” stereotype and improve the work-life balance of its citizens in new economic policy guidelines that recommend a move to a four-day workweek. The Japanese government cited increased employee retention, especially for those caring for children or older relatives, as an incentive for employers to adopt the policy. Japanese authorities are hoping an extra day off per week will lead its citizens to solve even more societal problems: By using the time to do more shopping to boost the economy and by giving young people more time to socialize, which may, eventually, boost the country’s sluggish birth rate. However, there is concern that management will be reluctant to do away with some of the attitudes towards business that have served Japan Inc. so well for generations—even if there is clear evidence that traditional approaches are less effective than they were in the past. Employees, on the other hand, find the idea of a shorter working week appealing, but they do worry about reduced wages and accusations that they are not fully committed to their company.
Settlement Is Reached Over Stuck Ship That Blocked Suez Canal in Egypt (NYT) The owner and insurers of the enormous container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March and disrupted global shipping have reached a settlement with the Egyptian authorities, one of the insurers said on Wednesday. The insurer’s statement did not specify the amount, but said that once the settlement was formalized, the ship—after nearly three months of haggling, finger-pointing and court hearings—would finally complete its journey through the canal. Since the ship was freed in a huge salvage effort in March, about six days after running aground across the Suez, the canal authority had been locked in an often acrimonious standoff with the ship’s owner and operators over what the authority said it was owed for the incident. The authority had sought up to $1 billion in compensation.
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purplesurveys · 3 years
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1111
Something a little bit random and silly for my 1111th, just because.
survey by joybucket
List three things you love that start with each letter.
A: Art and most forms of it; anchovies, in most cases; and Angela.
B: Burgers, Beyoncé, and buffets.
E: Escargot, the name Eloise, and elephants.
F: FISH, Friends, and some folk indie.
S: Sleeping, signing off work at the end of my shift, and all kinds of seafood.
T: I’m obsessed with tteokbokki; trying out new food; and table tennis.
Q: I like the quiet time I occasionally give myself; quail eggs, especially in the form of kwek-kwek; and quattro formaggi pizza.
R: Rainbows, the rain, and riding planes.
O: Old movies, the ocean, and Okinawa milk tea.
List a phrase including an adjective, noun, and verb for each letter. Examples: "angry artist anticipating", "rude rascals running", "dirty dogs dancing", or "empty elephants eloping." Have fun!
A: Adorable animals appearing.
F: Fabulous fingers frolicking.
C; Chummy classmates cooking.
S: Suspicious self salivating.
R: Rambunctious raccoon running.
T: Tired turnip tumbling.
Q; Questioning quail quipping.
J: Joyful joggers jamming.
I: Inquisitive igloos imagining.
L: Luxurious lemonade luminescing.
Z: Zesty zebras zoning out.
E: Ethereal eagles embracing.
List three different occupations starting with each letter.
O: Orthodontist, oceanographer, opthalmologist.
E: Engineer, equestrienne, elementary school teacher.
F: Firefighter, flight attendant, farmer.
S: Scientist, singer, seamstress.
T: Talent agent, tricycle driver, tennis player.
I: Illustrator, inspector, IT technician.
E: Economist, editor, electrician.
L: Lawyer, librarian, lifeguard.
A: Accountant, actor, architect.
Y: Yoga instructor, youth pastor, yogurt maker?? if that counts, lol. Otherwise I got nothing else.
List three adjectives that begin with each letter.
A: Affable, abrupt, adequate.
B: Broken, blunt, bleary.
C: Crazy, clear, clingy.
D: Daunting, delirious, dark.
E: Existential, enraged, exemplary.
F: Fantastic, far-flung, flavorful.
G: Ghastly, gentle, gigantic.
H: Harrowing, healthy, hopeful.
I: Intelligent, identical, impervious.
J: Jovial, jaded, joyous.
List three nouns that being with each letter.
K: Kangaroo, keychain, kiwi.
L: Lemonade the album, lemon the fruit, and Liz Lemon.
M: Mall, maple syrup, and mop.
N: Nightingale, nest, napkin.
O: Ogre, olive, orange.
P: Piano, panini, and pizza.
Q: Queen, quill, quilt.
List three verbs that begin with each letter.
R: Running, raking, reliving.
S: Singing, sailing, surfing.
T: Tricking, tossing, teeming.
U: Understanding, urging, unwrapping.
V: Villifying, venerating, vaccinating - get vaccinated, folks.
W: Wandering, washing, wriggling.
X: I don’t know if there are any and I can’t bother to look it up.
Y: Yawning, yelling, yearning.
Z: Zipping, ziplining, zapping.
List three...
girl's names you love: Olivia, Mia, Emma.
boy’s names you love: Mason, Jacob, Lucas.
girl’s names you dislike: Karen, and our local versions of Karen, Marites and Marivic.
boy’s names you dislike: Chad, times three.
things you hate about summer things you hate about winter things you hate about spring things you hate about fall things you love about spring things you love about winter things you love about fall things you love about summer Crossing these out because my Southeast Asian ass can’t relate, but if you do decide to take this survey feel free to un-strikethrough them!
things you miss from your past: Having more freedom to make mistakes; not having to worry about the future; and friends I’ve since lost.
people who have really hurt you in the past: Gabie, my mom, Marielle.
names of people you have had crushes on: Gabie, Andi from 5th grade...and that’s it, really.
names of people you have gone on a date with: Only Gabie. And I guess maybe Mike? Since he asked me to go with him to his ball as his date.
places you've been and would love to go again: Sagada, Jeju, Bali.
places you want to visit before you die: Morocco, Spain, Thailand.
items on your bucket list: See Times Square, live in a condo, plan a solo trip.
health conditions you have: Scoliosis, lactose intolerance, and very possible depression.
health conditions you've had in the past but don't anymore: Dehydration, UTI, and some kind of weird low-platelet-count thing that was just that, and never diagnosed as anything.
things you are allergic to: Possibly some types of grass, and maybe face masks. Idk how to confirm it really; I just know my skin gets irritated around them sometimes.
youtube channels you love to watch: Good Mythical Morning; the KBS YouTube channel mainly for clips of Return of Superman and 2 Days 1 Night; and Binging With Babish.
favorite drinks: Water, coffee, Long Island Iced Tea.
favorite foods: Sushi, chicken wings, pizza.
favorite desserts: Cheesecake, MACARONS, cupcakes.
favorite holidays: The only one I care for and get super excited about is my birthday, if that counts. Christmas is fine, but I only get the excitement for it on the actual day itself.
favorite colors: Pastel pink, white, maroon.
people you would like to meet: Ysa and Bea, my teammates at work. I’ve met them only once before, and I wish we can be allowed to report to the workplace physically soon so that I get to see them more often and strengthen my relationship (both working and personal) with them. I’d also love to be able to chat and chill with Hayley Williams even for just 30 seconds.
people you want to meet in Heaven: I don’t believe in that, but I’d love to have met my great-grandfather on my maternal grandfather’s side. Also, Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana.
good names for a dog or cat: Depends on their personality.
reasons why you get up each morning and keep on living: Because I’ve been able to see myself get better, and why stop all the progress?; because I’d want to be able see if the future will get better; and because I’m afraid of what will happen to/who will look out for my dogs if I’m suddenly gone.
For each name, think of three people you know with that name, and list their occupations.
Amanda: I only know one Amanda, and she’s a friend of my ex’s younger sister. She’s only in senior year of high school. I know an Amandine which is close enough I suppose?? and she’s a dentistry student.
Sarah: She’s a media contact and I’m constantly in touch with; she’s the editor-in-chief of a local magazine. I think she’s the only Sarah I know.
Ashley: Also a media contact. I’m not sure about her title, though.
Beth: @bionic-beth is a teacher! :) But I don’t know any Beths in real life, I think.
Katie: Well I know Kate, and I’ll sometimes playfully call her Katie. She works in a government agency and she’s one of their PR people. The HR person who recruited me to come work at my current employer is a Kate, but I have never and have no plans to call her Katie.
Matt: That’s too foreign-sounding a name where I live.
Emily: Don’t know any Emilys, either.
Chris: Media contacts. They run blogs or news sites of their own.
Mike/Michael: The one Mike I know is currently a med student. Not sure if he’s working on the side - I think he is, since I saw him post about a job update on his Facebook a few months ago; but I can no longer remember what he does, or if he’s still doing it.
Jessica: I went to high school with a girl named Jessica but I don’t follow her on social media, so I have no clue what she’s up to now.
Becca/Bekah: Rita’s sister is a Becca. I think she is currently a grad student.
For each name, think of three people you know, and list one adjective to describe each person. (Skip if you don't know anyone with that name.)
Laura
Michelle: Hilarious.
Victoria: Strong.
Tessa: Friendly.
John
Claire: Influential; motherly.
Briana/Brianna: Bitch.
Vanessa
Brittany/Britney, etc.
Allison/Allie/Ally, etc: Kind. 
Olivia
Jordan
Jo/Joe: Ambitious; pretty.
Corey/Kori
Sophie: Sweet; quiet.
Mitch/Mitchell: Tall.
Madison/Maddie/Maddi
Out of all the people you know or have met, list three...
redheads: Yeah, you’re not going to find them in most of Asia. West Asia and some parts of East Asia, probably, but definitely not for the rest.
tall people: Jo, Chesca, and Shaun.
people with really curly hair: I know Kleo has naturally curly hair from her Aeta roots, but it’s been straightened for a very long time now. I think Chesca also has curly hair, albeit slightly. There is also Liana.
sets of twins: My sister had two sets of twins in her high school batch, but I can no longer remember their names. I also had an English class with a pair of twins named Ardy and Thirdy.
of the cutest babies you've seen on social media: My workmate’s baby. My friend Jar has a super squishy niece/nephew pair of twins as well.
people you miss: Angela, Kate, my grandpa.
people with beautiful eyes: I can only think of my ex.
people with nice hair: God I have not been around people for so long, I can barely think of anyone for this.
people who are the same height as you: Aya, Hannah, Tina.
own one of the same clothing items as you: Angela since we went to the same high school and have several of the same school shirts; Laurice since we share a college org and we have our own trademark polo shirt; and my brother and I have our own pairs of Nike Cortez shoes.
make you laugh: Andi, Hans, and this girl I had a couple of history classes with, Rose.
List three celebrities who...
are the same height as you: Lady Gaga and AJ Lee are the only ones who are coming to mind. I wouldn’t call AJ a celebrity though.
have the same hair color as you: Mila Kunis, Kelly Rowland, Dita Von Teese.
look like you: Only based on comments I’ve gotten in the past and not because I necessarily claim these for myself, Lucy Hale, Anna Akana, and Kakie.
List three....
adjectives to describe you: Timid, stubborn, sensitive.
academic courses you enjoyed: Philippine social history, international relations, anthropology.
words you always forget how to spell: Rhythm, committee, accommodate.
things you wish you were better at: Singing, dancing, drawing.
things you are really good at: Writing, reading people, and knowing the best things to order at most restaurants hahahah.
jobs you'd like to have: Ideally, a lawyer or doctor. But realistically, I’d love to have a leadership position in the PR sphere.
jobs you've considered having: ^ Again, lawyer and doctor. Also a journalist or news anchor, back when I still thought I was passionate about journalism.
jobs you'd hate: Journalist, an LTO clerk, an assistant to an asshole celebrity.
things you miss: Being a student, many parts of the past, and deceased family members.
names your mom considered when naming you: Ariel, Kathleen, Katrina.
things people call you: Robyn, Byn, Bynbyn.
*Bonus*: what is your name? (first and middle)? I always feel like just sharing Robyn.
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