#they argue and fight about it all the time and it always ends with nm force feeding dream

[boxofwaspss]

vampire au dreammare <3

FOR YO

U

[white-sinner]

Seven brothers and their boyfriends

fourth born Satan x male book lover reader

Smut

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all fairy tales start with once upon a time and they all lived happily ever after and it's time for the story between you and satan to begin

when you two first met there wasn't this much interaction the only thing you understood about him was his hatred for lucifer

one of the details that made him fall madly in love with you was your love of reading but not just your personality your looks he loved everything about you. like the little mermaid

and when he showed you his room o holy heaven … it was as if he fell in love with you again your eyes sparkled! it was a whole room full of bookshelves and full of books finally someone who understood him his love for books in short a perfect match

most of the time you could find him opening your door wide with a pile of books in his hand saying

“these are some of my favorite books I think you might like them”

of course you also recommended them and lent your favorite books with the which unlike his was much more attentive

for your dates, these are almost always in the library, in his room pampering you while you read together but one thing that satan likes to do in particular is to recreate one of the romantic scenes of one of his books

now the fights between you two don't always happen but they are more frequent than other brothers but you can swear that after he calms down he will try to apologize in all possible ways for example by sending you pictures of cats with the word sorry, writing you a poem or even coming with a cat in his arms apologizing

SMUT

now this may seem like a fairy tale but this story is not all sugar and candy but there is also a touch of spice now this can go in two ways

SUB READER

satan was returning from the library when he saw a scene in the living room he saw you and lucifer arguing and you fearlessly answered him in kind, after that quarrel and you were still angry, satan he invited you to his room and as soon as you entered the Saw satan shirtless slamming you against the wall kissing you furiously

“you could have told me you wanted to do that wonderful show but you didn't tell me anything, naughty boy~”

“Huh?!”

satan throw you on the bed you were speechless but excited and satan could see it

satan undresses you while he runs his hands over your exposed body, he puts you on your stomach and your ass in the air and starts fucking you very hard, you put your hand on your mouth to stop your moans being heard

“Don't cover your sweet sounds, kitty”

“mmm~ go slowerrr”

to which he smirked and went faster

you know cats when their partner is in heat? this is exactly what happened

the next day Satan had to carry you in his arms because you couldn't move well he didn't mind

TOP READER

you and Satan were in his room reading and drinking tea when you notice something strange under the bed

"do not look!"

“some cat ears and a tail-shaped butt plug?”

“I-I can explain”

now you were intrigued by the tail shaped butt plug you already had an idea where the situation was going but you wanted to hear from him

“I wanted you to fuck me with those…”

said Satan in a low voice even lower than Levi

“What? speak louder baby”

"Come on are you serious? it's embarrassing"

“ok when you are ready to tell me he will find me in my room”

“wait wait! don't go..I want you to fuck me with those”

you only smiled after this and Satan's cheeks flushed red

"undress"

Satan followed your instructions and was left with only ears and tail

now he was under you while you fucked him making him see the stars

“M/NM/Nn-“

“No no,baby kitty don’t talk”

with that said he started fucking harder now you could see the bulge of your cock inside him

“Nyan nyan!!”

and so you continued until the morning

A/N: before this story ends I leave you with a photo

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[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

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Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

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NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

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Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

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Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[atiny-piratequeen]

Yeah i guess i feel like that cause the last 6 minths have been to heart brwkaing for my tiny heart. But also you are probably right if you managed to find not 1 but 2 amazing people. May i ask how did you all meet? And how did you realize you were pan and poly? ❄️

I understand. Give yourself time to heal before expecting another relationship. You want to go into relationship as mentally and emotionally healthy as you can or that could cause complications for you and your partner(s) in no time.

I met Zie like 9 years years ago because we became friends on tumblr because we shared a mutual interest in wrestling (and she was actually one of my readers for one of my fics). We stayed friends and became best friends. I'd message her every day and vice versa and we'd just write rps together and continue to talk about our day to day lives both the good and the bad.

Somewhere along the way, years later, I noticed that I valued her friendship and affection more and more and it kinda hit me one day that I 100% fell head over heels for her. I didnt ask her out until after I healed from this one toxic relationship i was on and off on through middle and high school and i was in a better place mentally. She actually said no the first time I asked her out because she was worried I was just trying to date someone who showed me positive affection after those years of emotional and mental abuse. So i waited, made sure i wasn't projecting my need to be properly loved onto her, and asked again on our first video chat together in 2015. She said yes and she's been by my side ever since. I love her with my whole heart.

Matt, we met though a friend of mine irl. Ik ik, bro code and shit, but my friend did him dirty. Upped and left him after he did everything possible to not only be a good bf, but friend. And we all thought that was grimey so we stayed close friends with him. Its actually a running gag that Matt and I are two sides of the same person because we're both Pan "bear" friends and we have a lot in common and finish each others sentences all the time. He actually drifted apart from us a bit when we dated Sam (our bf before him) bc Sam was as jealous as he was neglectful and he didnt like that matt playfully flirted with us, so out of respect and not wanting us to constantly argue with Sam, Matt pulled away from us. He came back thankfully and always was there to check on us and try and help us through that toxic ass relationship, and when it ended, he was back in our lives, making sure the two of us were okay and not at all fighting with each other. (Which, never happened. Zie and I have fought like a handful of times but never over jealousy). Cue a few months of reconnecting with an old friend (of which we both had a crush on anyway from years prior) and boom. Zie and I agreed that if given the chance, we'd love to date Matt. Cue mote wooing and gay ass flirting and the three of us sleepily asked each other out through psn before falling asleep in a party together. And thats how Zie and I started dating Matty Bear.

As for my sexuality, when I was in high school, as goofy as it sounds, I always liked reading fics that had poly relationships over ones that had just mono ones or worse, fucking love triangles.

Love triangles made me think of all the trauma from my past relationships and the characters i read about were dear to me so i never wanted them to suffer through being choosen over and I always preferred to see them together, even if that meant more than two people in a relationship. Cuddle piles, hand holding, the uniqueness that comes from some people in poly dynamics, i loved all of them and i eventually relaized that i wouldnt mind that for myself. I'm a very big lover, sometimes i fall too easily, sometimes its a slowburn, but I'm the type of person where I'll see someone i have affections for and immediately think about how nice it would be to have them happy and in love with me and the others i have affections for.

I guess I'll expose myself more and give an example but Kira is a perfect example of this. Like, yall, I'm not kidding when I say I love Kira (@deepnesta) and as soon as i started crushing on her, i immediately told zie and matt and my friends bc gay panic and i dont keep secrets from my partners. Like I would date Kira in a heartbeat and the thought of her being soft with either of my partners makes me wanna melt into a puddle so yeet thats how I know.

Also as for being pan, also in high school. I just...i really like and adore everyone, nm what they identify as. If you're attractive and i can form a connection with you emotionally or romantically or whatever, fuck it, your gender identity doesnt matter to me. I like you for you and thats just how it is

[angsty-nerd]

Fictober #9

I made it! I made it!

#9. “It does have a certain taste to it.”

Roswell, NM Fanfiction, Liz, Rosa, & Arturo Ortecho. Gen.

This is a continuation of my Fictober #3 ficlet... it gets a little longer than most of them so preview with the rest beneath the cut.

It was an odd, but comforting family reunion.

Most intense family gatherings don’t begin after ten o’ clock at night, but in this case, with the Crashdown closing for the evening, it was that late when Liz brought Rosa home for the first time in a decade.

The reunion went well. Papi didn’t have a heart attack, and Rosa was finally at ease, being at her home with her family. Papi was overjoyed to have both his daughters back. So sleep simply wasn’t an option.

Liz and her father traded off telling amusing stories of the past 10 years to Rosa, while Rosa roared with laughter. Most of Papi’s stories even Liz hadn’t heard yet, and it reminded her how much of her father’s life she had missed...so much time wasted while she was running and hiding from her pain.

Later, when the laughter died down a bit, and Rosa was silenced with an enormous yawn, their father asked, "What did Rosa mean earlier when she said that I was the best 'out of everyone'. Who else have you seen, Rosa?"

"Papi, don't blame Rosa," Liz insisted. "I was the one who was keeping her hidden."

"It's been, what? Two weeks or so?" Rosa mused.

"Fifteen days, 13 hours, and…" Liz glanced at her phone. "...24 minutes. Since I found you in the desert and Max's body in the cave."

Rosa and Papi both just stared sadly at her, wide eyed. "Yeah, I know!" Liz cried out. "Muy idiota! But I'm feeling every single minute that he's gone, like each one is like a pin prick to my heart. Each one alone is small and insignificant, but with time? I won't be able to tolerate the pain anymore. I have to figure out how to save him before I fall apart. I have to!!"

"Oh Liz…" Rosa reached over and hugged her sister tightly. "We all see how hard you're working. If it's possible to save him, you will."

"Yeah." Liz agreed. "But what if it's not?"

They both fell silent. Nobody ever had a good answer for that question, or any words that actually brought Liz any comfort.

After a long moment of silence, Papi gently replied, “Then we thank God for the brief time we had with him and we pray that his soul finds peace, mija.”

It wasn’t what Liz wanted to hear, and it hurt like hell. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to fight back the tears that were stinging and threatening to fall. Once she was sure she could claim victory over them, she reopened her eyes and told them, “Well then, Max is damn lucky that I’m a fighter.”

Papi nodded and thankfully redirected the conversation. “But two whole weeks! Where have you been hiding, Rosa?”

“Mostly with Liz at Max’s house. Occasionally with Kyle at his place. One very weird night at Isobel Evans’ house, and that was an experience I do not want to relive!”

“Why?” Papi asked.

“Just… it gave me the chills being in that house. It was like I could feel him all over it. Like he was watching me the way he used to.”

“He’s gone, Rosa,” Liz insisted. “Max told me himself that he’d never be coming back. Michael and Isobel saw Max…” Liz’s voice faltered. “...they said they saw Max kill him. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”

“I think...we need to stop with the sad and scary talk,” Papi announced. “Instead I think it’s time that we talk about the happy times. I think it’s time for a churro pancakes talk, Liz. Tell Rosa and I tu loca historia de amor with Max, hmm?”

Liz couldn’t help laughing as her father wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her. “Oh we are definitely going to need churro pancakes for that conversation!” Liz announced, tossing off the blanket she had wrapped around her lap. “I’d better get cooking!”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Pancakes are served!” Liz announced with a flourish, as she slid the plates across the Crashdown kitchen counter at her family.

“I’m still not sure about this new recipe of yours, mija,” Papi said skeptically as he cut his first bite and took a sniff. Rosa had already shoved some in her mouth chewing slowly, with uncertainty.

"There is a certain taste to it. It's not churros exactly. More like actual dirt. Seriously Liz, are you feeding us dirt? How did you manage to take something as perfect as Papi's churro pancakes and turn them into this?"

Liz and their father both burst out laughing at the look of disgust on Rosa's face.

"Rosa! I told you that Papi hasn't been well. He's pre-diabetic. He can't eat all that sugar anymore!"

"Well yeah…" Rosa said with a smirk. “But does that mean we have to suffer?”

“Rosa!” Liz scolded, but Papi cut them off before they could argue further.

“Now girls, let’s get on with it here. I believe Liz promised us a love story.”

“I don’t know how much there is to tell,” Liz admitted. “Sure there was a lot of...I don’t know...feelings between us, but it all happened so fast.”

“Did it though?” Rosa asked. “You were interested at the end of senior year.”

“You were friends with him in high school, yes?” Arturo wondered.

“Well yeah… we were friends, lab partners...and we went on a date.”

“What!?!” Rosa exclaimed in unison with Papi musing, “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it was earlier on the day that Rosa died,” Liz explained softly. “So we didn’t really get a chance to talk about it. He took me out to the desert, and we listened to music and watched the sunset. We danced. It was perfect. Until I told him that I was leaving town. He asked me to stay, and I refused. Then he offered to come with me. I think...he was already in love with me then, but I didn’t really understand. Then Rosa died, everything fell apart, and I left without him and broke his heart.”

“Wasn’t this talk supposed to be about the happy times?” Rosa asked through a mouthful of pancake. “So far we have death and heartbreak, so, great start there, Lizzie.” She gave Liz a sarcastic thumbs up.

Liz made a face at her sister. “Fast forward ten years, okay. I guess Max never really got over me. And while I may not have been in love with him in quite the same way, I certainly had unresolved feelings for him that I had buried along with everything else that I loved about this town. Except for Papi, of course.”

“Then the government pulled my study’s funding and I lost my job in Denver, unexpectedly. Somehow, in a decade, that had never happened before. I always had managed to have the next thing lined up. But this time, for the first time, I had nothing. I needed to reboot my life. So I dumped my fiancée, packed my car, and drove home.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rosa interjected. “Did you just say fiancée? Elizabeth, you’ve been keeping secrets! Spill!”

“Different guy, different story!” Liz protested.

“Let’s save it for another night, muchachas.” Arturo agreed.

“Fiiiiine!” Rosa complained. “Continue. I guess.”

“So, I’m driving back into Roswell for the first time in 10 years, and I drive right into an ICE checkpoint. Which is totally illegal this far from the border. So ICE tries to hide what they’re really doing by making the local sheriff's department set up a DWI checkpoint. And the locals can’t really say no to the Feds, right?”

“Bastards,” Rosa muttered.

“So, I’m driving into the checkpoint, and they wave for me to stop, and I just lose it. I roll down my window and start digging for my passport, and all the while I am just going off on this guy, telling him he’s a racist, citing the legal precedent that I’m gonna sue him under...and then I turn to show him my identification…”

“...and it’s Max?” Rosa interrupts.

“It’s Max.” Liz confirms. “And he’s staring at me like he’s seeing a ghost. And we’re both almost speechless at the sight of each other. Then Sheriff Valenti steps in to see what’s going on and the moment is over. At least, until Max showed up at the Crashdown that night after closing. And that’s when we actually talked, and caught up a bit. There was a moment between us that was just electric…and then Wyatt Long shot out the Crashdown windows.”

“The windows and the outside lights,” Arturo corrected. “I am so glad that Max was here with you.”

“Yeah.” Liz agreed. “Yeah, it was a really good thing, Papi. Because one of the bullets got me. I was shot. Wyatt Long would have murdered me on my very first night back in Roswell, if Max hadn’t been there.”

“Oh Lizzie,” Arturo gasped.

“I was bleeding out on the floor, and Max just didn’t even hesitate. He put his hand over the wound and healed me. And then went after Wyatt. Oh, and Wyatt didn’t shoot out the lights, Papi. That was Max. He, uh… his power is somehow tied to electromagnetic energy. I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, if he channels it and uses it to do what he does, but it’s also somehow tied to his state of mind, like when things get intense or emotional for him it also tends to affect the electricity in the area, so I still want to know if it’s that he draws from it, or just is connected to it, or…”

“Liz, you’re rambling.” Rosa interrupted.

“Right.” Liz acknowledged. “Sorry. So if you just want the shiny happy version of things, Max revealed himself to me and told me that he had loved me since the first day he met me. We slowly got to know each other better, but I was always hung up on the idea that he might love the idea of me more than the reality of me, so finally I called him out on it. And he proved me wrong. So I kissed him.”

“He proved you wrong?” Her Papi asked.

“He listed my faults. Trust me, it was way more romantic than it sounds.” Liz insisted, before taking a big bite of pancakes.

“So what are you leaving out. The part about me?” Rosa asked.

“Well, that among other things,” Liz admitted. “I found out that you were murdered by an alien and I was trying to be sneaky about investigating him, but I lost it pretty quickly and accused him to his face of murdering you. Which in turn upset and hurt him so much that he accidentally blew the power grid for the entire town.”

“The mysterious power outage!” Arturo exclaimed

“Yup. My fault,” Liz confessed. “Then Noah tried to kill me, and Max saved my life...again. And then he finally told me the truth as he knew it about what happened when you died. I told him I never wanted to see him again because of what he did to our family. Then I was so angry that I spent weeks in my lab creating a weapon to protect myself against an alien. Then Isobel injected herself with it and almost died. And I felt horribly guilty about my role in that, plus came to a few of my own realizations about how much I cared for Max, so I spent weeks working to cure her. And then we kissed.”

“Oh, is that it?” Rosa laughed.

“The short version.” Liz confirmed. “But this is what I meant when I said earlier that it all happened so fast, Papi. That kiss was just a few days before the gala. The night of the gala was when we confirmed Noah’s identity. The next night is when Max killed him, and the morning after that he brought Rosa back and died. We only had a few days together. I mean, we haven’t even officially gone on a second date yet. Just that one date back in high school.”

“Oh Lizzie, I’m so sorry,” Arturo murmured. “Come here mija.”

He opened his arms and Liz leaned in to hug her Papi. He opened one arm wider and gestured for Rosa to join them. She did, and the three Ortechos stood there in the kitchen of their family restaurant, the smell of cinnamon still in the air from the pancakes fresh off the griddle, and basked in the miracle that they were together again.

When they separated, Arturo looked at his two girls, still so alike, even though instead of two years apart in age they were now over eight years apart.

“Liz, keep the faith. You may not have alien powers, but you do have one of the most amazing minds and hearts I have ever known. If anyone can bring your Max back, it is you.” He squeezed Rosa’s hand and smiled. “I may not have believed yesterday that the dead can return, but I have been proven wrong. Rosa is with us again. So what’s to say that another miracle can’t happen too?”

[bestautochicago]

2018 BMW M5 First Drive: The King is Dead, Long Live the King

There was a time when the alpha-numeric “M5” held transcendental place in our automotive consciousness and struck fear in the hearts of AMG drivers. Unfortunately, this car’s immediate predecessor, the F10 M5 (2011-2016), was roundly criticized for being a luxury car with a big motor—a rather large, distant-feeling speed instrument and not much else. In a comparison test against the last-generation Mercedes-Benz E63 S AMG, of the fortified, overboosted 2014 M5 Competition Pack, senior features editor Jonny Lieberman wrote: “…the M5 feels like a bank vault with the speedometer always reading 100 mph.” That car, and others since, linger as reminders that the M Division, perhaps only temporarily, had lost its way. Even Cadillac has driven a supercharged V-8 wedge into the super sedan battlefield with its underappreciated and highly capable CTS-V. BMW had to react in a big way. They did.

Of course, some will argue the V10-powered E60 M5 (2005-2010) was a technical marvel, sprung from the last time BMW was participating in Formula 1 racing. Yet, that high-strung low-torque engine operated within too narrow a window to be an effective all-around super sedan. It was a car that was alternatively at five-tenths or 10/10ths with little between. Arguably, it’s not been since the first V-8-powered E39-generation M5 (1998-2003) was on the prowl that BMW held a winning hand in this uber-sedan war. We were reminded of just how special the E39 remains when BMW supplied one to drive during this program in Portugal. In fact, they brought an M5 from each era—and even a 1981 M535i progenitor—for us to drive on the road when it wasn’t our turn on track in the 2018 M5. This fact made us ponder if BMW and, more specifically, the M division were, in fact, reminding themselves of the unique magic that the M5 should contain and supply. It should be more than a fast 5 Series. It should, like that E39 did, have us asking, “Wait. BMW are actually going to sell this car? To anybody who can afford it? This thing is completely bonkers. No way.”

Hair-on-Fire Great

Well, guess what? The BMW M5 is once again, completely bonkers, hair-on-fire great in its current F90 form. Not only does it once again sound like a proper ne plus ultra sedan, but it is also scary fast yet has the poise and feedback it so lacked in the F10 era. It’s once again the proverbial ballerina body builder able to balance on one toe while holding a two-ton weight over its head with one hand behind its back. Technical director Frank Markus wrote a terrific deep-dive into all the nuts and bolts of what makes the 2018 BMW M5 work when he drove a prototype earlier this year. Suffice to say that one lap of the Estoril circuit in the new M5 thrashed and dashed any misplaced preconceptions about the first use of all-wheel drive in an M5 and the shift from a dual-clutch automated manual (or a honest DIY manual) in favor of a well-tuned ZF eight-speed automatic. This M5 is alive, eager, and ready for a fight. A highly revised and more powerful version of the previous 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 now makes 592 horsepower (officially 441 kW) and 553 lb-ft (750 Nm) of torque. By Frank’s count there are 270 combinations available with driver-selectable options for engine responsiveness, transmission, chassis, M xDrive (4WD/Sport 4WD/2WD, so, yes, a “drift” mode), stability control (DSC), etc. That’s still too many. Luckily, there are two prominent red steering wheel “preset” buttons (M1/M2) where you can store your favorite configurations for easy retrieval. Seated in the car on the track, we were asked to start with M1 that BMW reps had programmed.

Out Lap

The M1 was conservatively set with the engine/exhaust at full song but with the transmission in the second-most aggressive mode, non-Sport AWD setting, and full DSC for introductory laps. BMW claims a 0-62-mph (100 kph) time of just 3.4 seconds. That seems about right because the car was insanely fast out of the paddock and down to the first corner. What’s more, unlike the muted F10, this car sounded stupendously good—like that old E39! Besides having control flaps in the exhaust system, we’re told that a “Helmholtz” resonator fitted between the two branches contributes to it. Some of that glorious sound is, of course, “enhanced” with the car’s audio system, as well. BMW horses have always felt bigger than their numbers suggest, but the way the M5 lifts its nose and puts the power to the ground on throttle hints at the all-wheel drive working effectively. At that there’s a deep reserve of torque (553 lb-ft) from a mere 1,800 up to 5,600 rpm.

Arriving at the first several corners, the turn-in was crisp and accurate like a rear-drive car, but the eager, aggressive M5 suddenly went lazy and stubborn midturn. Despite the driveline defaulting to 2WD until the computer-controlled transfer case deems it necessary to allot power to the front wheels, the heavy hand of DSC was obvious. In this mode, the first corners were agonizingly, artificially slowed. Any attempt to alter the car’s conservative line and speed by frantically (or gently) manipulating the throttle to shift the car’s prodigious weight (estimated to be about 4,250 pounds) or yaw rate was met with a dead go-pedal until the front wheels were pointed straight. About half way around the 2.6-mile lap, I pressed the M2 button (ushering Sport 4WD and M Dynamic DSC) and ensured the shift protocol was the most aggressive available. As if I had loosened the car’s bridle and let the reins go, the M5 came alive beneath me; it began to shrink around me. With more power being directed to the rear wheels, the tail of the car was easily coaxed into gentle, measured oversteer. The steering (which I had switched to Comfort to get rid of unnecessary weight) began offering me genuine information about the front tires’ impending lack of grip. The car was so predictable that when I’d lift off the throttle, weight would transfer to the front, and I’d quickly flick the steering the other way to catch the slide and meter it with the throttle and/or the laser-precise steering. Despite its wheelbase growing an inch, overall length by 2, and width by 0.5 inch, weight is down by 50-90 pounds compared to the rear-drive F10 M5—and this is how an M5 should behave on a track.

The first time down the half-mile straight, the M5 piled on the speed as if it were in a vacuum without wind resistance. In what felt like a never-ending surge, and with each seamless, belching upshift, it just never stopped accelerating. All I could say to myself on that first lap and throughout that first sessions was: “Whoa. What. A. Motor!” For me, it defined the car in the morning, making the M5 feel like a uncaged beast that was ready to pick up asphalt and throw it at the cars following—which it did, and BMW reportedly replaced 10 windshields during the event.

On the Road

I was just getting comfortable. My hands had stopped sweating, and I had learned the track and just how much tail-out was allowed or discouraged by the car. I hadn’t yet dared look at the speedometer at the end of the straight. Too soon, however, the out lap, three hot laps, and one cool down were now behind us. We were assured that because it had rained on a previous group’s track day that there were plenty of M5-bespoke Pirelli P Zeros in the garage and that there would be afternoon hot-lapping. As we had planned, my co-driver for the afternoon road drive was none other than Jonny’s new Head2Head co-host, Jethro Bovington. And waiting for us in the parking lot was an identically equipped 2018 M5: Optional carbon-ceramic brakes (reducing corner weights by 50 pounds collectively), the M Driver’s Pack (raising the speed limiter from 155 to 189 mph), and 20-inch wheels with 275/35R20 and 285/35R20 tires.

The first order of business was to get out of town by negotiating a single roundabout then charging down an onramp onto the A16 headed north. Jethro wasted no time pressing the M2 button, and we blasted down the highway with the sat-nav system gently giving us guidance. It wasn’t long before we had arrived at the first toll station, and I asked Jethro, “If we were to arrive at the next one ‘too soon,’ would you expect to be fined for speeding?”

“I think that’s an urban myth meant to keep people from speeding,” he replied. “I’ve never heard of anybody getting nicked like that in all these years on European A roads. The speed cameras are real, but I don’t believe they time you between toll gates.”

At the first highway transition, Jethro really leaned on the car, and it just stuck to the line. “It’s really good at hiding its weight, isn’t it?” he asked. “The grip is tremendous, and it truly does feel rear drive. And this motor! Gawd.”

After a time we’d gotten off the A-routes and switched seats for the country road portion. At the first corner, I dabbed the brake and only the seat belts kept us from slamming into the dashboard. “Wow, these brakes take some getting used to, right?” I said.

We were going a good clip between towns, and interestingly, the nav system lagged behind so often that we missed several turns by the time we reached junctures. Besides that, the M5 that felt all-conquering on track and on the highway it suddenly felt all knees and elbows; the proverbial bull in a china shop. “Boy is this car big,” I said. “It takes up the entire width of this little road, and I don’t like those game-over drainage troughs one bit.”

The ride quality, too, suffered a great deal on broken pavement and even a short stretch of Belgian blocks through a small Portuguese hamlet. “Yeah, you really, really have to want this M5 to put up with the ride out here in the real world—even on the softest settings, it’s sports-car firm,” Jethro added. “Pretty punishing.” We both wondered why BMW hadn’t ventured into magnetorheological dampers yet. This would seem the perfect candidate for them. Licensing? Hmm.

The conversation continued. “I think most people will be more satisfied with a less-mental M550i xDrive,” Jethro added.

“Agree, but I’m glad they went all in with the M5,” I said. “Let’s get back to the track and queue up.”

Session Two

With the morning’s wisdom, new-found confidence in, and respect for the new M5, we took our place in line for a second opportunity to really probe the car’s limits on fresh tires behind two pro drivers, a DTM champ and Blancpain GT competitor/rising star. No sooner were we belted in our cars, M2 button pressed, than the pros leading the group of three chase M5s at a time wooded the throttle and did a glorious burnout in pit lane. Oh, it was go-fast time alright. The lead M5s were the liveried version of the Moto GP pace car that was curiously shod with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tires—not Pirellis. At any rate we were off and hell bent for leather.

If the morning session was all about appreciating the motor, then the afternoon was devoted to the chassis and driveline and finding the perfect line. The pro drivers were goading us to go faster and faster, and finally, we were at the limit of the car. I finally caught a glimpse of the speedo right before I got on the brakes into Turn One. It read, “270 kph” or 168 mph, to us yanks. No wonder the cars’ top speeds were raised for the event. We would’ve been on the 155-mph limiter well before the first turn. With all three lights indicating the most aggressive transmission mapping, it ripped matched-rev downshifts like a twin-clutch. It’s utterly indistinguishable in shift speed and intelligence. Turn after turn, I grew more confident in adding throttle sooner and sooner coming out of the corner. I found the less-strict limits of MDM mode (still not enough yaw to be truly fun) and switched it off completely. I didn’t delve into 2WD drift mode, but the incongruous thing, however, was that even with DSC shut off, it was so easy to dance the car around the track—clipping curbs, drifting wide on the exits, positioning the car inch-perfect, finding the ABS threshold, and backing off slightly to modulate the brakes into corners. The M5 simply does everything you want it to do and nothing you don’t. The M xDrive system is so fluid that a driver can scarcely detect its carbon-clutch pack shifting power to the front, and the Active M Dynamic differential out back effectively shifts torque side to side without using brakes. The harmony of all of this is astounding and what makes the new M5 deserving of the old, highly revered badge. What a car. What a supremely entertaining and capable super sedan it is.

OK, it’s great and all. So what’s the tariff?

How much would you expect to pay for all of this? At this point, only base pricing has been announced at $103,595, or precisely $1,800 below a comparable 2018 Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4Matic. Tantalizing, isn’t it? Adding the historical cost of the M5’s carbon-ceramic brakes ($9,250) and the Competition package (now M Driver’s pack) that includes the 20-inch forged aluminum wheels and specific tuning ($7,300) would indicate we were driving M5s that would easily exceed $120,000 before interior options. And it’s worth it. The last E63 S 4Matic we tested cost $145,160. Rest assured, however, that we will line up the next Head2Head with these two cross town rivals in a few months. Their on-paper credentials are startlingly close, and it’ll be a cage match for the ages. Watch this space.

2018 BMW M5 BASE PRICE $103,595 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD/AWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan ENGINE 4.4L/592-hp/553-lb-ft twin-turbo DOHC 32-valve V-8 TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 4,250 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 117.7 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 195.5 x 74.9 x 56.8 in 0-60 MPH 3.2 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 15/21/17 mpg (MT est) ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 225-160 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 1.13 lb/mile ON SALE IN U.S. Spring 2018

Source: http://chicagoautohaus.com/2018-bmw-m5-first-drive-the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king/

from Chicago Today https://chicagocarspot.wordpress.com/2017/12/19/2018-bmw-m5-first-drive-the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king/

[robertkstone]

2018 BMW M5 First Drive: The King is Dead, Long Live the King

There was a time when the alpha-numeric “M5” held transcendental place in our automotive consciousness and struck fear in the hearts of AMG drivers. Unfortunately, this car’s immediate predecessor, the F10 M5 (2011-2016), was roundly criticized for being a luxury car with a big motor—a rather large, distant-feeling speed instrument and not much else. In a comparison test against the last-generation Mercedes-Benz E63 S AMG, of the fortified, overboosted 2014 M5 Competition Pack, senior features editor Jonny Lieberman wrote: “…the M5 feels like a bank vault with the speedometer always reading 100 mph.” That car, and others since, linger as reminders that the M Division, perhaps only temporarily, had lost its way. Even Cadillac has driven a supercharged V-8 wedge into the super sedan battlefield with its underappreciated and highly capable CTS-V. BMW had to react in a big way. They did.

Of course, some will argue the V10-powered E60 M5 (2005-2010) was a technical marvel, sprung from the last time BMW was participating in Formula 1 racing. Yet, that high-strung low-torque engine operated within too narrow a window to be an effective all-around super sedan. It was a car that was alternatively at five-tenths or 10/10ths with little between. Arguably, it’s not been since the first V-8-powered E39-generation M5 (1998-2003) was on the prowl that BMW held a winning hand in this uber-sedan war. We were reminded of just how special the E39 remains when BMW supplied one to drive during this program in Portugal. In fact, they brought an M5 from each era—and even a 1981 M535i progenitor—for us to drive on the road when it wasn’t our turn on track in the 2018 M5. This fact made us ponder if BMW and, more specifically, the M division were, in fact, reminding themselves of the unique magic that the M5 should contain and supply. It should be more than a fast 5 Series. It should, like that E39 did, have us asking, “Wait. BMW are actually going to sell this car? To anybody who can afford it? This thing is completely bonkers. No way.”

Hair-on-Fire Great

Well, guess what? The BMW M5 is once again, completely bonkers, hair-on-fire great in its current F90 form. Not only does it once again sound like a proper ne plus ultra sedan, but it is also scary fast yet has the poise and feedback it so lacked in the F10 era. It’s once again the proverbial ballerina body builder able to balance on one toe while holding a two-ton weight over its head with one hand behind its back. Technical director Frank Markus wrote a terrific deep-dive into all the nuts and bolts of what makes the 2018 BMW M5 work when he drove a prototype earlier this year. Suffice to say that one lap of the Estoril circuit in the new M5 thrashed and dashed any misplaced preconceptions about the first use of all-wheel drive in an M5 and the shift from a dual-clutch automated manual (or a honest DIY manual) in favor of a well-tuned ZF eight-speed automatic. This M5 is alive, eager, and ready for a fight. A highly revised and more powerful version of the previous 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 now makes 592 horsepower (officially 441 kW) and 553 lb-ft (750 Nm) of torque. By Frank’s count there are 270 combinations available with driver-selectable options for engine responsiveness, transmission, chassis, M xDrive (4WD/Sport 4WD/2WD, so, yes, a “drift” mode), stability control (DSC), etc. That’s still too many. Luckily, there are two prominent red steering wheel “preset” buttons (M1/M2) where you can store your favorite configurations for easy retrieval. Seated in the car on the track, we were asked to start with M1 that BMW reps had programmed.

Out Lap

The M1 was conservatively set with the engine/exhaust at full song but with the transmission in the second-most aggressive mode, non-Sport AWD setting, and full DSC for introductory laps. BMW claims a 0-62-mph (100 kph) time of just 3.4 seconds. That seems about right because the car was insanely fast out of the paddock and down to the first corner. What’s more, unlike the muted F10, this car sounded stupendously good—like that old E39! Besides having control flaps in the exhaust system, we’re told that a “Helmholtz” resonator fitted between the two branches contributes to it. Some of that glorious sound is, of course, “enhanced” with the car’s audio system, as well. BMW horses have always felt bigger than their numbers suggest, but the way the M5 lifts its nose and puts the power to the ground on throttle hints at the all-wheel drive working effectively. At that there’s a deep reserve of torque (553 lb-ft) from a mere 1,800 up to 5,600 rpm.

Arriving at the first several corners, the turn-in was crisp and accurate like a rear-drive car, but the eager, aggressive M5 suddenly went lazy and stubborn midturn. Despite the driveline defaulting to 2WD until the computer-controlled transfer case deems it necessary to allot power to the front wheels, the heavy hand of DSC was obvious. In this mode, the first corners were agonizingly, artificially slowed. Any attempt to alter the car’s conservative line and speed by frantically (or gently) manipulating the throttle to shift the car’s prodigious weight (estimated to be about 4,250 pounds) or yaw rate was met with a dead go-pedal until the front wheels were pointed straight. About half way around the 2.6-mile lap, I pressed the M2 button (ushering Sport 4WD and M Dynamic DSC) and ensured the shift protocol was the most aggressive available. As if I had loosened the car’s bridle and let the reins go, the M5 came alive beneath me; it began to shrink around me. With more power being directed to the rear wheels, the tail of the car was easily coaxed into gentle, measured oversteer. The steering (which I had switched to Comfort to get rid of unnecessary weight) began offering me genuine information about the front tires’ impending lack of grip. The car was so predictable that when I’d lift off the throttle, weight would transfer to the front, and I’d quickly flick the steering the other way to catch the slide and meter it with the throttle and/or the laser-precise steering. Despite its wheelbase growing an inch, overall length by 2, and width by 0.5 inch, weight is down by 50-90 pounds compared to the rear-drive F10 M5—and this is how an M5 should behave on a track.

The first time down the half-mile straight, the M5 piled on the speed as if it were in a vacuum without wind resistance. In what felt like a never-ending surge, and with each seamless, belching upshift, it just never stopped accelerating. All I could say to myself on that first lap and throughout that first sessions was: “Whoa. What. A. Motor!” For me, it defined the car in the morning, making the M5 feel like a uncaged beast that was ready to pick up asphalt and throw it at the cars following—which it did, and BMW reportedly replaced 10 windshields during the event.

On the Road

I was just getting comfortable. My hands had stopped sweating, and I had learned the track and just how much tail-out was allowed or discouraged by the car. I hadn’t yet dared look at the speedometer at the end of the straight. Too soon, however, the out lap, three hot laps, and one cool down were now behind us. We were assured that because it had rained on a previous group’s track day that there were plenty of M5-bespoke Pirelli P Zeros in the garage and that there would be afternoon hot-lapping. As we had planned, my co-driver for the afternoon road drive was none other than Jonny’s new Head2Head co-host, Jethro Bovington. And waiting for us in the parking lot was an identically equipped 2018 M5: Optional carbon-ceramic brakes (reducing corner weights by 50 pounds collectively), the M Driver’s Pack (raising the speed limiter from 155 to 189 mph), and 20-inch wheels with 275/35R20 and 285/35R20 tires.

The first order of business was to get out of town by negotiating a single roundabout then charging down an onramp onto the A16 headed north. Jethro wasted no time pressing the M2 button, and we blasted down the highway with the sat-nav system gently giving us guidance. It wasn’t long before we had arrived at the first toll station, and I asked Jethro, “If we were to arrive at the next one ‘too soon,’ would you expect to be fined for speeding?”

“I think that’s an urban myth meant to keep people from speeding,” he replied. “I’ve never heard of anybody getting nicked like that in all these years on European A roads. The speed cameras are real, but I don’t believe they time you between toll gates.”

At the first highway transition, Jethro really leaned on the car, and it just stuck to the line. “It’s really good at hiding its weight, isn’t it?” he asked. “The grip is tremendous, and it truly does feel rear drive. And this motor! Gawd.”

After a time we’d gotten off the A-routes and switched seats for the country road portion. At the first corner, I dabbed the brake and only the seat belts kept us from slamming into the dashboard. “Wow, these brakes take some getting used to, right?” I said.

We were going a good clip between towns, and interestingly, the nav system lagged behind so often that we missed several turns by the time we reached junctures. Besides that, the M5 that felt all-conquering on track and on the highway it suddenly felt all knees and elbows; the proverbial bull in a china shop. “Boy is this car big,” I said. “It takes up the entire width of this little road, and I don’t like those game-over drainage troughs one bit.”

The ride quality, too, suffered a great deal on broken pavement and even a short stretch of Belgian blocks through a small Portuguese hamlet. “Yeah, you really, really have to want this M5 to put up with the ride out here in the real world—even on the softest settings, it’s sports-car firm,” Jethro added. “Pretty punishing.” We both wondered why BMW hadn’t ventured into magnetorheological dampers yet. This would seem the perfect candidate for them. Licensing? Hmm.

The conversation continued. “I think most people will be more satisfied with a less-mental M550i xDrive,” Jethro added.

“Agree, but I’m glad they went all in with the M5,” I said. “Let’s get back to the track and queue up.”

Session Two

With the morning’s wisdom, new-found confidence in, and respect for the new M5, we took our place in line for a second opportunity to really probe the car’s limits on fresh tires behind two pro drivers, a DTM champ and Blancpain GT competitor/rising star. No sooner were we belted in our cars, M2 button pressed, than the pros leading the group of three chase M5s at a time wooded the throttle and did a glorious burnout in pit lane. Oh, it was go-fast time alright. The lead M5s were the liveried version of the Moto GP pace car that was curiously shod with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tires—not Pirellis. At any rate we were off and hell bent for leather.

If the morning session was all about appreciating the motor, then the afternoon was devoted to the chassis and driveline and finding the perfect line. The pro drivers were goading us to go faster and faster, and finally, we were at the limit of the car. I finally caught a glimpse of the speedo right before I got on the brakes into Turn One. It read, “270 kph” or 168 mph, to us yanks. No wonder the cars’ top speeds were raised for the event. We would’ve been on the 155-mph limiter well before the first turn. With all three lights indicating the most aggressive transmission mapping, it ripped matched-rev downshifts like a twin-clutch. It’s utterly indistinguishable in shift speed and intelligence. Turn after turn, I grew more confident in adding throttle sooner and sooner coming out of the corner. I found the less-strict limits of MDM mode (still not enough yaw to be truly fun) and switched it off completely. I didn’t delve into 2WD drift mode, but the incongruous thing, however, was that even with DSC shut off, it was so easy to dance the car around the track—clipping curbs, drifting wide on the exits, positioning the car inch-perfect, finding the ABS threshold, and backing off slightly to modulate the brakes into corners. The M5 simply does everything you want it to do and nothing you don’t. The M xDrive system is so fluid that a driver can scarcely detect its carbon-clutch pack shifting power to the front, and the Active M Dynamic differential out back effectively shifts torque side to side without using brakes. The harmony of all of this is astounding and what makes the new M5 deserving of the old, highly revered badge. What a car. What a supremely entertaining and capable super sedan it is.

OK, it’s great and all. So what’s the tariff?

How much would you expect to pay for all of this? At this point, only base pricing has been announced at $103,595, or precisely $1,800 below a comparable 2018 Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4Matic. Tantalizing, isn’t it? Adding the historical cost of the M5’s carbon-ceramic brakes ($9,250) and the Competition package (now M Driver’s pack) that includes the 20-inch forged aluminum wheels and specific tuning ($7,300) would indicate we were driving M5s that would easily exceed $120,000 before interior options. And it’s worth it. The last E63 S 4Matic we tested cost $145,160. Rest assured, however, that we will line up the next Head2Head with these two cross town rivals in a few months. Their on-paper credentials are startlingly close, and it’ll be a cage match for the ages. Watch this space.

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