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champ-wiggle · 2 months

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'She is so old': One-eyed wolf in Yellowstone defies odds by having 10th litter of pups in 11 years

By Patrick Pester, published June 3, 2024

Wolf 907F recently gave birth to her 10th litter of pups, which researchers say is likely a Yellowstone National Park record.

Wolf 907F walking past a trail camera in Yellowstone National Park. (Image credit: Yellowstone Wolf and Cougar Project)

The alpha female of a Yellowstone gray-wolf pack has defied the odds by having a 10th litter of pups at the age of 11.

The one-eyed wolf elder, named Wolf 907F, gave birth to her latest litter last month, the Cowboy State Daily reported. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) have an average life span of three to four years, so it's rare for them to reach 11, let alone have pups at that age.

Wolf 907F has given birth to pups every year for a decade straight since she became sexually mature, which Kira Cassidy, a research associate at the Yellowstone Wolf Project, said is likely a record for the wolves of Yellowstone National Park.

At age 11, Yellowstone’s Wolf 907F has lived more than twice a wild wolf’s average life expectancy. In this photo from April, she was pregnant with a litter of pups that she’s since given birth to. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

"Every day, I expect that she might die just because she is so elderly, but I've been thinking that for the last few years, and she keeps going," Cassidy told Live Science.

Cassidy has calculated that only about 1 in 250 wolves in Yellowstone make it to their 11th birthday, with just six recorded examples since wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995. The oldest of all of these great elders lived to 12.5 years, according to the National Park Service.

Wolf 907F lies in the snow in Yellowstone in 2015. (Image credit: Kira Cassidy/NPS)

Wolf 907F is the oldest wolf to have lived her whole life in the park's Northern Range, where there is more prey but also more competition from other wolves. Wolves rarely die of old age in the wild, and in Yellowstone National Park, the biggest threat is other wolves.

"In a protected place like Yellowstone, their number-one cause of death is when two packs fight with each other," Cassidy said. "That accounts for about half of the mortality."

One of Yellowstone's oldest wolves, Wolf 907F is pictured here with her pack last year. She's the gray collared wolf on the lower left. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

Wolf 907F is the alpha female of the Junction Butte pack, which has between 10 and 35 members at any given time. Cassidy noted that this is a large pack — the average wolf pack size is about 12 individuals — and that reduces the risk of being killed in territorial fights. Wolf 907F's experience also gives her pack an edge.

"Packs that have elderly wolves are much more successful in those pack-versus-pack conflicts because of the accumulated knowledge and the experience that they bring to that really stressful situation," Cassidy said.

Wolf 907F has likely boosted her pack's survival chances outside of battle, too. Cassidy noted that the Junction Butte pack rarely leaves Yellowstone's border and that Wolf 907F is "savvy" when it comes to things like crossing roads and avoiding humans.

Wolf 907F, Yellowstone's aging matriarch at 11 years old, only has one eye. She's the fourth wolf to pass by this trail cam. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

What makes Wolf 907F even more impressive is that she does all of this with only one functioning eye. Researchers aren't sure what happened, but her left eye has been small and sunken since before she turned 4. "You would never know [when] watching her," Cassidy said.

Like other elders, Wolf 907F takes a back seat in hunts now that she's older, and she spends most of her day hanging around with the pack's pups. Cassidy and her colleagues have counted three pups in her current litter, which is smaller than the average litter size of four to five but not surprising. A 2012 study of Yellowstone wolves published in the Journal of Animal Ecology found that litter size declines with age.

"The fact that 907 is still having pups is amazing, and her litter being small is expected given that she is so old," Cassidy said.

A few of Wolf 907F's offspring now lead packs of their own, but most of her pups never reach adulthood due to the perilous nature of being a wolf. However, Wolf 907F and the others in the park don't seem to live like death is on their mind.

"They are happy to be with their family going from day to day," Cassidy said. "Even if they have injuries or are missing an eye or something really stressful is going on in their life, they move through that stress and go back to seemingly really enjoying their life."

At age 11, Yellowstone's Wolf 907F - the gray wolf in the center of this photo from 2020- has lived more than double the typical lifespan of wolves in the wild. (Courtesy Yellowstone Wildlife Project)

#wolf #yellowstone #nature #animals

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albonium · 2 months

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why do i have to go to work tomorrow i just want to pack my bag and go on hikes let me roam around nature away from people aaaargh

#the dolomites last year and the alps this year just really hammered in the fact that i hate living in an urban area #don't get me wrong i love working in a lab i love science etc but these days ?????? we have a shit ton of work. i'm given stuff i hate #the lead engineer on one of the projects is a fucking dumbass and im struggling so bad on her stuff bc she makes terrible choices #so the exploitation of the samples is really REALLY taking me to the limit of my patience #rn me and another colleague are the only two remaining from our part of the department we have to do the work of 5 people #and all of this for what ????????????????#working in r&d/reasearch means that you work on stuff long term and the motivation has to be strong bc it's not easy and it takes AGES #i have older colleagues who haven't seen their main projects through yet and they're about to retire #im kind of losing faith lol #i wish i could just take days off again but 1. hr is fucking me over on when they started couting my allowed days off #and 2. we have too much work it wouldn't be fair on my colleague to leave now #sunday scarries yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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denimbex1986 · 1 year

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'WHO WAS J. Robert Oppenheimer? This is easy enough to answer: an American theoretical physicist, the “father of the atomic bomb,” an important architect of early US nuclear policy, and, ultimately, a victim of anti-communist fervor after he lost his security clearance in a well-publicized decision by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1954 and was excommunicated from the nuclear priesthood. Oppenheimer’s very public rise and fall, and his embodiment of various parables about dangerous knowledge (Faust, Prometheus, Icarus, etc.), have made his life one of the most scrutinized and publicized in the history of modern science. And yet, he is still universally described as inscrutable despite an extraordinary wealth of documentation: a voluminous FBI file; a security hearing that picked over his life with a microscope; and an archive of letters, memos, and recollections of both friends and enemies.

Some of Oppenheimer’s affect was clearly deliberate—he consciously played the role of a worldly, “brilliant” intellectual with broad-ranging interests and a rapid-firing mind. His close friend, the physicist I. I. Rabi, later told physicist and historian Jeremy Bernstein that “[Oppenheimer] lived a charade, and you went along with it.” The interest in Hindu philosophy and scripture, the Sanskrit, the cowboy-rancher, the poet, the flirtations with communism, the reading of Das Kapital in the original German—this was “Oppie,” a character invented by an insecure young man in the 1920s who struggled to be taken seriously by the luminaries he admired, and who felt a deep need to leave behind his cushy German Jewish upbringing on the Upper West Side.

That Oppenheimer himself played a role makes it especially fitting that his life has been adapted not only into a dozen or so full-length biographies but also in far more general histories of the atomic bomb and many prominent fictional portrayals in film, television, graphic novels, and one opera. (The best study of Oppenheimer’s use as a narrative figure is David K. Hecht’s 2015 book Storytelling and Science: Rewriting Oppenheimer in the Nuclear Age.) And while he has been subjected to the Hollywood treatment several times before, he has perhaps never been granted as much artistic treatment, nor quite such an enormous filming budget, as he has this summer with the debut of Oppenheimer, the latest film by Christopher Nolan.

Nolan wrote, directed, and produced Oppenheimer, explicitly basing it largely on the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), written by Kai Bird and the late historian Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan clearly fell into the Oppenheimer rabbit hole and, one can surmise, became captivated by the challenge of how to represent his paradoxical mind. What has resulted from that fascination is plainly a labor of love, both for Nolan and his leading actor, Cillian Murphy. According to Nolan’s promotional interviews, the script was written exclusively in the first person—from Oppenheimer’s perspective—a remarkable and telling revelation about the questions Nolan was pursuing. The film is fast-paced, with short, quick-cut scenes that proceed out of chronological order over a very long running time; a sense of anxious dread hangs over the entire affair. Oppenheimer is not easy to watch, and the large number of A- and B-list actors playing small roles (as historical figures both famous and obscure) is distracting and, at times, confusing, even for someone who knows the historical source material.

And yet, improbably, the film has become a summer blockbuster: within a few weeks, it reportedly earned several multiples of its purported $100 million price tag. As Variety put it, “considering ‘Oppenheimer’ is a three-hour, R-rated biographical drama, these numbers are staggering.” Much of this can be credited to Nolan, almost universally acknowledged as the premier director working at the intersection between think piece and spectacle.

When I learned that Nolan was making an Oppenheimer film, the first question that came to mind was: why? None of Nolan’s other films suggested an interest in historical biography, and if anything, the most frequent critique of Nolan is his indifference to deep characterization. Since I have been thinking about J. Robert Oppenheimer for some 20 years, I can certainly understand his allure, but to Nolan? I worried that Oppenheimer’s inner complexity and subtlety, the very thing that historians find interesting about him, would be turned into a simplistic parody (the brilliant scientist, the weeping martyr, the weapons maker, etc.).

And so, upon watching the film, I was impressed by how much Nolan as writer, and Murphy as actor, tried to avoid this particular snare. Murphy’s Oppenheimer exudes tension, intelligence, and, crucially, insecurity. He is not portrayed as a hero, or someone you would want to emulate, or potentially even someone you would like to have dinner with. He is smart, yes, but he’s also a show-off, a know-it-all whose need to be considered “brilliant” by others drives him at times to be impressive, cruel, and thoughtless. It is remarkable that Nolan and Murphy went in this direction. One gets the sense that Nolan thinks Oppenheimer is important, and interesting, but not that he likes Oppenheimer. This may have helped him avoid the most seductive trap of all: trying to make Oppenheimer a relatable everyman.

The film zigs and zags temporally, using Oppenheimer’s 1954 security clearance hearing as an organizer of sorts, jumping between 1954 and various moments from Oppenheimer’s earlier life. There is also some footage, always in black-and-white to distinguish it from Oppenheimer’s point of view, that follows the perspective of Lewis Strauss (played with verve by Robert Downey Jr.), Oppenheimer’s political enemy and the architect of his security clearance revocation. A few periods in Oppenheimer’s life receive particular focus: his early years as a student in Cambridge (ca. 1925), his years as a young professor at the University of California, Berkeley (1930s), the years he worked on the Manhattan Project (1942–45), the detection of the Soviet atomic bomb and the debate over the hydrogen bomb (1949–50), and the turn in political fortunes that led to his security clearance hearing and revocation (1953–54). Though this leaves out some key periods in his biography (more on that in a moment), it still feels like a lot to cover in a single film—too much, perhaps.

As a historian of nuclear weapons, I have been asked innumerable times since the film came out whether it was accurate. It is a harder question to answer than one might think. At some level, the answer is “of course not”—but that is true of not only all historical films but also, to a certain degree, all historical books. “Truth” is a tricky thing in general, and “historical truth” even trickier; scholars are always finding fault with each other’s works, and there is never any real consensus on the true character of a historical figure even for people with less apparent depth than Oppenheimer. And then there’s the fact that the standard for works of art is surely different. In Oppenheimer, many of the characters’ lines are in fact taken from historical documents, sometimes verbatim. When David Krumholtz delivers Rabi’s famous line about being appreciative of Oppenheimer’s contributions (“and what more do you want, mermaids?”), he uses an unusually verbatim quote, including a section (“and a whole series of Super bombs”) that was redacted until 2015, and is not present in any Oppenheimer biography that I know of.

The film also contains tricky mixtures of real and wholly imagined dialogue. In his testimony at Oppenheimer’s hearing, General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), the military head of the Manhattan Project, concedes that, had he been acting according to the standards of the postwar Atomic Energy Act during World War II, he would not have given Oppenheimer a security clearance. This is indeed in the transcript of the security hearing. But in the film, Groves shoots off one more line, to the effect that he wouldn’t have cleared any of the scientists by that standard. It’s a good line—but the real Groves never said it, nor did he imply it in his actual testimony. Though supportive of Oppenheimer, he was also shielding himself from his own political and legal vulnerabilities. But the sentiment is right for the film, serving as an indication that Groves bore Oppenheimer no ill feeling, and that the priorities and requirements of World War II were different from those of the Cold War.

More troublesome are the aspects of the film that are based on untrustworthy historical accounts. A terrific scene, which takes place just after Hiroshima, shows Oppenheimer giving a rousing and patriotic speech to a bloodthirsty crowd while internally haunted by thoughts of the burned and dead. It is the one place where Oppenheimer’s conflicting feelings toward Hiroshima are portrayed, and where what had happened at Hiroshima is imagined.

The scene is powerful and appropriately disturbing. You could hear a pin drop during this scene in the sold-out theater I attended. But did this particular speech actually happen? It was not invented whole cloth by Nolan; the setup and dialogue were taken from a scientist’s recollections. But the scientist in question, Samuel Cohen, is the only person who has ever indicated that this event happened, and he only wrote it down many decades after the fact. (In his self-published memoir, Cohen insinuates that “[t]here’s an explanation” for the fact that nobody has ever written about this other than himself, but that he couldn’t be bothered to write about it.) Cohen was a bit of a fabulist; he created an identity for himself as the “father of the neutron bomb” based on work he did on the possibilities of enhanced-radiation warheads at the RAND Corporation in the late 1950s, which actual weapons designers from the period regarded as fairly insignificant. He was also no fan of Oppenheimer’s, considering him “a real sadist.” I do not put much stock in Cohen’s story.

But one can see the appeal of such a scene for Nolan: no other accounts have Oppenheimer giving any such speech after Hiroshima, or doing anything other than perhaps going to one party and then leaving. The literal or hewing-to-the-facts approach would be anticlimactic—whereas incorporating Cohen’s account allows for a complex exploration of the American reaction to Hiroshima, the Los Alamos reaction to Hiroshima, and Oppenheimer’s reaction to Hiroshima. It gives Nolan and Murphy a broader canvas to work with. Is there a greater truth being expressed, whatever the quality of the source? I am not sure. It depends on what one believes about Oppenheimer’s mental state immediately after Hiroshima, before the accounts of casualties and suffering came in, before Nagasaki, and before he was enlisted to (erroneously, it turns out) deny Japanese reports of radiation sickness. (Michael D. Gordin’s 2007 book Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War is a close account emphasizing just how rapidly attitudes on the atomic bomb changed in the days between its first use and the eventual surrender of Japan.)

Another example of Hollywood invention occurs when Nolan has Oppenheimer meet President Harry Truman, and the president calls Oppenheimer a “crybaby” for complaining about having blood on his hands. What is the source of these insults? The “crybaby” and “blood” bits come from later stories told by Truman, when he was trying to impress upon others how impractical and irritating scientists can be, and how it was he, Harry Truman, who truly had blood on his hands (Truman had his own complex relationship to the bombings, despite his tough talk). There is also an account from biographer Nuel Pharr Davis of Oppenheimer’s side of that story, but Davis provides no citation whatsoever, nor even a date when this conversation may have taken place.

Nolan also interpolates into this meeting a line in which Oppenheimer suggests that the future of Los Alamos should be to “give it back to the Indians.” Not only is this unlikely to be a true line—a sentiment to the contrary is more likely—but also the only person who might have suggested that Oppenheimer said this was Edward Teller (another Oppenheimer enemy), and only in 1950 as part of an explicit attempt to recruit opposition to Oppenheimer and lobby for Teller’s own weapons laboratory (which would eventually become Livermore). As the late Oppenheimer biographer Priscilla McMillan pointed out, “Give It Back to the Indians” was a popular show tune from 1939, and if Oppenheimer ever did say the phrase, it was probably in jest, and certainly not to the president. (My wife has suggested that this would be like hearing someone describe themselves as a “Gangster of Love” and interpreting it as a literal assertion, rather than a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Steve Miller Band.) In Teller’s actual testimony at Oppenheimer’s security hearing, Teller distanced himself from the line, claiming that he heard it “attributed to Oppenheimer” but could not recall ever hearing him say it.

The film is full of such questionably accurate scenes. Did Oppenheimer actually try to poison his tutor at Cambridge with a poisoned apple? We don’t really know. Young Oppenheimer, as reflected through his letters of the period, was prone to making exaggerated, “shocking” statements of this sort. (Many of Oppenheimer’s letters from the 1920s contain what Jeremy Bernstein refers to as “Oppenheimer exuberance.”) It makes for a more perplexing character portrait to imagine these moments as literal, as Nolan does in the film, which raises this question: is representing them as literal truth getting at a deeper truth, or introducing a deeper confusion? Does the ambivalence of historians about an event give the artist full latitude to present it either way?

The most shocking (and creative) reappropriation is the famous line from the Bhagavad Gītā that Oppenheimer later claimed flashed into his mind during the world’s first nuclear test, Trinity: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” The actual line is an idiosyncratic translation, deployed as a near incomprehensible (and perhaps pretentiously “Oppie”) analogy about duty and awe. Disregarding whatever the real Oppenheimer might have meant by it, Nolan’s film turns the quote into an orgasm, or a memory of an orgasm. There is something about this kind of transformation that I respect more than the subtler ones.

Nolan is most editorial when he invents lines about Oppenheimer’s motivations and mental state and puts them into the mouths of observers: Haakon Chevalier (Jefferson Hall) suggests that Oppenheimer’s difficulties as a parent (and perhaps as a person) might be the result of staring into the infinite void of the universe for too long; Kitty Oppenheimer suggests that her husband’s need for the security hearing is a form of penance for his guilt about Hiroshima (an interesting thesis, one he surely would not have agreed with, but who knows?); Strauss suggests that Oppenheimer would like the world to remember him for Trinity, not Hiroshima (also interesting, although putting interesting sentiments into the mouth of a sworn enemy and unreliable narrator tends to dilute their credibility). I might not agree with these interpolations, but I respect that they are not superficial “theses” about Oppenheimer. That Murphy’s character does not endorse or deny any of them is, I think, a plus: the film suggests them as possible interpretations but does not collapse the uncertainty into one definitive reality.

Nolan’s film is most directly misleading about actual history when Oppenheimer is portrayed as getting sidelined, starting at the end of the Los Alamos sequence when it is suggested that, despite his usefulness to the military and the government, they are only interested in Oppenheimer’s technical abilities and not in his advice on other matters. It is further implied that in the film’s postwar period, Oppenheimer becomes marginalized, in part because Strauss is the sort of person who actually controls policy. This is wrong on several levels. Oppenheimer was much closer to the policy process during World War II than the film depicts, including in the targeting of the atomic bombs (and not just from a technical perspective). The film’s implication of distance between Oppenheimer and the government officials involved in dropping the atomic bomb is inaccurate; they all saw eye to eye, and Oppenheimer personally endorsed the idea that the bombs ought be dropped on “urban areas” without warning. He even suggested, after the Trinity test, ways in which the bomb designs could be modified to use more of their scarce nuclear fuel, so that there would be many more bombs ready to drop on Japan (Groves rejected this suggestion for the first bombs). Many years later, well after Oppenheimer had died, Strauss told an interviewer that these scientists during World War II felt a “compulsion to use the bomb—an obsession,” and while one should be wary of the source, in this case I think he was right.

In truth, Oppenheimer enjoyed tremendous influence in the atomic energy establishment after World War II. The chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission for its first, formative years was not Strauss but David Lilienthal, a liberal New Dealer who considered himself a close friend of Oppenheimer’s and a political ally. Oppenheimer’s views did not always carry the day, but one cannot really describe him as sidelined until Eisenhower became president in 1953, and then only because Strauss was made AEC chairman (Strauss’s anti-Oppenheimer campaign, whatever its deep motivations, began in earnest when he feared that Eisenhower would be charmed by Oppenheimer’s way of thinking). One can see how this makes a less clean narrative about Oppenheimer and early nuclear policy, and one can see as well why Nolan probably felt that jumping from 1945 to 1949 worked better for an already long film.

There are other areas where the film’s limited bandwidth creates distortion. The reactions to both the first Soviet atomic test and the hydrogen bomb debate feel rushed and devoid of stakes. One does not get a sense of what the H-bomb debate was about, or why people who supported building the atomic bombs would find the H-bombs morally objectionable. The brief section that addresses the plans for using the atomic bombs in Japan reinforces narratives that historians have for decades known to be false (like the idea that it was seen as a question of “bomb or invade”—in reality, these were not considered alternative options, and it was not at all clear that one, two, or even more atomic bombs would end the war). (Groves told Oppenheimer after Trinity, for example, “It is necessary to drop the first Little Boy and the first Fat Man and probably a second one in accordance with our original plans. It may be that as many as three [Fat Man bombs] may have to be dropped to conform to planned strategical operations,” along with the Little Boy bomb.) One gets the sense that these are not the kinds of historical questions that Nolan cares about.

So what does the director care about? Why make a film about Oppenheimer at all? Cold War narratives about Oppenheimer tend to be moralizing parables about the dangers of McCarthyism and the security state. This is not Nolan’s interest; to his credit, he makes it very clear that though the Oppenheimer hearings were a farce as far as justice was concerned, once the scientist’s behavior was under the microscope, it became hard for anyone, including Oppenheimer, to justify it. Oppenheimer might have gotten to his precarious position because he offended a few powerful people, and because he opposed them on the question of thermonuclear weapons, but his fate was sealed by his admission that he had lied repeatedly to security officers and had maintained connections—even sexual ones—with known or suspected communists after becoming the head of Los Alamos. One doesn’t leave Nolan’s film concerned that Oppenheimer didn’t get justice.

Nolan’s interest in Oppenheimer centers on two themes. One of them is the complexity of Oppenheimer’s character. The other is global destruction, threaded through the entire film from its first images until its last scene. The fact that these two themes are intertwined in the same person is, I think, the point. In Oppenheimer, the intensely personal is suffused with the apocalyptic imagination. The visions that kept Oppenheimer up at night were not about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for better or worse. They were about the next war, the one he hoped Hiroshima and Nagasaki would make impossible.

When Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace met Oppenheimer a few months after the end of World War II, he described a man in great distress. “I never saw a man in such an extremely nervous state as Oppenheimer,” Wallace wrote in his diary. “He seemed to feel that the destruction of the entire human race was imminent. […] The guilt consciousness of the atomic bomb scientists is one of the most astounding things I have ever seen.” (The result of this meeting was Wallace’s arranging of Oppenheimer’s disastrous encounter with Truman in the Oval Office.) Oppenheimer was, at this point, desperately trying to advocate for a world in which no nation would have nuclear weapons, using the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the nascent plans for even worse weapons, as an impetus for remaking the entire nature of war and international relations. He did not succeed; we live in his worst nightmare, where multiple states have civilization-killing quantities of nuclear arms ready for deployment at a moment’s notice.

This harried, eschatological prophet, desperately trying to invoke what influence he has in order to convince the people with real power not to use that power poorly, is the Oppenheimer that Murphy channels, and that Nolan is interested in. I have always thought that Prometheus was the wrong reference point, one that Oppenheimer himself would have strongly rejected. Oppenheimer was no champion of humanity, and his punishment was not for having “stolen fire,” but for more mundane transgressions, including those of the flesh, a fact that Nolan’s film emphasizes. In his Bhagavad Gītā reference, Oppenheimer renders himself as Prince Arjuna, who was cajoled by something great and terrible into taking on a burden he did not want. Even that feels incomplete, for while Oppenheimer was initially willing to go to war, he was afterwards gripped with an intense desire to push things in a different direction. Perhaps we need to invent a new, modern mythology for such a figure; perhaps that is what Nolan is really trying to do. Let’s hope the film will be remembered for this, and not just for its curious juxtaposition with the other summer blockbuster, Greta Gerwig’s (excellent) Barbie.'

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nereidprinc3ss · 2 months

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just like heaven

in which flirty!reader finally confesses her feelings to a pining spencer reid after a night out. she's slightly buzzed. it's complicated.

fluff (some angst) warnings/tags: fem!reader, reader drinks alcohol, dirty jokes, so much flirting and banter, some arguing kinda, but spencer is such a gentleman, everyone gets flustered at least once, they really wanna kiss, happy ending a/n: gif :D I hope u like this! not bandages reader but like same vibes. like an AU for my AU

“Emily!”

You drawl the ee sound long, the same way you reach across the table and wiggle your fingers at her half-empty glass. Thin dark brows dart up beneath that glossy sweep of reddish-black hair.

“Oh, wow. That’s unsettling. What?”

It’s been at least an hour since you had a drink of your own, but enough alcohol is still flowing through your veins so as to render her offensive comment inoffensive. You love Emily. You love the Tequila Sunrise sweating onto the sticky table in front of her which she’s not going to finish.

“I think she wants your drink,” JJ assists, cheek balanced tipsily on a propped up fist.

“Uh…”

Emily’s doe-sweet eyes flash uncertainly behind you.

“I’m basically sober,” you insist, laying your head on your outstretched arm and letting your hair cascade as you bat your lashes, offering her your sweetest smile. “Please, Em?”

It does not go according to plan. She scoffs.

“Are you flirting with me right now?”

“... Would that work?”

“Oh my god, just… cool it with the fuck-me eyes,” she laughs. “You can have the drink.”

You sit up, turning just barely over your shoulder to address Spencer.

“See? Emily buys me drinks. Basically.”

She slides the drink toward you, with a subtle roll of her eyes that you choose to interpret as affectionate under the dim canned lighting. As you sit back, content and free drink in hand, her eyes slide to Reid in the seat next to you, brows arching.

“Are you sure you can handle her all on your own?”

“Handle me?” You frown deeply as Emily gathers her purse and slides out of the booth, followed shortly thereafter by JJ. “I don’t need handling.”

“Then why do you have a handler?” JJ teases.

You slump against the worn vinyl, stirring what is mostly orange juice.

“He most definitely is not my handler. He’s my science project.”

“I got it,” Spencer assures your friends, with his trademark flattened smile. You can’t help but watch him with a grin of your own, flipping the straw in the drink and nibbling on the end until it’s stained sparkly pink. Goodbyes are issued, and soon it’s just the two of you. Perhaps it’s a tipsy delusion, but you think he seems to relax slightly when you’re alone. His eyes are easy on you. “You know, you’re not actually decreasing the amount of germ transmission by using the other end of the straw.”

“Mm… pretty sure alcohol kills germs, Doctor.”

At that, you giggle.

Doctor.

Soon you’re covering your face and having a full-fledged laugh attack.

“What?” Spencer asks. From between your fingers you can see that he’s smiling guardedly, brows furrowed in a way that reminds you he’s often worried about being the butt of a joke and not knowing it. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” you assure him quickly, gathering yourself. “I just… can’t believe you’re a doctor.”

“Why not? What’s so unbelievable about that?”

“You’re so young.”

And handsome.

“I’m not that young. I’m older than you,” he defends. Only by a handful of years, but you know he’s defensive about his age after a lifetime of being told he looks young for—well, everything.

“You’re… 32?”

That’s not right—you know as soon as you say it.

“Thirty three.” He very politely captures a hand—your hand—that had at some point ended up a little too close to his eye. You’re not sure what you planned to do once it got there—you don’t recall moving it at all.

“Sorry.” You take your hand back, choosing to instead fiddle with a button on his coat ponderously. “33 is a good age.”

“Yeah?” Spencer laughs, angling his head as if to regard you from a new angle. It warms you all over. Burns in some places, like a shot of liquor down your throat. Makes you just as dizzy, too. “You have a lot of experience being thirty three?”

“No, I just…” your cheeks heat and you wrestle with a timid smile, averting your gaze and dropping your hand for fear his grin this close up might actually kill you. “I like 33 year old you.”

“So… you didn’t like me when I was thirty two?”

“Stop,” you beg, a self-effacing laugh into the cup of your palm. “I can’t banter. I’m not at peak performance.”

The truth of it hits you, and you sigh, folding your arms on the table and resting your cloudy head. Only then, from this new perspective, do you allow yourself to fully admire Spencer Reid. He is smiling at you, and your heart does skip a beat like you’ve got some school girl crush. These days he wears his hair falling over his face, messy on purpose, and always smells so nice. You wonder when he started caring about that stuff. You want to see what products are in his shower, and learn why he chose that cologne, or how he decides to pair his socks. He probably has some sort of algorithm.

“Spencer,” you begin, the serious quality of your voice diminished by the smush of your cheek against your arm. Still, he tries to respect your tone, zipping the smile and answering with a playfully twitching brow.

“Hm?”

You want to push the hair out of his face. Why is he looking down at you like that? Like he likes you?

“You’re a very good handler.”

His eyes narrow as he considers this, but the glimmer in them could still spark a forest fire. You’re probably grinning like an idiot.

“Oh, I couldn’t handle you. You know this.”

You hum thoughtfully.

“I bet you could. Wanna try?”

Spencer shakes his head, huffing a laugh through his nose. To his credit, your bold-face innuendos don’t always send him into a tailspin these days.

Just sometimes.

“You need a ride home, don’t you?”

You sit back up, stretching your arms out.

“You don’t have to. I could get a cab.”

“I know,” he assures you, still a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his lips. Why. Is. He. Looking. At. You. Like. That?

“Will you let me drive?”

“I would. But, you know, my affairs aren’t in order.”

You roll your eyes as he gets out of the booth and offers you a hand.

“I’m not that drunk.”

Spencer just wiggles his fingers.

“If you can recite the alphabet in reverse you can drive my car.”

You roll your eyes again. Obviously he’s fucking with you, because 1. He’d never let you drive even the slightest bit inebriated, and 2. He knows you can’t say your ABC’s backward when you’re dead sober.

The truth is you’re more buzzed than anything. You could get up and walk fine without any assistance, but he’s offering you his hand, so you take it. After you’re standing, you wonder how many excuses could you possibly dream up to get it back in yours. Should you pretend to fall?

No. Not quite worth your self respect.

“You know…” you muse, reveling in the brief brush of him against your back as he holds open the door for you, “it’s a good thing you didn’t become, like… a medical doctor.”

Now walking side by side on the street, he glances over at you, a poorly veiled smile on his perfect face. Like a trap door brushed over with a few leaves. He wants you to see it.

“Why’s that?”

A breeze ruffles your hair. The brisk cold and the walk seem to be making things crisper already. You shrug, bunching your sleeves in your hands against the increasingly frigid night. The skirt and tights you’d chosen were perfect for a stuffy dive bar. Not so much for an early DC spring.

“Nobody wants a hot doctor.”

He looks down at the sidewalk, hands pocketed, but the curve of his lips doesn’t lessen.

“Hm. You’re drunker than I thought.”

“What? No! I’m—barely!” Again he laughs at you, and again you flush, looking down and counting the cracks in the pavement as you journey slowly under the bath of yellow street lights. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you called me hot.” He sounds almost delighted as he grins sheepishly around the final word.

You snort. You’ve said worse things, more graphic things within the past few hours alone—but you suppose they’ve all been more like dirty jokes than compliments.

“Yeah. You think you aren’t?”

Sandy locks fall side to side as he carefully measures a response. His cologne is warm—sort of smoky. It’s very nice. He doesn’t seem like he’d wear cologne. Have you already thought about his cologne tonight? Once was probably enough.

“I just think sober you wouldn’t have said that.”

“But don’t you prefer it when I’m aggressively flirting with you? I mean, I know I do it sober too, but it's not as good, right?”

A silent stretch begins and shortly ends, and you don’t mind it. Right now, everything is a winding path through the woods. You’re willing to follow any fork off the trail if it means spending more time with him.

“I guess I wasn’t aware that was what you were doing.”

“Oh, bullshit,” you laugh, and it echoes through the canyon of a nearby alley, “I’m not subtle, Reid.”

“I don’t know! You—for all I know that’s just how you are! I mean, what did Emily call them earlier, your—your fuck-me eyes?”

Like he does when he’s flustered, he gets shrill and stuttery. It’s nice to be reminded that he’s still a complete dork on the inside—and the outside, too, as pink stains his cheeks like watercolor. You smirk at him in your periphery, watching him against the darkened city backdrop.

“You noticed those, huh?”

“No,” he denies forcefully, but his brow is pinched like he doesn’t quite believe himself, “I mean, yes, I notice when you look at other people like that, but that’s not what I would call them—I wouldn’t call them anything, I’d just call them your eyes, you know? Not that you always look like you’re soliciting… the implication isn’t there, it’s just—I notice when you flirt with other people! With Emily, and Derek, like, not even half an hour ago. You’re lucky Hotch wasn’t there. You’d probably have given him a heart attack.”

“I’m more concerned with yours, to be honest.”

“My heart is fine,” he laughs. “Worry about my dignity.”

“Hm. I was going for both. Guess I’d better try harder.”

You don’t notice you’ve come to a stop until you’re face to face in front of his vintage Volvo. Spencer is standing closer than usual, hands perpetually stuck in that nice wool coat. He’s all windswept and pretty, smiling crookedly and eyes sparkly with humor. A strand of hair sticks to your lip gloss, and you brush it away, tucking it behind your ear and squinting up at him against the chilly breeze. The flush is either from the nip in the air or your brazen flirting.

“Or, you could go easy on me. I’m frail. Like a… sickly Victorian child.”

Again his brow knits and he smiles like he knows what he’s said is ridiculous. But his tone is gentler now. Softer. Invites you to fall in deeper and see what you might find.

“And ruin all my fun? Toughen up, Reid.”

For a long moment, you don’t get a response—only his eyes, soft and thoughtful on you, before you’re distracted by the sweet bow of his lips. If he notices you’re staring, it doesn’t seem to bother him.

But something evidently does, as when he next speaks, it’s troubled. Curiosity straining against a rope that says maybe it’s better if I don’t ask.

“Do… do you actually flirt with me? When you’re sober, I mean.”

He expects to be ridiculed. In his most vulnerable moments, he’s still bracing for rejection—turning his cheek slightly so he’s ready for the stinging blow. It opens a fissure in your chest. You frown, and speak gently.

“Yeah, Spence. More than anyone else. You really don’t notice?”

Sometimes his face is so expressive, in the pull of his brow and tightening of his eyes and the way he wets his lips. But he probably doesn’t know that. And he can’t seem to meet your eyes, instead choosing to study the leather of your heeled boots. Sounds of late-night traffic, of tires on wet asphalt buffer the pauses between sentences.

“I notice… when you talk to Derek and Emily and JJ and Penelope the exact same way you talk to me. I didn’t think…”

Another gap in conversation, filled with the chatter of some group pouring out of a bar somewhere. You realize he’ll need some gentle prompting to bridge it.

“You didn’t think what?”

When his eyes flash back up to meet yours, you have a feeling like he’s shutting the pipes off.

“It’s—uh—” he clears his throat— “it’s not important, we can—we’ll talk about it a different time. We should—”

“Wait.”

He’d been turning away but snaps right back to look at you as if on command, wearing a brand new face that tells you he’d like to wipe the past minute or so completely away.

“Yeah?”

“Spencer. I wanna know what you were going to say.”

“I told you. It’s nothing.”

“You didn’t tell me. You mumbled evasively and walked away. We were in the middle of something and I want to know what you were going to say. Please?”

“Well, you’re drunk,” he finally sighs, and it’s a bit sharp. Stinging.

“I am not drunk,” you defend, and it feels true, with a bitter cold lashing at your cheek and blood heightened from the walk. “You know I’m not too drunk to have a coherent conversation. Why are you being weird?”

“Because I asked you to drop it! We can’t have this conversation right now, all right? I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Your stomach flips, and your breath comes a little heavier. Spencer is clearly frustrated with you. Maybe being on the wrong end of this mild vexation, and so suddenly, should make you feel guilty, or some kind of bad—but all you feel is a sort of buzz in the tips of your fingers and the thrum of your heart, something deeper than excitement pooling in your veins at having inspired this sort of passion. It means he feels something. Something for you.

“I’m sorry,” he tries halfheartedly, unable or more likely unwilling to stay angry at you for very long, “you didn’t—”

“What conversation?”

It’s jarring how quickly this has spun on its head. The very air you’re breathing seems to have changed. The metropolitan soundscape is a rife undercurrent of tension and louder from all the words unsaid.

Finally he swallows.

“There’s no conversation. I’m—it was a poor choice of wording. I just meant we should get you home.”

Before he can make it to the driver’s side door, you’re calling out.

“You think I don’t like you. And I just flirt with you ‘cause I flirt with everyone.”

Spencer stops, and turns to face you once more, sighing and head dropped to one side like you’re doing something incredibly inconsiderate. He’s never looked at you like that before, but you don’t let it shake you.

“That’s what this is about, right?”

He says your name, but you don’t let him get further than that.

“No, I think there is a conversation here, and saying I’m not sober enough to have it isn’t fair and you should have said something before and I think you should just say it now.”

You’re pushing his buttons with a heavy hand, though your own voice shakes. He’s feeling it too—you’ve never been so short with each other. His voice is raised.

“What am I supposed to say?”

It boils over.

“That you like me!”

It rings.

Then it’s silent.

His face is mostly blank. A little sorrowful around his eyes.

It’s cold, jumping into the deep end like this.

“We can’t talk about this right now,” he finally says, glancing to the side as if to suggest a situation the size of the whole city.

“Spencer, I—”

“It’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion until your judgement isn’t impaired, otherwise it’s—”

“I am telling you that I flirt with you because I really like you.”

“I—”

It appears you’ve truly thrown him for a loop. For a moment his jaw works at nothing, a soliloquy of words go unspoken, and then he’s stuttering and fumbling for the right thing to say, looking everywhere but at you.

“I can’t—that’s—regardless of whether or not it’s even true—”

“It is true.”

“Could you—stop?” He pleads. “You can’t tell me that. I mean, the power imbalance when you’ve been drinking and I haven’t—it’s—I mean, it's coercive. Because I brought it up, I asked an inappropriate question—or at least started to ask it, and you—not that it was your fault, I’m the responsible party in this instance, but if tomorrow you realize you never wanted to tell me—so I have to take that with a grain of salt. I’m just—I have to pretend I didn’t hear that, alright? And you can’t say it again.”

He’s ridiculous. You shift your weight onto one foot casually.

“That’s not very nice. I just confessed to having a huge crush on you and you’re gonna leave me hanging?”

There is an undeniable sort of pleasure in the bright of his eyes, and you phrased it that way on purpose, just to see him preen and glow—also to see if you could make him trip all over himself some more. Right now, despite the liminal space your relationship may or may not be occupying, you’re teasing him like you always do. Like he’s a friend, because he is. Before anything else.

He tries to glower, barely.

“Were you listening to me at all?”

“It was hard with all the stammering. I thought you might pass out.”

“I might,” he grumbles, and the admission pleases you greatly. Your lips tug as you admire him for a moment—watch his defenses go down and his features ease into something more inviting.

God, maybe you really had been too hard on him. Maybe he really didn’t expect that you would like him back.

You’re struck with the need to reassure.

A dampened clack emits from your shoe where the heel hits the ground as you step down off the curb.

“You know… I do like you. A lot. I mean it. And I’m glad I told you, because... you like me too, right?”

He raises his brows, like don’t do anything stupid, as you approach unhurriedly. It’s good to see that you haven’t broken his spirit completely.

Less than a foot away, you stop. Close enough to be in his space. Too far for him to have the grounds to step back.

His eyes are careful on you, analytical as always, constantly predicting an infinite number of outcomes to any given scenario. That’s how he keeps his footing in the world. But he’s never very good at predicting you. And it helps that his razor sharp intellect is dulled, some, with affection. Attraction.

It shows in his eyes. He’ll let you push boundaries he knows he shouldn’t. More so if you keep speaking to him this softly. Almost whispering.

“Tell me you like me, Spencer.”

Because he hasn’t yet. All the heavy lifting has been done for him, and that just won’t do.

First, he opens his mouth, and you watch the internal debate, a million things he could say, spinning round in his eyes like pinwheels. Rules, and buts, and caveats.

In the end, he just clears his throat. Speaks in the same secretive tone. Low enough to be intimate.

“I like you.”

Such a simple thing has never made you feel so airy before in your life. You steal another glance at his lips.

“So it’s really not that complicated. We could probably just kiss.”

He tinges pink.

“We definitely can’t.”

“You also said we couldn’t talk about it, and yet…”

“Talking is different. As far as I’m concerned, nothing you say to me tonight is binding. Whatever just transpired happened completely off the record. We can… talk about it tomorrow, but right now, you and I are friends.”

You shrug.

“Friends can kiss.”

“No, they can’t,” he says definitively, though not without a healthy dose of sardonic self-awareness and a dark smile. His hand finds your waist, and it’s glancing, if anything a light push, but you’re delighted nonetheless. Almost as pleased as if he really had kissed you. “It’s cold. I’m ready to leave.”

You’ve pushed him enough for one night. And it is cold. So you shuffle around the car with quick steps to the passenger side door, hooking your fingers under the biting metal handle and waiting for him to unlock the vehicle.

You’re shivering as your thighs press against leather upholstery, only the thinnest layer of synthetic material protecting your legs. Spencer is already starting the car, but the engine is too cold to bother turning the heat on yet.

“I think it’s colder in here than outside. Look at my hand.” You hold it up for him, and it is discolored, waxy, as he mindlessly takes it between his own much warmer ones. “I thought alcohol was supposed to keep you warm. Didn’t that chef on the Titanic survive hours in the ocean because he was hammered?”

“That’s a myth. Not the chef—he did survive, but it was a complete anomaly. Alcohol causes vasodilation in the dermis layer of the skin, so you feel warmer, but it draws blood flow away from your internal organs and significantly raises your likelihood of developing hypothermia.”

Does he notice how he’s holding your hand? Carefully pressing his thumbs to the center of your palm and pushing up through your love and life lines, cupping the fingers, before sandwiching them between his own and generating friction the way a child furiously rolls a play-doh worm?

“I guess I’m really not that drunk, then.”

He’s not expecting it, and maybe he doesn’t know what to make of your exceptionally gentle tone at first. It was a mistake, you think, as he relinquishes his hold on your hand, and you curl it to retain the memory of his warmth. But then he tucks hair behind your ear, like he’s done once or twice before, and smiles in a way you don’t quite understand.

“I know.”

You won’t push him. You won’t ask for anything else, and you won’t demand an explanation. Spencer is special. It can all wait, because you have something good with him already. Something important. Something like holding hands.

It comes as a surprise when he leans across the console, and you lean in a trance to meet him, and another surprise when he gently redirects, pressing his lips to your cheek, close enough to match the corners of your mouths and nothing more.

You’d let him do it a hundred times over, but he draws back after a fraction of a lingering second, and finds your hand to stroke the back of it, forgotten in your lap.

“You said no kissing,” you murmur, as if in a dream. If you had the wherewithal to be embarrassed maybe you wouldn’t be ogling so much.

“Compromise.”

If anything, you should be the cheek-kisser. But there will be time to feel slighted about that later. Time to amend. For now, you look ahead robotically.

“Is there a rule against friendly hand-holding?”

“Probably,” he says.

But he lets you hold his hand in your lap the whole drive to your apartment, anyway.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic

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alienzil · 3 months

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DP x DC Prompt/notion # 5

Bruce finished logging the last details of tonight’s patrol and reluctantly pulled up contingency file PT-961. “Hnn,” he grunted to the empty cave, staring at the folder on screen but making no move to open it yet. His children were all out for the evening with various excuses: doing research on a case, homework, visiting a friend, etc. He knew they were really with Fenton for a movie night of course…the third such movie night in the last several months since they started sneaking over to visit the man.

He'd put this off long enough, making excuses to himself about assessing the situation before coming to any conclusions, it was past time he did something about it.

Cli-click. There. The file was open.

He’d made this contingency plan years ago, creating it only a days after Dick had moved into the manor and updating as needed as the family had grown but it hadn’t been touched for years.

PT-961 In The Event That More than 50% of the Children Form an Attachment to a New Parental Figure (see file HM-962 if less than 50%) 1. Initial Research: a. Attachment levels – see pages 1-36, graphs I-XLVII b. Assessment of New Parental Figure c. Background and character 2. Intentions – harmful a. If wanting money see contingency files (GD-01 to GD-207) b. If mind control – magic see contingency files (SMM-M-01 to SMM-M-508) c. If mind control – science see contingency files (NAM-ES-01 to NAM-ES-904) d. If criminal intentions see contingency files (CAP-C-201 to CAP-C-508) 3. Intentions – positive a. Option 1. Hire them - See Family reaction projections pages 37-75 - See likelihood of job acceptance pages 76-94 - See possible outcome projections pages 95-127 Note: Option 1 has the highest likelihood of job acceptance and a positive outcome in the event New Parental Figure has an annual income of less than $42,300 and/or is greater than or equal to age 57. b. Option 2. No interference/Let the Children decide what to do - See Children’s time projections pages 128-209, graphs XLVIII-LXX - See possible mission/patrol interference scenarios pages 210-293 - See possible outcomes pages 294-362 Note: Projections for Option 2 show a near 100% likelihood of interference with patrols/mission. Note: Interference resulting in increased potential for injury or delay in treatment of injuries estimated to be 68-94% more likely. c. Option 3. Custody arrangement - See potential arrangements pages 363-482, graphs LXXI-XC - See possible outcomes pages 363-401 Note: The majority of projections show Option 3 is unlikely to be successful. Both the children and New Parental Figure are predicted to be uncooperative in time and custody arrangements with no other controlling factors. d. Option 4. Engage in a relationship - See family reactions page 402-481 - See New Parental Figure reactions pages 482-568 - See possible outcomes pages 569-757 Note: For possible romantic or similar relationships see contingency files (DM-401 to DM-879) Note: In the event Option 1 is nonviable, Option 4 has the highest likelihood of a positive outcome. e. Option 5. Arrange for New Parental Figure to leave - See contingency files (ROI-G-301 to ROI-G-809) Note: High likelihood of one or more children discovering the arrangement for the removal of New Parental Figure leading to high likelihood of estrangement. Also likely to be ethically questionable.

Bruce double checked his notes on Daniel James Fenton. He was 2 years younger than Bruce, earned a high income as a freelance engineer and had multiple patents that gave him enough passive income from royalties that he could easily maintain his current lifestyle without working. There were no indications of any criminal history or ill intentions and thus far all of his interactions with the children appear to have been positive. More than positive given that every single one of his kids was now “secretly” (or secretly in so far as they were aware) spending time with him.

He steepled his hands in front of his face and focused on the data displayed on screen. The best option to take in this case was obvious.

*****

Ding-Dong! “I’m coming!” Danny yelled as he dropped the laundry basket on the couch and headed for the front door. “Why is there always a package delivery on laundry day?” he muttered to himself. Well, hopefully the delivery guy wouldn’t mind his no clean laundry ensemble. Surely, they’d seen worse than Danny’s ancient, too small NASA t-shirt and the bat themed pajama pants Sam bought for him when he moved to Gotham.

“Hi there, sorry I was doing laundry and…uhh…you’re not the delivery guy”. Danny stared at a sharply dressed smiling man holding a dozen roses on the other side of his door.

“No, I’m Bruce Wayne. I-“

“Oh, shit”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “You know.”

“Umm…” Danny gulped. He was not expecting to deal with Batman on laundry day! “Yes?” He straightened himself, squared his shoulders and looked Bruce Wayne AKA Batman, the father of the kids that his core had recently come to recognize as his own, in the eyes. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I know.”

“Hnnn…” Bruce’s voice dropped a few octaves. Not quite Batman’s signature growl but much lower than he had been speaking. “Well then, that simplifies things. These are for you. Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

“…What?!”

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #dcxdp #fic prompt #so basically bruce has a contingencies in case the batkids found a new mom or dad #and the best option is to marry Danny #it's only logical #he has lists #and charts #they're color coded

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orangerainforest · 1 year

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#this is probably just me overreacting but #this is the first time ive detested working with a friend for a project #ive figured its probably because #they didnt graduate from a science high school #because when i worked with my friends #on researches and other projects #back in high school #we were always so productive #like when we set a deadline #it'd be accomplished #and i think its because of how science hs #have molded us 😭#we learned how to handle our time efficiently (in ways that couldve been better)#from a very young age so now #that im in uni #and all these new people #are handling their time very questionably #im just ????#to be clear #i dont care if youre lazy #im lazy #(by my definition)#like you can cram as much as you want #but if youre in a group work #a group project #you have to remember that #youre not the only one doing the work #you have to be considerate of other people's time #anyway #im so annoyed

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maddogmp3 · 1 year

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nothing quite like a good video essay series to awaken the sleeper physics hyperfixation i had as a kid

#me.txt #fun fact about me: my favorite tv channel from ages 9-12 was the science channel!#before that it was animal planet #and my favorite tv show for like. YEARS.#was mythbusters #for a really long time as a kid i wanted to be a physicist. then i took physics classes in high school and decided oh this shit's math #and i hate math #so im going into theater instead WQAESXRDFTCGVHB #anyway im going back to my video essays on failed multibillion government science projects

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robertreich · 1 month

Video

youtube

Project 2025: The MAGA Plan to Take Your Freedom

A second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first — in part because of something called Project 2025, a plan to extend Trump’s grip into every part of your life.

Trump’s gross incompetence in his first term wasn’t all bad. It kept some of his most extreme goals out of reach. That’s why his inner circle, including more than 20 officials from his first term, have written a step-by-step playbook to make a second term brutally efficient.

At nearly a thousand pages, it’s longer than most Stephen King novels, and a lot scarier. The Associated Press wasn’t kidding when they called it “a plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision,”

Project 2025 is a road map to ban abortion, give greedy corporate oligarchs everything they want, and strip Americans of our most basic freedoms — all without needing any support from Congress.

There’s more to it than I can get into, but here are three things I want you to know.

#1 How would Project 2025 work?

Every nonpartisan government agency would be turned into an arm of the MAGA agenda.

Some of the worst things Trump reportedly tried to do as president — like having the military shoot protesters or seize voting machines to overturn the election — were only stopped because sensible leaders in the military or the professional civil service refused to go along with it.

In a second term, there would be no sensible leaders in the military or professional civil service because Trump would fire anyone more loyal to the Constitution than to him.

Trump started the process in October 2020 with an executive order that would have let him fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA henchmen. I’m talking about traditionally non-political positions, like scientists at scientific agencies and accountants at the IRS.

Trump could not act on the executive order then because he lost the election. If he wins now, he’s pledged to pick up where he left off and go further…

TRUMP: …making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States.

#2 Project 2025 is about controlling Americans’ lives & bodies

Restricting abortion is such a big part of Project 2025 that the word “abortion” appears 198 times in the plan.

Trump largely made good on his campaign promise to ban abortion.

Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court justices, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age live in states with abortion bans. Project 2025 would make that even worse, without needing new laws from Congress.

Page 458 of the playbook calls for a MAGA-controlled FDA to reject medical science and reverse approval of the medications used in 63% of all abortions, effectively banning them.

Page 455 plans “abortion surveillance” and the creation of a registry that could put people who cross state lines to get an abortion at risk of prosecution.

Another way around Congress is to enforce arcane laws that are still technically on the books. Page 562 plans for a MAGA-controlled Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” This could be used to block the shipment of any medications or medical instruments needed for abortions.

But Project 2025’s control of American families goes even further. It plans for government agencies to define life as beginning at conception — a position at odds with the process used for in vitro fertilization.

Page 451 declares that “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” thereby stigmatizing single parents, same-sex couples, unmarried coparents, and childless couples.

Project 2025 even takes a stand against adoption, declaring on p. 489 that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

#3 Project 2025 would turn America into a police state.

Maybe you live in a blue city or state, where you think plans like arresting teachers and librarians over banned books (which is on p. 5) could never happen. Well, guess again.

Trump has said one of the big things he’d do differently in a second term is override mayors and governors to take over local law enforcement.

Page 553 lays out how to do this, and even plans for Trump’s Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys he disagrees with.

Immigration enforcement is to be conducted like a war, with the military deployed within the U.S., and millions of undocumented immigrants rounded up and placed into newly constructed holding camps. This is outlined starting on p. 139.

Members of the Project 2025 team also reportedly told the Washington Post about plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against anti-Trump protests.

There is much more to Project 2025. There are more than a hundred pages of anti-environmental policies that would help Trump make good on what he reportedly promised to do for oil executives if they contribute a billion dollars to his reelection. It would make drilling and mining a top national priority while killing clean energy projects, barring the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and replacing all government climate scientists with climate deniers.

There are even cartoonishly cruel plans like slaughtering wild horses. Yes, that’s really in there on p. 528.

I thought I understood the stakes of this election, but reading this plan… Well, it gave me chills. If Trump gets the chance to put this plan into place, he will. The country it would turn America into would be hard for any of us to recognize.

#youtube #Project 2025 #Video #Videos #Donald Trump #Election #elections #politics

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dcxdpdabbles · 5 months

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DCxDP fanfic idea: Corporate Rivals

Bruce is really excited to hire a boy genius from a small time town. He found him by accident while scrolling through some creative writing competition past winners on various school sites. He originally wanted ideas for his own contest for the annual Wayne Young Writers Scholarship when he stumbled up Amity Parks Youth Authors.

Daniel Fenton's science fiction had won second place, and Bruce thinks he only lost due to the judges not realizing all the science of the gadgets his charaters used were real. Real, well explain and proper research. Daniel obviously knew his stuff and knew it well.

He had reached out to Daniel with a science scholarship opportunity, wanting to see what he would come up with. He gave him a basic assignment asking him to fulfill a prompt "Software or Hardware development for disabled" in either theory or model. If he created something worthwhile, Bruce would send him ten grand.

Daniel did not disappoint, not only doing the theory paper but also sending back a prototype of a pocket ASL translator. It would be an app on a phone that would have an AI watching through a camera of the person doing sign language and say out loud what the person was saying. It had a few bugs here and there, but for a high schooler, those were very impressive accomplishments.

Bruce found himself sponsoring the boy for early high school graduation. The young Fenton boy was a genius just like his parents, but he lacked proper motivation. Bruce suspected it was due to his school not challenging him enough much like Tim.

When Daniel got his diploma Bruce offered a few rid to Gotham University with the condition he would be a employee at WE. Daniel agreed under the condition it was as a proper employee and not a unpaid intern. A little daring for a kid getting already a amazing deal but Bruce liked his moxy and agreed.

Daniel Fenton was to be a worker in the RD department for WE tech in one week.

He couldn't wait to introduce him to Tim. Two young geniuses would get along swimmingly with their shared brain prowess!

______________________________________

Tim hated the new guy.

They were the same age, but everyone acted like he was amazing for finishing high school and starting university while also being a top WE reseacher and Devloper at such a young age.

Oh Tim was CEO, but as many people have whispered, he didn't graduated Highschool or have a GED so the only reason he got to be CEO was because of nepotism. Danny on the other hand got his position through hard work.

Which was ironic, seeing as the company has never done so well since Tim came on board. Their sales, PR, and production numbers all tripled because of him. Danny, on the other hand, was a sloth with little to no ambition. He didn't even work well with others! He mostly did solo projects and everyone seemed fine with that since genius "need their own space"

Tim has been networking since he was three years old, and failure to do so had always reflected badly on him and his company. He spent his entire life careful choosing his words and his actions. Even his appearance, what he wore, his hairstyle even the hand gesture when he talked, were planned before hand.

Then comes Fenton, who avoids crowds, dressed in the worst formal wear Tim has ever seen . Black jeans were not formal!- and acted like this important office was just a after school hang out spot. Now Tim was much more laid back than his board co-workers, who were all in their fifties or older, and even more relax then the mangers or superiors of lower stations but even he could not understand Fenton blaring music, bags of chips lingering everywhere and his ordination skills were none existing!

Not to mention the fact Daniel didn't believe in using computers unless he had to. His office was covered in towers of paper that he scribbled and work on! It was such a waste!

And yet, despite all of that, Daniel was rapidly becoming an asset to WE. His ASL translator app wasn't finished, but it had everyone buzzing with excitement and would be well received when it was released with Wayne Phones as a built in app.

Tim tried to avoid him as best he could least he get offended by his lack of work proper behavior

Daniel Fenton did not understand what it meant to put your all into something that you lost yourself along the way. Best to ignore him.

________________________________________

Danny couldn't stand his company CEO. Timothy Drake reminded him a little too much of the A-listers but without the bulling bit. Somehow, that made it worse.

Timothy was popular because he was well liked. He didn't need to relay on his good looks or aggression to make other yeild to him like Paulina or Dash. Even if he was ridiculously good looking to the point, Danny confused him for a siren when he met him.

He had the ability to walk into any room and take command if it. Timothy didn't even need to speak, his very presence commanded attention and awe. Not to mention how great he was at his job.

WE had always been a popular corporation but under Timothy's command they rose to one of the most important corporations in the world. Bruce Wayne was raised to run a company, Timothy Drake was born to run it. There was a large enough difference between the two that anyone could see Timothy was superior at running things.

Danny was nothing like that. He couldn't talk to people, couldn't make them like him, and often he was overlooked for his sister or his wacky but loveable parents.

He was the other Febton. The one that was there and nothing else. A few months ago he was even considered the dumb Fenton, who somehow was skipped over for intelligence.

Then he wrote a little story and everything changed.

Danny turned out to be a proper Fenton, after all, having gotten the attention of Bruce Wayne for his mind. His parents haven't been so proud of him in a long time, and he found himself accepting the job position after graduating high school early before he knew it.

Along with the job came a move to Gotham city. He went after debating it a great deal with his family and friends, but the deal was too sweet to turn down. Now he was in Gothem and he knew absolutely no one.

Danny didn't know how to make new friends here. Tucker and Sam had been the ones to approach him at the beginning of their friendships. He also was scared of getting close to his co-worker less they suspect his Phantom powers.

He knew that Metas was not welcome, and he thought Batman wouldn't care that he was technically dead and not with a meta gene.

So he focused on his work, avoiding large crowds and keeping his head down. He would turn on music to help pass the loneliness and would gater papers to write down his thoughts less they made him mad by running around his head all day.

This anxious insecurity was something Timothy Drake would never understand. He just shone like a fallen star, dazzling the masses with his neat press suits, easy charisma, and intelligent bedroom eyes. Best to ignore him.

________________________________________

Dick never really ventured to WE now that he moved out. He made a habit of trying to visit Tim every two weeks for lunch to fix this. He also really wanted to spend more one on one time with his little brother now that they reconsidled from Bruce's timeline fiasco.

He was still well known by the employees, even new ones, so when Dick arrived to the lobby he was waved in by security. The receptionists were all huddled together muttering to eachother and missed his entrance since security didn't call out to him.

Dick could tell the gossip they were talking about was juicy based on the way Lola was wiggling her eyebrows and Stacy and Isaiah's reaction.

He creeps closer to the front desk, hoping to hear something good.

"Isn't that against the rules?" Isaiah asks.

"WE doesn't have anything like that. Not since Thomas Wayne married his old PA and had Bruce. I think it's cute that Mr.Drake is following in his adoptive Grandfather's footsteps."

Dick paused, shocked. Tim liked someone at WE!?

"They aren't even dating yet, Lola"

"Yeah but you can cut the sexual tension with a- Mr. Grayson! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you. How can I help you?"

Dick blinks. "Oh I'm here to see Tim for lunch. But what was that about Tim you were saying?"

The woman pales as the other two quickly become busy with some email or another.

"Oh, um, I'm so sorry, sir. I shouldn't have -"

"It's fine I don't mind a little chat between co-workers. I'm just curious"

Lola stares before nervously blurting "Rumor has it that um, Mr.Drake has a thing for Daniel Fenton"

"The new boy genius?" Dick thinks about it considering what he knows of Tim's type and his past preferences in partners before nodding "That tracks actually"

He says his thanks and hurries away to Tim's office unaware he may have confirmed a relationship between Tim and Danny.

The gossip circles in WE exploded with the news everyone careful not to let the two subjects hear a whisper.

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #Corporate Rivals #Dead Tired #Danny and Tim are jealous of the other #but also kind think the other is hot #Bruce just wanted a play date for his smart boy #Dick is a gossip past it on #Part 1

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