#bync

Hallowed City || Natalia Romanova / Black Widow ; Valkyrie

Mythology

A Valkyrie is a Fae species charged with taking the souls of great warriors, both Fae and human, to Valhalla after their deaths in battle. They answer to Freyja, who is in charge of balancing the "books" about souls taken to the under realms.

Abilities

Doubt -  Valkyries have the power to create doubt, confusion, and intimidation in their opponents. When using the power of confusion the Valkyrie's true form is seen, which resembles a gaunt skull. They can also restore consciousness to a comatose person, and can cause someone to die by willing it.

Collector of Souls - When a Valkyrie transports a soul, both the Valkyrie and the body of the deceased glow a bright white light and disintegrate into tiny particles. Souls are assigned to different realms and a Valkyrie's blood is bound to secrecy. If they discuss details of the "other-worlds" they die.

Rebirth - Valkyries live several life cycles until their final one, and when they are near the end of one cycle they begin to lose volumes of hair each time they use their powers. When a life cycle has expired and they die, they are reborn with an accelerated aging process between birth and adulthood.  At the start of a reincarnated life, Valkyrie powers and abilities are extremely enhanced. In their final life cycle and similar to puberty, Valkyries "gain their wings" in a process that is painful. But, a Valkyrie can sometimes obtain their wings before their final life. Their powers increase tenfold.

Appearance

Natasha appears as she normally would. Unless her wings are showing or she’s casting Doubt upon a person. 

Weaknesses

Using her powers (especially Doubt) is draining for a Valkyrie. It can lead to them passing out and hair loss. It can even go as far as their dying and being reborn

Natalia Romanova - Goddess of Mystery 

Calling: 

Since her time within the Red Room the woman, now called Natasha Romanov, has had to wrap herself in a shroud of mystery. Often to the point where no one can truly say that they know the true woman beneath the masks that she so often wears. 

Aura:

When the goddess walks the streets, a heavy mist covers the city. Stalking the streets much like the goddess herself. Making everything and everyone seem to appear out of seemingly nowhere. On top of the mist everything becomes banked in an eerie red glow that seems to come from no where and every where at once. Tainting the very mist red, making it all the more unnatural in feeling and appearance. 

Being within the presence of Mystery often causes ones skin to crawl. Making those in her immediate vicinity hurry to get away from her and the mist surrounding her. A chill crawls and sends a sensation skittering up and down one’s spine, often causing a need to shiver. 

Having become more comfortable in certain parts of the city, she has taken up residence within an abandoned gothic cathedral. Filling it with her mist and accompanying red glow. 

Powers:

Cause others to feel an intense fear mixed with confusion with no apparent source to the fear or confusion

Ability make it look as though she, objects or others appear and disappear thanks to the mist she controls

Uses the red glow to highlight things at will. Rather like using a red spotlight

Wherever she is, it seems to instantly become night around her. Often making her surroundings take on the appearance of a horror film

Appearance: 

Upon first look, Natalia appears to be the same as she always has been. However, this is not the truth. Especially if one encounters the woman within the streets. It is hard to get a true look at the goddess, given the mist and the glow. Her green eyes seem to shine of their own accord, making her appearance all the more eerie and often fear inducing. 

Hallowed City || Clint Barton / Hawkeye ; Ljósálfar (Norse Light Elf)

Mythology

Light elves live in Álfheimr. Light elves were appreciated and esteemed by the god Odin. Some legends say that the look of the elves was linked to the changes of the seasons in nature. Though considered by humans as “fairer than the sun to look at”, they do not hold the human race in such high esteem. They work to live in harmony with nature and do not tolerate those who would destroy it.

Abilities

Nature’s Ally - Light elves can communicate with plants and animals.

Heightened Senses - Light elves have heightened senses, especially hearing and vision.

Mostly Immortal - Light elves cannot be killed by normal means (see weaknesses) and heal quickly.

Appearance

Light elves are fair skinned, though up close it looks and feels like bark. He has a circlet of ivy in his hair and a hawk feather in front of each of his pointed ears.

Weaknesses

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/bync-syncs-with-your-bank-account-and-credit-cards-to-send-your-more-relevant-deals/177

Bync Syncs With Your Bank Account And Credit Cards To Send Your More Relevant Deals

Bync, a new startup launching today, will sync with your bank and credit cards in order to provide you with more relevant deals, offers and coupons which are sent out via email. You can think of it as the daily deals email that you actually want to read. The company began its life as Budgetable, a more comprehensive personal finance suite similar to Mint.com, but with offers. However, following user testing over the summer, the company found that it was the deals which really engaged customers.

The service currently works with 10,000 different credit card companies, banks and credit unions across the U.S. and Canada. To use Bync, users sign up and add credentials for their banks and credit cards, again similar to Mint, and it will then begin to sync their data to see which deals they would be interested in.

Bync CEO and founder Ryan Bales says he came up with the idea based on his own frustration with his daily deals emails  - the offers just weren’t relevant to his tastes. “A lot of the daily deal sites are based on your location,” Bales explains, “but just because I live in Boulder, Colorado that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m interested in spas and the other things they offer. I starting thinking, it’s not a very good way to determine what people will like and what people will find useful.”

It would be better to target users based on actual spending behaviors, he realized. Of course, this is not an original idea. Banks and credit card companies are also competing this market, as well as other card-linked offers providers like Cartera Commerce, Edo, Placecast and others.

That being said, people love to get deals, so there’s still room for a new company to try its hand at the game. During Budgetable’s private beta involving 5,000 testers, the service saw very high click-through rates on deals emails, at around 12 to 15 percent. That’s around four times higher than the average daily deals email, Bales says, citing data from MailChimp’s extensive study.

Users can configure Bync to send them emails on either a daily or weekly basis, and currently, the offers will include a variety of online coupons, promo codes and other exclusive deals Bync itself has brokered with merchants. At launch, only around 10 percent of Bync’s deals are exclusive, as opposed to being aggregated by third parties, but Bales says this will change as more merchants come on board. He says the company is now in discussions with some bigger names, but isn’t permitted to reveal details of those potential pilot programs at this time.

The site will effectively operate as a middleman between merchants and customers, as Bync will only store anonymized spending data, not personally identifiable data. Part of Bync’s business model will be to charge merchants a fee to reach their loyal customers, but this aspect to Bync’s service has not yet gone live.

However, Bync will be monetizing at launch by offering a freemium subscription plan. Users can sync one card or bank account for free, but have to pay to sync more. For two accounts, it costs $ 3.99/month, four accounts is $ 5.99/month, and unlimited accounts cost $ 9.99/month. An annual subscription is less. A mobile application is in development, too.