#hot disgruntled businessman

[leclercskiesahead]

Excuse meeeeee

[hobierps]

The Lone Paradise Ranch Long have the residents of Arkney County known of the good times to be had at the Lone Paradise Ranch, where the liquor never stops flowing, nor does the parade of beautiful women. Founded nearly 20 years ago by Rafael Soler as a way to fatten his checkbook after seeing an opportunity to add a source of entertainment to the county, the Lone Paradise Ranch quickly built a name for itself among the who’s who of Arkney County and beyond, thanks in no small part to the annual Arkney Derby, an event that rivals the Kentucky Derby in scale.

While the Lone Paradise is largely known as a place to gamble away your fortune on the horse races, inside is where the real horseplay transpires. Managed by those who have fallen into Soler’s grasp, a prostitution ring is run out of the ranch—one driven by sweet words promising opportunity and the fear of what happens if you dare not believe them. Though all who fall into the spider’s web have their own cause for being there, whether it be drugs, loans with unscrupulous interest rates, or the chance at a better future, the more they struggle, the more tangled they become. Leaving seems the most obvious answer, but doing so is a nigh unattainable feat, as the Lone Paradise demands a hefty price for freedom.

The Lone Paradise promises to make your most intimate dreams come true, but who dares pay the price?

This ad is for some of the members of the local prostitution ring. The faces and some of the ages are flexible. This ad is open to original characters as well! (For all levels.)

Feel free to hit one of us up on discord at either contramundum#7735 hobie#4947 or mady#5462 if you have any questions! Full descriptions of the members of the Lone Paradise Ranch after the break~

Owner & Operator — Rafael ‘Raf’ Soler (53) FC: Benicio Del Toro || Played by Mira Owner and operator of the Lone Paradise Ranch, Rafael Soler has been at the center of Arkney County’s entertainment for nearly twenty-five years. By day, the ranch boasts family-friendly activities, but the real fun happens after the sun has fallen. The adult entertainment offered by the ranch has skyrocketed its appeal and made the Lone Paradise Ranch a name whispered among both the elite and those with more illicit cravings. He’s shown himself as an adept businessman who’s not afraid to sink to the level of his clientele, and recent years have found him more depraved than ever. In a long term business/personal relationship with Entertainment Manager, but Annie March has recently caught his eye.

Personal Assistant — Logan ‘Vick’ Vickers (34) FC: Scott Eastwood || Played by Hobie Rafael Soler’s second-in-command, Logan Vickers serves as an extension of the man’s will. He began working for the ranch after graduating high school when Raf used his wealth to protect Vick’s family’s cattle ranch from foreclosure. He is reckless and wild, a hot-headed cowboy who flies by the seat of his pants. Despite his rowdy streak, Vick oozes southern charm and rarely does he ruffle feathers without meaning to. In his youth, he was a local rodeo star, roping calves and clinging to the backs of bucking broncos. Today, he undertakes the more vicious duties for Raf, more often than not walking away with blood on his hands. He has seen the measure of Raf’s wickedness and embraced it, choosing to walk with the devil, rather than meet his wrath. Despite knowing the depths of Raf’s depravity, he has roped in his two longtime friends, the Horse Handler and the Head of Security, into his disturbing games.

Head of Security (mid 30s) — Reserved for Levi Suggested FC: Russell Tovey, Jai Courtney, Jon Kortajarena A transplant from the west coast, the Head of Security came to Arney County after his wealthy father decided to give up the good life in favor of getting back to his roots. A teenager when he arrived in Kansas, the Head of Security quickly fell in with Logan Vickers’ gang of hoodlums. Like the Horse Handler, the Head of Security was brought into Rafael Soler’s circle by Vick, yet unlike the Horse Handler, the Head of Security has no qualms about the unsavory things that go down at the ranch. Though, perhaps this is why the more abhorrent tasks are left to Vick. Instead, the Head of Security is charged with protecting the girls from overzealous patrons and the occasional disgruntled boyfriend. He and Vick are in an erratic off-the-books affair that neither man acknowledges.

Horse Handler (mid 30s) — Open Suggested FC: John Boyega, Michael B. Jordan, Dudley O'Shaughnessy Kansas born and bred, Lone Paradise’s resident Horse Handler has spent his lifetime in the flat grasslands of the Midwest. The son of a pair of horse breeders, the Horse Handler knows his way around those beautiful creatures. Like Logan Vickers, he participated in the local rodeos in his youth, solidifying their friendship—one that has lasted to this day, despite Vick’s unconscious attempts to derail it. An old soul with a bleeding heart, the Horse Handler is a misfit among the Paradise Ranch staff. He stands against everything that Rafael Soler believes, but found himself roped into the madness by Vick nearly a decade ago. Now he cares for the horses that the ranch keeps for races and fixes the odds in the house’s favor when Raf deems it necessary. A bit of a white knight, he’s been known to engage in relationships with the entertainment, believing he can save them from a life of servitude.

Legal Advisor (33-36) — Open Suggested FC: David Castañeda The legal advisor is Raf’s son, returning from a lackluster stint on the East Coast, but also the most presentable face of the operation, there in places where his father, Rafael Soler’s accent or aggressive bearing might be less welcome. Whether in dealings with local police, lawsuits, or other official functions, the legal advisor knows where all the bodies — perhaps literally — are buried, and is more than happy to grace the situation with a placid all-American smile. His exact feelings toward the ranch and/or his father are murky at best, and buried under carefully considered words; however, his eye has really been drawn to his father’s latest favorite, Annie March, much to his dismay.

Entertainment Manager (40s) — Open Suggested FC: Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Thandie Newton One of Raf’s long time favorite performers, the Entertainment Manager has done her fair share of favors to get to where she is today. Beginning as just one of the girls, the Entertainment Manager exercised her feminine wiles to charm Raf and win his favor. At one time, she might have thought he’d marry her, but she’s long since learned of her disillusion. A few years ago, Raf retired her from the floor and now she manages the talent with a firm, but fair, hand, taking it upon herself to protect the ones who do good work. She spits fire and fights for what she wants, but she knows to bite her tongue when it comes to Raf. Vick, however, is a different story. She knows they stand on equal footing and is more than willing to throw her weight around when necessary. She has been involved in a long term relationship with Rafael Soler that spans both the personal and professional, though his attention towards her has waned since Annie March caught his lustful gaze.

Escort One — Annie March (24) FC: Josephin Skriver || played by Mady/ She’ll convince anyone who asks that she’s doing just fine, but Annie is always a step away from disaster. After attempting to steal cash and a car from Raf, Annie has been working for him to pay off the debt. But that hasn’t stopped her from borrowing more and more money from him to fund her drug habit. Annie has her share of secrets, including that she’s trying to get a little freedom after being under Morphos’ watch for most of her childhood and can make people do just about whatever she wants them to. At the end of the day, Annie is a survivor and she’ll play whatever game she needs to in order to get by.

Escort Two (20s) — Open Suggested FC: Zendaya Too smart for her own good, Escort has her own operations going on behind Raf’s back. She has private clients she sees on the side and is carefully stealing from Raf in order to fund her escape from the ranch and Arkney. She might come off as the cold type but she has a soft spot for Jockey, even though she knows this is the last place to start caring about people. Particularly close to the Entertainment Manager and almost feels bad for lying to her face but doesn’t fully trust anyone here. Doesn’t realize how dangerous her moves are getting and that the Legal Advisor is starting to catch on.

Escort Three (early 20s) — Reserved for Sam Suggested FC: Karmay Ngai A girl from a nearby town nobody bothers to remember, she is the youngest and newest addition to Raf’s coterie. Seeing the success of former girls like the Entertainment Manager, she has an idea that the ranch is her way out. It should go without saying that not all is as it seems. From the icy indifference of the Entertainment Manager to the questionable warnings and/or advances from the Horse Handler, nothing is given and she learns she must find her footing within the complex politics of the ranch. But how long will it take for the glamor of the ranch and its clientele to wear off? Only time will tell.

Jockey (20s) — Open Suggested FC: Regé-Jean Page, Reece King, Avan Jogia First spotted by Raf at the derby, something about his headstrong, self-assured nature found him in the man’s good graces. One of the fastest racers, Raf soon after offered him a resident position at the ranch with an income that put a jockey’s to shame. Aside from serving as a conversation piece at the ranch for the guests (he’s a skilled storyteller to boot) and eyeing Escort 3, he also has been unwittingly drawn into some of the ranch’s shadier dealings by Vick and the Horse Handler. He’s beginning to realize that he can’t see the bottom of the pool he’s entered.

[oncelers-panties]

Boulevard Boy

Ao3 Link

There he was again. Same place, at the usual time, and just as infuriatingly captivating as always.

Mr. Greed shuffled in his seat, tilting his head a little to get a better view of him, trying to do so in a way that wasn´t too obvious- then, right away, wondered what he was trying to be so inconspicuous for. Nothing strange about his behavior, not one bit. Still, what if the other were to notice his stares? It would be awkward, wouldn´t it?

He put a stop to this train of thoughts, as to not have the same internal conversation he´s already had several times the last few days. This has been going for far too long, and God, it was getting embarrassing. All this inner turmoil, because of what?

Because of some guy with a shabby old guitar.

He had just appeared one day; infiltrating Mr. Greed´s territory and stealing his inner peace. Before that, the idyllic boulevard with its cozy benches and rows of trees that provided shade during sunny days was his place of refuge. Here, he found the peace of mind he was often denied as businessman climbing up the career ladder, which is why he visited it whenever he could during his breaks. He didn´t enjoy spending that precious time among his colleagues and employees, since they were always up for idle chatter which took away from his much-needed relaxation. And so, he grew into the habit of having his lunch beneath the beeches, watching as people went about their daily lives and doves fought over crumbs of bread on the ground.

Then, about two months or so ago, there was a change in scenery. A young man appeared, playing and singing songs to passerby for pocket change. Street performers could often be seen at that place, but this one caught the businessman’s attention. Why, he couldn´t tell, as nothing about the man seemed particularly striking at first. Cheap and plain clothes that were often of poor taste- heavens, who in their right mind still wore a trilby in this day and age? A face pretty but not too memorable, a body too bony for Greed´s taste. A voice that was pleasant to listen to, but probably wouldn´t go down in music history. And yet, Mr. Greed could not take his eyes off of him whenever he graced the boulevard with his presence, froze in anticipation every time the man drew breath in-between songs, got hypnotized by the way his slender fingers danced over the strings of his instrument. Eventually memorized the days and times of the week the man came out to sing, leaving his workplace in a hurry as to not miss him.

It all felt terribly odd to him. Greed wasn´t one for love at first sight; in fact, he wasn´t one for love at all. Both because of his impossibly high-standards no one seemed to be able to fulfill, and because he was of the opinion that his job was too time-consuming for such pleasures. Partners always turned out to be more trouble than they were worth, and he had often been told that he was insensitive and unromantic, so at one point, he had stopped bothering. Where, then, did these fantasies come from, of fleeting touches and saccharine whisperings that followed him from the early morning hours all the way into the night, when he lay awake in his lonely bed? He would try to get his mind off of them, yet like particularly annoying bugs, they´d always come back to swarm him.

Disgruntled, Mr. Greed convinced himself that it was just a phase he was going through, a sudden need for intimacy born from lower instincts that would pass as quickly as a common cold. That belief was shattered the very next day, when the performer appeared again, carrying a violin this time, and gave the best damn performance of Lili Marleen he´s ever heard. Awestruck, he froze in place, eyes glued to the man´s lips as his jaded expression grew uncharacteristically soft and his heart fluttered along to each note emitted by the instrument. There suddenly was that overwhelming desire to get closer, just marveling from afar not being enough anymore. He felt the need to map every inch of the other´s face, get near enough to bathe in the warmth of his blush and have his lashes brush against his cheek.

When that feeling became too much, Greed abruptly got up, body acting by itself. However, he completely disregarded the cup of coffee he had placed onto his lap before, which fell down and almost splattered its contents all over a woman that was passing by at that moment. She managed to jump aside just in time to not get drenched in the hot drink, and gave the businessman a deadly glare, hissing a furious watch it before taking off, ignoring all of Greed´s attempted apologies. He looked down to find that the legs of his slacks and tips of his shoes were covered in coffee, which made him snap out of his trance and swear profusely as he tried to clean if off with some tissues, only smearing it further over the expensive material as a result. He had to go home to change that day, coming back late for work.

Even that experience did not keep him from watching the street performer closely, always keeping a safe distance at first, eventually allowing himself to go near to tip the man a few dollar bills for his performance. In that short moment, he tried to capture him as best as he could, noticing the tiny freckles that sprawled over his cheeks like stars, eyes that reminded him of the forget me-nots-that used to bloom by his childhood home, lips that curved into a small, grateful smile…

The businessman felt himself heat up, unsure whether it was from the warm summer air or the flush that appeared on his face. He left in a hurry, feeling like a fool, yet overtaken by a deep delight that lasted throughout the entire day and the morning after.

From then on, Mr. Greed would throw money into the man´s open guitar case whenever he performed, just so he could walk by him again and steal another glance at that sweet face he had ironically thought of as forgettable not too long ago. Promising himself that it would be the last time, yet always coming back for more. After all, why shouldn´t he? He did enjoy the music, and the singer looked like he could use the cash. Greed thought about how he´d use it to buy himself a particularly fine meal at a nice restaurant, or a new set of clothes, maybe it would help him pay for rent, keep a roof over his head for another month… perhaps, when making those purchases, he´d even think of the generous businessman who provided him with that money.

Rather than ponder about it, Greed could, of course, just drop the charade and talk to the handsome singer. But what was he even supposed to say? “Good day, stranger. Recently, I´ve been having extensive fantasies about running away with you to rural France and moving into a small cottage, where I will proceed to worship and make love to you until late into the night, then wake up every morning to the sight of you sitting wistfully by the windowsill in nothing but an oversized button-up. Oh, and I also think your singing is neat.”

No, even if he were to come up with something tamer, he´d just make himself look ridiculous. The stranger would look him in the eye, probably with an awkward smile, and politely tell him to get lost. He´d say something like…

 “Excuse me?”

Mr. Greed almost jumped a little, turning his head. Without him noticing, someone had taken a seat next to him, and he was suddenly looking into a pair of light-blue eyes. Dumbfounded, he stared at the stranger in silence- his mind taking a while to process the fact that it was none other than the singer he had come to adore so much. And while he was busy sorting his thoughts to get a grip on the situation, the other just smiled, lifting his hand and giving a small wave.

“Hi there.”

Once he managed to overcome the initial shock, Greed immediately sat up straight, hands running over the creases in his jacket to flatten them. After spending a moment sitting with his mouth open like a fish out of water, he finally managed to gain some control over his voice, and the first thing he could blurt out, in the same tone he used with his customers and sponsors:

“Good day. How may I help you?”

At that, the stranger laughed. It was soft and warm, just like his entire presence, and it sounded shockingly close to how Mr. Greed had imagined it would in his many daydreams, making him want to die of embarrassment a little less and his heart pound a little more.

“No need to be so formal,” the musician said. “I´ve just noticed that you listen to my playing a lot. And, well-“

He lowered his gaze a little, scratching the back of his neck.

“I´m grateful that you like it so much, really. But… all that money, I can´t accept it, I´m sorry.”

Greed blinked a few times, not knowing what to say.

“I mean, I´ve earned 250 dollars this month. From you alone.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“And I´d like to give it back to you, because I couldn´t look at it without feeling guilty. Sure, I want to earn a little with playing music, but this is more than I can keep with a clear conscience. So, please…”

The man reached for his pocket, retrieving a bunch of dollar bills that were being held together by a rubber band, and handed them to Mr. Greed.

“I´ll be too busy to perform here anymore, for a long time, at least. Thank you for being such a great listener. As weird as that sounds, it actually meant a lot to me.”

The way he said it, with a smile humble yet genuine, made the businessman feel like he would melt on spot. Breaking out of his stupor, he gently yet firmly pushed the other´s hand back, shaking his head.

“Keep it. If gave it to you, it means that I thought your performing to be worth the money,” he retorted, feeling himself getting a little light-headed from the softness of the other´s skin. A little quieter, he added: “See it also as me paying off my guilt for having terribly embarrassing romantic thoughts about you for an uncomfortably long time despite not even knowing your name.”

Greed watched the stranger´s expression change rapidly after that blunt confession; from shock to thoughtfulness to realization, until finally, the corners of his rosy lips curled upwards into a smile once more, and his eyes narrowed in a playful manner, a curious glint behind them.

“I see. But if that´s the case… perhaps my most generous benefactor would like to get to know me a little better? If he has the time, that is.”

The businessman´s response sounded like a mix between actual words and useless stuttering, and when the other, chuckling, asked him for something to write with, he patted his upper body all over, like a man being attacked by ants. Finally, Greed found a pen in the inner pocket of his jacket and handed it to the musician. He wordlessly allowed the other to lean over forward and lift the sleeve of his jacket, watched as the singer wrote down his phone number on the underside of his arm, the tip of the pen tickling his skin a little. Inhaled a bit of the faintly sweet scent emanating from the man´s moppy black hair, and took notice of the daintiness of his slightly calloused fingers.

“I gotta go now,” the singer said, interrupting Greed´s observation, “Call me tomorrow evening, I´ll be free. Try not to lose that arm with my number on in until then. Name´s Once-ler, by the way, pleased to meet you.”

He handed the pen back to its owner, got up quickly to readjust the guitar case on his back- and off he went. Mr. Greed noticed the bundle of money that was still lying on the bench, rather than in the singer´s wallet like it was supposed to. He called after him; but Once-ler just turned his head, smirking cheekily.

“Hold on to those bills! Keep them for later, my tastes in drinks and coffee shops are pretty expensive.”

Laughing, the musician disappeared behind a corner. And Mr. Greed himself couldn´t help but smile as he leaned back, enjoying the view of the clear summer sky.

[christinesficrecs]

hi, any fics revolving the aeroplane industry? could be air steward or pilot

Hey :)

Sure! Here are some airport au fics. 

flying high by thepsychicclam | 2.8K

stiles is a nervous flier, and derek is a grouchy flight attendant.

Stiles Stilinski: Your In-Flight Entertainment by MellytheHun  | 2.4K

“No.”

Mr. Argent sighs, “I’m sorry, Derek, but Jackson won’t keep Stiles on his plane anymore. The kid needs straightening up. You could be good for him.”

Derek scowls, “All I’ve heard are horror stories about rubber snakes falling from overhead compartments and travel size bottles of liquor being juggled. I’m not a pilot for wayward stewards either.”

Flying Higher Than Before by amazingpages | 4.5K

Stiles has been a flight attendant for six years now. Derek thinks it’s about time they joined the mile-high club.

The Right Book, in the Right Hands by TroubleIWant | 10.6K

Stiles loves his job. Mostly. Like, maybe sixty-seven percent loves. For right out of college that’s pretty good, right? And among people working in the Chicago O’Hare airport he’s positive he’s in the 99th percentile of job enjoyment.

When all is said and done, he really does love putting the right book into the right hands. Especially when those hands are as attractive as the ones attached to Hot Businessman Derek Hale.

The Epic Love Story of Stiles and Hot Bearded Guy by randomquixen | 1.4K

There is a hot bearded guy directly across from me at the airport terminal. He’s eating a pack of Rolos and I want him to be my husband.

Layover by dr_girlfriend | 3.6K

“I’m sorry, sir.  Estimated delay is about six hours.  The weather should clear by then, but Beacon County Airport doesn’t have equipment to keep the runway clear in snow like this.”  

The gate attendant’s voice was trembling a little, and Derek made a conscious effort to relax the scowl from his face.  It wasn’t her fault, and he was sure she was equally unhappy to be trapped at a regional airport with a handful of disgruntled passengers on Christmas Eve.

Come Fly With Me (Or Don’t) by stilinskisparkles | 15.3K

Stiles is overworked and stressed out when his flight home gets delayed due to copious amounts of snow. He finds entertainment with one Derek Hale, whom he hasn’t seen since high school but really doesn’t mind getting reacquainted with.

Especially when it turns out Derek is surprisingly hilarious and will reluctantly play snap with him. And can walk on his hands.

Strangers on a Plane by smokesforsterek | 1.9K

The gate is full of people, which means that the flight is full. Not that Derek doesn’t know that. When he was booking his flight, he was planning on sitting in his normal section, first class, but it was all sold out. So he was left with a window seat near the back of the plane.

This whole trip is going to be hell.

Flying Pages by crossroadswrite | 1.7K

Derek’s stuck on a plane with another guy reading his book and making faces.

[whitepolaris]

A Wild Gray Goose Chase

Even before the 1940s were over, the air force was well under way with its investigations of low-flying mystery craft. The now legendary incidents at Roswell, New Mexico, took place in 1947 and in 1948 the first issue of FATE magazine featured flying saucers on its cover. Pilots in the war were so used to dealing with aircraft that they couldn’t identify that the armed forces gave them a name-foo fighters-and treated them like any other wartime enemy. When the war was over, the air force continued the campaign to find the enemy. 

In May 1949, the quest led a unit to a tobacco shed on a farm near Glen Burnie, eleven miles south of Baltimore. There they discovered the weather-beaten wrecks of two circular flying machines. One of them was a sort of helicopter, featuring a small cockpit with a reinforced frame of rotors to lift the whole shebang above the ground. The other looked like some kind of spool with two circular steel-reinforced frames designed to rotate in opposite directions. The farm was abandoned, and nobody knew where the owner was. 

So why does Roswell get all the glory and Glen Burnie remain a footnote in the annals of UFOlogy? Because the investigators knew exactly who was behind these bizarre aircraft. They just couldn’t find him. Jonathan Caldwell, a carpenter and self-taught aircraft maker, had been designing and building experimental autogyros and “disk rotor planes” since 1923, when he filed a patent for the Cyclogyro that was granted to him in 1927. Other strange designs followed, including the Ornithopter. He built these and other bizarre craft first in Denver, CO, then subsequently in Orangeburg, NYC, and Madison, NJ. 

Caldwell’s frequent changes of address had less to do with making the most of enterprise zones than keeping out of jail. His company, Gray Goose Airways, was constantly in financial trouble. Caldwell was a terrible businessman, selling bogus stock certificates whenever he ran short of cash. Naturally, this meant that some investors sued him for fraud. He jumped states when things got too hot, and ended up in 1939 in Glen Burnie, issuing stock in a company called Rotor Planes, INC. 

Ten years later a disgruntled investor had written to the air force explaining how similar Caldwell’s designs had been to these flying saucers he had been reading about lately. But although the aircraft in the Glen Burnie shed had been flying saucers at one point, they were in ruins by 1949. Caldwell was long gone, and the only reliable witness to the Gray Goose aircraft was a test pilot who had kept the disk-shaped helicopter aloft for a few minutes in 1939. It had reached an altitude for forty feet but then flew straight down to the ground. 

Clearly, the Gray Goose investigations had been a wild goose chase. And with that avenue closed to them, the military had to trot out the old standby of temperature inversions. 

[greencapitation-blog]

It had all started on a recent mission for Gumbaldia.

Green Knight had been dutifully escorting and protecting uncle Gumbald on their path to a man who had advertised himself as the kind to sell large quantities of metals, the kind that could hopefully be used to build something of the giant likes of a battle automaton.

“We will do unto her, as she has never done unto us! Because she never had the ambition!” Gumbald lectured, clenching a fist raised to his chest at the thought of triumph.

…Green Knight had had not made peace with the thoughts of killing PB.  For once in a long time, he actually had some doubts about killing someone. However,  he chose to suppress those doubts under the knowledge that he now had other people in his life, people that cared about him, unlike PB, or Jake, or anyone else in Ooo.  So if uncle G hated her and wanted her dead, he wasn’t going to be voicing any objections. 

In fact, he wasn’t going to voice anything at all. Instead, he let Gumbald continue his megalomaniacal rant as they approached a large heap of metals in the middle of the grasslands.

 In front of the pile was a small kiosk, with a sign made of (obviously) metal, with he words “Montheloos’ metal empire” rusted into it.

Gumbald had ceased with his ranting, and Green Knight felt a tug on the side of his left arm. He looked down at Gumbald, helmet expressionless.

“Now, for the second part of our genius plan.” Gumbald beckoned Green Knight to lean over so he could whisper those sweet somethings into his non-existent ear.

“You let me do all the talking. When I give the word, you kill him. We cannot have anyone know of my future plans until they are set into motion.” Uncle G explained.

Green Knight nodded once with almost too much enthusiasm.

And just as the plan had been brought into light, a clang of metal could be heard; the source of the sound was none other than a disgruntled looking wizard appearing. He was clad in clothes that were obviously composed of cheap metal scraps, complete with a scrappy wizard hat and a rusty bowtie made out of the top of some cans. Plus a terrible moustache and goatie to complete the look.

….Green Knight didn’t know what he was expecting. Wizards always had stupid senses of fashion. But this guy was even worse than usual. Montheloos looked like he had a serious case of businessman.

While he remained still as a disconcerting statue, Green Knight was silently judging this wizard so hard. 

“Hey hey hey! I heard you were the rising monarch that wanted in on the montheloos’ metal deals!” The wizard cheerfully jabbered, climbing over the stall to be face to face with his buyers.

“Yes,” Gumbald’s voice had clear distain in it. “I have come to obtain your highest grade of metals. It’s for my….Important family business.”

Family business was an understatement, and the scrappy wizard most likely knew that.“Sounds fine to me! So, what’re you really interested in?  Remember-You’re not getting any discounts! Ask for one of those, and I’d probably have to kill you and usurp your kingdom!” The wizard joked, jabbing a finger at Gumbald. 

Gumbald took a step back, and Green Knight stepped forward in his defense.

“Heyyy, who’s this guy? I thought I told you, no body guards, no families, no hot ladies! You’re breaching some serious customer security levels right now.” The wizard growled, conjuring up a spinning razor blade with a great deal of effort.  Green Knight raised his sword arm in response, ready to chop those hands right off the wizard if he had to.

The wizard looked up at the sword, and gasped, offended.  “If you don’t wanna make any deals, you can just get your gummy butt out of here!”

“No no no, this is all a..Misunderstanding! This, this man isn’t my body guard! We just so happen to be...Friends, that’s all.” Gumbald raised both hands, trying to act like a force of calm despite his malicious intentions. He looked up at Green knight-and scolded him. “Fern, put your weapon down.” At Gumbald’s command, Green Knight lowered his arm, looking pretty disheartened. He specifically remembered uncle G saying they were going to kill this guy and steal his loot. What happened to that?

“Well ah, okay. If it’s just some big misunderstanding.” Straightening his terrible bowtie, the wizard tightly closed his eyes for a moment, and made the blades evaporate. 

“But I still got my eyes on you, Mr-silent-rowdy-green-man.” This was the second time in his existence that Green Knight had been called a “mister” of something. He silently wondered if that had anything to do with how tall he was now.

“Oh, don’t you worry about him.” Now Gumbald was blatantly lying through his teeth.

“Nah, nah, I’m not, I got special magic against the likes of him if he tries anything funny,” The wizard paused, looking to his side. “Oh, hey, you interested in buying any pumpkins? They’re not like, metal stuff, but a wizards gotta have other thing to do their magics on. I’ve been working on this farm for awhile, trying to get it off the ground..” With his back turned, the wizard walked away from his stall and bent down over one of the pumpkins strewn across the ground, lightly stroking it. Green Knight continued to stare at the man, an unseen expression of distaste upon his face. The wizard was getting just a little too handsy with some vegetables, in his opinion.

Gumbald however, seemed to have no problem with it. He had been waiting for the perfect moment to set his knight after the wizard.

“Now! Sneak attack!”

Finally!

At Gumbald’s cue, Green Knight rushed over to the wizard, bringing down his sword on to the wizards head-Oh no wait that was a pumpkin.

The wizard had jumped over the pumpkin, and held it up as fodder as he tore off his own metal bowtie, chucking it at the Green Knight.

“Hah! High velocity bowtie!”

Green Knight took a step back, regaining his balance after slicing through the pumpkin with ease and hitting thin air. The wizard’s attack had grazed off one of the spikes on his shoulder, causing Green Knight to wince, looking at where the bowtie had sliced him.  In that time, the wizard had taken off his hat, and tapped it with his hand before flinging it at Green Knight. This time, the knight had dodged the attack, and the hat sailed past him, flying off into the distance.

“Nice going.” Green Knight mocked him, closing in on the wizard.  Before the other had the opportunity to attack, the knight’s sword had cross sectioned them. The wizard’s remains had turned into two halves of a safe, probably through last second transfiguration to save himself. Green Knight was satisfied to know that he managed to beat a wizard to the punch.

“Excellent job. Now go grab some metal before we get out of here.”

Green Knight smiled behind his mask, now doubly satisfied with the approval of uncle Gumbald.

If Green Knight had been any faster, he would have dodged the wizard’s hat, which had returned like some sort of tacky boomerang, slicing clean through Green Knight’s neck in its course back to its now-dead-owner.

Reflexively, Green Knight raised both of his hands to where his head had been a moment ago, feeling the air. He knew he could just put the head back on, and he would be fine. But the sudden and unsolicited decapitation had him shocked for a moment.

Being in front of uncle Gumbald, Green knight tried to recover quickly, and stepped forward to get his head back. As obviously uncle G had no plans on doing so for him, the man was off to the side, attempting at tugging a large sheet of metal from the pile.

Green knight reached for his head, when a spark flew off the hat, the head, which was just an extension of him, gasped. The spark had landed, and it had ignited Green Knight’s head. He recoiled in both pain and fear. He could still see everything from the perspective of his head, and felt as the flames ravaged through it. If his face wasn’t currently being on fire, he would have screamed in pain.

Green Knight bent down with heavy effort, and forced himself to try and pat out the fire, but when he touched the flames, his hand had began to burn too. Quickly, he pulled his hand away from the fire, waving the flames off.

The last thing he needed was all of him to burn. But the whole situation seemed hopeless now. There was no way his head would be recovering, he felt it slowly becoming ashes.

That’s when uncle Gumbald had finally looked towards Green Knight. Perhaps he had smelled the burning grass. Or the cry of pain from his supposed champion. Whatever the reason, uncle Gumbald had abandoned the pile of metal for the time being. He strode over to the fire, and stamped it out with his boot. Another action the Green Knight had physically felt, though it was hardly as bad as the sensation of his face being burnt.

“What were you thinking?” uncle Gumbald raised both hands in the air, heavily disappointed in Green Knight for failing to stop the late wizard’s final attack. “You wasted precious time on what, being in pain? Where is your head, boy?”

But Green Knight could not see uncle Gumbald’s expression, and could only vaguely hear what was being said. Green Knight felt like an apology was due. Not that he could say anything. Instead he pointed at the ash and grass beneath uncle Gumbald’s boot.

“We have plans to carry out, I don’t have time to grow you a new head, you know. That could take weeks! And I need you now.”

Clenching his fist in shame, Green Knight could not help but feel an incredibly amount of guilt in the face of the situation. Uncle Gumbald was right, he had all the opportunities to move, but he didn’t! He thought he was better than this now! But no matter what, he was always finding a way to mess everything up! The failure to have stopped himself from losing overshadowed his utter victory against the wizard. It was all he could focus on now. If he still had a head, which he did not, Green Knight would have been staring at the ground, avoiding eye contact.

Meanwhile, uncle Gumbald had walked off from the Green Knight.  He had taken notice of the many pumpkins around the field. It had given him an idea.

Uncle Gumbald picked up a particularly round pumpkin, holding it close to his own face.

“Hmm.” If the Green Knight was plant matter, and so were these, it would only take a small amount of genetic manipulation to use one as a sort of portable chamber that could hasten the process of healing. It would take no effort on his behalf, and while he wanted to, now was not the right time to ditch the Green Knight. He was still a useful asset in the upcoming war.

With a malicious grin on his face and a pumpkin in hand, Gumbald returned to his weakened warrior. 

“Pick up your remains. I have an idea.”

[junker-town]

The secret life of Floyd Lippencott Jr.

Jere Alhadeff

To hide his career from his father, drag racer Bob Muravez assumed the name Floyd Lippencott Jr. But he couldn’t outrun the truth.

BURBANK, California — The old drag racer is huddled inside his cozy backyard garage, the place where he has long spun his wrenches on carburetors and crankshafts.

For Bob Muravez, it’s a messy laboratory of sorts. He has spent years there, under autopsy-room-bright lights, grease trapped deep down inside his fingernails, modifying versions of the dragsters that once ruled the racetrack.

His walls are a photographic record of his best checkered-flag memories. Long-wheel-based dragsters hurtle along straightaways in a blur of motion, their fat racing slicks furiously spinning, raising smoke and dust like demons incarnate.

The photos depict a world of super-fast cars and cocky young men hungry for speed, where winners and losers were separated by fractions of seconds, at speeds so fast racers needed parachutes to slow down. Before he retired in 1971, Muravez won more than 600 sanctioned drag racing events across the U.S., becoming one of the most recognizable names in his burgeoning sport. In Muravez’s fastest run of his career, he reached 249.59 mph in just 5.89 seconds.

Yet at age 82, the old drag racer is most famous not for his speed, but for his secret.

For five long years, between 1962 and 1967, Muravez protected perhaps the most closely-guarded mystery in modern sports: An alter-ego who took full credit for his thriving racing career.

Every time he hopped behind the wheel for another wicked-fast run down the track, the wiry 140-pound Muravez became Floyd Lippencott Jr., the name he assumed to hide his real identity from an unlikely foil: His own father.

Ralph Muravez was a Czechoslovakian immigrant and self-made businessman with a third-grade education, a demanding taskmaster who founded a local washing-machine empire. Along with his Maytag repair shop in Burbank, he owned 5,000 washing machines in apartments across Southern California.

In 1958, as part of his retirement strategy, Ralph handed over majority control of the operation to his sons, Bob and older brother Ralph Jr., known as Bud. Ralph wanted to spend his retirement years enjoying the good life, visiting the world’s exotic ports aboard his 42-foot motorized sailboat.

He was his own Sinbad the Sailor, Bob recalled. But when it came to his son’s racing, he was more like Captain Bly. The last thing he wanted was to lose his rebellious younger son to a fatal dragster wreck. “In his eyes,” Muravaez recalled, “he was building something good for the family and he didn’t want to come home to find that one of his only two sons had died on some racetrack.”

The father issued his son an ultimatum: Quit racing or leave the family business.

Muravez devised a solution that would be unthinkable in today’s hyper-connected world of smartphone cameras and competitive press. With the aid and consent of reporters, photographers, publicists and even drag racing officials, Bob Muravez invented an entirely new identity.

Photographers never took his picture without his face being covered with a helmet and mask. Floyd never did interviews. Bob did those later. Joked Muravez: “Floyd did the driving and Bob did the talking.”

The National Hot Rod Association even issued Muravez a professional driver’s license in Lippencott’s name, the only one without a picture. In the winner’s circle, friends-turned-imposters donned his protective fire suit and kissed the trophy girl while a smirking Muravez stood in the background.

Left: Muravez collection, Right: L&M Films

Decades later, wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a thick mop of hair, Muravez could still be mistaken for one of those lanky car-crazy kids racing as a teenage rite of passage. Yet the need for speed has dissipated for Muravez, like air seeping from a leaky tire. He hasn’t had a speeding ticket in 40 years.

Now he uses the garage to relieve the stress of running the Maytag repair business his father started during World War II. He’s more often concentrating on honey-do projects than fixing dragster engines.

But Floyd Lippencott Jr. motors on. Both Muravez and Lippencott were inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. And Muravez scribbles down two names whenever he’s asked to sign his autograph.

While Muravez no longer races, his mind still lives in the cockpit. He’s nervous by nature, hands fidgety, bolting his food like he’s rushing to start another race. “I’m a drag racer,” he said. “I’m either idling or going full throttle.”

The years have brought Muravez perspective, but some feelings never pass. To keep both his racing career and his alter-ego alive, the old drag racer admits that he paid a steep price.

Muravez came of age in the 1950s, a lifestyle captured by the film American Graffiti, when he and his buddies lived for their street rods. They’d cruise around the parking lot of Bob’s Big Boy, attracting looks from both the popular girls and less-popular cops, both of whom hounded them incessantly.

Muravez loved both cars and women. Before he was married in the 1970s, he was engaged seven times, and bought seven rings.

And yet, while he nurtured a James Dean persona on the street, his home life followed a different script. There, his demanding immigrant father called the shots. Ralph wasn’t a drinker, he was just mean, unvarnished. He was also a respected businessman.

In the Muravez household, Bob was relegated to second-son status behind Bud, a golden-haired boy who excelled in school and was his father’s favorite. As a child, Bob spent years confined to a sanitarium while suffering from tuberculosis, which also afflicted his mother Edith. He also struggled with dyslexia, a yet-to-be diagnosed condition that confused his hard-charging father.

Family friend John Moore calls “Uncle Ralph” a product of his time. “Ralph was hard-nosed. Lots of men of his era were like that,” he said. “I think Bobby felt overlooked as a boy. His father was busy building his business and he had one healthy son — there just didn’t seem to be time for Bob.”

Ralph lost his own father at a young age. One of five children, he entered the U.S. through Ellis Island in 1908. Not long afterward, his alcoholic father went out one night to play poker and never came home.

Relatives say the experience hardened Ralph towards his own two sons. “He mistreated those boys,” recalled cousin Glenn Clifford, now 84. “He could be cruel.”

To survive the Depression, Ralph sold Hoover vacuum cleaners door to door in Beverly Hills. In 1944, he opened a Maytag sales and service shop in Burbank. An old photograph shows him posing jauntily, leaning against the last in a line of retired washing machines. A sign reads “Keep Out. WASHING MACHINE GRAVEYARD. Let them rest in pieces.”

Muravez collection

Ralph loved boats. He built them and took them out on ocean trips, often with Bob in tow. Whenever the boy became seasick, the disgruntled father would drop him off at the nearest point onshore and order him to walk back to the harbor.

Bob worked in the repair shop from age 10. Ralph’s brand of you’ll-do-as-you’re-told discipline was stifling. “My father would always say, ‘When I tell you to do something, you start doing it before I even finish,’” Muravez recalled.

Bob would accompany his father on service calls, carrying the tool box with its hoses, screwdrivers and pliers, learning the washing machine repair trade. Wearing his Maytag hat, Ralph imposed rules that were Depression-era tough. “He’d say, ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say, ‘I can’t.’ If you tell me you don’t want to do something, fine, but never tell me you can’t.’”

In 1954, when Bob was 16, the old man asked if he wanted his own car. Here was a wide-eyed teen growing up in post-war Southern California, at the time of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, when politicians dreamed of going to the moon. The automobile had begun to dominate American life. Seemingly every new product featured sleek aerodynamics, from lamps and toasters, to bullet bras and cars with snazzy hood ornaments and elongated rear fins.

You bet he wanted his own ride.

Ralph called a Hollywood automotive dealer, who told him about a used car for sale. Days later, father and son pulled up outside the Beverly Hills estate of actress Betty Grable.

In the garage they marveled at the sort of car that might frequent a teenage boy’s dreamscape: a white, six-cylinder 1953 Corvette convertible with red interior and a mere 1,800 miles on the odometer.

The kid saw it this way: His father never hugged him. There were no parental pats on the back. That just wasn’t Ralph.

The Corvette was as giving as the old man would ever be. And it was perhaps the greatest gift anyone could give Muravez — a chance to go fast, a chance at status.

Of course he’d take it.

Muravez had just died and gone to automobile heaven.

That Corvette changed everything.

It took an awkward kid forever on the periphery and put him centerstage, behind the wheel of a sleek, sexy performance car.

The Corvette became Muravez’s calling card. He show-boated around town, and joined a local car club called the Road Kings, where members paid dues and worked on race cars.

Muravez also street raced.

He settled grudge matches mostly at night, on lonely River Road near the Forest Lawn cemetery, or on the gritty concrete bed of the LA River beneath the Sixth Street bridge. Those quarter-mile contests were replete with kids giving the go-signal at the starting line, and onlookers ready with buckets of water to douse engine fires.

It wasn’t long before an unwanted observer began to appear in the racers’ rearview mirror: a Burbank cop the boys knew only as Officer Stanley. On weekends, he’d lurk in the gas station parking lot across from Bob’s Big Boy, in the heart of a two-mile teenage cruising stretch.

“He’d write you up for anything, even a bad lightbulb on your license plate,” Muravez recalled. “We didn’t like his attitude.”

When he was 19, Maravez joined fellow Road Kings member and future drag-racing star Tommy Ivo in a teenage prank to spite the dreaded policeman. Muravez snuck beneath Stanley’s patrol car and tied a rope around the rear axle, affixing the other end to a nearby pole.

Then they hopped inside Ivo’s T-bucket roadster, revved the engine and took off past the gas station. Stanley gave chase, but not for long. The pole stopped the cop car dead, and Officer Stanley lurched forward, breaking the steering wheel. “We hid Tommy’s car in the garage,” Muravez recalled. “And we didn’t bring it out for a very long time.”

Left: Steve Reyes, Right: Jere Alhadeff

But by then, those Burbank glory days were nearing their end. One night, Muravez ducked into a back alley to ditch a pursuing black-and-white. The cop later stopped him, warning that the next time he ran, he’d shoot. “That scared me,” Muravez said.

By that time, Muravez had amassed an astounding 28 speeding tickets. His license was suspended for a year. His father took away the Corvette.

At home, tensions mounted. By the summer of 1957, Bud was married and Ralph was fixated on his younger son, who had graduated high school the year before. “We butted heads,” Muravez recalled. “He didn’t think I had any direction. I didn’t like him telling me what to do.”

Eventually, Muravez moved out. He slept inside his hand-me-down 1956 Chevy Belair convertible, and later sold the car to afford living expenses that included $8 a week to rent a room over a friend’s garage.

He got a job working at a buddy’s family machine shop and was doing well. He’d even gotten a few raises. Nearly a year after Muravez left home, Ralph approached him about coming back to the Maytag shop. They reconciled in part because they recognized a shared flaw: Their stubborness.

“He realized where I was coming from and I realized where he was coming from,” Muravez recalled.

Still, Muravez never fully returned home. He only saw Ralph when he showed up at the repair business. And while the young Muravez no longer had a car, the kid still had an incurable adrenaline addiction.

Those days, along with a lot of other Burbank kids with hot cars, Muravez hung out at Ivo’s garage, where he performed grunt work like wiping down tires, washing engine parts and polishing cars.

“He was a footloose and fancy-free kid who tripped over his own feet when he walked,’ recalled Ivo, now 83, famous for his light-hearted putdowns. “But he loved cars.”

Muravez went to the racetrack as Ivo’s gofer. He’d run his Corvette there before, but now he was ready to launch a new chapter of his racing career in earnest.

His relationship with his father was seemingly mended. Ralph had come to terms with his son’s wild side.

That peace would not last long.

Muravez loved the drag strip scene, with its camaraderie and testosterone-laden competition, being able to put pedal to metal without a cop car in sight. Racers were a colorful, braggadocious crowd, boasting nicknames like Sneaky Pete, Wobbly Wheels, Snake, Mongoose, Zookeeper and The Hunter.

Soon, Muravez built his own dragster and started winning races.

Then he got lucky.

In 1961, he began driving for John Peters and Nye Frank, a Santa Monica, California, team that owned the sport’s top racing car. In the years before, they’d developed a twin-engine dragster later known as the Freight Train for its sheer ferocity and the way it belched locomotive-like smoke while crossing the finish line.

What followed catapulted Muravez’s racing career: Peters took a foolhardy kid and helped turn him into a professional driver. Said Peters: “We won a lot of races.”

One old photo offers a closeup view of Muravez in the Freight Train’s cockpit, looking as much like an aerospace test pilot, or cosseted Hazmat worker, as an ambitious risk-taker seeking new speed records.

He wore circular goggles, a dual-cylinder breathing apparatus and facial heat shield to protect him from the spatter of hot oil thrown off the up-front engines by the brutal G-forces. And that helmet? Well, that wasn’t going to protect him much in the event the good Lord decided that he’d flirted with nearly-inhuman speed too many times. If that unfortunate eventuality occurred — if the engine exploded, or he flipped that dragster — nothing could save him.

Back then, as the saying went, drag racing rules were written in blood. “Gee, another guy got killed?” a driver would say. “Sorry to hear that. When’s the next race?”

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the mounting death toll in the sport led car builders to innovate, like adding a parachute when they learned mere brakes could no longer slow down a speeding dragster, and shoulder and lap harnesses to keep drivers from being thrown out of tumbling cars.

While Muravez was serving as one of drag racing’s guinea pigs, he still worked five days a week at the Maytag shop, racing on nights and weekends. Ralph barely took an interest in his son’s career, and never once saw him race.

Leslie Lovett, National Hot Rod Association

Then in March 1962, Muravez won his first major championship race in the so-called Top Gas category — in which dragsters used the same gas as street cars — at the Bakersfield Fuel and Gas Championships.

Well, that got Ralph’s attention.

By then, Ralph had given each of his sons a 40 percent share of the business and dreamed of sailing on his boat, stopping just long enough to cash his profit-sharing check.

A dead son would ruin that dream.

Within days of Muravez’s first major racing victory, Ralph approached his 24-year-old son and gave him a choice: Either quit racing or lose his share of ownership in the family business.

Choose family over dreams.

Appease the father.

So Muravez made one of the most difficult choices of his life. In June 1962, he abandoned his passion. He continued to go the races as part of the team, but served only as a crewmember, not as a driver.

For the next five months, without Muravez behind the wheel, the Freight Train did not qualify for a single race, despite being piloted by such famous names as Mickey Thompson, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen and Craig Breedlove. Several drivers complained that the powerful race car pulled dangerously to one side, and there was talk of scrapping the dragster altogether.

Muravez begged to differ. One night after the Freight Train failed to qualify at Lions drag strip in Long Beach, Muravez accepted a dare from driver “Wild Bill” Alexander to slip behind the wheel himself. He took the dragster for what he called “a nice easy pass” down the quarter-mile track.

Seconds later, when the run was done, he heard the distant roar of the crowd. He lit a cigarette from the dragster’s glowing disc brake. Back at the pit, he learned that he’d set a new world speed record of 185 miles per hour.

That settled it: Muravez would go back behind the wheel, against his father’s wishes. He soon captured the National Hot Rod Association’s 1963 Winter Nationals trophy, under the name “John Peters.” The Freight Train was the No. 1-rated Top Gas dragster in the nation.

A drag racing legend was born.

One day, a young sportswriter named Steve Gibbs was filing a story for the weekly racing publication Drag News on the race results at the San Gabriel track.

Muravez asked that he not use his real name. “When he won the race, I thought, ‘I’ve got to make up a name,’” recalled Gibbs, who later became competition director of the National Hot Rod Association.

The author of one of his college textbooks came to mind — Lippencott. Gibbs couldn’t recall the first name, so he improvised — Floyd. In a final flourish, he added a Jr. “I had no idea the name would become a major piece of drag-racing trivia,” he said.

Muravez immediately ran with the alias, even adding a middle initial “J,” later explaining that it stood for “genuine.” “I was a lousy speller,” he laughed.

Convincing people to keep his secret wasn’t as difficult as Muravez — Lippencott — imagined.

He often bought pictures from moonlighting photographers, so they were eager to keep him happy.

And frankly, he added, racing officials didn’t care what name he used, as long as he continued to draw fans to the track.

Just to be safe, Muravez made sure there were no cameras around when he slid behind the wheel of his dragster. After races, he did interviews with his helmet and facemask still on.

In February 1963, Muravez won the Winternationals in Pomona, California, his very first race since returning to the sport as a driver. With Muravez in the game, The Freight Train was finally back.

In the winner’s circle, his roommate, Rex Slinkard, donned Muravez’s leather racing jacket and stepped up to accept the top award, his arm around the trophy girl. The real driver laughed in the background, knowing his secret was safe for yet another race.

Floyd J. Lippencott Jr. continued to win races, hundreds of them. But perhaps one too many.

In May 1967, after winning the Springnationals competition in Bristol, Tennessee, Muravez made a mistake: Flush with victory, sitting inside The Freight Train’s cockpit with his helmet and facemask off, he was approached by reporter Keith Jackson from ABC’s Wide World of Sports. “You’re really popular,” Jackson said, thrusting a microphone in his face.

“Yeah, we have a lot of fans in the South,” Muravez answered.

On the long drive home, he realized what he’d done. While his father was not a regular viewer of the show, Muravez had nonetheless put his face on national television. There was still a chance Ralph would somehow see it on the boat’s TV while out on a weekend fishing trip.

Left: Eric Ricman, Hot Rod Magazaine; Right: Muravez collection

“I thought, ‘What am I gonna do?’” Muravez knew the segment wouldn’t air for a week, so he hatched a plan. He borrowed the TV from Ralph’s boat — saying his was broken — so his father wouldn’t catch the Saturday sports show while out on the water. Not only was Muravez’s racing career now in jeopardy, but so was the tenuous relationship between father and son.

But Muravez couldn’t control every factor. Ralph liked to relax after a fishing trip with a few boilermakers at Burbank’s Elks Club bar, where a drinking pal broke the news that his son Bob had actually been racing as a professional driver for six years — all behind his back.

At first, the old man wouldn’t believe it, until the friend returned with an Orange County Raceway program that pictured his son.

The next day, Ralph stormed inside the Maytag repair shop showroom, surrounded by two dozen new washers and dryers.

It was early in the day and there were no customers. Just Ralph and his two sons.

The old man was furious. He was already going through a painful divorce, and now this. He thrust the racing program at his younger son, after making an X with a pen like it was Exhibit A in a trial.

There was Floyd Lippencott Jr. — Muravez — staring up from the page.

Ralph and Bob faced each other.

“Have you been driving all these years?” the father asked.

“Yes, I have,” the son replied.

“You’ve been lying to me,” Ralph said. “You’re no son of mine.”

When Bud spoke up in his brother’s defense, their father banished both from the business. He threw a hammer through a window and reached for another before both sons stopped him.

A neighboring merchant called the police. It was a messy scene. Ralph finally roared off in his 1959 El Camino, but not before threatening both boys.

“I built this business,” he said. “And I can destroy it.”

He vowed to never speak to either one for as long as he lived.

He kept his word.

What happened next was a family car wreck.

Ralph and Edith finalized their divorce. He wanted to keep sailing. She wanted to stay close to her family. The boys battled for control of the family washing machine business while the father made threats. He eventually remarried a woman half his age and moved into the bungalow the family had kept for years on Catalina Island. He later became Avalon’s assistant harbormaster.

He started to get drunk regularly.

“He was tired of it all,” Muravez recalled. “His world was crashing in around him and that’s how he dealt with it.”

Bob’s wife Sharon is more harsh. “Ralph was a bastard,” she said.

Without Ralph’s looming shadow, Muravez kept racing, but he did not retire Floyd Lippencott Jr. He even added the letter “e” at the end of the name to make it look fancier, more French. Years later, he played along with humorous public campaigns sponsored by racing cronies that promoted Lippencott as a candidate for California governor and U.S. president.

At the track, Muravez liked to taunt competitors. “Have a good race,” he’d say. “But if you beat Floyd, you beat nobody. He doesn’t even exist.”

Muravez retired from drag racing in 1971 when the National Hot Rod Association discontinued the Top Gas class of competition. He briefly returned to take part in exhibitions over the coming decades, but the final flag had fallen on his racing days.

He married Sharon in 1974 and raised two sons, Michael and Peter. He was always careful not to be overbearing like his own father, to let them pursue their own lives.

After his brother sold his share of the business to pursue an equestrian career, Muravez continued to run the shop under its original name, “Ralph’s Electric.”

Muravez spotted his father a few times over the years. When his paternal grandmother died in 1975, Muravez saw Ralph at the funeral, but kept his distance.

One day, Bud passed his father on the Avalon boat dock.

“Hi Dad,” he said.

Ralph ignored him.

In the early 1980s, a possible truce loomed. A drinking pal of Ralph’s walked into the Maytag repair shop, saying the old man would like to see his sons. So Sharon sent Ralph a letter with a picture of baby Michael. “It was a very welcoming letter,” she recalled. “I went into detail, extending an olive branch.”

A week later, they got their response — a handwritten letter. “It was full of hate, saying ‘I no longer have a son and therefore I have no grandchildren,’” Sharon said. It included a copy of a letter Bud’s wife had sent after having the couple’s first child, with the same invective response.

Sharon Muravez

“I thought, ‘You bastard! How dare you?’” Sharon said. “I threw the letter at Bob. I was upset, but he kept things inside. He just accepted it.”

The two rarely, if ever, mentioned the letter again.

Ralph died in 1993. Muravez was never told of the funeral. He doesn’t even know where his father is buried. Both Bud and Edith are gone, too.

Now, there’s just Bob. And Floyd.

“Ralph died a bitter, lonely, broken, miserable person, alone in his motorhome or camper or whatever the hell it was,” Sharon said. “There was nobody around him, nobody who cared about him. Bob could have been there.”

These days, when Muravez talks to groups, the audience gasps when it hears how Ralph disowned his own son. But Muravez slowly came to terms with the pain through stoicism.

He understood that old family stubbornness. Amid that last faceoff in the Maytag shop, before Ralph threw the hammer through the window, Muravez knew something very important had come to an end. “I realized at that moment that there was nothing I could have done or said to bring back my father’s final words to me.”

They hurt, of course, but Muravez also felt a sense of liberation. He no longer had to do something he truly loved in secret.

The lies were finished for good. Ralph could control his son no more.

While the father never forgave the son, the son has forgiven the father.

“I carry my father right here,” Muravez said, pointing to his head. “I understood him. I was the second-born son and I knew what that meant to him. He believed that the father was the ruler of the family, no matter what.”

Inside the garage where he bonds with friends like a teenage gear head, Muravez still quotes Ralph’s homilies. He considered what was left unsaid with his father.

He likened the loss to seeing colleagues die in dragster crashes. “The racetrack is like a war zone,” he said. “You tell a friend, ‘Be safe,’ and he goes out and dies. You wish you could have said something.”

For years, Muravez has kept a slip of paper inside his wallet, which he consults whenever he is overcome with a sense of loss — of long-ago racing friends, and Ralph.

“The clock of life is wound just once,” it reads in part. “And no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.”

There are also words Muravez tries to forget. For years, he kept Ralph’s spiteful last letter in his office safe.

So where is it now?

Inside the garage, he moves his hands as though crumpling an imaginary piece of paper, and tosses it over his shoulder.

He flashes a look of hurt and sadness. “You only have one father in life,” he says.

Suddenly, he has to go. There is work to do.

Those machines aren’t going to fix themselves.

[cursedcandyroses]

My 5th Birthday Present To Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’“The Heist”

A gift like this isn’t something you wrap up all nice and neatly in the way some poor bastard working in a JCPenney’s around Christmas time would prefer to do it. This is one of those big gifts your parents drunkenly set up overnight in the backyard, slapped a bow on it, and the next morning said “Hey, go get your sister we have something cool for her”. My gift to “The Heist” is something that isn’t given often. It’s the gift of perspective, the gift of a defense, the gift of an explanation that may sway the still-salty Hip-Hop traditionalist inside of all of us. A gift that will be presented with dignity, grace, and by giving all the projects bed-time-story-book-level equivalents . “The Heist” rightfully won the Grammy for the best Hip-Hop album at the 2014 Grammy’s. Yeah, the Grammy they won over Jay-Z, Kanye, Kendrick and Drake. An album that came out in 2012 and became every soccer mom’s entrance into a world they stand out in (like Macklemore in most Hip-Hop events not attended by execs) Besides how strange is was that the award was given out in 2014, but thanks to the Olympics and the odd Grammy rules made it that way so we’re gonna sit down and like it. This was the year the little Seattle duo should have been honored to even be mentioned in the same breath as artists so many leagues above them. But there was a method behind the impending madness.

THE QUALITY TALK

Now as far as quality of the overall album, the only project nominated that year that was worse than “The Heist” was Jay-Z’s beautifully produced coconut of an album we call “Magna Carta Holy Grail”. Now since we’re on quality Kendrick’s “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” is in a different universe compared to “The Heist”. As far as other nominees went “Yeezus” was seen as one of the most polarizing albums since Kanye’s last experiment, 2008′s “808′s & Heartbreak”, yet was still critically acclaimed, and Drake’s “Nothing Was The Same” was seen as containing some of Drake’s best work to date. The win here goes to Kendrick, but Macklemore and company are no slouch. 

Round 1 Elimination: “Magna Carta Holy Grail”

THE POLITICAL TALK

Now we all know Kanye’s history with the Grammy’s, and that is something he may never be truly forgiven for in White America and the Committee’s eyes. If “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” can’t win Album Of The Year while being one of the most raved about albums of ALL TIME, do you really think they’re going to give an award to something like “Yeezus” an album comparable to a silverback gorilla when woken from a very wonderful nap featuring a grand dream only to see that his shoes are being eaten by the weaklings of the jungle. As powerful as an enraged sneakerhead ape may be, it is again no match for the crushing strength of the Grammy Committee and its voters, which in this scenario we’re gonna picture as the Justice League if the Justice League was made up of guys who looked like Mitch McConnell and former winners.

Round 2 Elimination: “Yeezus”

THE REALLY BIG NUMBERS TALK

Now the Grammy’s have claimed for years in statements and in the description of what makes an “Album Of The Year” ( “ ..honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position.”) that sales have no influence on the future winner. Yet looking back at past winners of “Best Rap Album Of The Year” up until that year over 65% of the winners either had higher first week & total sales for the time leading to the award being given or more top 10 singles in comparison to it’s competitors. Oddly enough “The Heist” had the lowest first week sales of all the nominees with only 78k compared to 658k (Drake), 528k (Jay-Z), 370k (Kanye) and 242k (Kendrick). As far as singles went is where something strange happens. Kendrick had no Billboard Top 10 Hits, yet 3 singles moved into the Billboard Hip-Hop Top 10. 

*SIDEBAR: DIFFERENTIATING THE BILLBOARD CHARTS*

For those unknowing of the difference between the different types of Billboard Charts here’s a quick breakdown.

Every genre of music has their own individual chart, making it easier for artists to compare themselves to their contemporaries. R&B songs will be put against R&B, jazz against jazz etc. Now there is the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. This chart is a comprehensive ranking of songs regardless of genre, to see who has the most popular songs whether it is a hip-hop record or a rock record. A key thing to realize is that just because you have the most popular hip-hop song, that doesn’t mean you have the most popular song over the entire span of music. For example Migos could hold the #1 spot on the Hip-Hop/R&B charts because it is the highest selling and highest played hip-hop song, but the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 could be a song by Justin Bieber. Now back to our regularly scheduled bedtime story. 

Yet compared to Drake and Macklemore, Kendrick was left in the dust. This is the part in the story where our hometown hero, picture Bruce Lee mixed with the great Achilles but way cooler and travels the globe in a balancing out level uncool mini-van, becomes stagnant in the battle for the hallowed Grammy, and by forces against his powers falls to the wayside.Young Kung Fu Kenny has failed himself, yet made his hometown so proud. So now the only competition Macklemore faces is the Lightskin Megalodon in a Raptors jersey we know as Aubrey “Drake” Graham. Drake peaked with his (at the time) second highest charting single behind “Best I Ever Had” (which peaked at #2) with what has become a staple wedding song in “Hold On, We’re Going Home” a track that peaked on the Billboard Charts at #4. Not only did Drizzy hit the Top 10 with the Majid Jordan assisted track, he also hit #6 on the Billboard Charts with the anthem “Started From The Bottom”. Both monstrous and inescapable songs during this time period. Yet the international outreach wasn’t really there. North America loves Drake, yet as far as international chart rankings “Hold On” peaked in the Top 10 in 9 countries. Now this is the part were most people wished they had had a warning before hearing. So here it is; shit’s about to get soul crushing. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis hit the Top 10 in over 20 countries with TWO different singles. Yes, those white boys took Hip-Hop across the globe with “Can’t Hold Us” and “Thrift Shop” (the later of which hit number 1, the absolute peak position, in TWELVE non-North American countries.) You couldn’t even avoid the annoyingly toxicating horns of “Thrift Shop” in Lebanon, a country Drake hit number 2 in which makes me wonder if Lebanon is either a) the ultimate hypebeasts of American music or b) a country of questionable taste, yet i again digress. The Drake-alodon (yeah that’s what we’re going with) has finally met it’s match.The only duo on Earth that, against all odds, can defeat any who stand in it’s way. Mack & Ryan are the Sam & Dean Winchester of this fabulous tale (and to those who have never watched “Supernatural” and don’t get this reference, like, what the fuck guys come on). Thought just mortals in a battle against beings much more powerful than them, they find a way to take down all in their path, though they aren’t motivated in the same “save world” type way most heroes have, it’s more in the “family business” type way. Forging their musical careers in the most ironic way possible, by literally starting from the bottom with no chance of ever making it this far, the tag team has found a way to come out victorious. 

Round 3 Eliminations (The Double Wammy Round): “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” & “Nothing Was The Same”

THE X-FACTOR TALK

Now yes Drake was pummeled thanks to the powers of a European and Pacific terrestrial radio fanbase, but by the grace of Wayne Gretzky Drake is given a second wind. Now we get a smidge serious and look into what led Macklemore here, in a less-then-story-book-level way. Another field Sir Mac crossed that Drake could not, is a message. “The Heist” was a vehicle carrying tales of pain from addiction, ideologies of equality, and being true to oneself over beats that didn’t fit the typical Hip-Hop mold. Though yes Kanye screamed in hopes of being accepted, and Kendrick crafted a story that comes to life to often, they didn’t meet the previous qualifications. Drake and Jay boasted their way threw their tracks with only glimpses into anything more than opulence and success, a characteristic Macklemore rarely touched, and heavily spoke down upon on tracks. A humble, conscious, loveable loser is a storyline the mainstream public can relate to more than a prodigy like Kendrick, a wealthy businessman (and a business, MAN) like Jay, an angry and disgruntled creative like Kanye, or an innovative powerhouse like Drake. That was the X-factor in what has become one of the most controversial Grammy moments in Hip-Hop history. A factor Macklemore and Ryan Lewis may or may not have intentionally used to leverage their way into the hearts and radios of America, and the world. Though the Drake-alodon seemed to have caught our heros by surprise by lashing back once again, they knew far to well to grow comfortable with success. With a final blow to the monsters impeccable beard, the monster was sent flying into the stars, not to be viewed again (at least for a few years anyway). Our heroes have finally reached the pinnacle, with their competitors left deep in the their dust. Now holding the Grammy in their hand, they feel as if they have finally done it. They have reached what they have dreamt of their whole lives, in a moment they’d never give up. At least Ryan wouldn’t want to give up, because within hours Sir Mac is sending a carrier pigeon to The Chosen One, a young Kung Fu Kenny to apologize about not helping him out. 

Final Round Elimination: “Nothing Was The Same” (for real this time)

Now back to reality, where I tuck “The Heist” back into my CD holder and tuck it away for a while until i build up the want to listen to it again, which may or may not ever come back. By all official and unofficial qualifications the indie duo outshined its competitors in numerous ways. Don’t get me wrong “good kid m.A.A.d. city” is an album my GRANDCHILDREN will be given as a birthday present, probably more than once. But “The Heist” crossed international barriers and at the end of the day showed Hip-Hop to parts of the globe the Kendrick’s and Drake’s of the world have only just begun crossing into. Macklemore isn’t the best version of Hip-Hop i personally want the world to see, but he isn’t the worst. An indie artist who crafted legendary crossover songs is still an artist very much who gives props to his backpacker influences and inspirations such as The Hieroglyphics, Talib Kweli, Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan. The duo of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis earned the Award of Best Hip-Hop album in 2014 by filling nearly every box, and leave a bigger check mark then their competitors. It isn’t groundbreaking work, it isn’t life changing work, but it is work that deserved the Grammy that night in January.

[pendragonfics]

Cowardice & Bad Timing

Paring: Armitage Hux/Reader

Tags: female reader (but can be read as a gender neutral reader), flower shop AU, tattoo parlour AU, modern era, flowers, fluff.

Summary: Reader works at a florists, and one day across the road in the abandoned warehouses, a small tattoo parlour opens, bringing the skilled Armitage Hux into the picture, and the heart of the Reader.

Word Count: 1,501

Posting Date:  2017-01-10

Current Date: 2017-06-01

Flowers had always been your thing. Your father always brought your mother a bouquet every Monday, their blooms lasting a ripe fortnight. They were never the same arrangement of blossoms; roses and chrysanthemums, small poppies and daisies. Whatever they were for, an apology, an anniversary, they brought a smile to your mother's lips, and, thus, to yours too. When your father passed on, and left his father's florist store, Hosnian Harmony, all to you to inherit, to work in, to practically live your little life out of.

And it was a lovely little life; you met brides-to-be who worked out their arrangements for tables, nosegays for the bridesmaids, you had boyfriends and girlfriends rushing in for apologetic eyes and their regular order for their regular posies, the odd wanderer who bought flowers for their smell, the need for a centrepiece upon their dining tables at home. You met strange people, and never had a customer who was disgruntled; maybe it was because everyone who came in for flowers came out with flowers, and there was nothing bad about gorgeous blooms and better service.

Across the road in recent times, a tattooist had moved into the abandoned warehouse, renovated into apartments upstairs and industrial-like stores below. It was quite a sight to see, but from the front of your store, it was almost an eyesore with all the glaring metal and concrete aesthetic.

In that store, worked the famed artist Armitage Hux, and his hipster associates Phasma (an ex-drummer from a big name punk band), and the black-clad Kylo Ren, who only worked evening shifts to fit with his metal-head convictions. Not that you really paid them any heed - perhaps you knew the three main tattooists because their receptionist, Dopheld often came in for gossip and bunches of flowers for his poorly mother. He came often; you heard much about Kylo's aggressive history, and affinity for being the one to go to for tattoo sleeves, and of Phasma's no-crap attitude, and love for English Mastiffs. He also talked of Hux, never by his given name, but that he was a hard-headed, driven man, came from rich roots, and explored the world for more meaning in life than dosh and girls painted like dolls and sold off to marry.

By the way you heard of Armitage Hux from Mr. Mitaka, you almost felt sorry for him. You couldn't imagine coming from a home where you had every single thing you wanted, except freedom; you always explored as a child, often falling off bicycles and backwards off roller-skates, bruised and loved, covered in floral band-aids since day one.

It was a slow Wednesday afternoon with three hours until closing time when the bell to the door rang. You expected it to be a weepy friend coming for a few flowers for a funeral, or maybe the delivery of cellophane you were waiting on. Not the ginger crop with a shaved underside and a sleeve down his arm to come in. Unlike the other times you had seen Armitage Hux, he wore thick glasses, and smelt faintly of a cigarette he had politely snuffed out before entering, and walked like he owned your property and knew it. But unlike the time his associate Kylo Ren had wandered drunkenly in, you didn't spray him in the face with pepper spray, and you most certainly did not scream blue murder.

You only spoke it.

"I don't care for the trouble you bring over my threshold, Mr. Hux," you warn, arms crossed. It was hard to look as tough as he did in his hot goth clothes when you were practically surrounded in flowers and bright, cutesy colours. "Or...are you here to browse?" You dared to hope. A man who was built on becoming something more than his military father had foisted onto him, buying flowers?

He shook his head. "No, I'm - I'm just looking." He stammered, a gorgeous accent tumbling from his lips. "I was going to ask if you'd mind if I practised drawing flowers for a while, a patron of mine wants a - a - erm, it's a yellow flower..."

"Dandelions? Sunflowers?" You wondered, un-crossing your arms, eyes narrowed, deep in the act of brainstorming, overthinking. "Daffodils?"

He nodded. "Yeah, that one. And I thought you might have one...you know, since you're a flower shop..." he grinned, a lopsided thing which made you wonder if it worked on everyone he met.

You sigh. "You're lucky its in season, Mr. Hux, it's a winter flower." You turn to the isle beside where he stands, and produce the tub which is bursting with the pop of yellow colour. The side of his mouth quirks up, an almost-smile, but instead of it taking over his stern face, he sighs.

"Please call me Armitage," he wipes a hand over his face, glancing up as if to the heavens. "My father was Mr. Hux, and he wasn't a hero for me in the slightest." He corrects you, and motions to the tub. "Would you mind it if I just...sat in to practice? I don't know what I'd do if I had a bunch of flowers."

You bob your head, placing the tub upon the top of a small table by the window, where glorious sunlight filtered through the glass. "No problem, Armitage." you place your hands upon your hips akimbo, head tilted, wistful. "If not knowing what to do with a bunch of flowers is the height of your problems, I'm sure they aren't problems but issues." You give him a bright smile, the Hosnian Harmony special, and leave him to sketch.

---

It's every few days for three months when you hear the bell ringing at three hours to closing, see the bright eyes of Armitage Hux, the tattoo collection upon his bare arms growing with every passing week, new ink to cause your eyes to roam around his lithe form. Perhaps yes, you were the small-town florist who worked their ass off to make every bouquet the best the patron had every laid eyes and fingers upon. Perhaps, yes, he was the son of a big businessman who intended him to be the next Wall Street wolf, but found comfort around the buzzing of tattoo needles, the company of those covered in pictures of their life, their love. But what you felt inside after the months, that wasn't admiration for Armitage from breaking away from the crowd, or the fact that he was a fantastic singer, no. 

You'd fallen for him. 

It was another Wednesday when the visit was unlike the rest of them; his head was lowered, pencil and thick art diary, bursting with designs low at his side. The way he gazed at you wrought your heart, wrenching the strings.  

"My boss, Mr. Snoke noticed I'm taking too much time to draw pretty things on paper than on skin," he starts off, unable to meet your eyes. Your hands grew still over the arrangement you were placing together, slowly falling to the bench to rest. You'd feared for this day; the day that brought tidings darker than a Queen of Night tulip, a deep purple pansy. "I - ________, I can't come here to draw anymore."

You shake your head. "Just because a superior - come after hours!" you burst, the words tumbling from your words like a dam shattering. "I mean - the client of yours, they probably don't want a half-assed flower on their arm, do they?" you amend.

Armitage gives you a weak smile. "I can't believe you thought I had a client who liked flowers," his words are almost a breath, faint, you almost missed them with the noises from the outside world playing atop. "_______, as soon as we came across the street, I fell for you. I know - it's really unprofessional of me, and I've never spent three months chasing romance, but you're unlike anyone I've met before -,"

Your heart felt like it was faster than any time ever in your life, yet still, dormant at once. At once, you throw yourself around the counter, and into the picture-clad arms of Armitage Hux, gripping him closer to you than you'd ever held another living being. 

"Just say you like me," you whisper into his ear, a grin wide upon your lips. 

He laughs, withdrawing from the embrace. His eyes are alive, bright and beautiful, and he is too, and for once, you think of how much cowardice and bad timing it took to get to this point, to be in his arms, to feel his heartbeat under the skin close to your own, and for once, you reconsider if flowers are your thing. Because right now, you have a thing for Armitage; all of Armitage. 

"I like you, ________, of Hosnian Harmony," he beams, laying a kiss upon your lips, nearly sucking the air from your lungs. "Perhaps now I have a better excuse to come over to see you." 

You smirk, kissing back. "Any excuse to see you is perfectly good."

[bay217]

Chapter 1

Long, long ago, the four great lands fought the most brutal war this world has ever seen. Fueled by an imperialistic lust for power, Fire Lord Sozin attacked the other nations, the earth kingdom, the air nomads, and the water tribes. The war brought about many terrible tragedies, and many brave acts of heroism. Finally, when all hope seemed lost, the Hundred Year War was ended by Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko, and a great era of peace was ushered in. People of all nations and all walks of life were united under the Republic of Nations and the leadership of Republic City. If this peace had lasted, then I would not be telling you this story. As it is, there is indeed a story to be told.** **

During the Hundred Year War, our world experienced a devastating extinction event. Countless plant and animal species were lost to the fires of conquest and conflict. What began as an initiative to resurrect the species of the old world granted us technology beyond what we had ever thought possible. Through the work of several talented geneticists and the grace of serendipity, the world was again filled with all the beautiful variety of life it had once sustained. Diseases were eradicated and no man went hungry. For the first time in history, the building blocks of life itself were in our hands. But that which had created such prosperity would soon show its potential for destruction. From the very creches that had given rise to Koalaotters and Pygmy pumas sprung the first of the Great Plagues. The plagues ravaged the world, destroying crops, causing the restored fauna to die of starvation, and leaving entire regions reduced to vast swirling deserts of dust and decay. Entire ecosystems came crashing down. Widespread famine and illness has killed countless. Were it not for a handful of sanctuaries, mankind as we know it may have been lost. The world is hurting. The world needs an Avatar…

[The Earth Kingdom City of Omashu]

“Last week it was four copper pieces!” Ong growled across the wooden booth. He grasped a sack of rice in his hand and glared at the man sitting behind the counter. Around them Kyu-Bak, Omashu’s enormous indoor marketplace, buzzed with activity.

“No four. Six today. Laws strong today.” the old man crossed his leathery, tanded arms over his chest stubbornly. He had the body of a beggar but the eyes of a businessman.

On any other day Ong would have tried to get the price down to at least 5 or else search out a better price at another vendor, but today he was already running late. He made a slightly disgruntled sound and forked over the money, taking the rice and winding his way back through the press of bodies.

He exited through one of the four massive doors to Kyu-Bak, his copper hair whipped by the powerful industrial fans groaning against the thick air of the city. Stepping out into the swelter was like walking into a wall of heat.

Out in the sloping, winding streets near the outer walls, high-speed transports built on the rails crisscrossing the city zipped overhead. The idea for the system was supposedly originated by the city’s king and a famous avatar in times long past.

Ong made his way through the communities adjacent to the great outer walls. Houses and less dignified shelters were built from mud-brick, sheet metal and wood against the wall itself, growing and overflowing as though the sector was a living thing itself. It was a place for the poor, adjoining the industrial district of Omashu. Walking through the streets Ong could almost smell the poverty. This was a scent, Ong thought, even sadder and more proximal than the stench of the emissions coming from the city’s industry. As if on cue, a fat-bellied exhaust pipe running from the heart of the city belched a cloud of smoke beside him.

“Ong!” his name echoed across a street clogged with trash and running children. He swiveled his head to see Nepa hurrying through an alleyway toward him. “Hey brudda, howzit eh?”

The man fell into step with Ong and they walked along the uneven path leading to Ong’s region of the vast slum. All the while Nepa whistled, his cheeks rosy and a smile on his face despite the grime besmearing his complexion and the poverty evident in his skinny limbs.

“Well then, what have you to say?” Ong asked impatiently. “Or did you simply wish to provide me a soundtrack for my walk home?” he teased.

Nepa chortled but shook his head, his face quickly falling into solemnity. “There are stirrings again. About clean water. Zone 3” he muttered. The slums on the outskirts of Omashu were informally divided into 5 zones, each representing a chunk of city perimeter that was often home to the lower class. “It has been so hot lately…” he added.     

Ong nodded. “Is there immediate danger?” he asked. “What did Ravinder say?”

Nepa shook his head. “I don’t think it will become very violent yet, but the health concerns are mounting.”

“I will bring it to the attention of the council. In the meantime, ask the other zones to divert a small fraction of their water to Zone 3. Four is in Three’s debt since they recently absorbed some of Four’s population growth.” said Ong. “Thank you Nepa.”

The jolly older man nodded and started along the path to his own house. Ong looked after him, then called out “Hey! Nepa, your family will come tonight?”

Nepa grinned, looking over his shoulder “Half of the population of the slums is coming, man” he muttered “of course I’m gunna be there. The poor rarely have cause to drink. When there’s something to be joyful for, how can we miss such a chance, eh?”

Ong gave an exasperated expression, ever serious, even with regard to his children’s birthday celebration.

“Come now, this is an occasion most joyous. 10 years! Considering that there’s two of them, it may as well have been 20” he said as he headed away toward his own avenue of the slums.

For families in the poverty-ridden Zones, a child’s 10th birthday was often the only time they celebrated on account of something as trivial as the anniversary of one’s birth. In such disease and hunger-ridden times as these, more than half of all children died before they reached the age of 10, whether from sickness, malnutrition, or as a casualty of war or crime. However, it was widely accepted in the Zones that once a child reached the age of 10, they were much more likely to survive into adulthood.

Ong completed his trek home undisturbed. His was a mud-brick abode set on a small hill of earth, a couple hundred feet away from the rest of the slums and in slightly better condition. This was the only thing that distinguished him as a councilman. Elsewise, the sole representative of the Zones to the city council lived unremarkably, just as his constituency.

The house was abuzz with activity. Various women of the community were hurrying about, baskets of dark brown breads in their hands or mismatched tablecloths piled in their arms to just below eye-level. Meanwhile children ran about, some helping to carry things and others just getting in the way underfoot. A few men from the slums who were close to Ong were busy smoking meats over a fire in the back, a rare treat.

In the middle of all of the commotion stood Leah, Ong’s wife and the lady of the house. She was confidently directing workflow despite the chaotic nature of such a ceremony.

Usually a child’s 10th birthday was a pretty ritualized occasion, a large family gathering. However, considering Ong’s position in the community, this celebration was an even bigger deal, with more than two hundred people expected and several times that number of wellwishers to stop by in the coming week. However, it was not just daddy’s career which drew such fuss over this particular celebration. Rather, this was the birthday of two very special children…twins.

In the city of Omashu, there was much superstition and honor surrounding twins. For reasons undetermined (although most definitely relating to the rampant pollution) the birth of twins was much more rare than it had been in times past. Couple this with high child mortality rate, and rarely did a set of twins live to their tenth birthday.

On his way through the bustle toward his wife, Ong felt a hand grip his arm. “Onnnng darling.” a raspy old voice called him. “Hello Aunt Mimsy” he said.

“Such diamonds, such jewels!” the short, sturdy woman crooned. “Born in the honor of Omashu’s namesake. I never thought I’d live to see twins grow this old ever again. This is a joyous day indeed!” she twirled off without waiting for a response.

Twins, and especially a boy and girl, were believed to represent reincarnations of Oma and Shu, after whom the city was named and who were so close in their lives that they were said to be reborn together, at the same instant so that their spirits would never again have to be apart. Because of this, Ong’s two children had always meant something important to the community.

Seeing Ong, Leah beckoned him with a smile. “There you are, my breadwinner.” she said. As he grew closer her smile dropped and she squinted at him. “You’re late” she scolded.

“And you let Aunt Mims get to the rice wine,” he countered.

Leah’s coy smile returned as she kissed her husband. “And you’re late. Your children are in the house, but be careful, your mother is in there too and she’s barricaded the door”

Ong nodded knowingly and brought the bag of rice he’d been sent out to acquire into the kitchen. The room was small and filled way past capacity with women fixing dishes, rolling dough, and boiling water. It was a delicious smelling sauna packed with people and Ong breathed a breath of relief once he’d made his way through.

Making his way through the cooler part of the house, he went down a hallway only to be met almost immediately by his mother, a small woman with fierce eyes whose smile was hardly diminished by her missing teeth. She was a formidable woman, as Ong had learned through growing up under her watchful eye.

“Now mother, I know what you’re going to say but they’re my children and I think I have a right to wish them a happy birthday before they’re on display for our neighbors!” he came out strong. You really had to catch her off guard, he’d noticed, otherwise she was stubborn as a mule-turtle (although he’d never quite understood that saying).

Ong’s mother patiently waited out his indignation with one eyebrow raised. “Relax,” she said gently “They’re ready.”

“Oh,” Ong smiled sheepishly and edged past her toward the twins’ bedroom.

“I don’t know who you think you were talking to with that attitude Ong, certainly not the woman who gave birth to you and raised you!” she called after him.

Inside their small room, Myr and Hiko stood before him, smiling up at their father. The twins were dressed in their finest clothing.

For Myr, these were a shimmery kimono-like robe that had been handed down through the family and silk-slippers. Hiko was dressed in a black hakama, and a navy blue top which bared the top of his chest. The most remarkable thing about the children though, was what his mother had done.

Myr’s arms were bare, but extremely intricate designs adorned her tan forearms and halfway up her biceps. Her eyes were daubed with a gentle reduction of a black-juiced berry to make her eyes appear more sly and wise. Her cheeks, just losing their baby fat, were delicately powdered.

Hiko’s face and all of his visible skin was adorned with thin white lines of heiza, an herbal mixture that smelled a bit musky. The designs, though markedly different from his sister’s, were equally as complex. They gave his skin the appearance of having been chiseled and angled, as though cut from the earth itself.

Ong smiled back down at his children. He was at once filled with happiness at their vitality and the promise in their eyes and melancholy that they had been born into such a troubled world.

“Daddy the kimono itches my belly” Myr said, expertly (although inadvertently) diffusing the moment.

Ong laughed at her and ruffled her hair, which elicited a tongue click from his mother in the doorway. “You look pretty though” he assured her.

Myr turned and examined herself in the small, smudged mirror that rested against the wall in the twins’ shared room. She moved from side to side and looked over her back too. “Well, that’s true.” she said, smiling a toothy grin. “I look like a princess”

Hiko flexed his essentially nonexistent muscles. “I look like a man!” he growled. “An earthbending fighter!” he exclaimed, leaping into an exaggerated fighting pose.

“Yeah right!” Myr said, rolling her eyes as Ong shot Hiko a scolding glance.

“You’re not an earthbender Hiko.” he said quickly. “Well, everyone will be here in a few hours so try not to smudge your heiza or dirty your clothes. You can be the official tasters for whatever they are making in that kitchen” he said, trying to give them an incentive to stay inside. It expected that at least most of the guests see them first when they made their appearance later that night.

“Oh, and happy birthday” he said, remembering on his way out. He knelt and gave them both hugs. “I love you”

When he stepped back outside the grounds had become doubly as busy, something Ong hadn’t thought possible. A few makeshift tents had been erected on the grounds  and lanterns hung from each of their supporting poles. The sun had begun its descent and everywhere people buzzed with the excitement of celebration. It was going quite the party.

Nepa was right, the people of the slums rarely had reason to come together and celebrate. This wasn’t just a birthday party, but a celebration that somewhere, in the midst of a broken world, there could still be hope.

[not-close-to-straight]

IronHawk (Part Ten)

MASTERLIST

************************

Tony was… deliriously happy these days. Was happy even a big enough word for how he felt? Was delirious even the right adjective? He- brilliant super genius that he was- had no better words for this. This bond. These moments.

When Clint had reached out and took his hand as they bought groceries at the mom and pop store at the edge of the national forest. When a little girl had asked her mommy if those two men were in love and Clint bent Tony backwards and kissed him without even hesitating. At night, when Tony sat in front of the fire on the floor of the cabin, and glanced up to see his mate staring, chest heaving, wings trembling, eyes shading red as the Alpha took over and he moved forward to claim Tony again. And again and again and again.

Their bonding heat had only lasted six or seven hours, but then Clint had spent an extra week showing Tony exactly how much he loved him. Not so much with words, no, because neither man was very good at that.

But with actions.

Feeding Tony in bites when they ate. Washing the omega every time they showered. Making Tony come again and again before Clint even thought about his own pleasure. Wrapping them in arms and wings and sleeping together until the sun rose again and they got to do it all over.

When they had returned to the tower, Tony had dragged Clint past everyone, ignoring all the hellos and well wishing, up to his suite to “properly christen the place” as a newly bonded couple and when they had come back down two hours later, the team had whooped and laughed and hugged, and exchanged money because they had been taking bets on how long the two would be upstairs.

And now, two weeks later, things were still wonderful. Sure they were busy and spent more nights apart than together, but that was to be expected with Clint having his own missions outside of the Avengers, and Tony still having to run Stark Industries. Clint sought him out every second when he was home, and they had tried and nearly succeeded to have sex everywhere in the common area, cleaning it frantically afterwards, laughing at how the team would react if they knew.

Tony was pretty sure the team knew. But as long as the room smelled like bleach afterwards nobody said a thing.

Tony was… deliriously happy.

So much so that he had worn a fitted t shirt to his doctor's appointment instead of his usual suit and tie, which of course was his own private coat of armor. Nothing could penetrate the Tony Stark businessman image. But in a t shirt and jeans he was just another happily bonded omega showing off his mark proudly.

He didn't even mind waiting today. Normally Dr Leizl saw him right away but today she was late. Normally this would have provoked emotionally unstable omega Tony Stark into a shouting fury but today he just pulled out his phone and sent a text to his mate.

--heading into the doctors --I wish you would have let me come with you --so you could go all Alpha when the doctor examined me? I feel like that's counterproductive to this whole thing. Sometimes other people are going to have their hands all over me, Hawk ----- --you're growling aren't you? That's so hot ---I could have waited to leave. You basically shoved me out a window this morning and now I won't be back for a week --well you have a mate now, and rumour has it I'm fairly high maintenance. So you've got to be working to pay for all my expensive hair gel right? --Tony -- ….. yes alpha? -- oh now you're REALLY growling aren't you

“Mr. Stark! So sorry about that!”

Tony snapped his phone shut and smiled at the doctor, reaching forward to shake her hand. “It's no problem. Good to see you.”

“It's nice to see you well.” She sent a cursory glance over him once they were seated in her office. “So… you found an Alpha.” She motioned to the prominent bonding mark and Tony grinned, tilting his head a little more to show it off.

“About three weeks ago.”

“Congratulations.” Her smile seemed a bit forced and Tony raised an eyebrow. “That was… quick.”

“Now Doc, I know you mentioned something about a date between the two of us last time but believe me when I say I am the worst person to date ever. You should be glad I'm off the market and no longer a scourge to womenfolk.”

“So it's a female alpha then?” Dr Leizl reached for some paperwork, eyebrow arching as she asked the question.

“Ah, um no. Male Alpha.” Tony scratched his neck sheepishly. “I bet you didn't see that coming, did you?”

“Dealing as I do with male omegas, I can assure you I have seen plenty of things.” She smiled again, that forced edge to it. “I warned you about how high your emotions will run these first six or so months, Tony, are you sure being bonded is the best course of action?”

Tony stiffened. “What the hell are you saying?”

“All I'm saying is, I specifically warned you about your emotional level because I was afraid you would rush into a bonding just to have some stability in your life. Are you happy with your bondmate? Did you know him for very long, or was he just a convenient Alpha? It just… would have been in your best interest to wait, to give your omega time to grow and figure out exactly what you need.”

“I need my Alpha.” Tony's voice had dropped into a dangerous tone, as close to a growl as he could get it and Dr Leizl raised her hands calmly.

“Fine. That's fine, Tony. I'm not trying to-” she blew out a breath. “Just worried is all. Let's move on.”

“Yeah that might be a good idea.” Feeling completely disgruntled, Tony crossed his arms and leaned away from the Doctor, wanting to be as far away as possible from someone who didn't approve of his alpha.

“So you have had three heats so far?”

“Four, if you count the bonding heat.” Tony corrected, entirely unable to keep the flush from his cheeks, the goofy smile from his face.

“I don't.” The doctor replied, making notes in her file. “A bonding heat isn't naturally occurring, which means your body hasn't gone through a complete cycle to be given a chance to be fertile, so it can't be counted in as a regular heat. How were they by the way? Your heats with an Alpha?”

“Much easier.” He smiled. “Much better than dealing with them alone. And um, I can't get pregnant from a bonding heat?”

“No.” Dr. Leizl shook her head. “Even though most couples tend to initiate a bond during a regular heat, having one outside of your cycles negates the pregnancy issue.”

“Oh thank god.” Tony laughed awkwardly. “Because my mate and I were definitely not careful and I was kind of dreading this appointment if we needed to do a test.”

The doctor sighed. “I'm glad to hear that you are so happy, Tony.” She took her glasses off, folding her hands on top of the stack of paperwork. “However, I have some bad news. And it's going to directly affect your Alpha as well.” ********************

Tony stumbled into the lab, and Bruce reached out and grabbed him before he upset a table with a shockingly expensive piece of armor on it.

“What's up Tony? Not sleeping with Clint gone?” the genius asked sympathetically and Tony glanced around, looking bewildered.

“How did I end up here?” His eyes were bloodshot, his words a little slurred. “What day is it?”

“What? Hey Tony, come here, come here.” Bruce led him to a chair, checking his forehead for a fever, his eyes for dilation. “I'm going to get you some water okay?”

“Scotch.” Tony mumbled. “Not water. Or whiskey, maybe?”

“Why don't we… why don't we just chill for a second and talk about what's going on with you. You don't seem sick, but I haven't seen you in a couple days so--”

“Don't want to talk. Just get me a drink.”

“You don't want to talk?” Bruce asked uneasily, as Tony stumbled to the small bar in the corner of the lab and poured an over generous share of scotch.

“Not even a little bit. No talking. Break something for me, Brucie. I need to-” Tony shuddered as the scotch went down hard. “I need to do...anything to keep my mind busy. Hulk out and destroy something so I don't have to-- don't have to think.”

“Sure thing Tony.” Bruce said softly, watching Tony pour another glass of alcohol. “Whatever you need.”

*********************** Clint picked his phone up and frowned. It had been close to two days since he’d heard from Tony. A quick call to Natasha had reassured him that Tony and Bruce were locked up in the lab, working hard on something and had demanded not to be disturbed.

It's not like that particular behavior was anything new, or even odd, honestly. With a separate entrance and elevator, the lab was almost completely autonomous from the rest of the tower. Part of it was a safety feature, so in case anything exploded or turned toxic, the separate ventilation shafts and sprinkler systems would clear the lab without compromising the rest of the Tower. The other part of it was that sometimes Tony just liked to work uninterrupted for weeks at a time, and he could absolutely do that in his lab.

So there wasn't anything to worry about, Clint knew, no immediate danger at least. But he rubbed his bonding mark, feeling the slight tingle that had been there all week, telling him that something was not quite right with his Omega.

*********************** It was almost a week before Tony stopped drinking long enough to have a conversation with Bruce.

“Hey.” He clunked his empty glass down on Bruce’s desk, and the scientist looked up instantly.

“What is it Tony? How you feeling?” He took his glasses off, and reached his hand out to the Omega, unsure if Tony needed some physical contact after a week of his Alpha being gone.

Tony shook his head though, and Bruce let his hand drop. “Bruce, I want to start…” his voice failed and he cleared his throat. “I want to start synthesizing better suppressant options for Omegas. Immediately.”

“I think that's a great idea, Tony. What brought this on?”

“My doctor says… she says as a result of my suppressants, um, my internal organs have shut down.

Bruce frowned. “What does that--”

“My organs that...make me an Omega.” Tony interrupted. “They are...non functioning. Entirely useless. Completely done.” His voice was low and dull and Bruce watched him with a growing sense of unease.

“I spent all those years trying to avoid being an Omega, Bruce, and now when I'm actually happy to be one, now that I'm mated and happy...my body betrays me. And I even asked, I ASKED her if it was because of the palladium poisoning, or because of the arc reactor, and she said no. Said from the looks of the scans, everything shut down years ago. I've been… broken for years.”

Tony closed his eyes. “I'm never going to be able to get pregnant and have kids, Bruce. Never gonna be able to give Hawk kids.”

When Tony finally whispered the words, his whole body seemed to fold in on itself, and he sank to the floor in a heap.

“Tony. Come on, Tony, hey I've got you.” Bruce slipped down right next to him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close.

“I can't give my mate children!” this came as a wail, and Bruce squeezed tighter as the omega crumpled against him, tears pouring down his face. “I'm damaged. Worthless omega. Useless omega. Broken omega.”

Tony put his face in his hands and sobbed. “Hawk won't want me anymore. Broken broken broken.”

*************************

[thisdaynews]

Trump’s impeachment woes offer openings for foreign intel adversaries

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trumps-impeachment-woes-offer-openings-for-foreign-intel-adversaries/

Trump’s impeachment woes offer openings for foreign intel adversaries

The impeachment fight also is sure to deepen America’s partisan polarization – a special gift to Russia and other actors that peddle disinformation to tear at social fabrics and influence elections.

“Whether impeachment succeeds or fails, you’re going to be left with major political divides in this country that are ripe for U.S. adversaries to try to exploit,” said Eric Brewer, a former analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

POLITICO spoke with eight former intelligence officials and experts to assess the dangers. Some were more sanguine than others, but all shared a few general areas of concern:

Trump’s shadow foreign policies

Trump has long disdained or ignored the formal national security policy process, which is designed to keep U.S. officials in sync and guard against illegal actions. That process involves a series of meetings in which representatives of relevant government agencies, including legal advisers, can weigh in on the pros and cons of a policy before it reaches the president.

Still, even the most cynical Trump critics have been rattled by the impeachment inquiry’s revelations about the extent to which he used his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to shape Ukraine policy. Among other things, Giuliani sought to pressure the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, in exchange for access to Trump.

Giuliani has denied wrongdoing, but foreign spy agencies could now seek to see if there are other such “shadow foreign policies” in the works under Trump – and try to warp them toward their own ends.

Given past reports of how Trump’s aides also have ignored the traditional policy process, the possibilities could be plenty. His son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, is reported to have communicated with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince using WhatsApp and is known to have met with Mexican leaders without informing the U.S. secretary of state.

Plus, U.S. adversaries’ mere knowledge of a secret, irregular channel could give them leverage over Trump or his administration, even if they never publicize what they know. That’s especially the case if they get the president, or one of his associates, on tape requesting something questionable, former officials said.

This sort of thing is not entirely without precedent.

In 2014, a leaked recording of a talk about Ukraine between two U.S. diplomats made global waves, in part because one diplomat, Victoria Nuland, said “fuck” the European Union. The U.S. didn’t deny the recording’s authenticity. It accused Russia of being behind the leak, which bruised America’s image in Brussels.

The evolution of technology adds to the risk factor.

For instance, at the heart of the impeachment inquiry is a private July 25 conversation in which Trump asked Ukraine’ president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, one of his top potential rivals in the 2020 election. What’s to stop another country from faking a recording of Trump asking another leader for a similar favor, then leaking it to a reporter?

“It’s the asymmetry of information that can be detrimental,” said Ned Price, a former CIA officer and Obama administration spokesman who has been fiercely critical of Trump. “It’s things that actually happen, but also things they can create.”

Potential recruitment targets

When U.S. intelligence officers try to recruit foreign assets, they often seek out the disgruntled in another government’s official ranks. Now, some former intelligence officials are wondering if that approach is more likely to work when used against America.

That’s because the impeachment proceedings have exposed to a startling degree the discontent in the U.S. diplomatic, intelligence and other governmental wings.

The unhappiness has been there from the start of the Trump era; hundreds of State Department officials, for example, objected vociferously to the early version of the administration’s travel ban on people from several majority-Muslim countries. Trump and his top aides didn’t help their case when they vilified career staffers – some of whom have served in government for decades – as disloyal “Obama holdovers.” But by many accounts morale inside the administration has plummeted amid the Ukraine scandal.

Trump’s questionable decision to recall Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, has angered many inside the State Department. And his rants against the whistleblower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry has further upset an intelligence community he’s often insulted. Trump aides often liken the federal bureaucracy to a “deep state” – a term once reserved for authoritarian regimes where a permanent, unelected class of officials secretly steers the government.

The former intelligence officials stressed that the odds remain very low that a U.S. official – even one furious at the system – will turn and become an agent of a foreign power. It’s not like Russia or China offer a better model. And U.S. officials who deal with national security are typically trained to detect and deter efforts to recruit them.

Besides, diplomats and other U.S. officials, already a patriotic bunch, may decide it is more important than ever now to protect the institutions they serve. But ultimately the odds are better now for a foreign agency seeking recruits.

“We’re not used to the U.S. government being this incompetent and corrupt, and that’s an issue,” said John Sipher, a former CIA officer with expertise in Russia who frequently criticizes Trump.

The Ukraine debacle has also revealed that there are numerous non-government actors close to Trump – or close to people close to Trump – who can now be targeted by foreign spies for surveillance, direct pressure or recruitment.

Giuliani, for instance, has business associates around the world. Two of them who served as links to Ukraine, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, were arrested last month on campaign finance charges.

Parnas is said to have provided translation services for lawyers representing indicted Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash. U.S. officials have linked Firtash to the Kremlin and Russian organized crime.

Butt-dials and breaches

Giuliani’s cell phone is sure to be a hot commodity on the intelligence market right about now.

In fact, one of the most striking revelations from the impeachment investigation has been how sloppy some Trump aides and associates are in their use of personal technology.

Diplomats and other officials are using WhatsApp or regular texts to discuss highly sensitive issues; even when they are encrypted, there’s no guarantee such channels can withstand savvy foreign hackers.

Giuliani recently butt-dialed an NBC News reporter, accidentally leaving a message describing his need for cash to an unknown third party. The same journalist reported that in 2017, shortly after he was named Trump’s cyber security adviser, Giuliani went to an Apple store to get help in unlocking his iPhone. He’d forgotten his passcode.

The impeachment inquiry, and outside reporting, have confirmed two key things: that Trump at times says controversial things while talking to foreign leaders, and that aides placed some of his more questionable conversations with foreign leaders on a special, highly classified server.

Foreign agents have likely started or redoubled efforts to get access to transcripts of Trump’s other calls, which could prove embarrassing to release. As part of that effort, if they weren’t already trying, hostile spies will likely aim to break into that server – or whatever storage system the White House uses now.

America the divisible

On a broader level, Trump’s treatment of Ukraine, and the impeachment process it has birthed, could deepen political polarization in America while damaging the reputation of the U.S. overseas. That, the former officials say, could make the country as a whole more vulnerable to outside mischief.

Besides, several pointed out, even before he faced impeachment proceedings, Trump’s capricious approach to the rest of the planet was doing damage.

The allegation that he withheld military aid to Ukraine because it hadn’t agreed to investigate Biden has undermined the idea that the U.S. won’t backtrack on its commitments. His recent decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, essentially abandoning America’s Kurdish allies in the area, gave Russia an opening to expand its influence in the region.

“In terms of our prestige – we’re not considered a serious country any more. Certainly, we can’t be counted on as allies,” said Ted Kontek, a former intelligence analyst based at the State Department.

A bitter impeachment process that further pits Trump’s Republican supporters against his Democratic opponents could be a blessing for countries such as Iran and Russia, which have waged disinformation campaigns against the United States.

Those disinformation efforts were likely to be in full force during the 2020 elections. Add impeachment to the mix, and now there’s more anger in the body politic to exacerbate, former officials said. Because many Americans state their views on social media, it’s even easier for foreign agencies to target them.

“Intelligence services look at that as fertile terrain to exploit someone’s political views,” said Christopher Costa, a former U.S. intelligence and National Security Council official under Trump who now serves as the executive director of the International Spy Museum.

What could this look like? An army of fake Twitter accounts spreading messages opposing impeachment, or supporting it, to influence Americans — including those who’d pick up their phone and call a lawmaker. Engineered pop-up protests around the country of unwitting Americans on either side of the debate.

Or a more obvious tactic: Russian President Vladimir Putin saying something ambiguous, but mildly favorable, in public about Trump as he fights to stay in office. That could confuse Democrats, test Republican unity and ultimately add to the chaos Putin loves to see in America.

Robert Eatinger, a former top lawyer for the CIA, went even further. “I would not be surprised to see the Russians passing messages to the president through trusted channels offering to help him fight the impeachment inquiry by gathering derogatory information against the politicians driving the inquiry and the witnesses against him,” he said.

In the past, some Kremlin representatives have been befuddled by the U.S. impeachment process, noted Calder Walton, an intelligence historian.

He pointed to Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States during the Richard Nixon era, who wrote in his memoir, “In Confidence,” that the Soviets couldn’t quite understand how a “minor affair” like Watergate could topple Nixon.

“His use of the CIA, the FBI, and the considerable powers of his own office to remain in the White House was considered in the Soviet Union at the time as a fairly natural thing for the chief of state to do. Who cared if it was a breach of the Constitution?” wrote Dobrynin, who died in 2010. “So our inclination was to think that Watergate was some kind of intrigue organized by his political enemies to overthrow him.”

Read More

[hellscreamsangels-blog]

1. Hellscream’s Hot New Product

3/6/18

Ratchet

Rumbling smog and roaring thunder descend on Ratchet. Hulking machines materialize from the dark. Death on wheels emerges from unsettled dirt; the Hellscream’s Angels have arrived.

The gang only slowed upon reaching a half-way acceptable tavern. They left their hogs out in front, as if anyone would dare to touch their property.

Entering public places was always the same. Patrons would stop what they were doing to gawk, guards would freeze. Whether strangers paused due to respect or fear, Ramborc didn’t know. Ultimately, he didn’t really care.

Ramborc nodded to his crew, as if to give them permission to make themselves at home. Thotticus collapsed onto a chair, kicking off her boots and resting her feet on the table. Grampy strode over to the musician to request a song. Creed, from across the tavern, called out his own musical recommendation. Ramborc, now seated by Thotticus, raised his hammer of a fist and brought it down against the table, as if to formally announce the group’s arrival.

A tiny green man scuttled to now-dented table, “S-s-sorry boss, we didn’t know ya’ were comin’.” The disgruntled owner snapped his fingers at a guy behind the bar, and within moments, a second tiny green man was pouring Durotar’s finest into much-used steins.

“Drink up, boys, we’ve got some business to discuss and we ain’t got much time to waste,” Ramborc said, raising a full glass to his lips.

Vamik, on the literal edge of his seat, asked “What ya got planned for us, boss?”

“Somethin’ good, boys,” Ramborc smiled, and continued after a quick sip,  “Finish ya’ drinks and then I’ve got somethin’ real nice to show ya’.”

Drinks were drunk and stories were exchanged. Satiated, the admittedly inebriated gang stumbled towards the tavern’s exit. Creed turned to the tiny green man, smiled, and said, “Put it on our tab.”  

To no surprise, their vehicles were untouched. Ramborc steadied himself on his hog. He turned to his crew, “Follow me, boys. And look out for anythin’ funny, this right here is for our eyes only.”

Ramborc road north, the stillness of the night punctuated by the thrum of machines. He rode up to a building that was undoubtedly inspired by goblin architecture. Ugly, yes, but ultimately good for keeping a low profile.  Inside, more tiny green men laboured over things that glowed and things that probably burned flesh if touched. The goblins were so engrossed in their work that they didn’t even notice the arrival of the Hellscream’s Angels. No need for greetings, though, they were hard at work. There’s no time for distractions when you’re on the cusp of a new enterprise.

“What’s that, Boss?” Althalos asked, studying formulas and parchment diagrams that had been nailed to the wall.

“So ya’ boys are familiar with arcane and how elves just can’t seem to get enough of it, ya?” Everyone looked at Thotticus. Ramborc broke the silence, “This right here is somethin’ way more potent.”

Ramborc reached into his pocket, collecting the little treasure that warranted this meeting. He opened his palm to reveal a glowing green crystal.

“It’s our new product. I’d like you all to meet Crystal Fel.”

The gang moved towards him, fixated on the sample. He wasn’t sure if his comrades were stupefied or in awe. “Respectfully, sir, what is it?” Creed questioned.

Ramborc cleared his throat, “Well, ya take some arcane crystal, cut it with some coagulated fel blood, and add a little Gobbo’ touch to it and BAM! Ya’ got this bad boy right here.”

“Genius,” muttered Vamik.

“The best part is, we’re the only ones with it,” Ramborc continued,  “We’re gonna corner the market, boys.”

“Who’s supplying the arcane?” Grampy asked, arms folded.

“I got a guy... Eznick, a smugg--” Ramborc paused, thinking over his words. He was a businessman, after all. “Mr. Eznick Isle-Frack is the best importer I know.”

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This year marked my first year attending Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, California. Needless to say as a Game Design student in Canada whose never left my country on my own before, I was pretty stoked.

In a nutshell, Game Developer's Conference was an amazing experience. I met so many cool new people as well as some industry professionals who I admire very much. I even got interviewed by IGN for the game I'm working on for my co-op! (It's called Riverbond you should totally check it out it's going to be rad /shamelessplug)

Anyway, I thought it'd be helpful for some people to write some Hot Tips™ I found useful about networking at an event like GDC from the view of a student.

Here goes!

Tip 1: You're Not A Student

Weird right?

Let me elaborate. Obviously you're a student (why else would you be reading this?) But being a student is different than announcing to the world you're a student. GDC is full of industry folks and for all intents and purposes you're at this event so you're an industry folk now! I know students who refer to themselves as 'aspiring game developers' but no, if you've developeed a game - any game, no matter how crummy - you're a game developer. So drop the mindset that you're any less than others by virtue of your status.

There's nothing wrong with going to GDC as a learning experience, but if it negatively affects the way people treat you don't be afraid to dial it down a notch, you're as much a game developer as anyone else there.

Some of the more disappointing interactions I had at GDC were a result of someone finding out I was a student.

The first was when a promoter for a sponsor came up to our table at an event and was seeking industry people to pitch their product to. This made sense - they're sponsoring it, so why not? She took turns asking everyone at the table what company they work for, but when she found out we were students she gave us the cold shoulder.

The other was when I was meeting with a fairly accomplished indie developer who took time out of his trip to give me some advice. Our conversation was interjected by an disgruntled-sounding developer who decided to impart some wisdom on me which I was already well aware of (and wasn't relevant to our conversation). He told me "to get hired you have to make an indie studio and ship a game" and then lectured me on how to do so for the next ten minutes. In my 3+ years of schooling trust me, I've heard it before.

Also, note to any senior industry folks reading this: Please refrain from giving advice to students unless they ask for it. You'd be surprised what we've heard already!

Tip 2: You're Absolutely A Student

I know, I'm a hypocrite.

But really, as much as being a student can hinder some of your experiences, it can be a very useful crutch to lean on. You'd be surprised how much time people are willing to take out of their day for you to mentor students like you .

I managed to talk to a few very kind developers at GDC who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to just sit down and chat with me about their journey and offer wisdom for my road ahead, and all it took was me saying "Hey, I'm a student. Wanna get a coffee?" (I think I said it much more professionally but you get the jist).

Being a student has its ups and downs, but it can definitely be a useful card to be able to speak to industry professionals. After all, who doesn't love to mentor others!

Tip 3: Don't Get Starstruck

Depending on the type of person you are, this may or may not be much of an issue.

Personally I found seeing industry figures at GDC humbling - for someone who follows a lot of devs on the World Wide Web™ it was sobering to see they were just people too which really helped me be less intimidated by the idea of introducing myself to them. Besides, if I didn't let them know I appreciate the work they do then I might never have had another opportunity to do so!

I recall an instance where a few of us were talking and my friend couldn't stop looking over my shoulder. I asked what she was looking at and she responded, "Tim Schafer is right over there". Sure enough, he was ten feet away checking out some board games. One morning as I was waiting for the expo hall to open I was watching someone play Ooblets and looked to my right only to see Danny O'Dwyer having a coffee. Nina Freeman (who hosted the IGF awards this year) was also just hanging around at an event I had attended. I told William Pugh I liked his work and he thanked me and asked if I knew where the bathroom was. Criken waited in line to play a game right after we did. I think I passed Stever Gaynor like eighty times throughout the week and turned around only to lose sight of him.

Dude's a ghost.

The number of prominent industry people can be staggering, especially as someone who's new to seeing it all in person. But avoiding the temptation to beg for a photo op and instead just saying 'Hey, just wanted to say your work is super cool' and maybe handing them a card will make the experience feel less awkward for everyone involved. At the end of the day, cool people are still just people.

Oh wait! That reminds me:

  Tip 4: Print Business Cards

The best way to remember someone is to give them a business card, often with your face or a nifty design splattered all over it. It's also good to collect these - you never know when you'll be hiring people for a project in the future.

Handing out cards does take some getting used to (avoiding the 'I'm a slimy businessman' feeling took me quite a while) but at GDC it's common practice, most people are here for business and to meet people after all. Take about a week to work out a colourful, interesting design and ask others what they think of it and don't leave it till the last minute - getting a card people will remember is arguably more important than just having a card itself.

  Tip 5: Reach Out

It's surprisingly easy to find who's going to GDC. A simple Twitter search of GDC a month beforehand will yield lots of resultsm, and the GDC connect app essentially catalogues most people attending the expo (which is actually pretty creepy now that I think about it).

With a bit of searching it's not hard to find people who you's be interested in meeting up with. Following that all it takes is shooting them a simple email asking if they'd be interested in meeting up to impart some advice on a student and chat a little (See Tip 2). Before I went I sent emails to some people a few weeks beforehand which was too early for most of them to schedule anything, so I followed up again during the week and actually got to sit down with a few of them.

Reaching out can give you the opportunity to meet with some very cool people, and all it takes is a little initiative. The worst they'll say is "No". Don't forget to thank them too, even if they reject you they still took the time to do so.

Tip 6: Manage Your Time

Most of the time at GDC everything is happening at once. You won't be able to go to every panel, every party or every event, and that's okay! Here's what I found to be a useful breakdown:

Go To Parties

Parties are by far your best means to meet new people at GDC, but finding the right party is something else entirely. Usually, you'll know if a party is good for meeting folks with a simple Google search or at most within a half-hour of getting there. GDC parties cover a wide spectrum, from huge club bashes like That.Party to smaller more intimate get-togethers.

Usually, anything at a club or a dark, loud venue is (as you'd expect) bad for meeting people, so unless you're going to the party have a good time with your friends, these might not be your most time-effective events to check out. Some parties like itch.rl were phenominal for meeting people from all walks of game development, smaller get-togethers focused around local devs from my area like the Ontario Media Development Corporation party (it's a mouthful, I know) were also great for introducing me to cool new folks from my area and made it feel like I wasn't so far from home.

There is a caveat to this - try to avoid drinking. Waking up with a hangover would certainly put a damper on the GDC experience and chances are you'll need to go to bed at a reasonable time if you want to make the most of the next day!

Go To Some Talks

If a talk is going in the vault you can always watch it later. In fact if you're paying for your own pass I'd say its better to buy an expo pass and just stay for the week instead of filling your schedule with talks and panels.

Of course, I say 'some' since if there's a talk you really want to see there's no better way to experience it than in person. Also I was tipped off by a Microsoft employee to check out one of the free sponsored talks Microsoft was offering since he claimed, "it would definitely be worth my time"...

I got a free Mixed Reality devkit out of it so...uh...that was pretty cool.

The way I see it though, most of the opportunities GDC presents are the ones you can only get by going to the venue, like meeting people, talking with business representatives and learning about new games old and new so to me, the talks didn't seem like an overall good use of my time (also it was more expensive to go to talks and I'm already going broke so there's that).

  Go To The Show Floor

Oddly enough, most of the people I met at GDC were strangers I chatted with while watching games at the Indie Megabooth, trying Train Jam games or even loitering around the Expo Hall. It was as simple as making a comment about the game you're observing and opening a conversation with any who respond. It felt surprisingly natural - after all, most attendees are there to meet new people, so what better way then to bond over new games. 

Care For Yourself

There were a few days at GDC I went without eating, drinking or even going number two for most of the day. With so much going on, it's surprisingly easy to forget your basic survival instincts.

Hand sanitizer is a must as well - with most of the devs who attended GDC I know now being sick the week after I feel like the only way I even survived was by wiping my hands down after every time I touched someone or something.

Personally I tend to do fairly well when I need to be 'On' all the time, but my girlfriend needs a little more quiet time than I do. If you're like her, some days you'll find yourself so tired that you might choise to turn in early and spend the evening watching Netflix. At some point it might feel like you're wasting time, but in reality you're building much needed energy for the next day at the show and by the end of the week that energy is valuable. Don't push yourself harder than you can go, at GDC or otherwise.

Tip 7: Follow Up

I know, I know, I can hear you shouting: "But Devon I met so many sweet folks, how do I possibly let them all know how rad they are?!"

Emails, my friend. Lots. Of. Emails.

Or Tweets. Or LinkedIn. Basically anywhere their business cards direct you to.

Following up is an important step in networking, a simple "Hey it was great meeting you" not only helps remind someone else of your conversation but also of who you are and shows you -actually paid attention- to them. But avoid using form letters or anything that sounds too generic, make it personal. The last thing anyone wants to read is "Hello [their name], it was nice meeting you at [event] and am looking forward to seeing where your journey takes you. Follow me on Twitter."

This leads into my final (and most important) Hot Tip™:

Tip 8: Qualify, Don't Quantify

There was a moment of awe at the end of my GDC trip when I was packing the business cards I gathered from the event - the stack was as fat as a hamburger. I felt like I achieved something by meeting so many people!

I turned to my girlfriend and said "Look at all the cards I got!", then I mentioned I was thinking about taking a picture of it to commemorate the occasion which she aptly told me not to do because it was really tacky.

It was a pretty powerful lesson that struck me: I had quite a few people's contact information, but that didn't necessarily mean I valued them all equally. There were certainly some people I distinctly remember from GDC who I loved speaking with and even others who made me feel like I had known them my whole life.

But most of the cards I had weren't any of those people.

Most cards I had were people who I exchanged cards with as a courtesy, meeting them briefly in passing and only saying a few words to.

When I started practicing networking it was a year before I had to find a co-op position for my schooling and the idea of talking to people to get something from them was (and still is) completely abhorrent to me.

I believe the primary purpose of networking should be getting to know people. Everything else is secondary.

The people I want to follow up with are the people who make me feel like I've known them forever. Anyone I want to stay in touch with is someone I want to hear more from, whose work keeps me interested and wanting more. Not the people who I talked to for half a minute in passing. I'm not saying those people have no value, but I think the relationships built out of meaningful conversations are more worth pursuing than those made for the sake of getting another LinkedIn connection.

By fawning over my business cards I got very close to considering all those people who I enjoyed speaking to just another number in a big ol' stack of numbers which is a terrible thing (to me, at least).

When I returned home I made every effort to make sure I'd never forget the people who made an impact on me.

Boy that got pretty heavy! Yikes.

Anyway, I could probably talk about GDC and networking all day but I'm not going to because you have bigger, better things to do. I hope these Hot Tips™ helped you as much as all the GDC-centric articles I read before going helped me.

Thanks for reading and good luck on your networking, folks!