#the man who has an obscene amount of power/abilities that still manages to be a Stressed Dad

[autisticsupervillain]

Fictional Throwdown Friday: Team Battle!

This Week's Teams...

I.M.P. vs The Seven!

Teams:

I.M.P

Blitzo

Moxxie

Millie

The Seven

Homelander

Queen Maeve

Black Noir

A-Train

Starlight

The Deep

Rules:

No Restrictions

Scenario:

After one of the victim's of the Flight 37 crash goes to hell, I.M.P gets hired to assassinate the Seven in retribution.

Analysis: The Seven

What if the Justice League were evil? It's one of the oldest questions in comic history. Injustice, the Justice Lords, the Dark Multiverse, countless comics have dedicated themselves to answering this question. What kind of hellish dystopia would they turn the world into if they sought to only use powers for themselves?

As it turns out, a dystopia that looks quite a bit like our own.

Introducing the Seven. The world's greatest superheroes, brought to you by Vought International. This all star team has inspired countless amount of merchandise, ranging from comics, movies, video games, and more. But, of course, as with all celebrities, there is something much darker lurking beneath the waves.

In truth, all of these heroes are nothing more than walking, talking products home grown by their corporate owners. Experimented on with the super soldier serum known as Compound V when they were children, each of the Seven were groomed from a young age to be perfect products, with no actual regard given to their status as people. As such, The Seven each perfectly represent the ultimate corrupt celebrity.

A-Train, the team speedster, is in truth a massive junkie always looking to get his fix, often at the cost of everyone around him. His addiction to V got so bad that not only was he willing to kill his own girlfriend to keep it under wraps, but it wound up causing him a near fatal heart attack that permanently crippled his running speed, stopping him from ever being the world's fastest man ever again.

Black Noir, the team's brooding assassin, is in truth a traumatized schizophrenic who was so badly beaten by his old leader Soldier Boy that he lost the ability to speak and now he sheepishly does whatever his corporate masters command.

The Deep, local Aquaman rip off, is behind the scenes, a monsterous rapist who uses his position to sexually harass and assault his fellow heroes, including newbie superhero Starlight, which resulted in her working with The Boys behind the scenes to bring down her more corrupt co-workers.

The most monsterous of them all, however, would be Homelander, current Vought CEO, who has a perchant for sexual assaulting his managers, killing his co-stars, and leaving thousands of innocent civilians to die fir the sake of his own PR.

What's more horrifying is that these people are easily the most powerful people on the planet.

The Deep is the weakest among them, with his best showing being surviving two miles under the ocean, which would require him to endure a force equivalent to 498004.1896 joules across his entire body. Fitting, seeing how he's only of any practical use in the water, as his powers revolve entirely around breathing underwater and talking to sea creatures. With no superhuman speed feats of note, The Deep is an even lamer version of Superfriends Aquaman. Take that for what it's worth.

Source:

Next up is A-Train, whose overall power was heavily nerfed after his heart attack. Where he was once fast enough to liquify on contact just by running into them, A-Train is now only able to run a measly 119 m/s... which is still obscenely fast to be fair. Just nowhere near where he once was. It's so fast that the kinetic energy alone would be 602696.443 joules, enough to break through a solid stone wall.

Source:

Black Noir is where the Seven start getting truly impressive. While he has little more going for him than superhuman strength, he is one of few members of the team to actually be properly trained in martial arts, as he fought in Nicaragua alongside the US army with his old hero team Payback... before team leader Soldier Boy brutalized and crippled him that is. This experience edge has allowed him to defeat fellow Supes such as Starlight and Kimiko, as well gave him enough sense for him to carry around sleeping gas grenades, smoke bombs, and daggers. He's also tough enough to tank an explosion from the Supe terrorist Naqib, whose blasts should be worth roughly 70 kilojoules of energy and he's been stated to be able to outrun cars.

Source:

Comparable to him is Starlight, whose light based blasts are strong enough to knock Black Noir back, while the above explosion didn't even stagger him. She possesses the extraordinary ability to absorb electricity and shoot it out as massive beams of light, bright enough to potentially blind those who look at it. With an extraordinary amount of electricity in her system, she can even manage to hurt Soldier Boy, one of the few Supes on the planet capable of hurting Homelander. Though, do keep in mind, this far above her normal levels and only something she could achieve while her powers were completely overcharged.

Queen Maeve is up next and, as stated by Homelander himself in a deleted scene, she is the second strongest superhuman on Earth. After extensive training, she was even able to draw blood from Homelander in a straight up fight, reliably holding her own, even if she was eventually overwhelmed. Her armored bracelets, are just as tough, capable of withstanding Homelander's heat vision.

And finally, there's Homelander. The man who won the superpower lottery. He has heat vision that can melt solid steel, flight that can keep up with airplanes, super senses that can hear your heartbeat, and x-ray vision that can see through several stories. He's easily the most powerful and dangerous man on the planet. It took a massive chemical plant explosion to so much as scratch him, with a blast comparable to 43 tons of tnt barely even making him bleed.

Source:

He's also capable of outrunning c4 explosions at point blank range, moving 18x faster than sound to do so.

Source:

Now, if you're wondering where Supersonic is on this list, he is not only entirely featless, but he's also dead on account of Homelander. That's the first big problem with this team in a fight. They don't work together, they just try to appease Homelander to avoid getting slaughtered. They're not a superhero group, they're a bunch of superpowered celebrities being reigned over by one big bully.

As such, very few of them have any actual applicable skill or combat experience. While Queen Maeve, Black Noir, and Starlight have actual martial arts training and have been in a handful of series fights, the same cannot be said for The Deep, A-Train, or even Homelander. In fact, Homelander has only been in two fights where his opponent could actually threaten him. One of which was Maeve and one of which he ran away from after getting outnumbered. Everyone else, he just mows right through on the spot with eye lazers.

Despite that, however, The Seven are still easily the mightiest and deadliest heroes on planet earth. May god help us all.

Analysis: The Immediate Murder Professionals

It is remarkably easy to go to hell.

Cheat on your wife? Hell. Kill your husband for cheating on you? Hell. Build miraculous futuristic technologies by experimenting on the poor? Straight to hell! It's hardly fair! No wonder hell is suffering from an overpopulation crisis, it's so easy to get stuck there! And the worst part is, you don't get to enact brutal revenge on those who wronged you in life! What's a forsaken soul to do?

Call the Immediate Murder Professionals!

Some of the finest... well... deadliest... no... some of the luckiest imps in hell have gained special access to the human world, and they're using that incredible power to kill whatever puny earthlings you get around to in life. Thanks to their... "business arrangement" with the demon prince Stolas Goetia, these professional killers have special access to the grimoire of the Ars Goetia, permitting them to create portals anywhere in the human world.

They're lead by Blitzo. The O is silent. Once a simple circus performer whose life was destroyed in a fire that killed his family, scarred him for life, and destroyed his relationship with his best friend, he now runs one of hell's most unique up and coming businesses. Despite being a loud, vulgar, abrasive wind bag, he's a deadly proficient killer and assassin. A master acrobat with a flair for the dramatic, he's never caught without a flintlock, a semiautomatic, and a sniper rifle. And he's the one who arranged the business deal with his.... partner Stolas.

It's a transactional fucking, he swears.

But despite his numerous flaws, he's a loving father to his beloved hellhound daughter Loona.

Moxie Knolastname was once an enforcer for his abusive father's mafia family, joining up with Blitzo in prison after a job gone wrong and... begrudgingly... respecting him for being a truly loving father and, on occasion, a good friend. The greatest marksman on the team, this well read thespian and historian is just as deadly an assassin as any of his teammates.

With him, he brings his loving wife Millie, arguably the single most bloodthirsty imp this side of the ring of wrath. Armed with a short temper and a massive battle axe, she can cleave targets in half by the hundreds and will happily slaughter an army to reunite with her dear husband.

Together, this scrappy rag tag team is capable of taking down any target you hire them for, from a family of cannibalistic serial killers to an entire building of demon hunters. Despite their lack of magical glamours, they're still masters of practical disguises, able to easily blend in to the human world and take any identity they might need, even disguising as world famous celebrities. They carry every kind of weapon they might need, from pistols to sniper rifles, battle axes to swords, crossbows, grenades, and even a big, fuck off rocket launcher nearly the size of a building.

But their deadliest weapon of all would have to be their holy tipped gun. As an ordinary gun enhanced with the melted down weapons of angels, these fire arms are powerful and deadly enough to even kill demon royalty, nullifying their powers and destroying their souls completely.

As demons from hell, they're far more resilient than any ordinary human. They've regularly shrugged off being shot, stabbed, blown up, and crushed. They can drink demonic alcohol with no ill effects, which can transform earth animals into monsterous sea beasts, and Blitzo in particular can even beat out Queen Beelzebub, Queen of Gluttony herself, in a drinking contest. They're completely immune to Earth fire and can even tank an explosion that destroyed all of Loo Loo Land. An explosion that big would generate an energy equivalent to 6.7 tons of TNT.

Source:

Millie was singlehandedly capable of slaughtering the Knolastname mob family, they've massacred their way through the demon hunting D.H.O.R.K.S., defeated Striker, one of the deadliest assassins in the entirety of the wrath ring, and even managed to kill a target who was protected by the angels of heaven. The team can consistently dodge arrows, bullets, and even automatic fire, and can keep up with the Robotic Fizzarolli in combat, who can dodge Blitzo's guns at close, moving at 4796 meters per second! That's nearly Mach 14!

Source:

But despite all of their on paper impressive feats, they are still held back by some massive glaring flaws. As imps, they're some of the lowest ranking demons in hell's hierarchy, having none of the special powers of royal or sinner demons. They're just as mortal as regular humans. But Blitzo in particular can sometimes by the tean's biggest liability. He blames himself for the fire that destroyed his life, and has developed a repugnant personality that pushes away the people closest to him because that's what he believes he deserves. He refuses to acknowledge his deeper feelings for Stolas because he can't comprehend someone genuinely loving him back and his inappropriate behavior can at times put strain on his team's coordination.

Despite that, I.M.P can simultaneously be some of the luckiest demons in hell. So lucky that Blitzo was once able to trick an entire room full of gangsters into killing each other by tipping over a box. They've even recently gained an ally in Asmodeus, the King of Lust himself, via Blitzo repairing his old relationship with his long lost childhood friend Fizzarolli.

Life in hell might shit all over them, but they'll never be down for long. So if you're a sinner with a score to settle, hire the Immediate Murder Professionals! Kids die for freeeeee~

Throwdown Theme:

Throwdown Breakdown:

I'm going to be honest, I think the Imps have got this.

The imps, individually, aren't that far behind Homelander himself in stats. They're just barely slower than him, at Mach 14 against Mach 18, and just 6x weaker than him.

That might sound like a massive gap, but think about it this way. The average human being can punch with an energy equivalent to 100 joules. Professional boxers punch with an energy equivalent to 1000 joules. Meaning the actual strength gap isn't so big as to be impossible in real life. The gap between Blitzo and Homelander is roughly equivalent to the gap between your average karate master and Mike Tyson. Homelander is stronger than them, but not to the extent he's ripping them apart like he does everyone else.

Source:

This is multipled by the fact that IMP's guns are capable of hurting those comparable to themselves. While Homelander may be bullet proof in his own world, a gun that can kill you will just as easily kill Mike Tyson. Because... that's how guns work. Piercing damage.

I think I've lost the thread of this metaphor.

Okay, try again. IMP comparable to Homelander. IMP guns can pierce people comparable to themselves. Therefore, IMP guns can pierce Homelander.

On the flipside, Homelander's heat vision might not effect IMP at all. They've only been harmed by hellfire and fire from the human world does nothing. But, Homelander's heat vision is clearly much hotter than just ordinary fire, as it can split airplanes clean in half, so... up to you, but at the very least, the IMPs would be able to take it better than most people would.

So, A-Train, Black Noir, The Deep, and Translucent are non-factors due to being unable to hurt three near-Homelander level opponents. This leaves Homelander, Maeve, and an amped Starlight.

I could honestly see Homelander getting taken out early if he tries to tank the IMP's gunfire. Even if he assumes they're some kind of Supe from their appearance, he's never encountered a gun that can hurt him. He could dodge it easily, sure. But nine times out of ten, he won't. He might try and shoot first with heat vision, but he's never bothered actually avoiding gun fire because he's never needed to. And against a gun that can erase his soul like the one Moxxie took from Striker, that's not gonna cut it.

There's always the chance that Blitzo's shit talk would provoke Homelander into shooting first, which is pretty in character for both of them, but given the IMPs already established resistance to heat and fairly comparable stats, I don't see him wiping them out in one go before getting shot himself.

That leaves Starlight and Maeve. Starlight can amp herself up to IMP's level, but she doesn't start there. She's going to need time to charge, which is going to be very difficult to do in a three on two (if Homelander doesn't die immediately, he's not gonna give a shit about protecting her). So it's a question of if Maeve can do that. Because the rest of the Seven both can't and won't likely do anything to help once Homelander goes down.

Maeve's bracelets give her a way of blocking IMP's gunfire, but she's going to have to do that while contending with an unrelenting onslaught from Millie against both Moxxie and Blitz simultaneously. I don't see her fairing well. Not when Millie is fairly easily her superior in terms of skill. As in, Millie is so deadly that the Ring of Wrath will not let her participate in their bloodsports any more because she kills too many of the participants. That's a good deal above Maeve's combat experience.

But all this is assuming Homelander underestimates IMP and gets dropped instantly because of it. For the sake of argument, lets say he does realize he's looking at actual demons and takes them seriously because of it. (Demons aren't real jn The Boys universe and Homelander isn't actually Christian. He just pretends to be for PR's sake. But for the sake of argument) I could genuinely see him giving IMP a lot of trouble.

Homelander is fast enough to dodge their gunfire, so hitting him while he's flying around shooting lasers is going to be very difficult. However, he's going to be equally hardpressed to hit them in turn, due to comparable speeds and IMP's skill advantage. With Maeve's assistance and an amped Starlight, the Seven could turn the tide.

However, IMP's supernatural degree of luck is a factor that could turn the Seven against each other. This is the same luck that made a flying piano change trajectory mid flight to kill their target and the same luck that made Crimson's mob all kill each other. With a group that already hates each other as much as the Seven does, with Blitzo and Moxxie likely actively goading them on, the Seven could very well turn against each other. IMP has an established knack for annoying enemies into fucking up with both their wild inappropriate antics, Blitzo's big mouth, and their general absurb amount of luck. Take CHERUB and Stricker for instance.

If IMP provokes an argument or fight between the Seven, that frees Homelander up to get shot. And if Moxxie says "Harder daddy!~" while Homelander's crushing his skull, that'd throw him off a good bit. That'd be.... very on brand for both shows honestly.

Once Homelander is down, I'm actually kinda up in the air on whether IMP wpuld kill Maeve and Starlight. Sure, Maeve was complicit with the Flight 37 disaster, but she tried her damndest not to be. Black Noir I could see getting blitzed and killed before he could get any sympathy, but the girls here are honestly among the most innocent of the Seven. I could see Moxxie sympathizing with them at least, and while Millie and Blitzo are more on board with killing innocent people, they both respect him enough to hear him out on these things.

Moxxie's conditions would probably just be going to the authorities about the Seven's atrocities, something both Maeve and Starlight would be happy to do with Homelander dead. Hell, the government could probably get DHORKS off of IMP's back in exchange for saving the world from a potentially genocidal threat in Homelander. This works out well for everyone.

Well, except Vought, but fuck them.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

The Immediate Murder Professionals!

[carnivigorous]

✄- - Answered - - - - - - -

@streetsteel said: Abandoned mask and mask's calling. Cause I'm mean like that uwu

Mask Meme  | not accepting! Abandoned mask:  Tabitha. ( pokemon rse )

A muse I’ve had in the past that I no longer roleplay. 

                              Slouched at a desk with numerous piles of papers stacked every which way in a chaotically organized manner, a purple haired man thrums his index finger impatiently. Narrow, bored magenta eyes fix onto a laptop’s screen as readings from the previous geological expedition bounced up and down with little to nothing to show. Slowly Tabitha reaches for his only solace from dying of complete boredom closer; a raspberry frappuccino from good old Starboks for one ' Mitshil ', and gives it a loooong slurp until he has to tap pause to wait out a brain freeze.                               Honestly he preferred actually doing the field work than this desk job bullshit. But hey, it came with the job and honestly he wasn’t about to complain about his higher position. One day he'll find something and that adrenaline will shoot through the roof, and Team Magma could finally get the ball rolling. Throwing down with Aqua grunts was fun and all, but getting to the point and seeing some actual results was what kept him awake. He didn’t reach administrative position for nothing. But there he was, in the now, staring mindlessly at a screen— did he doze off? Shit, he might have spaced out, better rewind to catch up on the last few minutes of  n o t h i n g .  A heavy sigh leaves inflated lungs, and he’s re-positioned in his seat. It wasn’t until the sound of a tail wagging against the floor caught his attention that he peered down to the panting Mightyena at his side. He reaches down to scratch thick fur and several licks wet his hand. Tabitha utters a weak laugh and pats it once more,                               “ Hehehe... Yeah, you’re right. Gotta keep my head up. Only a few more hours of footage. ”   A few... more... hours. Then he could get some air, and some well deserved food.

Mask’s Calling: Lucifer Lorem. ( original character )

A muse I’m on the fence about roleplaying as.

                            Black coat flutters behind as steps much lighter than those of boots should have pad along carpeted hall, red daylight of two suns pouring in through windows as if to greet him every few feet. To think mere moments ago he was slumbering peacefully in his own bed, before rudely awakened by his assistant insisting he get to duties that surely would not do themselves. The bribery of tea helped. At the end of the hall plastered on the wall was a portrait, as tall as he, of a horned woman; fair skinned, obsidian hair pulled into a bun, orange eyes painted with black makeup with an intensity so real one could get lost in them, a feature he’d almost wished he hadn’t captured so carefully. Lilith, his beloved. Long gone from the world, a love he’d lost seemingly ages ago; but he’d never remove her paintings. Nor would he cease immortalizing her ethereal beauty and power, no matter how hard the memories came crashing in. With her was a young boy, practically a smaller version of her; Kaven, his son. Rather, the most recent version of him he’d known since he fled from the tragedy of his mother’s death. The uncertainty of the boy’s well being gnawed at him, and he too oft wished he could run. Surely she’d not want to see him, Lucifer King of Demon, cave into sorrows like a whimpering child. She gave him the strength to strive forward, he would  n e v e r  bow to defeat.                                  Crimson fingers curl ‘round door’s handle, and twists allowing it to swing inward to the dark room. Upon entering, with a wave of a hand candles in every direction light up and his spot at the desk is taken. Quill meets ink, and steady flawless strokes glide from its tip as the sound of pen writing and fireplace crackling fill the room. Shortly the door opens and footsteps approach, a tray of tea set next to him.  “ Your leaf water, sir. ”  A corner of Lucifer’s mouth twitches up involuntarily. There were very few who he’d show anything but a hard exterior toward, his assistant being one as he’d seen him at his worst.                             “ Thank you. Ah— before you leave. As you’ve wakened me, please refrain from overworking yourself and we’ll call it even... I  w i l l  know if you don’t. ”   He sips from the cup as he’s left alone, setting it down upon saucer with a light ‘ clink ’ before sounds of quill scratching upon paper resumes.

[vodkassassin]

Inspired by your Jiuplane fic, Everyone loves SQH series and Nighthaunting's work.

Shen Jiu has never actually spared much attention to An Ding. While he doesn't consider them less-his past would never allow himself to look at anyone being derided for doing 'servant duties' less- he also doesn't pay much attention to them. Ever since Shang Qinghua modified the teleportation talismans for transporting large amounts of goods between the Peaks, An Ding disciples have all but disappeared from view. Shen Qingqiu occasionally saw a groundskeeper or a cook return back to An Ding but that was about it. He was pretty sure that people outside the sect saw more of the Logistics Peak than the people in it. And during meetings Shang Qinghua barely makes a sound, just records whatever was he was supposed to and just vanish off to his peak the minute the meeting inevitably ended in chaos. It was like An Ding never existed.......in hindsight, that should have been suspicious. But Shen Qingqiu never even noticed glaring absence and he would forever berate himself for that. It happened quite unexpectedly. Shen Qingqiu was supposed to go on mission with Qi Qingqi, the only Peak Lord he could tolerate beyond a certain period of time but Xuan Shu Peak suddenly had an emergency that she had to take care. Mu Qingfang was busy with preparing the Baying Moon Jade Orchid that he had been given (Really that should've tipped him off! Those flowers were ludicrously expensive because they only grow in the Demon Realm and Mu Qingfang had been given an entire crate of them along with his monthly supplies!), and the only other Peak Lords available were Liu Qingqe and Shang Qinghua. The choice was obvious.

The mission was relatively simple. Wan Jian disciples had been sent as a response to a request for assistance from a cluster of villages deep in a mountain valley. The disciples had found evidence of a large monster but it seemed to be intelligent and the presence of cultivators had run it off to a cave system. By the trails it left and it's actions, the lead disciple had judged it too dangerous for normal disciples, especially in the enclosed spaces of a cave system and had reported to his Peak Lord. The mission thus had been entered into the Peak Lords' roster. It should have been routine, should have been simple. But Shen Qingqiu had the world's worst luck and so everything turned sideways within ten minutes of them entering the cave.

First of all, the monster seemed to have destabilized the cave so they got caved in. Secondly, it wasn't a monster at all but a demonic beast, a Thousand Screams of Ruin Swan, a rabid thing that was created when someone forcibly corrupted a Thousand Screams Swan with too much demonic qi. And finally, the beasts absolutely hated each other. A Thousand Screams Swan had the ability to gauge the truth and a lie in its presence would not only prompt the most ear piercing of all screeches but also destabilizes the qi of the liar in particular and produce unimaginable pain. The southern demon courts use the swan in interrogations, putting the accused and the swan in enclosed spaces and the interrogators questioning from behind a sound muffling seal. However if the swan were overloaded with too much malicious qi, it would grow to enormous sizes and it's screech would actually cause death to anyone in the vicinity. In this state it was called a Thousand Screams of Ruin Swan. So after every interrogation the beast is taken for purification. The question is how a pair of valuable demonic beasts from the Southern Demon courts end up in a remote village far away from the borderlands?

If it was any other situation, Shen Qingqiu would've been fascinated. But as it was he had no time to dawdle. The confined space of the caves meant that the screeches of the swan would be magnified in intensity and their muffling shields were already cracking under the pressure of the sound waves. If they did, they would be dead as their qi system would be destabilized enough to cause a painful death. Shen Qingqiu, with his already unstable qi was extremely vulnerable in this situation. With Shang Qinghua having no combat ability to think of, they were completely under the mercy of two rabid S-rank demonic beasts who hated them and each other.

Then the shields cracked. Shen Qingqiu barely had time to close off his hearing using qi before Shang Qinghua disappeared into one of the caves with a beast after him. On one hand Shen Qingqiu now had to worry about only one Thousand Scream of Ruin Swan. On the other hand, no hearing was a double edged sword in a situation like this and there was no back up, negligible as it would have been. But he marshalled his focus and unsheathed Xiu Ya. If that overgrown bird thought that the Qing Jing Peak Lord was going down without a fight, it was wrong.

Two hours later the fight was still going on. His head was hurting only from being flung into the stone walls of the cave but also from sealing off his hearing for so long. The Beast's rampage had destroyed one of the cave walls and they had both fallen into a lake within the cave system. Shen Qingqiu had somehow managed to pull himself out of the water, not being stupid enough to fight a water fowl in water. He was exhausted, looked like a wet rag and was bleeding. There was no sign of Shang Qinghua and that either meant he was dead or that Shen Qingqiu was so far off from the main caves that he wouldn't be found in time. While the former was more likely, he at least hoped that Shang Qinghua made it to the surface and called for help because as much as he hated to admit it, that brute Liu Qingqe and his brutish sword would be helpful at the moment. He was tiring and his core couldn't hold on any longer while the beast was all but brimming in energy. It lunged and the Peak Lord futilely brought up his sword, knowing it wouldn't do anything, realizing that this was the end of Shen Jiu, dead by a rabid bird in a fucking cave. And then...there was light.

Lightning, there was lightning in the cave, huge arcs of it racing towards the beast and striking it over and over, the lake water acting as a conductor and exacerbating the damage. And on a ledge, was a creature wearing Shang Qinghua. Because that couldn't be Shang Qinghua. Shang Qinghua was a mousy, nervous, skittish mess of a man. Non obtrusive, and a pushover. He was weak and had no combat abilities to speak of. He barely had a core....except that wasn't true was it? None of them had ever seen Shang Qinghua fight. None of them had ever felt the power of his core. Shang Qinghua always ran solo and the occasional company of his head disciple so none of them had been on a mission with him. In fact, none of them knew anything about Shang Qinghua. They just assumed that he was weak...because he was An Ding and acted like a coward. But now it was clear Shen Qingqiu that it was by design. It should have impossible to constantly keep up a facade like that but looking at the imperious creature watching on dispassionately at the Demonic Beast writhing in his lightning, Shen Qingqiu knew that the impossible had been done.

The creature that was Shang Qinghua jumped down from the ledge and made his way to Shen Qingqiu. He was clutching a Thousand Screams Swan now back to its original size. He was barefoot. His clothing was ripped in places. A large slit too clean to be from the beast ran up both his legs just shy of his hips revealing long legs adorned in gorgeous ink patterns climbing up them and disappearing up the torso. It was clear Shang Qinghua cut them up to increase mobility. The sleeves were also ripped, also covered with beautiful tattoos and the high collar of the robes were open showing off beautiful collar bones. His hair was left free and falling russet waves down his back to his knees and with each shift Shen Qingqiu could see a silver shine of what seems to be metal strings woven into it. He was... He was a vision.

Shang Qinghua was always covered. He wore high collar robes that never showed an inch of skin on his body. So seeing him with his legs and arms and his collar visible, it was obscene! Shen Qingqiu realized to horror that he was blushing. His entire face was burning! Shang Qinghua must have succubus blood in him! He must have! Shen Qingqiu is not the type to blush at every pretty face! He hoped to the gods that Shang Qinghua just think of his blushing face as a result of exertion.

As Shang Qinghua drew closer, Shen Qingqiu noticed something strange. Gauntlets. Silver gauntlets carved with seals. Two on the ankles, two on the wrists. And one collar on the neck. Hidden underneath high collar robes as they were, this was the first time Shen Qingqiu had ever seen them. At first they looked like enhancers and looking at the lightning still attacking the beast which seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, it seemed most likely. But Shen Qingqiu was done assuming things about Shang Qinghua. And he was right, because closer inspection revealed the seals to be limiters. Shen Qingqiu for the first time since he became a Peak Lord, was truly astonished. Limiter seals active on five points on the body and undoubtedly forming a restructure five point qi circuit and still manages to defeat two S class demonic beasts? Incredible. Shen Qingqiu wanted to know everything about him. He wanted to burrow underneath his skin. He has never wanted anything more.

After the Beast shrunk down somehow, Shang Qinghua retrieved it with a talisman that seemed to be some sort of Binding. He silently clutched the swans together and made his way to one of the caves, silently motioning for Shen Qingqiu to follow. As they made their way up the caves, Shen Qingqiu looked at his mysterious companion and told him what he was adamant about from the moment he saw the other bring down the wrath of the heavens,

"You can't hide from me anymore."

Shang Qinghua was silent. Then, like a whisper of silk on soft skin, he replied,

"I can try."

Shen Qingqiu smirked,

"Yes you can. But you won't succeed."

The Xiu Ya sword looked the two beasts the other was holding, two Thousand Screams Swans.

"Is Shang Lei even a real name? "

The other didn't answer and that was an answer in itself. Shen Qingqiu couldn't wait to have him.

Anon oh my god this is GORGEOUS!!! Thank you for feeding me, it was delicious!! Bamf SQH! Beautiful SQH! Badass, pretty, mysterious SQH!!!! Attractive as hell, an unattainable prospect!!!

@nighthaunting look look, it’s our writing child

[wherearemyglassesbro]

A h/etalia Umbrella academy au but it isn’t actually one, it’s just inspired by UA kinda...idk

//Uh keep in mind that this is going straight from the drafts onto your dash and uhhh there will for sure be spelling errors so don’t roast me lmao

Roman ‘Roma’ Vargas: An eccentric billionaire who founded the Academy of the World’s Finest (or the AWF for short). He gets bored very quickly and went from buying rockets to building hotels to managing casinos to buying children. A very crazy sequence of events! (Roma has many secrets but I don’t feel like fleshing it’s out rn this is just the bare bones of this just for fun!! And if you’ve seen both seasons of UA you probably already knows what you need to know). One faithful day, October 1st 1989, multiple beautiful babies were born from women who were not pregnant the day they were born. This phenomenon made itself known to Roma and he was off to find as many of these children that he could! He sent his staff all over the world to buy these children. He successfully purchased 9.

Number 1, purchased for $10,000 in Las Vegas: Number 1 was picked to be number 1 because Roma thought he was such a strong looking baby. Alfred was actually purchased fifth out of his siblings but no one knows that except Roma himself. Alfred, from a young age, was able to cause an obscene amount of damage. When he held Roma’s hand while learning to walk, he crushed the bones in his hand. When he kicked a soccer ball down the hallway, it went through the wall like a meteor. When he knocked on Arthurs door to bother him, the door snapped in half (and Art screamed bloody murder). He has an insane amount of strength without even trying! It was very hard for him to get a handle on it because he’s so spontaneous and isn’t really one to think before acting but once he and hs siblings started training for hero work?? That was his motivation to be better, to control his power to use it against bad guys!!! He’s the golden boy of the family, he never disobeys Roma and will never, even now, say anything bad about him. ‘Hey! He’s my dad, he saved me from whatever shithole life I was destined to have in Nevada. I couldn’t be more thankful for my life! And mom, if you’re watching this...Thanks. I don’t know who you are but...Thank you’

Number 2, purchased for $25,000 in Le Mans: Number 2’s power presented itself only after he learned to talk. Francis’s power of persuasion is both a blessing and a curse for him. He’s struggled greatly with being ‘number 2’, he wants the same validation and attention as ‘number 1’ gets. He doesn’t think it’s fair. He often used his power for bad things arond the house like ‘J'ai entendu une rumeur that you broke every finger on your right hand!’ that was a very gruesome morning for Alfred and the scolding that Francis got scarred him for life as he was insulted and cursed out in front of his family. Even after that, he still kept up his happy exterior. He was also usually the face of the AWF, appearing on magazine covers which he may or may not have influenced the writers just a bit. His power is strong but he does not use it on Roma because he’s terrified of what would happen if he did!! As he’s gotten older, he’s falls off the wagon a little but he’s trying to make a solid recovery. Also, when he was 7 he found out he was born in France! He then forced himself to become totally fluent in French and taught himself to have a French accent too. Whoopie....

Number 3, purchased for $1000 in Sicily: Number 3 is a dangerous child, he was from day one. When he was born, he was presenting a 116 degree fever yet he was acting totally normal. His mother was convinced he was the devil and was more than happy to sell him off to Roma. Roma felt a deep connection to Lovi from the start....Lovi looked like him. He looked like he could be his biological son. Lovi got special treatment from Roma often but he still felt overshadowed by his siblings. I mean, a majority of his siblings are pretty blondes. He felt left out often. But he would channel that anger into training and cooking! He has a trick that he likes to do, cracking an egg into his palm and cooking it. That one impresses Alfred every time! Not that he’s hard to impress. Lovi would often push himself too far in his quest to be the best and snap at his siblings, leaving him even more alienated from them. He spent a lot of time around Roma and Feli, mostly Roma. He got a lot of one-on-one training with him and a lot of praise too. All he ever wanted to do was be perfect for his father. He set bad guys on fire, did interviews on live tv, set fire to a warehouse full of gang members, all kinds of stuff that he never would have done on his own. Stuff that he didn’t want to do. All so he could impress Roma

Number 4, purchased for $700 outside of Berlin: Number 4 has always been hyper and loud! But his powers suddenly developed over night, which was terrifying for him. Gilbert awoke in the middle of the night to pee one night and was met with a ghost in the bathtub. Naturally, Roma encouraged him to speak with ghosts and would make him go to cemeteries to talk to the dead. Ghosts scared him so he’d secretly take Benadryl to knock himself out but as he got older, he realized that he couldn’t be scared anymore cause these ghosts needed a friend :( so he used these ghosts to fight in missions and in return, he’d play games with them and chat with them, just being friend with the ones who had a hard time crossing over :’) he likes using his powers for good but feels like he’s taking advantage of his ghost friends sometimes which took the fun out of crime fighting

Number 5, given to Roma for free outside of Kyoto: Number 5 got a late start compared to his siblings. His powers took awhile longer to manifest and he had trouble learning to read. But once he caught up, he proved himself to be the smartest out of all of them. Smarter than some of them combined, even. Kiku still often indulged in his siblings antics but at the same time, he felt he was somewhat superior to them. He learned to poof himself from one side of the room to the other, starting off small. He figured out he could time travel one night when Francis and Gil were hammered and knocked a vase over. Kiku felt every muscle in his body tense, then a sensation of falling, then he was suddenly 10 seconds in the past!! Wow!! He caught the vase before it could hit the ground and kicked Fran so he fell down, leaving him to sleep on the foyer floor while Gil just stood there like ‘wtf...?’. When Roma started berating him for ‘getting too cocky’, Kiku threw a bit of a hissy fit and decided to jump to the future!! He did and landed himself in the aftermath of the 2019 apocalypse, unable to get back home cause he wore himself out and had no idea what he had even done to get himself there in the first place lmao sucker.

Number 6, purchased for $10,000 in York: Number 6 was an extremely fussy baby. All he did was cry and cry and cry, it was very frustrating for Roma since the other babies were somewhat easier to handle. Arthur was indeed a handful. When he was hungry, baby food tins and spoons would float out of the pantry and over to his highchair. When he wanted to torment his siblings, he’d take their things and throw them across the room with his mind. When a sinking was annoying him, he’d simply lift them up and shove them out of his room. Easy. He is probably the smartest or second smartest of his siblings. He isn’t the most athletic but he spent lots of time studying, so much so that Roma had to constantly buy new books for Art to read to keep him mentally stimulated. He was often a voice of reason though no one listened to him. When fighting he was very useful!! He never needed to get close to the bad guys, he could throw them around without moving a muscle! The only downside is that it wore him out after awhile...Ugh. He avoided the media but did do interviews with his mask on, encouraging kids his age to stay in school! By the time Art was 13, he was taking college level tests and reading college level material so...he’s one smart cookie

Number 7, given to Roma for free in undisclosed location in Russia: Number 7 is too powerful for her own good. At a young age, Francis was told to convince her that she had no powers. This was done in secret, only Roma, the house staff, Francis and Kiku knew it happened. Everyone else was oblivious and left out of the loop. Vanya has the ability to shake the earth, to cause obscene amounts of damage in the blink of an eye. Her power was something that Roma could have never prepared himself for. So from that day on, Vanya was a ‘normal girl’. She watched from the sidelines as her siblings got to train and fight. She sat with Feli to paint or sew or just talk. She went through every day feeling worthless, like she wasn’t meant to be a part of this family. She channeled her feelings into art, painting canvasses worth of rainy cities or melting people. She made a series of paintings depicting her siblings’ abilities through chunky brushstrokes and vibrant colors. Each painting sold for over one million dollars. She thought her art career would impress her father. It didn’t.

Number 8, purchased for $15,000 and 10 cows outside of Oslo: Number 8 was always a quiet boy, he kept to himself and Roma thought he may be powerless as well for almost 5 years until lightning struck the house...on a bright sunny day...not a cloud in the sky. Turns out Lukas and Kiku were arguing. They were only 5 so they were just shrieking and yelling nonsense then BAM!!!! Lighting. Roma was so terrified but Lukas was giggling and shooting soarks out of his hands, his hair sticking up like crazy. He was always quiet and reserved, he spent a lot of time in the library or on the roof just looking out over the city. He didn’t like sneaking out of the house like his brothers and sisters did but he went ‘to keep an eye on them’...he always had fun though. He stayed away from the media and wore a mask that his most of his face so he wouldn’t be recognized. Sadly, in a tough fight in a hostage situation, Lukas was shot and killed when he was 15, right when he was starting to consider writing a book about hero work and how as he aged, he was becoming more confident in himself due to helping others. It was a tragic loss for his siblings

Number 9, purchased for $800 and a new car in La Coruna: Number 9 was successful from the start, surpassing her siblings in height very very fast. Her power just happens to be her speed. Carmen, as a baby, was a lot to handle since she crawled around the house at 40 miles an hour. Even her sleep schedule was quick, she’d take a 20 minute speed nap and have enough energy to run around for hours after. When she was introduced to the idea of being a hero, she agreed so fast that she nearly bit her tongue off. She always got her chores done quick, helped around the house, all of that since a task that would take 3 hours only took a few minutes for her. She was a great female role model and did many interviews for teen magazines to encourage girls to be their best, that has always been her message. She even wrote ‘GRLPWR’ on her cheeks in black paint before heading off to fight crime in case she had her picture taken. Roma wasn’t a huge fan of that but she didn’t care too much :) she has always stuck up for her sisters!! And she has always been close to Fran and Gil but as they got older, their interests began to differ so she found herself hanging with Vanya and Arthur more

Feliciano Vargas: Roma Vargas’s only biological son. He does not have powers and often felt left out when he was left behind while his siblings went on missions. He’s 2 years younger than the rest of them and is often referred to as ‘stupid little brother’ by Lovino which hurt his feelings. When he was a baby, they were like 2 and a half so they didn’t see him as ‘aww look my baby brother!’ They just found him annoying cause he cried a lot. Like his siblings, he never met his mom but he does feel good knowing that he will always have his dad. When he and the academy kids fight, he will often rub it in their faces that at least Roma is his biological dad. That really rubs salt in the wounds, huh? Feli has always gotten on well with Vanya, they got left behind all the time so they got to paint and play music together :) they made eachother very happy

Gilbert and Lukas: Gil didn’t really like Lukas much when they were younger cause Lukas was just...quiet and reserved. Gil is the exact opposite. But now that Lukas is dead, Gil pities him and hangs out with him. They trained a lot together but Gil got embarassed when they trained cause if someone were to walk in, they’d just see Gil shouting and punching at nothing so...They trained in the dark at 3am on the roof where they wouldnt be interrupted. Now that Gil is older, he can channel Lukas almostperfectly. Lukas has an almost totally physical form when Gil uses his powers, allowing Lukas to channel lightning the way he was able to when he was alive. Lukas doesn’t like doing that too often cause it’s a bit cruel, getting to feel alive when you’re not :/

Kuma: Kuma was a normal polar bear that was experimented on in a lab that Roma funded. The scientists combined his DNA with monkey and human DNA and after much trial and error, they were able to get his brain to process English. So he wears a collar that allows him to talk. He scolded the kids for running around in the house but then five minutes later he’d let them ride his back while HE ran around the halls :) he was like a fun uncle to them. He wore a bow tie :)

Wan yu: Roma fell in love with a woman from China when he was younger. She was studying culinary arts in Italy and he absolutely fell head over heels for her. But things didn’t work out. So once the tech came around, he had an advanced robot version of his first love created for the sole purpose of loving him and his children. She was programmed to be a great role model, compassionate, patient and...A good cook. The kids all called her mom or ma and even though she never technically had favorites, she was always fond of little Kiku. She was the one who taught him to read when he had trouble doing so and she’s stay up late with him in secret to help him catch up in other languages. The kids all had to learn Italian, English, Spanish, Greek and Russian bedore they were even 8 years old. Since Kiku took a bit longer to grasp that kind of stuff, she would sneak him down to the library to have one-on-one lessons with him. :) she was also very caring when it came to Alfred, she saw how hard he pushed himself sometimes and it hurt her to watch. She made cookies for him on especially rough days

Lukas’s death: Lukas’s death hit Arthur, Vanya and Gilbert especially hard. Arthur and Lukas bonded over similar interests, Lukas and Vanya played chess all the time and gossiped and Gilbert always thought that Lukas was the coolest sibling he had. His death was used as motivation for everyone else to continue training. Gilbert ‘summoned’ Lukas three days after his death and Lukas has followed him around ever sicne. Lukas wasn’t avtually summoned, he’d been secretly roaming the house for days and decided to just let Gil think he summoned him. Roma was depressed about his son’s death for a week or so but he never really allowed himself to feel negative emotions for too long so he was over it a bit...too quickly.

[eggoreviews]

My Top 15 Bosses in Games

Bosses are fun and great, most of the time. And often, they can make or break a game for me, which means my favourite games often have the most entertaining, impactful boss battles with high emotional stakes or just pure spectacle. Because I couldn’t pick just 10, here’s my top 15 bosses that really left a mark on me. Enjoy!

This list is probably gonna be a little weird, because it’s purely my opinion. Also, spoilers below for all the games I mention.

15. Donkey Kong (Super Mario Odyssey)

Admittedly, this is stretching the definition of the term ‘boss’, but if DK from back in the 80s can be counted as a boss, then so can this. For me, this was the best moment in all of Odyssey, which in itself seemed to be a love letter to the legacy of both 2D and 3D Mario. This retro throwback, complete with the classic 2D run-and-jump platforming from the original Donkey Kong, is amazing with the huge Metro Kingdom festival in the background and the soaring Jump Up, Superstar accompanying it. This seamless marrying of old and new proved to be my favourite part of this game, and made Odyssey one of my favourite platformers in general.

14. Void Termina (Kirby Star Allies)

I know this is a really unpopular opinion, but I personally loved Kirby Star Allies for a lot of reasons. I loved the graphics, the characters, the smooth, simple and fun gameplay, how polished and unique each section of the game was, not least the huge space section at the game’s conclusion and of course the free updates adding a wealth of new content and characters. And at the very end, you take on this thing, Void Termina, in a massive space arena. Above everything else, this is just dizzy, colourful fun and is a great culmination of everything the game’s been building up to since the first level. You spend the fight switching between firing wildly at Void Termina from your rainbow ship thing and fighting parts of the monster from the inside. As I’ve said, this made for a satisfying conclusion to an amazing platformer for me and more than earns its spot on my list.

13. Mirelurk Queen (Fallout 4)

I remember the pure shock I felt for a hot second the moment the Mirelurk Queen decided to rear its head for the first time. For the record, I’m talking specifically about the Queen that shows up when taking the Castle for the Minutemen. Seeing this hulking thing looming even above the castle walls is something that genuinely intimidated me, especially as early into my playthrough as I was, and it took a lot of my supplies (and a lot of attempts) to finally pump enough bullets into it to kill it. The frantic panic of sprinting around the ruins of the Castle trying to avoid the giant Mirelurk’s blasts of acid and keeping enough distance to stay safe balanced a good amount of difficulty with spectacle and stayed with me long after I put the game down.

12. Griffin (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

I’ve made it clear on my blog before that I didn’t have a standout experience with The Witcher III as a whole, but to say it didn’t have some spectacular moments is pretty much an insult. In particular, Geralt’s first throwdown with the massive griffin terrorising White Orchard was a brilliantly intense and strategic fight that greatly utilised the game’s smooth combat system and made full use of Geralt’s many abilities. I find that the game really shone most of all while in combat, maintaining a great level of intensity with balanced difficulty and a soaring soundtrack that always makes the battle experience even more memorable. Plus, look how awesome this thing looks.

11. El Luchador (Rayman Legends)

The end boss of a world in my favourite platformer of all time based entirely on the Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead, this particular boss fight encapsulates everything I adore about this game. Fun, tight platforming, colourful and memorable design, a great soundtrack and controls that function perfectly. You spend this boss fight finding new and creative ways to bounce on this giant wrestler’s head in front of an audience of cheering skeletons as the manic soundtrack intensifies with each round of the fight. This fight, and this entire game, combines fun and creativity masterfully and I’d urge basically anyone to play it.

10. The Archdemon (Dragon Age: Origins)

Part of what makes the climactic battle with the Archdemon so memorable is how perfectly the game pulls off the intense build-up that lasts the entire plot and then still delivers an epic payoff. The Archdemon is almost straight away set up as a genuine threat that looms over everything you do in Origins and the success of your eventual showdown with the Archdemon is based entirely on your strategies and choices throughout the game. Who you manage to recruit, what races you have fighting on your side and, most importantly, which companions you take with you into the finale will all have a huge impact on your fight. And oh boy, the Archdemon is just as hulking and terrifying when you finally get to take him on. This fight is probably the most universally recognised great on my list and still stands out as one of the best RPG finales to date.

9. Marguerite (Resident Evil VII: Biohazard)

Resident Evil 7 is a truly terrifying, if fairly brief, foray into horror that Capcom haven’t quite managed since the series’ fourth entry. And I felt that the main fight with the Baker family’s deranged mother Marguerite deserves a place on this list for the raw terror it creates alone. Just when you think you’re getting used to the horrors of the Baker estate, the game ushers you into a claustrophobic greenhouse and locks the door behind you. After a jumpscare that will make you lose your shit, you’ve got to somehow dispatch this horrifying, unhinged bug woman who’s screaming obscenities and crawling on the walls and ceilings to pounce on you and spawning endless poisonous insects from the weird egg sac between her legs. As if that wasn’t awful enough, most of the time, you don’t even know where the hell she is, as she has a rather unsavory habit of crawling off into little alcoves and into walls, out of your sight, so you’re forced to frantically search around in the darkness in an attempt to spot her before she jumps on you. No other boss fight has elicited this kind of fear from me, so on that merit alone, it’s earned its spot.

8. Daud (Dishonored)

The climactic clash with the man that killed your character’s love interest, the empress, and was directly involved in framing you for her murder is just as brilliantly satisfying as you’d expect. For the first time in the game, the protector turned assassin Corvo is finally forced to take on someone who can wield the same supernatural powers he can, which makes a battle with high emotional stakes that really allows you to see the glaring similarities between Corvo and Daud. On top of this, with Daud being voiced by Michael Madsen, his provocative, yet thoughtful dialogue throughout the battle makes you think while you fight and gives you a much deeper insight into Daud’s character and helps you decide whether you’ll choose to show him mercy or not, especially during his eloquent plea for mercy at the fight’s end. As for the fight itself, it’s fast-paced and intense, while encouraging you to make full use of Corvo’s arsenal of weapons and powers to beat him back. But most impressive is the sheer difference in experience depending on whether you’ve chosen the path of merciful low chaos or murderous high chaos throughout the game, with Daud in low chaos being much more willing to offer a fair fight rather than sending his goons out after you. In a game full of changes to the world and story depending on your choices, some huge and some extremely subtle, this fight with the empress’ assassin is a truly standout moment in a brilliant game. Oh, and if you end up playing the DLCs where you take control of Daud, another emotional layer is added when you realise just how much Daud has done to save the empress’ daughter, even when on the surface he seems to be just another of Dishonored’s many despicable villains.

7. Stained Glass Demon (MediEvil: Resurrection)

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge MediEvil fan, specifically the oddly maligned PSP version that I personally think is amazing. For me, this charmingly gothic action platformer has a hell of a lot of high points, but the fight early on the game with the Stained Glass Demon in particular is as cool as it sounds. The game totally embraces its gothic atmosphere in this section, with the protagonist Sir Daniel Fortesque being trapped within a textbook creepy mausoleum full of undead things, and something in the giant stained glass window that seems to be very alive. Eventually fighting this thing really tests you on what you’ve learned up to this point, meaning that full use of the weapons you’ve gathered is basically essential if you want to beat this weird demon that uses glass as its main attack. By merit of how uniquely amazing this boss fight is, as well as the game it hails from, this particular demon is one of my absolute favourite boss fights.

6. David (The Last of Us)

While this isn’t a boss fight in the traditional sense, it is a gritty, tense face off with the game’s only real central villain. You play as the hardened but still terrified Ellie as you carefully navigate a restaurant while David searches for you with very murderous intent, his monologues only serving to make the experience even more chilling. With each strategic hit you manage to land, David becomes more and more enraged, searching the restaurant with more fervor with each hit you deal, eventually setting the building on fire. The tension that’s been building through the whole encounter reaches boiling point as you watch the fire slowly begin to envelop the whole room and Ellie finally catches him offguard long enough to brutally kill the deranged man with his own machete. Everybody knows how amazing this game is, and this unorthodox fight in particular stood out as a great character display and a masterclass in building tension, to only then be immediately followed by Joel and Ellie’s emotional reunion that definitely tugs at your emotions. The Last of Us has always been a must-play and this moment serves as one of many reminders that it definitely still is.

5. Xaldin (Kingdom Hearts II)

Probably the hardest boss fight on this list and also that I’ve ever had to do in general (yes that means I’ve never played Dark Souls), I initially wrote this whole fight off as total bullshit, as I figured there was no way outside of blind luck to finish this with any sort of skill. And admittedly, luck is a factor here, with Xaldin’s constant and dizzying attacks taking a hell of a long time to work out the patterns for than most other fights in the game. He’s pretty much constantly in your face, knocking off huge chunks of your health bar in one go, so it quickly becomes a mad dash for survival as you run around the castle courtyard trying desperately to find an opening. One thing I’ve always loved about Kingdom Hearts, despite how needlessly complicated most of its entire concept is, is the consistently smooth, fun combat system, that allows for many different styles of play and rewards experimentation with different abilities and magic. Nowhere does this come out more in one of the game’s many creative boss fights, most notably for me the clash with this particular member of Organization 13.

4. Morag (Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies)

This is probably my weirdest pick on the list, as in reality Morag is a fairly inconsequential boss fight in a game that most people regard as one of the worst in the Dragon Quest series. But DQ9 is one of my absolute favourite games of all time, and this boss fight in particular is tied to one of the most emotionally charged storylines I’ve experienced in an RPG. Towards the start of the game, you’re tasked with killing the Wight Knight, a supposedly evil knight that’s been terrorising a local town, specifically the town’s princess. Upon beating him, you discover that he was cursed by the witch Morag to remain with her in the ruined town of Brigadoom after falling in love with him. The princess that the knight had fallen for died in the intervening 500 years, leading his grief to cloud his judgment and he began to pursue the princess of a different town that looked almost exactly like her. In order to put his spirit to rest, the princess of the town realises who and what the knight is, and comes to Brigadoom to give him the dance he never got to have with the woman he knew 500 years ago. Okay, might be a little cliche, but this really oofed me and I thought this whole plotline was brilliantly executed, much like every other emotional moment that this game is packed with. As a whole, this boss fight, while inconsequential, is intrinsically linked to a heavily emotional subplot and is a hidden gem in an often overlooked, but amazing RPG.

3. Goro Akechi (Persona 5)

I almost gave this spot to the ever satisfying takedown of Kamoshida, but this fight just beats him out for pure emotional stakes alone. Goro Akechi is a tragic character who was horribly mistreated throughout much of his life, but at some point in his life, he made a conscious choice to become what he was. While the phantom thieves sympathise with his plight and the people that aided in him becoming the murderer that he was, they know they can’t get through to him and their only choice is to fight him off. The boss fight itself is suitably epic, with the now clearly unhinged Akechi throwing his full might at your party, but there’s still a part of you that doesn’t want to keep fighting. And that’s what makes this whole section so interesting, as your main character begins to understand that Akechi in reality is a twisted reflection of the thieves and what they could very easily become should they lose their way. And Akechi’s eventual realisation that this is the case then prompts him to make the ultimate sacrifice in the end, as his loyalties waver when he realises his father never planned to keep him around anyway. There’s a lot to unpack in this particular fight and has a lot more emotional layering to it than most other fights in the game, and it’s very rare to say that about any boss fight. Persona 5 is a spectacular experience from start to end and the effect Akechi’s final stand had was one of its most memorable moments.

2. Asriel Dreemurr (Undertale)

A once underrated indie gem that has since basically become a gaming icon in the years since, how much I absolutely love Undertale still hasn’t wavered. And in a game with a wonderfully creative combat system and therefore full of great bosses, the pacifist route’s final fight takes the crown for me. It’s the perfect culmination of everything you’ve experienced throughout Undertale, giving you a brilliant soundtrack and the opportunity to save each and everyone of the friends you’ve made along the way, followed by Asriel himself. The story of Asriel and the first human who fell into the underground is a deeply tragic one, and Asriel himself is a character stricken with grief that has distorted into anger and an obsessive desire to wield godlike power and all of this combines to make you really feel for who you’re fighting, which makes it all the more satisfying to help him come to his senses at the very end. This incredibly intense, but endlessly satisfying battle ends off with an emotional sequence of the real Asriel realising the hate in his actions and redeeming his actions by opening the barrier while he’s still himself to let monsters go free. This ending gets me everytime and there’s some wonderful themes buried in here somewhere, so the significance of this particular character and his final showdown can’t be understated.

Before I cry talking about my top pick, here’s (a lot) more I really love:

Master Hand (Super Smash Bros. series)

Lord Fredrik (Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze)

Yuga (The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds)

Yellow Devil (Mega Man)

Gohma (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)

Delilah Copperspoon (Dishonored 2)

Xion (Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days)

Bebuzzu (Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales)

Zinyak (Saints Row IV)

Alduin (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

Bowser (Super Mario Bros. 3)

1. Calamity Ganon/Dark Beast Ganon (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

It probably stands to reason that my favourite boss fight came out of my favourite game. Much like the rest of Breath of the Wild, this finale left a huge impact on me and I absolutely adored all of it. After fighting your way through the ruined Hyrule Castle (which, as a sidenote, is also awesome), you finally see the horrible monstrosity you’ve been building up to fighting for the entire game and it looks as freaky as it should. Before the fight kicks off, each champion you’ve rescued makes a cameo to help you out and then, you’ve got to fend for yourself. This spectacular boss fight does everything a boss should do; it tests you on everything you’ve learned and gathered throughout the entire game, maintains a great level of emotional stakes and, most importantly, gives you a fitting finale to arguably the best adventure game ever made. Everything is topped off with a horseback battle with a giant creature form of Ganon that covers the whole of Hyrule Field (which at that point, honestly does intimidate you) in one final push to seal Ganon away. You truly feel that this is what your grand adventure has been leading up to and the sense of genuine accomplishment you feel when Ganon falls and Link finally reunites with Zelda in real life after spending all this time regaining his treasured memories of her combines that sense of accomplishment with vast emotional depth. Everything about Breath of the Wild absolutely blew me away and this wonderful ending really could not have been better. The long awaited final battle against Ganon, after experiencing everything that happened to Link and the champions after losing so tragically to Ganon a century ago, as well as the brilliantly handled subtle romance between Link and Zelda, makes this my absolute favourite boss fight, and game ending in general, of all time.

So that’s my list! Hope you agreed with at least some of my picks, or at the very least could sort of see where I was coming from. Got any great boss fights of your own that top your list? Let me know! And big thank you for reading. Have a gr8 day.

[bigskydreaming]

Every person to ever get an overdraft fee from their bank and placidly accept that while turning around and shitting on socialism ‘because why should I give my hard-earned money to someone who didn’t do anything to earn it’ is a dumbass who is bad at logic and people should say that. To their faces. Loudly. With repetition. Until they get it, shut up, and go home instead of contributing to the dehumanization of poor and homeless people to the benefit of literally nobody but the 1%.

You have one hundred dollars. You put it in the bank, because that’s what you do with money in our society. You think maybe it’ll net you a tiny bit of interest over time, or maybe it’ll just be safer there, or it’s easier to manage or handle there, or you can only make effective use of it via a bank account, such as when paying bills that don’t have a convenient option for paying in cash in person. Whatever your reason, you put one hundred dollars in the bank. Which has far, far more in it than just your hundred dollars, just to be clear.

You use it little by little over the course of the next week, the amount in your account dropping each time. You have a recurring payment set up for one of your bills on Friday, or a previously scheduled payment, in the amount of seventy dollars. You have sixty eight dollars and some change left in your account. Maybe you haven’t paid as close of attention to your expenditures as you thought. Maybe the amount you saw listed as your total after a quick check of your account didn’t accurately reflect the total as of Friday morning because of the way pending items are posted or configured or shifted around. Maybe you simply had an emergency situation that required you spend ten bucks you hadn’t planned for and didn’t think of the implications of spending in that moment of emergency need, with the recurring payment being the last thing on your mind, especially if it was only set up for the sake of convenience, because you have trouble remembering this particular bill for whatever reason.

Friday hits. Your bill payment goes out, the sixty eight dollars and some change. Just under the full seventy of the bill, so your bank pays the extra dollar and change and puts your account in the negative for that same amount, with the expectation that they will recoup that amount from you the next time you want to use your account.

But for whatever reason, you don’t realize your account is in the negative right away. Maybe that recurring payment has gone out later in the day the last few times you can remember. Maybe you’re still in a state of emergency and not thinking about other things right now. Maybe you simply have no choice but to use your card to pay for gas because otherwise you’re not going to get to work on time. You spend maybe like....five dollars, with your account at  - $1.37. You’re slapped with a $35 overdraft fee you need to pay before you can use your account again, along with the $1.37 the bank supplied to round out your bill payment and the five dollars you spent afterwards.

And just like that, your bank just made an extra $35 that cost them nothing. $35 of YOUR money. You don’t want your hard-earned money being spent on some total stranger’s food or health care or housing because what did they do to deserve it, right? They didn’t work for it. They didn’t put in the hours to earn it. They didn’t wake up early, go home late, sacrifice time and energy they’d rather spend on hobbies or with loved ones or friends.

NEITHER DID YOUR BANK.

What exactly did the giant financial institution comprised of total strangers who did not lift a finger in order to earn the $35 you gave them....what did they do to deserve your hard-earned money? What did they sacrifice on your behalf? What service did they provide that you couldn’t provide for yourself, that you needed them for?

Literally the only thing they did was have more money than you. That is it. That is the only part they played in the transaction in which you gave them $35 of your hard-earned money....they had more money available to them in that moment than you did, money that isn’t really even theirs because ALL of their money stems from other people just like you putting all their hard-earned money into accounts with them. Thus they were in a position to spend money that you were not in a position to spend. Not because they’re better workers than you, or harder workers than you, or morally superior or more ‘deserving.’ They simply had money that you didn’t have.

But they still spent it on your behalf when you didn’t have the funds you needed, you might argue. That’s still a service they provided, that accomplished something you weren’t able to accomplish at the moment, that you needed them for. That’s what they did to ‘earn’ that $35 from you, that some homeless stranger didn’t. That’s why they ‘deserve’ that $35 of yours, while some homeless stranger doesn’t.

Except first off, they didn’t do shit, FOR you. They didn’t provide a service, they sought a profit. The fact that they (with society’s assistance) can spin the situation to seem as though their exploitation of your labor looks in this instance like a service they did for you, an assistance, something to your benefit, that doesn’t mean they did something FOR you instead of taking something FROM you. That the latter wasn’t the goal all along while the former was just a means to that end.

But that’s not right, you argue. They assumed your financial burden, even if only temporarily. They assumed a financial risk, should you just end up closing your account or just letting it sit there without ever adding any additional funds to pay either the overdraft fee or put your account back into the positive, which they need to recoup the money they did spend on your behalf. That’s more than the homeless people asking for your money ever did for you.

But here’s the thing. Someone doesn’t get to take credit for taking a financial risk on your behalf if first, they AMPLIFY that risk by their own choice. That five dollars you spent after you put your account in the negative, that you got slapped with the overdraft fee for? THEY DIDN’t HAVE TO GIVE IT TO YOU. It is one hundred percent completely in your bank’s power to simply make it so once your account drops into the negative, no more money goes out through it until more money goes into it first. The same algorithms that are responsible for applying the overdraft fee to your account because they recognize the absence of sufficient funds to cover that additional five dollars could be used to recognize that same absence and instead of applying the overdraft fee, stop further payments BEFORE they’re made, and thus, before they cost the bank any further money.

In fact, the exact same thing applies to the recurring bill payment that put your account into the negative in the first place. Your bank has the ability to tell that you don’t have enough money to pay the full balance of your bill BEFORE they send seventy dollars to the vendor billing you. They completely have the power to enact systems wherein a recurring bill payment simply doesn’t happen if there’s not enough money in your account when it’s meant to go out. The bank in this instance is nothing more than the middle man. They have no obligation to the billing vendor. Your bill is between the vendor and you. Any consequences or late fees that accrue as a result of that bill not being paid in time are wholly on you. The bank HAS no stake in that beyond what they volunteer themselves for.

They only assume that risk because they profit from it. They only pay out that additional five dollars when you’re overdrawn because it gives them an excuse to charge you for $35 more. Yes, there are always instances of accounts that are closed after being overdrawn or left to just sit idle with the bank never making back the money they spent there, but a risk is not inherently a gamble, when you control any and all influential factors and thus are able to limit the risks you take to ACCEPTABLE risks. This is why you can’t simply charge another thousand dollars to your debit card when you’re already overdrawn, figuring fuck it, you’ll just close the account so free money, right? 

Your bank’s willing to assume the ‘risk’ of paying out five extra dollars when you’re overdrawn but not an extra thousand, because they’ve calculated that given ALL the accounts and balances available to them, spending five extra dollars on you won’t harm them even IF you don’t pay it back, or the overdraft fee, whereas a thousand extra dollars could. All the accounts that are closed or left idle after overdrawn are not losses to them, do not cost them anything, because they were deemed acceptable risks BEFORE your bank spent the money that equaled a negative balance owed to the bank. Instead of simply refusing to pay out anything more than the money actually in those accounts, whether or not that actually covered the amount an outside vendor was asking for.

THERE IS NO FINANCIAL RISK IN TAKING ACCEPTABLE LOSSES YOU WROTE OFF AS BEING ACCEPTABLE BEFORE YOU ALLOWED THEM TO BE LOSSES.

It’s a numbers game, literally. They’re fine with the accounts that never get put back into the positive, because all the accounts that DO go back into the positive and pay their overdraft fees on top of that end up making them FAR more money than they lost on the accounts that stay overdrawn. And it certainly makes them far more money than they’d make if they simply JUST acted as middle men and never assumed any ‘risk’ at all by paying out anything more than the exact amount you could cover at that very moment. Some obscene percentage like 80% of banks’ annual revenues come from overdraft fees. This is THEIR PRIMARY SOURCE OF PROFIT.

Also consider the fact that it’s something you have no option to opt out of. Very few banks are set up to allow you to say when you open your account, hey, NEVER pay more than my balance. If for whatever reason, some accident on my part, a miscalculation, an oversight, I try and use more money than is in my account, I want to check off the option that ensures you guys will put a cap on my expenditures. Just don’t supply the additional funds. No matter what. Give me my money when and where I ask for it, but if there’s ever a case where I ask for even a cent more than I actually have, don’t give me that extra cent. Works for both of us see? I never owe you guys overdraft fees and you never take on any risk. If I get a late fee for a bill not being paid on time then elsewhere, that’s on me and I’ll figure that out with them.

Except that doesn’t work for the banks, because that doesn’t give them any option for ever making an additional profit off of you aside from the regular maintenance fee they charge for the service of maintaining your money, but that has a ceiling to it meaning it’ll never net them more than that single established amount month after month.

And they want that extra money. That extra money is what makes them not just rich, but MEGA rich. So they simply don’t give you the option of telling them they never have to assume any financial risks on your behalf. Oh, some of them have things like ‘overdraft forgiveness programs’ you can opt into when you open an account, but those are literally the equivalent of them saying ‘when it suits us, to make ourselves look more appealing we’ll forgive you for temporarily costing us the funds that nobody but us makes the decision to spend and won’t charge you the completely surplus fee that doesn’t exist to compensate us for losses we didn’t actually take, but rather is the sole reason we pad your funds with some of our own and thus is completely at our discretion whether we charge you it or not, it never negatively impacts us either way.’

But okay, you’re stubborn. You say they have a right to try and make money the same as everyone else. It’s not like they’re actually lying to anybody or doing anything criminal, its all covered in the terms of your agreement to open an account with them, which you have the option not to do. Let’s ignore for the moment that society finds other ways to penalize people for making the ‘choice’ not to open a banking account SOMEWHERE, whether its in making it harder to turn the funds a person makes from their job into cash they can actually use, or making it harder for a person to rent an apartment or even get a phone, etc.

So, okay. Let’s say you know and understand what you’re getting into with a bank. You know and accept that when you try and use your debit card when you’re already overdrawn, when you don’t have the funds you’re asking to use here, whether or not it actually costs the bank anything in the long run or whether its a risk or not, none of that changes the fact that they are still doing something you can’t do for yourself, giving you money you don’t have, that you need.

Gosh, if only there was some example in our society I could draw a comparison to here, some scenario wherein people who don’t have money they need to pay for food or health care or housing ask people who have more money for them to consider spending any extra money they might have on their behalf.

But that’s different! The bank isn’t doing charity in giving me those temporary funds, that’s what the $35 overdraft fee is, that’s the price I pay for needing their help in a moment of need.

First, I want you to take a second and think about how that sounds. Then I want you to consider if you’d feel differently about giving money to homeless people or poor people asking for donations if you could charge them $35 to be paid at a later date in return for that five dollar value meal you just bought them from McDonalds after you did a little math in your head and decided it wouldn’t break you to spend an extra five dollars right now.

Then, if your answer to that is any form of ‘yes’, I’d LIKE for you to just log off and start punching yourself repeatedly in the face over and fucking over because that’s what I honestly feel you ‘deserve’ and you’re brainwashed beyond help and are part of the problem and any further discussion with you is useless. I know I won’t GET that, but a guy can dream, right? It’s why we buy Lotto tickets.

But if your answer was no, that would make me feel skeevy as hell, congrats, you have a soul. And even if your answer had some hesitation before you made it, keep paying attention.

Because let’s say you do give money to charity occasionally. Or buy a homeless person a meal when you have the time and extra cash. You’re not heartless. Of course you prioritize your needs and the needs of your loved ones first, because that’s entirely reasonable, nobody should be plunging people who depend on them into debt for the sake of people they have no personal, individual responsibility to beyond being members of the same society. You give money to those in need, you say, after first you’ve gone over your own expenses and profits and have determined what an ‘acceptable loss’ is for you, money you can spend on someone else without any guarantee of receiving dividends from it somewhere down the line.

But isn’t part of those calculations determining WHERE to give your money, whom to spend it on specifically? Picking a charity that according to your own personal criteria ‘does the most good’ and thus you see as the one that contributes most to society and thus by improving society overall, you might in some small way still be seeing bang for your buck rather than just totally tossing it away with no guarantee of anything? Or maybe donating money to an individual you know or has been brought to your attention, someone who isn’t a faceless statistic, but a person with a name, a history, a problem that you can see and understand and feel good about knowing how your money is bettering their life, addressing their problem, that you’re ‘investing’ in their future as an individual? Where if you consider the positive internal response or reactions you have to giving to charity to be a form of compensation in and of itself, some small reward for yourself that you wouldn’t otherwise experience if you hadn’t spent that money....aren’t those emotions amplified by knowing your money was well spent, that it had an actual impact, that it changed someone’s life in a way you can see and appreciate and feel good about?

....Almost like the difference between, say, a giant financial institution paying out a little extra funds to someone they’ve determined to be a likely return on their investment given the high probability of them putting their account back into the positive and paying any overdraft fees.....as opposed to say, all the faceless statistics that are literally never anything more than numbers on a screen to them, out of sight and out of mind, some identity-less mass of people who aren’t a good investment according to their algorithms/personal criteria for determining who’s worth helping.

Now, if you’re still reading, consider again, in light of all this, the  defense of giving one’s hard-earned money to a giant institution that has no NEED of your money, certainly not more need than you. That not only has done nothing to actually earn or deserve your money, but that set in place the very systems that were designed to create situations wherein you feel obligated to give it to them as payment for an artificially inflated service they had no obligation to provide you and in fact in most cases you’d likely have rather they HADN’T provided you.

And compare this defense to any condemnation you might make of giving one’s hard-earned money to institutions designed to use those funds to help actual living, breathing human beings in need, in actionable ways that improve their lives, even if that never directly impacts yours in the future. But that still has DONE something, rather than sit as a series of 1′s and 0′s in the accounts of millionaires and billionaires who might never even touch it because they already have far more money than they can ever personally use, and no willingness to spend any of that money on anyone other than themselves.

Which is the real drain on society?

Capitalism is not just an economic system. It’s also a social system. One that conditions people to accept as right and proper the systems the upper class set up to prey upon the middle and lower classes, by only assisting them financially in ways that are mostly self-serving. While at the same time viewing the lower class and homeless members of society as being unworthy of being helped with the very same funds that have been taken from the middle and lower classes by the predatory practices of the upper class. Perpetuating a belief that the lower class and homeless members of society are a burden on society for daring to ask of those more stable and advantaged the same things those with the MOST stability and advantages in society simply take.

I might vehemently disagree with the morality and mindsets of the 1%, but I can at least understand their resistance to socialism and a distribution of funds that prioritizes based on need rather than resources already garnered.

What I will never understand is the resistance of people who rant loudly about their labor and sacrifice and hard-earned money all while funneling most of that money UP the social ladder to the people most invested in seeing them remain exactly as hard-working and exhausted as they already are. All while blaming their misfortunes on those below them on the social ladder, as though they’re the ones responsible for the way things are and all the reasons it doesn’t work for literally anyone except those at the top.

Like.

C’mon.

[jaegertango]

TrueAU stuff

I don’t really have a legit name for this AU beyond just “typical” AU scene in which a random event in an OC’s life is changed drastically. No “evil” AU, no “sci-fi” AU, just something different applied to their lifestyle that really changes a lot about them. Mostly done for my own reading later on, because I don’t wanna forget about whatever detail I got right now.

Alastair Pentarus does not meet his fated end in Lordaeron. Managing to escape with his fiancée and his best friend, he survives the siege and starts a new life in Ironforge acting as the front gun man and bounty hunter for Enfinite Arms. The real Zolfos Enfini creates impressive new weapons and does not meet depression without the death of his father and best friend. Faerina, having not needed to remarry with her own fiancé still alive, stays at Alastair’s side faithfully and happily. Together, the three create a capable mercenary band tighter-knit than any net, and spend their years taking whichever missions they please. As Pentarus does not die – and therefore does not meet the Death Knight destined to brand him with Blood Runes – the art of Bloodhunting is lost to him. Instead, he sticks to his roots and simply uses as much gunpowder as possible, relying more on various arrays of bullets, as well as enhanced metal armors to improve his physical capabilities. What else more could he want in his blessed life?

Pentarus (as he still lives and does not feel the need to become Rasputen Tarsalai) is about equal in power as his undead self. What he lacks in magical power, he instead surpasses with technological might and an array of different tools for the job. His rifle, Songstorm, is even more finely tuned than his Kitten is, as now it has Zolfos’ expert touch improving it. The rifle has a heightened rate of fire, holds a clip instead of a bolt-action mechanism, and he can modify his bullets based on the desired effect he needs – such as explosive rounds, sniper shots, or crowd-control zaps. He also has several different weapons hidden in his armor, such as hidden blades and bombs. While he might not have the raw explosive (and portable) might of his Elementium Deathcannon, there is enough sheer firepower strapped to Alastair to obtain the same result if need be.

Haarithur Yed’elryn does not betray his Prince when he is branded a traitor. Sticking wholeheartedly to Kael’thas’ demands, the enfeebled Blood Elf drinks deeper into the Fel, his body eagerly absorbing the energy he so desperately needed. His enhanced prowess and savagery attracts the attention of the Illidari, and he in turn happily joins their ranks thanks to his addicted thirst for the Fel. When Kael’thas falls, Haarithur sheds no tears for his once-great Prince, his only thoughts dedicated towards feeding on demons and the most primal of his desires. After the fall of the Illidari (and the subsequent reawakening), the Sin’dorei begins to regret how wracked his body has become with corruption, and how his only reasons to live were either long since gone, or simple necessities of life. Attempting to find some other reason to give himself to this world, Haarithur now walks as a stain upon Azeroth, a fel-infused monster brought forth solely to slaughter demons or fuck the life out of them. With his normally calm temperament now blazing with demonic energy, the Demon Hunter takes his fire prowess to a whole new level, setting everything around him ablaze as he takes very vigorously to his Infernal demon within. If he can’t find his reason to live anymore, he’ll survive simply to spite whatever gods seem to want him dead.

Bound to the Infernal soul Immolus, Haarithur took his fiery crowd-control prowess to a much more aggressive height, and is also about equal in power to his original self. While the demon soul is simple-minded, its sheer rage and emotional value is in constant struggle with the Demon Hunter, making the Blood Elf much more hostile in combat. His skin seems to split with fel-green fires, and his Metamorphosis nearly sets him fully ablaze. Complete with his slow, thundering attacks and ground-shattering leaps, Haarithur terraforms the very battlefield with his actions, leaving nothing but a craggy waste of scorched earth in his wake. This also makes him much harder to control, as he turns from a stalwart vanguard bringing the fight to himself to instead chasing the slightest foe down with eager bloodthirst. The Demon Hunter in the excitement of a fight is unstoppable, but also impossible to lead without casualty. Such recklessness also keeps him wide open to attacks, forcing him to simply tank through blows he could otherwise dodge or block with ease.

Soren Sigmaine is not the sole survivor of the Vermillion Verdict. He instead perishes at the Enclave, killed by the Scourge as he protected his High Priestess Luxford. He is later raised at Acherus, and though his connection to the Light is strong, his inability to channel it into physical form also reflects in undeath – there is no way he can form death magic. Deeming the raised knight a failure, they condemn him to die by the other Death Knights who were able to prove their magical abilities. Yet, the knight never is killed once again; in a fit of supernatural defiance and zealous fury, Sigmaine slaughters every Death Knight seeking their title, tearing into them like paper and even ripping them apart with his bare hands when his blade was taken away. Deciding that it was too great a waste of resources to keep sending capable Death Knights to their violent ends by a “failure,” Rasuvious instead demands they arm up Soren and instead give him a fitting title – The Doomslayer, a stolen honorary of a disgraced Paladin sent on perilous missions bordering on suicide. As he lacks any ability to cast the death magics of the Ebon Blade, many believe him to be killed very quickly, but his inhuman rage and fanaticism drives the silent, seething knight into many bloody victories. While his memories have been blurred and corrupted, Sigmaine’s faith in a cause has not dwindled in any sense. There is no foe too mighty nor too numerous for the Doomslayer to kill.

Soren Sigmaine and the Doomslayer are not much different in fighting prowess. They both lack the magical might of their peers, and both prefer the aggressive, overwhelming might of their claymores in a storm of steel. However, the Doomslayer is much more wrathful in a fight, and is not against using every ounce of his extreme strength to utterly rip apart anyone and anything he fights. Sigmaine’s zealotry is the same, but his inner morality usually does not have him savagely tearing his foes to pieces so brutally. Either way, the knights prefer a fast paced style of attack, seeking to overwhelm their enemies and beat them back with obscene strength and body checks alone.

Shenvol Stormshade turns towards envy and corruption as many of his brothers had done before. Sickened by his constant rejection and worthless patrols of Malorne, he is wiled over by the temptations of the Flame. Entirely tossing away the ideals of zen the White Stag once enlightened him with, Shenvol reverts to his old passions of hasty and emotional fire, taking quite acutely to the teachings of the Firelord and Majordomo Staghelm. His compassion to fight and his eagerness to be noticed for his strength quickly give him the infamous name “Ashen Dragon” for the sheer amount of scorched earth and life usually seen in his presence. When the Firelands are besieged, he greedily fights back against the forces, preying especially on the members of the Cenarion Circle or the Sentinels themselves whilst ignoring everyone else. Though he fights hard, the effort is for naught, and he is forced to go into hiding as a result. Rumors of the Dragon’s whereabouts seem to skirt everywhere around Azeroth, though reports have now placed him against the Legion’s forces. Whether he is trying to rectify for his past actions or simply belying to his baser nature, it is much harder to tell. As his powers are amplified as a Master of the Flame, Shenvol takes a much more aggressive and flamboyant style of fighting, usually setting everything around him on fire with explosive palm strikes and burning kicks. He may have once been Nature’s warden, but now he walks as its betrayer.

Shenvol the Waywatcher prefers a precise, but fast-hitting form of martial arts that involves several blows to pinpoint areas where they will matter most. These barrage of attacks do not do much by themselves, but when combined into a flurry, the final hit always multiplies the attacks together into one mighty finale, destroying the target before they even have a chance to realize the damage they’ve taken. His Master of the Flame self, however, relies on simply using extreme amounts of explosive damage, including long-winded kicks and punches to simply smack through defenses through sheer (literal) firepower. He is much easier to block, but blocking also causes a gout of flame to burst from his fists with every punch. This style of martial arts, unlike his Way of the Hundred Blows mentality, is violent and puts more emphasis on singular attacks that chain together, rather than long combos that always end on a particular blow.

Rex tries to instead follow the orders of his people by sacrificing his Raiders to hold off the ensuing Orc masses on their march to Shattrath. In the end, it is inevitably for naught as the Orcs regardless pillage and slaughter the majority of the Draenei people through sheer numbers. While the Prophet personally tries to consult him that the Reaver had done the correct thing, Rex is heartbroken and disillusioned by his crew’s senseless sacrifice. Despite the many honors and praises attempting to cheer him up, the Draenei eventually goes on a suicidal quest to slaughter as many of the greenskins as possible, seeking repentance for his failure as a leader. Upon a lone hill in Hellfire Peninsula, he stacks the corpses up high, stomping above the mountain of dead as Rex keeps killing more and more of the corrupted Orcs. It is only through the intervention of a powerful Fel presence (possibly that of Kil’jaeden himself) that the Draenei’s mind is fully turned – and with it, his body. Twisting himself into a mighty Eredar, Rex’s thirst for blood and sex is tripled as he becomes one of the Legion’s most powerful and capable juggernauts. Some even claim him to be as demanding and strong as Broxigar himself – to which he gains the name Rexarath the Red. With huge amounts of Fel energy coursing through him, Rexarath now commands both indomitable magic as well as his unrivaled strength. Woe betide any who see Rexarath the Red looming in the distance…

Already the most powerful of the characters naturally, becoming an Eredar only boosts Rex's strength to even greater levels. He does not lose any of his extreme skill with a weapon, and now he also boasts powerful (albeit amateur-trained) prowess with Fel magic, simply hurling colossal balls of demonic flame at targets. Combined with his further-enhanced vitality, as well as the destruction of his personality to only desire destruction, and Rexarath is made into a being that would take armies to defeat.

Erendiir Ravenlight does not fall for the temptations of the Legion. Rather than lustfully seek more power, he instead turns against his Queen in a snide and prideful attempt to keep the Highborne people “at the top where they belong.” Being the powerful mage he is, he manages to escape even with his roaring betrayal against Azshara, and he takes several of the Highborne caste with him into the hands of Malfurion and the like. Because of his self-centered betrayal, Erendiir is on the winning side when the Legion is repealed, which only fuels his xenophobic ego even more greatly. For thousands of years, he absorbs the praise he receives as a hero of the War of the Ancients, gaining even greater power as a Gran Magister. His influence amidst the Highborne makes him a tremendous ally or a dreadful foe – but an asshole all the same. Regardless, there is no doubt that he stands as one of the most powerful and spellcasters to walk Azeroth, seeming to blur the very strands of time around him. All Night Elves are welcome under him – and everyone else are but paving stones for the Kaldorei empire to rise once more.

Erendiir loses out on the Fel-enhancement of his Satyr being, but spending ten-thousand years honing his magical craft and devouring magical rarities have made him an extremely powerful Mage that would actually surpass his demonic form. His magical content is so condensed with mana that the very fabric of time wilts around him at his will. This means that while his Satyr form was a definite upgrade, now he is a supercharged version of everything that already made him powerful. Ironically, this also makes him more mentally unstable than his demonic form does as well – so much magic coursing through his veins has made him even more hostile and xenophobic than ever before, and there are few people even among his own kind that he inherently trusts or likes. What he has in paranoia though, he also possesses in raw power – it's hard to find someone or something strong enough to keep their form after meeting Erendiir on the fields.

[peekono]

NDRV3 RPG Basic Character Outline

eh? nani sore? I finally finished the basic outline of each character’s class and backstory (as well as some relationships) after 3 months? It’s pretty long and has some implied spoilers but otherwise it’s pretty spoiler-free rip mobile users

Team Himiko

Yumeno Himiko - The protag of the story, a very unmotivated mage who only agreed to go on the adventure because her best friend is missing and feels like she has to do it. Is often stuck in weird situations thanks to Rantaro and Ouma- her only actual motivation is the letters that Tenko sends her occasionally. It is implied she may be one of the most powerful mages in the kingdom, but nobody can prove this as Himiko always makes up an excuse to not use her full power. She’s the only mage to be able to use all elements of magic.

Amami Rantaro - That one mystery man that you see at the title screen. His class is also unknown but has all-rounded skills both in magic and close-combat. Informs Himiko of her duties at the very beginning and the first one to join her party and practically invites anyone to their party despites Himiko’s many (and lazy) protests. Seems to know more than he lets on but Himiko doesn’t question him since she doesn’t really care. Has this odd looking familiar that follows him around, Himiko likes him so that’s one good thing about having Rantaro in her party.

Yonaga Angie -  The priest that doesn’t look like a priest, Angie comes from a foreign land to practice the arts of purification magic. She’s one of the only members who Himiko invited personally to her group and actually appreciates. She often has to motivate Himiko to get them to go anywhere ( or Angie tries to use Rantaro as human sacrifice and Himiko thinks that’s a bad idea.)

Ouma Kokichi – A supposed powerful necromancer that has a secret army of over 10 thousand undead members and that one shady map seller in games but also has a butt ton of helpful items such as dungeon keys he found 5 years old that conveniently opens the gate to the dungeon they’re going to. Has his own shetler pony called Daikichi (often called Dai-chan) that he has to carry half the time since he's too slow until Shinguuji gives him a wagon. Himiko was gonna leave him behind until Rantaro invited him to join their group much to Himiko’s dismay. He also occasionally gives hints in obscene ways to ‘help the team.’

Daikichi (aka Dai-chan) – Ouma’s pet horse and companion, Dai-chan is a shetler horse apparently given to Ouma by a mysterious fairy after he dropped a bottle of panta in the fountain Dai-chan wears a horse mask(and nobody (except Maki) questions about it) and Ouma/Rantaro are his main caretakers. don't worry they take off the mask when he eats. Is so slow that Ouma has to carry him half the time until Shinguuji gives him a wagon for Dai-chan. Really likes Rantaro and Ouma and is the only thing Ouma won’t sell or trade for anything.

Harukawa Maki – The demon gatekeeper of the first dungeon and an expert archer. Has a flower theme and is pissed off 23/6. Constantly pissed off and one of the only people who can actually make her happy is Momota. Cooks for the group and usually deals with the bargaining. Lucifer (the first dungeon boss) offered Maki as a reward for defeating him and both Himiko and Maki were gonna reject the offer but Rantaro accepted Lucifer’s offer. Seriously wants to kill Ouma but Gonta somehow manages to stop her.  She’s very stealthy so she can easily instant KO enemies if Himiko just wants to rush through an area. 

Gonta Gokuhara – The literal B.F.G (aka big friendly giant) that was raised by wolves. Unlike the usual giants who are literal dickheads, Gonta is so nice that the giants exiled him from their land. Luckily, Gonta has the ability to shrink himself to human sized so nobody will try and murder him. He found Himiko’s group by coincidence while one of the butterflies he was studying flew onto Maki’s horn (which she didn’t mind). Is one of the members Himiko personally invites to the group and likes to ride on his shoulders when she doesn’t want to walk anymore.   He’s able to communicate with animals and insects and control them as well, but Gonta don’t like doing that so he often uses his bare fists or a club to defeat enemies.

Kiibo – A rusted robot that Himiko and co. found shortly after Maki’s recruitment, Himiko originally wanted to leave him behind but Rantaro insisted on bringing him to the next town so the local blacksmith (aka Iruma) could check on him. Once she oils him up, the first thing Kiibo sees is Ouma staring directly at him with his face half blue (due to the illuminating light coming from Kiibo) and literally asks him if he had a dick. Kiibo is officially traumatized and wished he stayed asleep. Doesn’t remember what his purpose is but follows Himiko and co. in hopes of them being able to fix his amnesia.

Iruma Miu – The alchemist (or “The great fuckin’ Inventor Iruma Miu-sama!”) of the group, literally only joined the group because of her strong interest to Kiibo (much to the robot’s dismay). Dai-chan doesn’t like her so he tries to kick her at least 12 times a day. Once sent the party down a volcano when she really wanted that one thing and it set off a trap causing a pitfall (Dai-chan was safe don’t worry). Maki nearly killed her that day.  She mainly provides support with her many machinery with the assistance of her (clumsy) blue mouse friend she made from leftover parts and fixes any broken things the group happens to come across (like Maki’s bow and arrow and random trinkets they find off the floor and she upgrades their weapons).

Team Sai-Kae-de (Saihara + Kaede) (they’re not the best at naming-)

Saihara Shuuichi – The rookie detective and part of the castle’s security forces, the King sends him and Kirumi in search of his daughter after she gets kidnapped. Saihara’s extremely thankful he has Kirumi to fend off monsters since he’s like a noodle and would get trampled if he wasn’t careful enough. After fainting from exhaustion, Kirumi carries him to the nearest village (which happens to snow all year round) and meet Kaede, a waitress/pianist of the local pub. He and Kaede share leadership of the party since everyone thought they were the most suited for the job. He doesn’t particularly fit in any class as he’s not very strong and has a limited amount of magic, so he often has to watch from the side but is quite stealthy so in return he uses his detective skills to help the team through dungeons and stuff.

Akamatsu Kaede – An elf who lives in a snow village and works at the local pub as a waitress while occasionally performing on the piano, Kaede almost considered setting the village on fire (since all the buildings are cabins-) for a change of pace until Kirumi came in with an exhausted Saihara. After hearing their goal, Kaede quickly joins their party for some excitement in her mundane life ( hasn’t told anyone about how she wanted to burn her village down yet-). She’s the bard of the group and she’s more on the offensive side, but is also able to provide a small amount of defense

Tojo Kirumi – The personal maid of Chabashira Tenko and the head knight of Dreamfield, she accompanies Saihara through his journey to rescue Tenko. Although it looks like she does not wear armor, her dress is actually custom-made armor plating designed to fool others into thinking she’s a defenseless maid, she’s also able to use small amounts of magic. She’s the one to bargain in flea markets as well as care for the rest of the team. She has a deep interest in the black magic, which eventually led the team to Shinguuji’s store. She also once worked alongside Hoshi before.

Shirogane Tsumugi – The ‘rookie’ mage that Saihara and co. found passed out on the pathway to the town where Shinguuji’s store was. She’s mainly support but is able to use transformation magic to help the team bypass stuff. She’s also very cautious around Shinguuji’s black magic as they’re said to be able to exocise the Big Bad himself.

Shinguuji Korekiyo – The necromancer that the whole town fears as it’s implied he’s able to communicate with his dead sister. The only reason why Saihara even agreed to go in his store was because of Kirumi’s interest in black magic. He also provides support for the team and is able to summon the undead to distract enemies in case Saihara just wants to get the fuck out. He also occasionally teaches Kirumi about black magic, much to Saihara and Kaede’s concerns. He also gives Ouma a wagon during a cross-meeting between Himiko and Saihara.

Hoshi Ryoma – A once nobel knight that had worked under Kirumi but resigned due to personal reasons. Nowadays, he’s known as the Berserker Tennis due to his aggressive style as well preferring to use a racquet and tennis ball rather than a sword. He approached Saihara and co. at a restaurant after eavesdropping on them, Kirumi was obviously shocked as she hadn’t seen him in years. It is unknown why he joined the team but Saihara assumes it’s because he’d like to see Tenko one last time (bc you know, knights duty?)

Momota Kaito  – The part-time astronomer and librarian of Dreamfield’s biggest library, Saihara and co. happen to run across him taking a bath by the nearby river (full nude, no towel, like a man yo). He also has a master (who is basically the head librarian aha) and is a powerful skald but doesn’t have a lot of magic so his master banned him from using any magic tools as he coughs blood if he uses too much magic and instead trained his body. Despite this, Momota still uses magic tools. Everytime the team defeats a dungeon and goes to a restaurant to celebrate, Momota always exaggerates the tales (even if it was just a low-leveled enemy) to the other customers. Also met Maki a long time ago, but did not know she was a demon until Himiko and co. had a cross-meeting with Saihara and co. (he was very shook) He also fear Shinguuji for obvious reasons

Neutral

Chabashira Tenko – The princess of Dreamfield and a trained martial artist, she has a very close bond with Himiko and Angie (she’s wary of her tho). She has her own personal maid (aka Kirumi) who she treats like a big sister. When she was younger, she’d done a bad and confronted a slime monster (they’re very powerful since their acid can melt anything) and got cursed to being half slimy. She decided to not remove the curse since “it would add on to her training”. Her kicks and punches are strong enough to cut down huge forests and even rip through strong armor as well.It is known that the Big Bad had kidnapped her, but for some reason she has enough freedom to send Himiko letters every now and then, so it is unknown if she’s really been taken to the Big Bad’s castle.

Monocubs (aka Monosuke, Monokid, Monodam, Monofunny and Monotaro) – The main 5 generals of the Big Bad, they each have a dungeon in the kingdoms main 5 cities. It is said that over 10 thousand brave adventurers challenged them and failed, but it is unknown if this is true as Himiko and co. have often found them doing weird things such as covering the path with honey. It is also said that one of them might have Tenko captured in their dungeon (but that is false).

Monokuma  – The self-proclaimed father of the monocubs as well as the head general. It is implied that he’s the Big Bad but he actually does more secretary work and also issues orders to the cubs. He often leaves the castle to taunt Himiko and co. as well Saihara and co. Nobody has managed to challenge him yet so his abilities are unknown except that he’s able to use magic to a degree 

[writingsofmyimagination]

Red and Gold Part 2

HAPPY READING

Permanent Tag List: @txnystarkimagines

@imaginesforyoursoul

F.R.I.D.A.Y woke me up promptly at 8am. I slowly began joining the consciousness of the living, I stretched my entire body feeling the muscle aches from my evening swim setting in. My first point of call, the bathroom! I had to admit my bathroom was exquisite, as soon as you walk in your feet touch the cold marble floor patterned with alternating white and turquoise triangles. To the right is a grey marble sink protruding from the wall with a small alcove underneath where a stack of Egyptian cotton towels sat. Next to the basin I have a various collection of creams and lotions; the large square mirror above the basin is bordered with mosaic tiles which fade from a dark to light turquoise; further along the same wall is the toilet and in the corner is a sculpture of a sea horse amongst some delicately carved waves. Opposite the sink is a high powered shower encased in glass, there is a silver handrail that runs around the shower at about belly button height. The main reason I love the bathroom is the bath itself. It takes up the far left corner and comes out in a large semi-circle, there are two small tiled steps running round which lead into the bath set in the floor. It also doubles up as a Jacuzzi and if you so wish can have mood lighting under the water; I always set the colours to alternate every couple of minutes. The built in spotlights gave the impression of scattered stars in the night sky which can also be adjusted. The ambience of the room was just so calm an tranquil no matter how bad a day I’d had an hour or so in here would soon take the edge off. After getting dressed the reflection looking back at me in the mirror was ready to go to work in my standard black skinny but jeans, I’d chosen a black tank top the useful colour to hide most stains I can acquire in my line of work. My black converse hinted the only bit of colour in my outfit in the light blue tongue; I found them to be comfortable for all day wear. My short choppy mousey brown bob was styled in a deliberate neat mess; a small flick of black eyeliner highlighted the sea blue of my eyes. Ready to go I grabbed my small ruck sack and left my room. Stark’s labs were dispersed all throughout the towering 93 story building. His main labs are located mid building just below his living area. You can access the main labs with a unique security card, unique code and even after that there is a voice recognition system; the smaller labs are not as heavily protected as his main personal ones. After wasting five minutes of my life proving myself the green light above the touchscreen keypad flickered to a standstill. The door slid open to reveal the room that Tony Stark lived and breathed in. It always felt deserted, the enormity of the room ratio to people who were ever in here were unproportioned. The vast array of computers, worktops, counters and mechanical equipment were an engineer’s dream. In the centre of the room was a large raised circular podium, the space above the podium was filled glass computer screens and a couple of mechanical arms. The noise of me entering was drowned out by AC/DC, the whole room sound system was immense. The vibrations of the base jumped round my skin as I made my way closer to the unaware Stark. Tony with his back to me tapping away at a keyboard was swaying his hips from side to side along with an ever so slight head bopping in sync with the music. I had to let the amused grin etch itself on my face; I stopped walking closer for a second and took in the rare sight of him relaxed away from all the meetings, flashing cameras and media scrutiny. He’d been working on his Iron Man armour the chest or arms by the look of his choice of clothes. On his top half was a black long sleeve tight fitting under armour base layer which he’d rolled up to his elbows. His shirt was tucked into boyfriend fit black jeans which gathered at the bottom around black boots. It certainly wasn’t bad to look at I could see the muscle definition lines in his back from where I stood. I intentionally slammed my bag down onto a workstation to alert him he was no longer alone. “Morning Mr Stark” I chirped turning to face him, the look of surprise was already fading from his face as he dragged his left arm in the air and then down the hologram pictures surrounding him. The vibrations and noise instantly lessened. “Morning Jaime, ready to check Mark47? I’m hoping to go out for a test drive later”. Technically he wouldn’t be allowed to go into American airspace unless everything checked out by my standards. “Well, let’s hope all mods are safe and functional then” I replied. “When has that ever stopped me and also I built it so of course they’ll be functional” He said confidently if not slightly cocky and gave me a quick smile. “Well with your new responsibilities it has to at least look like your following your own rules” I reminded him playfully. I followed him past the podium and round to the right and more worktops against walls with more computer equipment and LED lights flashing greeted me. At the end of the room the wall was titanium and had six alcoves all housing a Mark suits looking like knights guarding the main mark podium in front of them. The latest of Tony’s suits was secured in a upright position with various panels open and exposing some of the inner mechanisms; to an untrained eye it must have looked like just a jumble of silver cables, flickering lights and empty ports to me it looked like a marvel of engineering all wrapped up in a red bow for me to play with. I pulled my laptop out of my rucksack and linked it into one of the holographic projector stations below a large glass screen suspended from the ceiling. My computer screen linked into the screen above me before being projected all around me. “F.R.I.D.A.Y run full diagnostics against the suits new parameters and cross check them through the program file I’m uploading to the diamond drive now” With a wave of my hand I dragged and dropped my validation program into the diagnostic drive. This will in layman’s terms check the validity of the changes in the new parameters through a program I designed independently of Stark’s and cross check all diagnostic data. While the program was initializing I noticed the presence behind me disappear and the sound of classic rock reappeared at a much lower background noise. I’d use this time to start writing up the report; something else which was now required, Stark was above writing reports so it fell down to me to summarise and collate and dumb down the finding for the stuffed shirts in government. I don’t mind too much Tony doesn’t have the patience to dumb anything down so it’s a lot quicker to get things approved if I do them. The predominantly light blue background of the holograms flashed red followed by F.R.I.D.A.Y announcing to the room of a discrepancy in Mr Stark’s data. I looked up at the error saw that it was on whatever Stark was doing and not my program thankfully. I went and joined Tony on the other platform, he was already trying to troubleshoot. As I approached I’m sure my ears picked up some under the breath obscenities. “Anything I can help with Mr Stark?” I offered joining him in being stood with my arms crossed and immersed my attention into the data on the hologram in front of us. Up close you can see the wear under his eyes that the last few months had had on him and not to mention the fading pink lines of scar tissue on his cheek and above his right eye,a stab of pity and empathy rose up into my throat. “Doubt it, you can have a look. I’m trying to get a new program with quicker response times for the repulsors, with the new upgrade it just seems to lag a bit. It just won’t integrate in successfully” he replied without even looking at me. I could tell as he said this he was trying to keep his frustration out from the intense concentration state he seemed to be in. He didn’t think I could help because in his eyes if he hadn’t found the solution yet then no one else would. I still took a step closer to the projection at the sea of numbers, dashes and various other characters used in scripts hoping to find some anomaly within the text; I didn’t have much luck If you haven’t created it yourself it’s hard to know what an anomaly actually would look like. I was concentrating so hard I could almost feel the signals and synapses pulse behind my eyes. Suddenly something caught my attention and I didn’t know why, it was just a niggling thought; I changed a couple of symbols at the start and the end of the data and motioned to retry with the relevant hand motion across the air. “Compatible” The calm robotically feminine voice declared. “What? How did you even?” Stark looked at me with a mixture of shock, relief and puzzled admiration. “It was just a niggling thought from the back of mind” I replied quite unsure how to answer but I tried “I’ve always had this ability to comprehend and interpret vast amounts of data or a problem and my brain somehow just manages to throw a solution at me even if I have no idea the context or what I’m actually looking at. My old lectures called it my sixth sense and my gift. It’s like my brain is running a few upgrades ahead of my conscious self”. I continued “Anyway you’re probably just overworked and not thinking to your maximum capacity” I tried to reassure his ego. I turned to head towards my work station releasing my accomplished my grin “Please call me Tony” I turned and smiled “Sure” “I’m impressed, Fury was right about you” he said sincerely his face was softer and genuine and it kind of creeped me out; Tony wasn’t great at compliments or being too serious or acknowledging that Fury was right. “Well you’re not the only genius in the room now” I toyed trying to compensate for the awkwardness that had crept through me. That wasn’t the response he was expecting it made him smirk “Duly noted” Our gazes held for a moment and for the first time I’d felt acceptance from the Genius Tony Stark. Back over at my station the diagnostic was nearly complete. I checked my emails and grimaced; I needed to get back to New Avengers, I had multiple reports and actions that needed my clearance. After the finishing flick of my hand the holograms disappeared and I packed up and swung my bag over my shoulder. The physical check would have to wait until tomorrow. As I walked past Tony he turned to me with an expectant look. “Systematically checks out, I’ll do the physical mechanical check tomorrow I’ve got a shit ton of approving to do at NA if that’s alright with you?” “Sure sure” Tony replied reapplying his concentration to the screen in front of him, I continued towards the door using my peripheral vision to keep an eye on the snakes of wires across the floor. I pressed the exit panel and triggered the door release. I swung my body back round to Tony’s direction “Tony!” he turned and looked at me in reply “If you go gallivanting before I get back try to refrain from showing off the new paint job and use the stealth tech” I threw him a pleading smile knowing full well my recommendation had gone straight over his dark perfectly styled hair. Nobody wanted officials on site because somethings gone out unapproved. “I can’t help it if the cameras love me” He motioned to his face and flashed the picture perfect smile with gleaming white teeth and immaculately shaped facial hair. I rolled my eyes and left. As soon as the door closed I bumped into the large figure of Happy “Sorry Miss Chase, I’m glad I’ve caught you though, I need a favour” He was a bit taller than my 5”4 muscular frame but his width definitely dwarfed mine. I’ve never seen him dressed in anything but a black suit with a white shirt. His chubby face was always clean shaven which moulded around his soft eyes and not to forget the Travolta style thinning hair. “Depends on the favour” I said hesitantly “Are you going to the masquerade gala tonight? “Yeah, why?” still hesitant. I was hoping he hadn’t got a reason for me not to go, I was looking forward to dressing up for once. “Can you please check on Mr Stark before you go and make sure he’s ready and check that he arrives home safe? I’m going to be held up at this thing and well I though seeing as you’re coming back to the same place” “Sure thing, no problem I can’t promise he’ll be in a great state when we get back” “No one expects him to be Miss Chase” Happy assured me, I’m glad I wasn’t going to have to be responsible for how much alcohol he consumed, I can do escort not babysitting. “Thank you, I appreciate it” Happy said sounding relieved. I ended the conversation with a weak smile and he let me on my way.

[divinelydivorced]

Goodbye, Grandma

My grandma passed away yesterday morning. Even though we knew it was coming, it is still hard.  Tuesday around 3:50 am, I awoke suddenly and couldn’t quite get back to sleep until 4:30. Come to find out, the end started around four and she was gone around 4:20.  It’s amazing how souls are so connected that we can feel the loss happening at the exact moment it occurs.  The older I get, I am made more aware of how similar my grandma and I are.  I’m proud to have inherited so many of her quirky traits and have come to embrace them.  In fact, I see them as a tribute to the impact she had on my life.  So, in honor of the life my grandma lived, here are the 25 things she has taught me:

1.     Bladder problems ARE a joking matter.  My grandma was a hot mess, God love her. Whether it was peeing her pants in an elevator in front of a bunch of strangers or never leaving a restaurant without a huge stain on her top, she always managed to leave a trail.  Most people would cry or die of embarrassment, but she’d just hee-haw, laughing so hard she’d likely pee again.  She passed on her small bladder and the ability to find humor in the embarrassment to me, which has provided my friends with endless counts of entertaining stories. College friends still text from time to time, “Remember when Adam Harris finally asked you to hang out and you had to say no because you’d just peed on your long sweater and had to shower and change?”  Yes, yes, I remember.  

2.     If you want it, get it.  She always knew what she wanted and wasted no time in purchasing it.  I remember, around age ten, her saying how much she wanted a bird feeder.  I went home and made one out of an old milk carton.  When I showed up to proudly give it to her, only two days later, there in her front yard was a brand new gorgeous wooden one.    

3.     Eat it and get it over with.  My grandma was notorious for eating an entire watermelon in the course of an afternoon.  This also contributed to her bladder problems.  Once, my sister went to take a nap at her house.  While drifting in and out, she caught a whiff of the sweet smell of a butter braid (a very large pastry you’d take to a party).  When she awoke excited for dessert, she went out to discover my grandma had de-thawed it, cooked it, and ate 99% of it in the course of two hours.  To this day, whenever I make any dessert-I eat 99% of it while it’s still hot.  We all know what’s going to happen so just get it over with already.

4.     If it annoys you, get rid of it-no matter its practicality. My grandma loved buying things almost as much as she loved getting rid of those same things three months later.  One time she showed up at mom’s house with a car full of lamps.  She decided she hated lamps and wanted them all gone.  My mom, always the practical one, kept them so when my grandma realized later they were necessary, she wouldn’t have to buy more.  Any of my friends know I’m the same.  I served wine in a juice glass the other day.  My friend asked, “Don’t you have wine glasses?” “I did,” I said, “but just got rid of them.”  “Why? You didn’t use them?” he asked.  “No, I used them all the time.  I just got tired of looking at them.”

5.     Never stop moving.  My grandma moved all the time.  She’d often announce it at the latest holiday dinner.  She would wake up, be suddenly sick of her place, and a month later would be somewhere new.  She once left a home, only to return to it a few years later.  A constant mover myself, I was looking forward to staying in my current place for more than a year (a new record) until I recently found out I had to vacate in 30 days due to construction.  Although annoying and inconvenient, I was not surprised when I found myself thinking the other day, “Actually-I’m kind of over this place, so that worked out.”

6.     Crazy is charming.  My grandma was nuts, as am I.  Yet we embrace the crazy and combine it with big hearts.  That’s why people keep coming back.  A little crazy never hurt anyone…and we are a lot of fun on road trips.

7.     The flu is for sissies.  We’d often stay at her house when we had the flu. Grandma gave us whatever we wanted, which included the time my brother insisted he wanted to eat a bunch of tacos.  You can imagine my mother’s frustration when she arrived to pick him up and found him vomiting ground beef and shredded cheese everywhere.

8.     Pools and convertibles aren’t luxuries, they’re necessities.  Life’s too short.  GET THEM BOTH.

9.     Dogs are our children.  She had an antique cradle for her dog to sleep in and was the first to introduce me to a dog stroller.  I get it and think it makes absolute sense.

10.  You don’t need a man.  Most of my life she’s been single.  Men have chased after her and she’ll let them buy her lunch or keep her company, yet it goes no further.  Because at the end of the day, she’s her own woman and has no need for a full-time man dragging her down.  This is a lesson I’m still learning.

11.  Soap operas are good television.  She lived near the high school, so at lunchtime, my girlfriends and I would take our lunches to eat at her place and watch Days of Our Lives.  Those were some of my favorite memories.  If the show got really intense and it was time for us to go, she’d try convincing us to drive her car back, at age 14, so she didn’t have to leave.  She even took me and my aunt to a Days of Our Lives festival one summer.  When it came to idolizing celebrities, her and I saw eye to eye.

12.  Dairy Queen can be dinner.  When she helped move me to Michigan, we spent a week eating Dairy Queen snicker blizzards for every meal.  She was doing Weight Watchers at the time and, although two of these, met her quota for the day-she was willing to make the sacrifice.  I remember thinking how brilliant this was.  When we got tired of Dairy Queen (rare), we’d hit up the Chinese Buffet.  No excuses and no shame-it’s how we rolled.

13.  Why choose when you can have both.  My grandma loved driving with the windows down.  She also would sweat profusely.  Once, we got in the car on a blazing summer day and I asked if we should turn on the AC or roll down the windows.  Her answer?  Both. We cranked the radio up, let the wind tousle our hair as the cold AC blasted our faces.

14.  Underwear is optional.  In fact, it’s often preferred you go without.

15.  Sing loud and proud.  My grandma had one of those loud operatic voices which she’d use to pelt Amazing Grace in church.  We grandkids would chuckle, but in reality, I always loved how she simply didn’t care. She was singing for Jesus.

16.  Spend your time how you want.  There were years where she’d choose hours of Farmville over leaving the house.  I’ve been known to spend an entire 48 hour weekend playing Sims-taking breaks only to run to the bathroom and grab a snack.  It’s our time-we will do what we want with it, and if that means interacting with computerized lives over human ones, so be it.

17.  There’s always something burning in the oven.  Every holiday she left something in the oven.  EVERY. HOLIDAY.  How no one caught on, I don’t know.  How I managed to inherit this trait, despite being annoyed by it, beats me. It seems the rolls always take the biggest hit…who needs carbs anyway-more DQ.

18.  There’s no time for sentimentality.  At a family event, she once walked out with crates of old photographs-including her wedding photos-and announced to the family she was throwing them away the next morning, so, “grab what you want.”  Everyone started arguing with her and refusing to take anything.  Meanwhile I did a clean sweep, loading boxes into my car.  Later, everyone was grateful because she kept to her word and burned everything I didn’t get my hands on.  Years later, I marched out to the living room with a box full of the photos I’d taken and said to my mom, “I’m throwing all of these away tomorrow, so take what you want.”  You better believe she took them-lesson learned.

19.  Sausage gravy is love.  As long as I knew her, she had a part-time job of sitting with an elderly person, a job I’ve now inherited.  As soon as I could work, she started taking me along and then giving me some of her shifts.  She taught me how to make sausage gravy-the first meal I ever learned to cook.  “Old people love sausage gravy,” she told me. She was right.

20.  Rules are meant to be broken.  My grandma didn’t give a f***.  In fact, she invented the phrase.  Sometimes she’d do stuff simply to get a reaction out of you.  There was no rhyme or reason-she went with her urge. I remember walking through the shoe store with my mom a couple years ago and asking my mom, “Do you ever get a strong desire to just start knocking things over?”  

21.  If it can go in a blender, it should.  Grandma introduced me to smoothies and I’ve never looked back.  “Everything can go in a blender!” she once enthusiastically told me as she threw in leftovers along with fruit and hit “blend.”  Now I buy pineapple in bulk and enough produce to feed a small village for a month.

22.  New fads are meant to be tried.  My grandma purchased every diet pill and vitamin that existed, as well as any exercise devise.  She had one of those machines that shook you, vibrating a strap around your bottom and promising to eliminate cellulite by simply standing there.  She had the utmost confidence they would work.  Each time she’d pull the latest tool or pill out of the box, I’d watch in awe as she demonstrated its powers, believing she’d discovered the secret to staying fit and healthy.  She instilled this hope in me.  I carried a crystal around for weeks once after reading it’d get my period to finally to start.  I paid an obscene amount of money for Cindy Crawford’s miracle elixir, returning it 30 days later, and then surprising myself by purchasing it a second time years later during a 5 am workout binge when the infomercial reappeared.  My recent purchase was a $100 fascia blaster which I use with fervor, while watching Friends episodes, and later have to justify when explaining the bruises on my legs to friends with a, “Yeah, it hurts but I can feel it working!”

23.  Walk everywhere.  It’s great exercise, sure.  But, more importantly, it gives you a chance to catch up on the town gossip.

24.  Careful-you can give a man your yeast infection.  This statement alone is self-explanatory.  Yet my grandma felt the need to retell an in-depth twenty-minute story of how her and my grandpa discovered this to be factual, leaving me scarred for life.

25.  When life pushes back, you push harder.  The beginning of my grandma’s life was not easy.  In fact, as I understand it, it was quite hard. My grandpa rescued her and she fell madly in love.  When he died so young, it would have been easy to give up.  But she didn’t.  She found job after job, she gave of herself whenever she could, and always left people laughing.  She was resilient.  She didn’t take the easy way out and, in fact, often took the road less traveled. She made no apologies and left some scars.  Although I will miss her greatly, I am grateful she’s in heaven, reunited with my grandpa-right where she’s always wanted to be.  

So, sing loud, grandma.  Eat your fill of watermelons and leave your underwear here on earth.  I won’t say rest in peace because that never was your style and, besides, I can hear the hee-hawing from heaven already.  In the end, she had it right.  We don’t need all this stuff we carry around because it’s only temporary. All that matters is how you make people feel, the laughter over tears, and never giving up.  And, of course, always knowing where the nearest restroom is.

[scriptautistic]

Planet Dancetime: Social Skills and Functioning Labels

If you’re allistic, it might be difficult to imagine what life is like for an autistic person. That can make it difficult to write from an autistic perspective. In order to help facilitate understanding, I, Mod Aira, have come up with an extended metaphor that I hope will be helpful. This is the first in a planned series, and it will cover some of the basics of social interaction as well as the harm that functioning labels do.

Please note that this series is written from my perspective and according to my personal opinions and experience. It will not necessarily reflect the reality of all autistic people, but it is one authentic perspective.

Imagine that tomorrow, you wake up on another world. It's called Planet Dancetime. The people there look just like humans, except their social rules are insane. They do a complicated dance while they talk to each other, and all communication is carried out in this dance-talk. At first, you can't make any sense of it, but slowly you start to puzzle some of it out. When you speak to a woman, you have to stand on your right foot the whole time. When you speak to a man, you have to stand on your left. If someone is non-binary, you have to stand on your toes. You also have to touch the shoulder of the person you're talking to every ten seconds exactly. If you don't follow this rule of *precisely* every ten seconds, you're being very rude. When you're telling a happy story, you have to wiggle your shoulders, starting with the right side and working your way left. Sad stories are the opposite. For *angry* stories, the wiggle is in the eyebrows. You also have to indicate your emotional state and age at the time the story happened by a complicated motion in your fingers set to a specific beat, and your *current* emotional state by the particular angle at which you hold your elbows and wrists.

There are still countless other rules here, more than you can figure out. The Dancetime people are constantly making strange gestures and movements. The crazy thing is, it seems to be effortless for them. How can they possibly keep track of all these rules? You decide to ask someone.

The response is not positive. You get the most disdainful look you've ever seen, and the explanation, "It's obvious. Just use common sense."

Well that isn't helpful. How could they possibly conceive of this system as being obvious? And if it's so simple, then why can't they explain it?

At long last, you come to an epiphany. Of course this system isn't simple. In fact, it's so complicated that the only way for them to manage it is for their brains to handle it subconsciously. A massive amount of their brainpower is devoted to decoding, remembering, and carrying out all these convoluted rules. And their bodies are naturally conditioned for it, too. They can stand on one leg for hours without any effort – it's just the way they evolved. But you can't. Your brain is busy doing other important things that these people hilariously can't do (more on this another time), and it's not about to take over all those extra responsibilities now. You have no easy options, and you're stuck here now, so you have to make a choice.

Option one is to say – hell with it. Maybe you just don't have it in you to do this – you just can't get your head around it, and it's impossible for you. Maybe you have a physical issue that prevents you from dance-talking, or you just don’t have the type of memory required to learn dance moves, or the multitasking ability necessary to count and talk at the same time. Or maybe you just decide: I'm not going to bother with their stupid rules. I'm going to stand on two feet when I talk, and I'm not going to count to ten silently in my head while I'm talking so I can time the shoulder-touches properly – I mean, who could even do that? I'm just going to be me, and they're just going to have to deal with it.

This does not go well for you. When you fail to follow their dance-talk rules, these people freak out. Some of them are angry – how dare you insult me with your non-dance body language? Even worse, it turns out that some movements that you make entirely naturally which have nothing to do with conversation, or some aspects of your normal, natural body language, are actually grave insults in dance-talk. You can’t figure out which things you’re doing which are so wrong, and no one will explain it to you. Many people think you’re extremely rude. But some of them are scared or worried and are determined to figure out what’s wrong with you. You are quickly surrounded by "experts" who want to help you. After all, you couldn't possibly survive without the ability to dance-talk. You obviously suffer from some kind of hideous disorder. You try endlessly to explain that you can talk just fine without the dancing, that there's nothing wrong with you, but they won't have it. If you talk without the dance moves, they ignore everything you say like it's some kind of incomprehensible babble. If you can't dance-talk, then you obviously have a disability, and you need to be cared for. You're obviously not intelligent enough to communicate, so you're automatically not intelligent enough to care for yourself. You wind up in an institution with the others who have been diagnosed with "low-functioning human disorder", also known as “severe humanism”. The nurses look at you with pity in their eyes and don't bother talking directly to you. You hear them talking (as though you’re not there) about the tragedy of your extreme human-ness, how terrible it must be to live that way, and what a burden you are to those around you. You try to scream: it wouldn't be terrible if you'd just leave me alone! But your screams, lacking their accompanying dance moves, fall on deaf ears.

So let's consider the other alternative. You can try to puzzle out the dance-language and see if you can fit in well enough to get by. Not everyone has this option – I mean, the dance-language is obscenely complicated, after all. But maybe you're one of the lucky ones. Maybe you have a good memory for movements and are good at figuring out or guessing when to use each one. So you give it a shot. And after a lot of trial and error, you start to find some success. Your dance moves are still a bit off, and you get funny looks pretty frequently. Eventually, you get "diagnosed" with "high functioning human disorder" and told you should be fine as long as you put in enough effort. You ask that maybe someone teach you some of the dance moves, and you are rudely dismissed as being lazy or pretending to be disabled so that you can get more attention.

This is the same reaction you get every time you make a mistake. And of course, you will always make mistakes. There will always be days when your legs are simply too tired, and you have no choice but to stand on two feet for a while. Sometimes, when you're trying to talk about something, you just can't spare the brain power to count to ten over and over again, and you miss a few shoulder-touches. Sometimes you’ll get the wrist and elbow angle just slightly wrong and give entirely the wrong tone to a conversation. And sometimes you encounter a social situation you've never learned the moves for, and there's no possible way for you to do it right.

Every single mistake is met with indignation. How dare you insult us that way? You apologize and try to explain that even though you're pretty good at it, this dance-talk still doesn't come easy for you. It doesn't help. Your explanations are written off as lazy excuses. Everyone knows you are perfectly capable of using dance-talk. You do it all the time. The fact that you're not doing it now obviously means that you are doing it on purpose. You are intentionally insulting those around you, and they don't appreciate it.

The looks, the stares, the muttered insults, they eat away at you. You are doing your best, damn it. You are doing infinitely better than should ever have been expected of you. You put so much energy into the most basic conversations, you don't even have enough left over to care for yourself. You haven't been eating well, with no energy to cook. You suffer from constant anxiety – fear of the next mistake – when (not if) will it happen? How will they react? But no one appreciates that. No one helps. No one explains the mistakes you've made – and usually, you have no idea what you've done wrong. You're expected to just figure it out on your own, and are punished for each misstep, because damn it, you might be technically human, but they're not about to let you use your humanness as an excuse for rude or lazy behavior.

You feel the constant underlying threat all the time: if you can't dance-talk like the rest of us, if you stop trying or make too many mistakes, then we'll change our minds about you. We'll change your diagnosis to low-functioning human disorder, and stick you in the institution with the others. We'll never speak to you again. We'll never look at you as a person again. You'll just be a lump of flesh that we have to feed and bathe. So you'd better try harder.

The best case scenario you can hope for is that people will find out you're human and say, "Oh, wow! You barely look human at all! You should be so proud of yourself." Human is an insult. Not human is a compliment. That's the world you find yourself in now. And sometimes you start to wonder – are they right? Is being human really a disability? Is there something wrong with me? Now you can add a fight against depression to the list of things you have to deal with. There are days when you wonder if the effort will ever be worth it. You feel hopeless and lost.

All because dance-talk doesn't come naturally to you.

Now, disclaimer, here: this is a simplified analogy of how functioning labels can feel, and the ridiculous basis on which they are assigned. The reality is a little more complicated and there are more factors, some of which we'll explore later. And as always, we repeat: everyone’s experience is different, and not all experiences are reflected here. This story is designed to help those who are not autistic start to understand what life is like for those who are. This really is how it feels for a lot of people, myself included. These are the choices I feel I have. I can relax and give up and just be "me" without apology, and then I am liable to lose everything – my job, my friends, my life. Or I can try to fit in and act like the others, at an enormous energy cost, and often not have the strength left over to take care of myself. They call me "high functioning", but they're ready to take that shiny little badge away at any moment – and they would have taken it away long ago if they saw how I am at home at the end of a stressful day.

A far, far better situation would be to do away with the functioning levels entirely. Judge each person based on their individual attributes, and try to understand that under other circumstances, they might be very different. Sometimes I can talk, and sometimes I can't. Acting "normal" takes a lot of energy, and sometimes I don't have enough left to do it. But I'm still able to live independently, and still have many strengths and abilities – many that "allistic" people typically do not have.

So please, when you’re thinking about writing an autistic character (and good for you! hooraaaayyyy!!!!), don’t think of them in terms of high- or low-functioning, in terms of “severe” or “mild” autism. Instead, think of a list of traits, what they’re good and bad at, what comes easy and what doesn’t. Your character is as individual as you are.

Happy writing!

-Mod Aira

[mancitynoise]

Though the January transfer window was brought in with the best of intentions it could be said to have some major drawbacks.

Clubs are understandably very reluctant to relinquish their finest talents halfway through a season and should that player be in form while his employer is still competing for silverware then forget about it.

Unless of course the interested party abandons basic economics and even more basic common sense and throws an obscene amount of dosh at the club in question, because even in the filthy rich environs of the Premier League there are few things more persuasive than a couple of extra million added to a player’s market value.

Then a deal can be done. And then we can sit back and laugh and recoil in equal measure should that move – born of pure desperation and occasionally a tinge of entitlement – go spectacularly awry.

The three examples below of January transfers that went very bad indeed partly explain why last year seven top flight clubs didn’t even bother bringing in a single new recruit.

Not a big money buy. Not a short-term loan or freebie. Not a sausage.

The terrible threesome remain cautionary tales that strike fear into every chairman, acting as reminders that sometimes at a campaign’s halfway point it is wiser to stick instead of twisting. It is a strategy that is infinitely cheaper too.

 Fernando Torres – Liverpool to Chelsea 2011

There seems to have been a revision in recent times of Fernando Torres’ horrendous spell at Stamford Bridge, one that suggests it was not as bad as history recalls.

After all, the Spaniard did help his side win a Champions League –memorably scoring in a semi-final away leg at Barcelona – and he netted too in a successful Europa League final.

The stats however will forever be mercilessly damning.

During four ferociously productive seasons at Liverpool, ‘El Nino’ fired home 81 goals in 141 appearances, marking him out as a worthy successor to Ian Rush, Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler before him.

Yet following a £50m switch to Chelsea in 2011 – the British transfer record not only shocking the nation’s mores to the core but also almost doubling what Manchester City paid for Edin Dzeko in the same window – Torres managed just 20 league goals in three-and-a-half years.

Idiots Abroad: Do you know where these famous Brits are playing now?

With such figures in mind it could be said they paid twice the going rate for half of the player they thought they were getting.

Stats though only account for some of the reasoning placing this particular transfer into such ill-repute that folklore has grown around it.

On Merseyside Torres was an explosive, lethal, and often unplayable phenomenon. He took on defenders as if they were training cones. He found the back of the net with unerring precision.

Whereas in the capital an inhibition took hold, as the pressure weighed on his shoulders and messed with his head. “I don’t forget to score goals,” the striker said on enduring a barren streak. A 24-game drought suggests he did indeed misremember.

Wilfried Bony – Swansea to Manchester City 2015

At the time City’s move for the Swansea front-man made a good deal of sense.

Though Manuel Pellegrini’s first choice duo of Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero were going about their business in typically prolific fashion, their back-up Stevan Jovetic was failing to hit any great heights.

Bony had scored more Premier League goals – 20 – in the calendar year of 2014 than anyone else while his combination of quick feet and powerful physique offered the title-holders another dimension to their attack.

Admittedly £25m – rising to £28m – was an awful lot of money to pay for a squad addition, but there was clear logic in the expense. Then he put on a sky blue shirt and City supporters soon realised the awful truth, which was that 25 pence would have been a premium.

Like Torres, Bony’s stats were pretty dire – just six league goals in 36 games before City very quietly released him to Stoke on a season-long loan – but even they pale to the memory of his ineptitude.

From this writer’s perspective he remains one of the very few strikers ever witnessed who had the ability to mark himself.

He would stand centrally, up against a centre-back, then maybe trot sideways for a change of scenery. There is more nuanced movement in a corpse.

As for his touch, the ball was routinely repelled by him, ricocheting off shin or thigh at a greater speed from which it had arrived. Clearly City were blinded by form, when talent should have been the true barometer.

Aged 31, the Ivorian now plays in Saudi Arabia.

Guido Carrillo – Monaco to Southampton 2018

Few things better promote the prospect of a dud signing than an enormous sale gifting a club a fortune to squander.

Famously Spurs took this to the extreme with numerous forgettable names bought from their Gareth Bale bonanza in 2013.

Five years later one of Bale’s former clubs followed suit after reluctantly parting with Virgil Van Dijk on New Year’s Day for a whopping £75m and lasting all of three weeks before wasting a chunk of it on an Argentinian forward whose only accreditation seemed to be that he occasionally shared a pitch with Kylian Mbappe at Monaco.

Carrillo’s seven months at St Mary’s consisted of ten bit-part appearances (three in the FA Cup), amounting to 624 minutes and all for the princely sum of £19m. He failed to score.

Presently, the misfiring flop who is so unassuming he makes Google shrug is on loan at Leganes in La Liga, just as he was last year, and there he will presumably remain until his contract expires.

He may have cost the equivalent of Van Dijk’s leg but even in a differing position he’s not fit to lace his boots.

[faithpetham]

Pichai says AI is like fire, but will we get burnt?

The impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on all of our lives over the next decade and beyond cannot be understated. The technology could greatly improve our quality of life and catapult our understanding of the world, but many are worried about the risks posed by unleashing AI, including leading figures at the world’s biggest tech companies.

In an excerpt from an upcoming interview with ReCode and MSNBC, Google’s Sundar Pichai provocatively compared AI to fire, noting its potential to harm as well as help those who wield it and live with it. If humanity is to embrace and rely on capabilities that exceed our own abilities, this is an important commentary worth exploring in more depth.

Rise of the machines

Before going any further, we should shake off any notion that Pichai is warning exclusively about the the technological singularity or some post apocalyptic sci-fi scenario where man is enslaved by machine, or ends up locked in a zoo for our own protection. There are merits to warning about over-dependence on or control exerted through a “rogue” sophisticated synthetic intelligence, but any form of artificial consciousness capable of such a feat is still very much theoretical. Even so, there are reasons to be concerned about even some less sophisticated current ML applications and some AI uses just around the corner.

The acceleration of machine learning has opened up a new paradigm in computing, exponentially extending capabilities ahead of human abilities. Today’s machine learning algorithms are able to crunch through huge amounts of data millions of times faster than us and correct their own behavior to learn more efficiently. This makes computing more human-like in its approach, but paradoxically tougher for us to follow exactly how such a system comes to its conclusions (a point we’ll explore more in depth later on).

AI is one of the most important things humans are working on, it's more profound than electricity or fire ... AI holds the potential for some the biggest advances we are going to see ... but we have to overcome its downsides too

Sundar Pichai

Sticking with the imminent future and machine learning, the obvious threat comes from who yields such power and for what purposes. While big data analysis may help cure diseases like cancer, the same technology can be used equally well for more nefarious purposes.

Government organizations like the NSA already chew through obscene amounts of information, and machine learning is probably already helping to refine these security techniques further. Although innocent citizens probably don’t like the thought of being profiled and spied upon, ML is already enabling more invasive monitor about your life. Big data is also a valuable asset in business, facilitating better risk assessment but also enabling deeper scrutiny of customers for loans, mortgages, or other important financial services.

Editor's Pick

2017 was the year Google normalized machine learning

2017 was a hell of a year for a multitude of reasons. In tech, this was officially the year we saw artificial intelligence engines leading consumer product lines. Most notable was the role AI played …

Various details of our lives are already being used to draw conclusions about our likely political affiliations, probability of committing a crime or reoffending, purchasing habits, proclivity for certain occupations, and even our likelihood of academic and financial success. The problem with profiling is that it may not be accurate or fair, and in the wrong hands the data can be misused.

This places a lot of knowledge and power in the hands of very select groups, which could severely affect politics, diplomacy, and economics. Notable minds like Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris have also opened up similar concerns and debates, so Pichai is not alone.

Big data can draw accurate conclusions about our political affiliations, probability of committing a crime, purchasing habits, and proclivity for certain occupations.

There’s also a more mundane risk to placing faith in systems based on machine learning. As people play a smaller role in producing the outcomes of a machine learning system, predicting and diagnosing faults becomes more difficult. Outcomes may change unexpectedly if erroneous inputs make their way into the system,  and it could be even easier to miss them. Machine learning can be manipulated.

City wide traffic management systems based on vision processing and machine learning might perform unexpectedly in an unanticipated regional emergency, or could be susceptible to abuse or hacking simply by interacting with the monitoring and learning mechanism. Alternatively, consider the potential abuse of algorithms that display selected news pieces or advertisements in your social media feed. Any systems dependant on machine learning need to be very well thought out if people are going to be dependant on them.

Stepping outside of computing, the very nature of the power and influence machine learning offers can be threatening. All of the above is a potent mix for social and political unrest, even ignoring the threat to power balances between states that an explosion in AI and machine assisted systems pose. It’s not just the nature of AI and ML that could be a threat, but human attitudes and reactions towards them.

TED

Utility and what defines us

Pichai seemed mostly convinced AI be used for the benefit and utility of humankind. He spoke quite specifically about solving problems like climate change, and the importance of coming to a consensus on the issues affecting humans that AI could solve.

It’s certainly a noble intent, but there’s a deeper issue with AI that Pichai doesn’t seem to touch on here: human influence.

AI appears to have gifted humanity with the ultimate blank canvas, yet it’s not clear if it’s possible or even wise for us to treat the development of artificial intelligence as such. It seems a given humans will create AI systems reflecting our needs, perceptions, and biases,  all of which are shaped by our societal views and biological nature; after all, we are the ones programming them with our knowledge of color, objects, and language. At a basic level, programming is a reflection of the way humans think about problem solving.

It seems axiomatic that humans will create AI systems that reflect our needs, perceptions, and biases, which are both shaped by our societal views and our biological nature.

We may eventually also provide computers with concepts of human nature and character, justice and fairness, right and wrong. The very perception of issues that we use AI to solve can be shaped by both the positive and negative traits of our social and biological selves, and the proposed solutions could equally come into conflict with them.

How would we react if AI offered us solutions to problems that stood in contrast with our own morals or nature? We certainly can’t pass the complex ethical questions of our time to machines without due diligence and accountability.

Pichai is correct to identify the need for AI to focus on solving human problems, but this quickly runs into issues when we try to offload more subjective issues. Curing cancer is one thing, but prioritizing the allocation of limited emergency service resources on any given day is a more subjective task to teach a machine. Who can be certain we would like the results?

Noting our tendencies towards ideology, cognitive dissonance, self-service, and utopianism, reliance on human-influenced algorithms to solve some ethically complex issues is a dangerous proposition. Tackling such problems will require a renewed emphasis on and public understanding about morality, cognitive science, and, perhaps most importantly, the very nature of being human. That’s tougher than it sounds, as Google and Pichai himself recently split opinion with their handling of gender ideology versus inconvenient biological evidence.

Into the unknown

Pichai’s observation is an accurate and nuanced one. At face value, machine learning and synthetic intelligence have tremendous potential to enhance our lives and solve some of the most difficult problems of our time, or in the wrong hands create new problems which could spiral out of control. Under the surface, the power of big data and increasing influence of AI in our lives presents new issues in the realms of economics, politics, philosophy, and ethics, which have the potential to shape intelligence computing as either a positive or negative force for humanity.

The Terminators might not be coming for you, but the attitudes towards AI and the decisions being made about it and machine learning today certainly have the possibility to burn us in the future.

Pichai says AI is like fire, but will we get burnt? published first on https://swentexpage.tumblr.com/

[infotainmentplus-blog]

Pichai says AI is like fire, but will we get burnt? The impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on all of our lives over the next decade and beyond cannot be understated. The technology could greatly improve our quality of life and catapult our understanding of the world, but many are worried about the risks posed by unleashing AI, including leading figures at the world’s biggest tech companies. In an excerpt from an upcoming interview with ReCode and MSNBC, Google’s Sundar Pichai provocatively compared AI to fire, noting its potential to harm as well as help those who wield it and live with it. If humanity is to embrace and rely on capabilities that exceed our own abilities, this is an important commentary worth exploring in more depth. Rise of the machines Before going any further, we should shake off any notion that Pichai is warning exclusively about the the technological singularity or some post apocalyptic sci-fi scenario where man is enslaved by machine, or ends up locked in a zoo for our own protection. There are merits to warning about over-dependence on or control exerted through a “rogue” sophisticated synthetic intelligence, but any form of artificial consciousness capable of such a feat is still very much theoretical. Even so, there are reasons to be concerned about even some less sophisticated current ML applications and some AI uses just around the corner. The acceleration of machine learning has opened up a new paradigm in computing, exponentially extending capabilities ahead of human abilities. Today’s machine learning algorithms are able to crunch through huge amounts of data millions of times faster than us and correct their own behavior to learn more efficiently. This makes computing more human-like in its approach, but paradoxically tougher for us to follow exactly how such a system comes to its conclusions (a point we’ll explore more in depth later on). AI is one of the most important things humans are working on, it's more profound than electricity or fire ... AI holds the potential for some the biggest advances we are going to see ... but we have to overcome its downsides too Sundar Pichai Sticking with the imminent future and machine learning, the obvious threat comes from who yields such power and for what purposes. While big data analysis may help cure diseases like cancer, the same technology can be used equally well for more nefarious purposes. Government organizations like the NSA already chew through obscene amounts of information, and machine learning is probably already helping to refine these security techniques further. Although innocent citizens probably don’t like the thought of being profiled and spied upon, ML is already enabling more invasive monitor about your life. Big data is also a valuable asset in business, facilitating better risk assessment but also enabling deeper scrutiny of customers for loans, mortgages, or other important financial services. Editor's Pick 2017 was the year Google normalized machine learning 2017 was a hell of a year for a multitude of reasons. In tech, this was officially the year we saw artificial intelligence engines leading consumer product lines. Most notable was the role AI played … Various details of our lives are already being used to draw conclusions about our likely political affiliations, probability of committing a crime or reoffending, purchasing habits, proclivity for certain occupations, and even our likelihood of academic and financial success. The problem with profiling is that it may not be accurate or fair, and in the wrong hands the data can be misused. This places a lot of knowledge and power in the hands of very select groups, which could severely affect politics, diplomacy, and economics. Notable minds like Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris have also opened up similar concerns and debates, so Pichai is not alone. Big data can draw accurate conclusions about our political affiliations, probability of committing a crime, purchasing habits, and proclivity for certain occupations. There’s also a more mundane risk to placing faith in systems based on machine learning. As people play a smaller role in producing the outcomes of a machine learning system, predicting and diagnosing faults becomes more difficult. Outcomes may change unexpectedly if erroneous inputs make their way into the system, and it could be even easier to miss them. Machine learning can be manipulated. City wide traffic management systems based on vision processing and machine learning might perform unexpectedly in an unanticipated regional emergency, or could be susceptible to abuse or hacking simply by interacting with the monitoring and learning mechanism. Alternatively, consider the potential abuse of algorithms that display selected news pieces or advertisements in your social media feed. Any systems dependant on machine learning need to be very well thought out if people are going to be dependant on them. Stepping outside of computing, the very nature of the power and influence machine learning offers can be threatening. All of the above is a potent mix for social and political unrest, even ignoring the threat to power balances between states that an explosion in AI and machine assisted systems pose. It’s not just the nature of AI and ML that could be a threat, but human attitudes and reactions towards them. TED Utility and what defines us Pichai seemed mostly convinced AI be used for the benefit and utility of humankind. He spoke quite specifically about solving problems like climate change, and the importance of coming to a consensus on the issues affecting humans that AI could solve. It’s certainly a noble intent, but there’s a deeper issue with AI that Pichai doesn’t seem to touch on here: human influence. AI appears to have gifted humanity with the ultimate blank canvas, yet it’s not clear if it’s possible or even wise for us to treat the development of artificial intelligence as such. It seems a given humans will create AI systems reflecting our needs, perceptions, and biases, all of which are shaped by our societal views and biological nature; after all, we are the ones programming them with our knowledge of color, objects, and language. At a basic level, programming is a reflection of the way humans think about problem solving. It seems axiomatic that humans will create AI systems that reflect our needs, perceptions, and biases, which are both shaped by our societal views and our biological nature. We may eventually also provide computers with concepts of human nature and character, justice and fairness, right and wrong. The very perception of issues that we use AI to solve can be shaped by both the positive and negative traits of our social and biological selves, and the proposed solutions could equally come into conflict with them. How would we react if AI offered us solutions to problems that stood in contrast with our own morals or nature? We certainly can’t pass the complex ethical questions of our time to machines without due diligence and accountability. Pichai is correct to identify the need for AI to focus on solving human problems, but this quickly runs into issues when we try to offload more subjective issues. Curing cancer is one thing, but prioritizing the allocation of limited emergency service resources on any given day is a more subjective task to teach a machine. Who can be certain we would like the results? Noting our tendencies towards ideology, cognitive dissonance, self-service, and utopianism, reliance on human-influenced algorithms to solve some ethically complex issues is a dangerous proposition. Tackling such problems will require a renewed emphasis on and public understanding about morality, cognitive science, and, perhaps most importantly, the very nature of being human. That’s tougher than it sounds, as Google and Pichai himself recently split opinion with their handling of gender ideology versus inconvenient biological evidence. Into the unknown Pichai’s observation is an accurate and nuanced one. At face value, machine learning and synthetic intelligence have tremendous potential to enhance our lives and solve some of the most difficult problems of our time, or in the wrong hands create new problems which could spiral out of control. Under the surface, the power of big data and increasing influence of AI in our lives presents new issues in the realms of economics, politics, philosophy, and ethics, which have the potential to shape intelligence computing as either a positive or negative force for humanity. The Terminators might not be coming for you, but the attitudes towards AI and the decisions being made about it and machine learning today certainly have the possibility to burn us in the future. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2n7mul9

[jonathanbelloblog]

The Best Cars We Drove in 2017

We’re incredibly fortunate to have access to the cars we do. All year long, we an abundance of the planet’s most precious metal sculptures, flogging them on tracks, roads, and everywhere in between. This year, it seemed like our quotient of top-notch machinery was at an all-time high as we drove some of the most desirable cars right into the pages of this website and our print magazine.

Choosing a favorite is not easy. Do we pick the luxury and comfort of the new Rolls-Royce Phantom, the always-ridiculous Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini’s V-12-powered-swansong Aventador S, or something like the all-new Jeep Wrangler? While not as combative a task as picking winners during our annual All-Stars awards, we had a wide range of opinions.

Editor-in-chief Mike Floyd: The term ‘greatest car in the world’ can mean different things to different people. It can be the car you’ve had for 15 years that never let you down. The muscle car you only take out of your garage on sunny summer days. The supercar you plastered on your wall when you were a kid. The astonishing, multi-million dollar vintage machine you drooled over on the lawn at Pebble Beach. Or the eighth-generation Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Maybe it’s the mystique that’s developed around it. Or its price tag. Or the marketing hype. But the Phantom represents the ultimate, the excess, the dream of being someone rich, important, famous. By the way, the all-new Phantom is also a damn good car. It’s big and heavy, yes, but its twin-turbo V-12 just pulls and pulls. It actually turns pretty well too, and is underpinned by a world-class, aluminum intensive architecture. But more than that, it’s what’s inside that has been properly done. The craftsmanship is astonishing, the materials, the overall execution is unlike any modern production car I’ve ever been in. As it should be. And that’s without even mentioning the Gallery, the art installation in the dash.

Yeah, I know, it’s a car for the .001 percenters. Why should anyone care? Because it’s the greatest car in the world. It was an honor to drive and be driven in it. And it’s been an honor to have you along for the ride this year. Thanks to you all, from all of us here at Automobile.

My honorable mentions: Lexus LC 500, McLaren 720s, that day in Utah in the Ford GT, the Civic Type R, the Toyota Camry (damn right I said it), MX-5 RF, that day in dirt in the Honda Ridgeline Baja truck, that day at Streets of Willow in the OVC and Revology Shelby GT350s, Camaro ZL1 1LE, Range Rover Velar, Mercedes-AMG E63 S, BMW M2.

Executive editor Mac Morrison: In retrospect, I don’t know what I expected as I headed to the first drive of the 2018 Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The car’s on-paper numbers—700 hp, 553 lb-ft, 3,200 pounds and change—are bonkers, but aside from a general understanding that this 911 would be fast, I was quite curious to discover the end result. By the end of a full day of driving, including a handful of laps on Portugal’s Algarve circuit and more than 100 miles on the road, I realized it had been quite some time since a new car made me smile and giggle so much. It’s not just the silly power, torque, and seemingly never-ending acceleration, either.

The GT2 RS’s ability to use every bit of its twin-turbo 3.8-liter bang is astounding. Its combination of aerodynamic and mechanical grip rewrite the rules of quick cornering, and the steering and brakes are not only up to the task but also feel great to use. This is one of the rare modern cars to find the right balance of performance and feedback, feeling a long way from overly refined and boring without crossing the line into the realm of scary or intimidating hair-trigger snappiness. You certainly know you can get in a lot of trouble driving it, but you can also enjoy it without holding your breath while always waiting for it to spit you into a ditch. Dare I say this is the best driver’s 911 of all time? I know Porsche geeks will never reach a consensus on that title, but there is no denying the new 911 GT2 RS is a performance-car masterpiece.

  Editor-at-large Arthur St. Antoine: Is it fair to choose a full-blown race car as a “best drive?” It is when said machine rearranges both your preconceptions of the laws of physics and your DNA. Hurling the Ferrari 488 Challenge around Canada’s Circuit Mont Tremblant was an electrifying, soul-awakening feast of race engineering at is finest: a screaming, 660-plus horsepower V-8, brakes that stop like a padded bridge abutment, an aero-aided chassis that cornered so hard it could pry the fillings from your teeth. Does such extreme prowess come at the expense of fragility or finickiness? That’s this Ferrari’s coup de grace: for two days I pounded around Tremblant, lap after lap after lap. Not once did the 488 Challenge so much as breathe hard. I call that the performance of the year.

Detroit bureau chief Todd Lassa: I want to choose the Honda Civic Type R, but I don’t know if I can get used to the idea of being on the same page as associate editor Jonathan Klein. The Type R is fabulous fun; more engaging than the supercars on our 2018 All-Stars drive, with sharp steering and handling and that great gearbox (the latter of which makes it more engaging than, say, the Ford GT or McLaren 720S). On the track, it dances with the best of them and can kick out its tail like a RWD sports car. But rather than align with Klein, I’m going to go with the Miata Cup Racer, which handles the (small, tight M1 Concours in Michigan) circuit exactly as I’d expect from a street-legal Miata. It’s nice to know they’re virtually interchangeable. I know what you’re thinking; the Miata is a #noboringcars car because I own one. No, but I own one because it’s a #noboringcars car.

Automotive design editor Robert Cumberford: Quiet, fast, spacious, comfortable, the Tesla Model 3 is very impressive. This was a top-spec, extra battery capacity car with about $20,000 in options. I’d like to have one, but can’t afford it, alas.

  New York bureau chief Jamie Kitman: I loved the Porsche Boxster S I spent a week in, but my priority characteristic in a sports car is steering feel, and the Lotus Evora Sport 410 has this in spades. In addition to robust power and an extraordinarily supple ride, it amounts to a half-price supercar you can use. Now that Lotus has Geely funding behind it, I expect it is a harbinger of even greater things to come.

Features editor Rory Jurnecka: Time will show the new Ford GT to be a special car even decades from today. Built mostly to win Le Mans—which it did—the limited-production, road-going variant is unique and engaging to drive with an experience all its own. It is wholly different from the ubiquitous McLarens, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis that compete for background photo space on your laptop. That this success came from a small, skunkworks team of rogue engineers hidden in Ford’s basement is nothing short of amazing.

Senior digital editor Kirill Ougarov: As I’ve expounded upon since it sadly left our care, my pick has to be the BMW i8. The mix of design, tech, and solid grand-touring dynamics really meshed with my personal tastes. “An enjoyable to drive, distinctively stylish grand tourer that offers a preview of coming electrified attractions” is probably the best summary I have, which I stole from my own story.

Online editor Ed Tahaney: The Lamborghini Huracán LP580-2 Spyder beats out my other favorite ride of the year—the Honda Civic Type R—only because it’s a drop-top. Both cars are a blast to drive and will make you an instant celebrity wherever you roll up. I love the Giallo Tenerife paint job that makes it look like an angry wedge of cheese, while its V-10 screams 580-hp obscenities. The cup holder sucks, but everything else about the Spyder does not.

Senior copy editor Kara Snow: Not only is the Ford GT the wildest car I drove this year in terms of both the actual ride and its hyper-futuristic design, but the experience in Ford’s race-winning beast was as emotionally thrilling as my very first time behind the wheel.

In his day, my grandfather worked on Fords for movie studios. My dad loved Mustangs. He owned many through the years and was hoping to fix up his 1946 Super De Luxe before he died unexpectedly five years ago. I’m sorry he never got to see what Ford would follow up the first two generations of these supercars with: a wonder of design, handling, and quickness—with all of the turbo’s whizzing and whooshing and the 647 hp V-6’s stunning growl.

Getting to drive the new Ford GT completes the circle for three generations of car lovers. It was a dream come true to pilot an American supercar made by a company with deep roots in our country’s history. And in my own life.

Daily news editor Conner Golden: Somehow I managed to sneak my way behind the wheel of the 2018 Porsche 911 GT3, claiming the golden tiara of my favorite car of the year. Porsche is loath to admit it, but the 991.2 GT3 takes what made the 911 R so incredibly desirable and offers it to the (still wealthy) masses, minus a handful of lightweight panels and stylistic affects. With a 4.0-liter flat-six whizzing all the way to a 9,000-rpm redline and a delicious six-speed manual transmission (seven-speed PDK optional), the GT3 was unspeakably excellent in every scenario.

Creative director Darren Scott: Hands down, the Volkswagen Golf R is the best VW I’ve ever driven. At first, I didn’t even know it existed but I quickly learned it’s a pocket rocket on rails. Its over-hyped little brother, the GTI—of which I have driven many examples—is a Bush League second baseman compared to this lightning shortstop. No flash, no nonsense. It delivers acceleration, power, and handling on-demand; supercar sophistication in a street-size package, a real driving experience. There are two downsides; one is the Tamagotchi style center console (come on VW, it’s 2017), and second, all the parking lot wannabes telling you the Ford Focus RS is better. Who cares! All that means is there’s two incredible cars to choose from.

 IFTTT

[jesusvasser]

The Best Cars We Drove in 2017

We’re incredibly fortunate to have access to the cars we do. All year long, we an abundance of the planet’s most precious metal sculptures, flogging them on tracks, roads, and everywhere in between. This year, it seemed like our quotient of top-notch machinery was at an all-time high as we drove some of the most desirable cars right into the pages of this website and our print magazine.

Choosing a favorite is not easy. Do we pick the luxury and comfort of the new Rolls-Royce Phantom, the always-ridiculous Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini’s V-12-powered-swansong Aventador S, or something like the all-new Jeep Wrangler? While not as combative a task as picking winners during our annual All-Stars awards, we had a wide range of opinions.

Editor-in-chief Mike Floyd: The term ‘greatest car in the world’ can mean different things to different people. It can be the car you’ve had for 15 years that never let you down. The muscle car you only take out of your garage on sunny summer days. The supercar you plastered on your wall when you were a kid. The astonishing, multi-million dollar vintage machine you drooled over on the lawn at Pebble Beach. Or the eighth-generation Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Maybe it’s the mystique that’s developed around it. Or its price tag. Or the marketing hype. But the Phantom represents the ultimate, the excess, the dream of being someone rich, important, famous. By the way, the all-new Phantom is also a damn good car. It’s big and heavy, yes, but its twin-turbo V-12 just pulls and pulls. It actually turns pretty well too, and is underpinned by a world-class, aluminum intensive architecture. But more than that, it’s what’s inside that has been properly done. The craftsmanship is astonishing, the materials, the overall execution is unlike any modern production car I’ve ever been in. As it should be. And that’s without even mentioning the Gallery, the art installation in the dash.

Yeah, I know, it’s a car for the .001 percenters. Why should anyone care? Because it’s the greatest car in the world. It was an honor to drive and be driven in it. And it’s been an honor to have you along for the ride this year. Thanks to you all, from all of us here at Automobile.

My honorable mentions: Lexus LC 500, McLaren 720s, that day in Utah in the Ford GT, the Civic Type R, the Toyota Camry (damn right I said it), MX-5 RF, that day in dirt in the Honda Ridgeline Baja truck, that day at Streets of Willow in the OVC and Revology Shelby GT350s, Camaro ZL1 1LE, Range Rover Velar, Mercedes-AMG E63 S, BMW M2.

Executive editor Mac Morrison: In retrospect, I don’t know what I expected as I headed to the first drive of the 2018 Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The car’s on-paper numbers—700 hp, 553 lb-ft, 3,200 pounds and change—are bonkers, but aside from a general understanding that this 911 would be fast, I was quite curious to discover the end result. By the end of a full day of driving, including a handful of laps on Portugal’s Algarve circuit and more than 100 miles on the road, I realized it had been quite some time since a new car made me smile and giggle so much. It’s not just the silly power, torque, and seemingly never-ending acceleration, either.

The GT2 RS’s ability to use every bit of its twin-turbo 3.8-liter bang is astounding. Its combination of aerodynamic and mechanical grip rewrite the rules of quick cornering, and the steering and brakes are not only up to the task but also feel great to use. This is one of the rare modern cars to find the right balance of performance and feedback, feeling a long way from overly refined and boring without crossing the line into the realm of scary or intimidating hair-trigger snappiness. You certainly know you can get in a lot of trouble driving it, but you can also enjoy it without holding your breath while always waiting for it to spit you into a ditch. Dare I say this is the best driver’s 911 of all time? I know Porsche geeks will never reach a consensus on that title, but there is no denying the new 911 GT2 RS is a performance-car masterpiece.

  Editor-at-large Arthur St. Antoine: Is it fair to choose a full-blown race car as a “best drive?” It is when said machine rearranges both your preconceptions of the laws of physics and your DNA. Hurling the Ferrari 488 Challenge around Canada’s Circuit Mont Tremblant was an electrifying, soul-awakening feast of race engineering at is finest: a screaming, 660-plus horsepower V-8, brakes that stop like a padded bridge abutment, an aero-aided chassis that cornered so hard it could pry the fillings from your teeth. Does such extreme prowess come at the expense of fragility or finickiness? That’s this Ferrari’s coup de grace: for two days I pounded around Tremblant, lap after lap after lap. Not once did the 488 Challenge so much as breathe hard. I call that the performance of the year.

Detroit bureau chief Todd Lassa: I want to choose the Honda Civic Type R, but I don’t know if I can get used to the idea of being on the same page as associate editor Jonathan Klein. The Type R is fabulous fun; more engaging than the supercars on our 2018 All-Stars drive, with sharp steering and handling and that great gearbox (the latter of which makes it more engaging than, say, the Ford GT or McLaren 720S). On the track, it dances with the best of them and can kick out its tail like a RWD sports car. But rather than align with Klein, I’m going to go with the Miata Cup Racer, which handles the (small, tight M1 Concours in Michigan) circuit exactly as I’d expect from a street-legal Miata. It’s nice to know they’re virtually interchangeable. I know what you’re thinking; the Miata is a #noboringcars car because I own one. No, but I own one because it’s a #noboringcars car.

Automotive design editor Robert Cumberford: Quiet, fast, spacious, comfortable, the Tesla Model 3 is very impressive. This was a top-spec, extra battery capacity car with about $20,000 in options. I’d like to have one, but can’t afford it, alas.

  New York bureau chief Jamie Kitman: I loved the Porsche Boxster S I spent a week in, but my priority characteristic in a sports car is steering feel, and the Lotus Evora Sport 410 has this in spades. In addition to robust power and an extraordinarily supple ride, it amounts to a half-price supercar you can use. Now that Lotus has Geely funding behind it, I expect it is a harbinger of even greater things to come.

Features editor Rory Jurnecka: Time will show the new Ford GT to be a special car even decades from today. Built mostly to win Le Mans—which it did—the limited-production, road-going variant is unique and engaging to drive with an experience all its own. It is wholly different from the ubiquitous McLarens, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis that compete for background photo space on your laptop. That this success came from a small, skunkworks team of rogue engineers hidden in Ford’s basement is nothing short of amazing.

Senior digital editor Kirill Ougarov: As I’ve expounded upon since it sadly left our care, my pick has to be the BMW i8. The mix of design, tech, and solid grand-touring dynamics really meshed with my personal tastes. “An enjoyable to drive, distinctively stylish grand tourer that offers a preview of coming electrified attractions” is probably the best summary I have, which I stole from my own story.

Online editor Ed Tahaney: The Lamborghini Huracán LP580-2 Spyder beats out my other favorite ride of the year—the Honda Civic Type R—only because it’s a drop-top. Both cars are a blast to drive and will make you an instant celebrity wherever you roll up. I love the Giallo Tenerife paint job that makes it look like an angry wedge of cheese, while its V-10 screams 580-hp obscenities. The cup holder sucks, but everything else about the Spyder does not.

Senior copy editor Kara Snow: Not only is the Ford GT the wildest car I drove this year in terms of both the actual ride and its hyper-futuristic design, but the experience in Ford’s race-winning beast was as emotionally thrilling as my very first time behind the wheel.

In his day, my grandfather worked on Fords for movie studios. My dad loved Mustangs. He owned many through the years and was hoping to fix up his 1946 Super De Luxe before he died unexpectedly five years ago. I’m sorry he never got to see what Ford would follow up the first two generations of these supercars with: a wonder of design, handling, and quickness—with all of the turbo’s whizzing and whooshing and the 647 hp V-6’s stunning growl.

Getting to drive the new Ford GT completes the circle for three generations of car lovers. It was a dream come true to pilot an American supercar made by a company with deep roots in our country’s history. And in my own life.

Daily news editor Conner Golden: Somehow I managed to sneak my way behind the wheel of the 2018 Porsche 911 GT3, claiming the golden tiara of my favorite car of the year. Porsche is loath to admit it, but the 991.2 GT3 takes what made the 911 R so incredibly desirable and offers it to the (still wealthy) masses, minus a handful of lightweight panels and stylistic affects. With a 4.0-liter flat-six whizzing all the way to a 9,000-rpm redline and a delicious six-speed manual transmission (seven-speed PDK optional), the GT3 was unspeakably excellent in every scenario.

Creative director Darren Scott: Hands down, the Volkswagen Golf R is the best VW I’ve ever driven. At first, I didn’t even know it existed but I quickly learned it’s a pocket rocket on rails. Its over-hyped little brother, the GTI—of which I have driven many examples—is a Bush League second baseman compared to this lightning shortstop. No flash, no nonsense. It delivers acceleration, power, and handling on-demand; supercar sophistication in a street-size package, a real driving experience. There are two downsides; one is the Tamagotchi style center console (come on VW, it’s 2017), and second, all the parking lot wannabes telling you the Ford Focus RS is better. Who cares! All that means is there’s two incredible cars to choose from.

 IFTTT