#darkburst

[simplyventi]

My oc Shadowspire’s family

I will be drawing Shadowspire’s and Jaysnow’s parents later but for now the fam.

Shadowspire and Jaysnow are mates and alittle later find a surrogate who gives birth to their son Darkburst. At the same time his mother, Kilala pulled a Princess and gave them one of her own kits, Burdock, to live in the clan. So Burdockkit is raised alongside Darkkit. Soon enough they find Snowkit abandoned and raise him alongside Darkkit and Burdockkit.

Later down the road they find another surrogate and have Lilypaw, Bristlepaw and Shadepaw(in game they haven’t received their warriors names yet)

Shadowspire is a loyal warrior and is incredibly clever. He was born in the twolegplace, where his mother is a kittypet and his father was Shadeclan’s former medicine cat Pebbleheart. Due to her promise to Pebbleheart in not telling anyone who Shadowspire’s father was she tried to keep Shadow away from the clan life but failed when he meets them one night and they ask him to join for the lack of warriors.

Jaysnow is a compassionate warrior who has ghost sight and is a great kitsitter. He met Shadowspire as a young apprentice having been the first wild clan cat he met. Jaysnow’s mother was actually a cat who apart of a group of cats who live by the ocean called The Kin. Almost like The Sisters in the books minus the whole ‘tom cats have to leave’. His mother’s name was Lily who happened to meet a Shadeclan warrior named Flusterlight who set out on a journey to find The Kin for help with the clans since they share a deep history. Lily ended up taking his place when he died and left for the clans joining Shadeclan to tell them what happened and try to finish what he set out to do but before she could she died during birth leaving Jaykit to be raised by the clan.

Darkburst is their son from their first litter. Raised alongside Burdockfoot the two became close. Darkburst tries to help Burdockfoot with his insecurities and hopes it’s helping him. Darkburst is a responsible warrior who shares in his father’s passion as a beloved kitsitter. He has his own destiny ‘Darkness will be the one to bring the Clouds back’ and goes to find the missing and lost Cloudclan.

Burdockfoot is Shadowspire’s younger brother and was raised alongside Darkburst. He knows of his true heritage and believes that the whole clan don’t believe he’ll be a good warrior like his brother. He doubts himself a lot which causes him to have anxiety and mess things up. He’s good at rebuilding the dens and finds he’s good at it.

Snowquill is their adoptive son and he’s just a big himbo. He is quite ambitious wanting to prove himself as a good warrior which ends up with him putting himself in harms way a lot. He’s a big fluff and loves playing.

Lilypaw is a righteous she-cat who loves to play and has some morbid curiosity to the world. She loves learning and tends to do things until she gets it right. Born as the oldest she watches over her siblings a lot.

Bristlepaw is an ambitious little thing always wanting to play the role of deputy in games. She wishes for one day to be leader and she loves learning about the clan from the elders.

Shadepaw is also ambitious and takes pride that he was named after the clan. He believes it’s his right to be leader someday with Bristlepaw as his deputy. He shares Lilypaw’s interest and curiousity.

[girlballs]

whenever Samus charges her beam it sends the vibrations straight to her taint. firing a Darkburst is intense enough to make her instantly paint the inside of her Power Suit white

[holonetnews]

Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction... The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort... It breaks, it leaks....

STAR WARS: HOLONET, SEASON 2, EPISODE 5: "MANIFESTO" (GRAPHIC NOVEL ADAPATION)

In a heart-wrenching episode, Deena Tharen faces her deepest fears and desires when unforeseen circumstances force her and Rush Darkburst (@worldwearyjedi) to temporarily part ways. As the galaxy watches, Deena grapples with the public and personal fallout of their separation. With Rush gone, Deena’s broadcasts become tinged with a newfound earnestness, revealing cracks in her Imperial facade. Deena confronts the stark reality of her emotions, acknowledging too late the depth of her love for Rush. This episode blends intense personal drama with the broader political intrigues of the Star Wars saga marking a pivotal turn in the series.

[gobstoppercowboy]

Marauders as Guitars:

Remus: Darkburst Gibson Les Paul

Sirius: Black Flying-V

James: Red Stratocaster

[siren-nate]

Every Metroid Prime boss ranked from worst to best

Ground rules: No repeating fights. That means no bosses that you fight multiple instances of with nothing changing, and no bosses that just become regular enemies later on. If a boss has multiple phases that have to be fought in order, all of those phases will be considered together, not separately. Lastly, I won't be counting Hunters bosses because I just haven't played the game and it's more of a spinoff than anything else. Also, only the top thirty entries get images, because that's Tumblr's limit, apparently.

Putting this under a readmore because, obviously, it's goddamned huge.

36) Alpha Blogg

FUCK THIS THING.

I hate, hate, hate, HATE, HATE, HATE THE ALPHA BLOGG. How are you supposed to fight it? No, legitimately, somebody explain to me what the intended way to fight this fucking thing is. It only shows its weak spot for a fraction of a second right before it attacks you, sometimes it doesn't show that weak spot and has absolutely no tell for when it is or isn't going to, and sometimes it just randomly combos into you three or four times before finally letting you get away from it. The only weapons that do significant damage to it (super missile and darkburst) take a second to fire off after you hit the missile button, making it even more stupidly difficult to get the timing perfect and actually damage the Alpha Blogg.

I'm not joking when I say that as far as I can tell, the only way to fight this stupid fucking fish is to continuously suicide-attack it and hope that you get enough blind luck attacks in that it dies before you do. I'm not even mentioning that every time you die to it, you have to replay a huge chunk of its area again due to poor checkpoint implementation. Fuck. This. Boss.

35) Power Bomb Guardian

Here's a boss fight that I'm honestly shocked doesn't get more hate. The Power Bomb Guardian is annoying. Yes, there's a certain art to baiting it into shooting power bombs in a direction you're not actually going due to how strongly it leads its shots and re-aims on a dime, but no matter how good you get at it, there's always going to be several times where getting knocked off the wall and forced to start the climb all over again is just unavoidable. God, I hate this stupid thing.

34) Cloaked Drone

This one's just lame. I hate boss fights where either you don't know the trick and it's a nightmare, or you do know the trick and it's trivial, and that's exactly what this is. Either you don't use the Wavebuster and it's a nightmare because it's an extremely agile invisible enemy, or you do and it's not even a fight anymore.

33) Pirate Commander

The perfect microcosm of why Prime 3's combat sucks. All he does is teleport around, summon commandos for you to insta-kill with the nova beam after struggling to land that perfect hit on them, and use the same attacks as a commando. Despite this, he has what feels like ten times the health of one, and all his teleporting means it's near-impossible to lay down serious damage against him. It's just an unfun slog of chewing through a very irritating damage sponge with the same, single attack over and over until it finally dies. Again, Prime 3's combat in a nutshell.

32) Jump Guardian

Possibly the most forgettable boss fight in the whole series. It really is just a Warrior Ing with a bigger health bar and a slam-the-ground-make-a-shockwave-attack, also known as the attack that every boss in this whole series has. Honestly a shocking lack of fanfare for an enemy that has a power-up as integral as the double jump.

31) Parasite Queen

This one's a really good introductory boss fight and a great climax to the first area of the entire series, but sadly, that means it's kind of a nothing fight on replays. She really just doesn't do much, but I guess having to sidestep constantly to aim between her shields at least keeps you on the move and engaged. There's a surprising amount of skill involved in dodging her mouth lasers, but I swear sometimes they just hit you no matter what you do. She gets bonus points for the mechanic where you can scan her to adjust the auto-targeting to do more damage... and then gets those bonus points immediately taken away because she's the only boss fight in the entire series that works like that, so it's kind of a pointless thing to teach the player.

30) Hive Mecha

This is a really good example of how to make a tutorial boss fight that doesn't grate on experienced players! Unfortunately, it's also a really bad example of a tutorial boss fight that actually teaches the player the thing it's trying to teach them. Hive Mecha is a manageable, enjoyable challenge if you figure out how the radar works before or during the fight with it, and a chaotic nightmare mess if you don't. I think the idea is that all of the enemies swarming in a circle on the radar gets the player's attention, and they think "Oh, hey, I can use this to see when the wasps keep still so I can shoot them!". The problem is that they're distracted by, y'know, all of the enemies swarming around them nonstop. Just a single text pop-up telling you to use the radar would help this fight a lot - hell, they could have buried it in the Ram War Wasp scan if they wanted it to not be obvious.

29) (Dark) Alpha Splinter

What a strange creature; it gets weaker when it's possessed by an Ing. Seriously, trading in that insanely well-tracked pounce-and-return for a way more avoidable version makes the second half of this fight bafflingly easier than the first, even with the addition of projectiles. A good first boss fight, but kind of emblematic of how wonky Prime 2's difficulty is at times.

28) Grapple Guardian

This thing is so obtuse and confusing that Metroid Fusion's puzzles give it a nod of respect. Okay, so you have to get it to grapple onto the energy pillars to stun it. Except for the fact that if it's too close, that doesn't work, for literally no reason. Then you have to damage it in the back, but then when its tail falls off, suddenly you can damage it by shooting it in the eye after you've already shot that area enough to stun it and make its invulnerable shield dissipate. You go from shooting it in the eye so you can hit its back to... shooting it in the eye so you can shoot it in the eye some more. The icing on the cake is that you can't damage it at all until you scan it, for no goddamned reason.

It took me half a fucking hour to figure out how I was supposed to just kill this stupid thing. It's not that bad once you DO know all the mistakes to avoid, but that first playthrough and its bugginess with the grapple beam makes me hate it so much it's all the way down here.

27) Caretaker-Class Drone

Frantic is the word to describe this fight. You are constantly on the move, you have barely enough time to register the weak spot and line up a shot, let alone hit it, you always have to jump around like a hyperactive squirrel as the attacks get faster and take up more space... yeah, frantic as all hell. This boss does irritate me because of how unpredictable the direction of your boost-jumps are, though. Sometimes it screws me out of a hit because it randomly decides to not work the same way it has for the last three jumps, or the same kind of random chance throws me right into damage.

26) Dark Samus (Prime 2, Final)

Given she's practically the mascot of the series, it feels weird for Dark Samus's first appearance on this list to be her role as final boss of her debut game... and for it to be so low. Unfortunately, this fight is terrible compared to its contemporaries. It starts off fine, if a little lacking - no cover to duck in and out of, no new tricks from Dark Samus and significantly less agility from her. But that attack where she becomes invulnerable and you have to play phazon tennis with her is... shit. It's just shit. The hit detection on both of her attacks is unreliable as hell - I've had small bullets hit me right in the face while I was charging only to take damage and lose my shot, and the big bullet is just unavoidable whenever it feels like it.

Yes, by the way, I did say both attacks. As in, for the vast majority of her tenure as final boss of Prime 2, Dark Samus uses exactly two different attacks. Given what a highlight her other two fights are in that game, it's just... pathetic. The cherry on top is the fact that you have a time limit hanging over your head for a boss fight where the majority of the time, you cannot damage her with any speed.

25) Rundas

Oh, boy, this one's gonna get me a lot of hate...

Let me preface this by saying: I love Rundas. I love all three of the Prime 3 bounty hunters, to the point that one of my biggest criticisms of the game is that it kills them off rather than keep their potential around for Prime 4. Rundas as a character is great.

Runda as a boss fight is the single most pathetically easy fight in the entire trilogy, behind only the Cloaked Drone when you use the Wavebuster. One single charged beam hypermode shot, he's stunned. Rip his armor off. One single charged beam hypermode shot, he's dead. Rundas is a boss fight that - even on hard difficulty - I routinely kill in less than thirty seconds.

The tragedy of it is, if you don't use hypermode at all? Rundas's boss fight is awesome! He soars all over the arena, hopping from ice platform to ice platform while launching projectiles at you, and gains an entirely new, unique, extremely hard-to-dodge attack when he uses his own hypermode! It's a WAY more fitting send-off for such a capable character, and probably what the developers intended and expected given you only have a measly two or three energy tanks to power your hypermode by the time you fight him. But I can't only acknowledge the fight that I get when I do a self-imposed challenge, especially when I can only reasonably do that on easy difficulty due to how fucked Prime 3's gameplay balance is.

24) Gandrayda

Aaand we immediately go from one extreme to the other. Gandrayda is a fucking nightmare on hard difficulty. Her microscopic hitbox and constant jumping around mean that using hypermode at all is just a waste of valuable health, especially given there are no opportunities to heal for the last 75% or so of this fight. Even seeker missiles are borderline useless unless you time them perfectly so she's not just flipping right around them and making them miss, and at that point you may as well stick to the only tactic I've found that works: spamming the shit out of the basic uncharged plasma beam so hard that I worry my mouse is going to break. This wouldn't be so god-awful if it weren't for how impossibly tanky Gandrayda is, because Prime 3 doesn't know how to balance the health of its enemies.

While the idea of a shapeshifting boss fight constantly swapping between stronger versions of enemies you've fought before could be super interesting, Gandrayda basically stops changing form at all for the last third of the fight, meaning it's just you and an incredibly annoyingly hard to hit target with way too much goddamned health that does way too much goddamned damage. Just like Rundas, I love the character, but fuck this boss fight.

23) Mogenar

This thing is a roadblock on hard difficulty. Even with every energy tank I can possibly acquire before I fight it, I often just barely have enough hypermode usage to scrape through by the skin of my teeth, given that the charged rapid-fire shot is about the only way you can possibly damage it fast enough to make significant progress. If it only had some health pickups, like when it drops rocks from the ceiling or something like that, it'd be a lot less stressful, but as it stands I have very little actual fun fighting this thing.

22) Bomb Guardian

Honestly, this thing's kind of slept on. Trying to jump over it at just the right moment when it charges, so you can get closer to its weak spot and have a clearer shot - that's excellent. I also love its stupid charged up million-bombs attack. It's such a rude wake-up surprise the first time you fail to damage it enough to interrupt it, and so overkill it's downright hilarious.

21) Incinerator Drone

I don't have much to say about this one; it's just an enjoyable, if basic, fight. Circling around and either jumping over or morph balling under the flame streams, which gets trickier the more wasps it wakes up to distract you from shooting the weak spot when it opens - just good stuff.

20) Flaahgra

Ah, the first Real-Ass Boss Fight of Metroid Prime! I love Flaahgra's design and the way it serves as a red herring for a first-time player who really pays attention to the story. There's just one problem: it's piss-easy. Seriously, a few charge shots and it gets completely stunned for about three to five months, during which you have plenty of time to side-jump in circles around it and shoot the mirrors back up. The biggest obstacle it poses is when it makes those impassable barriers, requiring the legendary speedrunning technique known as... going the other way.

19) Amorbis

You know, I could kind of just copy+paste the description of Flaahgra here with some minor edits. First Real-Ass Boss Fight of its game, amazing presentation and spectacle and sheer scale, piss-easy fight. The light beam's charge shot just melts every single phase of this boss, even on hard difficulty. Still, at least you have to do a hell of a lot more than stun Amorbis to fight it (them?).

18) Defense Drone

I kind of struggle to come up with things to say about this one. You'd think the three simultaneous targets on its back would make it the perfect time to use the seeker missile, but you don't have it by the time you fight it, so yet more charged hypermode shots it is. I will say that the hit detection to actually damage it is really annoying - half my shots seem to bounce off even when I'm literally locked on and it's standing relatively still. Also, those chasing exploding poison ball things are annoying as fuck - I never want to waste time shooting them because I want this fight to be over as quick as possible.

17) Korakk Beast

This one's fun - pulling it apart to finally get it vulnerable is like a puzzle in and of itself. Hit its exposed mouth to stun it, get underneath and lay a bunch of bombs, get behind it and yank its tail, then finally unload on its chest - preferably in hypermode. One thing that disappoints me, though, is that the rider isn't particularly difficult to kill, and once he's gone, it neuters a lot of the Korakk's best attacking options. The fight would be better if another rider leapt in to take command of it after each cycle, or something like that.

16) Boost Guardian

Today's word of the day is "overhyped"! Seriously, Boost Guardian is just not as hard as everyone says it is. Apparently it was much harder in the original release of Prime 2, but not that much according to the wiki - apparently it did 60 damage instead of 40, which... doesn't strike me as a massive, earth-shattering change. How does anyone have difficulty avoiding its boost attack? You literally just... jump. You have the double jump by the time you fight it, so you have pretty good hang time. Yeah, the lack of safe zones is tricky, but honestly, safe zones in other boss fights turn them into a joke, so part of me is glad that at least a few don't have any. And even if health runs low... Inglets die in a single uncharged light beam shot.

And just to put the final nail in that particular coffin: Mike Wikan said he was completely exaggerating when he said he couldn't beat Boost Guardian without debug mood. So, I don't get it. Boost Guardian is only a little harder than you would expect given its placement in the game.

15) Ghor

One of the only examples of Prime 3's difficulty feeling slightly balanced leads to this being one of my favorite Prime 3 boss fights. Ghor is a target that takes a ton of punishment, with multiple phases and several layers of defense making him immune until you destroy them by using the environment and the morph ball to your advantage. Even then, he throws out so many wide-ranged attacks nonstop that it can feel like you're two entire armies condensed into one person, throwing out as much damage as possible until one of you buckles.

14) Omega Ridley

Gahhh. I'm so torn on this one. I think the easiest way to sum it up is: I love this boss fight just as much as I hate it. I love how Ridley's new powers from massive corruption mirror Samus's new abilities from her PED, keeping them roughly even just like all their other fights. I love how his only sometimes-there weak spot in his open mouth means that charged hyperbeam shots aren't the ubiquitous solution to everything that they are in nearly every other boss fight. I love how he has "health" that can't be depleted with hypermode, in the form of his phazite armor that you need to destroy with the Nova Beam. But I hate how he wastes my fucking time by flying in and out of the arena dropping unfairly difficult attacks, I hate how there are absolutely no opportunities to heal, I hate how there's no good way to run away and damage him with hypermode when he's on his last legs and his weak spot's finally exposed while he's still attacking- like I said, I love this fight pretty much exactly as much as I hate it.

13) Helios

This thing is honestly just such a cool, creative idea. It's essentially the Scornet Maestro from Pikmin 3, six years before that game came out. It commands swarms of shriekbats into all kinds of bizarre shapes, like an orb that rolls around and crushes you, an array of charging projectiles, a swirling tornado that you have to attack in the morph ball, and even a giant bipedal figure with Helios making up the tiny torso. The problem is the constant onslaught of mook enemies means constant pickups for you, so there's really no reason not to go nuts with hypermode usage and make mincemeat out of this thing before it has much time to shine.

12) Omega Pirate

Bit of a controversial placement, but I just don't especially like the Omega Pirate. Fighting him head-on is a slog - the constant absorption of all my attacks is irritating, the hit detection on his armor plates is extremely buggy, and his thrown explosives just feel completely unavoidable at times. However, using power bombs makes him a joke, especially if you have spring ball or time it so you set one off after he launches you up into the air. They're also the only way to deal with all his summoned beam troopers without going insane, so on Hard difficulty, I honestly find that my attempts at this boss fight live or die based entirely on whether his minions drop enough power bombs. Still a fun fight, but kind of a luck-based pushover once you know the tricks.

11) Thardus

You fight Thardus about halfway through the first game, which is the perfect spot for a real die-or-fly test to make sure the player is either well prepared and learning, or hitting an impassable wall until they are. To that end, just about every single ability you've acquired up to this point is integral to fighting Thardus; you need to be good with aiming and timing your shots to hit each exposed weak point, you need the thermal visor to expose them in the first place, you need to be good with the double jump to avoid getting frozen when it shoots those icy streams along the ground, and you need the morph ball and good boost timing with it to avoid its boulder-rolling attack. The way its model literally gets parts of its body deleted as you blow them up until the whole thing collapses into normal rock is just so viscerally satisfying.

Sadly, there are a few annoyances I have with it. Not being able to see anything for most of the second half of the fight is a pretty big one, since the only way to really get around that is getting close, which is a death sentence. I've also never figured out what's even the point of its big lightning-bolt-summoning attack, given it only seems to use it twice and only extremely nearby to itself.

10) Meta Ridley (Prime 3)

This is a fight that rides purely on style points, I will freely admit it- but god DAMN if it doesn't ride pretty high. Samus and Ridley are both actively falling to a gruesome death at the bottom of a power generator shaft. Despite this, they are both far more concerned with murdering each other than they are with saving themselves, as not a single second is wasted wondering how either of them are going to survive this situation after they kill the other.

Despite being an amazing premise, this fight's pretty... simple. Enough to almost get boring, but not quite. All you really to do is aim straight down or straight up and spam uncharged shots, then charge and time your shots well whenever Ridley gets close and grabs you. It's a little short, but it should be - it's a premise that shows off the depths of Samus and Ridley's unbridled hatred for each other, and doesn't overstay its welcome.

9) Spider Guardian

Boy, this one's gonna rustle some jimmies... yeah, I really like the Spider Guardian fight. But unlike the Boost Guardian fight, I can totally see why people don't like it - it's barely a boss fight in the traditional sense, more of just an extended series of puzzles that you can die to. The fact that you fight it entirely in the morph ball in a 2D space gives it a feeling unlike any other boss fight in the Prime series, and I'm kind of a sucker for "small adventure, big impact"-type stuff. Fun fact: when I first fought this thing, my emulator crashed and I had to replay it again. I fought the Spider Guardian twice in a row... without figuring out how to turn on spring ball. And you know what? I still like it. I'm the weirdo on this one, I guess.

8) Quadraxis

Some would call it sacrilege not to put Quadraxis even higher than it is, but hear me out. This is a really excellent fight, one that I look forward to for obvious reasons every time I play Prime 2. It's huge, possibly the biggest enemy you fight in the entire Prime series, and it's such a determined, persistent foe that the lack of safe zones will start to make you sweat even given how many energy tanks you're likely to have by the time you fight it.

But for all of that, Quadraxis just... doesn't do much. It mostly just stands there, circling its legs around to hide the knee joints it still has, firing projectiles that are Samus-sized - which makes them kind of pathetically small compared to the gargantuan robot that's launching them. Sure, it can do that tornado attack that draws you in, and that's a good time to lay a power bomb and destroy all four of its feet at once - but that attack is honestly more annoying than anything, because I've never figured out how to avoid getting sucked in.

The first phase is easily the best, but when it comes down to it, losing its entire body really does weaken Quadraxis just as much as you'd logically expect. It spends most of the second and third phases completely stunned by super missiles, either fired into the body's antenna or just directly into the head, respectively. The Quadraxis boss fight feels less like fighting a sci-fi war machine, and more just like fighting a real-life war machine. It's insanely durable, but also insanely non-agile.

7) Dark Samus (Prime 3)

Dark Samus's final tenure as boss fight is a pretty damned memorable one. I love how the attacks she uses mirrors those of the three bounty hunters she corrupted and killed over the course of the game - she summons giant destructible pillars like Rundas, fires huge sweeping lasers like Ghor, and splits into multiple entities like Gandrayda. This is by far the best boss fight in Prime 3, and it's absolutely because it's actually balanced for hypermode - after all, you'll be using it nonstop throughout the entire fight. Mix that with the fantastic mirror-boss feel of the first two Dark Samus fights in Prime 2, and you have something truly special.

There's an interesting element of choice whenever she uses her echoes, and then starts healing - the obvious pick is to use the x-ray visor to spot the real one, and cut her healing short as fast as possible. But on the other hand, those annoying duplicates that she loves to fuse with and become invincible are sitting ducks, and destroying them doesn't take that much time. You might find that it's better to let her heal a little if it means getting rid of her echoes and getting some precious anti-phazon in the process.

Sadly, this isn't made to last. Yeah, yeah, we all know where this is going - like I said, all phases of a boss fight are counted together, no matter how drastically different they are. And AU 313... just isn't that fun. For starters, any time it's actually attacking you rather than just sitting there using its most basic moves, you can't do anything to damage it, which is annoying at best and infuriating at worst, given that - just like the last fight with her in Prime 2 - you're on the clock to kill her before you get an instant game over from terminal corruption.

But on top of how annoying the second phase is, the third phase is just... boring. All I ever seem to do is stay right underneath it as best I can, shooting up into its weak spot or that one charged attack that sticks out from the bottom and can stun it if overloaded. Overall, it's just disappointing that the final boss of the entire trilogy starts so strong, only to go out not with a bang, but a whimper.

6) Dark Samus (Prime 2, Second)

Okay, now we're getting to the ones where I struggle to come up with negative things to say. The second Dark Samus fight is fantastic. The way it begins as a steel cage match on the ascending elevator, then she unveils new tricks when you reach the Aerie, including more moves stolen from Samus like the boost ball and fucking shinespark - an attack Samus doesn't even GET in the Prime series - is just incredible. I do find that this fight lacks a bit of the punchiness of the very first one, though - nailing that final shot to end it can take a long time, especially with Dark Samus abusing that aforementioned boost ball. Unlike the Boos Guardian, you can't even bomb her while she's zooming around to get her out of it early (or at least, I've never been able to).

5) Chykka

God, what a good boss fight. The first phase is a little slow paced and annoying, but the second phase is fantastic. Chykka's full-grown design is gorgeous, and its fight is a frantic affair where you're swinging all over the place with the grapple beam, trying to find the best ways to land hits on that twiggy body and then get behind it ASAP once it's stunned. Damaging all four wings at once is also one of the best times to use the severely under-utilized seeker missile. Honestly, Chykka feels really slept on in terms of what an excellent boss it is.

4) Metroid Prime

When I first heard there were people who didn't love Metroid Prime as a final boss, I was honestly baffled. That's how much I fucking love this thing. Its absolutely freakish design, the way you have to switch beam weapons more and more frantically as you fight it deeper and deeper into the Impact Crater, and then you have to pace your missile consumption and decide when is best to use your beam combos - I love it. I love it I love it I love it I love it. It's such a good final exam boss; if it only required bombs or power bombs at any point, it'd be perfect.

Perfect if not for the second phase, anyway. Yeah, I don't need to go into too much detail, because there's nothing new to say. It's the most boring part of the first Prime game, and it's literally the last part of the first Prime game. Nuclear jump rope over and over until it shits out a pool of phazon for you to use, and even then, the overwhelming power of the Phazon Beam as the game's final weapon is undercut by how STUPIDLY tanky this thing is on anything short of easy difficulty. The difference between the two halves of this boss fight are like night and day. If I could only count them separately, the first half would not only stand head-and-shoulders as the best boss in the first game, it would be way higher on the list.

3) Meta Ridley (Prime 1)

Okay, full disclosure, this is a very begrudging placement. The me of a couple playthroughs ago would put Meta Ridley near the beginning of this list out of spite. See, I've only ever played the Trilogy/re-release version of Prime 1, and that version of this boss fight added a new attack where he jumps in the air and then stomps, making a big flaming shockwave. He then does this literally about four or five times in a row, every single time he uses the fucking attack. It was grating, it took forever, it practically guaranteed I'd eventually take serious damage - it single-handedly made me hate this boss fight SO much.

So what happened? Well, I still have only played the Trilogy version - but I figured out that you can just about shoot him in the mouth with a charged plasma beam shot every time he jumps up. I thought this was impossible for the longest time, and so every time he used the stomp attack, I just resigned myself to making absolutely no progress for about thirty solid seconds. Now that I do know this, I've figured out that that's actually the part of the fight where you can do damage to him the fastest - and at the least risk to yourself, unlike his charging-forward attack that will turn you into mincemeat if you don't interrupt it.

So, I owe you an apology, Meta Ridley. Now that I know all the ins-and-outs of your fight, you are the best boss fight in the first game. I understand the hype now, and it's deserved.

2) Emperor Ing

I don't think I've ever understood those people that are really, really into Dark Souls as much as I do while fighting Emperor Ing. The REAL final boss of Prime 2 (no, that last Dark Samus fight does not count) is an absolutely brutally difficult battle on hard difficulty, even if you've gotten 100% item collection before you face him. And... that's kind of what I love about it.

This is a foe that is UTTERLY uncompromising. Either you dominate and destroy it, or you're dead. No in-between. Maybe not in the first phase (if you're like me and just wait until he does that swing-the-tentacles-around-on-the-floor attack and then drop a power bomb), and the second phase is more just for you to recover back to top form than anything else, but the third and final phase? My god. This is the kind of fight I wanted from Quadraxis. I wanted an enemy as brutally lightning-fast and overwhelmingly dangerous as Emperor Ing. Despite his massive size, he's just as, if not MORE agile than the Hunter Ing he resembles. With attacks that change depending on what he's vulnerable to, forcing you to either use the less effective light or dark beam despite the difficulty or unleash the annihilator beam at the risk of running out of ammo, Emperor Ing demands nothing less than mastery - as any ruler should, when you waltz up to take their throne.

1) Dark Samus (Prime 2 First)

God, this fight kicks so much ass. There's no other way to describe the first Dark Samus fight than a knock-down drag-out. She doesn't have that much health, which is reasonable given how early in the game you fight her, but she does FAR more damage than anything else you've faced before her. That combination turns this into a fight that will be over fast no matter how it goes - the only deciding factor is whether you kill her quicker than she kills you.

I think when it comes down to it, this is my favorite Dark Samus fight because it's the one that most perfectly feels like fighting another Samus. The way she leaps around, ducking in and out of cover until that becomes irrelevant as more and more of it gets destroyed, firing shots whenever she sees an opportunity and only being vulnerable as long as she deigns to stay still - that's you. That's how you play Metroid Prime. And you will never realize just how powerful this series makes you until it forces you to fight someone who knows all of the same tricks.

[farnsworthguitars]

Where we ended up. I was thinking, when it was done, this is going to summon something serious. Buyer beware 💀 #wood #woodworking #burst #darkburst #summon #somethingserious #workslow #getzen (at Edmonds, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPByzdegHfu/?utm_medium=tumblr

[claptonwasgod]

Cream. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. October 4, 1968 #jackbruce #gingerbaker #ericclapton #darkburst The first three songs from Live Cream Volume II were recorded at this gig.

[deebeeus]

1936 #Gibson #L00. I will have one some day. Oh yes. Some day. One. Mine. Will. Be. Yes. This one can be bought from @folkwaymusic in #Waterloo, Canada. And they are happy to ship internationally! 😁 #gibsunday #vintageguitars #guitars #guitar #flattop #flattopfriday #acousticguitar #vintagegibsons #gibsonflattop #darkburst #guitarshopping #guitarphotography

[worldwearyjedi]

                                             RUSH DARKBURST

                Jedi Commander of the 3rd Armored Division. 

                           Fierce                          Bold                          Loyal

                                                 And a total fucking mess

_____________________________________________________________

                  So I’ve been very AWOL recently- purely due to                   lack of motivation and energy, but I am still around!                   I’ve been toying with Artbreeder on a recommendation                   from @ordersurvived, and somehow managed to get                   very close to how I envisioned Rush. A quick tweak                   with some image editing software later, and we’ve got                   all the details just about right for her ROTS appearance.                   For those of you on here that would like to come                   and say Hi! My Discord is Col#6835. I’m on there way                   more often than here due to working night shifts. 

                                                 Come say hi!

[arc-77]

Taking Charge

@worldwearyjedi

     Flak filled the air as vulture-droids and V-wings slalomed between the skyscrapers. Piles of debris, battle droids, and clone troopers alike littered streets where fighting was the heaviest. The distant roar of the speeder-lanes was replaced by the constant, innumerable echoes of blasterfire and explosions. The long-anticipated Battle of Coruscant was finally underway. 

     As far as he was concerned, the ongoing crisis that was this disorganized, ad-hoc defense meant his official position in the chain of command no longer mattered. He had comms access, an authoritative voice, and the tactical prowess to wield them both effectively. The situation necessitated action, and the ARC-77 was nothing if not a man of action.

     Capturing the plaza put them in a far more defensible position, the elevated pathways to the landing pads far beyond forming effective chokepoints. Yet with Jedi Masters Yoda and Windu having moved on from Sector Four, Fordo’s forces were left once again at a stand-still. He needed a substitute, and he spotted it in a HUD nameplate and the shining blue blade of a lightsaber.

     Rush Darkburst was a Jedi Knight he’d worked with once or twice before, the commander of the 3rd Armored Division. She was no Mace Windu, but she had access to something just as good: Cavalry. And lots of it.

    “Darkburst! You’re with me. Get on the net and round up your men, we’ll need armored support for the next push.”

     There were no pretenses. It was not a request for reinforcements, it had none of the polite subservience that marked interactions with standard clones. It was an order. And he didn’t wait for a response, either—

    “The plaza behind us should already be marked with flares and designated on the battlenet. At least three Tactical Enforcers and whatever Sabre-tanks you have available, call them in. If we don’t capture those landing pads now, we’ll be out here all week.”

[holonetnews]

Under Imperial Eyes

@worldwearyjedi

The Twelve City Loop tram station bustled with activity. The hum of conversations and the distant warble of passing speeders punctuated the air. Alighting from her tram with a graceful ease honed through a lifetime of living on Coruscant, Deena Tharen set off down the platform, the clack of her heels echoing down the long passage. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, scanned the crowd for any signs of trouble.

The Imperial Sector Holonet was awash with reports that at a Jedi had been caught boarding a tram from this very station bound for Sah’c Town. From what she had managed to glean, it had become apparent that the Jedi hadn’t made it very far. Nevertheless, the Empire had introduced sweeping new security measures virtually overnight. Imperial Officers flanked by stormtroopers stood resolute at the end of the platform, their bright white armour gleaming even brighter as sunlight settled on it through the skylights.

Deena was thankful she was travelling light. There was hardly any point carrying a bag anymore. Long gone were the days where she would need access to a camdroid or holorecorder at a moment’s notice. She strolled past the orderly line of sentients queuing to have their personal effects examined before being allowed admission into the Federal District, the beating heart of the Galactic Empire.

"Identification, please," one of the officers’ requested, his voice stern and unwavering, his gloved hand motioning for her to halt.

Deena offered a polite smile, reaching into her jacket pocket to retrieve her identification card. As she handed it over, her eyes swept across the checkpoint staff, noticing a subtle tension in their expressions. Whispers passed between the officers, their gazes darting nervously, as if anticipating something imminent.

"Here you go, Officer. Just returning from a business trip. Quite a bustling day in the city, isn't it?"

The officer glanced at her with a hint of suspicion, his gaze flicking between her and the identification card. "Yes, it is," he replied curtly, his tone lacking any warmth.

Deena maintained her friendly facade, though inwardly she felt the weight of the tension in the air. The officer's eyes narrowed slightly, and his grip tightened on her identification card. One of the stormtroopers coughed, the sound awkwardly amplified by their vocoder. The officer grimaced slightly. "Everything seems to be in order, Miss Tharen," he finally remarked, a hint of suspicion still lingering in his tone.

He returned her identification card, but his gaze lingered on her for a moment longer than necessary. Deena nodded in acknowledgment, her smile remaining polite but inscrutable. "Well, you're certainly doing a commendable job, Officer. Keeping us all safe."

One of the stormtroopers behind her thumbed their commlink, their voice buzzing with static. “Say again? The Jedi? That’s a negative, command. She hasn’t passed through yet.”

“Move along.” The Imperial Officer ordered. “Immediately.”

Deena's heart pounded in her chest, and she nodded a silent acknowledgement, moving with a renewed haste as she vacated the platform, keenly aware of the eyes on her back. A helplessness fell over her, the same helplessness that had consumed her that fiery night all those years ago, reduced to a watcher as the flames ran up and consumed the spires of the temple.

As she broke out onto the main concourse, her eyes were drawn to a single figure in the sea of faces, a figure that stirred up more memories long buried. Suddenly, the reality of the situation dawned on her. Who it was the stormtroopers had been waiting for. Rush Darkburst, stood near the departures holoboard, scanning the timetables in a manner seemingly oblivious to the imminent danger that awaited.

Acting on instinct, Deena surged forward, her hand shooting out and grasping Rush's arm in a firm, unyielding grip. Rush’s eyes widened in surprise and recognition, a flicker of the past resurrected in their gaze, but Deena's steely resolve brooked no resistance. "We don't have time for questions or hesitation," she hissed, her voice cold and commanding. "You will walk with me, and you will do exactly as I say. Is that clear?"

"Move," Deena's voice sliced through the air, sharp and commanding. There was no room for negotiation, no time for sentimentality. She propelled Rush forward, her touch transmitting a subtle warning, a promise of the consequences that awaited if they strayed from her guidance. Their footfalls melded into the rhythmic flow of the crowd, their progress seemingly unnoticed amidst the swirl of daily life. It was a delicate dance, a ballet of evasion. As they neared the station exit, Deena's grip tightened, her instincts honed by years of navigating the treacherous undercurrents of the galaxy. She deftly guided Rush through the throngs, manoeuvring with a precision that belied the urgency of their situation.

The pair of stormtroopers, their armor gleaming with an oppressive authority, scanned the passing faces with an unwavering vigilance. Likewise, Deena's gaze never wavered; her focus fixed on the troopers looming presence. She could feel the weight of their surveillance, the cold gaze of the Empire bearing down upon them. Just as they were on the precipice of exposure, Deena made a decision. With a swift motion, she yanked Rush into a concealed alcove, their bodies pressed against the shadows. Her grip remained unyielding; her eyes locked on the approaching stormtroopers.

The troopers passed by, their attention consumed by the bustling crowd, oblivious to the pair concealed mere meters away. It was a moment of reprieve, a breath stolen in the face of imminent danger. In the shelter of the alcove, Deena released her grip on Rush's arm, her eyes meeting theirs in a silent exchange fraught with a cacophony of emotions. It was a reunion laced with a bitter mix of history and uncertainty.

"You absolute fool," she spat, her eyes flashing with a mixture of disappointment and rage. "What were you thinking, setting foot on Coruscant? Do you have a death wish?"

[chordophoneoftheday]

Darkburst Kramer Assault 220

[mountaincatguitars]

Josh shot the clear coats on this really nice looking dark burst finish today, I am a real sucker for dark bursts!! #lespaul #protocasterguitars #protocastermakeover #gearporn #darkburst #guitar #refinishedguitar #guitarconnoisseur #tonemob

[toxininmyveins]

New guitar day!! 

FGN LS10 Plaintop in Heritage Darkburst.

This guitar is made in Japan and I love it!

[augustazuremoon]

Gibson Custom / 2017 Limited Run Les Paul Standard Painted-Over KG over Darkburst

[claptonwasgod]

Cream. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. October 4, 1968 #ericclapton #darkburst #paulkossoff #bowtie Photo: Bruce Krejcik