#at this point maybe I should just find a box set of this (and Atlantis too) and just go back to childhood a bit :') | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

purrincess-chat · 4 years

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My Chosen’s Keeper CH3 (FINAL)

Here is the last chapter of the petty kwami AU. I have basically this whole week off because of Hurricane Sally, so I decided to go ahead and post the last chapter since I finished it up. I’m so happy you all enjoy this fic, and I hope you like the conclusion!

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Chapter 3

After a week, Lila stopped scheming against Marinette. In fact, she’d stopped doing much of anything. Every so often she’d look over her shoulder as if expecting someone to be following her, and she flinched every time she opened her locker or her bag.

Tikki was satisfied enough with their efforts, though she worried they’d gone too far when Lila spun around on poor Nathaniel walking behind her to his seat. Her goal was to inconvenience Lila, not scare her out of her skin, and now her stomach was churning too much to enjoy her morning macaron. She popped into Adrien’s bag where Plagg was dozing in an empty Camembert carton and shook him awake.

“Plagg, do you think maybe we went too far with all of this?” She asked, but Plagg simply shrugged his shoulders and burped.

“Relax, sugar cube. That girl got what was coming to her.”

“Yeah, but she’s petrified now, and people are starting to notice,” she said with a nervous glance up at the open zipper. “I think we should stop.”

“Fine,” Plagg yawned, and Tikki prodded his side.

“I’m serious, Plagg. No more pranks.”

“Okay,” he said, and she sat back, antenna pressing low against her head.

“Good,” she said with a nod.

As the bell rang, Tikki slipped back into Marinette’s bag before her owner noticed her absence. She tried to push the whole situation from her mind, but when Alya leaned against Marinette’s neighboring locker, her nerves only worsened.

“Lila’s been acting super paranoid today. I wonder what’s bugging her,” Alya whispered, casting a glance at their classmate across the room.

“Nathaniel told me she thinks she’s being haunted,” Marinette said. Even she seemed concerned, and Tikki shrank deeper into her purse.

“I mean, a lot of crazy stuff has been happening to her, so maybe she is,” Alya said with a wince.

“I wouldn’t doubt if she’d made a spirit angry,” Marinette mumbled, and Alya leaned in closer.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I feel kinda bad for her. I saw her dozing off in class earlier. She must not be sleeping,” Alya said, biting her lip. “Hey, why don’t we all plan a sleepover? Maybe if a group of us supports her then she’ll feel safe enough to sleep.”

“Uhh, yeah, sure,” Marinette said, sounding anything but willing. “You plan it, and I will definitely not think of an excuse not to go.”

“I’ll ask her this afternoon. It’ll be fun.” Alya nudged her with her elbow before they headed to their next class.

To Tikki’s horror, not only did Lila accept the sleepover invitation, but somehow, she managed to convince them to host it at Marinette’s house. Lila had a way of backing people into corners, and Marinette didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Tikki was equally as unenthused. Just what she needed—another reason to get involved.

“Plagg, what am I gonna do?” Tikki asked that afternoon in art class. “I know she’s up to something!”

“Do you want me to leave stinky cheese in her locker again?”

“No!”

“Good because it’s a terrible waste of perfectly good cheese.”

“Plagg! I’m serious. What if Lila does something to my owner tonight?” Tikki said, tugging his arm. “Help me!”

“I thought you wanted to be done with all of this? No more pranks?” Plagg said, and Tikki averted her gaze, antenna lowering.

“I do, but she’s coming into her personal home. What if she finds her diary and learns that she’s Ladybug? Or what if she just so happens to steal her earrings? Or what if-”

“Don’t worry, sugar cube. I’ll help you tonight. Lila won’t get away with anything, okay?” Plagg said, patting her head.

“You mean it?”

“Have I ever lied to you?” Plagg asked, and Tikki’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, bad question. I promise I won’t let you down—this time.”

“Thanks, Plagg.”

Later that evening, Tikki chewed her lip as Marinette tidied up for her guests. She’d helped remove any lingering Adrien pictures despite her friends all knowing about her crush, but Marinette was just as wary of having Lila over as Tikki. As a result, she was taking a few extra precautions like hiding her diary and anything else Lila could use against her. It eased some of Tikki’s worry, but not all of it.

“Are you really going to have that girl over?” She asked as Marinette locked her important belongings in her chest.

“I couldn’t exactly say no. Lila is too good at manipulating everyone. If I had said no, she would have made it seem like I hate her,” Marinette said, leaning against her fist.

“But you do hate her.”

“Yeah, but I can’t prove why I hate her to everyone, so I don’t have a choice,” Marinette sighed. “We’ll just have to be extra careful tonight. I doubt Lila will try anything with all of the girls over.”

“Yeah. Hopefully.”

Thankfully Alya arrived first to help set up because Lila was the first after her. She seemed surprised and slightly annoyed to find Alya there as well, and Tikki’s blood boiled at the sight of her. She popped up to the roof, tapping her paws together as she peered out over the street. The night was calm and quiet—a direct contrast to the storm brewing inside her. Where was Plagg?

“Ya know, you really worry too much.”

She spun around to see him lounging on the chair with a cheese danish from the bakery. Relief flooded her mind, but it was quickly replaced by annoyance. “Where have you been?”

“Relax, sugar cube. I was doing some important reconnaissance,” he said around a mouthful.

“You mean helping yourself to whatever your greedy stomach wanted?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You are so selfish!”

“Oh, then I suppose you already know that Lila has a lockpick in her bag?”

“She- you- oh…Well, then we should-”

“Already did. And her toothbrush just for fun,” he snickered, and Tikki lowered onto the chair beside him. “I’m a little insulted that you don’t believe in me.”

“Dinosaurs, Atlantis, the Black Plague…”

Plagg bit off a chunk of his pastry and chewed it grumpily. “We never talk about your mistakes.”

“Thank you, Plagg,” Tikki said, and he blinked, swallowing the rest of the danish whole. “For everything.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all sappy on me.” He turned his back to her and waved it away, but she could see the smile tugging on his lips. “Now come on. We’ve got work to do.”

The girls were gathered in Marinette’s room when Tikki and Plagg snuck in and took position on Marinette’s bed. Marinette had strategically positioned herself on top of her locked chest, and partnered with Plagg’s disposal of Lila’s lock pick, it eased some of Tikki’s nerves. At least her secrets would be safe, but that didn’t mean Lila didn’t have other tricks up her sleeve.

After a while, they moved downstairs to watch a movie, and Mr. Dupain brought up homemade pizza. Plagg groaned beside her as the girls pulled apart stretchy strips of cheese, and Tikki restrained him from flying down and helping himself.

Halfway through the movie, Lila got up to go to the bathroom, and Tikki followed. Just as she feared, the moment the door closed, Lila set to work silently opening cabinets. Tikki had half a mind to spray her with the sink nozzle again, but after a few minutes of searching, Lila found what she was looking for—a metal nail file. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and tucked them both into her pocket.

Back out in the main room, she announced that she was going to go upstairs and call her mom who was traveling overseas on some important ambassador thing, and she only had a short window in the evening to talk to her because of timezones or something. It didn’t matter the reason because it was a lie. Marinette’s glare followed her up the stairs with Tikki right behind it.

“Plagg?” She hissed, glancing around for that lazy black cat, but she didn’t have to guess where he was. “I told you not to touch the pizza!”

Plagg clung to the piece he was greedily stuffing in his mouth as Tikki tugged on his tail. “Oh come on! Mr. Dupain makes his own mozzarella. I couldn’t resist!”

“Lila is on the move! She took a nail file from the bathroom, and now she’s upstairs! Come on!”

Plagg caressed his slice of pizza one last time before Tikki dragged him up the stairs. Lila was already kneeling beside the chest, nail file and bobby pin at work.

“Come on, stupid chest. I know Marinette is behind all of the weird stuff happening to me lately,” she grumbled. “I just need something to blackmail her with to make it all stop. Just open!”

“Plagg, what are we gonna do?” Tikki whispered, and Plagg was already surveying the rest of the room.

“Follow my lead,” he said, darting for the nearest mannequin.

Lila nearly had the lock open when a stack of shoeboxes toppled over, and she jumped. Seeing that it was only boxes, she took a deep breath and turned back to her work.

“What?” She gasped when her makeshift lock picks were no where to be found.

“Lila…”

She startled, jumping up and spinning around, but no one was in the room. No one she could see anyway.

“Liiiila…”

“Very funny, Marinette. I know it’s you. It’s been you the whole time. I don’t know how, but you won’t beat me,” she said, but the way her eyes flicked frantically around the room betrayed her true fear.

“Leave her alone…”

The mannequin by the chaise, surged forward, and Lila’s scream filled the house. She scrambled for the trapdoor, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she tugged. The girls rushed up the stairs, Marinette at the front. She pushed the trapdoor open easily to find Lila curled into a ball on the floor, tears streaming down her face.

“What are you doing?” Marinette demanded, and Alya crawled up to wrap an arm around Lila’s shoulders.

“The mannequin!” Lila wailed.

“What about it?” Marinette asked.

“It-It talked and moved and-and-” She pointed across the room, but the mannequin had returned to its original place. Even the shoeboxes had righted themselves. “But…”

“Maybe we should all just go to bed,” Alya suggested, and Lila grabbed her shoulders.

“But it did move! I swear I’m not making it up,” she said, gripping her shirt so tightly that Alya swatted her hands away with a hiss.

“I think you’re just tired-”

“Or crazy,” Marinette mumbled, masking it with a cough.

“Sleep deprivation can make you see weird things,” Alya said. “Come on. Let’s get you some sleep.”

As the girls moved downstairs again, Marinette eyed her chest, but her secrets were safe. Tikki still stayed up all night to make sure Lila didn’t try anything again, but their ghost stunt seemed to have scared her off the idea.

When morning light streamed in from the windows, Tikki sat back with a yawn. Curling in next to Plagg snoring loudly on Marinette’s chaise, she slipped off into sleep with the reassurance that Marinette was safe.

***

The Monday after the sleepover, Lila entered the school on a quest for vengeance. Dark bags hung under blood-shot eyes, and her whole demeanor was slightly unhinged as everyone hung out in the courtyard on break. Tikki knew she was going to target Marinette again, so she lingered close by—waiting.

Marinette was sketching on a bench by herself while a maintenance man repainted the railing to her left. When he reached a stopping point, he scooted the ladder next to the bench and took his break, but Marinette never looked up from her drawing.

“Hey, I heard about the sleepover. What happened?” Adrien materialized at Marinette’s side, startling her out of her skin. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Marinette relaxed. “I don’t know. I knew she was up to no good, and while we were all watching a movie, she went up to my room to ‘call her mom’ then she just started screaming and freaking out,” Marinette said, shooting her a glare across the courtyard. “I don’t really know what happened, but she swears my mannequin talked to her.”

“Do you think she’s doing it all for attention?” Adrien asked, but Marinette pursed her lips.

“I don’t think so this time. She seemed really freaked out when we found her. I think she’s actually losing her mind,” Marinette said.

“You don’t think she’s really being haunted, do you?” Adrien’s green eyes clouded with worry.

“I don’t know,” Marinette said with a shrug. “Maybe she is making it all up for attention, or maybe all of her lying is finally catching up to her.”

“Let’s hope this convinces her to start telling the truth whatever it is,” he said. “I’m just glad she didn’t do anything to you. I was worried when I heard she was coming to your house for a sleepover.”

Marinette’s cheeks flushed at that, and she took her eyes off Lila. Adrien was the perfect distraction, but Tikki wasn’t so easily deterred because Lila was watching them too. Their friendly smiles and close proximity drove her over the edge. When she dashed toward them, Tikki braced herself, but Lila wasn’t aiming for the bench.

Tikki glanced up at the paint can resting precariously on the top of the ladder beside them, recognizing the intent in Lila’s eyes.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said, flitting up to the bucket.

Lila rocked the ladder, but against the laws of natural physics, the can twirled around and dumped on top of her. The courtyard fell silent as the can clattered to the ground, and Lila wiped green paint from her face.

“That’s it!” She screeched, pointing a finger at Marinette. “This is all your fault!”

“Lila, Marinette didn’t do anything. I was talking to her the whole time,” Adrien said, holding up cautioning hands.

“No! Everything is her fault!” Lila stomped a foot. “I don’t know how you keep doing it, but I know it’s you!”

“Lila, what are you-” Alya started, but Lila lunging at Marinette cut her off. Nino and Ivan caught her, and Adrien took a defensive stance in front of Marinette.

“How did you do it, Marinette?” She growled. “I put those test answers in your schoolbag, but they weren’t there when Mlle. Bustier checked! I planted my necklace in your locker during lunch, but somehow you put it back! How did you do it?”

Marinette and Adrien cupped hands over their mouths as the weight of those words settled among their classmates. Confusion and anger snaked its way onto every face, and more classmates joined Adrien guarding Marinette.

“Wait, you tried to frame Marinette? But why?” Nathaniel asked, and Lila shot him a glare.

“Because I hate her! She’s always getting in my way and ruining my plans. I’d have you all eating out of the palm of my hand if it wasn’t for her!” She said, shoulders heaving. She ripped away from Nino and Ivan and kicked the paint bucket with a shriek.

“Whoa, so all those times Marinette said you were lying…” Nino said, lowering his gaze.

“She was right,” Adrien spoke up, and all eyes turned to him. “Lila is a liar. Nothing she’s ever said is true. She just wanted to use all of you for attention.”

“So, you’ve never met Jagged Stone?” Rose deflated.

“And let me guess. You’re not really bffs with Ladybug,” Alya said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Of course I’m not friends with that stupid insect! I hope Hawkmoth takes her Miraculous and rids the world of her stupid face!” Lila shouted.

“What’s going on here?” Mr. Damocles demanded as he and Mlle. Bustier approached.

“Karma,” Marinette said with a grunt.

Lila glanced between each face glaring back at her, the rage-induced fog clearing enough for her to see the damage she’d inflicted. Her eyes widened, and her shoulders shrank. For the first time since she’d stepped foot in their school, Lila was exposed. Powerless. Small.

“My office. Now.” Mr. Damocles barked through gritted teeth, and Lila followed behind him quietly. She had nothing left to say. No more lies to tell.

“M, are you okay?” Alya pulled her best friend in for a tight hug. “I’m so sorry I never believed you.”

“Yeah, we should have known better. You never trip out over anyone unless there’s a reason,” Nino said, ruffling her hair.

“We’re sorry, Marinette.”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“It’s fine,” Marinette said, cutting everyone off. “Really. I’m not mad at you. Lila manipulated all of you. It’s not your fault she can’t tell the truth.”

“Marinette…” Alya cooed, and all of their classmates huddled around her.

When the bell rang, they all dispersed, heading to their next class, but Marinette excused herself to the bathroom. Tikki slipped back into her purse, relieved that it was finally over and that she hadn’t been caught. Or rather, she thought she hadn’t been caught until Marinette ripped open her purse and dumped her out into her waiting hand.

“I thought kwamis weren’t supposed to meddle,” she said, quirking a brow, and Tikki shrank guiltily.

“I’m sorry, Marinette! I just knew she was up to no good, and I couldn’t let her frame you,” she said, pressing her paws together.

“Putting the test answers back and moving the necklace are like you, but exploding milk cartons and mannequin ghosts?” Marinette cocked a hip. “Plagg, I know you helped too.”

A sinister chortle echoed above them as Plagg floated down beside Tikki. “I couldn’t let sugar cube have all the fun.”

“We’re really sorry,” Tikki said, lowering her head.

She braced for her punishment, but instead, Marinette lifted the two of them to her lips and planted a soft kiss on each of their heads. “Thanks, you two.”

“You mean you’re not mad?”

“Nah, Lila deserved it,” she said with a shrug.

“I’ll accept my reward in the form of one of those tasty cheese danishes your dad makes,” Plagg said, puffing his chest out, and Marinette scratched under his chin with a giggle.

“You can have all the cheese danishes you want,” she said. “It’s nice to know you two have my back.”

“Of course,” Plagg said, draping an arm over Tikki’s shoulders. “If someone wants to mess with the Bug, they’re gonna have to go through us.”

“We’ll always make sure you’re safe,” Tikki added, and Marinette held out a pink with a smile.

“Bien Joué!”

#miraculous ladybug #tikki #plagg #marinette dupain-cheng #lila salt #petty kwami au #my writing #uninteresting tidbit #chapter 1 was 1k chapter 2 was 2k and now chapter 3 is 3k #this was unintentional but i find it amusing #anyway #enjoy #hiatus cat

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 5 years

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Princess of Atlantis

Marinette has always been fully aware her father wasn’t fully human- or Tom. Her mom had met Arthur- her bio dad- on a trip to Hawaii. They’d had a whirlwind summer fling that ended with Sabine going back to China for her move to France unaware she was pregnant.

When she discovered she was pregnant she’d contacted Arthur who had gone right to France to explain some things. Learning about the fact there was an entire world underwater? Was… interesting. Learning her daughter may be in danger because of her heritage?

She was not happy.

Marinette was five when her uncle Orm attacked the surface and her father became King of Atlantis. When they’d learned he had a daughter on land they had all decided that she could not be heir given her only Atlantean abilities were breathing underwater.

Marinette, even at age five, had no issue with that. She did not want to rule Atlantis. She wanted to be a fashion designer. She said that to her dad when he’d broken the news.

“I’m going to also redesign your suit.”

“It’s not-“

“It’s ugly daddy.”

She still was a princess though and had to sit in on lessons given to her by Mera, her father’s betrothed/girlfriend. Mera at least was fun.

She learned Atlantean design and etiquette. It was fun and enjoyable and she got to design her new step-mother’s wedding dress and her daddy’s suit for their wedding at age ten which she was thrilled about.

Marinette grew up learning about her heritage from all sides of her family, her dad fIrm on the idea. She spent time in Hawaii with her grandfather, and later her grandmother, and time in Atlantis. She learned her Hawaiian heritage, her Chinese heritage and her Atlantean heritage from a young age.

Children though can be cruel. Especially when afraid. A little girl with crazy wavy hair and the ability to swap between multiple languages is fun, but when a girl whose daddy has power and has taught her she can do no wrong decides she doesn’t like you… no one does.

Marinette grew up being taunted for her differences. She saw how some people side-eyed her and her mother while walking around, how some Atlanteans sneered at her for her mostly human heritage, saw how some of the people on the islands seemed to hesitate around her. She tried to smile through it but…

Well, in the end, it was easier to pretend. She was white-passing enough that all she needed to do was straighten her hair and stop speaking other languages.

Her mother hated it. Her papa- Tom- did too. Her daddy did, her step-momma did. Her grandfather and grandmothers did. Kaldur, the boy who became her daddy’s apprentice and a big brother figure to her, hated it too.

But she couldn’t keep going, couldn’t keep being taunted. So she plastered a smile on her face and pretended. And it worked- Chloe, the bully, backed off and she made some sort of friends. She even became a hero like her daddy and slowly gained actual friends. She got to make her own team like Kaldur, she got a partner she could count on, a mentor to help her out. She was happy.

Or so she thought.

A liar came to school and things went all to hell. She lost everything. Her friends, her comfort she felt in her hero partner being there to help. Her team, her mentor…

She was left holding a box full of power, tears in her eyes and a scream in her throat. She took off to Atlantis where she collapsed and sobbed into her step-momma’s dress and her daddy raged.

It was Kaldur who helped her.

“Fuck them,” Kaldur told her. “They don’t deserve your tears.” He sat with her and wrapped his arms around her. “They weren’t friends. Friends don’t betray you like this. Friends stick with you even when things go to hell.” He kissed her forehead and promised to be there.

And he was. He was there when she herself decided fuck it when she stopped straightening her hair and cut it into an undercut with one side framing her face. When she started wearing eyeliner- he even went and got some help from Nightwing for learning some dramatic ways to make her eyes pop.

Kaldur helped her figure out how to find good people to fight with. Kagami, Luka- they were good fighters, good friends. They had her back. Luka got into fights with his sister about her and never back down. Kagami punched Adrien and told him how little she cared for him seeing how he never backed up his friend.

Marinette started smiling again soon enough.

-0-

“I hope Marinette doesn’t make this difficult,” Lila told Alya, pouting. “I know she has Italian heritage too but I’m fully Italian…”

“Don’t worry girl, we’ll make sure Marinette doesn’t start anything,” Alya promised as they all sat in the classroom about to give their reports on their cultural heritage. The others nodded and all turned to the front just as Marinette walked in. She’d changed- everyone knew it. Gone was the kind girl… sort of. She was still kind, but she stopped looking like she used to her. Her hair was short, she wore dark make-up, and she dressed in loose and comfortable clothing that made her look badass honestly. She also apparently had tattoos but no one had believed it- until today when she came in with no sleeves and showing off her tattoos on her arms.

“Oh god, where did she get those?” asked Juleka in shock. “They’re badass.”

“Maybe they’re gang signs,” Lila said slyly, smirking as everyone began whispering about this new rumour.

“Class,” Ms. Bustier- the woman had moved with them to lycee because Chloe had demanded her favourite teacher be moved with her- began. “Marinette will be going first on her report as she needs to leave for a family thing.”

“What?” Alya asked. “But Lila’s the full Italian! Shouldn’t we learn about the culture from her?” everyone nodded. Marinette stared at them, face blank.

“...Nino, you’ve known me since we were kids. You know Tom’s not my bio dad.” Marinette said and the class froze.

“... Shit, I forgot.” Nino admitted while Marinette rolled her eyes hard.

“I figured. So no, I’m not doing Italian anyway.” She turned and began setting up her powerpoint, ignoring the class. Lila was angry. She had hoped to whine and cry that Marinette had stolen some of her points about her heritage or make some comment about Marinette obviously having stolen her report. Now she had to actually do it. “As everyone knows- and I did do a previous report on it- my mother is Chinese. What few others know is that my bio father is kānaka ʻōiwi, or Native Hawaiian as some know them as.” Marinette continued her report, showing off interesting legends about her father’s people and even speaking of her tattoos. “They were done in the traditional way and it really hurt but I think they’re pretty amazing. I don’t have much- just a few that my dad thought fit me.” Marinette grinned and everyone looked at each other feeling uncomfortable. When her report was done she left with a wave and a very awkward class.

Not that she cared, she was busy focusing on the fact uncle fucking Orm wanted to see her. Orm- as in her weedy uncle who still hated all land walkers. And who looked like a dork and still wouldn’t take her advice about his hair.

Walking up to the living room, she wanted to whine upon seeing him. He was looking annoyed while sitting on the couch.

“What’s going on that I needed to ditch school?” she asked, feeling annoyed at seeing him. She had stopped wanting to do everything for everyone. She’d stopped trying to be a people pleaser. It was annoying and frustrating. Kaldur had taken her to meet Red Robin who was similar to her in that way and they’d both had a nice long bitch out about everything before they’d both decided to stop it. Stop trying to help people who never said thanks, stop trying to please everyone.

She enjoyed the chaos the class had become and loved hearing about how much of a shit show Gotham’s Batfam had become themselves before they actually started trying again.

“We need someone to run Atlantis,” Orm said darkly. She stared at him.

“Oh fuck no. No- nope. Nuh-uh. Aʻole, Méiyǒu. NO.” She shook her head, holding her hands up. “I am literally as far from the throne as I can be given I’m the King’s only kid so far? I mean Kaldur doesn’t count.”

“This is true but your father is needed in space while Mera is still on bedrest as her pregnancy is most difficult currently and Kaldur has no actual relation to the throne.”

“And you can’t rule because technically you were dishonoured,” Marinette added in, gaining a dirty look from her uncle. “Damn… I’m just the face of this, right? Step-momma is still the one giving orders?”

“Of course. Though there is a ball with land walkers you need to attend.” Marinette stopped.

“...Everyone will know who I am then.” Orm shrugged, uncaring.

“Weren’t you planning on revealing yourself anyway?” Marinette frowned but sighed, her shoulders slumping.

“...At least I have a dress already designed and half made for this.”

-0-

Telling Bustier she wouldn’t be in for two weeks was simple enough. Ruling Atlantis- or really acting as a mouthpiece for her step-mother? Simple to. Jumping back to Paris when an Akuma happened? Easy. All of Atlantis knew she was Ladybug- they felt the magic. They knew she was the Guardian as well and mostly ignored that as long as Plagg never came near them. Given she was still hesitating on claiming the ring she was okay.

She didn’t want to take his ring, she wanted her partner back, her best friend. She wanted him to stop flirting and stop not taking things seriously.

“It’s annoying,” she told Kaldur while signing some papers. She and Kaldur were in the room Mera was in, the woman annoyed at the bed rest condition she’d been given for her pregnancy and demanding Marinette sign the papers in her room at least. “I mean- it’s wrong and gross and I should take it back but it feels… wrong. Gross to consider it, you know?”

“That’s the bond of a Ladybug and Chat Noir I believe according to our records,” Mera told her step-daughter.

“Yeah- magic makes things tricky. But he’s really pushing the boundaries.” Kaldur told Marinette who sighed.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Tell him you’re dating someone,” Mera said. “If he’s a dick still then take the ring.”

Maybe she would. Maybe.

But first, she had the damn ball to deal with.

-0-

“I look terrible in gold Uncle Orm.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Uncle.” Orm glared at his niece as she glared at the gold fabric he’d thrust into her arms to add to her dress. It needed an extra layer, and gold was one of the colours of Atlantis. “I look better in silver.”

“I don’t care. You need to have the colours of Atlantis on you.” Orm told her. She glared at him and then at the fabric.

“At least you got the sheer stuff. It’ll look nice over it hopefully.” She added the cloth and did admit it looked nice.

She still hated gold cloth.

But it went with her tiara as she waited for the announcer to call her, a hand on Kaldur’s arm.

“Relax Marinette- everything is okay,” he told her softly.

“I’m about to reveal to the whole world I’m the Princess of Atlantis.”

“Imagine the looks on your classmates’ faces?”

“...Okay yeah, I feel better now.” Marinette flashed a smile and waited.

“Her Royal Highness, Princess Marinette Curry-Dupain-Cheng of Atlantis, current regent while her father is in space and Lord Kaldur of Atlantis.” the Announcer read out loud. Marinette and Kaldur walked into the room with their heads high.

Cameras flashed and Marinette kept her eyes focused. Her dress showed off her tattoos and muscular arms, the entire thing designed to be able to fight in if needed. She was every inch the warrior princess that Atlantis could boast of.

“Princess!” a man shouted. “Who designed your dress.”

“I did myself,” she told him. “I enjoy fashion design and sewing.”

“Are you the heir?”

“No,” she told that reporter. “Due to the fact I only have a quarter of Atlantean blood I am not the heir but as said I stepped in as regent while my father fights for our galaxy,”

“Are you and Kaldur dating?”

“Definitely not- he’s my elder brother in everything but blood and legality.” She told that one before she was led away by Kaldur and had to play nice for a few hours with politicians.

There was one face she recognized.

“Prince Ali,” she said, curtseying like she’d been taught by Mera.

“Princess Marinette,” the Prince of Achu said, bowing. He looked a bit sad. “I see you aren’t in rehab like Rose is saying Lila is claiming.” Marinette stopped as did Kaldur.

“...What?”

“Apparently that’s the new rumour that Lila Rossi is spreading.”

“...I believe I need to make some calls to various lawyers we have on land,” Kaldur said darkly and strode off to do so. Marinette had her eyes closed and took a deep breath.

“I hate that girl will all my soul,” she finally said after a moment.

“I do as well,” Ali admitted. Marinette looked at him in surprise. “I meet many people, your highness. Sometimes- unless they had made an impression- I forget them. When Rose asked if I knew Lila, I said possibly I’d met her. I did not know the extent of her lies until Rose referenced them and then… it was to late.”

“Not really your highness, you could have said something.” Ali winced.

“I have few friends, Princess Marinette, Rose is one of the few. And like others she expects me to be a perfect Prince which means not… rocking the boat so to speak.” He looked pained saying so, and Marinette frowned.

“Then she’d not a friend Prince Ali. Real friends wouldn’t hold you to expectations and ideals. That’s why I stopped being friends with a fair amount of my class. I think only Juleka and I could be called friendly- and that’s because her brother is one of my best friends.” Ali frowned but looked thoughtful.

After the ball, Marinette went back to Atlantis with a satisfied smile. She had a nice time, and she even swapped numbers with Ali.

Maybe she had a new friend.

-0-

The rest of the time spent in Atlantis was spent texting Ali when bored and ignoring the emails from her classmates who’d realized she’d changed her number. Most were basically begs for her to talk to them, a few saying they were sorry, or asking for an interview. Some accused her of lying or brainwashing Ali (Alya there) while Rose sent a sorry email. Apparently, she’d taken Ali’s message to heart and even Juleka felt bad.

Marinette didn’t give a damn.

When her dad came back and she got to hug him and hit him for leaving the planet- idiot- he had a laugh over the emails.

“Your classmates are ridiculous,” he told her. “What, do they think you’ll dramatically run back to each other, arms wide open?”

“Probably,” she told him. “I just don’t give a damn.”

“Nice.” he ruffled her hair and they chatted about seeing grandma and grandpa in Hawaii over the summer again before Marinette headed back to Paris where some of the Atlanteans who could walk on land were guarding the bakery. And where a lawyer was waiting, plus a personal assistant.

“No,” Marinette whined as her father patted her shoulder. He’d gone with her to explain some things.

“Sorry kid. You’re in the spotlight now- and that means you do need to go to a few galas and balls.” Marinette playfully gagged. Arthur laughed at his daughter again. He was happy she was doing better, that things were okay for her again. He’d worried when she was a shell of herself. Worried when she became Ladybug and worried when that Rossi girl came to the class.

He was happy she was okay.

-0-

Marinette’s new personal assistant was named Stephanie Brown and she was, in fact, Spoiler from Gotham who had agreed to move to Paris to help Marinette out and to be part of her new team of heroes she was putting together. Stephanie was still in school but she was killing it already as a personal assistant.

“Alright, so school, homework, design time then patrol. Maybe steal the ring today?” Stephanie asked as she checked the tablet.

“Maybe. I want to give him one more chance…” Marinette sighed. “But that could be the bond…”

“Hey, up to you but I will follow as the lovely Buzzer to keep an eye on things.” Stephanie grinned as Pollen giggled from the depths of her hair. Marinette nodded as they continued their walk to school, the lawyer following.

Marinette ignored the majority of the students staring at her as she walked to class, only saying hi to Kagami who waved her down to playfully scold her for not telling.

When she got to class, Stephanie broke off and the lawyer was the only one with her as they entered the room.

“GIRL!” Alya stood up. “Why the hell didn’t you ever tell me?” she was insulted her friend had never said anything to Alya.

“Because we’re not friends anymore and I wasn’t sure if I could trust you when we first met. Guess I was right.” she shrugged at Alya who flushed red at that. Lila was staring at Marinette with wide eyes as the girl turned to her. “I heard someone was claiming I was in rehab these past two weeks, plus that my tattoos were gang signs and oh so much more.” The lawyer stepped forward then.

“You’ve been served,” she told Lila who stared at the lawsuit in horror. Marinette ignored the class’s exclamations and demands she not go through with it, instead going to sit at the back again, uncaring of their words.

Adrien was giving her a look but she ignored it, pulling her phone out to text Ali, who’d texted her asking if she wanted to go for lunch. Checking with Stephanie, she agreed.

Still ignoring the class- now with Bustier giving her disappointed looks- she rushed out of the school to where Ali was waiting at lunch. The class followed and stopped, seeing who she was with.

“Ah, Princess Marinette.” Ali bowed and Marinette bowed as well, given she was wearing jeans and not a skirt.

“Prince Ali, it is a pleasure to see you again.” They smiled at each other before both blushed, feeling awkward when they realized they’d been staring.

“You look like a queen,” Ali remarked before his face went even redder and Marinette’s cheeks flamed before she grinned.

“Well I am a princess…” Ali stuttered but then laughed, offering his arm and opening the door to all of the possibilities of the two, while the class watched.

No one really realized the fall out that would occur, with Lila’s mother fired, her lies exposed and her dealings with Hawkmoth revealed. No one knew that a new cat would stalk the night one day, calling himself Prince Noir. No one knew how their lives would change.

Especially not Marinette or Ali.

tagged:

@vixen-uchiha @persephonebutkore @magicalfirebird @starwindmaden @liawinchester67 @doriebell @animegirlweeb @unmaskedagain

#miraculous ladybug #ml au #miraculous ladby x dc #aquaman #prince ali/marinette #salt

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kaurwreck · 4 years

Text

my @lgbtincomics secret gift exchange gift for @augustheart!

Thomas Blake woke from a fitful sleep begrudgingly. His mouth felt sticky, and his eyes burned as he pried them open with the enthusiasm of a man hungover, without any of the fond memories of drinking.

A glance at the ungodly hour on the decrepit, ornate grandfather clock across the room and Thomas was almost sure he hadn’t slept very much at all. He couldn’t be entirely sure because the clock, like much of the House of Secrets, operated on its own logic, but he was sure enough to feel ornery over it.

He groaned, rolled over, and curled in on himself beneath his quilt.

He waited.

He uncurled himself.

He waited.

He flipped his pillow over.

He waited.

He rolled onto his stomach.

He waited.

He kicked away the blanket, only to scramble to pull it back over his naked body because what the house lacked in charm, contemporary amenities, sense, and taste, it also lacked in insulation and Vermont winters were unforgiving.

Still, he couldn’t fall back asleep, no matter how terribly badly he wanted to be not awake.

It wasn’t just that he hadn’t slept much the night before. He felt uselessly cantankerous for several reasons, most of which revolved around the emptiness of the vast, damnable house that only felt like home when the only people he loved were around.

But Sue and Ralph were on vacation somewhere warm. Scandal, Knockout, and Liana had their own home, and their own family. Bane was likely in Gotham, snapping at the Bat’s heels again, while Dead Shot was working. The last Thomas had reached out, Jeanette, Porcelain, and Ragdoll were running some grift or another. Or they were grifting each other. One of the two. Or both.

Black Alice was… somewhere, Thomas was never sure where she went when she went away, but she certainly wasn’t with him. Once, she’d tried to explain to Thomas the finer complexities of her role as a magic user in the broader web of their universe’s structure, but Thomas didn’t much care to try and understand magic users after the messy business with Etrigan and Atlantis.

It wasn’t Thomas’s place to tell his pride where they should go and what they should do.

Even if it was January, and even if January was cold and uncomfortably liminal and empty without them.

Thomas cut his losses and rolled out of bed. He couldn’t sleep, and so he’d make himself breakfast instead, and maybe find some priceless historical or magical artifact in the House of Secrets to irreparably damage for his own spiteful amusement.

Clothes irritated his skin, but he tugged on a pair of socks to acknowledge the chill. He padded across the wood floor and opened his bedroom door, closed it, and then opened it again until it led to a hallway and not a yawning chasm, as the rooms were wont to do in the House of Secrets. It only took forty-three more minutes before he found the kitchen.

Thomas liked eggs. They were tasty, they were a valuable source of protein, and they were easy to cook. Unfortunately, they were easy to cook. He needed something to occupy him a little more fully than eggs usually could, and so he compensated by cooking each egg individually. He was frying his third egg when he heard a soft scratching from the kitchen entrance. He froze and jerked his head to the sound.

There stood Strix, in a pair of overalls. She held a notepad, which read:

‘I WANT EGGS 2’

Despite the frigid house, Thomas cracked a smile.

“Sure thing, Strix. How long have you been here? I didn’t hear you come in.”

Strix returned to her notepad. When she held it up again, it read: ‘BIG HOUSE. GOT LOST.’

Thomas nodded sagely. “It’s tricky. You get used to it though.” He glanced around himself, at the high rafters and ambiguously dated kitchen appliances. “Sort of. Never mind. Grab a seat. How do you want your eggs?”

Strix cocked her head, and Thomas huffed.

“I don’t only make scrambled eggs. I can cook them in other ways too. Fried. Basted, probably.”

Strix smiled and climbed up onto the counter next to the stove. She perched there, glanced at the pile of fried eggs Thomas had already prepared, and pointed.

“Fried it is,” Thomas said. “Good choice.”

Thomas felt warm, with Strix there. He stood over the stove and chatted with her, updating her on things while she scrawled her responses and offered her own goings on. He made more eggs than either of them could eat, because he worried that when she finished eating, she’d leave again.

He was on the last egg in the kitchen when there was a shriek.

“Oh, my god,” Liana shouted while Knockout and Scandal burst into laughter from the kitchen’s threshold. “You’re naked! Why are you naked?”

“It’s my house!” Thomas retorted defensively, although he couldn’t help his smile. He’d thought they’d be home, with their newborn baby of only three months. They looked great, for all that Thomas heard about parenthood. They looked wonderful, even.

“Oh, it’s your house now,” Scandal snorted. “Hey, there, Blake. Strix, he’s feeding you something better than just eggs, right?”

Strix, looking terribly indignant on behalf of Thomas, wrote, ‘I ASKED 4 EGGS!’

“I stand corrected,” Scandal said. “Maybe there isn’t anything better than Thomas Blake’s eggs.”

“Is there anything to eat other than eggs?” Knockout asked, breezing past Thomas and Strix to sling the door open. Thomas scratched the back of his head as she appraised the shelves, empty but for a single takeout box from three weeks prior, a bottle of horseradish, and an unidentifiable, sticky substance smeared on the shelf.

Knockout rolled her eyes, but she was grinning stupidly enough that Thomas knew she’d missed him too.

And then she touched the sticky substance, and Thomas, Liana, and Scandal shouted, “No!” in unison.

“I’m only trying to identify it!” Knockout insisted, while Liana scrambled over the kitchen island to snatch her wrist from the offending goop. There wasn’t a reality where Liana should have been able to make a former Female Fury do anything, but such was the peculiar power of love, Thomas supposed, as Liana dragged Knockout to the sink to wash her hand.

Scandal nudged Thomas with her shoulder. “We haven’t heard from you in a few weeks. Or you,” she looked pointedly at Strix who shrugged sheepishly.

‘BIZZY,’ Strix wrote.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Thomas muttered, as he shoved the burning egg around in the pan. “How’s the baby?”

Scandal rolled her eyes. “You’re not a bother. I’d be lost without you to occasionally punch around. And our kitten’s doing well; Bane’s got her for the weekend, in Santa Prisca.”

Thomas whistled. “That’s a big step. It’s got to be the first time you’ve been away from her since she was born, right?”

Scandal bit her lip and nodded. “We want them to have a relationship, and of course I trust him with her. But I got a little anxious, so my loves thought it would be a good time to be close with family while I work on letting go a little.”

Warmth blossomed in Thomas’s chest. He decided it was heartburn.

Thomas turned off the stove and made a face at Scandal. “Nah, don’t do that. I don’t think I’d like you as much if you learned to relax. Yeah, I think I’d hate you, actually. But I’m happy to keep you company, as long as you promise to stay full of piss and vinegar.”

“For you?” Scandal mused. “Always.”

He took out a few more plates and began divvying up the mountain of his and Strix’s eggs. At Liana’s insistence, they moved to the parlor, each clutching a plate of eggs. Or they tried to move to the parlor, given the mutable nature of the House. It took a few attempts at a few different doors, but when they finally found the room, the fireplace was already crackling with heat and Jeanette and Kani were lounging on the chaise.

“Well, it certainly took you long enough, darlings,” Kani purred, and Thomas felt her familiar gaze like a favorite blanket as she playfully glanced at him up and down. “Thomas, have you gotten prettier since I last saw you?”

“Yes,” Thomas said definitively, glancing behind him, towards the kitchen, as he realized they didn’t have enough plates for everyone.

“Settle, Thomas. I’m sure we’ll be gifted by your culinary prowess later, but it’s not important for now. Come, have some cheese,” Jeanette said, gesturing to a characteristically pretentious charcuterie board she must have arranged on the table between the chaise and the fireplace.

“I mean, feel free to put some pants on first,” Liana said, breezing by him to flop onto an overstuffed loveseat across from Kani and Jeanette. She plucked a piece of egg from her plate and tossed it in her mouth.

“And deprive us the view?” Kani winked. Thomas rolled his eyes with a grin he couldn’t quite repress and grabbed a throw blanket to toss around his waist.

Strix glanced about, a touch nervously, at the cozy but cramped interior of the room. Knockout noticed and left her plate with Scandal before collecting a small mountain of volumes of what must have been priceless books from a shelf set into the wall. Then, she dragged a chair over by the room’s window. She stacked the books beneath each leg of the chair, until the chair towered high enough that Strix perked up in delight. Strix scrambled up the makeshift perch and settled into it happily.

‘THANK U,’ Strix wrote.

“Of course, little owl,” Knockout replied, before finding her place on the love seat, with Scandal and Liana.

Thomas sunk into the chaise at Kani and Jeanette’s insistence, and almost immediately Jeanette was tsk’ing and fussing over his hair while Kani launched into stories from the con she and Jeanette had just finished pulling over Ragdoll.

Thomas relished that there, in that moment, within that early morning, the House of Secrets felt like home.

#lgbtincomics #augustheart #gift exchange 2020 #secret six #thomas blake #scandal savage #strix #porcelain #jeanette #knockout #liana kerzner #canon is my sandbox

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girlofmanyfandoms · 4 years

Note

keefex, romantic or platonic

I have no idea if this was what you were looking for, but:

Ok, so it really begins when one day, Fitz is busy studying for midterms

And Keefe has photographic memory, so he’s like “Yeah, pass”

So obviously Soph is busy studying as well, and those are his two go-to’s

So he decides to check on Dex, since they haven’t chatted in a while

He gets very excited at this idea, but he doesn’t know w h y

And his father wouldn’t approve of him having to go through Mysterium, so that’s a plus

So he knocks on the door and finds that it’s open

And it’s just utter chaos

There’s the sound of flames, bubbling, and then a mini explosion

Kesler and Dex emerge from the back room covered in some bubbling purple substance

With eye protection ofc, but their hair and clothes are a mess

Bex slides down the swirly railing squealing, Lex and Rex running after her

They knock down a vase, and Juline sighs as she sweeps up the remains

She looks up to see Keefe and flushes with embarrassment

*cue her scolding Kesler and Dex and telling them to clean themselves up*

They laugh at this, but oblige

Juline then asks if he came there for elixirs

He says no, that he wanted to hang out with Dex and maybe study for midterms

She tells him to wait in Dex’s room so he can clean up, then offers to makes snacks, which he accepts

(She then runs after the triplets to distract them with snow people, but we don’t talk about that)

So Keefe is chilling in Dex’s room when something shiny catches his eye

It’s a gold box, resting on a shelf

And your boy’s impulsivity kicks in, he H A S to know what’s up with this box

So he gets up to look at it, and that’s when he finally takes a moment to see just how many inventions Dex had created

There’s a few crates on the floor below the shelves of just blueprints and sketches for different prototypes

He starts sifting through them when Dex comes into the room

“What are you doing?”

*panics* “What are YOU doing?”

Keefe then realizes part of Dex’s hair is dyed purple from whatever substance exploded

“hA, you’re a grape”

*eye rolling* “Hilarious”

Keefe tells him that he should approach the Council with some of his inventions, or at the very least, Lady Iskra

Dex winces, and reminds him of how the ability restrictor went

“This is different,” Keefe insists. “The least you can do is tell your Technopathy mentor.”

Dex says some stuff that reveals his self-doubt, feelings of not having a purpose, shame, loneliness, etc.

And Keefe is like ??? Not a vibe

So he hugs Dex tightly and tells him how much he means to him

Dex squeaks and blushes a bit

He then has a moment of “why am I blushing, this is just my friend being supportive. Right?”

Keefe realizes he’s been holding onto him for a while and slowly pulls away

To change the subject, he makes Dex show him each and every blueprint and machine he’s made

This easily goes into the evening, and Keefe decides he’ll sleep over

He helps Dex narrow it down to 10 inventions that he’ll show Lady Iskra next class

Dex then asks if he wants to study for midterms

To which Keefe responds with “No studying, we die like warriors!”

And Dex is already pretty much set, so he suggests they play a human game, any game that Sophie got for him

Keefe searches through the box of games and his eyes land on Twister

He skims the description and is dead set on playing it

He shoves it in Dex’s face

And Dex, having the knowledge of the types of tension that can arise refuses profusely, turning very red

“Are you a tomato or a grape? You have to choose.”

Dex blushes even more, and pushes the game away

“No,” Dex repeats.

“C’mon Dexinator. Please?”

Dex chances a glance at his friend, who is making puppy eyes, and his heart melts

The only thing going through his head is ‘Why is he so cute?’

Dex shakes his head violently, he’s not supposed to think like that. This is his FRIEND. Nothing more

But Keefe has moved closer, bringing his pleas and pouts with him

Dex realizes how close they are and time kinda slows

His brain feels like mush and he gets butterflies in his stomach

He has this moment where he realizes “this is the same thing I thought I felt for Sophie”

And so he gets really confused with his labels. Was he gay, but misplacing his feelings? Was he bi? Was he pan?

Keefe gave no time for him to think about this, and using his height to his advantage, draped himself over Dex

“Come oooonnnn, let’s play Twisterrrrrr”

Dex shoves him off playfully. If this is how he feels, he might as well spare his poor heart another panic attack from their proximity

“Fine, one round.”

“YES! Point for the Keefester!”

So they set up the mat in the room and take turns spinning the wheel

Keefe always takes the spot farthest from him, just to create a challenge

5 minutes in and Keefe is in a bridge position

A few moves later and Dex is in a push-up position directly over him

Keefe is now experiencing peak *gay panic*

So to attempt to break the tension, he says, “Gonna give me twenty?”

“Twenty kisses”

Dex did NOT mean to say that out loud and internally curses himself

“Well, I guess we better start right away”

Dex hesitates, but moves closer

And then there’s a knock on the door

Keefe scrambles out from under him, kicks the Twister mat under the bed, and rests against the wall casually in time for Juline to enter

“I made rifflepuffs!”

“Thanks, mom, can you leave them on the nightstand?”

She does, and once she leaves, Dex makes sure to lock the door

He facepalms before dropping face first onto his bed and letting out a scream into his pillow

Keefe gets up and sits next to him, rubbing his back

“I can sleep on the couch downstairs if you want.”

“No, you can sleep with me”

Realizing what that implied, Dex leaped up and corrected himself

“I meant in the same bed! Like next to each other, sleeping!”

Keefe assures him that he knew what he meant, laughing

“How does Saturday at 6 work for you? The bakery in Atlantis?”

Dex is confused. Keefe actually likes him, too?

“It’s a date”

They continue to hang out, but they recline on each other more casually, trying to see what the other person was comfortable with

Soon enough, it’s dark out, and they pull the covers over themselves

“You know about those twenty kisses...”

“KeEfE-”

Imma do the platonic ones in a bit, my creativity returns from vacation soon

#keefe sencen #dex dizznee #keefex #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #my asks

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boompowkablam · 4 years

Text

Favorite Fic Rec- List # 3

WALKING DEAD LIST

Just a list of some of my favorite stories. I’m gonna act like I remember how to link stuff it will be great. Pairings are going to be Daryl/Glenn and Daryl/Jesus. Maybe a Daryl/Rick thrown in IDK .

How These Days Grow Long By Never_Says_Die

This work is COMPLETE!

Written in response to a prompt on The Walking Dead kink meme:

Rick & Co. are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with Daryl's outbursts, his racist remarks, and easily-ignitable temper. They are in fact, considering just cutting their losses and telling him he has to leave when they come across another group of survivors...one of whom is very, very special to Daryl.

AU in which Glenn and Daryl have been in a relationship for a few years before the ZA, and were separated when Atlanta was overrun. Each think the other is dead, and Glenn ended up with a different group of survivors while Daryl ended up in the quarry camp. Story also assumes Merle would've turned his back on Daryl for getting involved with Glenn, so they parted ways long ago.

Action , Adventure, Love , Suspense,Sadness,Longing, Its just everything you want from a fic. Word count 100,538. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

The Diary of Glenn By ornategrip

Seasons 1 and 2, as seen through Glenn's diary.

This is so funny I love it! I wish I could make a podfic for it like whoa.

Word count 4,938. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

Ghosts Among Us By TWDObsessive

Daryl sees the dead. Not the walkers, the twice-dead once they become ghosts. It started since the turn and he assumes it’s his body’s reaction to the walker infection they all carry. One by one he experiences losses of loved ones and each of them come to visit him. And they all seem to be guiding him to Rick.

This was really good but also really sad to me. Mind the tags so you don’t read something upsetting . Word count 6,422. Pairing Daryl/Rick

Picking Up the Pieces By Riastarstruck

When Rick works night duty while recovering from the shooting, he becomes friends with Daryl, the young guy working community service as a janitor in lieu of prison time.

"If you found an animal in an alley and it was raining and you approached it, it would try to bite you. But if you could get it inside and feed it and take it somewhere warm, it would follow you forever. He's got that kind of vibe to him." -Norman Reedus on Daryl Dixon

This one is cute but also makes me feel sad even though it’s not sad.

Word count 21,161. Pairing Daryl/Rick

While the World Falls Down By oleanderedits @oleanderedits

They were supposed to have ten days to dispute the quickie wedding they'd had the night they'd been drunk. The world went to shit three days later. Part 1 of a series re-write focusing on Glenn, Daryl, Merle, and Maggie as what it means to be 'Family' is stretched, twisted, and redefined by circumstances no one should have to live through. Covers Seasons 1 and 2 and mostly follows the canon storyline.

This is hands down 100% my absolute favorite walking dead fic. It is so good I have read it so many times now. I seriously can not get enough of it.

Word count 48,284. Pairing Daryl/Glenn , Glenn/Maggie , Daryl/Maggie , Daryl/Glenn/Maggie.

Friction Match By vegarin

It's the end of the world. You can be anyone you choose to be." Daryl Dixon, at the end of the world.

I am not sure what it is about this story that makes me love it so much! I am working on a podfic for it right now so at some point I’ll have a link up for that.

Word Count 24,769. Gen no Paring.

Fall Into Your Arms. By doctorkaitlyn @banshee-cheekbones

“I am done with dating. And I mean it this time.”

Glenn is sick of his friends setting him up. He’s sick of going on bad dates and he’s sick of getting his hopes up and never hearing anything back. In all the time he spends not going on dates, he can do things that he actually enjoys, like sleeping or marathoning a television show or trying to find a better job.

He is done with dating. Seriously.

At least, that's what he says before he meets Daryl.

This is so cute and awkward I love Glenn’s bad luck.

Word Count 4,549. Pairing Daryl/Glenn

Dear Mr. Hawkeye By Psmith73

@psmith73

AU. Glenn is a struggling student neck-deep in debts. One day while trying to earn some money he gets himself in serious trouble. An anonymous benefactor offers him help in return for weekly emails describing events of his life. Jean Webster's "Daddy-long-legs"/TWD fusion. COMPLETE.

This is really good I dont know why I want to say human disaster Glenn but im gonna. I think its cause it references marvel hawkeye but also Glenn kind of is.

Word Count 20,552. Pairing Daryl/Glenn.

something keeps pulling me back to you By wardeness

Daryl Dixon sat on the steps of his porch, elbows resting on knees as he sharpened his knife. Katydids called around him in a chorus of chirping crickets, the sound only interrupted by the rhythmic scratch of metal on stone. The heavy air—a sure sign rain was coming, Daryl predicted—felt moist and honeyed against his bare arms. The evening was calm. Peaceful, even.

Peaceful, that was, until Jesus appeared.

AU after 6x11. Slow burn.

Super cute .Super fluff.

Word Count 64,037 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Daryl's Addiction By DestielHardcoreLove @bugandkitlove

Paul had no clue what was going on. It seemed as if every time he turned a corner he would find Daryl on his knees with someone different from the community. He didn't know what to make of it, what to even think but he did wonder how to get on it himself.

This was just really funny to me. Instead of talking I’m gonna make sure you catch me blowing the town.

Word Count 7,702. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Against the Dying of the Light By LottaCharlene

After escaping Terminus, Rick's family is at their strength's end. When the walls of yet another community loom over their heads, they must decide if they take the risk to seek refuge in this new community. They are met with a strange tradition that they are still willing to follow through for the sake of their family's well-being. Soon enough, they realize that they found a place that they could call home again. But the peace is treacherous and yet again they have to fight for their freedom and the lifes of the people they love.

Unexpectedly, Daryl is the one that has to fight for more than just his family.

So very good and sweet and sad and Gregory is a nut sac but you already knew that. Also I fucking love arranged marriage fics.

Word Count 108,454. Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

Ripples on a Black Shore By Mugatu

For Daryl Dixon the world ended days before it did for almost everyone else, and it was heralded with a prerecorded phone message instead of a bang.

An AU fic where Daryl met Paul several years before the apocalypse.

Kind of sad but with a happy ending.

Word Count 200,540. Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

Cross Your Fingers By starclipped

Daryl finds himself wrapping his fingers around Paul’s wrist before a bandage can be pulled from the tattered box. And Paul peers at him when their skin touches, fierce eye to fierce eye, with… with such veneration. Daryl wouldn’t know that feeling if he saw it, he thinks he’s seeing it now and he can’t believe it, but he can sure as hell feel it; rolling off his hippie ninja in waves, seeping into Daryl’s soul. A gasoline soaked rag, simply waiting to be set aflame. That's what he's become. He swallows the foreign emotions that suddenly make him feel too big for his body.

So very good and kind of sad worth the read for sure!

Word Count 204,186. Pairing Daryl/Paul

Finders, Keepers By Joel7th

Jesus came to Alexandria to do trade and to see a certain grumpy hunter. However, he didn’t see said hunter; instead, just outside the walls of Alexandria he found a black cat – wait, was that really a cat?!

I found this so funny!

Word Count 10,148 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

All you need is twinkling stars and ancient cities By TooRational @toorational

Daryl Dixon of all people turns out to have the Ancient gene.

Go figure.

Or: The unlikely tale of a redneck from Earth and a Runner from the Pegasus Galaxy, and how they fell in love.

I fucking love Stargate Atlantis Crossovers and this was amazing !!!!

Word Count 16,454. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Help Wanted By Scababagorn

Daryl Dixon hasn't believed that he deserved to be who he really is. He hasn't ever felt safe enough. Is the reason that so many of the people he loves are dead. And then, suddenly there is a man named Jesus. And he likes to call Daryl "Dixie"

Cute,cute, cute I love it!!

Word Count 22,618. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

if the world should break By transstevebucky @gaydaryl

It's not like Daryl hates the guy. It's exactly the opposite.

Very cute. Be mindful of the tags daryl gets outed without his permission.

Word Count 36,343. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Misunderstandings in a Car Crash By Neeka

Misunderstanding. [mis-uhn-der-stan-ding]

Noun 1. Failure to understand correctly; mistake as to meaning or intent

Warning: Does not mix well with love and may lead to heartbreak

Dude like super sad face for like half of this but it gets less sad .

Word Count 18,614 Pairing Daryl/Jesus.

Breaking the Cycle By AidaRonan @bisexualstarbucky

Daryl's life seems to follow a cycle of pain and violence. So when he starts falling for his new roommate, he's more than wary about what it might mean.

But sometimes breaking a cycle means making a choice.

So very cute a little sad also be mindful of the tags.

Word Count 7,416 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Fables of the Reconstruction By Mugatu

It’s more than two years after the end of the world and six months after the war with the Saviors when Daryl Dixon returns to Alexandria.

This is just so good holy crap and glenn lives which makes it even better!!

Word Count 91,918. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

You're Like Me (a goddamn idiot) By yellowhairedrobot

Jesus tilted his head to the side. “If I tried to kiss you right now, would you kick my ass?”

“Yes,” Daryl answered, way too quickly.

This is funny and gives me extreme second hand embarrassment.

Word Count 6,395. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

the streets are full of strangers By smilebackwards @smilebackwards

When Deanna asks Daryl to leave Alexandria, he meets Paul on the road a little earlier.

I would like to say cute-meet . lol its very good and very cute.

Word Count 11,563 . Pairing Daryl/Jesus

There is also a podfic for this.

[Podfic] the streets are full of strangers By Boompowkablam @boompowkablam

Length 1hr 7 mins

a heart that's on loan By smilebackwards @smilebackwards

Aaron and Daryl discover Hilltop on one of their scouting trips and find that the community has an interesting throwback custom for establishing alliances: marriage.

I LOVE ARRANGED MARRIAGE AND THIS IS THE BEST ONE!

Word Count 11,686. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Just Another Day By PezzieCoyote

What if Daryl was the one in charge? How would things be different? And what secret is he hiding?

Supernatural elements you know besides the zombies .

Word Count 9,950. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

Escape By AbigailHT, TooRational @toorational @abigailht

By the time the song starts drilling into his head worse than the headache, he's come to the conclusion that he can't do much. There's no way to get out unless someone unlocks the door, and even if he could, he has no idea where he'd go once he's out anyway. Nor has he any idea who has him. Or why. Or where. Or where home is. Or—Basically, he doesn't know anything, and even the things he does know are mostly instinct and completely unverifiable anyway.He's contemplating sitting back down again — he'll have to do it at some point, if only to preserve his strength, but the cold, and the dirt, and he's naked, his skin crawls at the mere thought — when the song shuts off abruptly.

Or: The Saviors' latest prisoner isn't quite what he seems.

Its just like everything you ever wanted out of Jesus in the show. So good a tiny bit sad.

Word Count 6,894. Pairing Daryl/Jesus

There is a podfic for this.

Escape By Boompowkablam @boompowkablam

Length 45 minutes.

#walking dead #The Walking Dead #daryl/glenn #daryl/paul #daryl dixon/ jesus #daryl/rick #daryl dixon #paul rovia #glenn rhee #rick grimes #MY REC LIST #podfic

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thatfairyfangirl · 5 years

Text

Part Of That World Chapter 1

Steve strode into the battle room, dropping a file onto the table surrounded by his teammates. “We have a hit on another one.” He announced as he leaned against the table, pulling up a 3d map of the globe, honing in on a remote part of the ocean. “The strange part is it’s on no known land mass. Buck, you have any incite on this” He asked turning to his best pal.

The sun pouring through the window glinted against the metal of his arm as he shrugged his shoulders. “Not much outside of this is the third time I’m aware of that they’ve tried to build there. So there’s definitely something out there they want.”

“Maybe they found Red Scull’s remains?” Nat offered.

Steve shook his head. “No, he’d be in the Arctic. This is too far south for that.”

In the back of Bruce’s mind he had another idea what it might be, he remembered hearing rumors of aquatic people in WWII...but he quickly dismissed it as myth or war hysteria.

“Well no matter the reason it’s our job to stop them.” Clint added as he screwed a new head onto one of his arrows. They all nodded in agreement before suiting up.

~ ~ ~ ~

Deep under the sea the ground shook as building took place above a small subnautic cave...home to a tribe of Atlantean people. The blue skinned aquatic dwellers huddled in fear as a group of warriors emerged, lead by you. This wasn’t the first time they had to keep their secret home safe, armed with tridents and harpoons your troops made their way to the group of surface dwellers, entering their half finished base from below.

As the Atlanteans launched their defence the Avengers’ quinjet hovered above as the assault team dropped in. Though the attacks on the Hydra base were by no means coordinated they were enough to spread their forces thin, making it easy pickings for the both of them. You broke a hole in the metal of the submerged base, letting water flood in. With a wave of your hand you bent the water to your will, forcing it down the throats of the hydra soldiers as Clint shot down member after member until he found his arrows pointing at a blue skinned gilled man holding a trident menacingly. “Uhh hey guys, since when does Hydra employ blue fish people?” Clint asked as the Atlantean shouted in his ancient tongue, swinging for the surface dweller, not knowing anyone in here was on his side. Clint dodged and blocked the shots as he looked around, seeing blue men and women all over chopping down Hydra agents. You turned, your blue and blond hair falling in your eyes as you watched the interactions. “Hey wait! I think we’re on the same side!” He called out.

You rushed to the archer’s side, stepping between him and your warrior, blocking a strike to the side of his head with your arm, the trident clinging against your dense Atlantean flesh. “What do you mean same side archer?” You asked as you both moved back to back with each other, helping each other fight as you spoke.

“Well it looks like we’re both fighting Hydra here.” Clint explained as his arrows flew. ‘Umm the guys who built this.”

“Then yes, we are.” You confirmed before shouting in Atlantean, informing your aquatic brethren that this time they have allies. As you spoke Clint watched you push a rush of water, forcing it into the mouth and nostrils of those they were working against, making him glad you were on the same side.

Soon enough there were no Hydra left standing as the two groups moved toward each other, though the Atlanteans were careful to stay within the water, breathing in deeply “Who are you people?” Tony asked with a wonderful curiosity in his eyes.

“They are Atlanteans.” You answered stepping forward. Bucky’s eyes widened as he looked on the only one of them that looked remotely human. If it wasn’t for the blue streaks in your hair he’d swear he was looking at a ghost of his past. “I’m sorry but they don’t have many dealings with the people of the land. I do hope my troops didn’t hurt anyone too badly before we realized we were fighting for the same cause.” You offered before your eyes found the winter soldier. Your heart stopped as you looked on the ghost of your past, clutching your harpoon tightly, tempted to strike him down right now.

Bruce stepped forward, examining you, finding a set of gills under the edges of your jaw which were quickly closing up, letting your lungs take over. “A genetic offshoot of humanity evolved for water and surface dwelling...This is amazing!”

“You said they are Atlanteans...then who are you?” Bucky asked with narrow eyes, not trusting what was in front of him.

You blinked in disbelief at the question...he didn't recognize you? “My name is (y/n). I suppose I’m what you would call best of both worlds.” You explained as you pulled your blond and blue hair out of your eyes. “My mother was an Atlantean, but my father was a human mutant.” You paused turning to the one examining her. “Which is why I can breath...they need water.” You paused turning back to the group as a whole. “Atlantis thanks you...I wish we could show you some hospitality for the help you have given us in saving our home below. But…”

“But we need air.” Steve said with a nod.

“It is important to my people that we stay hidden. Please do not speak of this to anyone.” You added as you began to move to the water.

“They’ll just keep coming back you know. Hydra has a fix on you now. Why don’t you come with us? Powers like yours, we can help each other keep your home safe.” Steve suggested, holding out his hand in friendship.

Your eyes glared towards Bucky, recalling the day your father died by the Winter Soldier's gun, the day you were sure Hydra followed you to your aquatic home. “They've had a fix on us for quite some time now." You shook your head. "I'm sorry, but I am needed here.”

“You should go with them.” A strong masculine voice from the hand full of warriors spoke up as he stepped forward. He looked nearly human if it wasn't for his blue skin and hair tangled in a watery mess. Though you could understand the Atlantean language the team of heroes stood at the ready, unsure what the words meant. You turned your head, eyes wide in shock. “The humans have returned before and they will again. If you go with them you can find why and stop them.”

You nodded, knowing why...Hydra wanted your people. If they were to ever be at peace Hydra needed to be gone for good. “Wait for me here. I will be back shortly.”

As they watched the aquatic people swim away at great speeds Bucky spoke up. “Are we sure this is a good idea? I mean, what do we really know about this girl?”

“I know she saved my life, and made peace between us and them with just a few words.” Clint said as he slumped into a seat, soaked and sore. “At least I think they were words.”

As the two discussed it Tony tapped at the computer, looking for any information on this new species that has been discovered. “Well, we know they are a genetic offshoot, they breath with a set of twin gills, have a thin layer of insulated tissue under their skin making them less sensitive to the cold, dense muscles enabling them to live at any ocean depth, eyes adapted for seeing in extreme conditions...And it is estimated they are about 30 times stronger than the average human. Hmm...she said dear ol dad was a mutant, that must be where she got the water bender trick from.”

“And when did you become an expert in aquatic humanoid life?” Steve asked with a raised brow.

“Right now.” Tony quipped back as he moved the information he was pulling from into a 3d image. “It seems Reed Richards ran into them in the early 90s. Their capital is located much further south but it seems we have stumbled upon one of their colonies. Lucky for us they typically don’t want to be where the people are.”

“So is this like a little mermaid thing? Is she even going to be able to talk when we take her back?” Bucky asked curiously as he leaned back in his seat.

“Um...yeah no...that’s fiction. I’ve lived on land very comfortably before Hydra killed my father.” You answered clutching your harpoon and a small box of your things with a hint of disdain for the thought that that movie was aquatic law or something. The blue and black of your armored suit shimmered as you moved into the quinjet, blond and blue hair clinging to your face, water dripping in your eyes. Bucky and Steve both looked you over for a moment before looking to each other, trading a thoughtful glance.

“Hey pal, what was the name of that girl you used to see before the war?” Steve asked in a hushed tone as they took off back for Avenger’s Tower.

“Pearl…” He said with his arms folded, his guard up for the first time since his brainwashing had been truly broken. You looked just like a ghost from his past and you were found in a hydra base...it was more than enough to unsettle him. “Pearl Turner.” The one girl to run off on Bucky without a word of goodbye.

“Doesn’t she-” Steve started.

“Yeah. Yeah she does.” Bucky answered sharply, not needing him to finish the question.

You turned toward the two. “I’m sorry did you say Pearl Turner? You knew my great aunt Pearl?” They both looked up with surprise as they nodded.

#bucky x reader #Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier #winter soldier x reader #Avengers #avengers x reader #avengers fanfiction #marvel #marvel x reader

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aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Stewart Copeland on How The Police Found Synchronicity Under the Volcano

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Gracie Otto’s documentary Under the Volcano tells the story of a rock star paradise which became a modern Atlantis. Air Studios Montserrat, the recording studio built by The Beatles’ producer George Martin in 1979, captured the truest sounds of the biggest musical acts of the 1980s before it succumbed to the island’s natural disasters. Custom-built in the shadow of the active Soufrière Hills volcano, AIR generated its own heat. Songs recorded at the studio burned up the charts, and reinvigorated burnt out artists.

Paul McCartney retreated to the remote musical getaway shortly after receiving the devastating news about the murder of John Lennon. Paul recorded Tug of War, one of his best post-Beatle works there, as well as Pipes of Peace. He flew in Stevie Wonder, who jammed at a local club until the early hours, for harmonic collaboration. The Rolling Stones reunited to record Steel Wheels, bringing Keith Richards together with Mick Jagger for the first time since their respective solo recordings. The Police took a different direction.

Formed in London in 1977, The Police rode the punk wave to international fame and the pressures of delivering on their musical promise. With Sting on lead vocals and bass guitar, Andy Summers on guitar, and Stewart Copeland on drums, this was not a three-chord, minimalist-mode trio. Merging rock changes, reggae-downbeats, and jazz-chord augmentations, they needed space to expand their reach.

To record Ghost in the Machine, they also wanted to be out of reach of record company suits. They went to Montserrat for the isolation, not only from the pop world, but for each individual track recorded. The studio afforded amazing separation. The band didn’t even have to be in the same room while recording at the same time. Stewart wound up playing drums in a dining room.

The Police was Copeland’s band, Sting was just in it. Much like the era’s tabloids would’ve had us believe it was Sting’s world and we just lived here. Stewart founded the band, wrote its manifesto, and is still deranging its sonic possibilities. He spoke with Den of Geek about the documentary Under the Volcano, and how The Police lost and found Synchronicity at George Martin’s AIR Studios Montserrat,

Den of Geek: I was just talking to a drummer friend who left a band we were in to play in a Police cover band. He wanted me to ask about how you approach the drums.

Stewart Copeland: Usually from behind, which sounds really weird, actually. Let me rephrase that.

Did George Martin ever actually say anything about Andy dancing on the soundboard?

Not that I ever heard. In fact, I did a concert with him many years later and it didn’t come up. In fact, I did a television interview with him, a documentary about music that he was making and it didn’t come up. By the way, no damage was done. Those things are built to withstand heavy metal bands. And Andy’s only little. He had very sure footing. Didn’t break anything. And by the way, I’ve seen that console, that exact same console. I’ve seen it at the A&M #1 studio in Los Angeles. I’ve seen it in several other studios that claim that “that is the Neve [Electronics, which made the mixing console] upon which Andy danced.”

I also watched Jools Holland’s short film on the Police at Montserrat film from ’81. I wanted to know about “underwater golfing” and all the other non-musical pastimes that were available.

Sting and Andy probably went underwater golfing a lot, but they never invited me, damn it.

Was Montserrat really the ultimate in rockstar privilege?

Yes, you could say that. Absolutely. There were a lot of rock and roll diversions that are available in Cleveland that are not available on the island. But as far as the paradisiacal environment, absolutely; and being waited on hand and foot. Great food, great situation. I think in the documentary, they mentioned how some bands kind of just hit the swimming pool deck chairs and never woke up and were half asleep. We weren’t because we tormented each other so fiercely that we were fully awake.

I know that you sent Andy Summers to ask George Martin about producing, but did he ever pop in while you were in the studio?

No. He popped over once or twice for dinner, studiously avoiding any moments that we might be working so that he wouldn’t be roped in.

I guess maybe he learned a thing or two in producing all the music that he produced. And one of the things he learned is to not get between rabid dogs who are trying to tear each other’s throats out.

Would Synchronicity have sounded any different if you weren’t at odds with each other at the time?

It’s hard to say. If we had arrived at our decision points or the forks in the road, should we do this or should we do that? You know, saxophone solo or guitar solo? Punk version or reggae version? Other stuff, you know. If we had approached these debates more congenially, would we have arrived at a different result? Probably not. And I guess we’re all happy at the end of the day. The experience of making those records was very rigorous, but at the end of the day, we all appreciate the result.

You worked with George Martin on the ’99 Hollywood Bowl Orchestra Beatles show. What was he like to work with?

Excellent. It mainly was working with his son [Giles Martin], his consiglieri, who’s also interviewed in the documentary. But working with him, he’s just a profoundly musical man. Music is what he knows, does, and he makes it very clear what’s needed, what everybody should do.

It was a strange thing. He rehearsed for three days for that show and the first day the word went out and I was the only person who showed up, me and my bass player buddy, Armand [Sabal-Lecco]. So, we learned the material. By the third day, everybody had showed up. Every guitarist in town, everybody, but I was already planted on the drums so everyone else can piss off.

But on guitar, all these session guys had every- who doesn’t know exactly the patch and the fingering of every single Beatles lick? And it was kind of interesting to hear everybody completely nail it in their different kinds of ways. And also on the drums, I was never that big a Beatles fan, but when I sort of made my own tape of the proposed songs. He sent a set list and I started playing [Sings opening of “I Want To Hold Your Hand”].

I mean, I knew it. My hands knew it. My body knew the song without my brain ever thinking about how the song goes. You just know when the chorus is coming. Yep, this is the chorus. [Sings]. But you know, it’s musical muscle memory, and don’t even get me started on the connection between memory and music.

I recently did a piece on the Concert for Bangladesh and I watched Ringo and Jim Keltner double up and play in unison. I watched the video of you and Ginger Baker playing off each other. Have you ever played in unison with another drummer and who would you like to do that with?

It’s a very strange exercise. Non-drummers seem to think it’s a good idea, and I won’t mention any names, I don’t get it. Guitarists hate to have another guitarist plugged in, God damn it, you know.

Drummers love other percussion. Bongos, shakers, tambourines, you name it, bring it on. Let’s have everybody smacking something. But two drum sets? That don’t make it sound fatter. They don’t really complement each other. My preference would be a drummer, but not in a drum set, doing something else. Like the contrast that fulfills a different function. I don’t really get the two-drummer thing.

Do you still consciously count when you’re drumming?

Yes. When learning something, I count it out, figure out what it is, but then once I’ve learned it, I don’t count it anymore. I just know it. But yes, sometimes when things are tricky and you actually need to hit a certain hit because that’s what everything else is doing. Yes. It helps to count it out. “Ah, that’s where it is. It’s the end of three,” you know? And then once you’ve got that, you don’t need to refer to the numbers anymore. That’s just to find it.

I subscribe to you on YouTube, and just this morning got an email blast about Police Deranged for Orchestra.

That is going to be a blast. That is going to be the most fun show ever. I’ve got Armand Sabal-Lecco on bass, Rusty Anderson on guitar. His day job is playing with Paul McCartney as it happens. He’s been doing that for 20 years or so. Armand from Cameroon, the Prince of Cameroon is a monster.

Moving up the hierarchy, the three singers, they’ve got three soul sisters on the mic singing the songs, but behind us is the mighty San Diego Symphony in San Diego. And when we get to Cleveland, it’s a mighty Cleveland Orchestra.

And then we’re playing in Atlanta, Buffalo, Nashville, L.A., and it’s really, it’s pretty exciting. I spent a lot of time creating the orchestral arrangements or derangements and some of the songs are quite faithful with the form, but others, I deranged.

There are two things. Why orchestra? I’m the drummer in a rock band? What am I doing in the orchestra? That’s a long story. With 20 years as the film composer, I had a forced education in orchestration. But why deranged is because back in the day I had a Super 8 camera, a film camera, and I shot all the stuff, the whole rise, and then put it in shoe boxes and forgot about it until they invented computers and hard drives and Final Cut Pro.

And I had a moment, I was busy making little movies of my children and I thought, “Wait a minute. I’ve got boxes and boxes of really cool stuff of the rollercoaster ride, the rocket ship of The Police.”

So, I dug it all out, 52 hours, and made a movie. And it was kind of the home movie from hell. But somebody persuaded me to send it to the Sundance and the Sundance was, “Whoa, bring it on over.” And they invited me to participate in the festival. Oh, darn. I had to finish it and make it.

It ends up I sold it to Showtime and it became a feature film for which I needed music, preferably Police music. However, what I learned in film in my 20 years before the masters, the hired gun, is that music must serve the picture. And if the picture takes a left, so must the music.

However, those original Police recordings didn’t take a left. They carried right on because they had some other agenda, mainly being a song. So, I had to cut the stuff up and I had to go back into the masters. But once the scalpel was out, this is fun. I got all the masters of those recordings, as well as live recordings. I found long lost guitar solos, other lyrics.

And I found that Sting’s songwriting was quite modular, so I could take the lyrics of this song, put them on the riff of that song. And I went a little batshit crazy on the whole enterprise and kind of overdid it. And when my colleagues heard, “What is Stewart doing? He’s over there taking our master tapes and cutting entirely new music?”

“Calm down guys. It’s just for the movie.” And so, they calmed down and I think they actually kind of appreciated the result at the end of the day, as long as I’m not trying to make a record and rewrite Police history. But now I am rewriting Police history. By taking those derangements, those weird arrangements where I found all these different melodies and guitar lines and put them in the orchestra, that’s what we’re doing.

About half the material is the original song, and I did make the orchestra do very cool stuff with it. But the other half are these different versions of songs, different melodies and so on. With the three women singing, I get to get all of the Sting harmonies that he did in the studio, as well as the improvisations he did on stage, and the same with Andy.

This exercise has really reminded me, in fact, even more than reminded me: it’s really woken me up to the genius of both of those two guys, the stuff they came up with. I was busy banging shit. I hardly even noticed what Andy was doing, but now I’m deep into what Andy was doing with a much higher degree of appreciation.

As you’re developing all of this for orchestration and ripping it apart, and also with the benefit of knowing how each of you developed post-Police, where do you think the band might’ve gone musically as a continuing unit?

Just the other day, pursuant to flogging the Police Deranged orchestra shows, and I’m sort of looking for images to use for posters, I came across the orchestral performance that I did in Germany, where I’m actually on the podium conducting. We did do “The Equalizer” theme and I’m conducting with a drumstick. The orchestra are all totally, you can see in the picture, they’re all leaning forward. They’re really into it, it’s a really intense thing. And I’m up there waving my stick and it’s this big ass orchestra.

I sent it to Sting a couple of days ago. And I said, “This is how we should have run The Police.” And he wrote back and he said, “So I’m second fiddle?” To which I responded, “Stingo, you will always be first fiddle.”

Also, knowing all this stuff from the inside out with the notation and all that, how do you think The Police would go forward now as a creative unit moving into new territory?

Not so much because we know what we’re doing. And my humble estimation is we got two more albums out of Sting than we deserved. So, he actually was the reason I was overcome by homicidal rage and I felt the urgent necessity of throttling him was because he would come over and say, “Hey, do this or that with the drums.” “Fuck off.” You know?

What made it so urgent was that he wasn’t wrong. He sort of does actually know how to arrange a song and arrange the band and his ideas are pretty good. That doesn’t mean I listened because I was a young prick myself and I had my own ideas, which would prevail. But he’s really good at that stuff.

We, today, if we tried to recreate that, are too independently minded and we have continued to grow in the 30 years since our last collaboration and in a different direction. And at this point in our lives, music has a different function for us. For me, it’s this. The reason I make music is for these reasons, and this is what I like to achieve with music. And for others, they have a completely different agenda of what music is for and what it’s supposed to do and how it’s supposed to be made.

It requires more patience. I’m actually more patient. I would say that for me, there is not one musical truth, because I got beat up. For 20 years, I was told exactly what emotion is required. And I had to learn to create exactly that for my boss, the director who is actually the artist. I’m just a craftsman.

So, I learned to be very malleable but also didn’t really understand how to work different emotions very specifically. Other members of the band who have never suffered under the lash of cruel employment are unrestrained, and have a strange idea that there is only one musical truth and no experience in life has ever shaken that core belief. Which means that when I’ve got to deal with that mindset, it’s unrewarding.

And by the way, I say this with love and admiration in my heart, this is not a gripe, believe me. I’m just explaining why we enjoy each other’s company over dinner and really have a deep abiding admiration and love. But just we get into the studio together and we’re not copacetic.

Going on stage, by the way, playing those songs. That’s a different thing. That’s really exciting because of the emotional charge that it has on an 80,000 people stadium, well, that’s exciting. For the audience, that’s exciting. Never mind my ideas about what music is for. Who cares? Look at that audience going like that. That’s why I’m here on the planet.

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Under The Volcano is available On Demand and Digital now.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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intergalactic-zoo · 4 years

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I decided, apropos of nothing, to put on Joss Whedon's Zack Snyder's "Justice League" while doing some work today. I discussed the movie when it came out eleventy billion years ago, and thought it was fine. It's not good, but grading on the curve of every DCEU movie up to that point, it was a solid B-. Sitting in 2021, I remember bits and pieces of it—Steppenwolf looking like he stepped out of an XBox 360 cutscene, the decent cell phone video of Superman that was marred by the terrible attempt to CGI out Cavill's moustache, all the characters sounding like their rough counterparts in "The Avengers"—but not a lot of details.

Obviously the intervening years have altered my perspective on the film, both through the revelations about the behind-the-scenes racism and abuse and through the fanatical and also frequently abusive behavior of the fans clamoring for this version of the film, which absolutely definitely existed and was finished years ago and also needed an additional $70 million dollars and reshoots to complete.

That perspective has not been altered for the better.

Against my better judgment, I'm going to watch the Snyder Cut sometime, probably this weekend, so I figured it'd be good to see how it deviates from the theatrical release, like I did for the Lester and Donner cuts of "Superman II" so very long ago. I don't expect to enjoy either one; my feelings on the superhero movies of Zack Snyder are well-documented, and even under the best circumstances, four hours is too @#%*$! long for a superhero movie. But four hours of nihilistic spite dressed up in cinematic deepities and CGI with a sepia-toned overlay is unlikely to be the best of circumstances.

Will it be better than two hours of the extremely generic re-skinned "Avengers: Age of Ultron" that got released to theaters? There's only one way to find out!

Boy, the New 52-ass character designs in the DC logo opening sure didn't age well. When was Rebirth, like, the year before?

Pretty neat that it's got Mogo and Jessica Cruz in there, though.

That cell phone scene was a lot better in my memory. Like, the kids with a podcast are kind of charming, but I remembered it being a good Superman moment, when it's really just kind of nothing. Certainly not enough to justify the extremely bad CGI. And is the negative space on the S-shield supposed to look so gray?

Gotham City looks like the background of a Robert Rodriguez movie, but I actually like it here. It feels grimy and a little uncanny, the way Gotham should. A big building with "JANUS" on it in glowing letters and big coal chimneys out of Victorian London are what I want to see in Gotham, along with copious brooding gargoyles and enormous iron statues of Greek gods that you could drive a car on.

A building that is continually being robbed by either Two-Face or Maxie Zeus

"Batman Forever," for comparison

Ben Affleck's Batman rasp is at least as silly as Christian Bale's. Batman can just talk in a voice, my dudes. I watched bits of "Batman & Robin" and "Batman Forever" to track down the right screenshots, and it's so much better when Batman is a guy with a deep voice rather than a guy who sounds like he's gargling gravel and sand.

The crook asking "where does that leave us?" because Superman's dead is a little weird given that Superman was a public figure in this universe for literally a year and a half. In 2021, it's a bit like asking how we could go on if Billie Eilish died, except Billie Eilish hasn't, to my knowledge, ever been involved in a fight that leveled a major city.

The maudlin mourning sequence probably should have come before Batman backflipped over a snarling Kirby monster and "Mindhunter's" Holt McCallany hopped around on a rooftop, because I laughed out loud at the unhoused person's "I Tried" sign and I do not think that was the intended reaction.

And then the Leonard Cohen cover gives way to the Danny Elfman score, and it sounds like "Batman" '89 again. God, this movie really is a mess.

I appreciate Wonder Woman explaining her powers like she's in a Chris Claremont comic. How long until we get a superhero movie with a proper reference caption? I just want to see a box in "Into the Spider-Verse 2" that says "*It happened in Spectacular Spider-Man #206, True Believers!"

I really wish superhero movies could stop having the scene where superheroes talk about how stupid superheroes are. It feels so self-conscious. Just embrace the concept without being ashamed of it, please.

I also wish we could have dialogue less on the nose than everything Henry Allen says. He talks exclusively in clichés about movement—"running in circles," "standing still," "find your own path." We get it, he's talking to the Flash.

I keep forgetting that this movie is a fetch quest. It could have worked if we'd seen more than Themyscira before. This could be like that sequence in "Avengers: Endgame" where we go on a little memory tour of the previous films, but instead it's a return to Paradise Island, our first brief, boring glimpse of Atlantis, and a nuclear plant cooling tower. This is one of the problems with setting the "let's get the team together" movie before you've met most of the team or established most of the set pieces.

The boom tube effect is pretty good. It's a shame Steppenwolf looks so much like a character from a Zemeckis film. I do appreciate that Joss had enough restraint to avoid dropping "Magic Carpet Ride" or something when he showed up.

Fus roh dah!

Also, I realize the ship has largely sailed on this, but the Amazons are supposed to be an incredibly advanced society; maybe we could stop depicting them as exclusively armed with bronze-age weaponry.

You know, it's hard to see Lois Lane so...despondent? Demoralized? Even in the wake of Clark's death. Like, Lois was pretty weepy for a few issues of the comics after Superman died, but within two months she was accosting cops and breaking into Cadmus in a wetsuit and punching dudes in the teeth. Lois Lane is a stone cold badass, and the only film in this erstwhile trilogy that came close to understanding that was "Man of Steel."

The frustrating thing about the dialogue is just how obvious it is that Joss knows how to write exactly as many characters as are on the Avengers. Batman just sounds like Tony Stark, Wonder Woman banters like Black Widow until she needs to exposit like Thor, it's just so lazy.

And so is the backstory of the Mother Boxes. I actually really like the "all the races of man joined together with the gods and the Green Lanterns to repel Steppenwolf" angle, because it makes this idea of uniting as a League into a theme that you could build a movie around (that movie was "The Fellowship of the Ring"). Unfortunately, they do it by stripping the Mother Boxes of anything that made them interesting as a concept and turning Steppenwolf into a low-rent Thanos. Thanos is supposed to be a low-rent Darkseid, get it right.

I was going to rag on Bruce for comparing Flash's suit to "the space shuttle" in the present tense, when the space shuttle program ended six years before this movie came out, but I suppose Bruce Wayne is a cranky old guy in this movie, so it kind of works.

Man, poor Ray Fisher, in addition to everything else, having to read this warmed-over Bruce Banner dialogue.

Not gonna lie, hearing the Elfman Batman theme is pretty great. It's nice that Batman and Wonder Woman have really solid, recognizable motifs in the score, even if they had to reach back 30 years to find one for Batman. It's a shame the other characters don't get anything so clear and distinctive.

Casting J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon was a pretty good move.

Our first full glimpse of Cyborg is a bit uncomfortable. Up until this point, we've seen him in sweats, so seeing him without clothes...it's like that bit in "Cats" where Idris Elba takes off his coat and even though he's covered in CGI, you can't help but think "okay, he's naked now," a thought you only have because he was wearing clothes before.

Batman does his "disappear while Gordon has his back turned" bit, and it becomes a gag because only Flash is left behind. Except that we've seen that Flash perceives things at a higher speed than others, so why would he be caught off-guard? Wouldn't their disappearance have happened in basically slow-motion to him? Why did Wonder Woman and Cyborg disappear when Batman did? How did they know to do that? The only reason Flash is left behind is for the gag, because he's the comic relief character right now, but it would make more sense for literally either of the others to be the one in that position. It feels like a "kill your darlings" moment. Like, they decided that this gag was more important than making sense, when they could easily have done a different gag—like Flash noticing that Batman was leaving and stopping him in the middle.

The Nightcrawler is a bad idea. It doesn't really make sense as the thing Batman would bring to this fight with Steppenwolf, and it's loaded up with guns, which...come on, guys. It doesn't even get a clear enough spotlight to be properly toyetic.

If you needed any confirmation that Joss saw how much better Quicksilver was in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" than in "Age of Ultron," the Flash is here in this battle to make it obvious.

God, the "Flash is awkward about being on top of Wonder Woman" gag feels like it lasts a thousand years. It's like something out of a "Big Bang Theory" episode.

It physically pained me to hear crappy Steppenwolf quoting New Gods #1.

I know there's pathos to Cyborg's character, but, like, is this really the version that they thought people wanted to see? Is this just the Brooding League? I thought a part of the reason for bumping Cyborg up to the big League was to bring in people who love the version on "Teen Titans," but there's nothing of that character here.

On the other hand, they've sidestepped the modern problem of making Barry Allen act like Wally West by instead making Barry Allen act like Bart Allen with a head injury.

I really like Bruce Wayne in a vest.

There's so many things that would have made this movie better, but honestly? I think Superman should've stayed dead. Obviously I love the character, and I even love Cavill's performance, but a movie about a superhero community coming together and being inspired by Superman's example to be better—you know, the thing Batman says at the end of "Dawn of Justice"—would have been a lot better than a movie where two characters we just met dig up Superman's grave to MacGuffin him back to life. It still wouldn't make that much sense that Superman would have such a massive impact after just a year and a half of public superheroing (come on, Snyder, if you're going to do the Christ allegory, why not give him three years?), but it would have been a better way to showcase what the character means to this universe and to these characters.

This runs into something I said way back when I first saw "Man of Steel": You shouldn't make General Zod your first-movie villain. I've been comparing this film to "Age of Ultron" a lot, but I'm starting to realize that the entire DCEU—with the possible exception of "Wonder Woman"—is made up of the second movie in each character's respective franchises. Zod should have been the villain Superman faced after he was established, to raise doubts about the character's allegiances and present him with a seemingly impossible threat. Batman should have fought Superman after a movie where we established what Batman's deal is, how he got to be so angry and bitter. The Justice League should have faced an enemy too big to fight without Superman after the movie where a threat and Superman's legacy inspired them to unite together. Heck, even "Suicide Squad" would've been better if they'd saved the "one of our own is a traitor" plot for a sequel, where we might have some emotional attachment to some of the characters.

Boy, Barry Allen attempting a fist bump with Cyborg and then laughing off the rejection with the phrase "racially charged" hits real bad in the wake of Ray Fisher's discussion about the environment on-set.

One thing to appreciate about Cavill's Superman is how much he exemplifies the hairy-chested, dimple-chinned version that Dan Jurgens draws.

And Elfman works the John Williams theme into the score. The motif works well the first time, less so the second when he's trying to kill the Flash. Hitting it in a more minor key would have been nice. Again, it's a shame they had to go literally forty years back in time to find a recognizable Superman theme when there were two Superman movies leading up to this.

This fight between Superman and the League is bad and unnecessary, but the bit where Superman reacts to Flash in super-speed is well-done, marred only by the incredibly doofy look on Flash's face.

God, Cavill doing the gravel-voice, asking "Do you bleed?" might be the worst part of this movie. Although Lois Lane entering the plot for the first time in an hour so she can say "the sun's gettin' real low" to Superman is a close second. Why isn't she involved in the formation of the League? Why wasn't she a major character in this?

Batman's "something's definitely bleeding" comedy bit feels like something out of a View Askew movie, and not only because it's Ben Affleck.

Clark's discussion with Lois, "it's itchy," it's yet another jarring tone shift from what we saw immediately before. And the greenscreen work on the farm (reshoots, I expect) is somehow worse than the moustache removal.

The bit with Aquaman baring his soul because he's sitting on the Lasso of Truth is the closest one of the comedy bits in this has come to actually working for me.

And then, adding to the "Age of Ultron" comparisons, we're back to fighting an enemy in a small Eastern European nation. The red skies are a nice touch. The Batmobile's 50-caliber cannon and chainguns, less so.

Did...did the Flash just say "oh snap"?

And Aquaman saying "my man" to Cyborg with the exact same inflection as Bradley Cooper in "Get Out" is another one of those real uncomfortable moments.

And then Batman gets a laser gun, because why not?

Superman asking "how can I help" and then rushing off to save civilians is maybe the best moment for the character in the entire DCEU. It's also nice that Superman gets a moment to help more or less each character with their individual missions.

And then Wonder Woman drops the "I work with children" line, which is the best line Black Widow gets in this movie.

Cyborg gets his "booyah" moment, which feels forced but at least makes some sense with his character arc. Flash gets his fistbump. Not-Sokovia gets to be the setting for a Jeff Vandermeer novel, and the team gets their triumphant moment in the sun.

We're on to denouement, and Lois gets the closing narration, which is mostly fine. It would work better if she weren't basically a cameo in the movie. I do like that it ends on "look, up in the sky," and that Cavill finally gets a chance to do the shirt pull.

Except that's not the end. First we get the beginning-of-credits scene with the Superman/Flash race, which is cute but unnecessary. And then a truly awful cover of "Come Together" before the post-credits sequence where Lex Luthor meets up with Deathstroke and his truly ridiculous dye job.

In summary, Joss Whedon's Zack Snyder's "Justice League" is a bad movie. In fact, it's several bad movies stitched together into a shambling bad movie Frankenstein. And tomorrow I'm going to watch Zack Snyder's Zack Snyder's "Justice League: The Snyder Cut," which is getting surprisingly positive reviews. I do not expect to enjoy it, because I really don't think my problems with this movie will be fixed by making it broodier and longer, and my track record with enjoying Snyder's films is basically nonexistent. But I'm watching it, because I'm a glutton for punishment, and at least if I do it while I'm still on vacation from Twitter, I won't be tempted to join in the undoubtedly toxic discourse.

#IFTTT #Blogger #TheFortressOfSoliloquy

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indirispeaks · 7 years

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Titanic Fail Part the Second

!Presented in convo form! Apologies for the length

Me: Okay remember that glorious shipwreck of epic proportions that was the animated titanic movie I told you about with the magic anime girls moonbeam tears?

Him: .....yeah...

Me: I love your suble uneasiness in that 'yeah'. Because THERE IS A SEQUEL.

Him: .....I want to get off this planet now.

Me: "Titanic: Elizabeth And Mullet-Face Go To The Lost City Of Atlantis And There Is A Battle With Sharks And Creepy Clown Toys And Mentally Challenged Racist Caricatures Mice, And Also The Dog Has A Gun For Some Reason."

Him: fuck my life

Me: Also called "In Search of Titanic" But my version is more accurate. So Elizabeth and Glove Sniffer, (fuck if I remember the guy's name he made zero impression on me the first time)along with the dog -who can talk now- and the reeeeally awkward mice are riding around in a submarine looking for the wreck of the Titanic. Which is stupid, since the giant pinkie thing put the goddamn ship back together and lugged it to the new york harbor previously. Whales saved all the people! It was happily ever after all around.

Him: WHAT IS CONTINUITY?

Me: No one on the production team knows what that word means. It is unclear why the talking mice are qualified to make submersible dives. Maybe it happened between movies while the dog was learning to talk. Actually come to think of it, every animal in the first movie could talk except the dog and the whales and yet everyone seemed to understand them just fine even without the glitter spooge and it wasn’tt a big deal to ANY of them. I'm not sure why I'm searching for meaning and logic in a film written and produced by alcoholic lemurs but it still bugs me.

Him: Alcoholic lemurs could have written a better story. meth addicted squirrel monkeys though.

Me: No the squirrel monkeys wrote the sequel. In the snow. With their own pee. But yeah the dog can talk now and I think his name is Lucky. Or Fritz. Or Frank. Steven? He doesn't like being down there because there are sharks. Water is blue, Stevie-boy. But speaking of sharks, the criminal shark gulag is back, again with the whaler asshole, still after the whales. There are no whales in this movie. The giant pink thingie is apparently called Tentaclino, but no one even calls him that and he's not really in the movie either. For that matter, neither is the Titanic. I don't know what they were actually calling it, because 80 percent of the dialogue in garbled to high hell in some way or another.

Which I guess is what happens when three different countries work on the same movie in a fourth language none of them actually speak. They gave up 20 minutes in anyway and just started trying to out-stupid each other.

The new head shark (also with names changing every other scene) gets da boyz to attack the sub and cut it loose because it's yellow. All submarines are yellow. Also sharks are colorblind IRL but that's the least of this movie's issues.

Him: Of course it's yellow.

Me: Everyone in the sub is understandably shocked and upset at this development, except for Glove Sniffer who says that everyone should remain calm while the sharks chew through their tether and oxygen tube. The breach causes implosive decompression and kills them all instantly. The End.

Him: That's not what happened is it.

Me: Nupe.

Him: Joy.

Me: What actually happens is Da Boss shark and his dudebros chew the Technodrome loose to the complete and utter indifference of everyone inside it because the animation budget did not have enough money to pay for more frames when the dudebros start playing tether ball with it. They ask Da Boss shark if they should finish destroying it but he says no, first he has to stop and brush his teeth. Dental hygiene is important, yo! This calls for a rap number!

OH YEEEEEEEEEEAH THIS ONE'S A MUSICAL! YAAAAAY!!!

Him: This is a hell dimension. We are in a hell dimension.

Me: It sets the precedent for the whooole circus though, because NONE of the "songs" in this technicolor nightmare make any sense to anyone who doesn't just happen to be an acid-tripping squirrel monkey. The most I got out of this one was the opening line of "YO! YO! YO! LOOK AT MY TEETH! HOOGA HOOGA HOOGA SO WHITE AND NEAT!" and the rest of it was sung by a chorus of small clams who'd come back from the dentist with mouths full of Novocaine. It SOUNDED like they were singing "Oh, you, you! There's no white meat out of you! Oh, you, you! There's wuh walla, walla WOOOO!!" You can look it up on youtube, the comments are full of people taking guesses at the actual lyrics.

Him: ....

Me: After that incomprehensible nonsense, it cuts back to where Elizabeth, Glove Sniffer and co. have been hanging out awaiting their cues for the last five minutes that you just spent listening to cartoon prison-shark rapping. Literally. Upside down and motionless. Elizabeth's long flowing hair is unaffected by gravity. They come back to life just in time to realize they're probably going to drown and are understandably panicked....except for Glove Sniffer, natch, who tells them to stay calm again but then they go unconscious again and merpeople on multicolored My Little Pony steeds (WHY) come to the rescue and save everybody by spraying air bubbles on their heads....

hang on sec

I missed the part where it became possible for the merpeople to open the top hatch without turning the people into ground sausage. I.

Magic glitter spooge.

I guess.

They're unconscious again in any case. They're also wearing life vests like that's going to help you 7 miles down. I couldn't tell if they were dead or not as they were not sausage, but if they were it would have saved the audience 70 more minutes of this shit. Actually I think the dogs name was Pete.

Him: I'd suggest rewatching it as a drinking game but I don't think anyone would survive the alcohol poisoning.

Me: Yeeeeeah. The mersquad lugs their unconscious asses back to the Lost City of Atlantis, populated by more merpeople who are really just different colored normal people walking around in frog feet with artistically placed fish scales. Pete wakes up halfway there, catches sight of a merwoman and is utterly convinced he's dead and she's taking him to doggy hell. Doggy. Hell. Full throttle Don Bluth. She tells him to stay calm, they're safe now. He doesn't buy it but WHO THE FUCK WOULD.

You might be able to make a drinking game of how many times they actually say some version of "stay calm." They are met at the door by a blue guy whose name we never find out, who tells them that in order to visit the city they have to drink this incredibly suspicious green potion. Elizabeth questions the wisdom of accepting drinks from people wearing sexy-nurse costumes complete with white cowboy hat emblazoned with a red cross. Blue guy tells her to stay calm...and then says "GET EVERYTHING READY!!" to the sexy nurse in a tone that is in no way menacing and foreshadowy.

And from this point on, Elizabeth "I can talk to dolphins with my magiccy-farts" becomes the SOLE VOICE OF REASON. To which the blue guy tells her to shut up and drink it already.. Total dick move. Glove-Sniffer has lost what few brain cells he had (probably from sniffing other things, like wet paint and cat piss), and says that he understands. Just stay calm, and isn't this potion a pretty color? Can't possibly be a bad thing! CHUGGALUGGALUGALUG. I'm not kidding he actually says that. Elizabeth questions her own sanity.

Him: .........she's just now questioning that?

Me: Yeah, well. Elizabeth has seen some fucked up shit in her day. Then the blue guy takes them on a tour! They go and meet this jack in the box clown...fish...pokemon thing with a cape and a pimp cane because why the hell not, who says he's the ambassador or something and oh by the way everything in the city can breathe underwater, never go to sleep, everything can talk, and live forever. Scary Toy sounds like a cross between Marilyn Manson and Fozzie Bear which is creepy as fuck. I can totally see Jeff Dunham using that voice in his stand up. Then it gets bizarre.

Him: again, just now?

Me: More bizarre.

Him: I didn't know it was possible to go downhill from the deepest pit of hell.

Me: They have a backhoe for digging, and Buffy missed this particular hellmouth. There's a bunch of toys that live in the ballroom and Creepy Toy goes into this...this...song and dance number...about how all this works..I must have blanked it out after he made this horrifying demon giggle. He doesn't exactly sing, either, just spouts more Manson-esque lyrics until all hell breaks loose in a sort of what I can only describe as "Techno Rave Fusion Dance Party Music". The lights go out and colored spotlights start flying around the raving toy mosh pit (there's a mosh pit) and every single word of whatever the serial killer fish clown is trying to say is completely obscured by WUB WUB WUB, WUBBA WUB WUB WUB!! WUB WUB WUB, WUBBA WUB WUB WUB!! Elizabeth's voice actor can be heard over the soundtrack saying "THIS IS SCARY!!" and she is so right.

Him: ....

Me: He finishes his routine by abruptly telling them surprise! they're not allowed to leave the city and go home for the rest of their immortal, sleepless lives. Elizabeth is upset. Guess what Glove Sniffer tells her?

And then they go meet the king, who is a fushia man I think. He's wearing a long green robe with attached hoodie cowl from which a black hole exudes so you can't see his face. Could have been tentacles under there for all I know. He's sitting on a throne which I admit was kinda cool, made out of water with fish and seaweed floating/swimming around in it. Or at least it was cool until it gets up and starts following the king around and there's a fucking face on it that the king proceeds to sit on and then it blows bubbles right up his ass. It's a sentient bidet.

Him: sec, finding the vodka.

Me: He asks how they are adjusting to the "news" that they are now under house arrest til the end of time, and Glove Sniffer says he's glad they were told right away and in such an amusing manner. Whoever was responsible for writing his dialogue has been huffing rubber cement between sentences. Elizabeth looks irritated. I don't really blame her.

Then the movie remembers oh yeah, talking animals! The dog's name might have been Happy. Still no clue about the mice. Happy finds a lady dog that lives in Atlantis because why not, and they frolic a bit She has no speaking lines and it's love at first sight. She has no name. Meanwhile the mice are taken to meet all the other mice and why are there fucking mice in Atlantis? There, uh. There's a chinese one. You can tell this movie was made somewhere other than here because that one would have never got past the MPAA.

Anyway the mice/rats have this plan to overthrow the king and steal the elixir of life and then go Pinky and the Brain. It is not explained why they the elixir will help them take over the world. They also for some reason have laser guns. The two sailor mice run and tell the king. He doesn't question their story and neither did I. Elizabeth did.

Him: ....

Me: The king decides to let the mice try to take over the world because they're just a bunch of heat-packing mice and he has a bazillion army merpeople and toys and the elixir of life. He replaces it with water so the mice steal a fake. They test it out by tying another mouse to a rock and tossing him down a well to drown. I mean if you're going to put Don Bluth-level incredibly dark topics in a kid's movie, you may as well go all in. The Creepy Toy is afraid of the mice taking him apart with a screwdriver because then he'll be dead, (for kids!) but a red dolphin reassures him that screwdrivers are banned in Atlantis. (Apparently they built the city without screws. I dunno just go with it okay?)

The evil mice are in cahoots with the sharks who are in cahoots with the whaling asshole because there needs to be at least six different plotlines at the same time. They want to feed the pink thingie to Da Boss shark. Why? Supposedly he ruins stuff....mainly any sort of continuity when someone tries to inject some sanity into this. stupid. stupid. Stupid. stupid. stupid stupidstupidstupid there's a toy army that goes up against the mice who have their own submarines and how the hell are ANY of them supposed to take over the world when your shark shock troops are stuck underwater and you don't have a tornado handy?

I need a break

Their subs also have lasers but they are outgunned via Glove Sniffer's rampaging stupidity. There's a brief fight montage, the dog sets up a sniper point and starts picking off mice even though he lacks opposable thumbs and he's scared of sharks. And water. I'm not sure why he's on this vacation. Maybe they needed to sell tie in plushies?

Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew-pew! WHOOOOMPA! Pew! Pew!

There's also a boy doll who looks like a girl doll because he's got a wig on and it's a curse a little girl put on him to look like a girl and blah blah blah blah it's not important. None of this is important. He sounds like a pirate even though he's dressed in scottish kit. He off a single cannon shot and ta da! he's a boy again and promptly fucks off the movie never to be seen or mentioned again. Yay, misogyny on top of pointless! Thankfully he does not sing or rap about it.

Him: Small mercies.

Me: The war is over! The mice have slunk back to Atlantis and decide to test their elixir of life anyway even though...their entire battle strategy imploded. Elizabeth's voice actor has given up entirely and she just sort of stands there, lost in her own little hell. There's a grand total of 4 seconds where the pink thingie shows up and then leaves so the animators have an excuse to plaster him/her/it on the dvd case. The king decides to reward the useless tourists, half of whom keep asking nosy questions, and puts the Titanic back together again (I mean this IS a Titanic movie, the ship has to be in the film for at least 12 seconds) There is now a sentient screwdriver in the mix whose supposedly the Creepy Toy Fish's best friend. They'.....but he's scare...I thought they were ban...the fuck.

Him: Well yeah.

Me: They get the ship cleaned up and put back together (what's continuity again?) and then use it to drop Elizabeth and Glove Sniffer on a deserted tropical island to live the rest of their lives going quietly insane up THERE instead of underwater. Which is an improvement over hostages, because now they're marooned with the Titanic parked on the beach as their own private yacht. Thank god they don't have relatives that will miss them or go looking for them. I kinda wonder that since they have issues with continuity if there were dead bodies on the ship. I assume there probably were but there sure aren't any now. I won't speculate as to what happened to them but you never see anybody eating fish down there, if you know what I mean. That's basically the end, everyone lives happily ever after if you don't count mind never seeing your families and friends ever again.

Him: .....you know I hate you, right?

........the dogs name was fucking “Smile” by the way.

#titanic movie #titanic #titanic cartoon #lasers #wtf

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glittership · 6 years

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Episode #57 - "You Inside Me" by Tori Curtis

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Episode 57 is a GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL and is part of the Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

You Inside Me

by Tori Curtis

It’ll be fun, he’d said. Everyone’s doing it. You don’t have to be looking for romance, it’s just a good way to meet people.

“I don’t think it’s about romance at all,” Sabella said. She wove her flower crown into her braids so that the wire skeleton was hidden beneath strands of hair. “I think if you caught a congressman doing this, he’d have to resign.”

“That’s ’cause we’ve never had a vampire congressman,” Dedrick said. He rearranged her so that her shoulders fell from their habitual place at her ears, her chin pointed up, and snapped photos of her. “Step forward a little—there, you look more like yourself in that light.”

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 57 for May 21st, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to share this story with you.

GlitterShip is now part of the Audible afflilate program. What this means is that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible to get a free audio book and 30 day trial at Audible to check out the service.

If you’re looking for more queer science fiction to listen to, there’s a full audio book available of the Lightspeed Magazine “Queers Destroy Science Fiction” special issue, featuring stories by a large number of queer authors, including John Chu, Chaz Brenchley, R.B. Lemberg, and many others.

To download a free audiobook today, go to http://www.audibletrial.com/GlitterShip and choose an excellent book to listen to, whether that’s “Queers Destroy Science Fiction” or something else entirely.

Today I have a story and a poem for you. The poem is “Dionysus in London” by Tristan Beiter.

Tristan Beiter is a student at Swarthmore College studying English Literature and Gender and Sexuality Studies. He loves reading poetry and speculative fiction, some of his favorite books being The Waste Land, HD’s Trilogy, Mark Doty’s Atlantis, Frances Hardinge’s Gullstruck Island, and Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. When not reading or writing, he can usually be found crafting absurdities with his boyfriend or yelling about literary theory.

Dionysus in London

by Tristan Beiter

The day exploded, you know.

Last night a woman with big bouffant hair told me, “Show me a story where the daughter runs into a stop sign and it literally turns into a white flower.”

I fail to describe a total eclipse and the throne of petrified wood sank into the lakebed.

James made love to Buckingham while I pulled the honeysuckle to me, made a flower crown for the leopards flanking me while I watched red and white invert themselves, white petals pushing from the center of the sign as the post wilted until all that remained was a giant lotus on the storm grate waiting to rot or wash away.

I let it stay there while the Scottish king hid behind the Scottish play and walked behind me, one eye out for the mark left when locked in. You go witchy in there—or at least you—or he, or I—learn to be afraid of the big coats and brass buttons, like the ones in every hall closet; you never know if they will turn, like yours, into bats and bugs and giant tarantulas made from wire hangers.

The woman showed me our reflections in the shop window while one or the other man in the palace polished the silver for his lover’s table and asked me who I loved; I decided on the cream linen, since the wool was too close to the pea coat that hung

by your door. I suppose that the cat is under the car; that’s probably where it fled to as we walked, knowing we already found that the ivy in your hair was artificial as the bacchanal, or your evasion, Sire, of the question (and of the serpents who are well worth the well offered to them with the wet wax on my crown). I

suppose the car is under the cat, in which case it must be a very large cat, or else a very small car. I eat your teeth. I see brilliantine teeth floating in her thick red lipstick. James tears apart the rhododendron chattering (about) his incisors and remembering the flesh and—nothing so exotic as a Sphinx, maybe a dust mote or lip-marks left on the large leather chaise. Teeth gleam from the shadows where I wait, thyrsus raised with the cone almost touching the roof of the forest, to drown

in a peacock as it swallows (chimney swifts?) the sun—or was it son—or maybe it was just a grape I fed it so it would eat the spiders crawling from the closet. It struts across the palace green like it owns the place, like it will replace the hunting- grounds with fields of straggling mint that the king would never ask for.

The woman teases up her hair before the mirror, filling the restroom with hairspray and big laughs before walking back into the restaurant, where we wait to make ourselves over—the way the throne did when the wood crumbled under the pressure of an untold story, leaving nothing but crystals and dust.

We argued for an hour over whether to mix leaves and flowers, plants and gems, before settling on four crowns, one for each of us.

Her hair mostly covers hers. The cats will love it though, playing with teeth that were knocked into your wine in the barfight (why did you order wine in a place like that, Buck?) and you got replaced with gold, like I wear woven in my braids as the sun sets on the daughter that, unsurprisingly, none of us have. But

if we did, she would turn yield signs into dahlias and that would be the sign to move on with the leopards and their flashing teeth and brass eyes and listen. To the walls and rivers, to the sculpture that is far whiter than me falling. And to the peacock which has just eaten another bug so you don’t have to kill it. Get yourself a dresser and cover it with white enamel it’ll hold up, and no insects live in dressers. Keep

the ivy and the pinecone in a mother-of-pearl trinket box with your plastic volumizing hair inserts and jeweled combs. And put a cat and dolphin on it, to remember.

Next, our short story this episode is “You Inside Me” by Tori Curtis

Tori Curtis writes speculative fiction with a focus on LGBT and disability issues. She is the author of one novel, Eelgrass, and a handful of short stories. You can find her at toricurtiswrites.com and on Twitter at @tcurtfish, where she primarily tweets about how perfect her wife is.

CW: For descriptions of traumatic surgery.

You Inside Me

by Tori Curtis

It’ll be fun, he’d said. Everyone’s doing it. You don’t have to be looking for romance, it’s just a good way to meet people.

He took fifteen minutes to edit her photos (“they’ll expect you to use a filter, so you might as well,”) and pop the best ones on her profile.

Suckr: the premier dating app for vampires and their fanciers.

“It’s like we’re cats,” she said.

“I heard you like cats,” he agreed, and she sighed.

Hi, I’m Sabella. I’ve been a vampire since I was six years old, and I do not want to see or be seen by humans. I’m excited to meet men and women between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five.

“That’s way too big of an age range,” Dedrick said. “You want to be compatible with these people.”

“Yeah, compatible. Like my tissue type.”

“You don’t want to end up flirting with a grandpa.”

I’m excited to meet men and women between the ages of twenty and thirty-five.

I’m most proud of my master’s degree.

You should message me if you’re brave and crazy.

It took days, not to mention Dedrick’s exasperated return, before she went back on Suckr. She paced up the beautiful wood floors of her apartment, turning on heel at the sole window on the long end and the painted-over cast-iron radiator on the short. When she felt too sick to take care of herself, her mom came over and put Rumors on, wrapped her in scarves that were more pretty than functional, warmed some blood and gave it to her in a sippy cup. Sabella remembered nothing so much as the big Slurpees her mom had bought her, just this bright red, when she’d had strep the last year she was human.

She wore the necklace Dedrick had given her every day. It was a gold slice of pepperoni pizza with “best” emblazoned on the back (his matched, but read “friends,”), and she fondled it like a hangnail. She rubbed the bruises on her arms, where the skin had once been clear and she’d once thought herself pretty in a plain way, like Elinor Dashwood, as though she might be able to brush off the dirt.

She called her daysleeper friends, texted acquaintances, and slowly stopped responding to their messages as she realized how bored she was of presenting hope day after day.

2:19:08 bkissedrose: I’m so sorry.

2:19:21 bkissedrose: I feel like such a douche

2:19:24 sabellasay: ???

2:20:04 sabellasay: what r u talkin about

2:25:56 bkissedrose: u talked me down all those times I would’ve just died

2:26:08 sabellasay: it was rly nbd

2:26:27 bkissedrose: I’ve never been half as good as you are

2:26:48 bkissedrose: and now you’re so sick

2:29:12 sabellasay: dude stop acting like i’m dying

2:29:45 sabellasay: I can’t stand it

2:30:13 bkissedrose: god you’re so brave

(sabellasay has become inactive)

“Everyone keeps calling me saying you stopped talking to them,” Dedrick said when he made it back to her place, shoes up on the couch now that he’d finally wiped them of mud. “Should I feel lucky you let me in?”

“I’m tired,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a symptom. I like this one, I think she has potential.”

He took her phone and considered it with the weight of a father researching a car seat. “A perfect date: I take you for a ride around the lake on my bike, then we stop home for an evening snack.”

“She means her motorcycle,” Sabella clarified.

He rolled his eyes and continued reading. “My worst fear: commitment.”

“At least she’s honest.”

“That’s not really a good thing. You’re not looking for someone to skip out halfway through the movie.”

“No, I’m looking for someone who’s not going to be heartbroken when I die anyway.”

Dedrick sighed, all the air going out of his chest as it might escape from dough kneaded too firmly, and held her close to him. “You’re stupid,” he told her, “but so sweet.”

“I think I’m going to send her a nip.”

The girl was named Ash but she spelled it A-I-S-L-I-N-G, and she seemed pleased that Sabella knew enough not to ask lots of stupid questions. They met in a park by the lakeside, far enough from the playground that none of the parents would notice the fanged flirtation going on below.

If Aisling had been a boy, she would have been a teen heartthrob. She wore her hair long where it was slicked back and short (touchable, but hard to grab in a fight) everywhere else. She wore a leather jacket that spoke of a once-in-a-lifetime thrift store find, and over the warmth of her blood and her breath she smelled like bag balm. Sabella wanted to hide in her arms from a fire. She wanted to watch her drown trying to save her.

Aisling parked her motorcycle and stowed her helmet before coming over to say hi—gentlemanly, Sabella thought, to give her a chance to prepare herself.

“What kind of scoundrel left you to wait all alone?” Aisling asked, with the sort of effortlessly cool smile that might have broken a lesser woman’s heart.

“I don’t know,” Sabella said, “but I’m glad you’re here now.”

Aisling stepped just inside her personal space and frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but are you—”

“I’m trans, yes,” Sabella interrupted, and smiled so wide she could feel the tension at her temples. Like doing sit-ups the wrong way for years, having this conversation so many times hadn’t made it comfortable, only routine. “We don’t need to be awkward about it.”

“Okay,” Aisling agreed, and sat on the bench, helping Sabella down with a hand on her elbow. “I meant that you seem sick.”

She looked uneasy, and Sabella sensed that she had never been human. Vampires didn’t get sick—she had probably never had more than a headache, and that only from hunger.

“Yes,” Sabella said. “I am sick. I’m not actually—I mentioned this on my profile—I’m not actually looking for love.”

“I hope you won’t be too disappointed when it finds you,” Aisling said, and Sabella blushed, reoriented herself with a force like setting a bone, like if she tried hard enough to move in one direction she’d stop feeling like a spinning top.

“I’m looking for a donor,” she said.

“Yeah, all right,” Aisling said. She threw her arm over the back of the bench so that Sabella felt folded into her embrace. “I’m always willing to help a pretty girl out.”

“I don’t just mean your blood,” she said, and felt herself dizzy.

It was easier for Sabella to convince someone to do something than it was for her to ask for it. Her therapist had told her that, and even said it was common, but he hadn’t said how to fix it. “Please, may I have your liver” was too much to ask, and “Please, I don’t want to die” was a poor argument.

“So, you would take my liver—”

“It would actually only be part of your liver,” Sabella said, stopping to catch her breath. She hadn’t been able to go hiking since she’d gotten so sick—she needed company, and easy trails, and her friends either didn’t want to go or, like her mom, thought it was depressing to watch her climb a hill and have to stop to spit up bile.

“So we would each have half my liver, in the end.”

Sabella shrugged and looked into the dark underbrush. If she couldn’t be ethical about this, she wouldn’t deserve a liver. She wouldn’t try to convince Aisling until she understood the facts. “In humans, livers will regenerate once you cut them in half and transplant them. Like how kids think if you cut an earthworm in half, you get two. Or like bulbs. Ideally, it would go like that.”

“And if it didn’t go ideally?”

(“Turn me,” Dedrick said one day, impulsively, when she’d been up all night with a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop, holding her in his lap with his shirt growing polka-dotted. “I’ll be a vampire in a few days, we can have the surgery—you’ll be cured in a week.”)

“If it doesn’t go ideally,” Sabella said, “one or both of us dies. If it goes poorly, I don’t even know what happens.”

She stepped off the tree and set her next target, a curve in the trail where a tree had fallen and the light shone down on the path. Normally these days she didn’t wear shoes but flip-flops, but this was a date, and she’d pulled her old rainbow chucks out of the closet. Aisling walked with her silently, keeping pace, and put an arm around her waist.

Sabella looked up and down the trail. Green Lake was normally populated enough that people kept to their own business, and these days she felt pretty safe going about, even with a girl. But she checked anyway before she leaned into Ais’s strength, letting her guide them so that she could use all her energy to keep moving.

“But if it doesn’t happen at all, you die no matter what?”

Sabella took a breath. “If you don’t want to, I look for someone else.”

Her mom was waiting for her when Sabella got home the next morning.

Sabella’s mother was naturally blonde, tough when she needed to be, the sort of woman who could get into hours-long conversations with state fair tchotchke vendors. She’d gotten Sabella through high school and into college through a careful application of stamping and yelling. When Sabella had started calling herself Ravynn, she’d brought a stack of baby name books home and said, “All right, let’s find you something you can put on a resume.”

“Mom,” she said, but smiling, “I gave you a key in case I couldn’t get out of bed, not so you could check if I spent the night with a date.”

“How’d it go? Was this the girl Dedrick helped you find?”

“Aisling, yeah,” Sabella said. She sat on the recliner, a mountain of accent pillows cushioning her tender body. “It was good. I like her a lot.”

“Did she decide to get the surgery?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her to choose.”

“Then what did you two do all night?”

Sabella frowned. “I like her a lot. We had a good time.”

Her mom stood and put the kettle on, and Sabella couldn’t help thinking what an inconvenience she was, that her mother couldn’t fret over her by making toast and a cup of tea. “Christ, what decent person would want to do that with you?”

“We have chemistry! She’s very charming!”

She examined Sabella with the dissatisfied air of an artist. “You’re a mess, honey. You’re so orange you could be a jack-o-lantern, and swollen all over. You look like you barely survived a dogfight. I don’t even see my daughter when I look at you anymore.”

Sabella tried to pull herself together, to look more dignified, but instead she slouched further into the recliner and crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe she thinks I’m funny, or smart.”

“Maybe she’s taking advantage. Anyone who really cared about you wouldn’t be turned on, they’d be worried about your health.”

Sabella remembered the look on Aisling’s face when she’d first come close enough to smell her, and shuddered. “I’m not going to ask her to cut out part of her body for me without thinking about it first,” she said.

“Without giving her something in return?” her mom asked. “It’s less than two pounds.”

“But it’s still her choice,” Sabella said.

“I’m starting to wonder if you even want to live,” her mom said, and left.

Sabella found the energy to go turn off the stovetop before she fell asleep. (Her mother had raised her responsible.)

12:48:51 bkissedrose: what happens to a dream bestowed

12:49:03 bkissedrose: upon a girl too weak to fight for it?

12:53:15 sabellasay: haha you can’t sleep either?

12:53:38 sabellasay: babe idk

12:55:43 sabellasay: is it better to have loved and lost

12:56:29 sabellasay: than to die a virgin?

1:00:18 bkissedrose: I guess I don’t know

1:01:24 bkissedrose: maybe it depends if they’re good

“It’s nice here,” Aisling confessed the third time they visited the lake. Sabella and her mom weren’t talking, but she couldn’t imagine it would last more than a few days longer, so she wasn’t worried. “I’d never even heard of it.”

“I grew up around here,” Sabella said, “and I used to take my students a few times a year.”

“You teach?”

“I used to teach,” she said, and stepped off the trail—the shores were made up of a gritty white sand like broken shells—to watch the sinking sun glint off the water. “Seventh grade science.”

Aisling laughed. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

“I like that they’re old enough you can do real projects with them, but before it breaks off into—you know, are we doing geology or biology or physics. When you’re in seventh grade, everything is science.” She smiled and closed her eyes so that she could feel the wind and the sand under her shoes. She could hear birds settling and starting to wake, but she couldn’t place them. “They’ve got a long-term sub now. Theoretically, if I manage to not die, I get my job back.”

Aisling came up behind her and put her arms around her. Sabella knew she hadn’t really been weaving—she knew her limits well enough now, she hoped—but she felt steadier that way. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I don’t think they expect to have to follow through,” Sabella admitted. “Sometimes I think I’m the only one who ever thinks I’m going to survive this. My mom’s so scared all the time, I know she doesn’t.”

Aisling held her not tight but close, like being tucked into a bright clean comforter on a cool summer afternoon. “Can I ask you a personal question?” she said, her face up against Sabella’s neck so that every part of Sabella wanted her to bite.

“Maybe,” she said, then thought better of it. “Yes.”

“How’d you get sick? I didn’t think we could catch things like that. Or was it while you were human?”

“Um, no, but I’m not contagious, just nasty.” Aisling laughed, and she continued, encouraged. “Mom would, you know, once I came out I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, but she wouldn’t let me get any kind of reconstructive surgery until I was eighteen. She thought it was creepy, some doc getting his hands all over her teenage kid.”

“Probably fair.”

“So I’m eighteen, and she says okay, you’re right, you got good grades in school and you’re going to college like I asked, I’ll pay for whatever surgery you want. And you have to imagine, I just scheduled my freshman orientation, I have priorities.”

“Which are?”

“Getting laid, mostly.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“So I’m eighteen and hardly ever been kissed, I’m not worried about the details. I don’t let my mom come with me, it doesn’t even occur to me to see a doctor who’s worked with vampires before, I just want to look like Audrey Hepburn’s voluptuous sister.”

“Oh no,” Ash said. It hung there for a moment, the dread and Sabella’s not being able to regret that she’d been so stupid. “It must have come up.”

“Sure. He said he was pretty sure it would be possible to do the surgery on a vampire, he knew other surgeries had been done. I was just so excited he didn’t say no.”

Ash held her tight then, like she might be dragged away otherwise, and Sabella knew that it had nothing to do with her in particular, that it was only the protective instinct of one person watching another live out her most plausible nightmare. “What did he do to you?”

“It wasn’t his fault,” she said, and then—grimacing, she knew her mother would have been so angry with her—“at least, he didn’t mean anything by it. He never read anything about how to adapt the procedure to meet my needs.” She sounded so clinical, like she’d imbibed so many doctors’ explanations of what had happened that she was drunk on it. “But neither did I. We both found out you can’t give vampires a blood transfusion.”

“Why would you need to?”

She shrugged. “You don’t, usually, in plastic surgery.”

“No,” Aisling interrupted, “I mean, why wouldn’t you drink it?”

Sabella tried to remember, or tried not to be able to, and tucked her cold hands into her pockets. “You’re human, I guess. Anyway, I puked all over him and the incision sites, had to be hospitalized. My doctor says I’m lucky I’m such a good healer, or I’d need new boobs and a new liver.”

They were both quiet, and Sabella thought, this is it. You either decide it’s too much or you kiss me again.

She thought, I miss getting stoned with friends and telling shitty surgery stories and listening to them laugh. I hate that when I meet girls their getting-to-know-you involves their Youtube make-up tutorials and mine involves “and then, after they took the catheter out…”

“Did you sue for malpractice, at least?” Ash asked, and Sabella couldn’t tell without looking if her tone was teasing or wistful.

“My mom did, yeah. When they still wanted her to pay for the damn surgery.”

Aisling pulled up to the front of Sabella’s building and stopped just in front of her driveway. She kicked her bike into park and stepped onto the sidewalk, helping Sabella off and over the curbside puddle. Sabella couldn’t find words for what she was thinking, she was so afraid that her feelings would shatter as they crystallized. She wanted Ais to brush her hair back from her face and comb out the knots with her fingers. She wanted Ais to stop by to shovel the drive when there was lake effect snow. She wanted to find ‘how to minimize jaundice’ in the search history of Aisling’s phone.

“You’re beautiful in the sunlight,” Ais said, breaking her thoughts, maybe on purpose. “Like you were made to be outside.”

Sabella ducked her head and leaned up against her. The date was supposed to be over, go inside and let this poor woman get on with her life, but she didn’t want to leave. “It’s nice to have someone to go with me,” she said. “Especially with a frost in the air. Sometimes people act like I’m so fragile.”

“Ridiculous. You’re a vampire.”

Her ears were cold, and she pressed them against Aisling’s jawbone. She wondered what the people driving past thought when they saw them. She thought that maybe the only thing better than surviving would be to die a tragic death, loved and loyally attended. “I was born human.”

“Even God makes mistakes.”

Sabella smiled. “Is that what I am? A mistake?”

“Nah,” she said. “Just a happy accident.”

Sabella laughed, thought you’re such a stoner and I feel so safe when you look at me like that.

“I’ll do it,” Ais said. “What do I have to do to set up the surgery?”

Sabella hugged her tight, hid against her and counted the seconds—one, two, three, four, five—while Ais didn’t change her mind and Sabella wondered if she would.

“I have to stress how potentially dangerous this is,” Dr. Young said. “I can’t guarantee that it will work, that either of you will survive the procedure or the recovery, or that you won’t ultimately regret it.”

Aisling was holding it together remarkably well, Sabella thought, but she still felt like she could catch her avoiding eye contact. Sabella had taken the seat in the doctor’s office between her mother and girlfriend, and felt uncomfortable and strange no matter which of their hands she held.

“Um,” Ais said, and Sabella could feel her mother’s judgment at her incoherence, “you said you wouldn’t be able to do anything for the pain?”

To her credit, the doctor didn’t fidget or look away. Sabella, having been on the verge of death long enough to become something of a content expert, believed that it was important to have a doctor who was upfront about how terrible her life was. “I wouldn’t describe it as ‘nothing,’ exactly,” she said. “There aren’t any anesthetics known to work on vampires, but we’ll make you as comfortable as possible. You can feed immediately before and as soon as you’re done, and that will probably help snow you over.”

“Being a little blood high,” Ais clarified. “While you cut out my liver.”

“Yes.”

Sabella wanted to apologize. She couldn’t find the words.

Aisling said, “Well, while we’re trying to make me comfortable, can I smoke up, too?”

Dr. Young laughed. It wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t promising, either. “That’s not a terrible idea,” she said, “but marijuana increases bleeding, and there are so many unknown variables here that I’d like to stick to best practices if we can.”

“I can just—” Sabella said, and choked. She wasn’t sure when she’d started crying. “Find someone else. Dedrick will do it, I know.”

Aisling considered this. The room was quiet, soft echoes on the peeling tile floor. Sabella’s mother put an arm around her, and she felt tiny, but in the way that made her feel ashamed and not protected. Aisling said, “Why are you asking me? Is there something you know that I don’t?”

Dr. Young shook her head. “I promise we’re not misrepresenting the procedure,” she said. “And theoretically, it might be possible with any vampire. But there aren’t a lot of organ transplants in the literature—harvesting, sure, but not living transplants—and I want to get it right the first time. If we have a choice, I told Sabella I’d rather use a liver from a donor who was born a vampire. I think it’ll increase our chance of success.”

“A baby’d be too weak,” Aisling agreed. Her voice was going hard and theoretical. “Well, tell me something encouraging.”

“One of the first things we’ll do is to cut through almost all of your abdominal nerves, so that will help. And there’s a possibility that the experience will be so intense that you don’t remember it clearly, or at all.”

Sabella’s mother took a shaky breath, and Sabella wished, hating herself for it, that she hadn’t come.

Ais said, “Painful. You mean, the experience will be so painful.”

“If you choose to go forward with it,” Dr. Young said, “we’ll do everything we can to mitigate that.”

Sabella had expected that Aisling would want space and patience while she decided not to die a horrible, painful death to save her. It was hard to tell how instead they ended up in her bed with the lights out, their legs wound together and their faces swollen with sleep. Sabella was shaking, and couldn’t have said why. Ais grabbed her by her seat and pulled her up close.

“You said you couldn’t get me sick?” she asked.

“No,” Sabella agreed. “Although my blood is probably pretty toxic.”

Ais kissed her, the smell of car exhaust still stuck in her hair. “What a metaphor,” she murmured, and lifted her chin. “You look exhausted.”

Sabella thought, Are you saying what I think you’re saying? and, That’s a terrible idea, and said, “God, I want to taste you.”

“Well, baby,” Ais said, and her hands were on Sabella so she curled her lips and blew her hair out of her eyes, “that’s what I’m here for.”

Sabella had been human once, and she remembered what food was like. The standard lie, that drinking blood was like eating a well-cooked steak, was wrong but close enough to staunch the flow of an interrogation. (She’d had friends and exes, turned as adults, who said it was like a good stout on tap, hefty and refreshing, but she thought they might just be trying to scandalize her.)

Ais could have been a stalk of rhubarb or August raspberries. She moved under Sabella and held her so that their knees pressed together. She could have been the thrill of catching a fat thorny toad in among the lettuce at dusk, or a paper wasp in a butterfly net. She felt like getting tossed in the lake in January; she tasted like being wrapped in fleece and gently dried before the fire; her scent was what Sabella remembered of collapsing, limbs aquiver, on the exposed bedrock of a mountaintop, nothing but crushed pine and the warmth of a moss-bed.

She woke on top of Ais, licking her wounds lazily—she wanted more, but she was too tired to do anything about it.

“That’s better,” Ais whispered, and if she was disappointed that this wasn’t turning into a frenzy, she didn’t show it. They were quiet for long enough that the haze started to fade, and then Aisling said, “I couldn’t ask in front of your mother, but was it like that with your surgery? They couldn’t do anything for the pain?”

Sabella shifted uncomfortably, rolled over next to Ais. “I was conscious, yes.”

“Do you remember it?”

It was a hard question. She wanted to say it wasn’t her place to ask. She tried to remember, and got caught up in the layers of exhaustion, the spaces between the body she’d had, the body she’d wanted, and what they had been doing to her. “Sounds and sensations and thoughts, mostly,” she said.

Ais choked, and said, “So, everything,” and Sabella realized—she didn’t know how she hadn’t—how scared she must be.

“No, it’s blurry,” she said instead. “I remember, um, the tugging at my chest. I kept thinking there was no way my skin wasn’t just going to split open. And the scraping sounds. They’ve got all these tools, and they’re touching you on the inside and the outside at the same time, and that’s very unsettling. And this man, I think he was the PA, standing over me saying, ‘You’ve got to calm down, honey.’”

“Were you completely freaking out?” Ais asked.

Sabella shook her head. Her throat hurt. “No. I mean—I cried a little. Not as much as you’d think. They said if I wasn’t careful, you know, with swallowing at the right times and breathing steady, they might mess up reshaping my larynx and I could lose my voice.”

Ais swore, and Sabella wondered if she would feel angry. (Sometimes she would scream and cry, say, can you imagine doing that to an eighteen-year-old?) Right now she was just tired. “How did you manage?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think just, it was worth more to me to have it done than anything else. So I didn’t ever tell them to stop.”

“Please don’t go around telling people I think this is an acceptable surgical set-up,” Dr. Young said, looking around the exam room.

It reminded Sabella of a public hearing, the way the stakeholders sat at opposing angles and frowned at each other. Dr. Young sat next to Dr. Park, who would be the second doctor performing the procedure. Sabella had never met Dr. Park before, and her appearance—young, mostly—didn’t inspire confidence. Sabella sat next to her mother, who held her hand and a clipboard full of potential complications. Ais crossed her fingers in her lap, sat with a nervous child’s version of polite interest. Time seemed not to blur, but to stutter, everything happening whenever.

“Dr. Park,” Sabella’s mother said, “do you have any experience operating on vampires?”

Dr. Park grinned and her whole mouth seemed to open up in her face, her gums pale pink as a Jolly Rancher and her left fang chipped. “Usually trauma or obstetrics,” she admitted. “Although this is nearly the same thing.”

“I’m serious,” Sabella’s mom said, and Sabella interrupted.

“I like her,” she said. And then—it wasn’t really a question except in the sense that there was no way anyone could be sure—“You’re not going to realize halfway through the surgery that it’s too much for you?”

Dr. Park laughed. “I turned my husband when we were both eighteen,” she said as testament to her cruelty.

Sabella’s mom jumped. “Jesus Christ, why?”

She shrugged, languid. Ais and Dr. Young were completely calm; Ais might have had no frame of reference for what it was like to watch someone turn, and Dr. Young had probably heard this story before. “His parents didn’t like that he was dating a vampire. You’ll do crazy things for love.”

Sabella could see her mother blanch even as she steadied. It wasn’t unheard of for a vampire to turn their spouse—less common now that it was easier to live as a vampire, and humans were able to date freely but not really commit. But she could remember being turned, young as she had been: the gnawing ache, the hallucinations, the thirst that had only sometimes eclipsed the pain. It was still the worst thing that she’d ever experienced, and she was sure her mother couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to do it to someone they loved.

“Good,” she said. “You won’t turn back if we scream.”

Dr. Young frowned. “I want you to know you have a choice,” she said. She was speaking to Ais; Sabella had a choice, too, but it was only between one death and another. “There will be a point when you can’t change your mind, but by then it’ll be almost over.”

Ais swore. It made Dr. Park smile and Sabella’s mom frown. Sabella wondered if she was in love with her, or if it was impossible to be in love with someone who was growing a body for them to share. “Don’t say that,” Ais said. “I don’t want to have that choice.”

The morning of the surgery, Aisling gave Sabella a rosary to wear with her pizza necklace, and when they kicked Sabella’s mom out to the waiting room, she kissed them both as she went. “I like your mom,” Ais said shyly. They lay in cots beside each other, just close enough that they could reach out and hold hands across the gap. “I bet she’d get along with mine.”

Sabella laughed, her eyes stinging, threw herself across the space between them and kissed each of Ais’s knuckles while Ais said, “Aw, c’mon, save it ‘til we get home.”

“Isn’t that a lot of commitment for you?” Sabella asked.

“Yeah, well,” Ais said, caught, and gave her a cheesy smile. “You’re already taking my liver, at least my heart won’t hurt so much.”

They drank themselves to gorging while nurses wrapped and padded them in warm blankets. Ais was first, for whatever measure of mercy that was, and while they were wheeled down the dizzying white hallway, she grinned at Sabella, wild, some stranger’s blood staining her throat to her nose. “You’re a real looker,” she said, and Sabella laughed over her tears.

“Thank you,” Sabella said. “I mean, really, for everything.”

Ais winked at her; Sabella wanted to run away from all of this and drink her in until they died. “It’s all in a day’s work, ma’am,” she said.

It wasn’t, it couldn’t have been, and Sabella loved her for pretending. Ais hissed, she cried, she asked intervention of every saint learned in K-12 at a Catholic school. A horrible gelatinous noise came as Dr. Young’s gloves touched her innards, and Ais moaned and Sabella said, “You have to stop, this is awful,” and the woman assigned to supervise her held her down and said hush, honey, you need to be quiet. And the doctors’ voices, neither gentle nor unkind: We’re almost done now, Aisling, you’re being so brave. And: It’s a pity she’s too strong to pass out.

Sabella went easier, hands she couldn’t see wiping her down and slicing her open while Dr. Park pulled Ais’s insides back together. She’d been scared for so long that the pain didn’t frighten her; she kept asking “Is she okay? What’s happening?” until the woman at her head brushed back her hair and said shh, she’s in the recovery room, you can worry about yourself now.

It felt right, fixing her missteps with pieces of Ais, and when Dr. Young said, “There we go, just another minute and you can go take care of her yourself,” Sabella thought about meromictic lakes, about stepping into a body so deep its past never touched its present.

END

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Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “The City of Kites and Crows” by Megan Arkenberg.

Episode #57 – “You Inside Me” by Tori Curtis was originally published on GlitterShip

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