#danny is also not thrilled about this and it was handled without his input

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

Royalty au where Batman uses his brains as Bruce Wayne King of Gotham to secure alliances and prevent war with neighboring kingdoms through various means

Today Jason has been informed he's to marry a new king thats just taken his throne by conquest out west

Bruce intends for Jason to act as their representative and not quite puppeteer but definitely insert Gotham's influence within the foreign court. Jason is just pissed he's being used as a pawn by the man he's only allied to out of necessity (regardless of fatherhood status)

[nakedmonkey]

care to elaborate more on the beth is a topic, i would like to hear it 👀

Oh I can definitely talk about Beth Boland being a top. And somehow this got real long. Sorry. 

Beth likes control. In her life, she hasn’t had a lot of it, not really. It’s one of the upsides of being a stay-at-home-mom; she gets to control all the household and parenting stuff. That’s what makes her the queen of the PTA.

As far as things in the bedroom though? With Dean? She hasn’t gotten to exercise that part of herself much because, well, Dean met her when she was pretty young–they both were but she was even more inexperienced in that department–and he liked her soft and compliant. Sure they used to have sex in the car sometimes when they were dating and had no other place to actually do it and the early years of their marriage were fun too, she won’t say they weren’t, but somewhere along the way (she can’t pinpoint where exactly) it all became sort of mechanical and planned.

And then the kids came, pretty much one right after the other–Beth barely had time to breathe and get Kenny walking and talking before Danny came along and so that became what she could control. She could take on the hurdles and push her postpartum depression to the backburner as long as she wasn’t being second guessed. And Dean never did second guess her because Dean never really wanted to have an input in the first place.

She can’t remember when she stopped enjoying sex, but she knows she replaced that need with the other stuff that consumed her days; playdates and doctor appointments and extracurricular activities; writing out strict dietary guidelines for school bake sales and fundraisers, it was as close to a high she would get, as close as she could get to having full control of things. She got a little bit of a thrill when a new mom would question the logic of gluten free bake sales and one pointed glare would have her squirming away without further objections.

And then things with Rio happened–the money, the pills the sex–and it was intoxicating to be new at something and be kind of good at it, and to have an opinion about it, even if her opinions were often shut down because she could always try again, aim higher, do better, and when she did, when she knew she was doing well, when she could get the upper hand and surprise him; that was a high unlike she’d ever felt bossing the PTA moms around all those years. 

And it’s not JUST about control; because she could and does want someone who can handle her giving directions and be comfortable with her leading, but also someone she can trust enough to take the reins and know her sides, all of them. And it isn’t just about sex, but when it is about sex, she can tell Rio what she likes or he will coax it out of her and it still feels like she has not just some say in it but all of it. She lets him know when it’s okay to touch her and he never pushes her–not in any way she doesn’t like anyway. He lets her kiss him, lets her set the pace and that in itself is enough for Beth to know she could let him take over if she wanted, because they are the same on some level even if they are vastly different in other ways.

He likes her on top too, figuratively and literally speaking. As much as he enjoys making her squirm, unwinding her and winding her up again with his mouth and his fingers, he loves when she leads. He loves when she moves his hands where she wants them; when she pushes his head and holds it where she needs it, and Beth likes that he just goes along with it and does what she wants. She likes him flat on his back and at her mercy too–she likes that he keeps his hands where she puts them, that she can bring him close to climax and keep him teetering there for as long as she wants and he won’t fight her. That’s the one place he won’t fight her. 

It changed her, having agency of her desires. It made her not want to settle ever again for anything less than really great sex, but it also made her want to collapse into herself when she had to give it up; all of it–the money, Rio, all of it. In more ways than one it felt like trying to put the last puzzle piece in its place, except it was wet and bigger and had morphed into a different shape, no longer fitting. 

And that’s fine. She stops pretending PTA meetings and baking marathons are enough; she stops pretending she likes things she doesn’t like, and she stops pretending she doesn’t like the things she does.

The emotional stuff is harder. She still isn’t sure what the hell Rio is doing with her exactly or what they are to each other. The other stuff? The sex stuff? That she can handle for the most part. Doing it is the easy part, the after is what she still doesn’t quite have a grasp of, but they’ll get there eventually. Even if he fights her on it the whole way. Because that’s another thing she’s learned; being the boss is great, but it’s a lot more fun with a some friendly competition. 

[itsworn]

Learning To Put SRT Power To The Pavement At Bondurant Racing School

Over the past few years, the democratization of horsepower has made serious performance more accessible than ever. SRT has been among the leaders of that imitative since the introduction of the Challenger and Charger Hellcats, along with other Hemi-powered performance models across the FCA lineup. And with the 840-horsepower SRT Demon and the supercharged Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk due to land in dealer showrooms shortly, it doesn’t look like the company’s mission to bring horsepower to the masses is going away anytime soon.

With great power comes great responsibility and getting the most out of track-capable vehicles isn’t simply a matter of having a heavy right foot. That’s why SRT partnered up with the Bondurant Racing School last year to host the SRT Track Experience.

Since 2005, the program has given new SRT owners a chance to get on track with the company’s most potent hardware for a day of expert instruction at no charge, and the SRT Track Experience’s latest home at Bondurant’s purpose-built facility couldn’t be more ideal for the task. For nearly half a century, the Bondurant school has been training everyone from teenagers and military personnel to professional race car drivers in areas of study ranging from evasive maneuvering and car control techniques to high-speed race course driving, and racing icon Bob Bondurant along with his roster of instructors – many of whom are also highly successful racers – have been on hand to provide their expertise all along the way.

It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to get training from a Le Mans winner (1964 GT Class, in Cobra Daytona Coupe with Dan Gurney co-driving, for those keeping score) and his crew, so we made haste for Chandler, Arizona to check out the facility and SRT Track Experience for ourselves.

Classroom Orientation “This program has kind of a twofold purpose,” explained Bondurant’s assistant chief instructor, Danny Bullock. “We want to incite more enthusiasm for the brand but also instill some good driving habits in new SRT owners – information you can use every day to make yourself a better – and safer – driver.”

Bullock went on to explain some of the core fundamentals of performance driving: Keeping your eyes up and looking far ahead rather than straight down the hood in order to anticipate upcoming maneuvers, being aware of what’s going on in your surroundings and what your car is doing and, perhaps most importantly, avoiding target fixation by looking where you want the car to go as opposed to what you want to avoid.

“You also need to be smooth on the controls,” Bullock added. “And part of that is adjusting your seating position for performance driving.” That usually equates a fairly up-right seatback for most drivers and a distance from the pedals and wheel that allows you to fully depress the pedals while still allowing for easy rotation of the steering wheel (with your hands at 10 and 2 for maximum stability).

The topics of discussion moved into cornering technique and understanding how weight transfer affects handling, the racing line, and other important elements of track driving. Once everyone was brought up to speed, we headed out to the test track, grabbed some helmets, and got behind the wheel for our first car control exercise.

Skid Car Here, the objective was to learn how to properly control and correct an oversteer situation, (i.e. the back of the car wants to swap positions with the front). In order to coax the rearend around at low speeds without a lot of throttle required the school uses these specially equipped skid cars, which can reduce the weight on the front or back of the car by lifting either end up on a set of hydraulic “training wheels.” The amount of weight alteration those training wheels provide is adjusted by the instructor via a control box inside the car.

The effect is something akin to drifting on rain-soaked pavement, except the front end remains stable while the back end becomes much easier to break loose. While precise steering and throttle control technique are pivotal here, the skid car exercise also provides a means of understanding that where you look really does affect where you steer.

Here at low speeds without the risk of hitting any fixed objects, drivers can get acclimated to the idea of keeping their vision focused on where they want to go rather than locking in on what they want to avoid, which makes this a great primer for those who’re newcomers to track driving.

Accident Avoidance Vision is once again a key element in this exercise, but weight transfer and at-limit braking also play important roles here too. As the name implies, here drivers learn how to quickly react to a sudden emergency on the road.

Drivers are sent down a single lane at about 50 mph, and just before the lane splits into three lanes – one on either side – a set of lights above the lanes changes from three green lights to two red lights and one green (or two green and one red), with the remaining red light lanes indicating that they’re to be avoided. This discipline helps drivers better understand weight transfer – we’re instructed not to brake, as emergency steering while panic braking can cause the vehicle to rotate when all the weight shifts to the front– as well as how long it actually takes to react to a sudden emergency situation on the road.

Later in the exercise drivers are randomly faced with three red lights, which indicates a full panic stop in a straight line. This allows drivers to get acclimated to the full potential of their vehicle’s braking system, a feature we’d be getting significantly more familiar with during our next exercise.

Autocross For many enthusiasts, autocross is their first foray into organized high performance driving and competition. Autocross is set up like a miniature road course with cones outlining the configuration of the track. The goal here is to get through the course as quickly as possible without hitting any cones.

The cars for the exercise were all identically equipped Dodge Charger SRT Hellcats which differed from factory stock only in their use of racing brake pads, rotors, and fluid. Goodyear F1 tires also replace the Hellcat’s factory rubber, as the F1s are provided to the school as part of Goodyear’s sponsorship of the various Bondurant training programs.

While the speeds on most autocross courses rarely exceed 70 mph or so, the highly technical driving technique required encourages drivers to find the dynamic limits of their vehicle without exceeding them, as every loss of traction just adds time to the run.

Diving into a corner with too much speed might cause understeer while getting on the power too early out of a corner could kick the back end of the car out, both of which will equate to slower lap times. Yet being too conservative with the throttle and brake inputs will cost you time as well, so getting familiar with the car’s true capability (as well as your own) and holding at those limits as much as possible throughout the run becomes the key to fast autocross times.

Lead/Follow Track Sessions With our minds and bodies properly warmed up for track work, we headed over to pit lane at Bondurant’s road course to get outfitted for some lap sessions.

The folks who were unfamiliar with operating a manual transmission were given the option to pilot automatic-equipped Challenger SRT Hellcats, while those comfortable rowing their own gears would be strapped in behind the wheel of a Dodge Viper GT. With the iconic sport car’s twenty-five year production run ending this year, these incredible machines will soon be taken out of Bondurant’s fleet as well, so we jumped at the chance to get some track time with one these beastly, V10-powered two-seaters. An instructor in the lead car set the pace for each session in a Charger SRT Hellcat while also serving as a guide to show the trailing drivers the proper line around the course.

Out on the track, all of the fundamentals of performance driving that we had honed in the other exercises were put into practice at speed. As students continued to refine their technique and get acclimated to the track, it allowed the instructors to progressively pick up the pace with each consecutive lap while ensuring none of the drivers ended up falling too far behind.

Before the day concluded, each student also got to go on a ride-along with an instructor for a hot lap around the course in a Challenger SRT Hellcat with a six-speed gearbox. Though these laps are as much a thrill ride as they are about driving technique (as indicated by the copious amounts of tire smoke involved), it’s humbling to see what these cars are truly capable of in the hands of a professional driver.

It also drives home the fact that, more often than not, the driver mod accounts for more than any marginal hardware advantage might, and that learning how to get every ounce of capability out of a car is perhaps the most valuable performance investment of them all.

The post Learning To Put SRT Power To The Pavement At Bondurant Racing School appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/learning-put-srt-power-pavement-bondurant-racing-school/ via IFTTT