#having a run of just the absolute worst shit assigned readings. just fucking nothing dude

[communistkenobi]

everyone and their dog writes articles now about a totally new intersectional inclusive way to approach knowledge that decolonises the academy, and then the entire article just declares that subaltern voices will be included and indigenous ways of knowing will be respected but they never describe how or what confrontations with western academic thought will be produced or what will get revealed when this new epistemic approach becomes universally applied or what will structurally happen to the academy during this process. it’s like anti-theory, pure description and declaration, no attention paid to how the base units of western thought (such as subject/object), the capitalist logic of the university as a class/race mediator that necessarily reproduces white supremacy, will be problematised or made impossible, just an assertion that spaces will be made for previously marginalised groups. It’s so infantilising, as if the only thing stopping Black or Indigenous scholars from being considered scholars in academia was the lack of an EDI program or land acknowledgements and not like, foundational structural racism that regards all non-western knowledge and intellectual thought as non-knowledge. the academy as we know it would not exist without half a thousand years of pillage and plunder but I’m sure your new HR program will fix that

[cruisercrusher]

Dicktiger week day one— birthday 🎂 🎂🎂

Dick was cold when he woke up.

Which was not a new thing. He’d been finding himself getting cold quite frequently in the last few days. March wasn’t exactly known for being the warmest of months, and he and Tiger had been steadily making their way northwards. And, being on the run was kind of just like that.

But he wasn’t cold because of the icy wind outside. Although there was a draft— these cheap motel rooms were far from five star.

The bed itself was cold.

Also not a new thing. Tiger rose early to pray at dawn, every day without fail, and always stayed up after that. Dick always tried to sleep in as much as he could. Rest so thoroughly evaded him at night, after all.

The room was cold. Again, not because of the draft. Dick lifted his head and looked around the small space, and realized he was completely alone.

He jolted, a flash of worry like lightning making him bolt upright. He almost threw himself out of bed and into his gear when halfway through the action he spotted the handwritten note on the bedside table.

Wait here.

Dick frowned. So Tiger had just left with only those instructions, not telling Dick that he was going, when he would be back or what he was doing? They were supposed to be a team. You were supposed to communicate with your teammates.

Look, he knew that Tiger didn’t like working with him. Fine, Dick didn’t need him to like working with him. But they still needed to work together.

He sighed and pushed himself out of bed anyway, knowing he probably wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep after that shot of adrenaline.

First thing Dick did was open up their med kit and dig around, looking for a painkiller. He’d woken up with another headache. It seemed like he was constantly having headaches lately, of various degrees of pain, but he kept smiling through it.

Being on the run was not fun. It never is fun. He could act like he was having fun and make jokes and poke the bear that was Tiger’s temper until he lost a finger all through it, but really, it was not fun. Between the fights and the car chases, and the bouts of banter, in the quiet moments when all they could do is keep running or try and get as much rest as they could before they start running again… everything caught up to him.

Too much had happened in the last… year? Two years? He didn’t know, his grasp on time was slipping— too much had happened that he hadn’t processed and he was paying for it now.

And moments alone were the worst of all.

Suddenly having to go off all his meds all at once because there wasn’t time to pack anything or bring anything with them other than the clothes on their backs did not help either.

Seriously did not help. In fact, Dick felt like shit.

He found a little bottle of pain meds. He shook it. It was mostly empty. He sighed again and took one. Dry. Just to spite himself.

Dick wished Tiger had told him he was going somewhere— he would have asked him to grab some Advil if he got the chance. He’d even have thrown in some puppy dog eyes and a ‘pretty please’.

Luckily, he didn’t actually have to wait that long before the door to their room unlocked from the outside and creaked open.

Tiger walked in, stone faced, but in a way that looked like he was trying hard to keep his expression blank. Even still, there was a slight furrow to his brow, that seemed to stick through his every waking moment. He was holding a box.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” the other spy said upon seeing Dick sitting at the flimsy table. He walked over and set the box down on the table in front of him, then took a step back and folded his arms. “Here.”

Dick looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Is this some sort of prank box? A spring-loaded clown doll isn’t going to jump out at me if I open it, right?”

Tiger scoffed. “Of course not. Just open it.”

So Dick opened it.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, exactly, but it wasn’t a birthday cake.

It was a pretty typical store bought cake, with white icing and red, blue and yellow little fondant balloons decorating the top, around the fancy cursive letters that read ‘joyeux anniversaire’.

He blinked first down at the cake, then up at Tiger, a look of obvious confusion on his face. “Huh?” He said, quite intelligently if you asked him.

“It is a birthday cake.” Tiger grunted. There was a hint of red in his cheeks. He probably wasn’t expecting to have to explain himself.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Dick deadpanned. “But what for?”

Tiger frowned. “It is your birthday.”

Dick blinked again. “It is? Shit, I didn’t even notice the date. Wait, how do you know my birthday?”

“It was in your file. I read it when we first were assigned partners.”

“And you remembered?” Dick smiled, and Tiger blushed harder and looked away. “And you— you got me a cake?”

“It’s customary.” Tiger grumbled. “If you don’t like it—“

“No, no! I do like it! I love it!” Dick looked back down at the cake, then at Tiger again. “I— I mean— you—“

His smile started to crack and crumble as he stammered. “You… care…?”

Tiger frowned as Dick’s whole expression started to dissolve and his eyes went distinctly glassy. Dick quickly started to wipe at the tears that pooled there, though yet to fall. “Sorry— Sorry.” He muttered. “I just— I should say thank you. This is… really nice.”

But for some reason speaking those last few words just made things worse for himself, and Dick turned away with a single, gasping sob, before Tiger could see him fall apart. Why now, he internally lamented, why do I have to have a break down now?

“Uh—“ He heard from behind him, and Dick could easily imagine the confused expression that must be on Tiger’s face. The man wasn’t exactly the emotionally supportive type, that was Dick’s job. He felt bad for making Tiger witness this mess— especially after the other spy went out of his way to do something so nice for him. Tiger didn’t deserve this.

The chair across from him scraped across the floor as Tiger pulled it out from the table, and creaked loudly when he sat down. “Richard,” he said, and Dick turned further away, hiccuping a little. “Are you… okay?”

No. Dick wanted to say. I’m not okay.

(Well if you wanted honesty that’s all you had to sayy I never want to let you down or have you go it’s BETTER OFF THIS WAY for all the dirty looks the photographs your boyfriend took remember when you Broke Your Foot from Jumping Out the Second floor I’m NOOOTTT OOOOKAYYY IM NOT—)

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I’m fine, Dick also wanted to say. He didn’t know why, but he was always hesitant to tell people when he wasn’t doing alright. He never liked to burden people with his load of shit, especially not when they needed his help more.

But Tiger wouldn’t buy it for a second, and while he may not have been the emotionally supportive type Tiger also didn’t take any bullshit and wouldn’t appreciate Dick just lying to his face like that.

Though Dick was sure that absolutely no one would be convinced if they were in Tiger’s place, watching him cry his eyes out because of a birthday cake, and he tried to tell them nothing was wrong, literally through tears.

“No,” Dick said. “I’m not okay.”

(Well if you wanted honesty that’s all you had to sayy I never want to let you down or have you go it’s BETTER OFF THIS WAY for all the dirty looks the photographs your boyfriend took remember when you Broke Your Foot from Jumping Out the Second floor I’m NOOOTTT OOOOKAYYY IM NOT—)

Okay okay, enough of that.

“I can see that.” Tiger retorted, even though he was the one who asked in the first place. Dick decided to cut the guy some slack. He sniffed, wiped the tracks of tears off his cheeks as his (fucking annoying) crying slowed to a stop. He looked at Tiger over his shoulder.

“I… sorry, it’s just been… a rough year. A rough couple of years, actually.”

He didn’t elaborate any further. He probably didn’t need to. Tiger didn’t prompt him to elaborate. He probably didn’t need to, either. Dick suspected Tiger knew already about (most of) the shit that had made these last few years so rough. Dick didn’t know how Tiger knew, but Tiger had this way of knowing pretty much everything.

Maybe he was secretly a meta. Probably not, but maybe.

Dick turned more fully in his chair to sit in it the right way, except he pulled a foot up onto the seat to tuck his knee into his chest. He looked at the cake again. It looked, in all honesty, pretty good.

He just… wouldn’t think about the calories. He could do that much, pretty simple— eat some cake and not stress about the calories.

And if the sugar made him break out, then whatever. He didn’t care if Tiger saw him in an aesthetically imperfect state. And he knew that Tiger didn’t care about it— they’d been on the run for a hot minute and had only just a few days ago managed to get a hold of some toothbrushes. Tiger’s beard was scragglier than it usually was. Neither of their hygiene or grooming habits were exactly peak at the moment.

Besides, Dick thought with a smirk— despite the lingering wateryness of his eyes—, Tiger was into him regardless of poor hygiene and unwashed clothes, and regardless of how much Tiger insisted he hated him. Dick had caught him practically gazing longingly at his collarbones the other day— his collarbones! Dude was on a whole other level of both repression and desire if he was looking at Dick’s collarbones as opposed to his more popular assets.

But Dick appreciated that. He’d made a comment once on how frustrating it was that everyone was more focused on his ass than anything else about him, and Tiger hadn’t even glanced at his backside since. So he was a man with taste who also respected boundaries.

Also, he got me a birthday cake. He went out of his way to get me a birthday cake. That’s not really something you do for someone you hate. Dick thought, and smiled back up at Tiger, wiping away the last traces of his tears. Tiger eyed him suspiciously.

“What?”

Dick smiled wider. “You like me.”

Tiger coughed suddenly, looking away. He glared down at the floor. “I do not! I told you before, I can’t stand you, and— and I cannot wait until I no longer have to spend even a second in your infuriating presence.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah blah you’re going to kill me someday yada yada. Why’d you get me a cake, then?” Dick teased him.

“It— well—“ Tiger stammered, something that Dick had never ever seen before. “I… wanted… I thought you would like it.” He admitted. Dick’s smile softened.

“I do like it.” He said, “Thank you.”

Then he sniffed, for some reason the tightness in his throat came back and his eyes once more looked suspiciously dewy. Tiger got a slightly constipated look.

“Don’t start crying again. Please.”

Dick laughed. “I won’t, I won’t.” He said, hoping he wouldn’t. “It’s just… been a while since anyone did something so nice for me without an ulterior motive.”

He shot Tiger a look, but it was still teasing. “You haven’t got an ulterior motive, right?” Tiger sighed.

“I wish I did. Now are you going to eat that thing or not?”

“Oh, right.”

Tiger handed him a travel fork from one of their packs, then reached back down into the pack and started rummaging around. Dick wasted no time in plunging the bamboo fork right into the cake, breaking through the icing and pulling away a generous bite of what was revealed to be chocolate cake. Tiger looked back up as Dick brought his fork up to his mouth, and stared at him incredulously, with no small amount of disgust. Dick paused.

“What?”

“You’re just going to… eat the… and not even…” Tiger searched for words. Dick shrugged with a pout.

“It’s my birthday cake, I’ll eat it however I want to.” He pushed the cake box more towards the center of the small, round table. “Want some?”

The other spy looked between Dick, the cake with the one bite taken out of it, the fork in his hand, and back at Dick.

“You can just eat from the other side. I promise you won’t catch any cooties.” Dick offered, nudging the cake forward a little more. Tiger huffed and didn’t say anything, but still took out the other fork and stabbed it almost violently into the side of the cake closest to him. Dick finally ate his bite of cake, grinning around the fork. (Wow, this is good cake.) (Just don’t think about the calories.)

‘Cooties… ridiculous.’ He heard Tiger mutter under his breath. He ate another bite of the cake, his qualms about Dick’s lack of table manners seemingly behind him. “I shouldn’t have done this. If I had known you had forgotten it was your birthday I would have just let the day pass quietly without any fuss.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Dick said it like he was teasing, but he and Tiger both now knew it was true. “Hey, you know what would make a great birthday gift?”

Tiger raised an eyebrow at him. “What, the cake wasn’t enough for you?”

“Nope,” Dick smirked. “The only thing that can satisfy me…” he paused for dramatic effect, “is a hug.”

Tiger groaned. “Absolutely not.”

Dick didn’t mean to let his face fall. He meant to brush it off with a laugh, but then his smile slipped and he couldn’t catch it before it was simply gone. Tiger noticed. Dick cringed.

It would be nice if some cake and a little bit of banter were enough to fully lift his spirits, but unfortunately it just wasn’t cutting it.

He was still cold.

Tiger sighed and stood up. Dick looked away, chewing at his lip.

(Yeah, so maybe Tiger did care, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would never exploit Dick’s moments of weakness. He was still a spy, Dick had to remind himself. He was still a spy and everything Bruce ever instilled in him was telling him not to trust him.)

(But he trusted Tiger anyway. So maybe he was an idiot, he didn’t care. He just needed to be not so all encompassingly alone in this world right now.)

Tiger rounded the table so that he was standing next to Dick’s chair, positively towering over him. “Stand up.”

“What?” Dick blinked.

“Stand up.”

Dick stood up. Tiger had been standing so close to his chair that when he did he was nearly chest to chest with the taller man, and Dick felt his heart speed up involuntarily at the proximity.

Almost as soon as Dick was on his feet, Tiger was uncrossing his arms and wrapping them around Dick instead— one arm around his back pulling him close and one hand cupping the back of his neck, and if Dick didn’t know better he’d describe it as tender. Gentle.

Tiger didn’t do tender or gentle.

So how could you explain this, then?

Dick couldn’t see Tiger’s face like this, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of sour expression he might have right now. Dick didn’t care. Tiger was— Tiger was warm, he was so warm, the heat seeping through Dick’s clothes and skin and all the way down to his bones.

He stifled a gasp and snapped his arms shut around Tiger’s back, clinging way tighter than was called for, but Tiger didn’t say anything.

Everything was going to be okay. Things sucked right now, but Dick wasn’t alone. Tiger was there, and he cared, and that was all Dick needed.

When Dick fell asleep that night, in a different but just as shitty motel room, pressed against Tiger’s side, he was warm.

[jupitermelichios]

So I decided to rewatch Suicide Squad and I have some thoughts...

This isn’t really a review so much as it’s just a series of thoughts and impressions. I will say that while it’s still one of the worst made films I’ve ever seen, it’s never boring, which is by far the biggest sin a film can commit. It’s bullshit but it’s consistently interesting bullshit which makes it better than something like Fant4stic, which is as bad and incoherant but also just incredibly dull. I don’t think this could ever have been a good film, there was too much massively wrong with it before shooting even started to have been salvagable, but I do think it could have been a lot more coherant if it hadn’t been for the reshoots, re-edits, re-edits of re-edits and all the the other stuff that happened to it post production. Unlike something like BvS, I get why some people liked this one.

On that note, while I am going to end on a few possitives this basically a roast so if you don’t want to read about a film getting picked apart, this probably won’t be your jam. But if like me you find critiques of bad movies cathartic, read on. I’m not the first person to do this, but I���ve spotted some stuff I haven’t seen anyone else talk about so hopefully there’ll be something new for you.

All the dialogue is just slightly off in a way that’s hard to pin down, in the way that a lot of comprehensible stuff written by computers and neural networks is just slightly off. It’s got that phishing email or pornbot quality to it. Literally the fourth or fifth line in the film is Griggs saying about the prison rations, “...Everything a growing young man needs like you”, which isn’t nonsense, but is clearly wrong, and a lot of the lines have that quality to them.

In a similar vein, Deadshot’s daughter is written like she’s five or six, but the actress looks about twelve. I actually went and checked how old she was when this released, because I know white people are often wildly bad at judging the ages of black kids and I’m bad at judging ages in general, but no, she was 12 or 13 when this was shot, so why’s she written like a toddler? She doesn’t give a good performance (which is not the actresses fault, Will Smith barely gives a good performance in this and he can do this shit in his sleep, there’s no way a kid could have risen above the terrible script and direction) which makes it even worse, because you’ve got this pre-teen delivering dialogue written for a kindergardener in a way that feel like it’s maybe the first time she’s ever seen the script, and it makes what is otherwise one of the most competant scenes in the movie feel just as off as everything else.

The Joker. A lot of people have written a lot about Leto’s Joker but I want to add two things to the discussion I haven’t seen talked about much before. Firstly, before the electro-shock torture and acid bath, he and Harley have no romance. Like, explicitly, there is no romance, or even cammeraderie there. He’s her patient. She’s his jailer. He didn’t seduce her, he just tortured her until she gave in. That’s literally shown in the film. Even after the torture when she’s now on side he still really doesn’t like her, and not in a Paul Dini BTAS he doesn’t like her but he also wants her around kind of way. He doesn’t want her in his life. He orders her to leave him alone and she fucking stalks him. That’s not even subtext, she is specifically his stalker, because apparently the solution to the relationship being abusive was to retconn Harley into also being a creep as though that somehow solves something.

Secondly, Joker isn’t smart. Not only is he no longer emotionally intelligent (and comics Joker is many terrible things but he’s probably the most emotionally intelligent character in DC, that’s a lot of what makes him so dangerous because it’s how he manipulates people) he’s not intelligent full stop. His great plan for breaking out of Arkham? Some of his goons from the outside literally just shoot their way in to get to him. Even leaving aside the fact that Arkham apparently isn’t set up to deal with that kind of violence in this world despite Batman having been opperating for a decade, that’s not a clever plan, and it’s not Joker’s plan. 'Hope some of my dudes are loyal enough to come get me’ isn’t any kind of escape plan, and nothing we see after that point suggests that this was a moment of weakness. Joker just straight up isn’t very bright in this, which is weird because that’s one of the few genuinely consistent character traits he has. He’s no Riddler, sure, but he’s really smart and that makes him hard to contain.

Ayer made Harley functionally a sex worker in this, and it doesn’t actually matter that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex work or that sex work is real work, because David Ayer definitely thinks there is, and also really really hates women. David Ayer hates women so goddamn much. The only thing Slipknot does in the entire film apart from die is hit a woman just for being a woman.

When Waller arrives at Belle Reve, Croc is doing push ups. And that’s fine, it’s a classic movie shorthand for ‘bored prisoner is also fit and strong’, but the actor isn’t actually doing pushups. He’s got one knee tucked under his body to support his weight, and is clearly actually just sort of bobbing his head. What I suspect happened is that the prosthetics on his arms and chest were too heavy to allow that kind of movement, which would tie up with the stiff way he holds his arms throughout the film, but he’s not even bothering to pretend very hard and it adds to this pervading sense of off-kilter wrongness the film has.

Rick Flagg is supposed to be ‘the best special forces opperative this country has’, but he’s... really bad? He’s no use in any of the fights, he’s incapable of working with a team and has zero interpersonal skills, and when he’s assigned to be a bodyguard, he immediately starts fucking his client which is like, bodyguarding rule 1. He’s really bad at his job. (Which would be fine if the explanation was that he’s a fucking psychopath who’s 100% willing to just murder a civilian in the line of duty, but he’s meant to be Hannibal Smith more than Dirty Harry, and also if he is here because he’s a psychopath, why did Amanda Waller assume June Moon would be into that?!) He even has to be blackmailed into joining the opperation, so he’s incompetent, unprofessional, causes unecessary conflict, and isn’t even loyal to the project, so why him and not, I don’t know, literally any other character?

On the subject of June Moon, she goes (alone) on an archeological dig in a rainforest somewhere, finds a cave full of human remains and ancient artefacts, and literally her first action is to deliberately smash one of the artefacts, presumably just to see what would happen? IDK! We never get any explanation for that, but it’s definitely meant to be deliberate and not accidental when she smashes it! Why are archeologists in movies all so terrible?!

People have joked a lot about the fact that the movie changes the purpose of the squad from ‘plausibly deniable black ops, especially on American soil’, to ‘punching Superman’ but kept Captain Boomerang on the team, but there is actually an explanation given. A really really stupid explanation. Amanda Waller says that he’s there because ‘he faced down a metahuman and survived’, referring to him surviving being arrested. By the Flash. Who is famously non violent, and in fact in the next film in the series specifically says he’s never fought someone. So Boomer is on the team because he didn’t die when Flash picked him up and carried him to a police station, and Amanda Waller thinks that’s some kind of achievement. Like that isn’t the case for literally everyone the Flash has ever caught. And Flash is a street level hero, so that’s a whole lot of muggers and purse snatchers who are apparently capable of fist fighting Superman by Waller’s logic.

(On the same note as the Joker, Waller is also now incredibly stupid, but she’s mostly stupid for plot related reasons, so it sort of gets a pass? It gets more of a pass than the Joker at least, because making him comics-smart wouldn’t have necessatitated changing anything else about the film)

Re: Waller’s stupidity, her whole plan for recruiting El Diablo to the squad is... show him a video of him setting fire to some dudes. That’s it. She doesn’t even speak to him, she literally just holds up the video to the little window in his tank and seems surprised when that by itself isn’t enough.

And then when Flagg is like ‘hey let me try persuading him with actual arguments instead of just a weird video’, Diablo’s response is “You think you’re the first person to ask? I won’t do it. I’m a man not a weapon”, which gives us the amazing insight that in Ayer’s version of the DCU, there are apparently just... other Taskforce Xs running around. Other government agencies recruiting metahuman soldiers. So what exactly was the point of the half an hour or so of footage of her persuading the brass to go along with it? Because apparently they’re fine with this if every agency is doing it!

Tone? What even is tone. Griggs both has an antagonist but banter-y relationship with and brings cookies to the prisoners, but also he tortures them and is implied to be sexually abusing Harley, and like... you can’t have it both ways, Ayer. This is a one or the other situation. They can’t have a fun and jokey relationship with a man who is explicitly torturing and abusing them. Tone. You need to pick a fucking tone!

The decision to add a subplot about Deadshot being involved in a custody battle with his ex-wife was a fascinatingly terrible choice, and honestly tells you a lot about Ayer’s relationship to MRA talking points. Like, we know nothing about Deadshot’s wife except that she raised a cute well adjusted kid, so probably a pretty good parent, and that she doesn’t want her daughter to be spending time with a MASS MURDERER! So definitely a good parent! The comics just kind of handwave away Zoe’s mom most of the time, which was the right choice, because Ayer wants us to be on Deadshot’s side here, but it’s literally a choice between "a serial killer but you take credit cards” and a normal loving parent and somehow he thinks serial killer is the right answer? WTF happened in Ayer’s life that he thinks this is a choice where we side with Deadshot?! And it’s not even visitation rights or anything, Deadshot wants full custody. And the film thinks he’s in the right!

Not once, at any job I have ever had, one of which was a tourist attraction that required all visitors to wear a pass, have I ever seen someone wear a visitors pass on their sleeve. Not once. And it’s honestly such a good summary of the pervading wrongness of this film. This doesn’t feel like it was made by people. It feels like it was made by middlingly intelligent algorithms trying to pass as human.

Someone please tell me what the fuck any of this set is supposed to mean. The pose feels deliberate, but it’s not invoking anything I can see except the hanged man from the Ryder-Waite tarot deck, the halo of knives almost looks like it’s pseudo-religious imagery except that it’s not a full halo, the circle is incomplete on one side because of a broken piano, does the piano mean something? What about the babygrows, do they mean something? Does the Joker... want kids? Kill kids? Think Harley’s pregant? What the hell is any of this supposed to mean, and if, as I suspect, it was never supposed to mean anything why the fuck did they go to the trouble of making it?! What exactly does the hours this took to put together add to the movie?

David Ayer has a really weird relationship with both gang culture and latino gang culture specifically. He always feels the need to shoehorn them in somehow, and it’s this weird love-hate relationship where he apparently thinks latino gangs are so cool they have to be in everything, but is also so fucking racist he’s incapable of having a latino character who isn’t in a gang. Also in order to shoehorn them in here, he basically removed all of Joker’s henchmen (except for one scene which serves no narrative purpose) and replaced when with generic racist-stereotype LA gangs.

The fact that Griggs just hands Harley the phone in front of all the other guards and soliders was A Choice. Made even more so by the fact that Griggs never actually pay off. He gives Harley the phone, she tells him he’s “so screwed now”, and then... nothing. He’s just gone for the rest of the movie. He’s not even in the epilogue back in prison scenes.

I fucking love that the first thing Waller does is tell the world’s best assassin her real name. That is just... *chefs kiss* Everyone in this film is so fucking stupid.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming and I remembered the line perfectly, and I still had to stop the film because I was laughing too hard for “Ah would advise naht gettin’ killed by her, her sword traps the souls of its victims”. It’s the ‘that wizard came from the moon’ of film dialogue, and no one could have made it work, but the southern accent is really what makes that line delivery. I don’t know why, there’s just something about it in that drawl that it just endlessly hilarious.

It really is impressive how every character in this manages to be an offensive stereotype, sometimes multiple offensive stereotypes at once.

I love how Flagg’s right-hand woman is a samurai with a magical possessed sword that traps the souls of the damned who also isn’t military and refuses to speak English most of the time, but the squad are too weird for him. “You won’t believe it, this guy Boomerage, he’s got these bent stick things, and when he throws them they come back! I am freaking out, I can’t deal with this. Oh hi Katana, trap any damned souls lately?”

Harley is explicitly malicious in this in a way no other version of Harley has ever been, which is a Freudian nightmare when you combine it with her also being more sexualised than ever, and more infantalised than any version outside the Arkham games. Someone get Ayer a goddamn therapist. (Also in the vein of everyone being dumb in this, Harley is now an absolutely terrible psychiatrist and all her diagnoses are explicitly wrong, so that’s fun.)

The fucking pink unicorn-bundle of money switcheroo. There’s nothing to say on it that hasn’t already been said but holy shit. How do you fuck something up that bad? How? It’s like looking into Chekov’s nightmares and finding a pink stuffed unicorn staring back.

I love the way the soliders just come and go in this. Are they dead, are they alive, have they abandonned the cause? Why the fuck knows? Certainly not the editors!

I love how we’re supposed to be really sad about El Diablo being dead, but not care that Croc is seemingly directly underneath the explosion and definitely about to die, that’s fun.

I need to know if it was Ayer or Cara Delavigne’s choice to make Enchantress be just.. doing a little dance. Duing all the ‘tense’ moments. Because there are probably things which undercut tension more than the bad guy having a bit of boogy, but not many.

Enchantress gets so many costume changes, and I want to believe that they’re all from different versions of the film but I honestly think it was deliberate and I need someone on in the design department for this movie to tell me why because it add nothing.

I think the best thing about the stupidly on the nose liscenced soundtrack is that it just disappears once they arrive in Midway city. After spirit in the sky it’s original music all the way until the final scene. The great soundtrack DC stans insist this film has is literally only in the first 50 minutes and the last 2 of a 2hr+ movie.

The glorification of abuse in this is... seriously fucking something else. Twilight doesn’t have a patch on this. 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t have a patch on this. This shit is disgusting, and the fact that they pushed so hard to get it a child friendly rating is just morally bankrupt.

Possitive note to end on:

The dialogue is way too on the nose and exposition dump-y but the scene in the bar works pretty well. It fulfils its role in the story, and gives us a decent dose of team bonding.

Deadshot and Harley have great chemistry, and Boomer is perfectly cast, in a way that makes me really hopeful for James Gunn’s take on the team. A writer who knows how to write friendships could do a lot with the three of them, and they’ve been the core squad since 2011 so they’re the ones who matter. It probably helps that whatever Will Smith’s faults as an actor, you could cast him opposite a housebrick and they’d somehow have great chemistry.

[justheretobreakthings]

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice

A Voltron: Legendary Defender fic Central Characters: Lance, James, Keith Word Count: 4,322 Read on AO3

Summary: When Lance needs to blow off some steam after a frustrating morning with Keith, he finds himself with an unexpected and very indulging confidant.

“Oh, good, you guys are here,” Lance said as he entered the Garrison rec room and plopped down onto the couch. Hunk, in the corner of the couch opposite him, looked up from the book he was reading, while Pidge, sitting crossed-legged on the floor next to him with earbuds plugged into the laptop balanced on her knees, tilted her head back to look at him upside-down. “You would not believe the morning I’ve had,” Lance sighed.

“What happened?” Hunk asked.

“Okay, so, you know how Keith and I agreed to do that school visit with Red and Black today?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, leave it to Mullet to go and decide to make a mess of the thing. How hard can it possibly be to - ?”

“Here we go,” Pidge muttered, rolling her eyes and removing her earbuds.

Lance raised a brow and turned to her. “I’m sorry? What do you mean ‘here we go’?”

“I mean, here we go, it’s time for our daily helping of Lance-whining-about-Keith.”

Lance bristled. “I do not whine!”

“Call it what you like,” Pidge said with a shrug. “But let’s face the facts - you do complain about him a lot.”

“I don’t complain about him that much! Hunk, back me up here.”

Hunk offered him a sheepish shrug. “Well, she’s got a point…”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, I complain about him. But only because he gives me so much to complain about!”

“Uh-huh,” Pidge said. “So what pissed you off today? What’d Keith do? Was it something about his hair? His attitude? Way he dresses? Did he not laugh at one of your jokes, Lance? Do you need a hug, would that make it all better?”

Lance scowled and crossed his arms. “You know what? Friends listen to friends who need to vent.”

“Oh, I’m listening,” Pidge said. She put her headphones back in and turned the volume of her music up so loudly that Lance could hear it where he was standing. “Go on, I’m all ears.”

His scowl deepening, Lance flipped her off and turned to Hunk. Just as he was opening up his mouth to speak, Hunk cut him off by saying, “Actually, Lance, I’m at a really good part in this book, so, um, I don’t think I can spare the time to listen to a Keith Rant right now…”

“First of all, let’s not start calling them ‘Keith Rants’ like they’re an official thing, I’m just letting off steam. Second of all, fine, if my friends don’t want to hear about my day, I’ll just head to lunch and vent to my mashed potatoes. Thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome,” Hunk said, lifting his book and returning his attention to it. Pidge didn’t so much as glance in his direction. With a sigh, Lance left the room and made his way to the cafeteria, grumbling under his breath as he went.

He left off his grumbling as he made it to the Garrison cafeteria, and kept quiet long enough to get a tray filled and find a seat at an empty table before he resumed, muttering to himself as he stabbed at his pineapple chunks.

“Um,” a voice interrupted him a minute in, and he looked up to see James Griffin standing across from him is his orange uniform, raising a brow at him. “Do you mind if I sit here, or are you already chatting with someone?”

“Go ahead,” Lance said, gesturing with his fork to the seat across from him, which James sank into. “Sorry ‘bout that, just been a long morning.”

“How so?” James asked.

“Had that school visit with Keith today. Don’t know whose idea it was to schedule just us for it, but I swear, I’m never doing a presentation with Keith again.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” Lance said, “We both had to memorize parts for the first half of the presentation, and that went fine. But then we had this Q-and-A portion, and it was like Keith just completely forgot how to do public speaking. The man cannot string two words together if he doesn’t rehearse them beforehand, so I wound up pretty much having to do that whole portion on my own. Then we’re introducing the kids to the lions, showing them around, and I’m starting to think Keith has never even interacted with a child before, because he is absolute shit at it. Plus he flat out scared one kid; little guy jumps up for a surprise piggyback ride on him and Keith knocks him off and snarls at him like he’s gonna eat him.”

He paused to take a bite of his lunch before continuing. “Whole thing was just… gah. He saddles me with most of the work, and then proceeds to make both of us look bad in front of the kids. I swear, Keith should not be allowed to do any press events ever.”

“Hey, I hear you,” James said through a bite of his own sandwich. “We’ve all seen the press photos. I’ve yet to see one where Kogane doesn’t look like he wants to beat up whoever’s manning the camera.”

Lance let out a laugh. “I know, right? Like, seriously, would it kill him to learn to take a decent photo? Designated leader of Voltron, and yet he’s the paladin who’s worst at making a first impression.”

“So, he’s like, the official ‘leader’ of the group, right?” James asked. “Thought I’d seen a press release say that but…”

“Technically, yeah,” Lance sighed. “Basically, the person who pilots the Black Lion gets to call the shots in battle. Although, full disclosure, for most things Shiro and Allura’s words are above Keith’s. And Keith’s never really been the kind of person you think of when the phrase ‘born leader’ comes to mind or anything. He’s as likely to go running off on his own as he is to actually do his ‘leader’ job.”

“Honestly, doesn’t sound like he’s changed all that much since the Garrison,” James said. “Remember the sorts of things he would do during sims?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Lance groaned. “Pretty sure we all did three times as many drills as any other class in the history of the Garrison on account of Keith’s dumb stunts.”

“He didn’t get better in fighter class, you know,” James said. “‘Star student’ or not, no one wanted to work with him. I was friends with the guy they had assigned to be Kogane’s comm spec the first year of fighter training, and apparently he and the group’s engineer wound up begging to get assigned a different pilot, he was so annoying. Wouldn’t talk with them, wouldn’t listen to them. I don’t know how you managed to spend all that time stuck out in space with him.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t easy,” Lance said with a little grin. “The guy’s no fun at all. Whenever the whole group’s together, he spends the whole time just sulking in a corner, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard him laugh. Even when he gets the joke; sometimes he will actually just straight-up turn to Pidge or Shiro and have them explain punchlines to him. You can’t hold a conversation with him.”

“Well, hey, don’t be so quick to knock that,” James said. “There’s advantages to him not getting jokes. Some of us in fighter class would have this sort of game where we’d talk to him in euphemisms and references and keep score of how often Kogane would catch on when we insulted him, and how often it just went over his head. Dude was batting, like, a fifty. It was honestly kinda sad.”

Lance laughed. This was… nice. It was nice to get some Keith-related gripes out of his system. Hunk didn’t let him vent about Keith the way he used to - and Lance had never figured out the reason for the change - Pidge never paid any attention to him when he did, and God forbid he ever try to air any of it to Shiro. The former Black Paladin seemed reluctant to believe that Keith was anything short of perfect in spite of any evidence to the contrary. “I gotta tell you, it’s a breath of fresh air,” he said. “Didn’t know he got under everyone else’s skin too. I had started thinking I was the only one at the Garrison who didn’t worship the ground Keith walked on.”

“Oh, there were people like that,” James said with a shrug. “But that’s only because they only knew Kogane as the master pilot, not the warts-and-all version we got. The people who thought he was role model material didn’t see the way he’d lose his mind if someone in the room would click their pen too much, or the fact that he won’t use a urinal if anyone else is in the restroom, or, God, the fact that he would fucking sing to himself in the cockpit if he didn’t think anyone was listening.”

“He still does that!” Lance cried in delight. “The singing thing! We’ve caught him at it a couple of times. Pidge managed to get a recording of him once, singing this, like, theme song he made up for the lions or something. I don’t think he knows the recording even exists.”

“Lance,” James said. “Lance, you have got to send that to me. I haven’t had a decent ringtone in so long. God, I had a couple videos saved of him back during the Garrison days that I’d totally trade you for, but that was, like, two phones ago.”

“Well, hey, there’s no shortage where that came from,” Lance said. “Keep an eye on him long enough, he’s bound to do something worth recording. I’m gonna have to see what’s on his vlog at some point.”

“His vlog?”

“Coran had all of us film these little vlog things for ‘historical’ reasons, and Keith straight-up refuses to let anyone watch his. Must have wound up recording something pretty damn embarrassing, but who knows what it was.”

“If you ever get hold of that footage, send it my way. You gonna eat that coleslaw?” James asked, pointing to Lance’s tray.

“Have at it,” Lance said, sliding the cup over. “You realize, of course, that now you’re really starting to rack up a bill for how much you owe me.”

“Oh, I’ll figure out a way to pay it,” James said as he began digging into the coleslaw. “You want me to mess with Keith for you? There’s always a stock of old standbys from the Garrison, but I can come up with more sophisticated stuff.”

“Old standbys?” Lance asked, raising a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You know, just little pranks the other people in fighter class would pull on him sometimes. Old school teenager things. Grease on his gearshift, put old food in his bag, piss in his shampoo. Stupid stuff like that.”

Lance wrinkled his nose. “People did that?”

“Shampoo was his roommate’s doing,” James answered, “But I don’t think he ever even noticed that one.”

“Not surprising. You’ve seen his hair, I don’t think he gives two shits what he puts in it.”

“Fair point,” James said with a nod. “Give him a horseshoe mustache to complete the look and he could be living in a garage in the nineteen-eighties.”

“You know he doesn’t shave?” Lance said.

“Hm?”

“Yeah, he’s the only one of the paladins who didn’t keep a razor in our communal bathroom, and I figured maybe he kept it in his room and just carried it back and forth for some reason and shaved in private. But then he winds up on this, like, two-year-long camping trip with his mom, and comes back without so much as a single hair of stubble. He just flat out can’t grow facial hair.”

James let out a bark of laughter. “Oh my god. You think that’s why he grows that mullet thing of his out so long? ‘Cause he’s overcompensating?”

“Ha, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Lance said.

“Wow. And, shit, you’d think with his mom being what she is, he’d have wound up covered in the stuff. Guess it’s not genetic. He oughta be relieved; his dad goes and fucks a goddamn Hibagon, what came out could have been a total furry mess.”

Lance’s smirk faltered a little on that remark. “Okay, let’s, ah – let’s not bring Krolia into anything, she’s – ”

“Oh, Keith still hung up on his mommy issues?” James asked. He set aside his coleslaw and leaned his chair back onto two legs, crossing his arms behind his head and kicking his feet up to table’s surface. “God, he was always so nuts about anything to do with his parents back at the Garrison. Anyone just mentioning them would set him off. I mean, I guess I can understand why, now. I’d probably have mommy issues too if mine was a fucking alien, but it got annoying as hell back at school. Not like he was the only kid in the school who had issues with their parents, he’s just the only one who had such thin skin about it.”

“James,” Lance said, frowning at him. “Seriously, could we talk about something else?”

James turned to him with a raised brow, then brought his feet back down to the floor to sit upright. “Shit, dude, relax. I don’t have anything against Krolia. Just, you know, what came out of her.”

“It’s just, you know. That’s… I think that’s still kind of a sore spot.”

“And? What, is Keith in the room. Is your lunch bugged? We’re just chatting, Lance.”

“Yeah, but - ”

“Okay, okay,” James said, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “Dropping the subject. You know the new-and-improved half-Galra Keith better than I do anyhow, I guess. Still got no shortage of him back when he was still all human, though. I could fill a book.”

“... I’ll admit, I’d probably read it.”

“It’d be a page-turner, let me tell you. I mean, sure, a couple of the Garrison stories I’ve got for him were more other people setting things off, but mostly he’d just do his own stupid stuff, we just all got to bear witness. And it sure as hell isn’t like I’m the only one who was sick of him back then, there were plenty of other people whose skin he got under. Pretty much everyone he was partnered with in classes, his crew, whoever made that poster when flight classes were assigned - ”

The corners of Lance’s mouth quirked upward; he was pretty sure he knew what this story was going to be. “The poster,” he repeated.

“Yeah, in the hall for the fighter pilots’ hangar entrances, you know how they had that poster with, ah, whatshisname, the one Garrison alum, that had that, like, ‘Ten Tips for Fighter Pilots’ with those little inspirational quotes? Well, someone went and replaced it with a poster of Kogane, had it saying ‘Ten Tips for Getting into Fighter Class’ and it was, um, hang on… ‘Number one: develop a superiority complex. Number two: punch out the competition. Number three:’, uh…”

“‘Number three: you’re too special to play by the rules’,” Lance finished for him. “‘Number four: prepare to suck massive quantities of commanding officer dicks.’”

“So you remember it!” James cried. “I thought you might, that photo of the poster was going around for weeks after.”

“‘Course I remember it, I helped co-write it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nah, me and a couple of the others who wound up in cargo class. We were pissed, thought we would have a laugh. One of the others printed it up and hung it, I just helped with the concept. And the guy who printed it was the only one who got a suspension for it, so as far as anyone else knows, I’m one hundred percent innocent. So you didn’t hear this from me.”

“You have my word,” James said with a grin, putting his hand over his heart. “That was a classic, man. Guy who was rooming with Kogane that semester told us he straight up cried himself to sleep the night after that thing went up.”

Lance felt his own smile begin to falter. “He - ”

“He also straight up vanished for the weekend after. Turned out he just run off and hid at Shirogane’s place for a couple days, but a bunch of us thought he had straight up dropped out of the Garrison on account of that whole deal. Imagine everyone’s disappointment when he showed up again.”

“... Oh.” Lance stared down at his tray. He hadn’t known that. He had never meant to make Keith cry, even back then. None of them had. They’d only been trying to embarrass him a little, blow off some steam.

“Hey, it’s nothing to feel bad about,” James said, and Lance looked back up to see the other looking at him in concern. The twinge of guilt must have made its way into his expression. “Not the first time Kogane ran off crying just ‘cause someone was having a little fun with him. Wouldn’t stop him from completely blowing a fuse if someone spotted him melting down. He plays the victim card, but gets mad when people see him playing it. Try and figure that one out.”

“I mean, um, it’s - it’s possible he wasn’t ‘playing the victim card’, he was just… being upset…”

“We talking about the same Kogane? I’m pretty sure the only two emotions he’s capable of are boredom and rage.”

Lance swallowed as he looked down at his tray. The only food still on it was a brownie that he had saved for last, but suddenly it was looking rather unappetizing. In fact, everything he had eaten was suddenly not sitting well in his stomach. No, Keith was capable of more emotions than that, as much as Lance sometimes managed to convince himself otherwise; he’d seen them in action. And, apparently, been the cause of them before.

And God, this was just supposed to be him letting off some steam, but maybe…

He’d gone a bit too far, hadn’t he.

“Let’s… let’s drop this, okay?” he mumbled.

“All right, fine. Hey, another fun fact: are you aware that Keith used to - ”

“No, James, I meant - let’s drop this. This - this is mean.”

James frowned at him, quirking a brow. “What?”

“I, uh, I was mad at him today, sure, but - but I shouldn’t have said - ”

“Okay, whoa, what is with you all of a sudden? We were having fun a few minutes ago, then you start getting quiet on me, and now out of the blue it’s all, ‘thou shalt never speak ill of thy neighbor’?”

“It - I wasn’t thinking, I hadn’t thought - this was mean. We’re being mean.”

“Oh, so now I’m ‘mean’? Where is this coming from?”

“James - ”

“Maybe it’s nice to take the little freak down a peg, you know?” James snapped. “Seriously, it’s not like I’m bursting into his room and attacking him or anything, we’re just chatting. Considering how he went out of his way to make life so difficult for me back at the Garrison, I don’t think think there’s anything wrong with ragging on him a bit.”

Lance tilted his head. “Wait, what do you mean? Are you talking about that time he punched you?”

“That too, but also the fact that he would just be an ass to me at every opportunity,” James answered with a shrug. “You know the way he was, always acting like everyone else in the school was unworthy to speak to him and crap? Always gotta be better than everyone else? And he seemed to have it out for me in particular. Spent all his time glaring at me and trying to find excuses to get into fights. And he just could not stomach the thought of me being better than him in anything, so in every single class, no matter what I did, he always just had to one-up me, you know? Like, God forbid I ever surpass him in anything, in any way. Then the profs would started praising him because apparently they just love show-offs, and he’d get all smug and just refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s existence for the rest of class.”

He yawned and stretched his arms up behind his head before he added, “See, you weren’t in the fighter class yet, so you probably didn’t know what the dynamics were among the pilots or anything, so you may not be aware of this, but all through school, Keith Kogane was, like, my rival.”

Lance stared at him. “Your… what?”

“My rival,” James repeated. “You know, Kogane and Griffin, always neck-in-neck, fighting for top of the class. And he’d get pissed every time I’d beat him, get smug and look down his nose at me every time he’d beat me. He was a nightmare.”

“He was… your rival.”

“Yeah. You may have been stuck with him out in space, but you never had to deal with quite the same side of him I did. Count yourself lucky.”

For a long and quiet moment, Lance stared down at his empty tray, feeling like he had just swallowed, concrete. Then, without warning, he stood up, sending his chair back with a screech.

“Where you going?” James asked.

“I need to talk to Keith,” Lance said.

“What? Oh my God, are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. I - I have to apologize.”

“Dude, that shit was years ago. It’s all water under the bridge now.”

Lance shook his head. “No, no, it’s - I hadn’t realized I was so - I’ve gotta make this right. We ought to make this right, really.”

James rolled his eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve both fought beside him in battle. We’ve both worked on a team and saved his skin. I’m pretty sure that counts as ‘making things right’.”

“Whatever. I’m gonna talk to him.”

James shrugged. “Fine, on your own head be it, then. Are you gonna eat your brownie, by the way?” he asked, reaching for it.

Lance snatched up the tray with a grunt of, “Yes,” before James could grab the brownie, and he moved to dump all the remaining contents of the tray into the nearby garbage can before setting his tray on top and marching out of the cafeteria.

His thoughts were too muddied to allow him to pay much attention to his route as he walked to Keith’s room, and before he knew it, he found himself knocking on the door. A bark answered his knock, and when the door opened, Kosmo’s snout made its way out of the room first, eagerly sniffing the air before Keith pushed it back and took his place in the doorway.

“Lance?” Keith asked. “What is it?”

“Um… hey,” Lance answered, only just now realizing that in his haste to get here, he hadn’t actually planned on anything today.

Keith sighed. “If you’re here about the school thing this morning, you already made your thoughts perfectly clear on the ride back, so could you - ”

“No, that’s not - I wanted to - I just - I wanted to say sorry.”

Keith raised a brow. “For this morning?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “I mean, I shouldn’t have gotten frustrated with you, and I’m sorry. Yeah, you kinda screwed some stuff up, but I made it worse than it needed to be, so… sorry.”

“Um, thanks?”

“And, I mean, I hadn’t realized that I was, like, being mean about it, I thought I just - well, you seemed like you were being a bit of a dick too, so I was just kind of trying to be a dick back, but maybe you weren’t actually being a dick, you were just being you, and - not saying that ‘just you’ is a dick, just that that was the impression, see - and I shouldn’t have - I mean, I’ve said some really dickish stuff to you, and apparently so have other people, and you - I shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have had to deal with all that. I hadn’t realized… I over-dicked, I guess, is what I’m saying, and I’m sorry about that, and that was mean, and I - and I’m gonna be less of a dick, going forward, I swear I am.”

Keith stared at him, eyes blown wide. “Uh…” he said. “That’s… uh…”

“Right, sorry, that was, that was a lot, just now, kinda - kinda piled on there.” Lance cleared his throat. “But, um… sorry. For this morning. And for - for other stuff.”

“Oh.”

“I, uh, I just want to…” He took a breath. “Hey, um, if you want, I could give you a hand with this press stuff. Like, what to do in Q-and-A sessions, stuff like that. I figure, you know, ‘stead of just complaining about how you do it, I could… help?”

Keith frowned. “I dunno, Lance…”

“I mean, you don’t have to, I get it, I haven’t exactly been - been such a good - just, you know, the offer’s there, if you want it. And, um, sorry.”

“Right, you said that. Well… thanks. For the offer.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome.”

The two boys stood in uncertain silence before Keith slid back into his room, shutting the door behind him, and Lance let out a breath of tension. That hadn’t really been a moment of closure or revelation or anything.

Still… they had years’ worth of fences to mend. And Lance had apologized, and had left an open door, and next time he’d just have to try harder. Be patient with Keith. Put the shit behind him. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Baby steps, Lance told himself as he walked away from Keith’s room. Baby steps.

[realmwrites]

Homework

[ read on ao3 ]

GerAme Week - Work and Play

Alfred flops against the table, his pencil falling from his hand to the floor. He groans theatrically. “Ludwig, help me study. I don’t understand any of this shit.”

Ludwig rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand and dips to pick it up. “You’re actually better than me at math. If you would just apply yourself you could help us both out and explain this better than Ms. Iliopoulos did in class.” He slides him his pencil.

“Man, it’s so fucking funny that you call her that instead of Ms. I, but it’s also probably why you’re her favorite.” He flicks the pencil back towards Ludwig.

“Alfred, focus.” He hisses, pushing the pencil back again. “I call her that because it’s her name, and I’m not going to study with you anymore if you keep being a nuisance. I want to get some sleep tonight.”

“I can keep you up in more exciting ways if you want.” He wiggles his eyebrows, spinning the pencil with a hand.

“Shut up.” He flushes. “Do your homework.”

“Ugh, fine. You’re no fun.” Alfred sits up and runs a hand through his hair.

His glasses fall crooked across his nose, and despite his best efforts to tame it, a shock of golden blond springs back up. It makes him look like a comic book character, square jaw, bright eyes and all, and Ludwig’s heart stutters in his chest. He shakes it off and forces his gaze back to his paper.

Alfred continues. “Can’t we take a break? We’ve been doing homework for hours and hours and hours. I’m going to die if I don’t stand up and kick something.”

“Don’t kick something.” He grumbles under his breath and scratches down the next equation.

“Can we at least take a quick walk? It’s good to stand up and do shit between assignments. We finished history already, so I think we deserve at least one break. Or maybe we can raid the fridge and eat something. Like those bread things your mom bought? I’m fucking hungry.”

He stares at the singular x2 on his paper, his irritation spiking as his concentration dwindles. Maybe Alfred is right. Maybe he does need a break, but he knows that if they pause, he’ll never finish at a reasonable hour.

“No,” he says.

“Jeez, okay, I’m going to take a break if you aren’t. Come find me if I don’t come back in an hour or two, or when you decide you want a break, too.”

“You better not be gone for more than fifteen minutes.”

“That’s barely long enough to take a shit.”

“God, Alfred, you’re disgusting.”

“Whatever, dude, you know you love me.”

“Just go take your break. I’m trying to be productive here.”

Alfred snorts and pushes out from the table. “Okay, okay, sorry, Mr. Straight As. I’m leaving.”

“Good.” Ludwig rolls his eyes, no real bite to his tone. “Oh, and by the way, if you eat all the snacks, I’ll throttle you.”

“Then maybe you better come with me.”

“Absolutely not.”

Alfred shrugs and saunters out of the room.

Ludwig gnaws at his lip, glancing at where he’d disappeared and back to his paper. Chips, chocolate, coke- it does sound awfully appealing, but he’d already said he wasn’t interested. Ludwig exhales in frustration, scribbling down the next step. Quadratic equations should be easy for him by now, but for some reason, his mind won’t let him factor. It’s only number twelve- less than half the assignment.

Alfred pops unbidden in his mind’s eye, grinning with all his perfect white teeth, and Ludwig throws down his pencil. He leans back in his chair and looks to the ceiling, praying to any higher power for his unhelpful problem to cease to exist. He’s stopped bothering with denial, but the more he accepts his hopeless dilemma, the more hopeless it seems to become. Alfred Jones is the most beautiful boy he’s ever met in his life, but it’s never changed the fact that he rarely focuses on his school work, eats all of Ludwig’s snacks and is, worst of all, unquestionably straight.

He erases number twelve. Five minus seven does not equal three.

By the time number twelve is completed, he's  surprised to have heard no shouting from the kitchen or exaggerated sounds of chocolate consumption. It seems that Alfred has genuinely decided to let him work in peace, and it’s almost disappointing.

He stares at number thirteen for all of five seconds before he starts towards the kitchen. Maybe Alfred is right. Maybe a few minutes of break won’t hurt after all.

When he pads onto the tiled floor, Alfred is nowhere to be found, but he’s clearly been present. New chocolate wrappers are crumpled in the trashcan, and someone’s left out a full cup of coke. He smiles despite himself. Alfred knew he’d come looking, but at least, he’d poured him a glass. He grabs it and sips, wandering towards the back door.

He pushes it open, and his eyes land on Alfred rocking back and forth in a chair on the porch. Alfred glances in his direction at the sound of the door, but he doesn’t greet him with anything more than a nod. Ludwig squints at his somber expression and walks towards him and the chocolates on his lap.

“Are you just sitting here and thinking?” Ludwig asks, reaching for a chocolate.

Alfred shrugs.

He sits in the rocking chair beside him and pops the chocolate in his mouth. Alfred stares off into the yard. Ludwig follows his gaze to the oak tree, its leaves swaying in the back and the birds chirping in its branches. The sun sends dappled shadows on the grass, and light filters onto Alfred’s face in oblong splashes. Serious doesn’t suit him, and Ludwig is quickly growing uncomfortable.

“Are you okay? Oh, and thank you for pouring me a drink.” He tries again. It’s odd to be the one initiating the conversation.

“Uh huh. Welcome.” Alfred nods, sliding the chocolates onto the table in front of them. “And I dunno. Sort of. I guess.”

“Did something bad happen?”

“No, but do you think I’m stupid?”

“What? No? You’re very smart. You only act ridiculous sometimes, but you’re smarter than me. I think school just might be difficult for you because it’s so monotonous. It’s boring for me, and I even like regimented predictability.”

“I’m not smarter than you, but thanks.” He stretches his arms above his head, rolling his ankles in little circles. “Sorry. I just got thinking, but hey, Lud, you know how you’re… gay?”

Ludwig’s heart stops for a dreadful second, his fingers going numb against his glass. Did Alfred know?

“Er, yeah. What… What about it?”

“I think I… Uh, I- How did you figure that out? This probably sounds really dumb, but how’d you know you weren’t into girls?”

“The same way you know you aren’t into men.” Ludwig shrugs, relieved to hear it’s this and not anything regarding his feelings towards Alfred. “I’m not attracted to them. I think some girls are cute. Eliza is beautiful, but it’s more of an observation than anything else.”

“But I don’t know that.”

“Of course-” Ludwig stops, his eyebrows raising. His heart flutters in his throat as hidden hopes and locked dreams rattle in their cages. He forces them down. It doesn’t mean a thing when this likely has nothing to do with him at all.

“No, I don’t know that I’m just into girls. Like I don’t know. It’s not like I want to bang when I see a good- a hot guy? But I don’t know. Does it count if it’s just one person? Being bisexual?”

He feels like he’s dying.

“It’s your identity, but what do you mean? Is this recent?”

“No. It’s- fuck, it’s, I don’t know, it’s been like this for a while now. I didn’t say anything because it was weird? Not that being… gay is weird. But it was- I don't really fucking know. I think this guy is really… hot I guess? But it's not just that. I thought for a while that maybe I just wanted to look like him or some shit, but it's like a crush? Like butterflies in your stomach whenever he smiles. I want to-” Alfred groans. “I don't know. What the fuck is happening to me?”

His throat constricts. The sun is too warm on his skin, and Alfred's blue eyes burn like sunspots through his heart. It could be him, but why when they knew so many better looking, kinder, more talented people? Why when it could be Kiku with his soft smile and witty jokes? Feliciano with his boundless energy and magnetic creativity? Ivan with his cooling presence and sharp tongue? Francis with his flamboyant confidence and effortless beauty? Too many better choices, too many easier friends. Besides, why would Alfred tell him anything if it was him?

“It sounds like a crush.” He barely registers his own voice. “Do you know if he's interested in men? Do you want to pursue him?”

“Yeah, he's not straight, and yeah, I think- No, yeah, I want to really fucking badly. I'm just scared it would ruin our friendship because I really care about him, and- I don't know, Lud. I'm so fucking confused. What would you do?”

Suppress all emotion and die, he thinks. “Is he open to dating?”

“I think so?”

Ludwig wants to take Alfred's hands in his own and look him straight in the eyes. He wants to tell him he's wanted to kiss him since freshman year, that he's never stopped wanting. He swallows down every sticky, choking feeling crawling up his throat. But he still feels sick to his stomach.

“You should ask him about his love life. If he seems open, it’s always better to tell them the truth. You can get it off your chest and move on, and if not, you can pursue it.”

“Okay.” Alfred's eyes bore into his soul. “You're single, right?”

“Yes.” And he will be until Alfred Jones exits his life.

He doesn't know which is worse: Alfred staying his closest friend and dating someone else or Alfred leaving his life forever. Both are too painful to consider.

Ludwig frowns. “This isn't relevant though.”

“Why not? Are you open to dating right now?”

Yes and no. Yes if your name is Alfred. No if you’re anyone else.

“Alfred, can we not talk about my love life?”

“Lud-”

“Who is it anyways? And why are you only telling me now?” Ludwig's heart thumps wildly in his chest, his words dropping like anvil strikes on hot iron. He can't stop. “I thought we were best friends.”

“I haven't-” His face crumples, hurt writing itself across his features. “And yeah, we are best friends! I only told Kiku, but that's because I didn't want to mess anything up with you.”

Ludwig bites his lip hard. “You told Kiku before me.”

It makes sense. Kiku is the better listener. Kiku is the better friend. Kiku gives better advice, and Kiku isn't disgustingly horrible with anything emotional.

“Lud, no, it's not like that-”

“Then what is it like? How come-”

Alfred stands from his chair and in a heartbeat, his lips are pressed against his. Ludwig's mind runs blank.

Alfred's lips are burning, his breath puffing against his mouth and his hands balled up in his shirt. Ludwig leans forward, craning his neck to meet him and slinging his arms around his neck. He tastes like coca cola and chocolate. His fingers thread through the soft locks of Alfred's hair, and he tugs him closer.

“Lud-” Alfred yelps, but before Ludwig can process what's occurring, Alfred tumbles into his lap.

He blushes bright red, his hands gripping the back of Alfred's shirt and Alfred's knee between his legs. They’re chest to chest, and Alfred is just a breath away.

“I'm sorry-” Ludwig starts.

But Alfred laughs and slides his knee up beside his other until he's kneeling on the chair between his legs. He cups his face with his hands, his careful fingers brushing against his cheekbones, and Ludwig inhales sharply.

“Wait, so do you like me, or do you just usually kiss back people who kiss you out of instinct or some shit?” His face is flushed a healthy pink, and he's grinning wide. He looks like a vision, and Ludwig's heart is threatening to beat out of his chest.

“I like you.” He admits.

“Good because you were the guy I was talking about, and it's why I didn't tell you sooner, and also, do you know how distracting you are when I'm trying to do my math homework, and you're here chewing on your lip with that cute little crease between your eyebrows, and how much it makes me want to kiss you?”

Ludwig gapes, his thoughts scrambled in an incoherent mess.

“Is this bad? Should I get off?”

“No, it's good.” He quickly amends. He runs his hands through Alfred's hair with reverent awe. He traces down his neck to his shoulders, marveling at his warmth and his weight against him, and Alfred shivers beneath his touch. He bites his lip. “It's good.”

And it is, and Alfred is staring at him like he's announced he's a real live superhero, or he's promised him a trip to the moon. He's warm and real and bright, his eyes sparkling behind his dark frames and his hair fluttering in the breeze across his face. Alfred smiles, their noses brushing for an instant, and Ludwig's stomach does somersaults in his middle.

“See. When you do that it makes me want to kiss you and never think about math again.”

“You can. Kiss me, I mean, if you want. Actually-” Ludwig sets his hands on his glasses and slides them off. Alfred blinks, and without them, his eyes go almost bluer. He’s beautiful, but he always is.

Ludwig sets them on the table to their front and smiles. “Okay. Now you can if you want.”

“Whatever you want, Lud.”

Alfred cups his jaw in his hands and kisses him tenderly. He sighs against his mouth, his thumb running along his cheeks and his chest pressed against his front. It feels like fairy dust soaking into his skin, burning at his lips and his skin and his chest wherever Alfred touches. His hands slip to his waist, and he squeezes his hips gently, the contact tingling like stars beneath his grip. It feels like stardust and promises fulfilled beneath the full moon, inexplicable joy washing over him like lapping waves on the seashore.

Alfred breaks away, his cheeks flushed and his hands settled in his hair. He laughs and turns until he's sitting in his lap.

“Can we do this more often?”

Ludwig grins, wrapping his arms around his middle and tucking his chin above his shoulder. “Only if you promise to teach me how to do that damn assignment.”

“Good. And now that we're dating, we can have more fun breaks than just stuffing our faces with junk food.”

“We're dating?”

Alfred reaches back, his hand finding Ludwig's cheek. “If you want.”

“We're dating.” He agrees.

Alfred laughs.