#boston dynamics is evil though!

[sa-heelies]

my fatal flaw is that i actually love when people refer to ai and computers with human terms. ok yeah it's irresponsible and sometimes fearmongering and we shouldn't be mistaking algorithms for human thought because they are fundamentally just numbers and can never be a true representation of emotional states of being. but yes girl the capital of ireland is not belfast you ARE hallucinating!! ai is not an enemy to me but instead she is a lover. i will plunge my hand into her heart of wires if it kills me.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Cameos & Familiar Faces

Entirely subjective yadda yadda. Organized by favs in each category. No numbered lists anymore, tumblr be buggn'.

End of Aug Start Sept 2023

Ongoing Series - Thai

Laws of Attraction (Sat iQIYI) 8fin - Oh the DRAMA. Why does the insane ex (my true love) remind me of the cartel leader from Romancing the Stone? Even the sides got HEA! It was fucking great!!!!! Charn remains a bonkers spoiled evil murderous brat with a cruel smile beloved by his one true paladin. Also: post it love note trope! Been a long while my old friend. NO SINGING!!!!! I do love that wedding jacket frock coat cape thing Charn wore. 

In conclusion: This is a great gay suspense thriller with several solid couples, fun plot, killer characters, queer rep, and a happy ending. Charn may be my favorite lead character of 2023. However, this show is not entirely BL, more on the fringe, like Manner of Death. Add that to several "singing incidents" and pairs being a little weak in the chemistry arena, and this lands safely in 9/10 territory. It’s tons of fun tho: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. 

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Sat grey) ep 3 of 12 - This show is getting more and more lakorn each ep. Apparently the straights are having a class divide arranged marriage crisis. Who cares? Our boy is ALWAYS in trouble. Crazy that he has to save the people who betrayed him in a previous life - but I guess he chose revenge! That's unexpected.

Had to switch to grey and couldn’t find a working rip. It was frustrating and I wouldn’t have bothered except I like this show so much. Still, it means no screen caps because the rez is naff.

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 3 of 12 - Uh oh. Kang wants to save Sailom and be his hero. The fact that K’s Pa puts no pressure on him whatsoever, makes me wonder if K's Ma committed suicide or something? It’s definitely the opposite parental dynamic we normally see in BL. I have to say, the pacing is great in the show. And the acting is on point. It’s really great. 

Hidden Agenda (Sun YT) ep 8 of 12 - these two just kiss well. I mean not "rip your clothes off Taiwan-style," but sweet young boyfriends-esk. Joke wants to be claimed so bad. It’s great. I enjoyed this ep, unfortunately it looks like we have a manufactured angst drama drop in the next episode. Is this a 10 episode arc? I thought it was 12. It’s odd to have doom happening next episode already.

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 4 of 10 - Back story time! Ray and Mew are HARD to watch. Incestuous friend group gay is the worst. Omg I got such QAF vibes from this ep. Nick Boston Sand chats = very throw back 90s gay soaps. 

Location game moment: Top's hotel room is also Chan’s apartment in Laws Of Attraction. 

Naughty Babe (Sat YT) ep 1 of 8 - Ooo. Est is back! Hi handsome. Head of security suits you. Please lead out the new Waterboyy remake? You’re perfect for the role. (If it must happen.) Yi’s Pa is GREAT. Please give daddy a nice boy? Could that be our secondary couple for this series? 

Meanwhile, with the leads (sorry I was distracted by daddy) we got us an arranged marriage, run away bride, and an amnesia trope. Put in a secret baby and it's squarely 1980's Harlequin. Will there be Vikings? Sex herbs? Pirates? Dub con?

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 9 of 12 - Again with lovely sex scenes, it’s just the plot stringing them together is frayed. Also don’t fuck in an onsen. Both yech and ouch.

That goes for all y’all.  

Wedding Plan (Wed YT & iQIYI) ep 7fin - Trash watch here! Honestly this was an okay ending, I’m not mad at it. If you can tolerate Mame and liars (kinda the same thing) you’ll be fine with this show.

Summation: An innocent wedding planner falls haplessly and hopelessly in love with a groom who relentlessly pursued him, even though he’s about to marry someone else. A somewhat lackluster mame offering with less of the usual stellar chemistry, but all of the usual lies and manipulation. 7/10

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - I skip everything to do with Tammy and it’s fine. There’s only about 20 minutes of fine but that’s more than enough. On the bright side. So far. No singing.

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 2 of 24 eps - Cassanova Begins Part 2. Aw. It was sad. Another variation on the “my ghost boyfriend” trope (usually sad). 2/10 I don't do sad BL.

Next up is Merry Go Round featuring the pair from Destiny Seeker (we likey) who want to marry each other, but end up fake engaged to the same woman. Beard squared? Looks silly.

Crazy Handsome Rich (Sun Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - There are 2 things I like about this. I bet you can guess what they are.

Lee Long Shi

The whipping boy trope

There wasn’t enough of either in this first ep. ALSO the captions, sound effects, and voice over are truly next level bad. Utterly atrocious.

The 2 leads fucking around in the end credits was the funniest part of the whole show. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 7 of 8 - I am confused and frustrated about what the communication delay is between the two Juns. It feels artificial and narratively manufactured. But since this is a short form KBL and I know it will be resolved quickly, I’m not as annoyed as I would be if this were Thai BL. Still it feels audience manipulative. I also feel sorry for Simon. BUT it looks like it’ll be a sweet boyfriends final episode.

Stay By My Side (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 10fin - Omg they’re so cute!!! Taiwan the purveyors of ultimate sappy gay domesticity. I am going to miss having these to nonsencing all over my dash.

This show was an interesting take on the "ghost boyfriend" trope. About a boy who is tormented by hearing the dead, except when he is around one other boy - desperation+proximity = love. Unfortunately, the story was erratic and waffled about. While the leads turned in solid performances and the sappy domesticity was off the charts, it never really had the strength of the narrative convictions such a strong concept should have supplied. Highly rewatchable and enjoyable for that sappy domesticity but not a whole lot more. Still I always give extra credit for the diabetes-inducing sugar content and rewatch capacity. 8/10 

Kisseki: Dear to Me (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) eps 3 of 13(?) - I love the punching thing - there is a lot of violent flirting in this show. I’m not mad about it. Ugh, poor thing has real abandonment issues. And now trust issues. I see why we’re getting 12-14 eps. This gonna be MESSY.

Meanwhile, does EVERYONE have a guest cameo? Not that I’m complaining. Hi BLIHID boys! Now I need to rewatch that show. 

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 7-8 of 10 - Oh my God the next morning w/ couple 2 was so darn cute. They are all such terrible flirts with each other. Honestly, this show makes me laugh more than any other BL currently airing. I’m not sure it is meant to be as funny as I find it. While couple 3 (the mature characters) is by far my favorite, I actually think they don’t work with the other two pairs, they feel superfluous to the show. I like the show better because they’re in it, but it feels like two different BL‘s stuck together. KBL certainly can’t handle more than two couple threads at the same time. 

Why R U? (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 3-4 of 8 - Ugh. I am such a sucker for the FighterTutor dynamic. Why so good? Uh oh. Real kiss! KBL you're spoiling us. But, isn’t sad-seme-hyung dating some chick? Argh. Poor Sunwoo. This show is even worse at repping Fighter's character sympathetically. Who knew that was possible?

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 3 of 8 - The date episode! Even Japan is doing it now. And these two who have been living/fucking together for ages still dance around each other like junior high kids. I gotta say, I watch this one twice because Vicki has different subs from Gaga. I feel like it’s easier to understand if I watch two different translations of the same script. But it’s still quite a taciturn piece. 

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 8 of 12 - Sides are great. It was mostly a cute ep with tiny bits of Progress and a proper Confession. I miss Shin’s siblings. And then… the much loathed amnesia trope. Really?

Everyone say it with me: Must you, Japan? 

Stay Still (Hong Kong Tues YouTube) ep 5fin - It ended happier than I was expecting. Optimistic for one couple, and most likely optimistic for the other.

Summation: What to say about this offering from Hong Kong? It’s different, a mix of early CBL, Taiwanese shorts, and Pinoy visuals. It felt like the story was 2 independent shorts that had been lengthen and then stuck together, and I wish they'd been approached as separate and tighter entities. Nevertheless, this was a complex little piece,  interesting in a sweaty grungy way, with a certain aura of queer authenticity that made it simultaneously tense, unpredictable, and refreshing. I’m not sure I would necessarily call it BL, but any county’s early foray into the genre usually starts out this way, so perhaps nascent BL? Worth watching, especially if you enjoy stuff from the Philippines and Taiwan. 7/10

In case you missed it

Dinosaur Love ended its run but the final 2 eps are behind a paywall. Word on the street is they aren't good anyway (shocker) so I'm marking it as DNF and moving on with my life. If I can find em grey I'll watch 'em merely so I can give it a rating, but I can't imagine it will get more than 5/10. Seriously, do not bother.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Coming September

9/15 You Are Mine (Taiwan Gaga) Secretary has to deal with grumpy boss.

9/15 Bump Up Business AKA Bump Up Project (Korea movie) suspected cinema release? I don't know much about what's going on. Last status update. Love story between a trainee who is about to debut and a celebrity from the same agency. Kpop boy group OnlyOneOf has signed up to star in this idol-based BL (based on a webtoon). They’ve been auditioning for this since Libido IMHO. You can watch me chronicle their BL MV series in this post. It’s from Idol Romance who will do sad but can do good kisses (Wish You, Nobleman Ryu, Once Again, Kissable Lips, Poongduck 304, Tasty Florida, Tinted With You).

9/26 I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan ????) - Adapted from the manga, childhood best friends: The cool, smart one who’s good at everything, and his average, dorky friend who struggles. Always by the other’s side, but not together in the way they truly want to be. No matter how hard they try, their hearts cannot reach each other.

9/27 Absolute Zero (Thai iQIYI) - from 2021, Studio Wabi Sabi and New Siwaj finally bring us this “time loop to prevent tragedy” romance. We don’t always get HEAs from them, so I'm on my guard.

9/? Venus in the Sky (Thai iQIYI) 10 eps

9/? Mr Cinderella 2 (Vietnam YouTube?)

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Hidden Agenda hitting us up with a hug + lap + kiss. Very nice.

I think these two might be GMMTV's best cuddlers.

Boys, I think your JoongDunk is showing.

(Last week) 

[celiaelise]

I'm 9 episodes into season 5 of Elementary!

The costuming definitely HAS gotten better, though I still occasionally find Joan's outfits questionable. Like, all the jaunty little ties? They don't necessarily look bad, but i find them attention-grabbing in a way that seems at odds with her character. The time she wore what was basically a sexy boy scout uniform, complete with short-shorts, at the police station, surrounded by her male colleagues wearing normal suits? 😬

Also, I'm not sure I like that Sherlock's wardrobe also improved? Though i suppose one could argue that it's Joan's influence. But i thought the t shirt-and-blazer thing fit his character well.

I really like that Joan's abilities as a detective are always highlighted alongside Sherlock's! I like that Sherlock is well-established to be very emotion-driven, with him only acknowledging it some of the time. I like that there are very much people he does and doesn't like, sometimes for very petty reasons!

I liked getting to see him have disdain for his father in s4. That's just fun for me, idk. (I admit to also enjoying his disdain for Mycroft.) The "shadowy international crime syndicate" stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit lol, but it did work well for the story. (But, like...what do they even do?? Their aim is just, what? To kill people? Be evil? Those are not believable character motivations!)

I DON'T like that Sherlock dumped his autistic girlfriend!!! 😠 Honestly I wasn't even a huge fan of Fiona, (i didn't have anything against her, I was just kinda like, "mmm where are they going with this?") but it seemed kind of bogus that he was like, "oh it's not True Love since I don't talk to her about work." I especially thought it was bogus that Joan encouraged that line of thought, with, "well, either you're in love with her, or you're not 🤷🏻‍♀️" She was so excited when he first showed interest in Fiona! And since when is either detective such a staunch believer in ~True Love~?? 🙄 If anything, it seems healthy and positive that Sherlock, as obsessed with his work as he is, was willingly building a relationship that had nothing to do with it! If anything it should be GOOD that their relationship felt nothing like what he had with Irene!

I like the addition of Joan's sister, though it was a little contrived, and I was confused at first bc I thought Joan's biological father was white?? (I think I thought this bc I was under the impression that Lucy Liu was half white, but I can't remember why I thought that, so maybe I'm just wrong.) But I'm generally in favor of expanding Joan's circle, and adding women.

Obviously I wish the show wasn't so egregiously military-/copaganda 🙄 (but such is the burden of the detective show-enjoying leftist 😔) Also the writers' attempts to include cutting-edge topics definitely hasn't aged particularly well, imo. Like, can't we just solve a murder? Why does Boston Dynamics have to be here?

But, anyway. I'm still having a lot of fun!

[mydysfunctionalvampirefamily]

This is a long one, but in my defense it's almost 3 hours long!

Baby bootie??? Is my theory getting confirmed???

Neil and Wynn talking about their lost humanity. 😭

👀👀👀 How many eyes emojis is too much??

Okay I know it's not the time, but fucking called it! I didn't see the part where she was still pregnant when turned though. Omg! Holy fuck!

Wynn crying is making me cry. Also Neil and Wynn hugging. And just talking so good.

I'm with Neil, but it also makes me scared for him.

Just Wynn's immediate okay when Neil says he's not gonna fail anyone else either.

So the toreador primogen is not Elsa, oh wait from his own domain, I get stuff, I'm not stupid.

Britta is just staying quiet for a long time when pendragon asks what Rowlands has taught her. Even double bloodbonded she cannot lie. 😂

Pendragon really is what I expected Rowlands to be... Sane.

Okay but why Britta though, there has to be a specific reason. Tell me!

Fabrication representation? Wait he sent the coterie to Boston so Britta could be acknowledged there???? But why??

You will be bathed??? This feels like one of those mid evil ward/hostage type stuff.

Instead of mind games pendragon should just have shown Britta the bathroom. 😂

A fucking velvet dress??? Of fucking course. He really is like one of those fantasy evil dukes that kidnaps a lady.

Shaw's sire!!!! 👀

The dress was made for her with correct measurements?? Insane!

Most protective over the jacket 👀

Please god make it be a real mirror. Noooooooooooooooo.

Britta hiding her face as she tries not to lose it all alone.

On the one hand he [Rowlands] doesn't even let his ghouls dress him anymore, on the other hand he had his ghouls dress him in the first place???

Wynn and Miles have such a specific weird dynamic 😂

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a dirty mind. 😂

Miles taking the time to try and teach Wynn how to talk while preparing for praxis. Oh it's judt one lesson, nvm. 😂

Wynn: teach me.

Miles: think before you speak.

Wynn: sounds fake but okay.

Oh Johnny crying, offering his services to the humans.

Vampires are such creeps. 😂

All this laughter is a prequel to some bad shit. It just has to.

What is this conversation?? A sexy, kind of gothy, guy liner Miles. I'm kind of into it.

Neil is soooo awkward 😂

Okay I know I thought pendragon was annoying before, but he has a lot of style.

OH MY GOD!!! I scared my dog by yelling that loud. That fucking phone call. HE CHOSE ELSA!!! I know exactly the person who will love that.

Britta choosing gold to be closer to Wynn.

Goddamn pendragon is not messing around. Sheesh.

Fester is so creepy but also so funny and pathetic

Why don't we go in smelling the same? It'll be fun.... So unhinged

Roll for diablerie!!!!!!

[cabe0512]

Richter Belmont and Maria Renard, the Duo Protagonists of The Rondo of Blood.

Even with the bigger cast of characters for The Rondo of Blood, it's best that I should narrow the focus of the first few arcs down to the main protagonists of the story, namely Richter, Maria, and later Annette.

I personally loathed the way Nocturne portrayed Maria as this foul-mouthed, sarcastic revolutionary instead of the lovely, purehearted character whose compassion and unwavering hopefulness is what compelled her to face such harrowing dangers that even Dracula found endearing. So I took influence from that and being 12 years old in the game, she undergoes a certain character arc where her worldview is tested by the obstacles she meets like Shaft, the Revolution, and her own developing abilities, forcing her to grow and mature as both a child and as a magician.

Richter, on the other hand, is leagues different from his portrayal in Nocturne (which I equally despised for how badly-written and inconsistent it was). Even though he still faces a great tragedy back in 1783 (this time it's his father, Reinhardt Schneider, a distant descendant of Trevor Belmont, who dies at the hands of Eztli/formerly N!Olrox), Richter developed a sense of guilt that further boiled into anger and would be the driving force behind his desire to be stronger, in hopes of protecting his mother (now named Sonja Belmont) from a similar fate.

Richter also recovered his magic earlier in the year 1789, the same year he met the young alchemist Annette de Winter and Sonja being killed by the same vampire behind his father's murder, further fueling his thirst for vengeance. Annette becomes his close friend and companion as they survived the horrors that came with the outbreak of the revolution, with their bond growing stronger over their shared grief as Annette also lost her mother Iris earlier that year. Under Juste's tutelage, Richter had grown accustomed to his magical abilities and strives to do his parents justice by saving innocent lives from the forces of evil and hunting down the vampire Eztli.

The main storyline begins in 1792 just as the two first met in Boston with Maria having escaped the chaos in France, being forced to leave Annette behind which weighed heavily on her conscience. This would give me the opportunity to build up their dynamic a lot more than Nocturne, forming a makeshift siblingship bond during the little time they had in Boston. Bound by their shared love for Annette (being Maria's adoptive older sister and guardian), the duo leave the comforts of America behind and return to France to save their lost friend from a rising threat across the sea.

[allycat75]

The more I think about it, Boston Dumb Fuck, you are such a fucking patsy!

You ruined your life to try to give a boost to an untalented, lazy, arrogant childish, entitled, fatshaming, racist antisemite, tying yourself to her well beyond the eventual "break up". We know this, even though you still try to push your Political Avenger persona down our throats, unable to recognize, whether just because of obliviousness, ego or your rich, white male privlege, but you can't have both. Maybe that is why you have been doing such a bad job with ASP, wasting everyone's time, or even setting us back, as democracy hangs in the balance.

The sad thing is you didn't need to set yourself on fire for this little half Teutonic Twit. In Judiaism, we have a term called Dayenu, meaning "It would have been enough". If you've attended a Passover Sedar, which I sense you have, I believe you are familiar with the concept. Your annoying tweets promoting Warrior Nun in early 2022, leading up to the beyond embarrassing pap walk that looked like you were taking your bratty niece to her dance class, were serving their purpose. I even remember an article saying your tweets did more to promote the show than Netflix marketing was doing. Unfortunately, you also did more than your now wifey did. All you needed to do was continue the illusion of a relationship with said sloth Lolita (kinda like you did for those ghost ceremonies that never took place) and create a mystery about her and her show, or any subsequent projects, and she should have been held responsible for the rest. It isn't too much to ask that she lift a finger to further her own career. If she was deemed worthy of this opportunity she should be able to do the bare minimum of what her job requires. We can debate the vetting process and why she was chosen over more talented, dynamic and less evil and bigoted actresses who look like grown women, but we can save that for another day. Giving her more of your life has done absolutely nothing to raise her stock, and has plummeted yours. The results of this hands off approach would have been infinitely better, with much less effort and permanent damage.

But no, you went full bore and "married" the Nazi, lost your integrity, trustworthiness, moral compass, dignity and ultimately, your soul. You humiliated yourself as you made the wrong move at every single turn, became a user of people you supposedly care about, often without their permission, sacrificed your loyal fanbase, thinking we would be like you and just sit and take the abuse. Hubris is a bitch, though, and we left in droves, leaving you with bots, clout chasers and people who forgot they were following you (or thought they were following another Chris). You even exploited your beloved Dodger for this psychotic manipulation. Be thankful he doesn't know who you are, he would be ashamed.

What was so great that they promised you, or what was so bad that this was the preferred alternative? Was it worth it? Do you have the mettle to claw your way back?

I suggest you take a step back, regroup and work harder than you have ever worked before to relearn how to be a human adult, and tell the goddamn truth, no matter the consequences. Because, guess what? It will come out eventually and may not be spun so favorably in your direction. You have surrounded yourselves with vipers that put you in this perilous situation in the first place and would not hesitate to sacrifice you for their greater good. Besides, it is never a good look trying to chase a story; it is always better to get ahead of it.

[shall-we-go-far-away]

now that was an episode!! whew, I don't even know where to start

Boston, god damn it Boston, he's so uurrgh, he's so weird like I genuinely don't know what his deal is.. ok, he's seems to want something from Top but is it necessary to literally manipulate every single person around you?? I felt like this ep. we followed him going from one person to another and just completely fucking them over

I don't even know how to describe it but whenever Boston is on screen my brain just goes "ew!" with literally everything he does, I know nothing in the show or trailer implies that there's gonna be murder involved but Boston genuinely gives me serial killer vibes I don't know how to explain it

and you know how I said I don't like Boston and Top, well this ep. didn't exactly made me like Top but at least showed me Top had some sort of humanity left in him while I think Boston is just a straight up asshole

Top is still weird to me, he's like a huge question mark he seems to like Mew and is obviously interested, I guess that's why he seemed a little hurt when Boston showed him the picture of Mew and Ray kissing but that really doesn't justify him having sex with Boston especially after Boston said the photo was from two years ago?? like bestie, you seem to be having serious trust issues

moving on to Sand and Ray, I'll just tackle them in one because as of right now they are the only pairing with a realistic chance of ending up together, I think their dynamic is fun but they walk this really thin line between just sex and feelings which yes, they did dicuss but we all know this isn't going to work out

their scene in the car gave us a reality check of where their relationship really is at because Ray is still into Mew, he enjoys Sand's company and all that but Mew still is more important and you could tell by Sand's reaction that he felt kind of betrayed, he let Ray have his way even though he said he never slept with someone twice that wasn't his lover only for Ray to leave him in the middle of everything

now I don't mind Ray being there for his friends, yk that's nice of him but like, he could've handled that a little different.. I also think this isn't going to be the only time Ray leaves Sand for Mew which is gonna lead to this whole "what-even-are-we-can-you-focus-on-me-for-once"-situation we saw in the trailer

I'm also really intrigued by the history between Top and Sand like how do they know each other?? why do they obviously not like each other?

now, Mew.. I've seen a few people say he's like the evil mastermind behind everything but, no I don't think so, I just think he's less innocent and naiv as he's painted to be like he's not stupid and I could see him playing all nice but if something really pisses him off he'll snap for sure

and last but not least.. the nations meow meow Nick!! now up until ep. 2 I thought he was simply the unfortunate guy that falls for the asshole and gets nothing but pain and suffering in return.. and while I do think that's what's gonna happen he could also very well be the reason that drives the whole friend group apart in the end because my guy is really getting all the tea, he's sleeping with Boston, he lives with Sand who's got something going on with Ray who again, is friends with Boston, he knows Top from Boston's photos and has now been introduced to the rest of the friend group.. Nick could be pulling so many strings if he wanted to but I guess we'll see how that develops

[faith-thee-slayer]

What makes Buffy and Faith such an excellent pairing for me is the ambiguous, undefined nature of their dynamic. BTVS never explicitly states their relationship as romantic (and even with the piles of subtext, a lot of it is ambiguous enough for an unsuspecting audience to be none the wiser). And a lot of character dynamics in media tend to focus more on the romantic end. We all want to see an epic romance (I do too), and of course romance can be complicated and messy, but what fascinates me the most are the complicated dynamics that aren’t straightforwardly stated as “the characters have feelings for each other/are in love.” What has me captivated is when their dynamic is left up to interpretation, able to be explored on several different levels at once. I think Buffy and Faith have one of the best dynamics on the show because they are not explicitly romantic. I think a canon recognition of such feelings for each other would actually limit the reading of their dynamic (and I know this sounds strange coming from a Fuffy stan but hear me out).

Buffy and Faith’s dynamic has several facets to it, most notably:

1. The Slayer-bond — They are the only two people on the planet that know what it’s like to be the Slayer. They are sisters, in that regard. You could almost say they’re blood-related, united under a birthright and an ancient system which oppresses and controls them. Cut from the same cloth, whether they choose to accept it or not. Both envy the other, wanting to be the other girl. Both feel like they’re being replaced by the other. They are Cain and Abel. And after everything, when the Potentials take refuge in Buffy’s home, she and Faith have to step up and be the leaders the girls need.

2. Desire for the chosen family — Faith will never admit it but she wants the love of a family, what she never had in Boston. When she meets the Scoobies, she hopes they can be that for her. And Buffy, though she does have a family in Sunnydale, still feels like they can’t truly understand her. Once Buffy and Faith meet, the potential is there for them to both get exactly what they need. But failures on both sides prevent this from happening. And it doesn’t help that the Mayor is the thing that the Scoobies couldn’t be for Faith. She admits more than once how much she covets Buffy’s friends, family, and Watcher, and her exclusion from the “in-group” continues to be a point of contention throughout the series.

3. Antagonism — It hurts hard when Faith betrays Buffy. Even if they didn’t get off to a great start, their connection develops over the season, and you can tell they never wanted to be enemies. But due to their individual natures, as well as the building of emotions surrounding their slayer bond, the attempts (or lack thereof) at making Faith feel connected to the in-group, and the fallout after Allan Finch, their relationship fractures. Faith feels driven to evil and that’s what she becomes. And being someone who fights evil, Buffy has to go against her. And it hurts so much for both of them — because you think you know someone and can trust them. You feel like you’ve finally found the thing you’ve been looking for all this time. And then one day you wake up and all that’s gone. And you do horrible things to each other. And you know that it’ll never go back to the way things were before. And neither of you will be the same person again. Even years later, when they come together to stop the First, the history is still there between them. Will the elephant in the room ever go away? Or will it always be a trigger for the both of them to jump right back to old times?

4. "They were in love” — Of course we cannot forget the lovers lens when talking about these two. In a lot of ways, it’s the interpretation that makes the most sense for them. The levels of intense emotion that these two reach, especially on Faith’s end, can be hard to justify in a platonic light. And that was after Faith’s flirting, her dismissal of all men, disdain for Angel, and making everything in her life about Buffy. There’s also the deliberate parallels of Faith to Angel and Spike (main two explicit love interests) to the point where Riley (third explicit love interest) is often overlooked in favor of Faith. Buffy is ultimately her weakness. She wants Buffy to care about her, approve of her, be there for her, and to see that they are the same person. And when the shit hits the fan, Faith is absolutely devastated. Heartbroken to the point of aiding in the apocalypse, trying to kill the Scoobies, Angel, Joyce, doing the body swap, etc. Anything to hurt Buffy back. And Buffy is heartbroken because of Faith’s turn into evil. She begs Faith to let her in and help. She fights for Faith in the hopes of bringing her back to sanity, but once she realize Faith is helping the Mayor, she shuts her feelings off because it’s easier. And when she has to put a knife in Faith? When she kisses Faith’s forehead in the hospital (mirroring Faith’s first kiss to her)? When she dreams about Faith? When Faith wakes up months later and Buffy’s first thought is that she’s hiding somewhere, feeling sorry and wanting her help? Anyway...

All of these different aspects/lenses carry a unique weight in viewing Buffy and Faith’s connection to each other. But I think that by putting a significant amount of weight on the romantic lens via canon confirmation, the other lenses lose the ability to stand on their own outside of a romantic reading. Because then it becomes strictly “they went through all that they went through and did all those things to each other because they always had feelings for each other.” All moments of affection/obsession one of them has for the other are seen solely as romantic. Which, is a fine reading, but it overshadows other ways of viewing the dynamic, and becomes the most important/only way of looking at it. We then miss out on the sister dynamic, the “I want to be you” dynamic, the “you are the one who understands me the best but I actually want to be completely separate from you,” the estranged family members dynamic in S7. Ultimately, I think we rarely see two characters on the same side obsessed with each other in a non-romantic way. It’s so fascinating and occupies this unidentifiable space in human relationships. It becomes less easily explainable and understood.

And it does a justice to both Buffy and Faith’s characters if we see their actions as existing outside of their relationship. I love seeing Faith’s development as she becomes her own person separate from Buffy. She breaks out of prison to save her best friend and prove she can be a Slayer again. She chooses redemption for herself. She makes amends with who she can. She rejects the First when it comes to her in the form of the Mayor. She experiences what it is to be responsible for the lives of other. And after their last confrontation in ‘Sanctuary,’ Buffy gets to move on from Faith and heal/focus on other things in her life. And she goes through a-fucking-lot from S4 to S7. Before I want Buffy and Faith to get together, I want them to HEAL and to GROW. I want them to be the best versions of themselves and not so codependent (as much as it makes for good drama).

So that’s what I appreciate about Fuffy — the romantic reading isn’t the Official reading, it’s just one of several fascinating angles. It’s like the cherry on top. Some of the best dynamics in the Buffyverse are the ones that are friendships, or more familial (siblings, parent-child), or complexly antagonistic. Somehow Buffy and Faith are capable of doing nearly all of it at the same time without actually ascribing any one label to themselves. Amazing.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with nevdull

nevdull has 8 stories at Gossamer, and there are more X-Files fics at her website. They wonderfully and smartly capture the Mulder/Scully dynamic in various ways. I’ve recced some of my favorites here before including Fish for Fallen Light and Gazzaniga. Big thanks to nevdull for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm surprised if there are wholly new readers, less so if people are revisiting old favorites and following discussions (like this one!) that might bring stories to their attention that they missed. I know of at least one "classic" story group reads that featured one of mine and it was extremely flattering to have been picked. I haven't done much fic re-reading myself but I completely understand the impulse to return to a beloved story.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was all so positive for me. I'm no stranger to internet drama but I didn't get drawn into it with this community (and when drama would erupt I generally had no idea what anyone was talking about!). I had a small group of friends I knew either purely online or partially in person and read the kinds of stories I liked or were recommended. I got a chance to practice both writing and editing, and get introduced to the practice of supportive critique that fandom does especially well. (Most modern software is extensively peer-reviewed, and I think I brought a lot of what I experienced with beta reading to my practice of code review both as a programmer and a manager.)

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

atxc first, as I was very active on Usenet in general. But I connected most with the Scullyfic mailing list. The writing prompts were especially fun to play with.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

XF is my only fandom experience—I've gotten into other shows but I've read very little other fanfic and I've never gone to cons. I tried following some of my favorite writers to other fandoms where I also liked the source material (Buffy, Bones) but it just didn't take. XF was singular for me in that way.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I got a pretty late start, I think around season 5, and had to work backward. Watching was a group ritual with my roommates and I would occasionally forward some fandom things to them like the blooper reels or super top secret spoilers, but I was the only one who went all-in with the online community.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

The naughty stories! At first that was the only thing that made sense to me to read, because that was what was missing from the show. I didn't immediately grasp why anyone would read casefiles or post-ep fic or other genres—ironically these were the genres I ended up writing in. As time went on I would read just about anything from a favorite author or that got strong recommendations.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Occasional get-togethers with the Boston crew, and I had fun live-watching some of the recent season with folks on Facebook.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

My memory here is pretty poor and I'm going to forget lots of authors whose work I really loved, but just to list a few: Jesemie's Evil Twin, Anjou, syntax6, prufrock’s love, cofax, Penumbra, and Vehemently.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I write (and do advocacy work for) a different sort of niche: interactive fiction, which has some overlap with video games but also the broader writing community through tools like Twine. Interactive fiction (IF) and Twine in particular has become an active area for authors from underrepresented groups. Like fanfic, IF is generally authored for free and is often people's first opportunity to get their work in front of a worldwide audience. (Also like fanfic, several IF authors have gone on to full-time writing careers as either novelists or journalists. And I know of at least one other IF author who got their start writing XF fic.) My IF story Stone Harbor definitely draws from an XF tradition, though I didn't realize that until just now!

What's the story behind your pen name?

There's a special file on many operating systems called /dev/null, which acts like a black hole—anything you write to it is immediately deleted. It's just a tweak on that.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

At the time I was writing I treated it like a big secret, which seems silly now—especially since my stories are pretty tame. These days I don't advertise it just because it was so long ago, but I don't mind if people know. My husband is fully aware of the crew I hang out with on New Year's Day, and why.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I'm on Twitter as @liza and for some reason my stories are still up on https://nevdull.tripod.com/ and at Gossamer.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Thanks for everything y'all taught me!

(Posted by Lilydale on January 19, 2021)

[phoebehalliwell]

Piper/Kyle, except it's an AU where Kyle's parents were never killed by demons, so he lived a perfectly normal, happy childhood and grew up to follow their footsteps into teaching and Kyle's a normal, maybe even a little boring archaeology professor who secretly dreams of having his very own Indiana Jones moment - up until the day he opens some dusty old chest and unleashes a demon that tries to kill him, and he barely gets away only to run into this petite brunette woman who proceeds to blow the demon the fuck up, and Kyle's never believed in love at first sight before, but he's pretty sure he can make an exception for Piper

wait omg mentally stable kyle au okay wait i gotta wrap my head around this kyle but not absofuckinlutely insane whatta picture omg. okay. i feel like he’s still gotta have this belief in the supernatural i feel like that’s a large part of the charm in literally any kyle dynamic with the sisters is Witch Who Gets It and Man Who’s Only Got Raw Data. there’s an appeal to that. seeing things from different angles all that. so we can say kyle ever good at puzzles has taken his parents notes and everything he knows and various texts and kinda pieced together okay magic does exist. but in this au he’s a professor and not an fbi agent so he can’t just walk around saying Magic Is Real because um he needs this job. also he’s never seen it. but like. the data does not like. like. like it’s real man like are you kidding me. and we’ll say he has one normal friend because he’s normal in this au and he’s like okay here me out tho magic is real and his friend is like ......okay. because like. it could be, i guess? i’m not gonna fight you on this. and kyle also definitely read a lot as a kid he reads a lot now and he’s always kinda like. like you know wondered what it might be like to be a man of action not someone stuck behind a desk all day seeing the world through books. so when he starts to see markers of the gathering storm,,, well. these are the times that make a man. he can either be a pussy about it and keep living his life through paper and ink, or he can follow his intuition. blah blah blah this leads him to get kidnapped by pirates which like. excuse me??? and kyle’s kinda kicking himself because he Wanted to be like a character in an adventure book and well like bada bing bada boom you get what you ask for. which. all due respect on his part. is smart enough to outwit them and escape. he might have dropped his wallet there tho. but when he goes back the same route wandering through the thick fog, all he finds is a solid wall of rock. so i guess he’s fucked in that regard. whoops. but!! magic is real. so that’s a dub. digs a little bit more into the blackjack cutting lore, maybe finds the x marks the spot on where their main hideout was, road trip to. seattle? i guess? port city that isn’t san francisco but is more reasonable to drive to that like. nola or boston. and lo and behold he finds it and find their documentation of the gathering storm accidentally trips a booby trap and jesus fucking christ pirate skeletons with sword which - respectfully - kyle is holding his own for the most part, not getting immediately worried, but there’s no way that would have lasted had the three skeletons not been blown to pieces. and he looks over and sees three brunettes and the one in the center is like who the hell are you? to which kyle really feels like He should be the one asking that question but after stammering out some kind of response about how he’s a professor and he was just looking for some soil samples something generic archaeological because hey. he doesn’t trust these women. he doesn’t know what side they’re on. and he’s not just gonna sacrifice the information he has on the gathering storm. and it’s obvious they don’t believe him, but they don’t kill him either. instead, the one in the center just says be more careful where you leave your stuff and tosses his wallet back to him.

and later at the manor paige is like we just let him go?? and phoebe’s like yeah how to we know he’s not a demon? he wouldn’t be the first to pose as a mortal in the mortal world (because phoebe went to the university to return kyle’s wallet because like it has is ID in it employee id all that under the guise of like. giving a lecture to some of the student’s there as the bay’s leading advice columnist oh hey is there a kyle brody here yeah haha he’s a friend of a friend anyone seen him no he’s on vacation right now? left real abruptly? and then immediately went into his office and touched every surface trying to get a premonition (au in which phoebe didn’t get her powers stripped) and concluded that he’s just Some Guy. like he like has friends and a nine to five and an apartment. so a guy). but piper’s like we don’t know. but we also don’t know what he’s up to or what his connection to the pirates was, which is why i cast a tracking spell on the wallet. and both phoebe and paige approve and in this au again phoebe didn’t get her powers stripped so in styx feet under it’s her and paige on mission and as paige is the one who cast the protection spell and as paige is also very stubborn and also refuses to let innocents die she is the one who gets to become death. she also has a very compelling relationship with death because like. she watched her parents die. and she’s prue’s replacement. the replacement for the dead girl. also fun paige/prue parallel! meanwhile right Should state in any piper/kyle au we just extend pleo’s divorce era by having him remain an elder and keeping that early s6 vibe. so piper’s definitely like a bit more neurotic than normal because you know things haven’t gone great for her and those pirates were warning about the gathering storm and honestly that better not be something that’s gonna hurt her boys because she really could not bear to lose another family member so she’s doing some digging which begins to imply that kyle knows more that he let on so where is he now? the university? great.

and kyle’s you know minding his own business in his office when the same woman practically kicks down his door and is like alright i’m gonna ask again who the hell are you and this time you better answer me honestly. to which: wow. like wow. she’s. she’s a force to be reckoned with and also kinda immediately gains points in kyle’s book for like a) kinda confronting him about knowing more because he’s pretty good at covering his tracks all that so if he’s been Found Out it’s by someone good and b) she also disintegrated evil pirate skeletons so like. 👍. But. he does not trust her for shit. no. absolutely not. he has no reason to. but piper’s not yielding blasts a hole in the wall near his head like quickly now or next time i won’t miss but kyle’s so fuckin stubborn he’s like 🤐 and piper’s. i mean, she can’t kill an innocent. she doesn’t know if that’s who he is, but she can’t run that risk. and kyle’s not saying shit, so she leaves.

then it’s the guardian angel episode where the charmed ones are there on instruction (though they don’t know what they’re looking for. maybe they were just scrying for information) and kyle’s there on a hunch and piper and kyle see each other and it’s um. mac charlie see each other from across the room reaction image. both like. what the fuck are you doing here? and in this one paige is still the one to get her guardian angel stolen and piper’s immediately on high alert because you know big sister/mom mode activated. but they don’t know what they’re looking for and kyle’s like it’s her guardian angel. and piper once again snaps to him firey look in her eyes but kyle’s really just trying to place nice here so he’s like guardian angels. they’ve been going missing being stolen whatever. he’s got the research on it. and piper doesn’t want to trust him but paige is really in grave danger. so, as the sister with the offensive power, she’s going with kyle, and phoebe has to make sure paige doesn’t like. pull a grams. (which for the record i do not accept prewitched as canon but like the elders definitely killed grams <3)

so blah blah blah piper’s now and kyle’s place which is ten times worse than his office because this is where he does his real work and he’s got all the guardian angel shit up and out and is explaining it to piper and it’s making sense but what catches her eye is something on the gathering storm that kyle left out now they’re talking about that they’re starting to realize they’re on the same side. blah blah blah save paige. next episodes what werewolf episode. skip. then!! idk paige still runs magic school right so she’s in the library and she calls piper and she’s like hey remember when you told me to keep an eye out on the gathering storm? and piper’s like yes yeah what is it? and she’s like well we’re inventorying the library and we have books on them and piper’s like that’s good news ! ? and paige is like yeah but we’re missing one. book five. in this something something series. and piper knows Exactly where that book is because she fucking saw it on kyle’s kitchen counter. so now she’s barging into kyle’s place which is getting to be a common occurrence at this point and kyle kinda wants to complain but this is by far the most interesting his life’s been ever and honestly? he’d be kinda bummed if piper stopped kicking down his door. wait actually scratch that you want my book no fuck you changed my mind. to which piper’s like look we’re looking for the same goal here right so give me the book because i have the rest of the series and this could be the missing puzzle piece and kyle’s like okay fine i’ve read the book cover to cover give me the rest of the series and i’ll get you your answers and piper’s like okay let’s get things straight here i’m the witch you’re some two bit archeology professor so when it comes to the handling of sacred magical tomes i’ll be taking the reigns here and kyle’s like fine then you won’t be taking the book. and piper’s like wanna bet and the next think kyle knows he’s hearing the door slam his book’s gone and he’s hearing tires peel out onto the street and he has no idea how she did it. 

back at the manor piper’s got her reading glasses on an volume one open and god this fucking sucks. so she makes phoebe take a stab at it and she hates reading it too. paige also starts it and is like respectfully no. piper’s the only one who did the reading in high school. this is her turf. but my god she cannot make it through all eight of these fucking books. So. she calls kyle. he has to come to the manor because there’s no way she’s giving him the books and there’s no way she’s letting him in magic school so. hi. welcome to the house. but!! by a contrived plot device!!!! a gnome has been shot in magic school this book was the only thing at the scene and paige wants to investigate further but she can’t just leave it out there so she brings it back to the manor she’s gonna cast some spell to find out if there are already spells on the book how to reverse it she just needs to find the spell first and like. there’s no way in hell paige ever wears an outfit with big enough pockets to keep the book on her. so she leaves it on the table. to which kyle asks how this is relevant to the collection. to which piper says don’t open that!! whoops. see, this is why i said we don’t let two bit archeology professors near magical books! piper/kyle charmed noir..............

[liambo]

did you see the boston dynamics dog got sold to the NYPD recently. i think a few smaller departments picked it up too

No I haven't, though admittedly I don't know a lot about the situation in America. If you use a tool for evil then it's obviously terrible, I have no idea what their intentions are but I can just hope it's regulated accordingly.

[lacquerware]

Sekiro has one big similarity to Bionic Commando, and it's not what you think

Spoiler Warning: Sekiro, Bionic Commando (NES)

Progress in Sekiro is meted out through challenging boss fights and punctuated with scenic, relatively safe traversal sequences that enhance the sense that you’re on a textured journey that’s headed somewhere. Fairly early in the game, after you’ve found your initial footing and conquered a few lifebars bearing fancy names, the game pulls a fast one on you: As you’re scaling some cliffs to get to the next part of the game, a snake roughly the size of Godzilla glides into view—filling your view—and looks at you like you’re the last donut hole in Boston. What was supposed to be a rejuvenating slice of downtime is suddenly the most stressful situation Sekiro has placed you in so far. A harrowing stealth sequence ensues, where you must divide your time between hiding and madly dashing for the next hiding spot.

Eventually you escape into a cave and get on with your life without confronting the beast, but a new seed of anxiety has started to sprout; eventually you’ll have to confront this thing. It’s Sekiro’s way of shaking the confidence you’ve spent the first chunk of the game building. “You think you’re all that because you beat an eight-foot ogre who started the fight in shackles? Sit back down, insect.”

From then on, the Great Serpent becomes a sort of sinister mile marker, dividing your journey broadly into acts with recurring reminders that your successes don’t mean you’re not still a tiny worm on a giant fucking cosmic hook. At one point it ambushes you on a rope bridge, leaving you floating helplessly in the water below. Another time, you find its shed skin adorning the scenery.  

In my many hours and playthroughs with Sekiro, I’ve come to learn that there is some variation to the order in which the game’s key events may unfold, but on my first playthrough, I’d done just about everything possible before finally emerging from that Sunken Valley cavern to find the Great Serpent nestled asleep on a cliffside a few hundred feet below. I’d acquired the Mortal Blade as well as all the ingredients for the Fountainhead Incense. The dreaded Guardian Ape was dead, then undead, then dead-dead. It was clear I was about to enter a new, late phase of the game, but then there she was, once again laying watch over my only path forward.

I edged forward on the overlooking wooden beam, scanning for grapple points or other escape options. There were none, but I was startled to find I could lock onto the slumbering Serpent’s head. Ah, I thought. This is the fight I’ve been dreading all along. Nothing left but to walk the plank and wake the dragon. I gulped, wiped the sweat off my palms, and dove . . . .

As I plunged, I was again startled to see the familiar red smudge of a Deathblow opportunity appear on the Serpent’s head. I spewed some fragments of syllables as my finger scrambled for the R1 button. It registered and Sekiro readied his sword in midair. Unexpected as this was, it occurred to me that many boss fights had begun this way, with a Deathblow opportunity that knocked off one of the boss’s multiple life bars. There was no special reason to think this would preclude a grueling fight, until, that is, Sekiro tore his sword through the Serpent’s uncaring reptile brain, drenching the entire landscape in a downpour of strawberry rhubarb jam and leaving the Serpent a dangling dead decoration. The fight was over before it had begun.

I’ve already commended Sekiro for being FromSoft’s first game in the “Souls” template not to be centered around discouragement, but this dramatic display of leniency was downright motivational. It was like your drill sergeant surprising you with a pizza party instead of the expected twenty-mile march.

“It’s fucking dead?!” I said out loud to my wife in the other room.

“What’s dead?”

“A snake in a video game.”

“Oh.”

But to me it was astounding. This colossal demon, whose prime function up to now had been to keep my confidence in check, had now fallen to my little blade in one of the most spectacular shows of player triumph I’d seen in my more than thirty years of gaming. What I’d thought was the game’s way of saying “You’ve haven’t accomplished as much as you think you have” was ultimately the game’s way of saying I’d accomplished more. Even this impossibly large beast, this divine manifestation of terror itself, which had made every other adversary look puny and insignificant, was now dead. What a shot in the arm! There was no stopping me now.

After finishing Sekiro, I realized this moment had been instrumental in creating the lasting impression that, unlike Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Sekiro never seeks to discourage or punish. It also contributed heavily to the dynamic contour of the whole experience, which is a major thing I think Sekiro has over my beloved Nioh. It aspires and succeeds at being more than a game with a predictable loop—it’s an odyssey of diverse sights and experiences, and the Great Serpent kill feels like the centerpiece. My favorite moment of Sekiro.

Some time later, I had a shower thought: Bionic Commando on the NES, one of my all-time favorite games, had done something very similar more than thirty years prior. The Japanese version of the game includes Hitler’s Resurrection (ヒットラーの復活) right in the title, but in America it’s not until the climactic showdown that you even know it’s a game about defeating Hitler. Until then, your ostensible adversary is Generalissimo Killt, an imposing, sneering, decorated man with all the trimmings of a fictional fascist. He taunts you face-to-face early on in one of the game’s RPG town-esque neutral zones, where you have no recourse even though your bionic arm could surely crush his skull like a grape in a condor beak.

When you finally meet again, Killt stands regal before a towering stasis chamber with a human figure floating within. He says something menacing about “Master-D” and a “revival device,” makes a threat on your life, and then the encounter is cut short by an apparent electrical malfunction. With a powerful jolt, the device unceremoniously kills Killt before he can even try to make good on his threat. 

The floating figure within the chamber slowly emerges and speaks. Despite his censored name, the pixelated portrait that accompanies his dialogue box is unmistakable—an eerily lifelike rendering of Adolph Hitler. I was six or seven when I first witnessed this moment, but thanks to Mom’s yearly Yom Kippur tradition of breaking out the Holocaust picture book, Hitler’s stony visage was already imprinted upon my brain. He was my boogeyman, the subject of recurring nightmares, and now somehow he’d invaded my video game. This real-life association made him formidable in a way no other video game villain could touch (no, not even Mike Tyson). It was personal and terrifying in a way no game had been. In an instant, the stakes of this adventure soared sky-high. Hitler was the Great Serpent, a terrible titan sent to ambush your confidence.

After his grand entrance, Hitler unleashes upon you the “Albatros” [sic], a hulking, amorphous war machine outftitted with rhythmically spewing flame vents and a pulsating organ. A tense fight ensues, putting your swinging and shooting skills to the ultimate test. Finally, the Albatross explodes in a screen-filling spectacle of pyrotechnics, and you emerge on an elevated precipice just in time to hear the dying words of a wounded comrade, Hal: Hitler is getting away in a chopper, and it’s up to you to stop him. Even the ultimate test had fallen far short of stopping this monolithic evil.

Hal hands over a bazooka and instructs you to aim for the chopper’s cockpit as you leap from the precipice. You edge forward, scanning for grapple points. You gulp, wipe the sweat off your palms, and swing . . . .

As you plunge, you fire off a single shot. It strikes the glass. You land.

“Your number’s up! Monster!”

Now bear in mind that up to this point, only the weakest enemies in the game had died in one hit. And this wasn’t just any adversary; this was the biggest possible bad. As with the Great Serpent, there was no special reason to think this one shot would preclude a grueling fight, until, that is, Hitler’s cranium exploded in a starburst of strawberry rhubarb jam, the gory detail intricately rendered in four disgusting frames of diverging skin, teeth, and eyeballs. 

The fight was over before it had begun. What appeared at first to be a demoralizing escalation of the game’s peak, was in fact a spectacular way to pat you on the back for making it this far. It's like they shoehorned Hitler into the game at the last minute just to let you blow his head up. For a little Jewish kid, that was just about the tastiest proposition a video game could offer. 

The more I ponder these two moments, the more they feel like twins. The dissonance of the antagonists’ grandeur with the world they inhabit. The ease with which you reveal both to be false gods. The extreme use of gore to convey the weight of your achievement. They even both hinge on a do-or-die attack performed in free fall. Considering Sekiro also stars a grunt with a bionic arm, I have to wonder if there weren’t some Bionic Commando fans involved in its conception.

[justforbooks]

George Steiner, the Prophet of Progressive Anti-Semitism

By William Kolbrener

Are the philosophical roots of contemporary left-wing denunciations of Israel to be found in a radical, twisted 1970s argument about the place of Jews in Western culture?

In the 1970 T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures delivered at Yale, the literary critic George Steiner offered a compelling explanation for the persistence of anti-Semitism: The Jews suffered for millennia as retribution for introducing the “Ideal” into Western culture. With its idealism and ethical imperatives, the revelation at Sinai “tore up the human psyche by its ancient roots,” depriving its inheritors of not just the material God and the image, but also “natural consciousness,” and “instinctual polytheistic needs.” Jews, the original Puritans, rejected the satisfaction of both the body and the image, for the purity and ascetic life dictated by the divine Word. From this perspective, Judaism represents the earliest celebration of the absolute, the West’s punishing superego, demanding idealism and self-denial, which was later incarnated in primitive Christianity and Messianic socialism, also founded by Jews, Jesus, and Karl Marx, in whose visions the Ideal persists “with terrible tactless force.” By Steiner’s lights, Hitler’s “jibe” that the Jews “invented consciousness” explains the tenacity of Western hatred of the Jews.

Western hatred of the Jews thus begins with anxiety about Jewish claims to exceptionalism. There can only be one bearer of the ideal: The city on the Hill is not Jerusalem, but Rome, later London, and even later still, Boston. In this form of anti-Semitism, which Steiner both described and in some ways endorsed, Jews are loathed because they represent a reminder of their antecedent claim to the Ideal—a claim that causes such anxiety that it must be extirpated. Non-Jewish messianic movements reject the notion of Jewish exceptionalism, because they are the exceptional ones. The continued existence of the Jews, and the resurgence of Israel, are troubling reminders that that the Jews were first to be singled out as God’s “chosen people.”

Steiner’s writings on the State of Israel provide an early primer on the dynamics of the specific form of secular anti-Semitism that has captivated so many progressives in academia and among the rank and file of the British Labour Party, as well as, increasingly, among American progressives. For Steiner, nationalism is a “madness,” as is the “vulgar mystique of flag and anthem.” But it is Israel’s “barbed wire and watch-towers of national dogma” that represent a “rhetoric of self-deception as desperate as any contrived in the history of nationalism.” For Steiner, and in this, contemporary progressives follow him, Israel must bear all the sins of the nation-state. The Greek dramatist Aeschylus in his celebration of Athens—the Oresteia—avows that the city-state is founded on blood: For contemporary progressives, as for Steiner, only Israel, the nation-state ne plus ultra, has blood on its hands.

To be sure, the narrative of Israeli independence, the celebration of the Jewish State as an indigenous people’s movement, remains haunted by a different narrative, that of naqba, with Israel figured as a colonialist interloper. The profile of the latter narrative becomes even more compelling given Israel’s uncomfortable position in the cultural history of the 20th century. The great writers of international modernism, Eliot, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound, celebrated the Greek idea of Nostos, return. For all three, return was a literary journey—to classicism, especially to the writings and culture of the Greeks. Joyce’s take on Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses, was published in 1922, the same year as the League of Nations confirmed the Mandate for Palestine. Eliot’s rewriting of Aeschylus, “The Cocktail Party,” was published in 1949, a year after Israel’s founding. Jewish return—the particular chutzpah of the Zionist enterprise—entailed not a literary, but a literal embodiment of return, the ingathering of the exiles, the Jewish people in the State of Israel. For literary modernists, return was a cultural ideal; for Jews, it was a millennial-old dream, actually realized on land that other people claimed as their own.

That the postwar West turned decisively away from the worldview expressed in international modernism made the Jewish State, in a context of the new postmodern emphasis on difference and the other, seem even more retrograde. Steiner, though himself a classicist by training, prefers the vision of Jewish nationhood expressed in the anti-ideal of the postmodern “homelessness” of “textuality.” For him, the Jewish homeland should remain a marginal literary enterprise, a figure of speech and nothing more. The literal return to Zion, for Steiner, is therefore the last and most unfashionable of the modernist projects.

From a postmodernist perspective, Jews and Israel especially, having barely escaped the old-style anti-Semitism of the Nazis, express their chosenness once more—in a hideous affront to a sensibility that renounced all forms of exceptionalism. It is this drive that explains why the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, with its ostensibly universalist human-rights agenda, specifically denies Jewish difference, that is, the exceptionalism made concrete in Jewish statehood, while insisting on the absolute moral and political necessity of a Palestinian state, no matter how theocratic such an entity might be.

Apologists can argue about the nuances of “From the River to the Sea,” but the slogan chanted by Hamas operatives on the Gaza border, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, and college students on American college campuses, in its most generous interpretation, advocates the ideal of a one-state solution, an ivory tower fantasy that could only come into being through catastrophic bloodshed and loss of human life. In its advocacy of this academic pipe dream, BDS has become the civilized and politically acceptable veneer for advocacy of the destruction of the Jewish State.

Western hatred of the Jews begins with anxiety about Jewish claims to exceptionalism.

But for all their anti-exceptionalist rhetoric, it is obvious that progressives have appropriated the rhetoric of Jewish exceptionalism as their own. Where for Steiner, Jewish consciousness is based upon the transcendent ideal, the truth of the progressive consciousness takes a Christian turn, and is incarnate, in every individual. Although progressives claim complexity and nuance, in regard to Israel/Palestine, their views are absolute: The Palestinians are good, while Zionists are evil. If only the Jews would divest themselves of their particularity, their unnecessary claims to nationhood, they might be tolerated, but Israel, as national project, is the devil of the nation-state made flesh.

Steiner is unabashed in his forthrightness, acknowledging the Jewish nationhood to be so abhorrent, “monstrous,” that he finds himself compelled to ask: “Has the survival of the Jew been worth the appalling cost?” and “Would it not be preferable, on the balance sheet of human mercies, if he was to ebb into assimilation and the common seas?” For Steiner, and his adepts, Jews should properly inhabit the utopian no-place of textuality, the shtetl of their study halls, a real-life version of the Hasidic dolls and figurines sold at shops in Poland.

Jewish Zionists—for Steiner, Jews are defined by their Zionism—deserve this fate, because they bear the lasting historical guilt of having introduced the horrifically oppressive idea of a transcendent and abstract God. They are responsible for the Western addiction to “speculative abstractions,” which in their grasp are not only dangerous but, in contemporary parlance, weaponized, murderous. Zionism is the last cultural gasp of the Jewish claim to be arbiters of absolute truth—a cardinal postmodernist sin—and are all the more guilty for having transformed this warped idea into a lived reality. The nation-state is flawed, but only Israel, in a postmodernist expiation for the sins of all other nations of the world, is to be not only reviled, but extirpated.

Israel’s imperfections are many, and a significant majority of Israelis want them confronted. But Steiner’s absolutist metric is applied only to Israel. For all other countries, as the philosopher Hilary Putnam writes, “enough may not be everything, but enough is enough.” The Jews alone are held to an impossible standard of perfection.

Steiner’s perverse version of the exilic Jew does have the virtue of being genuine; indeed, he utters the truth that left-wing contemporary critics of Israel dare not mention (at least publicly): It would be better for Israel not to exist at all. The allegorical morality play of radical and irredeemable Israeli evil thus gave birth to a corrosive new version of anti-Semitism, a sweeping new variant of the world’s oldest hatred dressed up as political idealism.

* William Kolbrener is professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel. His most recent work is The Last Rabbi: Joseph Soloveitchik and Talmudic Tradition.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[asexualchloe]

Podcasts Rated By How Weird Their Town Is

Gone: The town isn’t that weird until everyone disappears, then it does get weirder, which is fun. 4/10

Kaleidotrope: The culture of tropes is weird, but it seems to be contained more to the university than the town. 3/10

ars PARADOXICA: the towns here are as normal as towns in a cold-war conspiracy time-travel audio drama can be. at least “point of exile” is a cool name. 3/10

Greater Boston: Boston, Boston’s kinda weird, I guess. The pneumatic tubes are a nice touch. Boston itself would be 5/10, Redline, though, now that’s more like it! A train city? Fuck yeah. 8/10

Dreamboy: Cleveland itself isn’t that weird, right? Right? It’s just Dane’s experiences, right? 6/10

King Falls AM: It’s weird. It’s a town. There’s a radio station. What more could you ask for? 9/10

The Penumbra Podcast: Honestly, Hyperion isn’t that weird. It’s just got a bad case of capitalism. 7/10

Welcome to Night Vale: It’s Night Vale. My original exposure to weird towns. 10/10

Liberty: Spooky as hell, interesting social dynamics. I don’t know if the town itself is that weird, but the world sure is. 8/10

Our Fair City: All policies must listen to HartLife. Also? Mole people? Ant people? Evil scientists? This is one weird town that I am in for. 10/10

The Cryptonaturalist: Not enough towns by far. 3/10

Victoriocity: Steampunk Victorian Eldritch City! You’ll lose touch with reality if you look at it too long! That’s the kind of weird town I started listening to podcasts for. 9/10

Unwell: Midwestern gothic in a town? Yes, please. Gosh, I just love towns. 7/10

The Far Meridian: Lots of weird towns, but we don’t stay in them for that long, which is sad. 5/10

The Magical History of Knox County: Weird town: this time with fantasy tropes. I approve. 8/10

Tales from Spasming Hill: Goofy weird town. I like it. 7/10

Wooden Overcoats: Why does this town have so many funerals. 5/10

Dark Ages: The only weird thing about this town is how they fail to appreciate how cool their museum is. 1/10

Love and Luck: Look, this one’s just in Australia. That’s not weird. 0/10

Limetown: The town disappeared. Where is my town. 7/10

[madamhatter]

am i valid for url meme...

Send Me A URL and I’ll Respond With My Opinions… / accepting 

Roleplaying/Writing

My favorite muse(s) of theirs and why: Bamboo Rice will have a special place in my heart because I love big ol’ dorks whO WILL DO ANYTHING FOR THE PEOPLE/THINGS THEY LOVE. And Bamboo was really the one I got to know and we were able to somewhat extend conversation about him :’D. 

My favorite interaction/thread of theirs: Any time Xander literally opens his mouth and everyone else has to reply like “NO” and he’s like “YES.” I really just love how your general interactions can literally terrorize multiple blogs/fandoms in one successful swoop, no matter which character it is. I only know so few of your characters but I can tell this is something that has happened frequently with the others.My thoughts on their unique characterization/interpretation of their muse(s): what do you mean tsun isn’t Bamboo’s writer? And Boston Lobster’s? And Xander’s?  Why am I being fed these lies? However, there was one thing I noticed that I adored and that was the fact you really brought in actual and plausible headcanons that make sense in relation to the character’s upbringing and what they have and may not have experienced. IE: I remember Bamboo being mentioned (by you) to be illiterate due to their surroundings and being deep in the forest. As strange as it sounds, people really don’t go that far down into detail and I appreciate it. My thoughts on their writing style as a whole: You know that meme where Gordon Ramsey says “finally, some good fucking food”?  That’s literally me when I see any of Tsun’s posts, IC or OOC. I just like reading their stuff and being intimated by the writing in a way that pushes to me to go back to my more serious writing times. Also don’t get me started on their meme ANSWERS, IM HONESTLY RECOVERING FROM SEVERAL ON XANDER’S BLOGS, DON’T @ ME IT READS LIKE POETRY - Situation(s)/Plot(s) I’d love to see their muse(s) in: HMMM… I would like to see Xander in an AU where he properly is a king of a land, even if it is through questionable means (which may be slightly OOC); I do think your Sengoku M. muses will have a god damn fun time in a deity-based AU. Lmao, and if you have doubles, you can always mimick the Evillous Chronicles series with like twins (Daughter of Evil, Servant of Evil, Regret Message, etc.) because those are fun times :3ccccSomeone else I love seeing them interact with: @box-of-characters and @cirocchio ; no questions about that. No matter which character, it IS THE FUNNIEST THING TO ME. Anything else I want to say about their roleplaying: So how the hell does a gem like you stay hidden for so long? What’s your secret? Why keep hidden?? I’m going to have to hold you high in the air for folks to realize the quality that is you as a writer. 

If We Know Eachother

What I Think Are Their Best Qualities: Can deal with my bullshit, has the shitty sense of humor like me, and doesn’t find me annoying. Tsun just really knows how to get the dash working and chat with others, making a whole group experience that doesn’t exclude anyone. Tsun also takes heavy consideration and stuff when writing for characters and trying not to insert his midwestern twang in otherwise very regal mouths. Seriouly, though, I think his best qualities will alwas be the way they’re able to frame their characters’ emotions and always involve movement with them, making a whole scene play out. It isn’t stagnant, it’s always flowing, like a river.What I Think Are Their Strengths: Can laugh and tolerate my horrible fucking puns. It’s just super easy and comfortable to talk to you and get to know you! I say that not only are you an amiable personality, I really do say that at the end of the day, you care for your fellow roleplayers much more than writing partners and more as friends. This is beyond writing that I’ll consistently gush about but, I get that you’re an all around package who brings your A+ game and only deserves the best. A Memorable OOC Interaction Of Ours: How…how do I choose one?? I usually send him very cursed things over Tumblr IMs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=120HFjKPuJ4) and we’ve explored the realm of what strange things seiyuus sing. Every OOC interaction is memorable! Why Others Should RP With Them: It’s really hard nowadays to find roleplayers that really care for their characters but also know when to mess around and not take them as seriously. With the addition in being dedicated to building their characters and open to new and exciting ways to interact, I don’t why why you aren’t following yet. Also, he helps me cope with the stupid and long novella replies with eveN BETTER ONES SO, YOU GOT THAT BONUS. How Others Should Approach Them: Maybe it’s me and I see that it’s really easy to message people like a moron like “he-hewwo??” But, I always say drop into Tsun’s messages and drop a hello! I always say it’s better to drop in to meet the person first rather than their writing. It helps build bonds! Other Roleplayers I’d Recommend To Them: @vacuitas ; I think both of your multimuse blogs will greatly mesh well together and with Kat’s blog backstory and OCs should really be explored and you got some interesting personalities on both of your blogs that can either get along or hate very much! Anything else I want to say about them: how you haven’t gotten tired of me yet and the weird things I’ve sent you is beyond me– But, Tsun, you’re a real sweetheart and know how to bring a smile to my face without realizing it ;v;

If We Have/Plan To Interact

A plot I’d like to write with them: ANYTHING. ANYTHING. just honestly throw me ideas about AUs and I’m like butter, easy to melt and get into things. *steeples hands* If there’s any way I can make a character suffer at the expense of one of mine getting hurt or being mean, lmk :eyes:. Maybe hm… “Asselin you’re not a demon and those horns are totally fake - what the bloody hell. No I’m not going to stop pulling these horns these are NO way real ” AU. A muse I want to introduce to them: Natsume from Enstars. Just trust me, just trust me you will love that little shit and he’ll fit in with your crowd and he curses people like a fucking moron please I LOVE HIM… Since you like characters in trashbags, but I want you to have a variety, I can also bleed in some of my Mogeko charas like Shirogane (a scaredy cat wolf) and Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko (he’s a man who defies meta to solve the murders of his family that fateful October 4th, 1986). Also Phantom from Maplestory, I …love him to bits, he’s amazing. He’s gorgeous, he’s powerful, tends to not take things seriously is a phantom thief but I …oh god I love him so much : ‘ ) A ship/broship I’d like to propose to them: Xander/Sophie’s dynamic is amazing, I love when the bourgeois and the peasants argue. I’m also glad that their relationship can translate on different levels but there’s always that call-back to bickering yet support. If I can propose another, uhh– I really like Bamboo/Spam as a friendship and Boston/Spam as a mix of plato/romo (not too sure but I really liked their differences, i can see it as a “grey” area).  UHHHH… Asselin/Sophie looks like it could be a god damn trip :tm: bc a servant of satan of a witch sounds all sorts of chaos :3c. A thread with them I’m excited about: CHISANA THREAD, CHISANA THREAD! GIANT ASS DRAGON INDEBT TO WITCH AND HE REGRETS TURNING HUMAN BUT THEN HE REGRETS TURNING BACK AND … YEAH.  Anything else I want to say: God has forsaken you since you’re my friend and I hope you realize the path you’re now down wnjdfksnfdsj/. 

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Rebuilt

For a month or so after the events of "Me vs. You" and "Wager," the members of Team Legends have watched Sara and Snart slowly rebuild their friendship and learn to work together again. Eventually, everyone knows, something will have to give.

(Of course, knowing the Legends, it might take something strange to give them that push.)

Takes place a month or so after "Me vs. You" and "Wager."  (Find the series here.) Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

Can also be read here on AO3.

It’s been an interesting month, all right.

But honestly, Mick thinks, it’s been a pretty good one.

No one’s quite sure what’s going on with Sara and Snart—including, perhaps, Sara and Snart. By Mick’s best guess, they haven’t slept together again, but they’re…easier with each other. Frankly, they’re acting much the way they used to, way back in the beginning, after St. Roch and before the Oculus, all circling around each other and card games and eye sex with a side of innuendo. They even got in a bar fight, trying to apprehend a leprechaun who’d completely bought into the stereotype and taken over an Irish pub in Boston.

That was fun. Mick approved.

And when Sara and Snart are actually talking, and working together instead of against each other, they make a damned good team. While Mick knows he and Snart make a good team too, Snart had been right—that dynamic had always been between the brains and the brawn before, and that’s changed a little now. Mick isn’t proud…he knows he’ll always be the brawn…but he’s used to working with others now, Sara and Haircut and Pretty and New Girl and Charlie, and he doesn’t instinctively look to Snart to tell him what to do these days.

And that could have hurt a lot (and would have once, he thinks), but miraculously it doesn’t, especially not now, when the pieces are starting to fit together again, probably better than they ever did before. He and Snart, they’ll always have each other’s backs.

Crew’s just bigger, that’s all.

Even Nate's gotten used to Snart’s presence on the team. Sara had pulled him aside and although Mick doesn’t know what she’d said, the historian was rather more thoughtful after that. And then Snart pulled him out of an ambush by a group of what Constantine called redcaps, which were essentially lawn gnomes with attitude and big honkin’ teeth. Teeth capable of rending metal, which would have gone very badly for Pretty if Snart hadn’t dropped into their midst, laying about with his gun, clearing a path for them both to run for it.

Yeah, since then, even Nate has acknowledged Snart’s place here. Haircut, of course, is still pleased as punch the former thief was back. Zari herself has taken a great liking to Snart, and Charlie, while still dubious, has inexplicably decided that any friend of Mick’s is a friend of hers.

(Mick still can’t figure out why he’s Charlie’s favorite person on board. It pleases him and unnerves him in equal measure. She looks like Amaya, who he’d come to...to care for...but she’s also a badass, fire-breathing shapeshifter. Which is awesome, but...why him?)

Constantine, of course, is being his usual obnoxious self. He’s stopped barging into the cargo bay or wherever Sara and Snart are hanging out, trying to catch them at something, ever since he nearly got one of Sara’s knives through his eye. But he still thinks he deserves that bottle of whiskey, or maybe it’s just an excuse to be a prat (to use his own word).

(Given the man’s tendency to poke at things he really shouldn’t be poking at, Mick honestly wonders how he’s survived so long. One of life’s mysteries.)

And then there’s the Time Bureau.

Gary keeps watching Snart like he’s afraid the other man's going to go full supervillain right before his eyes. (Mick still thinks he peed himself the first time Snart actually spoke to him.) Ava, meanwhile, has accepted their assertions that Snart isn’t what she thought he was—but now she clearly suspects there’s something up between her ex and the newcomer, if Mick’s any judge. And she’s clearly not sure how she feels about that.

That’s fun. “Fun,” in this case, meaning “likely to blow up and be a problem at the worst possible moment.” Mick has decided, however, that it’s not his problem. Not yet, anyway.

At any rate, the balance isn’t perfect, but it works. And who knows how long they could have continued like this, really, if it hadn’t been for the hydras.

“The what?”

Zari’s voice is disbelieving. Mick can’t blame her. In fact, they’re all staring at John Constantine in varying degrees of disbelief, because no matter how many of these mythological whatsits they deal with, it will never stop being weird.

Well. Most of them. Charlie just nods. But then, Charlie is a sort of amazing being herself, and she sometimes seems to forget that she doesn’t have easy access to her dragon form here.

“Isn’t that...some sort of evil organization?” Haircut asks, looking around. “I thought...”

Constantine shrugs. “That sort does like its creature names, but no. Not in this universe, anyway.” He turns away before any of them can continue that line of questioning. “They’re bad enough, let me tell you. Reptilian critters. They have nine heads and, just like the stories say, if you cut off one, two grow back.”

Sara closes her eyes in a “give me strength” sort of expression. The captain is leaning against the holotable, on which Gideon is now projecting an artist’s rendition of a hydra, and Mick can’t say he blames her, either.

“OK,” she says then, opening her eyes. “Where and when is it? I’ll set the course, and then we can start talking about a plan.”

Constantine gives her a wary look. “Well, that’s not all. They’re resistant to magic. In fact, they’re attracted to it.” He steadfastly ignores Sara’s sigh. “And, their blood is poisonous, deadly poisonous. Even if you only get a whiff of it. So, no blades, luv,” he says, pointing at Sara. “Sorry. I do know you love your pointy objects.”

Sara’s even louder sigh is drowned out, though, by Haircut, who’s perked up.

“Fire,” he says, looking over at Mick with a grin. “That’s what Hercules used. In the stories. He did cut the heads off, but then cauterized them with fire.”

Constantine points at him. "Bingo. Whatever removes the head without actual bloodshed. I mean, you need to take precautions just in case, but better if they’re not needed.”

“And ice,” Snart interjected laconically. “Frozen things smash.”

Mick notices him idly rubbing his right wrist as he speaks. Ah, damn. He still can’t believe the bastard did that, smashed his own hand off, whether it was to keep him from killing the Legends or keep the Legends from killing him.

“So where are these things?” he cuts in as the old guilt surges. “I want to burn something.”

Constantine nods to him. “1958 small-town Pennsylvania,” he says, leaning on the table himself as a map appears. “Out in the sticks, fortunately.” He points to a random plot of green on the grid. “We got a breeding pair here in the hills. Need to banish them—or better yet, just dispose of them—before we get a mess of baby hydras. No one wants that.”

Mick thinks later that he should have known at that moment that things were going to go sideways.

They have a good plan when they land just outside Benjamin, Pennsylvania. Even Mick thinks so. Sara had taken the newer capabilities of both his and Snart’s guns into consideration (with much consultation with Snart, a fact no one missed) and, with Constantine’s information on the habits of hydras, concocted a plan of attack that involved luring the pair of hydras out of hiding and into the line of fire.

And since Constantine had come to them, and hydras were both resistant to and attracted to magic, he got to play bait.

“I’m not going to make one of the others do it when you’re so perfectly suited,” Sara had told him mock-innocently when he’d objected. “You can throw a little magic around, draw them out. We’ll protect you.”

Constantine complained and Constantine sulked, but then Constantine did as told. While Charlie stayed by the ship (so no residual aura of dragon could scare off the smaller hydras), the others split into teams of Leonard and Sara, Mick and Zari, and Ray and Nate, one for each hydra and a “utility infielder” sort of pair. Each team has one person who can provide some sort of hydra-vanquishing firepower (or ice power, as it were) and one as, well, a hydra-herder.

Then Constantine saunters out into the field, gives them all a long-suffering look, and throws a fireball into the air.

It’s magical fire, not real, but that’s the idea. As the sparks rain down around him, he folds his arms, turns to face the others, and scowls at them.

And then there’s a hissing noise from the hill behind him.

The creature that emerges isn’t quite as big as they’ve been warned it could be, but it’s big enough. It’s a muddy green color, with four stumpy legs off a body that looks a little like an alarmingly large alligator, and its tail is lashing back and forth with what seems to be ire at its visitors.

And so are the nine sinuous necks that emerge from where the creature’s head would usually be.

“Whoa,” Haircut breathes. Nate’s jaw drops. “Where’s Percy Jackson when you need him?” he yells, looking around as if the fictional demigod is going to appear out of nowhere. (For all Mick knows, he could. No weirder than murderous garden gnomes now, is it?)

(What? He reads.)

Fictional characters aside, though, Mick swears at the sight of the thing. His gun is already primed, but he raises it then, trading glances with Zari and looking over at Sara. The captain is watching the monster calmly. Snart, his own gun primed, is at her side. Then she looks at Mick and nods.

That’s all he needs.

Zari throws her hands in the air and then buffets the creature with a gust of wind, distracting it, while Mick runs for its other side. He raises his gun and aims for the leftmost several heads, firing and grinning as they crisp and the thing howls, other heads whipping his way. But then Zari’s fanning the flames, and Mick ducks to the other side, and Haircut’s firing at one of the heads with his suit’s blasters, and...

Mick hears Constantine yelling and, out of the corner of his eye, sees the other hydra coming. But then he hears the whine of Snart’s gun and Sara’s crisp voice and...they know their business. He has his own, right now.

In the end, it doesn’t take so long, really. There are two dead monsters, with some combination of 18 heads charred, blasted, or frozen and shattered. Mick prods one with a boot, then raises his gun and, at a nod from Sara, sets them on fire. Constantine had said the best way to dispose of them was to burn it all, which should even negate the poison.  They’ve already churned up the dirt so much here that the blaze shouldn’t spread, but he’ll keep an eye on it.

He’s come a long way from the man who wanted to watch the world burn. He doesn’t even want these hills to go up. People live ‘round here.

Constantine wanders over, studying the burning corpses, then turns to peer in the direction the second hydra had come from.

“The female came from a cave over there,” he says, nodding. “ ’Cross the field. If they have a nest, that’s where it would be.” He shrugs. “There might be eggs; there might be babies, though that’s less likely. Either way, cold will do for them.”

Snart rolls his eyes but holsters his gun again and starts that way. Sara falls into step with him. Mick smirks, then looks over at Ray, who’s removed his helmet and part of his suit, tinkering with something. “You OK there, Haircut?”

The other man nods. “Yeah.” He glances up, a little sheepish. “That thing caught me with its tail, sent me sprawling. Going to have to fix the propulsion system.”

“Well, at least you didn’t get chomped.”

“Yeah,” Nate says with a grin, joining them. “I can’t believe it. A plan actually went...according to plan!”

Mick groans. “Don’t say that kinda thing, Pretty!”

“What?”

“You’ve been part of this team long enough to...”

That’s when they hear it.

It sounds like…hissing. Higher pitched than before, but louder, as if it’s coming from more throats, even though it seems farther away. Mick, frowning, turns, and bumps into Constantine, who’s staring at the hill where he’d sent Sara and Snart.

Mick looks too. Then he squints.

Some of the greenery on the hill, it’s...moving?

He realizes what’s going on at the same moment Constantine curses. “It’s a damned nest!” the warlock yells. “And those aren’t babies, they’re half grown!”

“Are you tellin’ me those are teenage hydras?” Mick bellows, drawing his gun again and taking a few steps. But he already knows he can’t make it there in time. None of them are going to be able to get there in time. Especially not with Haircut’s suit on the fritz.

Mick sees Sara and Snart, visible near the faint dark cave opening at the bottom, look at each other, sees them both draw weapons, and then...

Then the swarm is on them, and they’re fighting.

Mick knows that they’ve been training together again. Actually training rather than “training,” too, because the one time Constantine had interrupted them in the training room, he’d gotten an eyeful of no more than two fully clothed people experimenting with how Snart’s new cold gun worked and the best ways of utilizing it in battle.

(And then Sara had gleefully decided that the warlock needed a little more physical conditioning if he was going to run with the Legends. Constantine had limped about complaining for days, gotten off the ship again as soon as humanly possible, and only returned when he needed the Legends to help take care of another myth-turned-real.)

Still, this is the first chance anyone’s had to see what that training might be amounting to.

They’ve backed up to a sheer incline, and Snart’s shooting one critter after another, keeping the heads back, as Sara smashes them as soon as she can. She’s moving in her usual graceful fashion, like it’s a dance, and they’re working together, like they can read each other’s minds, and damn, that’s a pretty picture.

Even though he knew the swarm would descend before they arrived, Mick’s crossed the field anyway, but it’s almost as though stepping in at this point would mess up the dynamic, so he waits, watching, to see if he needs to help. The others skid to a halt near him, all of them staring.

Just in time to see the maneuver that ends the battle.

Mick hears Sara yell something, sees Snart nod, and then sees something pretty amazing. Amazinger. More amazing.

Sara steps back. Snart ducks, going to a knee, but then he slides something on his gun and raises it, pulling the trigger. A spray of blue emits, fanning out a lot farther than the blast of the cold gun usually does, and Snart holds it rock steady--even as Sara steps up, planting a foot on his shoulder, and uses it as a springboard to launch herself forward, into the air….and sweep her bo across as the blue light dies, smashing at least 16 hydra heads into icy shards as she explodes through them, landing neatly on the ground.

Nothing else moves.

Sara lowers her bo. Snart holsters his gun in one smooth motion. And then they look at each other.

Damn.

Zari shakes her head, stepping up on Mick’s left side.

“I feel like I should either applaud or tell them to get a room,” she whispers. “Maybe both?”

Mick doesn’t have words. He just nods.

Constantine wanders up on the other side. Even the unflappable warlock is, well, flapped.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters. “I didn’t even take part in that and I feel like I need a cig.”

They watch as Sara and Snart head their way. They’re both ruffled, but they’re side by side, and Mick doesn’t think it’s his imagination that they’re walking more closely than usual. Sara smirks at them, but Snart manages to maintain his usual cool expression…but Mick, at least, notes a certain gleam in his eye.

Constantine clears his throat.

“I don’t say stuff like this casually, you two,” he says. “But that was...amazing.”

Sara laughs, then, looking around.

“It was, wasn’t it?” she says, a smile tugging at her lips. “C’mon, team. Let’s get home.”

It’s just the aftermath of one mission out of many, but their get-together afterward feels like a victory feast, probably because they all suspect there was no way they should have been able to walk away from a confrontation with nine hydras, even if seven of them were only partly grown. Especially with their mission accomplished and no real casualties.

Constantine had stayed behind to make sure there was no further cleanup work to do. He’ll turn up at some point, Mick knows, probably with his eager buddy from the Time Bureau, and try to drag them into new trouble (probably succeeding) and resolve his wager. Maybe Mick will even try to make the pair in question ‘fess up, just because it seems a bit ridiculous to even pretend there’s nothing going on there.

Even now, right there in the galley, with the whole Waverider team present, there’s tension.

Oh, it’s not a bad tension. Not now. Snart’s leaning back in a chair at the table, balanced in a way that should probably have him crashing to the floor if he wasn’t, well, Snart. He’s not even looking at Blondie, who’s checked her hip against the counter and is talking to Nate, who seems to be blathering on about monsters throughout history, and which ones might be real, and how he wants to write a paper and other such nonsense.

But they’re clearly aware…no, aware…of each other. Even Mick, who knows perfectly well he tends to be oblivious to some things, can see that. Every once in a while, they glance at each other, and…yeah.

Finally, Sara makes a noise of contentment. She glances around the room, and while her eyes don’t particularly land on Snart, Mick’s pretty sure no one misses the smile that touches her lips as her gaze slides past him.

“Well,” she says, stretching. “It’s been fun, celebrating a clear victory for once, but I’m beat. We’ll stay in the timestream for a bit, at least until something else presents itself or John turns up again like a bad penny.”

She pauses, then meets Mick’s eyes. “You have the ship,” she informs him. “OK? For at least a few hours. I need the rest.”

He nods, but Sara barely seems to notice. Turning, she gives Snart a long look. He returns it, expressionless. And then Sara turns and walks away, toward her room.

For a long moment, the galley is quiet and relatively still. Snart takes another sip of his scotch. Ray gives Mick a look that’s frankly a bit distressed. Nate becomes preoccupied by his napkin, and Zari stuffs a miniature éclair in her mouth.

Charlie looks back and forth between them all, confusion on her face. And then, before Mick even realizes what she’s going to do, she speaks up.

“Aren’t you going to go after her?” she asks, looking at Snart. “Because you really should. Even I can see that.”

Nate chokes on a drink, much like he had back when this all started, and Zari closes her eyes. Ray looks like he’d wished he’d said it first. Mick stifles a sigh.

But Snart actually gives Charlie a slight smile. He looks down, considering his drink, then nods, tossing it back before sitting the glass down and climbing to his feet.

“I believe,” he tells her, “that you’re entirely correct.”

And then he smirks at Micks, nods to the others, and saunters after Sara.

The silence lasts a beat or two past when he’s moved out of sight, and then more than one person lets out an explosive sigh. Zari shakes her head and reaches for another eclair, and Ray and Nate exchange glances, smirking.

Charlie cocks her head to the side and then grins at Mick, pleased with her own actions. And Mick, after a moment, gives her a smile in return.

He just really hopes those two don’t fuck this up.

“All right, then,” he says, getting up himself. Time to switch to coffee, if he has the ship. “Anyone want something else to drink?”