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nour386 · 3 years

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A Picnic In the Woods

Stanford And Fiddleford have a nice day out with one another and enjoy a picnic in the Gravity falls woods.

(also on ao3!)

This is my secret Santa Gift for @pirably who wanted some Fiddauthor fluff. nothing explicitly romantic, just the boys being happy. I hope I met your expectations!

~~~

The sun shone through the tree branches above as Stanford led the way through the woods. There was a cheerful spring in his step when he looked back and saw Fiddleford not far behind, with a picnic basket in hand. A whole day free to themselves, no anomalies to study or machines to work on. His mind ran wild with possabilities.

‘Perhaps we’ll find a new cryptid. Or Perhaps we’ll find a secret city of fairies and become crowned kings or maybe-’

Stanford was pulled out of his thoughts by a gentle pull on his shoulder.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” Fiddleford smirked.

“You don’t know that.” Stanford crossed his arms.

“You had that look on your face. The one you have when you’re thinking of finding a magical creature.” Fiddleford pointed at his own face, making a wide-eyed look of wonder with his jaw hanging open. “Kinda like this.”

“That’s an absurd and frankly poor imitation of-” Stanford’s statement was interrupted as a fairy flew past, leaving sparkling dust in her path; and he found himself making the exact expression.

“You’re adorable.” Fiddleford ruffled Stanford's hair. “Come along, times a wastin’ and our lunch ain’t gonna stay warm forever.”

“Are you saying that a brilliant inventor such as yourself hasn’t already designed a device that could not only keep meals warm for hours, but also feed the user?” Stanford asked, spreading his arms in the air.

“Sounds to me like someone is dropping not-so-subtle hints that he’s too lazy to eat at appropriate times.” Fiddleford lowered Stanford’s left arm out of his face. He slid his hand down the researcher’s arm so that they were holding hands.

Stanford paused, looking down to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding what his hands were feeling. His cheeks flushed red when he saw that they were indeed holding hands. He felt Fiddleford interlace their fingers; and his cheeks turned a deep shade of crimson.

“You-uh-I-” Stanford rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

“You’re like a little kitten.” Fiddleford cooed. His smile grew further as he watched his boyfriend squirm under his affection.

“How’s that? If it’s about my sneezing again-”

“I was going to say that you’re both adorable, and easily held. Just like a little kitten.” Fiddleford pulled Stanford closer to leave a soft kiss on his forehead.

“How could you take advantage of my distracted state in such a way, Fiddleford?” Stanford said in mock shock. “I trusted you in my vulnerability, and you treat me like this.”

“I just realised something else that makes ya just like a kitten,” Fiddleford rolled his eyes. “You’re overly dramatic when it comes to the tiniest things.”

“This talk of cute things reminded me of something,” Stanford said.

“Oh do tell,” said Fiddleford.

“I’ve been hearing rumors about creatures who are so cute that any who feast their eyes upon them are compelled to obey their every command.” Stanford spoke excitedly, there was a shine in his eye.

“Well we can rule you out from being one of them.” Fiddleford said smugly.

Stanford shook his head. “You were just singing my praises on my cuteness, what made you change your mind so suddenly?”

“Oh I didn’t say that.” Fiddleford corrected. “All I’m saying is that after this morning, I don’t think you have the power of manipulating people with your cuteness.”

“Listen, getting Stanley to leave his bed before noon is like trying to break down a wall using a sewing needle.” Stanford shrugged.

“Anyway, you were saying something about a creature that, despite all logic, is somehow cuter than you?” Fiddleford said.

“Hmm,” Stanford tapped his chin before snapping his fingers. “Yes! Now my informant was a gnome, so this information might not be too reliable. However I am planning a small expedition next week to find out more.”

The pair continued to walk through the woods. Stanford happily rattled off information about the many wondrous creatures he intended to study and the potential discoveries that were waiting for them in the coming months.

All the while Fiddleford listened intently. While he did not hold the same enthusiasm that Stanford had for the unknown, he did enjoy listening to the way Stanford’s voice sounded when he got excited,he way he’d talk faster as though all his thoughts wanted to get out at once.

Even now, watching Stanford go on about the feuds amongst the many fairy kingdoms and how he hoped to bridge peace to (or at least document the fall out). Fiddleford felt the sheer glee that dripped from Stanford’s voice as he spoke. It was infectious, and Fiddleford found himself matching the spring in his boyfriend’s step as they walked together.

“Oh! We’ve almost arrived.” Stanford pointed at a gap amongst the trees ahead of them.

“Thank the Lord.” Fiddleford sighed.

“You aren’t tired already are you?” Stanford teased.

“I’m sorry, were you the one carrying our picnic basket the entire trek?” Fiddleford shot back.

“I offered to carry it but you said you wanted to,” said Stanford . “You’ve no one to blame for your tiredness but yourself.”

Fiddleford huffed. “You’ll understand when we get there.”

The pair walked through a gap between two tall redwoods. Before them was a small clearing. A small pond sat near the centre, the rest of the ground was covered in short grass. With the sky above and the trees on the far side of the clearing provided a good amount of shade to hide away from the heat.

“Now this is very picturesque.“ Fiddleford rested his hand on his hip.

“All it needs is a hill and it’d look like every picnic in those old stories.” Stanford led the way to the shadow of the trees.

“Knowing this place I doubt we’d be able to climb up a hill without having to answer some arbitrary number of riddles.” Fiddleford said as he followed Stanford’s lead.

Stanford laughed. “With a mind as sharp as yours? I doubt you’d need to worry about riddles.”

“Speaking of my sharp mind.” Fiddleford pulled on Stanford's hand, bringing his boyfriend to a stop. “I might have built something to help us with setting up our picnic.”

“Oho?” Stanford raised his brow. “The floor is yours.”

“Just a moment.” Fiddleford stepped forward, letting go of Stanford’s hand. This made the researcher give a small whine. Fiddleford rolled his eyes as he placed the picnic basket down on the grassy floor. He picked up a long stick from the ground beside him and walked back to Stanford's side. “Now, prepare to be amazed.”

Stanford watched with bated breath as Fiddleford took the stick and tapped the side of the picnic basket three times. Four thin metallic arms emerged from beneath the blanket covering the basket and began to unfold it. With the blanket out of the way, Stanford could see a small robot, rectangular in shape with the aforementioned limbs connected to it. It dusted the blanket before gently laying it on the grass beside the basket. Pressing its hands against the ground, the robot lifted itself out of the basket. It rested its metallic body on the blanket and reached for the food hidden in the basket. In no time at all the robot had placed the impressive spread of food across the blanket.

A roast chicken was placed in the centre of the blanket, surrounded by many sandwiches. They had a variety of fillings, ranging from the simple ham and cheese to more strange, like pickles and mayonnaise. An assortment of fruit, that had been freshly bought from the market the previous day, was placed in a small bowl in the centre of the blanket. Next to that bowl was a bag of jelly beans, as well as a pair of fizzy drinks that Fiddleford knew Stanley wouldn’t miss.

“Pretty impressive eh?” said Fiddleford.

Stanford was unable to answer as he stared in awe at the robot that, having finished its job, neatly folded itself back into the picnic basket.

“Hello? Stanford? You in there?” Fiddleford waved his hand in front of the researcher’s face.

“Fiddleford, that was amazing!” Stanford jumped up and hugged his boyfriend tightly.

“Stanford- you’re- crushin’ me-” Fiddleford coughed.

“Oh, my apologies.” Stanford let him down with an embarrassed smile on his face. “But yes, you did an impressive job with that machine.”

Fiddleford took a deep breath. “I’d have said you were only saying that because I was your boyfriend, if it weren’t for you almost breaking me in two.”

“I was caught up in the moment,” Stanford said. “I was handed the opportunity to watch one of your machines in person. What was I meant to do? Give one of those painfully boring claps like they do at those golf games that Stanley skips past on TV?”

“You might have a point. That did feel a lot more personal than just a clap.” Fiddleford tapped his chin in thought. “But a warnin’ beforehand would be preferred.”

“That can be arranged.” Stanford grinned. “But, before we continue that discussion, how about we enjoy this spread before the ants get to them?”

“Not magical ants I hope.” Fiddleford shuddered.

“You’ve heard of fire ants? Well these are ice ants!” Stanford wriggled his fingers sinisterly. A cheeky smile spread across his face as he continued. “It’s said that their bite can result in frostbite and perhaps even soggy sandwiches if left out in the sun for too long.”

“Then we better get to eating.” Fiddleford rolled his eyes, taking a seat on the blanket.

Stanford stayed standing for a moment. Choosing to savour the sight of Fidddleford sitting in the shade of the trees with a small smile on his face. His golden brown hair shone in the flakes of sun that made it through the branches of the trees that towered above. The engineer was reaching for a sandwich before he realised that he was alone on the blanket. He looked up at Stanford and sighed.

“You shoulda brought your camera.” Fiddleford said. “A picture would last much longer.”

“Now where would the fun be in that?” Stanford sat opposite his boyfriend.

“The fun would be in eatin’ before those ‘ice ants’ get to your food.” Fiddleford threw a sandwich at Stanford.

“Fine fine.” Stanford chuckled. He unwrapped the sandwich before checking the filling. “Ugh, did you grab any random combination of ingredients from the kitchen and put them together?”

“Only for a couple of them.” Fiddleford smiled. Leaning forward, Stanford caught a peak at FIddleford’s sandwich and recognised pickle slices and mayonnaise poking out of the bread. “Makes this into a fun little game of sandwich roulette.”

“Either that, or I have to seriously consider buying you a cookbook.” Stanford sighed. He took another bite of his sandwich. It had a thick slice of cheese between two different flavoured spreads of jam. It was a curious mix of sweet and savoury, but not as bad as he was expecting.

The pair sat together, enjoying the warm afternoon, chatting idly as they ate. They tossed the sandwiches back and forth, daring one another to try out the strange combinations that Fiddleford had concocted. The pair laughed at the way their faces twisted with disgust after a biting into the sandwiches. From sardines and jelly to cucumbers and cheese, the pair passed around the strange flavours before moving on to the main course of their picnic.

While Fiddleford had been proud of the terrible sandwich flavours had concocted, he also knew the value of providing a real meal. He handed Stanford a knife to cut up the chicken, while he prepared the proper sandwiches for them. A quick spread of mayonnaise on a clean slice of bread along with a generous cut of chicken made a simple but tasty chicken sandwich. With Stanford’s nod of approval, Fiddleford made a couple more before digging in himself.

Having finished their lunch, the pair lied back on the now empty blanket and enjoyed the stiff breeze that was blowing through the clearing. They watched the clouds, or Stanford did at least; he had one hand in the bag of jelly brands and the other gently holding Fiddleford’s hand. The engineer rested his head on his free arm and listened to Stanford talk about the different clouds types, and how the many different anomalies viewed them. How some clan of trolls saw storm clouds as warning from ancient giants and would hide themselves underground. Despite his best efforts to stay attentive, the comfort that came from Stanford's voice, the warm sun and his full belly, made him succumb to his drowsiness. Fiddleford gave a small yawn before falling to sleep. Stanford's eyelids felt heavy. He rolled over to find Fiddleford snoring softly. With a small smile, Stanford wriggled closer to his boyfriend so that their foreheads were resting against one another. Feeling a little bit cheeky, he gave a small peck on Fiddleford’s nose.

‘A short nap won’t hurt,’ he thought, before letting himself fall asleep.

I’d like to thank my beta reader @introvert-no-chameleon for their awesome work with helping me fix my grammar.

#Gravity falls #Fanfic #Stanford pines #Fiddleford Mcgucket #Fiddauthor #Nour's art #The Author #Old man mcgucket

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

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Plagg’s School

Plagg isn't much interested in being any sort of teacher, but when the opportunity arises for him to spend some time with Marinette, he jumps on the opportunity to try to unteach some of the less healthy lessons that she's been taught.

He didn't expect it to be this hard, or for there to be so much for her to unlearn. But he's no quitter, and Paris needs Ladybug to be at her best.

A continuation of sorts for my story Superhero Lessons

Plagg hadn't thought that this would be so hard.

When Tikki and Master Fu had decided to have Marinette and Adrien switch Miraculous temporarily (thanks to a subtle suggestion from Plagg, but framed so that they thought that he was kidding), Plagg had thought that all it would take to knock her out of her mindset of having to feel responsible for everyone else's actions and reactions all the time would be to just make some snide comments when he saw adults behaving badly. Marinette- Ladybug- was smart, surely she would pick up on the clues fast enough and then Plagg could sit back for the rest of the week, relax, and enjoy the plethora of cheese bread that came along with living in a bakery.

He was wrong.

Sure, there had been plenty of opportunities for side-eying and "offhand" comments, and Plagg had taken pretty much every single one. But Marinette had brushed the comments off or repeated the party line of "I have to be the bigger person" every. single. time. It was enough to make Plagg want to scream.

Not that it was a bad thing for a Ladybug to be kind and caring and self-aware, of course! Those were very good things. And yet. And yet.

Marinette's parents were caring and loving, sure, but they seemed to have higher expectations for Marinette than they did for actual adults sometimes. They- and Tikki, and probably the teachers in Marinette's life, too- had drilled in the lesson that Marinette had to be kind, had to be understanding, had to be accommodating and giving and accepting and not hurt people's feelings and always apologize when she did something wrong and-

Ugh. There was such thing as too much. Teenagers would make mistakes and have honest reactions sometimes, and it was supposed to be up to the actual, literal adults to understand that and not get disproportionately upset about it. Maybe an apology would make sense some of the time, but when Marinette was the only one apologizing for an honest misunderstanding?

It was just one more thing on the pile of stuff to stress about, one more subtle push towards you have to be perfect, you can't ever make anyone upset ever, everyone else's feelings and reactions are your fault.

Plagg had had kittens who were sensitive and anxious before. He knew how they thought. There most definitely was such thing as taking on too much of the blame and too much responsibility.

If a grown-ass adult got akumatized because of something a frustrated teenager said... yeah, that was definitely on the adult.

So that was annoying, and Marinette seemed to be slipping further and further down the path of fully believing what she had been told, always careful to try to keep her own emotions under control but taking what seemed to be full responsibility for when other people couldn't manage to do the same.

And then there was the whole overworking thing.

Plagg had thought that Adrien was busy for his age, with all of his activities- the fencing, the basketball, the Mandarin and piano and modeling and commercials. But Adrien at least had plenty of time set aside in his schedule for homework and studying and projects. If he was scrambling to get stuff done, it was usually because the akuma attacks at that time had been longer than usual (or more numerous than usual) or because Adrien had spent too much time on the Ladyblog. If Adrien mentioned that he didn't have enough time to study or do a quality job on his homework, Nathalie would rearrange his schedule at once to give him more time, canceling extra lessons for a week or two while Adrien got himself caught up.

Marinette's activities could largely be framed as self-imposed, but there were so many of them that it was honestly a miracle that she could balance everything.

Or...maybe less a miracle and more a necessity, because she just couldn't say no and people took advantage of that. Like, a lot.

"It's not that bad this week!" Marinette told Plagg on their third evening together as she finished hand-sewing a seam on a doll that someone- Plagg had neither caught the name nor cared- had commissioned from her so that they would be done and put away before Alya and Nino brought their siblings over for Marinette to babysit so that the two of them could run off and suck face together instead of being responsible older siblings. "Sometimes I have commissions and tests and other stuff all in one week. Tikki helps me study, sometimes. And then other weeks, I have almost nothing and I can catch up."

...seriously, how was she living like this?

"I didn't hear them asking you to babysit," Plagg said instead of vocalizing any of his concerns, because he couldn't give away his lazy cat reputation right away. "What, did I sleep through that or something?"

"No, it's... it's kind of an ongoing thing, I guess." Marinette didn't look at all enthused about that. "They asked once, a few months ago, and I said yes then because they sounded so excited about this movie that was running and they wouldn't be able to catch it during their normal date time on the weekend, and they, uh..."

"Took that as a standing invitation to keep doing it," Plagg filled in, entirely unimpressed. "Wow. Great friends you have there. What if there's an akuma attack while you're babysitting? What if you have stuff to do? Don't you have a test to study for on Friday?"

Marinette's shoulders hitched up, just a little. "I just- I'll study tomorrow, over lunch. Then I can catch up. And I'll tell my parents that I can't play video games with them until Friday evening at the earliest."

"So let me get this straight- you don't get any free time so that your friends can have more free time to go groom each other's faces?" Plagg demanded. "Fun trade-off you have going on there. Also, I didn't hear an answer about the akuma thing."

"I just like helping!" Marinette protested. "That's- that's all, really. I can handle it."

And that was the end of that conversation. Even with Plagg's increasingly heavy-handed comments, Marinette seemed determined to ignore the issue and assure him that she could handle it. Even when Twin No. 2 pulled the pinned pieces of fabric off of Marinette's mannequin and spilled a box of sewing machine threads, taking away an hour of Marinette's sleep as she tried to put everything back together. Even when one of her classmates asked Marinette to fix a torn shirt right away, eating up half an hour of her study time. Even when Manon got dumped on Marinette for a bit of emergency last-minute babysitting with absolutely no warning and without really asking her if it was okay.

Seriously, did no one else notice how much work they were dumping on her? Even without taking her superhero activities into account, it was a lot. With the superhero activities, it was crossing the border into too-muchland. And if Marinette wanted to do anything fun? Anything for her?

There just wasn't any time.

Had Tikki said nothing? Plagg knew that she was all about being productive and staying busy and making the most of opportunities and potential and helping people, but not to the point of running her Chosen into the ground!

Thankfully, Plagg was going to get another week with Marinette. Tikki had requested an extension under the guise of Adrien needing more time to actually figure out how to use Ladybug's powers, since during their one swapped-Miraculous battle so far, Lady Noire had told Mister Bug how to use the Lucky Charm that he had gotten. To Plagg, she had said something about teaching Adrien to enforce his boundaries.

Well, okay, maybe she had been a little more specific than that, but Plagg had gotten distracted by the news and had been trying to think of how he could knock Marinette out of the frankly toxic mindset that she had been pushed into when Tikki was talking and so he hadn't quite caught all of the details. But the gist of it was that Adrien didn't push back enough when people made him uncomfortable and Tikki was working on changing that somehow.

Plagg wished her luck. His advice whenever Adrien had commented on people clinging to him had been to bite them. Or, alternatively, shove them off. Adrien had been horrified by both suggestions, and that whole thing had gone nowhere.

Nowhere, like how things with Marinette seemed to be going. But it was the weekend now, and so Plagg had time to absolutely drive Marinette up the wall until she cracked enough for him to drag her frustrations out and actually push her towards doing something about them besides just "work harder".

It would be more effort than he normally put in, but Paris needed Ladybug to be rested and focused and not overwhelmed with responsibilities. If she fell and Adrien was left to fight on his own...

Plagg wanted to believe in his kid, he really did, but Adrien had a habit of relying largely on Ladybug to lead the battles and decide a course of action. If Ladybug fell in battle, or if she ended up akumatized because of all of the pressure that was being put on her...

Well, it wouldn't be pretty.

So naturally, Plagg decided to antagonize Marinette. And by that, he meant that he presented her with a list of completely unreasonable demands for her to fulfill since they were going to be spending a second week together, and he kept ramping it up until she had gone from being mildly irritated to gritting her teeth to being so frustrated that she was on the brink of screaming at him.

And then, very deliberately, he pushed her that little bit more.

"I can't!" Marinette finally snapped at him, glaring at Plagg with a poisonous expression. "I just can't! You're asking too much- I'm busy, and you know that! I need time to sleep and study and get caught up on my school projects and work on that draft of Clara's dress and do my class rep duties and I just told you that I have to remake Ivan's Kitty Section mask because it fell in the river and I don't! Have! Time! To do a special run to the cheese market all the way across the city to find some really rare cheese that might not even be in stock this week, and I don't have time to make you a special embroidered bed with thirty-three pillows or a monogrammed bathrobe, and I don't have time to do anything on your list, really! I already don't have any time to myself, and you're not! Helping!"

"But I require it," Plagg said haughtily, though he was keeping a careful eye on the window. If he was going to wind Ladybug up, he had to make sure that he could pull the plug if needed. "You make everything else work, don't you?"

"Barely!" Marinette was barely holding it together, he could tell. There were frustrated tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "I'm so busy this weekend, and I have more tests this week and I'm already so worried that I'm going to fail because I don't have time to study, and if there are any akuma attacks this week then I'm absolutely screwed, because I'll fall behind again and won't have time to catch up!"

Very deliberately, Plagg yawned as wide as possible and then made a show of inspecting his (nonexistent) claws. "Mm-hmm. So...about the cheese-"

"NO!" Marinette half-shrieked. "No, no, no, I refuse. I can't, I literally can't, so no, I am not eating up even more of my sleeping time just so that I can go across the town and comb through some out-of-the-way cheese shop to find some cheese that they might have. I cannot. I'm tired of giving up all of my free time to bend over backwards and meet everyone's expectation, okay? Enough!"

There was a pause, and then Plagg smirked.

"So you can say no. I was starting to wonder."

Marinette's eyes snapped to him, still glimmering with frustrated, stressed tears. The first one finally broke free and started to make its way down her cheek. "Huh?"

"You say yes to everything that people ask of you, no matter how much it inconveniences you. No matter how busy you already are. Even if you want to do your own things, and other people are being selfish in their requests on your time." Plagg zipped around Marinette's head, forcing her to spin around to follow his progress. "How many of the things that you have coming up this week aren't necessary? How many are other people's responsibilities that they're shoved onto you? Aren't you supposed to have a vice president to help you with your class representative duties? Why is other people's free time more important than yours? Why are other people setting deadlines for you when you're the one who has to work under them and you'd prefer a deadline later on, so that it doesn't coincide with tests and result in you pushing yourself so hard?"

Marinette swallowed hard, not saying anything as she stared at him. She was still shaking, and even if Plagg wasn't nearly as attuned to emotions as Nooroo, he could still tell that she was brimming with frustrations, all ready to come out.

So, if Marinette was actually being truthful with him and with herself, he might as well get it all out.

"So if we're being honest, how do you feel about the babysitting?" Plagg prompted, zipping closer. "About giving up your free time so that your friends can run off and suck face more? About having three rambunctious kids running around your room for hours and tearing everything up? Do you like that?"

Marinette wavered for a moment, but clearly he had done a good job with pushing her frustrations to the top. "I hate it! It's fine some weeks, but most weeks I don't have time to deal with getting distracted for three hours and then having at least an hour of clean-up afterwards! I have homework and commissions and superheroing and- and everything to do! And Alya has the Ladyblog, but clearly she's not lacking for time to work on it considering some of the highlight videos that she's put up recently. And there are weeks where they ask me to babysit more than once, even though I don't have time for it, and- actually, it's not so much asking so much as telling me that they'll need me to babysit, because they just assume that I'll be able to do it!" Another frustrated tear slid down her face. "And then they have more free time and I have less, and I'm already starting with less free time than they have, and they- they know that!"

Plagg hovered and waited for her to get it all out.

"I thought that the babysitting would be a one-time thing, that's why I agreed- well, that and the fact that I just can't- can't say no," Marinette said, finally starting to sound actually angry. "And they know that, and it just feels like they're taking advantage of that because they want more than one date per week- and it's more than two, too, if you count the times when they eat lunch together at the park or outside of school! And they always talk about what a fun time they had, and how nice it was to be able to spend some time together and relax, and then here I am, not having fun or relaxing at all!"

...okay, so there was maybe more frustration there than Plagg had been expecting.

"I'd be much happier if I didn't have to babysit anyone besides Manon, and only Manon if I get some warning and actually get asked," Marinette continued, fiercely wiping away yet another tear before it could get too far. "I'd get some time back to myself. It wouldn't make everything better, but it would take off a lot of stress- but they don't see that! They're apparently blind to everything except for their dates! Never mind that Marinette is falling asleep in class or that she's working on homework literally whenever she can fit it in, let's add some more stuff to her plate!"

If Marinette got akumatized while Plagg was with her, Tikki would actually kill him. So maybe it was time for Plagg to step in.

"So say no," Plagg cut across before any purple butterflies showed up. "You can, I know you can. Set boundaries. I've seen you stand up to people before. What's different this time?"

Marinette glanced at the floor, worrying her lip. After a moment, she sighed and looked up. "Because they're my friends. And when Madam Chamack shows up with Manon, she's a family friend and an adult. And I don't want to let them down."

"Yay! Honesty! Almost as good as cheese." Plagg smirked at her eye-roll. She was still a little wobbly-looking, but a small distraction was good. "If they're taking advantage of you to the point where you're stressed and strung out and they still don't back off, then is letting them down a little really the bigger evil?"

There was a pause, and then Marinette shook her head.

"Are you the only babysitter in Paris?"

That got a laugh out of Marinette. "Not even close."

"Is there some law that says that they can only ask you to babysit?"

"...no."

"Do they need to respect your needs and boundaries if they're your friends?"

Finally, Marinette smiled. "Yeah. I- I'll tell Alya next time I see her that if they want to go on a date when they're supposed to be babysitting, they need to find someone else. I can't do it anymore. Even on my slower weeks, I just- I need a break from their siblings." Then she paused, suddenly unsure. "Is- is that selfish? To not help out on weeks when I can spare the time?"

Plagg paused for a moment, still stuck on that when they're supposed to be babysitting. That sounded a whole lot like Alya and Nino were shirking their responsibilities without their parents knowing, which made the whole situation even worse, but that- that was beside the point right now. He could pick at that little tidbit later. Instead, he yawned, flopping down on the desk. Now that Marinette's emotions had stabilized again, he could get back to his normal careless persona. "Who cares? If you get a slow week, in my eyes, you earned it and get to enjoy it. Sit back, sleep in some sunbeams, eat some cheese..."

Marinette laughed at that, her shoulders relaxing just that little last bit. "Thanks, Plagg." Then she paused, glancing over at him. "I'm still not getting you your crazy fancy cheese, though. Or any of that other ridiculous stuff."

Plagg did his best to hide his grin. "Ah, well. It was worth a try."

By the time Monday rolled around, Marinette had gotten all of her pent-up and packed-away emotions worked out and had started an action plan list on how to become less stressed. The name had made Plagg gag- action plan? That sounded like a lot of work!- but after seeing the list, Plagg had to admit that it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded.

First of all, there was the end of all babysitting for her friends for her foreseeable future and Marinette had told her parents that she would only babysit Manon when it was an emergency, and she reserved the right to say no without being questioned as to why she couldn't do it.

That was important for her to say up front so the adults wouldn't try to make her feel guilty by questioning why she wanted her free time for herself, and Plagg was proud of her for doing it- not, of course, that he was going to let that on too much. She would think that he was getting soft on her.

The second part of her plan was entirely Marinette's idea, though she was giving Plagg the credit. No longer was she going to let other people set inconvenient commission deadlines for her when they could easily wait a week for their pieces and put not even a quarter of the amount of stress on Marinette. And while she was more than willing to help people with their problems, she wasn't going to take over their responsibilities for them, and if they had something that, say, needed mending but wasn't needed right away, it might have to sometimes wait a day or two until Marinette could actually spare the time. She would actually use her calendar for keeping track of her own deadlines out a ways, and then all of her activities and responsibilities would be spread out and more manageable instead of hitting her with all the grace of a brick wall.

All of this, of course, was easier said than done. People had gotten used to Marinette shoving aside absolutely everything that she was doing to help them that second, and no doubt some people might question the change and that might be hard to stand up to- especially if Tikki was in Marinette's ear and trying to convince her that she could manage just one more thing. But Marinette seemed determined to stick to her plan.

Which was great! Now Plagg could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the cheese bread that he was getting in place of his Camembert (he would have asked for a baked Camembert bread bowl, but, well, Marinette did have exams coming up and even without the babysitting and with the deadlines for her other, non-school stuff pushed back, she was a bit busy). Marinette seemed to have a handle on how to most effectively use his powers, which wasn't surprising. Back when she and Adrien were starting out, she had given him directions on what he should be using his Cataclysm on more often than not. Learning how to use the staff to helicopter herself around had taken a little practice and it was obvious that she didn't have the fencing background that Adrien did, but she could batter stuff into submission just fine.

In fact, just fine was maybe a little bit of an understatement. Her battering was actually kind of terrifying. Not that Plagg was worried about his own life, of course- the ability to phase through things came in handy at times- but, well...

Adrien had made a mistake. Or perhaps Plagg should say Mister Bug had made a mistake.

During the previous akuma battle, Lady Noire had apparently made some comment about how Mister Bug's outfit was more interesting than her usual one, just as a little side comment. Plagg was willing to bet that she had been glancing at Mister Bug's outfit to try to get ideas to change her own usual suit, but that was neither here nor there. Instead of simply accepting the comment and moving on, Mister Bug had said that he was close to the fashion industry, so of course he had creative design ideas and did she maybe want him to help her come up with a new design for her Ladybug suit?

Plagg had winced at both that and the dog-whistle pitch that Marinette had reached while relaying that particular comment. Mister Bug was really, really lucky that the akuma had made a reappearance right then so that Lady Noire hadn't had time to respond.

"Okay, so I gotta have a talk with my kid and tell him to shut his big fat mouth, got it!" Plagg said loudly before Marinette could descend any further into displeased mutters. He had frankly been incredibly surprised to find out that Ladybug's civilian self was so interested- and so successful- at design and fashion when he first learned her identity, but after talking with Tikki and finding out how unsure Marinette had been when she first transformed...yeah, okay, he could understand the footie pajamas look. It probably had just become too engrained for her to consider changing it before. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if Tikki has already told him the same thing."

Marinette finally giggled, some of her murder look finally slipping off of her face. "I can't see Tikki ever telling anyone to shut their 'big fat mouth'."

"She might word it a bit differently, whatever." Plagg landed on Marinette's desk, confident (at least for the time being) that she wasn't going to go berserker on him. "So, redesigning the Ladybug suit?"

"I didn't realize that I could, before." Marinette tapped her fingers against her desk before reaching for her notebook and a pencil. "I just- I'm used to what I have now. And I know that I shouldn't design anything that could snag, or get in my way, or- I don't know." She frowned. "That leaves me with- what? Black paneling and trim?"

"And armor and padding," Plagg added helpfully. He paused, then lowered his voice conspiringly. "My kid doesn't actually have a six-pack or ripped arms. The suit just makes it look that way, because that's what he wants."

Marinette giggled some more.

"And the way his costume looks has less to do with design and more to do with his obsession with all things anime," Plagg continued loftily, yawning widely. "And comics and magical girl cartoons. I just put his wishes together in a tasteful manner."

"I like this whole exchange kwamis thing. I'm learning quite a bit." Marinette tapped her pencil against her lips, then started sketching. "I want to be careful about where I put any armor, I think. I need to stay flexible and not have excess resistance when I'm dodging. But maybe some protection on my arms and legs would be good, and if I put some black here..."

Plagg let out a relieved breath as Marinette threw herself into her sketches, Mister Bug's comment apparently forgotten in favor of designing, and tried not to think of how close Adrien had come to getting gutted for implying that he was better at design than a contest-winning aspiring fashion designer.

Hopefully that was all the drama there would be for this week, because Plagg wasn't sure how much more he could take.

Plagg clearly needed to stop thinking that his job was done. Every time he did- every time that he thought that maybe now he could nap the day away instead of sitting alert and making sure that Marinette wasn't crashing and burning with her resolution to not get herself crazy overworked- something came up.

Thankfully, it wasn't the reporter girl trying to get Marinette to change her mind about babysitting again after having taken the day before off. No, she seemed to have accepted Marinette's decision well enough. But it did have something to do with the reporter girl. The reporter girl, and his regular Chosen.

So naturally, Plagg had to get involved.

If someone had asked Plagg before to describe Marinette, he would have said that she was confident, yet sometimes randomly turned into a tongue-tied mess around Adrien.

...there may have been some misconceptions there.

He was partially right, of course. It would have been hard to be completely off, considering how much time his Chosen spent talking about his friends. But the panicking...

Yeah, not random. Not random at all.

Plagg watched with no small amount of bemusement as Marinette got pretty much railroaded into coming along on an outing with her friends where the goal was clearly to shove Adrien and Marinette together so that Marinette would have some space to ask Adrien out. Marinette clearly wasn't comfortable with the idea (and Plagg didn't blame her- he had, unfortunately, seen the results of what he could only assume were similar set-ups), but Alya clearly wasn't taking no for an answer.

...seriously, was this the girl who had pretty much branded herself Best Friend of the Year? Couldn't she see how panicky Marinette was getting?

Plagg sank back into the bag, frowning at the air. Okay, so he couldn't be his usual brush-off self here, that much was obvious. That was not what Marinette needed. Her emotions were already high enough, and that was dangerous.

What was Tikki doing in these situations? Was she just encouraging Marinette along? That seemed likely, but couldn't she tell when endless encouragement just wasn't helping? It seemed like Alya shoving Marinette into situations she wasn't ready for could easily turn into prime akumatization territory, considering how often it seemed to end in anything ranging from embarrassment to full-on humiliation. Add in the fact that both of them knew that Adrien was pretty much entirely hung up on his superhero partner (and had been minorly distracted by Fencer Girl, but that- Plagg knew that that wasn't serious at all), and trying to get Marinette to confess just didn't seem like a good idea at all.

Seriously, when had he turned into the kwami who did all of the advice stuff? It was weird and he didn't like it.

"How often does that happen?" Plagg asked as Marinette dropped her phone back onto the desk with a groan. "When she tries to set you up when you don't want to, I mean?"

Marinette had to think about it. "Bigger set-ups like this? Every other week, maybe? Smaller things at school...whenever she can manage it, really. And since she's dating Adrien's best friend..."

Plagg could fill in the blanks there. It was happening really, really frequently.

Well.

"Doesn't seem like she's being that great of a friend if she's not listening to you when you say no," Plagg said, making sure to adopt his laziest voice. He threw in a toothy yawn for good measure as he rolled into a ray of sunlight. "Especially when you're practically melting down over the idea."

"I just- I just need a push or I'll never do it, that's all!" Marinette defended at once. Plagg suspected that that was what she had had Alya tell her over and over before, and ugh, how had Ladybug ended up with so many bad lessons drummed into her head? "I mean, maybe I'll be uncomfortable when I confess, but if I actually manage it- and if things go well, I guess..."

By the way she trailed off, Plagg deduced that she was trying to convince herself, too.

"Do I gotta make you cry again so that you'll be honest with yourself and with me, or can we skip the excuses this time?" Plagg asked bluntly, and was faintly amused to see the startled way that Marinette blinked at him. "How do you feel about the whole situation?"

There was a pause. Plagg waited. Then...

"I don't like it."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Sorry, I didn't hear that. Repeat louder, please?"

"Ugh, you're so annoying!" Marinette scowled at him, but that didn't last long. "Fine, I don't like it! I always feel so uncomfortable and make a fool of myself and maybe Alya finds that amusing, but I don't! Adrien is going to think that I'm a complete nutcase and then even if I ever do manage a confession without immediately walking it back again, he's not going to be interested! Not that he's interested now- I know he likes someone else, but Alya always insists that maybe he would change his mind if he knew that I liked him, which- how likely is that, really? Maybe it worked for her and Nino, but that's an exception to the rule!"

Plagg settled in. It seemed like this was going to be a long rant.

"And I tried letting Adrien go and moving on before, but they said that I couldn't give up!" Marinette continued, and Plagg cocked a brow at that. Oh, THAT was interesting. Also something he could use. "And I don't- I mean, I understand the value of staying positive, but I just don't..." She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I don't know if it's realistic anymore."

"Well, at least we've gotten past the denial stage," Plagg commented. He had wondered. Instead of saying that, he shuffled into a more comfortable position and turned an eye to watch Marinette. "D'you ever feel comfortable around model kid?"

"Yes! We're friends now, and we can talk most of the time. It's just when I'm expected to be trying to ask him out that I get all tongue-tied and make a fool of myself." Marinette flopped back in her chair and- yeah, she and Adrien were meant to be together. They were both crazy dramatic people. "I just don't know what to do."

Plagg snorted. "Isn't it obvious? Don't try asking him out, duh. Problem solved."

Marinette narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly suspicious. "Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to get me to give up on my crush so that I'll date Chat Noir instead?"

Plagg snorted, resisting the urge to bash his head against the wall. "D'you really think I want my kitten dating? He's sappy enough when he's just at crush stage. And he would be even more self-sacrificing if you two were dating, and that's already gotten real old, real fast."

Marinette's wary expression stayed in place for a minute longer, and then it dropped as she glanced away. "I- I can see where that would make sense, but if I don't at least try, I just feel guilty for not making use of the opportunities Alya sets up for me. Like, that just feels rude somehow."

Plagg snorted. "The opportunities that pretty much get dropped into her lap because of her boyfriend and that she's set up even though literally everything about you is telling her no, you don't want to and aren't ready? How very generous of her to keep going against your wishes."

He didn't get a response to that. He hadn't expected one.

Plagg forged on anyway. "Like, kid, I've been with you- what? A week and a half? And I could tell that you didn't want to get pushed into confessing again, so it's not as though you aren't being plenty obvious about it. And clearly the 'shove you in the deep end and hope you swim' method isn't working. It's not suddenly going to start working. And if model boy already likes someone..."

"Then I'm just setting myself up for disappointment and failure," Marinette finished. Her expression- no, her entire being- drooped, but then she straightened back up, and this time, it was like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. Which kind of seemed like the opposite of what should have happened, but maybe the whole 'keeping her hopes up' thing had been harder on Marinette than he had thought. "So I should just give up on my crush, then."

"I mean, it might be a good idea." Adrien would 100% chop Plagg's cheese supply in half if he knew that Plagg was encouraging Ladybug to stop crushing on civilian-him, but it was better than Marinette actually working up the courage to confess, only for Adrien to reject civilian-Ladybug and potentially mess up their friendship. "Or at least, like, not act on it. If your friend sets up 'opportunities', then just hang out with model-kid as friends. And, uh." He waved at the pictures on the wall. "I mean, if you want this kid to come over and hang out..."

Marinette drooped, and seriously, her spine was getting one hell of a workout with this conversation. "He's already seen them. When we had Jagged Stone over here, he missed seeing the bathroom and came up here and broadcast live to all of Paris. And Adrien was watching. But now he thinks I just have them because I'm a fan of his father's designs!" she added quickly, as though Plagg didn't know that already. Adrien had been rather puzzled by that explanation at first, Plagg knew, but had decided to just accept it eventually.

"It might still be weird for him to come over and have his face staring back at him all over the place," Plagg said helpfully instead. "'Specially if he's the only model that you have featured on your wall."

That made Marinette pause.

"Just something to think about," Plagg added airily. "That, and the fact that I've already heard your friend complain twice about you missing stuff when you were out fighting akumas, so if you were dating someone..."

Marinette caught on right away and she threw her head back and groaned. "You're so right! How did I not think of that? Even if Adrien did like me, even if I did actually successfully ask him out, even if he did say yes- I would be just like his father, flaking out on him all of the time! We'd never last, and I'd just end up hurting him in the process. And that means that it wouldn't ever have been a good idea to try to move on from him with Luka," she added. "And I shouldn't even think of dating before Hawkmoth is defeated."

Plagg breathed a little internal sigh of relief. Thank goodness. Crisis averted. Marinette wouldn't date anyone until Hawkmoth was defeated, then they could do their little reveal, find out that her partner had been model boy all along, and start dating and being all mushy. No one would be dating anyone else and mucking things up, and they would be in a good enough mood that he might be able to persuade Adrien to buy him the really fancy cheese.

...or they would be so busy being mushy and gross with each other that they would forget about Plagg and he would go unfed, but he was trying to think positive.

"So what are you going to do on your little outing tomorrow?" Plagg asked, rolling over so that he would stay in the middle of his sunbeam. "Are you going?"

"It would be nice to. I have time." Marinette sent him a small smile, and Plagg grinned in response. "Besides, if I don't go, then Adrien will be third-wheeling for Alya and Nino, and that's no fun. I would know, I've definitely done it plenty. And the last time he got to come out, it was on a group outing and Lila spent most of the time clinging to his arm, which is also no fun."

"Mmm."

"Lila was Volpina and Chameleon," Marinette told him, as if Plagg didn't already know that- and okay, maybe he wasn't supposed to know that, whatever. "The liar. She's been pretty much completely discredited now by our class, but she still likes trying to cling, even though it's obvious Adrien hates it. Last I heard, she was trying to claim that she just wanted to fit in and that was why she had made up all of the stories she did, but I don't think anyone has bought that."

"I'm surprised she got to come along on the class outing at all," Plagg commented. He had said the same thing to Adrien at the time, and-

Marinette sighed. "We don't really exclude people when it's an entire class outing, or Chloe wouldn't have been invited to most of the stuff we've done. There's some stuff like birthday parties where we don't have the entire class come, but everything else..."

-Adrien had given the exact same excuse, almost word-for-word.

"At least Chloe's been better recently," Marinette added absently as she reached for her mouse to wake up her computer. "Ever since Adrien put his foot down with her, she's really been trying to improve. And then when Chloe behaves better, Sabrina behaves better. So we don't mind having them along as much, it's just Lila being an annoyance now."

Ah-hah. An opening! Tikki was apparently still having trouble with getting Adrien to enforce his boundaries (because he was dense as a fruitcake and didn't understand that he could have boundaries, seemingly) and Master Fu had said no on a third consecutive week's swap, which meant that they had to try something different. And different might, in this case, mean using a friend as their mouthpiece.

"Maybe you could help Adrien get Lila off of him," Plagg suggested. "He would probably appreciate that."

Marinette paused, glancing over at him. "...I guess that would be a good idea. I mean, I know Nino's mentioned it a few times before, but..."

Okay, maybe this would be harder than Plagg thought. But Adrien had to catch on eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.

...a kwami could hope.

By the time Plagg was returned to Adrien on Sunday evening, they had accomplished several things.

First of all- and most importantly, in Master Fu's eyes- Ladybug and Chat Noir had a deeper understanding of each other's powers and would be able to use the other person's Miraculous in an emergency. Adrien had used Lucky Charm without help from Ladybug several times in a row now, and well, Marinette had mastered the baton. But that wasn't all.

Marinette had gotten her schedule sorted out and the perfection complex addressed, and seemed to have figured out how to use the word no. She had successfully gone on their friend group's outing without stuttering at all around Adrien, and while Alya seemed a bit miffed that Marinette hadn't even tried to ask him out, Adrien seemed plenty pleased to have been able to hold a normal conversation with Marinette.

(Although a 'normal conversation' was not what Plagg personally would have called it. They had started out a little awkward after Alya unceremoniously dragged Nino off- and that was something that maybe should have been addressed, because Plagg knew that Adrien was missing spending as much time as he used to with Nino- but after Marinette had accidentally punned and Adrien had lit up in utter delight, they had ended up spending a great deal of time giggling over absolutely ridiculous puns together. Then Adrien had decided to be dramatic about something- a pun that Marinette had pretended not to be impressed by, if Plagg's memory was serving him correctly- and, well, they were pretty hopeless after that. Calling them normal would be completely and utterly inaccurate.)

Marinette had even managed to score a point on the 'enforce Adrien's personal space' board by commenting on Lila's insistence on clinging to Adrien's arm when he was clearly uncomfortable with it and throwing in the word 'harassment', just loud enough for a nearby teacher to overhear. Madam Mendeleev had been on the case at once, and from what Plagg had heard, Lila had gotten detention and Adrien had finally been convinced that he didn't have to put up with unwanted clinging, thanks in large part to their teacher's intervention.

It was a very devious way of going about that, but Plagg couldn't say that he didn't approve, because he very much approved. If he had been assigned to Marinette from the start- well, she might have been a better fit with Tikki, but she would have made a fantastic Black Cat as well.

"Did you have a good week?" Adrien wanted to know as Plagg wolfed down a giant wedge of Camembert. Cheese bread had been good and it was always good to mix things up, but Camembert was always going to be Plagg's true love. "Tikki was loads of fun!"

"Oh, yeah, all smooth sailing," Plagg lied at once, choosing not to tell Adrien about having made Ladybug cry. It was all for the greater good, after all. Besides, Tikki would probably end him herself once she found out. Then, a thought struck him, and oh, yeah, he probably should say something before Ladybug transformed again with her new suit and Adrien decided to open his big mouth and comment on it. "But Adrien?"

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor and don't say anything that might sound like you're implying that you're a better designer than Ladybug," Plagg demanded, remembering the absolute ire that he had felt zing through Lady Noire when Mister Bug had made his comment. "If you value your life. Seriously. Don't."

Adrien has the audacity to look puzzled. "Wait, why? I was just trying to offer some help!"

"Can't tell you. Identity stuff." Adrien would be kicking himself as soon as they did the reveal, whenever that was, but he just had to have an ounce of self-preservation between now and then. When they did, though...

Well, based on what Plagg had seen over the past two weeks, the reveal would go really well. By the time it happened, Marinette and Adrien were pretty much guaranteed to be fantastic friends. There would be feelings on both sides, he was willing to bet, and while Plagg was already gearing himself up for plenty of moaning about how gross the two of them were together, well...

After doing so much to save the city, the two of them deserved some cuddly mushiness. He could tolerate it.

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #marinette dupain cheng #Plagg #we support healthy character growth in this house #healthy character growth and not punishing Marinette for being human #*side eyes the show some more*

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hillbillied · 4 years

Note

i found your post about andy and eddie's kinks from a couple of years ago and i was just wondering do you have any updated thoughts?

firstly, thank you anon!! I love writing these two!!

secondly fuck, I left this ask in the ‘box for a while because, double fuck, I couldn’t think of any kinks I hadn’t included in the OG post!! I am very sorry for the delay!

(I had to read through them to check, still crispy if I do say so... let’s see what else we can get in there. god I could go on a whole bunch more about the ones from the OG post lmao my fave losers in love having great sex!)

The Secret Kinks of Andrew Haldane and his Lieutenant, Edward Jones (pt.II)

(highly nsfw, 18+ only)

I’m gonna rag on Andy’s exhibitionism kink a little louder than before because it’s so embarrassing. going to the cinema is a chore because Andy doesn’t have the patience for long movies and he really can’t get behind anything that’s not a really fucking hilarious comedy or a truly gripping drama. anything even a little lacklustre (most of what’s on in the 50s) has his gaze wondering elsewhere

the amount of times Eddie has been enjoying his movie experience (he loves movies, btw, he didn’t get to go to many as a kid – think Gunny-level attention in the scene where the marines are watching For Whom the Bell Tolls) and suddenly a hand is brushing his knee. he can’t help but roll his eyes because Andy, good lord, can’t you enjoy the plot for five-fucking-minutes?

luckily for Andy, he’s got a semi-indulgent boyfriend or at least a condoning one; either Eddie will lift his longs legs and put them over Andy’s lap, teasing him with the weight whilst simultaneously giving him some cover to enjoy himself (in no relation to the movie) – or, if he’s feeling generous and equally turned on, he’ll give his stupid fucking would-be husband a hand so he can go back to his popcorn. Eddie’s got skilled fingers and only makes eye contact with his flustered, heavy-breathing boyfriend in scathing glances to show his “disapproval”

car sex is as normal to the two of them as breathing. it started fairly uncreative and vanilla, just screwing in the one long seat of Hillbilly’s pickup. it’s a little on the tight side but Eddie’s more flexible than many would believe. Andy loves having two hands just under his knees, pushing his thighs up against his chest so he can fuck him nice and deep. it has Eddie’s toes curling and his teeth gritted and colourful curses dripping out the cracked window (no AC means a real sweaty cab)

that, or Hillbilly will be riding Andy passenger side. he likes smoking in his car and he likes riding Ack Ack’s cock, so this is a win-win scenario. the leverage from the seat means he can light up while rolling his hips, humming around the cigarette. it’s an erotic sight for sure; Andy has to cover his eyes with his hand while laughing out a breathless “shit, Eddie…”

romantic evenings include soft kisses and mutual handjobs in the truck bed, after giving up on star gazing. less romantic evenings include parking somewhere discreet (or… not, because Andy’s exhibitionism is a nightmare and the 60s were pretty wild) to get them both out on the road. there’s sweaty handprints on the hood where Andy has Eddie bent over it, pinned between his chest and hot metal. it’s some of the hardest, roughest sex they have, and Andy usually uses Eddie’s t-shirt for leverage, something to twist into an psudo-harness to pull him back against his dick. Hillbilly likes to growl out threats – “you stain m’ car, Andy, I’ll fuckin’ kill you” – but it’s all a ruse to cover how there’s sweat dripping from his curls and how his pants for air are turning into moans and how he’s the one staining the tire where he’s cum, hard enough to have him flat out over the hood and gasping

this is all while the car is parked, of course. Andy loves giving Eddie head while he’s driving. it’s lucky Hillbilly’s had to drive bigger, scarier machines than a Ford, honestly. his disapproval (fake, every time) is portrayed where he grabs Andy’s hair and forces his cock down his throat. “Cop car” he’ll say, “gotta stay down”. he’s a lying sack of shit but it’s worth the sin to glance down at Andy when he lets him pull back, spittle running from his tongue and his coughing turning to a gasp then a moan in quick succession. it’s really difficult for Eddie not to grin super wide and push Andy’s head back down for more

(side note: Andy’s a service top so he gives great head, none of this fake dom shit. they each say the other gives it better because they are both weak for one another and stupidly in love)

gags become a thing after a while. Andy is an expert at introducing/asking about bedroom ideas without being condescending and he knows he has to decipher Eddie’s interest without it sounding like he wants him to shut the fuck up. (he does not, he loves everything that comes out of Hillbilly’s mouth, from stone-cold threat to lazy joke to breathless groan)

but a thing they do become. (it starts with Andy shoving a couple of fingers in Eddie’s mouth to “keep quiet”, an old familiar trick from the war, and it snowballs from there) so the next time Andy’s bent over Eddie, facing him and maybe got his hands pinned above his head, and Eddie decides to let off a quip, Ack Ack stops. slows his motions and pretends to think, then reaches for his master plan. the first time, it’s just fabric, shoved into Hillbilly’s mouth. his pink cheeks (from semi-annoyance or embarrassment, not sure) and deep frown and almost-offended stare are fucking priceless

(Andy buys a proper gag, one Eddie can bite down on. one he can grab the back of and pull Hillbilly’s head back with so he can kiss his neck, tell him how fucking hot his moans are when they’re all he can make)

collars slip in there somewhere. they’re not sure where that came from but there’s a suspicion it may have come from the wholesome conversation about adopting a dog (which they both want to do they’re just terrified of going to pick one and falling in love with more and then what are they gonna do?? have fifty dogs?? but I digress)

Andy’s not one to be embarrassed of his sex purchases but he was definitely scratching his neck when he bought it. luckily, his boyfriend can read him like a goddamn book. the man likes being in control, sure, dominating the room in his own masterful way, definitely – that doesn’t change the look of complete adoration that takes Andy’s features when Eddie buckles the collar around his neck

it fits well with Andy’s orgasm denial kink. he doesn’t do it to Eddie much (he’s got enough kinky shit he can do to him) but Hillbilly definitely does it to him. it’s a treat to test Andy’s self-restraint and not with any bondage. Eddie’s a very patient man, used to unfulfilling sex prior to Ack Ack, so he’s got all the time in the world. he loves making Andy wait, teasing him with a grip around the base of his cock. he gets a cock ring for him later, when his tight grip isn’t cutting it anymore

there’s nothing better than watching Andy’s thighs tremble, sat on his own hands on a chair, desperately keeping his cool while Hillbilly carefully lowers himself onto his cock (Eddie uses that collar to get him to look him in the eye)

they usually can’t be bothered with food play (“Food is f’ eatin’, Andrew, not wastin’.”) but there’s occasional things. Andy has a tendency to take Eddie’s fingers in his mouth and lick them clean, whether from an accidental or purposely spillage. he doesn’t really care what’s on them so long as it’s edible and he can watch Hillbilly’s lip curl watching him

Eddie’s definitely done a “spillage” of his own once or twice. except his are obvious, just how he likes them; he’ll straight up pour a splash of beer on his dick and invite Andy to come lap it up. his house, his rules and all. Andy always obliges

Eddie gives a great spit ‘n shine to boots, Andy’s found. he loves demanding Eddie get on his knees and do the daily duties he learned as a marine, making sure his captain’s uniform is in order. (slightly funny if Ack Ack’s not wearing anything but his boots while saying it, but he can live with that) having Hillbilly look up at him – “Like this, Skipper?” - as he runs his tongue across the leather is more than worth it

Eddie likes tearing open clothes, though he feels really, really bad about it. it’s obvious it turns him on because Andy loses a lot of shirt buttons over the years. (they sew them back on together, which is nice, gotta know how to mend and make do. Eddie actually knows a lot about cross stitch and Andy adores learning from him)

one time Andy’s waving his ass Eddie’s way, has been for a whole morning whilst they were gardening, potting flowers, weeding the lawn, working, Andy, we’re busy – so it’s just been a build up of hard-ons and no time to deal with them. and they’re wearing old clothes for the task, threadbare jeans. (that used to be Eddies, even the ones on Andy’s ass) so when Hillbilly finally presses up against Andy, bites his ear, and grabs his pants with both hands - he just pulls. they tear open and Andy feels Eddie shudder against him (shortly before he feels Hillbilly’s cock pushing inside him but that’s just a massive bonus)

Andy’s an indulgent boyfriend so he buys underwear and pants on the cheap and waves them Eddie’s way. the “rippables” as he calls them. made to be ripped, end of. no hard feelings, good riddance to them

I said they were too lazy for bondage because they can just pin each other and I stand by it; it remains a special thing. one of the ‘hardcore’ things, like the belt and gun play. mainly because, while they can actually pin each other down quite effectively with limited wiggle room, there’s still the ability to y’know, headbutt each other. because they’re also both trained in how to flip a guy that grabs you. fatally, if need be

so tying Eddie up (Andy’s always been down to be tied up, blindfolded, etc. by Eddie because he trusts literally one man in the whole world and it’s Edward Jones) is a big thing. because Eddie has had to fuck people up who tried to fight him and his brute strength is what’s gotten him through (finding something capable of realistically holding him is also a struggle in sexual hilarity because fuck, it’s gotta be thick rope or actual police handcuffs)

when Andy asks him about it (and presents the short length of rope he went for because he couldn’t find handcuffs yet) Eddie immediately says yes. because he trusts Andy completely. but he also says not tonight and not every night and not any time he can see it coming. if he works himself up about it, he’ll embarrass himself

when it does happen (Andy’s can read him right back, he knows when), Eddie ends up with his hands tied behind his back. he jokes about Ack Ack’s poor navy knotwork and gets a laugh back. then Andy slow bends him over the bed. that’s all Eddie thought he’d do, which isn’t a bother, long legs are still able to roll away. until Andy kneels down below him, caressing his thigh lovingly, and nudges his legs open. Eddie ends up standing bent over on the mattress with each ankle tied to a leg of their heavy bed frame

it’s a lot but Andy takes his time, kisses his way up from Eddie’s calf all the way to the back of his neck, keeping a hand pressed to his inner thigh. the tremble there is aroused and overwhelmed all in one. the first time, Ack Ack just enjoys giving his boyfriend a nice, slow handjob, supporting himself over Hillbilly so he can feel his weight. it’s amazing to have Eddie coming apart under him, whispering for more until he gets a shaking orgasm, biting the sheets to try and cover how loud he whimpers (it’s too much for Andy, too, and he cums just from rubbing between Eddie’s thighs)

Andy’s trademark aftercare is as excellent as ever and they sit together with some tea on the bed, listen to the radio, Eddie leaning against his chest with two loving arms around him. he asks if next time Ack Ack will fuck him and naturally, Andy just says “if you want me to” while kissing his temple. Hillbilly wipes his face and asks “please”

#andyeddie #the pacific #very not saif 4 wurk but i cant tag it that because tumblr algorithy

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dawnwave16 · 4 years

Text

Leaf Bound

Hi all this might be a little salty in places but I didn’t feel it was enough to tag salt. As Always I hope you enjoy! Also this is a one shot so I don’t think I will write more of it...

Story:

Shikamaru had grown up knowing about the outer countries. How could he not know about them when his soulmate knew about them? He didn't let anyone know that he had that particular aspect of a soulmate mark though, it would be way too troublesome! Shikamaru was one of the rare people in the world with more than one soulmate trait. His most obvious, and thus his only known, one was a ladybug that scrambled all over his chest and arms. As far as he knew it reflected his soulmates current mood or activity, after all, how many ladybugs could sow or do other handicrafts? That's not to say that that's all it did but it was one of the most common things to see his little bug doing. He loved his little mark even though it tickled when it ran across his skin, making him want to squirm.

His other marks were something he kept secret after all sharing knowledge and skills wasn't very common. That's not to say he knew all of her thoughts nor she all of his. The knowledge that the bond shared was more the world or general knowledge that they had as well as what they learned in school. As for skills, well, his mother had never taught him to sow or how to make clothes at all and that was one of the most useful skills to have as a shinobi. Baking and cooking was another thing his mother had never had to teach him so it was fairly understandable when his parents were shocked when he made them a cake and iced it expertly for their wedding anniversary one year. He didn't tell them how he'd done it though, that would lead to questions and questions were troublesome.

His final mark was one that normally gave him the most comfort, a soft tune that played constantly in the back of his mind. The tune changed slightly depending on her health and her state of mind. When she was happy or creating something it was a soft, happy tune when she was upset or stressed it took on a more sombre tone. When she was angry the tune became more staccato and lately, it was the melancholy, staccato tunes that were the most prominent tunes he heard. To make matters worse, his little ladybug hadn't drawn or sown anything in quite some time and hadn't scurried over him happily in over a year. In short, Shikamaru was worried and his teammates were starting to take notice, all of the Konoha 12 had.

“Okay Shikamaru, enough is enough! The war is over, repairs are underway and you get to cloud watch or laze around whenever you aren't training or working. What's bugging you?” Ino demanded.

“And don't tell us 'Nothing' as you've looked troubled for the last few weeks,” Naruto stated bluntly. It was unusual for Naruto to get involved as he wasn't the most observant but Shikamaru knew he needed to be honest with them. They had been through a lot together after all.

“ Troublesome, not here. I don't know how much everyone knows and I have a feeling at least part of the explanation will need the Hokage's attention so lets head there and once he raises the barrier, I'll explain.” He sighed heavily. The others looked at each other, then swiftly finished their meals and walked to the Hokage's office. Kakashi was surprised to see them all but quickly agreed to raise the barrier. Shikamaru sighed and mumbled a quiet 'Troublesome' before looking at his friends and Kakashi and starting to speak.

“As most of you know I have a ladybug soulmate mark that likes running around and generally being troublesome,” he began and saw most of them nod. “What you don't know is that that isn't my only soul mark. I have two others, though all signs point to them belonging to the same person.” Everyone's eyes showed their surprise at that and he raised his hand to forestall their questions. “The reason I say this is one of those marks is the one where there is always a tune playing that allows you to keep track of how your soulmate is emotionally and the tune always matches my little ladybug's mood. The last mark is why I said we needed the privacy barrier. It's the one where the two soulmates share skills and knowledge.” Shikamaru shifted slightly from foot to foot.

“That is how I can cook, bake, sew and draw. I have no idea what abilities of mine my soulmate got. Anyway, with the knowledge it seems we share a pool of general knowledge about the world we live in, however, they are not in the elemental nations. They live beyond its borders, probably in a country called France as that is where quite a lot of their knowledge seems to concentrate and they speak a language called French. Part of our skillshare thing is we can speak each other's languages.” He concluded with a shrug.

“So what does all of that have to do with why you have been so distracted?” Ino asked gently.

Shikamaru sighed then in a small show of trust, took his vest and shirt off, showing them the ladybug. He glanced at the clock then looked down at the little bug. At this time of the day, it normally had it's nose in a book or was busy writing however, today it was just sitting holding a leg much like they would if they hurt themselves. He went to touch it, only for it to shy away from his finger. Shikamaru closed his eyes in sad acceptance and dropped his hand.

“It's been reacting like this for two weeks. I used to be able to stroke it to try to send my soulmate comfort but two weeks ago the song changed from it's already melancholy tune to one that is almost non-existent and the ladybug started shying away from all forms of touch. I'm worried about what could have caused this change.”

Silence met Shikamaru's revelation but he didn't lift his head, choosing instead to keep looking at the cowering ladybug that was now on his arm. It seemed to understand that he was worried but knew that there was nothing that could be done to help.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Marinette didn't know what to think of the fact that she had three soulmate marks or indicators. She loved the lazy, shadowy Shika deer that wondered over her torso and upper arms dearly though. She didn't know why her soulmate was best represented by a deer or shadows but she didn't question it. Her soulmate's song was just as relaxing most of the time and she loved designing while listening to it. When she turned thirteen she noticed that the deer now had a piece of material around its neck. The material had a spiral that looked almost like a leaf, which she recognised as the symbol for Konoha.

The only reason she recognised it was due to the shared knowledge that she received from her soulmate and due to that she had guessed that he or she was a shinobi for the village. It was also due to this shared knowledge that she knew the weird eyes she had unlocked when she was fifteen and in the middle of a battle as Ladybug, were known as the Rinnegan.

In retrospect, it was due to knowing that her eyes were from the elemental nations that when her mother had revealed that Marinette was adopted, in an argument over Marinette's trustworthiness of all things, that the news didn't truly hurt as much as it would have otherwise. When Sabine had screamed out that no daughter of hers would ever be as unreliable and as much of a liar as Marinette was, Marinette had, at first, been confused. Seeing this Sabine had decided to spit the fact that they had adopted Marinette from some random traveller when she was barely a year old in her face. It had hurt Marinette to think that a simple thing like being adopted would make her mother so susceptible to Lila's lies but at the same time, it let Marinette form her plans to go to the elemental nations with a clear conscience.

After defeating Hawkmoth and taking back the Black Cat miraculous from Chat Noir without finding out his identity nor he hers, Marinette had simply been waiting to finish her education before packing up and leaving France. She knew she would need to be the one to move as a shinobi couldn't abandon their village. Especially not a Jonin, if the jacket her mark sported was anything to go by. She wondered if the mark that represented her wore clothes too. She guessed it would be a Ladybug due to her miraculous but wouldn't know for sure until they met.

She had been so caught up in her thoughts that the sudden shove that sent her spinning off balance and in turn sent her tumbling down the stairs came as an unwelcome shock. Marinette kept her eyes closed as she mentally checked to see if she was injured or not. She had been Ladybug for so long that this was second nature to her but that didn't mean she could contain her wince as she checked her arms and found her left one was broken. Thankfully, she had only been about halfway up the stairs when it happened or Marinette was sure she would be worse off.

“That's for Lila,” the person who shoved her sneered before vanishing back into the crowd. Marinette sighed, even with Hawkmoth gone, Lila was still finding ways to bring out the worst in people. She didn't know who it was that had pushed her nor did she care if she was honest. Finding out would do nothing to change the opinions of all of Lila's sycophants so Marinette ignored it. She was going to be late for class if she didn't hurry.

Once school was finished for the day, Marinette made sure she had everything of value to her packed away in a suitcase along with everything else she could fit into it. Thanks to her Soulmate's knowledge of fuinjutsu she was then able to seal that bag into a seal that she had sown onto a ribbon that she had taken to wearing tied around her wrist. She even sealed away the miracle box with the consent of the kwami's that lived in it.

To anyone looking around her room, nothing had changed. There was still a sowing machine and design paraphernalia stacked away in a corner. Her computer still sat on her desk, heck even her large stuffed cat was sitting on her bed. None of those things was what she would be taking with her. She had bought a new sowing machine along with several other things when Jagged had paid for his last commission. She had insisted on delivering it in person as she had then explained to him what was going on in her life and what her plan was moving forward. He had been disappointed that she was leaving but he had understood and helped book her a plane ticket to Japan and from there he had booked a ticket on the only ship that went to and from the elemental nations.

The plane ticket was booked for graduation day, which would help hide the fact that she had left as no one would expect her to miss it after stubbornly completing school. What none of her classmates or her teachers or even her parents would expect is the bombshell that would be dropped on them during the ceremony. Marinette had meticulously documented everything that had been happening at the school and sent it to the Department of Education as well as the school board. What happened to those involved after everything came to light wasn't her problem.

The following six weeks blurred together as Marinette completed all her school work and let her arm heal up. A side effect of being pushed around so much was she flinched whenever anyone came near her. It wasn't noticeable to anyone who wasn't trained to notice it but it still annoyed her. She knew she would have to have at least a small amount of counselling to deal with the problem and she hoped whoever her soulmate was wouldn't be disappointed in her.

The morning of her flight from Paris dawned with a slightly grey and anticipatory air to it. Moving quickly and quietly, Marinette did a final check of her room, making absolutely sure that she had left absolutely nothing that she would miss behind. All her lockboxes, designs and even her spare fabrics, needles and pins were packed. Once she was sure she had everything she slipped out of the house and walked as though she was headed to school, knowing that Sabine was watching her. Once she was out of sight of the bakery, Marinette slipped down into one of the entrances to the metro, boarding a train that would take her as close to the airport as possible.

The flight took off on time and as the piolet managed to get them to fly in a jet stream, it was shorter than Marinette thought it would be. She was grateful for this as it let her take her time getting to the harbour so that she could board the ship that would take her to her final destination. She was nervous yet excited to be on her way to meet her soulmate. Excited because who wouldn't be? Nervous because, again, who wouldn't be? This was her soulmate after all and she had left everything familiar to her to be with them. She had no idea what they would be like or even how they would react to her just showing up out of the blue. It was times like this that she wished she could at least send a notice ahead so that they would know she was coming.

The boat ride was uneventful and she was able to pass through customs with no issues. It was only after she had cleared customs that she realised she might have a problem. She knew the way to Konoha but it was a military village and they wouldn't have any reason to trust her. She also knew that while the villages themselves were relatively safe, the roads between them weren't and she would have no protection as she made her way there. Just as she was about to start spiralling anxiously she spotted a person that had a Konoha headband on. She walked over to him quickly, making sure he saw her walking towards him and that he could see she wasn't armed.

“Excuse me!” She called to him making him pause and look at her. His blond hair and startling blue eyes so similar to her own were the some of the first things that she took note of now that she got passed the fact that he had the same symbol on his headband as her mark. She purposefully ignored the amount of orange that he was wearing!

“Yes, can I help you?” He said to her looking confused as to why she had called out to him.

“I hope so! Um, you see, well...” she paused to take a deep breath as he looked at her worriedly. “This is going to sound really stupid and I won't blame you if you tell me to leave you alone but my soulmate mark has the same symbol on its headband as the one you are wearing and I was hoping you would be able to take me to Konoha,” she rambled nervously barely stopping for breath. He smiled down at her.

“This might sound rude but I'd need to see the mark for myself before I can do anything to help you.” He scratched the back of his head, “I was meant to head to Paris to try to find a friends soulmate, I hope he won't mind the delay,” he muttered.

“Oh, um, sure. I just hope it hasn't decided to hide somewhere on my torso as I really don't want to take my shirt off.” She said with a blush which made him blush too. She put her bag on the floor between her feet then took her jacket off then checked her arms and smiled fondly. There on her forearm was her lazy Shika deer, smoking a cigarette. She shook her head in amusement.

“Smoking again? Really?”

The blond looked at the mark and started to laugh. “Well, it looks like you are the one I was sent to find. However, to be certain, what type of hobbies do you enjoy?” Marinette looked at him in confusion and hope before answering his question.

“Baking and sewing why?”

“Just needed a way to confirm that you are who I was being sent to find! Right, let me go get this ticket refunded and we can head out if you feel up to travelling today. If not we can book into a motel or something, whatever you are most comfortable with! Oh! Before I forget, I'm Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!” He said with a big grin.

“I'm ok to travel today though I can't guarantee how fast I'll be able to travel.” Marinette was surprised that her soulmate was sending someone to find her, she wondered what had happened to make him do that. She knew she could be falling for a trap but something about this man told her to trust him. She was also curious about why her eyes were so similar to his she had to admit. It took an hour of waiting around for Naruto's ticket refunded and to grab something for them to eat but to Marinette, it felt like the time dragged on forever. Once that was done though, they were on the road to Konoha in next to no time at all. Marinette wished she could transform into Ladybug and use her yo-yo to travel through the trees if only to speed things up but she didn't dare. There was just no way of knowing how anyone in the elemental nations would react.

Since they were walking it took them three days to reach Konoha and in that time Marinette found Naruto to be good company. In fact, it felt like she had known him for far longer than the three days that it had been. She had a feeling Trixx would love Naruto although if Marinette was honest with herself she was reluctant to hand any of the miraculi out until she was more familiar with the country and whether or not they were needed. She was also very nervous of pairing a self-confessed Prankster King with an agent of chaos like Trixx.

On the last night of their journey to Konoha, they had started talking about family and their views on it. It had come as a surprise to her to know that Naruto was an orphan, just like he had been very surprised to know that she had been adopted and that she had absolutely no idea who her real parents were. Unknown to her that had made Naruto remember an off-handed statement by Jiraiya when he was drunk the one night. They had been talking about regrets and Jiraiya had mentioned that he wished he had managed to find out what had happened to Naruto's twin. Apparently, she had gone missing a month after their parents had died but Jiraiya had never been able to find any leads regarding where she might have gone. With Marinette knowing anything about her past and with their eyes being so similar, Naruto had to fight not to be too hopeful and to remember that she might not be his twin at all.

The wall that surrounds Konoha loomed above Naruto and Marinette as they approached the main gate. They paused for a moment so that Marinette could admire them before Naruto insisted that they carry on. Their first stop, once they had signed in at the gate, was the Hokage Tower as Naruto needed to check-in. He knew that Shikamaru would be in the office too as he was technically the client for this mission. The only reason that he could walk straight in was that he had sent a toad ahead after Marinette had fallen asleep on the first night as well as each night of their trip so that Shikamaru had time to prepare himself.

Kakashi and Shikamaru looked up from their discussion as Naruto lead Marinette into the room. To say they were surprised would be an understatement, was this Shikamaru's soulmate? She was so small! To the trained shinobi it looked like she wouldn't last a minute against an academy student. Marinette blushed when she saw the two men looking at her in a frank appraisal.

“Hi,” she said her voice almost a whisper it was so soft. All three men couldn't help but remember Hinata when she was still too shy to really talk to Naruto despite knowing they were soulmates. Kakashi looked at Shikamaru and knew that he would have to be the one to speak up.

“Yo, the name's Kakashi and I'm the Hokage here, unfortunately. Naruto says you are probably the soulmate of one of my shinobi?” Kakashi kept his voice friendly and light in the hopes of getting her to relax slightly and it seemed to work as she gave a small smile even though her shoulders were still tense. She then took her jacket off much to their surprise. They soon understood though when they saw the stag that ambled lazily down her arm then lay down as if it couldn't be bothered with all the fuss. Shikamaru glanced at the other two men before muttering “troublesome” and lighting a cigarette while leaning against the wall next to an open window. He was about to take a drag of his smoke when he glanced at the stag again and froze. The stag had a cigarette in its mouth too and Marinette was scowling

at it.

“I understand that he probably smokes to relax but seriously? I hate that habit!” Marinette muttered before looking up and blushing when she saw she was being watched again.

“Well, I think we can confirm you are Shikamaru's soulmate from that demonstration,” Kakashi chuckled. Marinette looked up sharply.

“What do you mean?”

To avoid having to explain, Shikamaru stubbed out his cigarette and took off his jacket. Almost as if it knew he wanted it to be seen, his little Ladybug came scurrying down from his shoulder to sit on his forearm. Marinette looked at it in amazement as it sat calmly letting itself be seen. Marinette smiled at the sight of it then started to giggle which had everyone in the office looking at her in confusion which only caused her to laugh even more.

“I always knew my mark would be a Ladybug,” she said while taking deep breaths to try and control her laughter. She shook her head “Sorry it's just really funny to have it confirmed.” The shinobi stared at her in utter confusion until Shikamaru shook his head.

“Troublesome,” he muttered making Marinette look at him.

“Why is knowing what my mark would be but laughing when it's confirmed troublesome?” She asked in confusion.

“It's a Nara thing, I think,” Naruto said before Shikamaru could even think to defend himself. “Every time they actually have to do anything it's always 'troublesome'. Shika has said that to almost every new situation that he encounters as well as about most people for as long as I've known him!” Marinette took a moment to marvel at just how loud Naruto was even as she processed what he had said. She was about to say something when Naruto frowned and turned to face Kakashi again.

“Sensei I would like to request a blood test be run on Marinette.” He said rather formally.

Kakashi looked surprised. “I'll grant that request on the condition I get to know what we're meant to be checking for. Do you think Marinette is sick or...?” He let his voice trail off. Marinette was about to state that she was in perfect health when Naruto blushed.

“Oh! I think I used the wrong wording there. I meant a DNA test. Before you ask why I'll explain,” he continued in a hurry. “During my three-year training trip with ero-sensei he would occasionally get really drunk and say things that he normally wouldn't. Anyway, the one evening he mentioned that I had a twin sister when I was born but that she went missing a month later and ero-sensei was unable to find her nor could he find any trace of where she might have gone. I know it might be a long shot but Marinette mentioned that she was adopted and honestly looking at her eyes is almost like looking into a mirror at my eyes.”

Silence met that last statement as everyone thought about what Naruto had said. Marinette looked at his eyes and saw what he meant. The resemblance was uncanny and with the rest of the coincidences, it stood to reason that what he said could be true! It would be amazing to find at least one member of her birth family she had to admit that she had had dreams of that happening ever since Sabine had told her she was adopted. She had to wonder if he had the Rinnegan too though or if it was just her.

Marinette had been so lost in her musings that she jumped when someone touched her arm. She looked at the person who had touched her and saw that it was a female with pink hair.

“Hi, sorry to scare you but you weren't responding when we spoke to you. My name is Sakura and I was Naruto's team-mate as well as Shikamaru's classmate. Anyway, I need to draw some blood so that we can get those tests done. I'm also going to give you the standard health check we give everyone who is new to the village just so that we have a base to work from should you ever need to see a doctor. So any injuries that are still needing to heal or anything that we should know ahead of time?”

Marinette blinked a couple of times at the barrage of words that had just been thrown at her.

“Um, yeah sure. Sorry, I guess travelling is starting to catch up with me. Injuries, um none that should be lingering but I broke my arm about six or so weeks ago so I'm being careful with it. I don't think there should be anything else...” Marinette said nervously. She didn't want to tell them about every injury she had had as Ladybug or even thanks to Lila so she kept quiet about them. She watched as Sakura's hands glowed green and she ran them over her doing a basic scan only to bite her lip as Sakura frowned.

“Well other then your body having almost as many healed injuries as Naruto you are physically fine. As you said, your arm shows signs of recent healing as do a couple of your ribs which I suspect you didn't know about as you didn't mention them. There is also some signs of recent weight loss and I hope that that was not due to dieting as you don't need to lose weight at all. I need to draw some blood now and run it down to the hospital but other than that I'm going to give you a clean bill of health. Are you able to talk about any of your previous injuries or should that be done in a more private setting? I know that it's not always easy to talk about one's past.”

Marinette closed her eyes and reviewed her knowledge of how the shinobi villages ran then took a deep breath and asked if there was a way to seal the office for privacy. Once the barrier was set up she told the others in the office her story. It took most of the day to tell them everything, from how she was chosen as Ladybug to how Chat Noir constantly pushed for a reveal as he was convinced she was his soulmate but she had never caved to his demands. She told them how it was only due to a liars influence on her parents that they even revealed that she was adopted. She even revealed the fact that she had the Rinnegan, something that she had never revealed to anyone before.

Subconsciously Marinette knew she was probably oversharing and that she needed to stop talking but now that she had started she was finding it difficult to stop. It was as though all the negative emotions and experiences had been building up for so long that although she had only meant to give them the bare bones of what had happened, by opening the bottle she had sealed everything in ever so slightly they were now all pouring out. By the time she had told them everything, her voice had grown hoarse and her eyes were red from the tears that she had shed. While she felt physically drained Marinette found that she was feeling much lighter than she had in a while, which told her just how much she had been carrying with her emotionally.

It took Marinette about five minutes of self-reflection after she had finished speaking before she realised that nobody had said anything. She slowly raised her eyes to see if anyone had left while she was talking only to be tackled by Naruto who hugged her tightly as though he was scared she would crumble into nothing if he let go. Kakashi was looking at her with pure empathy in his eyes as if what she had said had struck a chord within him. Sakura was gripping the back of a chair as if to stop herself from walking out of the door and tracking down all those that had hurt Marinette to give them a taste of their own medicine. After hesitating slightly she let her eyes land on Shikamaru. She hesitated because she didn't want to see the disgust she was sure she would see in his eyes. She didn't know him at all and he hadn't said much since she had arrived so she had no idea how he would react.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * *

Shikamaru didn't know what to think when he walked into the Hokage's office that morning. Kakashi had sent a message saying that Naruto was on his way back with a girl who he suspected was the soulmate that he had been sent out to find. He knew that Naruto must have sent the message back with one of his toads saying that they would be arriving sometime that day and if he was honest with himself, he was nervous. Who wouldn't be? Sure the girl Naruto had found might be the soulmate of someone else that lived in Konoha and not his soulmate but Shikamaru was sure if that was the case then Naruto would have sent her to Konoha with someone else.

He was glad that they hadn't arrived yet when he walked in as it gave him time to get comfortable and to try to relax. By the time Naruto walked into the office with the girl though, despite having been chatting casually to Kakashi, Shikamaru was anything but relaxed. Perhaps it was due to his training or perhaps it was simply because he was male, Shikamaru couldn't help but notice how exceptionally pretty the girl was. Petite with ravens wing black hair and eyes so blue they could rival Naruto's, a grey jacket that must have been fitted at one stage but was now slightly loose on her. She waved shyly and greeted them and Shikamaru was surprised at how timid she was. His mark had always been vivacious and the tune in his head had always been bubbly, sure it had been muted recently but the fact stood that her behaviour was a contrast to what he had been expecting.

When she revealed the shadow Shika deer soul mark wearing what was clearly a Konoha headband and Jonin flake jacket, Shikamaru found himself desperate for a cigarette so he moved to the window to indulge himself. When the others in the room started to chuckle at something he glanced over only to see that the deer had started to smoke too, only to get a muttered complaint from the girl. Sighing he killed his cigarette and made sure that his little ladybug was visible and was surprised not only by the fact that she started laughing but also by the fact that she had suspected that it would be a ladybug in the first place.

He stayed quiet for the rest of the conversation, deciding that he would rather learn more about her by observing her before he said anything, only to be thrown yet another series of curveballs. Being given a magical piece of jewellery at thirteen? Being known as a superhero? Having the Rinnegan? Being targeted by a pathological liar and having her life pretty much destroyed? How was his soulmate still sane considering she didn't have any support after her mentor had had his memory wiped? To say nothing of the injuries that Sakura had found.

It was taking Shikamaru every inch of his self-control to hold himself back from joining Naruto with his arms around her as those questions swirled around in his brain. Something of that must have been evident in his song as Marinette lifted her head then held out a hand to him which he eagerly took.

“I know I will need to go for counselling and that I can't say ''I'm OK'' without it being hollow and meaningless but I'm still alive and I made it here safely. That has to count for something, right?” Marinette said softly while looking at him.

It was that simple moment that made everything click for Shikamaru. This was his soulmate and he would need to be there for her come what may. Sure she had issues but so did he so who was he to judge? He knew that if he wanted to be with her as more then a friend he would need to work on his communication skills and she would need to work on her confidence as it had been systematically destroyed. It wasn't going to be smooth sailing but Shikamaru was confident that things would work out for the best.

A Few Years Later:

“Naomi Nara you're going to be late for school!” Marinette yelled from the kitchen where she was making breakfast. Shikamaru had come back from an S rank mission the night before and as such she was making all of his favourites.

“Honestly I think she might be worse than I ever was,” Marinette remarked to Tikki in a much quieter voice. “I know I was a nightmare to get to wake up and to school on time but Naomi takes things to the next level!”

“It's probably my influence,” a sleep roughened voice came from the doorway causing Marinette to look up and see Shikamaru looking half asleep with a giggling pair of twins in his arms. “I'm pretty sure Ino and Choji can and have told you multiple stories of what I was like at Naomi's age.”

Marinette looked at the boys in his arms so he just nodded showing that they were why he was awake instead of resting like he should be. At least he didn't have any injuries so he could still play with them without hurting himself. At six years old they were highly active which Marinette knew was their Uzumaki heritage coming through as Naruto had apparently been the same way.

Less than an hour later and the house was quiet again with all three of the kids at the academy. Marinette smiled as she walked into the bedroom and found Shikamaru half asleep on the bed. She climbed up next to him and he automatically moved to cuddle around her. Marinette smiled as she thought about how har things had come in the last few years.

“Hey, Shika?” Marinette started making him look at her curiously. “I know we said no more but, um, I'm pregnant.”

Marinette watched as all signs of sleep vanished from his face as he registered her news. She nodded slightly when his song tuned curious wanting confirmation and smiled as it turned to pure joy. Yes, life was good now, Marinette thought as he kissed her.

#miraculous ladybug #naruto #soulmates #soulmarks

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gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights · 4 years

Link

Rating: T

Chapter Summary: Luka doesn’t miss XY. That would be stupid. For @luxyweek prompt “Eye Contact” (with a little bit of style swap peppered in)

Word Count: 2404 | 3/4

XXX

Luka stared deep into XY’s eyes. Well, the photograph’s eyes, from the back of the CD he held in his hands. Of course he couldn’t escape the pop star here, in the middle of his favorite music store. But he hadn’t needed to go directly to the end of the aisle and pick up the Number One album.

Ironic. He said he couldn’t escape him, yet XY hadn’t crashed the Liberty in a week. Since the sleepover at Nino’s house. Had he just gotten his inspiration and left?

He’d kept Luka’s hoodie. Luka had forgotten to demand it back when XY had woken up and rushed out of the apartment, yelping something about his dad.

“You owe me,” Luka said to the album. XY’s melody had been beating under Luka’s skin for the last seven days. “You can’t just take my favorite hoodie and disappear.”

Luka didn’t even have his phone number. It was a stupid oversight, but he wasn’t used to having his own friends. If he needed a number, he usually asked Juleka.

Nino said he hadn’t come back, which was strange. XY always wanted attention; Luka had figured that if he wasn’t trying to leap onto the Liberty, he’d be at the other boy’s apartment. What had happened to his original song? Had he given up on it?

Had he actually stolen Nino’s music instead, like Luka had feared? Was the guilt keeping him away? Or did he just decide he had better things to do?

Maybe he’d even left Paris by now. He’d never mentioned how long he’d be staying.

Luka shook his head. He didn’t know, and staring at XY’s Number One album wasn’t going to give him any answers.

His eyes glanced down to the price tag. Not too expensive, but he still wouldn’t pay for it. XY had probably stolen all those songs. It would be wrong to give him and Bob Roth money for it.

So when he got home, he cracked open his laptop and pirated the album.

A few of the songs he recognized, probably from supermarket speakers or TV commercials. Most were unfamiliar though, except in how they mimicked each other. It was like XY only had one setting: repetitive pop beats. His tracks barely even had lyrics to differentiate them from each other. Along the Beach with You had the addition of waves and seagull calls. Urban Night was so autotuned he could barely make out the words. Was that even XY’s voice? It didn’t sound nasally enough.

Luka was just about to give up listening to the album when I Miss You started. Soft, not as energetic as the other tracks. He strained to hear the words.

I’m going crazy for you

I’m lost, where can I find you?

You’ve got my heart torn in two

Please, I just miss you

Nothing unique. Lazy, even; he used “you” in three of the four rhymes.

Luka hated that it sparked something in him, something that his guitar still hadn’t been able to untangle.

His own music wasn’t helping. XY’s music wasn’t helping. Staring at his face wasn’t helping.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he sighed as he strapped his guitar across his back.

Then he crept above deck, rolled out his bike, and pedaled off towards the Grand Paris Hotel.

XXX

XY paced across his hotel room as the song was exporting, the loading bar slowly, slowly filling up. Why did it take so long? Making the song had already taken way more time than he expected. He hadn’t gotten to see Lu in days. What if Lu forgot all about him? A few times he’d thought about going back to that dumpster boat, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist bragging about his new song, and it needed to be a surprise.

He told Lu he was gonna make the most cash money music he’d ever heard. He hoped this track would be good enough. It probably wasn’t Lu’s style, but Marmalade hadn’t looked like she was his style either, and he liked her. He’d thrown a couple of her sewing machine noises into the track for good measure.

“Come on, stupid computer,” he muttered.

The door burst open just as he was thumping the monitor. His arms pinwheeled before he caught himself on the desk.

“Oh, uh, hey Dad.” He grinned too wide. “What brings you here?”

“What? I can’t see what my own son is up to?” He laughed loudly, making XY cringe. “I thought you were out with Andre’s girl again. You’re too young to be holed up in here.”

XY tried not to groan at the mention of Cole. She’d already tried to break into his room three times today. He’d pulled up Lu’s hood and hidden under the legs of his synth each time. Luckily he’d taken it off while pacing, not wanting to sweat too much in it, or else Dad might’ve asked why he was wearing something so ratty looking.

“I’m just trying to catch up on my music, Dad.” He rolled his eyes.

“Ha! Searching for new tracks to steal? Proactive of you, I like it. You’re starting to think like a real star.”

XY’s stomach turned as his dad slung an arm around his shoulder. He shrugged him off.

He almost told him what he was really doing, but the words dried up in his mouth. Maybe Lu could spout whatever hippie crap came into his head, but XY couldn’t afford to.

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered instead.

“Looks like whatever you were downloading finished. Let’s hear it.” Dad plopped down into the cushy chair in front of his synth, leaving XY to stand.

“Uh—I dunno, Dad. It’s not—it’s nothing great, y’know?”

He snorted. “Look, if you’re gonna steal, you gotta go big or go home.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Let’s just hear it. I’ll tell you what’s worth ripping off.” He folded his hands on the desk and waited.

XY didn’t let his nervousness show. He was a star. He didn’t get stage fright—okay, usually he wasn’t even on the stage, but still.

Lu wasn’t scared of standing up to Bob Roth. The least XY could do was play his own music.

He opened the exported audio file and hit play.

Smooth electronic beats came from the speakers. Bubbly, upbeat, with an undercurrent of bass. So far it didn’t sound much different from XY’s old music, the kind he’d made before Dad convinced him to steal instead.

Dad’s eyes narrowed, as if he realized this, but he didn’t say anything yet. Didn’t say anything for the entire song, even when he heard XY’s lyrics.

Please ignore the lyrics please ignore the lyrics—

His face looked like he'd eaten something nasty. Like pasta. “You’ve gotta stop stealing songs from girls, son. The pronouns are all wrong.”

“Uh, oops. Forgot to change it.” His heart fell. Dad knew why his lyrics were like that, but he wouldn’t even say it out loud. He’d been stupid to let him hear the song, not that he’d had a choice. He would’ve finished it at Nino’s if the boy didn’t have to do dumb stuff like “go to school” and “do homework.”

“It’ll never be at the top of the charts, but you can use it to fill up space on your next album, I guess. You always need a few songs no one will actually listen to.”

XY bit his tongue. “Pshaw, yeah. That’s exactly what I stole it for.”

“Keep working, but pick a more mainstream beat next time. And on second thought, just scrap those lyrics. They’re clearly ameteur work. Who puts pigeons in a love song?”

Dad clapped him on the shoulder one last time before turning away, leaving XY numb.

You always need a few songs no one will actually listen to.

Just scrap those lyrics.

Clearly ameteur work...

The extraordinary XY did not cry. But he might have sniffled a little.

“What are you doing here? Scram! I told you, we were just kidding about the record deal!”

XY jolted up, dashing for the door. He peeked past his dad’s looming figure to see—

“Lu!” He grinned before he could help himself.

Lu was standing there, holding a flat cardboard box. His muscles showed beneath the short sleeves of his Jagged Stone t-shirt. The best part of stealing his hoodie was that XY got to see his arms. If only it didn’t also show off his number one rival’s merch.

“What? Xavier-Yves, did you invite this punk—”

“He ordered a pizza.” Lu wiggled the box.

XY frowned. “Huh? I didn’t—”

Lu’s eyes narrowed.

“Ohhhh, that pizza! Pshaw, right.”

Dad still glared down at Lu. “You better not try any funny business. Or I’ll have my lawyers on you faster than that pizza grease sticks to your hair.”

Lu smiled pleasantly, a dangerous (and sexy) gleam in his eyes. “Of course not. I’m just trying to do my job, sir.”

Dang, he was smart. And brave. And hot.

XY tried very hard not to swoon.

“I’ve got to—uh—money! Cash money. I owe you. For the pizza.”

“Well go grab it so this little snake can get out of here,” Dad said with a dismissive wave.

“Lu—uh, he can come in for a minute, right? It would be pretty unsexy of us to leave him out in the cold.”

“We’re in a hotel, and he’s not some street orphan.” Dad scrunched his nose. “Even if he smells like one.”

XY thought Luka smelled amazing, but he wouldn’t admit it in front of Dad. “Huh? I can’t hear you, I’m busy thinking about how I’m gonna cheat him out of a tip.”

That made Dad laugh. “Classic Xavier. Ruthless instincts, but not that bright.”

With that, he whistled his way out of the room, leaving XY alone with Lu.

His heart sped up. Lu was in his room. Even if he was just there because XY had ordered a pizza.

Wait. He hadn’t ordered a pizza.

“Did your dad just—did he really just say that? That was just… wrong.” Lu glared at the space where Dad had been standing.

“Awww, you care?” XY asked, leaning into his space. He smelled like wood and water, probably from spending so much time on that garbage boat. Or maybe it was just his cologne, but the first option sounded more romantic.

“No,” he snapped. Huh, he looked a lot more tense now than he’d been even with Dad.

“What’s up, bro? Marmalade break your heart again?” he asked hopefully.

Lu blinked. He had gorgeous eyes, but he could really use some mascara. Or at least eyeliner. XY thought rockers were supposed to be into that kind of stuff.

“Also no. I just… shut up and give me your phone.”

“Huh?” His head tilted, but he dug his phone out of his pocket.

Lu grabbed it out of his palm before realizing it was locked. He sighed. “Will you open it? Please?”

“Sure, ’cause you asked nicely.” XY grinned and swiped his thumb in the “XY” pattern, then tossed it back. Where this was going? Was Lu going to take a selfie and set it as his home screen? That would save XY the trouble of sneaking a photo himself.

Lu set the phone on top of the pizza box, typed furiously for a few seconds, and handed it back.

XY blinked down at the screen. Ohhhh, this was even better!

“You know if you wanted my number, all you had to do was ask.” XY pursed his lips, but resisted kissing Lu’s cheek again.

“I had no idea what happened to you. You might’ve left Paris, or… something.” He crossed his arms.

“So you did miss me.” His heart raced, though he kept his cool. He was XY, and Lu was just… the cutest boy he’d ever met. Who’d missed him.

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t take Nino’s music and run after all.”

“Pshaw, like I need his beats. I told you I was gonna make cash money music by myself this time.” XY rolled his eyes. He thought Lu believed in him.

Not that he should. His music wasn’t good. Dad didn’t think so, anyway.

“Did you finish it?” Lu’s eyes widened. “The song you were making at Nino’s?”

His eyes darted towards his synth and computer. “Uh… nah, man. I’ve just been… y’know, kickin’ back. I can’t stay in your unsexy garbage heap all the time.”

“Just… kickin’ back.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Lying to Lu felt wrong. Not like lying to his dad, or even to the paparazzi. But he wasn’t about to admit that his song had crashed and burned.

And he’d really thought he understood perspiration this time, too.

“I guess I just thought you liked kickin’ back with me,” Lu murmured.

XY’s gut twisted, like he’d eaten a bad plate of mac ’n’ cheese. “Pshaw, as if. I was just getting away from Cole, remember? You were the one who dragged me everywhere. I didn’t even need your dumb inspiration. I’m the extraordinary XY.”

He flashed his trademarked hand sign, but really he wanted to slap himself. Even if it felt wrong, he was good at lying. Too good.

Hurt flashed across Lu’s face for just a moment. Then it was gone, and he was shoving the pizza box into XY’s hands.

“Thanks for getting us on the same page.”

Crap, crap, crap. He wasn’t supposed to make Luka mad.

“Wait, bruh,” XY called out as Luka stepped out of the room. “I still didn’t pay you for the pizza!”

Luka rolled his eyes. “What, you’re not going to cheat me out of that, too?”

XY chewed his lip and looked down at his feet. He’d never been so embarrassed about cheating before.

“Forget it. I don’t need money you made by ripping people off, anyway.”

And then Luka was gone, leaving XY with a warm pizza in his arms. He opened the box, but the smell of fresh cheese just made him nauseous. The last time he’d eaten a cheese pizza was with him.

Luka was the first person to believe in him, and he’d let him down. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. It was Luka’s own fault for expecting something more.

He left the pizza by his synth, where it slowly grew cold.

#luxyweek2k20 #luxy #miraculous ladybug #luka #xy #fic tag #tali writes

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migleefulmoments · 4 years

Note

"Hahaha. A friend pointed this out. W online shops too!" What does this even mean?! I don't know anyone in 2020 who doesn't online shop besides my 80 year old grandparents because they refuse to learn how to use a computer 😂 I don't get how Will, a 30 something year old man, online shopping is worthy enough for Abby to comment on it. I'm sure Chris does it too. And Darren.

On Nov 5, Darren wrote this post and the cc fandom lost their shit.

They decided that organizing 10 costumes for multiple events in two different states for two different people was not worthy of acknowledgment- especially since they wore several purchased costumes. They spent the next 30-ish days mocking her “online shopping skills” like the petty idiots they are and now they bring it up two months later.

Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”

ajw720 answered: The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie. C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes. Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine. No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store). And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly. The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254pointed out even the Mario costume had a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes? Who has time for this? I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped. Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it. If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade. Where is the praise for him from his “bride”? He at least deserves it.

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween? And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal. You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf. It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world. If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.

klainecentric Finished reading the funniest ig story of the day, the qween being praised for sitting in front of either a sewing machine or computer...bravo your majesty qween....your my hero well done.👏👏. And all I can think of is how irrelevant the statement D made about being an emotional horder, being a very private person and finally D saying he's lazy when it comes to social media, I'm internally screaming in frustration because yeah we know D wouldn't have written a post praising that lazy good for nothing waste of space but he's coming across as a lier and it's extremely damaging to his character as a person. I absolutely hate lying and every time another "private" moment is posted to the world is another small piece that's chipped away from what D has originally stated about privacy. PBB, nobody cares about your cheap arse highly flammable costumes you buy online, did you forget about your piano baby adult strip club. I'm sure there are still plenty of people out there you can hire to rub and flaunt their flanges all over the beer taps, why don't you keep busy on that instead. If you want to make costumes, I'm sure you can sew some mighty fine titty tassels together. It'll be cheap nasty, sound familiar.

souly So, let me get this straight. We should all praise a person for going online, looking up different costumes in online stores, putting those in their shopping basket and hitting “buy”? Because I do that at least once a week with other stuff. Do I get praised for that now? Pretty please? I’m doing good work there and buy a lot of stuff, therefore I must be the best person ever!

notes-from-nowhere You’re my Queen. Please, love me.

souly

(I think I got it right. I’m getting the hang of what said person is doing. Wheee! ;))

notes-from-nowhere You nailed it 🤣

ajw720 Yesterday I got a delivery of car food. And instead of his usual seafood mix up greats, I got him shrimp flavor. I’m awesome!!!!!

souly Oh, hey! I think we should all take pictures of whatever we bought online during the week or month and make individual posts on all of our social media accounts about it. Because, you know…

cassie1022 I picked up stuff I ordered online at Target and PetSmart. Does that count? Should I receive accolades because my cat will have fresh litter to do her business on?

souly Only if you post the pictures to prove it! ;)

ajw720 As soon as I get home. Pictures forthcoming. Shrimp cat treats and I also got a burgundy blanket for my new comforter!!! Life goals!!!!!!!!!!!

souly Okay, so, let’s see… What did I buy online during the past month that can be shared as pictures? Some things are gifts, so I obviously can’t post anything about those yet. But I think these here are safe.

Let’s start with one of my fav new shirts. (Excuse the grainy quality. I had to quickly edit it for privacy reasons. :p And yes, that’s a butterfly mirror.)

The rest are behind the cut to save your dash from drowning in too many pictures. ;)

cheekyface72 You’re my queen from now on…

ajw720 I think emmy/sag/gg/CC winner DC should write a post @soulypraising your awesome, amazing, unparalleled online shopping skills! You earned that praise. That cat toy is particularly spectacular.

*********************

Just A Taste of M’s Amazing Online Shopping Skills that are worthy of such Praise

ajw720

Super Mario with inflatable Dragon $54.66 (x)

Princess Peach $78.99 (x)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles. i can’t

flowersintheattic254. When you add the fact that the wedding was sponsored so heavily, and her history of outfits I think it shows Mi@rren is something that’s always been done very much ‘on the cheap’.

From work vacays (honeymoon included), RC ‘glue gun’ looks, thrift shoes and subsidized weddings.

It’s BUDGET BEARDING!!!

leka-1998. It’s not worth more than this, that’s for sure.

notes-from-nowhere We are so ungrateful. She worked hard to find the gloves.

I bet she had to click on another link to find them. She deserves another accolade.

ajw720 @flowersintheattic254 Budget Bearding! I LOVE It! (and something tells me D’s SW costume in particular was far cheaper than either of these).

souly That Snow White dress can be found for about $25 in a ton of online shops. I stumbled upon it even before Halloween way too many times. 😂

@notes-from-nowhere The plush question mark block can be found in a couple online stores like this one. She simply glued it onto some gloves - or asked L to do it with that glue gun of hers.

flowersintheattic254 Well funnily enough I think we may have confirmation that 🚽🚽 glued on the puppies so I guess YES to the question mark block too!!!

cassie1022 They can’t even glue things properly. Why am I not surprised?

leka-1998

So, so amazing. Bow to the kween and her not so helpful helper.

************************************

There are lots more...I figured enough of your brain cells died reading the ones I posted. On Nov 30 she is STiLL bringing it up”

Anonymous asked:

Whenever I see miarren gifset they always use the same quote underneath (the rolling the windows down quote) and at first I rolled my eyes and thought uh not that quote again, and I can't believe it took me this long to realise it's because there is literally no other quote that can be construed as loving. You can hardly put down "she's a big girl" whenever you make a set of gifs with M beaming and D looking like someone murdered the dog he's allergic to.

ajw720: And I love the Emmy quote as it was an absolute reference to his character who was a psychopath. Pretty telling if you ask me. But that reference is over their heads.

And pretty much the only one. Guess saying he’s a ball and chain kind of guy isn’t romantic. They can’t even take pooping exes as he clearly steered the conversation away from her. Lovely lady of many moons? Nah she sounds like a stranger. Saying nothing changes after marriage? Sounds boring. It’s a struggle. But hey she’s an excellent online shopper that he done got hitched to!!!

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fam-der-linde · 5 years

Note

Sorry if this has been done before but, how was everyone when they first joined the family? Like first few weeks and such. (:

Arthur:

Stayed in his room

Always grumpy about something??

A lot of reading/being read to

Constant nightmares

Crawled into Dutch and Hosea’s bed a lot

Writing/doodling in his new journal constantly

He always asked before getting food

Hosea and Dutch took him fishing for his first time

He enjoyed it and wanted to go out to do it again

Didn’t want to start school

Bill:

Sneaked out a lot

Dutch and Hosea get mad at him and demand to know where he is going

Psh, “nowhere”

Would take and store food in random locations to “save for later”

He and Arthur argued a lot at first before getting along

Took Arthur’s journal one time and started reading it while holding Arthur back as Arthur was trying to get it back/fight him

They didn’t talk for a long time after that and Bill actually felt bad about it

Eventually Bill started to skip school when Dutch and Hosea made him go back

Within his first week at school the school calls Hosea, saying that Bill never showed up once

The first month of living with his new family Bill was already grounded

Karen:

Still tried pulling scams with unsuspecting people

Hosea caught her, still giving her tips on how to improve on scamming people (since he did the same thing when he was younger)

Dutch took her clothes shopping and they were gone for hours

When they got home she made everyone sit in the living room as she displayed what new outfits they bought-Arthur: “Can we go now?”-Karen: “No. Now, which outfit should I wear for my first day of school?”-Arthur and Bill: Groans

She’s insistent that she goes to school sooner than Dutch and Hosea would like

Once she finishes her first week at school her phone is already filled up with phone numbers and texting constantly

Dutch says that if any boy hurts his little girl or breaks her heart that he would break his legs and his skull

Hosea tries to help her with her math homework but he gets frustrated because he doesn’t remember having to do this when he was in school

She tries to get to know Arthur, but he shuts himself out to almost everybody, so it was useless to try

She keeps everyone up at night with her phone constantly going off from phone calls/text messages

Tilly:

She cried. A lot.

Also prayed to God and her mother every morning and every night

Took her awhile to handle a room with Karen since she would talk on the phone for hours and snore at night

Always asked Dutch if there was anything she could do

Dutch told her to just relax and to enjoy herself

She tried desperately to find a hobby to enjoy

Then she saw a sewing machine ad on the TV

Hosea brought up her interest to Dutch, who bought it for her

She instantly made everyone little gifts with it

Karen took her shopping at the mall for hours while Dutch sat outside the shop waiting for them and was falling asleep waiting

Javier:

Had trouble communicating

He and Bill could never get along

Hosea always had to pull them apart when they got into fist fights

Hosea also helped him to improve reading

Scar across his neck that he was self conscious that everyone was looking or talking about it

Hated sharing a room with Bill, but liked sharing a room with Arthur

Arthur, Hosea, and Javier would all go out fishing together and it was Javier’s new favorite hobby

Of course, he’s also hooked on video games, but Arthur couldn’t understand how he could play it for hours and hours on end

School? Lame. He didn’t take school seriously for awhile until Hosea scared him into caring about it

Stayed up until 3am since he didn’t like to sleep because all he sees his good memories with him and his uncle

Lenny:

Heavily mourning over his father (who was killed in a drunk driving accident)

Didn’t want to talk to anyone but Hosea (since he was a family friend)

Eventually he opens up to Arthur

After that he never stops talking

Dutch is convinced that he’s not the same kid

It’s obvious that Hosea is his favorite dad

He’s excited to go back to school

Eventually he starts warming up to Dutch

They’re both bookworms and start discussing what books they were reading together

Not use to sharing a room since he was an only child- but now he knows he couldn’t ever sleep alone in a room again

Mary-Beth:

Was very quiet and didn’t want to draw attention to herself

Since food was something she never really had, she had a habit of checking the kitchen to make sure that there was enough food for everyone

Dutch always assured her that there would always be enough food, there would always be clothes, and there would always be a roof over their heads

She found that the internet was her getaway, making a whole life online that her new family wouldn’t understand

When she discovered cosplay she instantly went to Tilly, knowing that she made clothing

Once she got comfortable she was a chatterbox, especially with Arthur- asking about his day, telling him about her day, etc. and Arthur wasn’t used to the constant socialization

She writes in a diary every night before she goes to bed

The girls stuck closely together

Anime was quickly her new addiction

Dutch got her hooked on reading

John:

Literally was was always ready to fight/argue with any of his siblings/Dutch and Hosea

Once punched Bill in the gut for calling him “street rat”

Was always paranoid whenever Dutch and/or Hosea drove him anywhere

Pretty anxious and angry at everything

Dutch found that if they ‘took a walk’ he’d calm down

Javier was the one who introduced him to video games by allowing him to play Call of Duty on his Xbox 360

Call of Duty was his favorite game and that made Hosea worried that he was channeling his anger in the wrong place

He tried mimicking Arthur a lot

Bill would practice his WWE moves on him- slamming him down on the couch

Hosea spent weeks helping him learn to read and it frustrated John greatly since he wasn’t good at it

Sean:

Tried to keep his ADHD to himself as best as he could so he didn’t seem like a freak

Then Dutch took him aside, asking what was wrong- since he was acting differently than when he did when they first met

Sean confessed that he didn’t want to annoy his new siblings

He thought that for awhile until he saw how literally everyone was dedicated to pissing each other off

He and John shared a room and it consisted of:-Sean: “John? Do pigeons have feelings?”-John, after a pause: “Shut up, Sean.” but do they?

John showed him video games (by sneaking in to Javier’s room to play on his Xbox 360)

Minecraft was his new favorite thing

Hosea sat him down and talked to him about medicine for ADHD, Sean admitted that other families he lived with made him take meds for it and made him feel like a zombie- Hosea left the choice for him and would respect it

Seeing Arthur doing some sketches Sean wanted to take up drawing too- they’re stick figures but he still enjoyed it, and Dutch put them up on the fridge

As soon as Sean started warming up to everyone Dutch pulled Arthur aside, commenting that Sean reminded him of Arthur when he was about that age.

Charles:

Always started his chores early

Pretended to eat what was made so he wouldn’t be an inconvenience since he was a vegan

So he started making his own vegan meals

Super polite, but he was use to family enough to not put up with bullshit

Spent his spare time making crafts and taught his siblings how to make them as well

No matter how many times Sean and John tried to have him play video games he just couldn’t get into them

Tried to understand why Arthur was angry all the time but gave up when Arthur wasn’t going to budge

Always asked Dutch and Hosea if they needed help with anything

Never actually went to school before, so he had a hard time getting use to the swing of things

Quickly decides that history is his favorite subject

Micah:

He made a point to bully his siblings (especially the younger ones for no reason)

But always cried to Dutch when they decided to retaliate

Quickly realizes that he practically has Dutch wrapped around his finger

Forced to go to therapy because of what he’s been through

Hated it at first, now he can’t wait to see his therapist -”Holy shit, Jim, you will not believe what happened.”

Constantly has nightmares of his brother

At first, Lenny and Bill slept on the couches than shared a room with Micah- it hurt his feelings

Honestly never understood why nobody liked him

Was diganoised with bipolar disorder and was having trouble coping with it

He is/was pretty damn lazy

Sadie:

Was honestly a mess from the fire

She was either crying or yelling at Bill

Dutch was extremely patient with her

She would keep herself in her room all day long

It was hard for her to engage with the family at first

All she wanted to do was sleep

One day she went to the back yard to practice shooting

That’s when she taught Bill to shoot

They quickly became best friends

Almost overnight her personality changed from moping around to fitting right in with the family

Kieran:

He was extremely skittish/anxious

Everyone would playfully call him an O’Driscoll and he hated it

He had a bad habit of hoarding food

Always tried to get Dutch’s attention during inconvenient times- since he thought that Dutch didn’t like him

John and Sean taught him to play video games

He couldn’t ever stay asleep during the first few weeks

Hosea taught him to read

School was too hard for him

Turned out after a little effort he was a whiz at the English subject/spelling

Discovered that Youtube is a calm getaway

#Headcanons

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messedupessy · 6 years

Photo

HE IS HERE MY MR G SNAS DISASTER BOY (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Ahhh he is done, I didn’t think I would end up finishing him so damn soon as I need to finish other stuff but instead of working on my Halloween pic I instead ended up working on him instead pfft xD

And damn he turned out pretty damn good, I hadn’t planned on like going all out on him just to colour him a bit messily so I would know how he would look like but then I got carried away and I regret nothing, because look at this boy he looks amazing af man, really happy with his pose turned out so good, really happy with the colours especially the lab coat, pants and his slippers, his shirt too, his hoodie turned out a bit too shiny but it works, his sock covered feet I didn’t even try to do properly which is why they look like a mess, his hand looks hella weird, and the smoke turned out hella good like way better than I first thought as I just messed around a bit and then bam, really like it like srs, and his face turned out hella cute, he was not supposed to have freckles at first but then I wanted to see how he would look like with them and that was my down fall like usual pfft, because look at him those freckles fit him like a slipper in a glove! could had done something more with the hoodie strings a bit more wavy but they good, so yeah overall really like how this turned out! I realised some time after I had finished this that I forgot to add some stains and dirt on him as he is a disaster but guess he for once is clean pffft

And now time for some facts and backstory thingie because I have come up with my completely own take on this boy, because I can and I love doing my own take etc, so if you wanna know more about him just click the read more :D it turned out kind of long tho like frikking always pfft

Also he is about to drop his cigarette and burn himself

So, Mr G Snas as I like to call him or just G for short, might give him a different and proper nickname some other time maybe, he is of course a weird fusion of Sans and Gaster that part hasn’t changed, but what have changed is how this fusion happened and the reasons for it.

It all happened sometime before Gaster originally ended up falling into the core, him working like crazy on a different machine in the hopes of freeing the underground, so they could take revenge upon humanity for what they have done, and also to be reunited with his beloved spouse who had disappeared many years ago. In his search for them and a way of freeing monster kind Gaster started to experiment with “Determination”, by injecting it into himself which was really fucking stupid idea as it began to drive him insane alongside the fact that his soulmate, a term for soulbonded monsters which is like marriage but way, way deeper old school marriage etc, making him angrier much easier to snap and violent, unstable etc.

His current project was a portal/time machine, which he hoped to use to travel back in time before his spouse disappeared to save them and to also before monster kind got locked up. But Sans, his assistant and son, was hesitant to the whole idea like yeah it all sounded great in theory and could work but if any error were made there was a possibility of causing a rift through time and space, but his dad refused to listen to him which then caused them to end up in an argument.

Said argument occurred while Gaster was about to try out the machine, Sans had helped him out making sure the numbers were right, or as right as he could get them there were still something wrong with them an error he was unable to find, but which Gaster insisted on was fine let us start.

But Sans was still hesitant, and Gaster became frustrated and started yelling at him for being a lazy good for nothing etc, at which Sans had enough. For once he confronted his dad, telling him how dangerous this whole thing was how many things could go wrong especially when the numbers don’t even add up and it wasn’t like Gaster to be so reckless or be so well angry he had changed so much what is wrong with you.

Gaster then blew up on him and the both of them ended up in a bit of a scuffle, in where one of them neither are sure of who actually did it succeeded in pulling the lever to the machine activating it.

A portal immediately appeared and the both of them got sucked in, inside the both of them were literally torn apart in millions of pieces and then fused together into one entity, then the portal spat them out back into the lab where the machine broke down completely.

The two of them then woke up, no one else from the lab had yet to arrive at the scene, the two of them realized that they had now fused and now inhabited the same body but still kept their own minds intact.

Except it wasn’t just the two of them.

In the fusion somehow a third mind, a third person had been created when Sans and Gaster’s had fused, a person with no memories no knowledge no history, a literal blank slate, and this ladies, gentlemen and nonbinary peeps was G.

And that is how G was created, he alongside Sans and Gaster now reside in the same body with G been the main person, the one who controls the body while the other two are just two voices in his head.

Both Sans and Gaster want to return to normal, Sans is a bit more chill about it he has kind of accepted, given up, that he might never return to normal but he still really want to but he doesn’t want to end up killing G in the process, Gaster, on the other hand, is desperate to return to normal and don’t care if G ends up dying in the process, he doesn’t even consider G to be a real person he is a mistake.

And G, he really feels like he shouldn’t exist but at the same time really want to even though it would be better if Sans and Gaster got to return to themselves, but that would mean his maybe untimely demise so he doesn’t want to risk it if it means he might cease to exist. Like he would love to have his body as his own without the other two in his head but the chance of that happening is rather slim.

Now to more personality things.

G is a total dork, he is trying to find out who he really is as a person, tries to be cool and like mysterious but is failing really hard at it, like he is that awkward dad trying to be hip with the kids kind of thing, really clumsy, really bad humour, jokes at the worst times and is just a mess a disaster but he is doing his best, is really smart tho, really likes to tinker and do little gadgets which have a habit of exploding as he ignores the other two’s input and commentary when he makes them, he constantly does his best to ignore both Sans and Gaster as both of them pretty much comments on everything and tries to stop him from doing dumb shit, at least Gaster try to, which G ignores completely, he is pretty reckless a bit yolo over him, constantly does dumb shit, is often covered in a bunch of stains of oil etc, depression humour at times, gets along better with Sans as Gaster is a turd and is constantly trying to take over his body, doesn’t sleep much in fear of Gaster trying to take him over while he snoozes, G sew on the hoodie himself onto the lab coat as he felt it was missing something using one of Sans hoodies.

And that is all you get on him for now didn’t plan on writing this much but I should had known as this always happens pfft xD

#undertale #g sans #g!sans #gaster!sans #MessedUpEssy #Essy's Art #Essy's Undertale Art #Essy's Undertale Headcanons #shit I love this boy #he is such a disaster like srs #it's one of my fave things to call him just disaster boy #because he is one #but damn do i love him #there is so many fun things I can do with him #like got so many ideas with him and sans and gaster talking to him in his head and he just want nothing to do with them #or at least not with gaster because gaster is an arse #yes #his slippers are too small for him #as they are sans slippers #damn feels good to have him done tho #and all the facts etc too ye #not what i had planned on doing today but it was worth it #now time to finally frikking eat and then chill #and go to bed earlish maybe as my internet is out for the month and i have to use my phones pfft #Essy OC Refs

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throughtheglassdarkly · 5 years

Text

Roadblocks, part 1

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” – Anne Lamott

Hey, you’re back. Welcome to hell.

So, after Pam got the note from Cassi, we all settled into our usual routine for a couple of days, but all of us were on edge. Bella ended up going back to work but asked us for some space. I started doing a little digging into some questions I had about what happened after I was taken. The others focused on getting their own projects done.

Our next big adventure started on an otherwise lazy Sunday morning. After the blowup with Day’s and Bella’s Fetches and hearing from Yova how her Fetch went bonkers, I realized I couldn’t ignore my Fetch anymore and I needed to track it down. My Facebook page gave me a few hints. Before I was taken, I had posts set to private, but check-ins and some photos were public. My Fetch hadn’t changed the security settings, so I was able to see that it was still doing things. I figured the best way to look for it was to simply re-trace my steps and go to the places I used to go before I was taken.

I ended up striking gold at my old apartment building. I was waiting around for about twenty minutes, trying to see some sign of life (the fading “O’NEILL, D.” sticker next to the buzzer at least let me know it hadn’t moved on) and was about to give up, when I saw it coming down the street carrying a couple bags of groceries. As it got up to the front of the building, it dropped its keys and sighed, kneeling down to pick them up. I steeled myself and stepped up, asking, “Need some help?”

It looked up at me and its eyes went about as wide as I’ve ever seen. Looking down at it was – unnerving. It was just like looking at myself before I was taken. A couple of years older, but the same messy hair, same beard growth, even the same glasses. The feeling passed after a moment, but for a second it was like I was questioning who I was. The Fetch started freaking out, trying to grab its keys and telling me it didn’t want any trouble.

I let out a sigh and reached out, jiggling the doorknob to the front door of the building in the way it used to let you open it even if you forgot your keys and propped the door for the Fetch. It looked wary but picked up its groceries and stepped inside. “Thanks,” it said, still looking like it was going to bolt at any second. “So why are you here?” I shrugged and said, “I got back. Wanted to see what was going on. If you were still here.” It shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Well, I’m here,” it said. “You still doing data entry?” I asked. “Yeah,” it said. There was a minute of silence. I exhaled and asked the question I didn’t really want the answer to: “Let me guess, mom and dad haven’t reached out to you at all, have they?” It paused for a second and said, “No. And I feel like I should be pissed about that… but I’m really not.”

I didn’t know how to react to that. I haven’t told you a lot about my life before I got taken, but cliffs’ notes version is that my entire extended family is blue-collar Catholic mill workers and my folks didn’t react well at all when I came out. Not in the “Get out, we’re never talking to you again” routine, but in some ways that would have been easier. They just had a blow up and then refused to ever acknowledge it again. And over time, that turned into not really acknowledging me at all. When I learned that they hadn’t tried to contact me for the entire two and a half years I’d been gone, it… felt like something broke. Like it was just more confirmation that they really hadn’t cared about me at all. They didn’t even notice I was gone because they’d barely even noticed I was there.

My Fetch was waiting for me to say and do something, so I shook my head and told it that it could have my life, that I didn’t want it back. It slammed the door to my old apartment and I heard the deadbolt turn. I turned and started walking off. As I did, I saw a sleek red Mustang across the street, definitely a car that was out of place in my old neighborhood, with a driver wearing a scarf over her head and giant sunglasses, but she drove off before I could get a good look at her. My hands were shaking, so I put them in my hoodie pockets and just kept heading away.

While this was going on, Day was fixing up his office. He’d gotten a new ID and name, Lance Wilde, which I’d helpfully pointed out was also the name of several fine performers in man-on-man pornographic features. His office was nicely decorated, courtesy of Yova, but he’d been having trouble getting clients to come in. He heard a knock at the door and opened it to see Brenda standing there with some coffee. They had banter about his terrible new name and how she’d make a good wife someday. She ribbed him about not having any clients and he said, “Hey, it’s gonna happen! I just need a few high-profile clients!” “High-profile clients. In Albany,” she deadpanned.

It turned out that Brenda hadn’t just stopped by to give him a coffee – Bella’s parents were in town from Chicago and they’d filed a missing persons report. “They say she’s been missing for something like a few days now,” she said. Day took in a deep breath and said, “Oh, shit. That’s a big problem.” Brenda told him that she couldn’t dissuade them from looking for their kid, and that they were not going to just go away.

“Can’t we fake it by sending a note or something, make it look like she’s okay but going to be away for a while?” Day asked. Brenda scoffed and said, “You haven’t met her parents. And there were at least three siblings waiting outside while I was talking to them.” “Man, when things go wrong,” Day said, downing his coffee. Brenda said that she had to go to work and he asked if she wouldn’t mind going out to breakfast with him. “Do you actually want me to hang out with you?” she asked. He scoffed but admitted he missed their banter and she agreed to go get a breakfast sandwich with him. “Yes! You’re paying, right?” he asked. “Dude, I still have your tab from before you got grabbed,” she kvetched as they headed out.

Bella and Yova were having quiet mornings. Bella was at work, selling crystals, sage, and delicate hand-blown glass pieces that were totally not bongs to anyone who was stopping in. Yova was in DIY mode, hunched over her sewing machine and making a very fancy outfit for the upcoming Winter Formal. (She’d shown me some sketches and I told her that Marigold was going to be completely swept off her feet.) Both of them, however, were about to have things turned completely upside down, as were Day and I. And who was responsible for this? Dear, sweet, I-don’t-wanna-be-a-bother Pam.

Pam was having a rare lazy morning, sleeping in well past the time she’d set her alarm for. Changelings have pretty much near-control over our dreams: we can make them just how we want them to be, featuring anyone and anything we want in them. Pam was dreaming about the wonders of space, sitting and watching the stars and the expanse of the universe, while sipping a nice apple cider that maybe had just a touch of brandy in it. And that’s when the trouble started.

As Pam was enjoying her stargazing, she felt a ripple in the air and suddenly saw mossy greens growing up into her dreamscape. The path of stars she was sitting on became a forest floor and the comets started to become vines. She saw a small figure walking ahead, looking confused and walking around. Pam stood and walked toward the figure, closing the distance a lot quicker than she should have been able to, and greeting whoever it was. The hood the figure had on fell back and Pam saw Cassi, an absolute shit-eating grin on her face. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe that actually worked!” she said.

Pam gave Cassi a huge hug and told her how good it was to see her. Cassi squeezed back and said, “You would not believe the crap that’s been going down. There’s not a lot of time to explain, I don’t know how much time I’ve got here. Crap, where do I start? Quick, ask me a question.” Pam was a little startled, but asked, “How’s everyone doing?” “I’m fine, I think Adrian and Luca are fine, Belle’s probably not fine, but she’s never really been fine, so that’s not new. But yeah. Amberleigh’s still a bitch and everybody else is just trying to keep her happy, as far as I know. It’s been a while since I’ve been at the keep.”

“And you said you’re working on getting out, right?” Pam asked. “Yeah, actually, that’s a work in progress,” Cassi told her. “It’s more I’m trying to bust them out. When you guys left, Amberleigh went, like, shit hit the actual fan and she wasn’t too happy about us letting you guys go. I managed to get away, but she’s got the others locked up somewhere. I don’t know. I can’t get in, they shut off that cave entrance. There’s not a lot in the way of safeness for one changeling in the whole of Arcadia. So, I’m working on it.”

“And how did you find out about your dad?” Pam asked. “Well, I’m not exactly good at getting things in, but Adrian’s good at getting things out,” Cassi said with a sly smile. “He finds a way. I don’t know how he finds me – well, that’s not true, psychic, but that’s not important – the thing is I need help.” Pam promised to help and asked her what she needed. “I need people here. I need some sort of allies or tools or something to be able to get back in, but I don’t want – I can’t actually get back here if I leave. It’s weird, like only the fae know how to get back to Arcadia. Or only the people they let know. So, any way you guys can try to get back here would be great.”

Pam thought for a second and said, “I think Yova might know something about this.” She told Cassi about the Summer Court and its ideals, which Cassi thought was awesome. “But I don’t have a lot of time. I bought this dream teleporter thing off some weird guy and it’s probably going to blow up if I use it too much.” She told Pam to tell the rest of us she missed us and that when we got in, she was hiding near the border between Scáthach’s and Lamashtu’s territory. “Amberleigh’s been doing what Scáthach did, trying to snap up whatever she can. She’s actually doing a lot better job of it than Scáthach ever did.” With that, she vanished.

While Pam was dreaming a little dream of Cassi, Yova got a text from Marigold, asking her if Brenda was free for the interview she was hoping for that day. She signed off as she always did, “Best regards, Marigold.” Yova cooed a little over that, then told Marigold she would check in with Brenda. She called Brenda, who was halfway through Day eating the restaurant they were in out of house and home. Brenda told Yova that she could meet Marigold around dinnertime because she had a long shift ahead of her.

While Yova was on the phone with Pam, Pam sent out a group chat message to all of us, giving us the skinny on what her dream had been about. I was a few blocks away from my old apartment when I felt my phone buzz, pulled it out and stopped dead in my tracks, my head feathers sticking up and out in every direction. Day got the message and swallowed a sausage roll whole, making his way over to Pam’s quickly. Yova grabbed her work clothes and sped over in her new car (RIP her crappy Jeep, which met an ignoble end after it wouldn’t start in the Arby’s parking lot). I decided to run, burning up the pavement as fast as I could go. Day saw me coming down the street and started saying, “Hold up there, I don’t see a coyote.” I was in no mood, so I just kept going straight at him and jumped with all my force, barely clearing his head and continuing on up to Pam’s door. Yova pulled up just after this. Day seemed nonplussed.

You might notice that there’s one of us who didn’t react much to what was going on. Bella was at work and just kept going about her business, not responding to Pam’s text. It wasn’t long after this that she heard the bell chime and saw two uniformed police officers come in. Trying to play it cool, she said, “Oh, welcome! Can I offer you something from our selection of frankincense or sage? They’re very good at warding off malevolent spirits.” The cops looked like they wanted to say something snarky, but one of them said they wanted to talk to her about a missing person. Around this time, Professor Fauxlawney came in and asked what was going on. The cops filled her in and Fauxlawney asked Bella on the DL if she needed an immigration lawyer. Bella managed to keep from punching her in the face, suggesting that she spread some lavender. One of the cops asked Bella if she would be willing to come down to the precinct to answer some questions about a missing person she resembled. She agreed to go if they would let her call “her roommate.” She dialed Day’s number.

Back at Pam’s apartment, she was finishing up telling those of us who made it over what Cassi had told her. I would really love to say that I was keeping calm and collected, but I’d needed a paper bag to breathe in and out of since about halfway through her story. Yova and Day both came up with the idea of going to the Summer Court and asking them for help, though Yova also pointed out that Aurora could be a way to get back into Arcadia, and that we had the list of locations Buck had provided us about where she might be. Day’s phone rang and he got the call from Bella, who was trying to let him know how much shit was about to hit the fan. He got her to describe the cops and realized he knew one of them from his time on the force. “Okay, listen to me. You are obviously not who they are looking for, so just go along with them and we’ll figure some way to get you out of this,” he told her. They hung up and she agreed to go along with the cops. We all piled into Yova’s car and drove off to the station, putting a pin in our rescue planning for the moment.

On the way over to the station, the cops were trying to talk to Bella about who she was with the usual gentle coaxing they do to try and convince you that you aren’t in trouble. She managed to stay clammed up the entire time, so they just escorted her inside. And then the trouble started.

Bella saw her oldest brother, Antonio, arguing very heavily with one of the beat cops. And Bella, beautiful idiot that she is, immediately cracked. She called out to him and he ran over, scooped her up, and gave her a huge hug. She started crying. He asked her where she’d been and she pulled the classic little sister move by crying so loud the glass in the station windows started cracking. Through her hiccoughing and crying she asked him if they could go somewhere else and he practically dragged her outside.

In the car, we were discussing the various ways in which we might try to get Bella out of this mess. And it was around then that I heard my phone ding. I looked at it and saw a message from Bella. “Hi, Derek! I’m with my brother outside the station right now!” along with a couple of happy emojis. I paused, staring at it for a few minutes. Then when Yova came to a stop at a red light, I said, “Hey guys? I just got a text from Bella. She’s hanging out with her brother right now.” All the oxygen got sucked out of the car. Yova wordlessly reached over to the Bluetooth and changed the song playing to “O Fortuna.”

I texted back, “Just stay where you are, don’t say anything crazy, and try to stay calm so that when we get there, we can strangle you properly.”

Antonio and Bella ended up sitting in a park outside of the station and he asked her what the hell happened. “Why did you guys freak out so bad?” she asked. He told her that she’d dropped off the face of the earth and hadn’t posted on Facebook or Instagram for two days and wasn’t answering her phone. “If you’re getting second thoughts, that’s one thing, but you can’t just leave and not tell anybody,” he told her. This, combined with the ring, finally made the synapses in her brain connect and she realized her Fetch did get engaged.

“No, I don’t want to get married,” she said. “Oh, thank God,” he said. He told her that he could cover for her until she broke things off with Carlos, but that they should get dinner that night and that almost their entire family was in town. “What? Why are they all here?” she asked. “We were worried,” he said. Bella wasn’t sure about dinner and was particularly worried about her dad, but Antonio told her that their dad was probably going to just be glad she was alive. “Carlos wasn’t… hurting you, was he? Because if I need to break some knees…” he said. She cut him of at the pass and said absolutely not, that she just realized she was not ready at all to get married.

“I’m just glad you decided on things a month in and not right before the wedding,” Antonio told her, much to her relief. He realized she needed some space and said he would head out, but made her promise to call him later that day. “I’ll talk to mom and dad, but you know we’re not getting out of dinner,” he said. “Maybe I can postpone it a couple of nights, but they’re going to want something for coming all the way out here.” As he was about to leave, he took a second look and asked, “By the way, when did this goth look happen?” She shrugged and said, “Well, it’s kind of always been in there, but when you have to be a certain way for everyone else…” He gave her a hug and told her he’d call her later before he made his way off.

We’d pulled up outside the park shortly before Tony left and Yova was the one to take the lead, heading up to Bella and sitting down next to her, asking if things worked out okay. Bella was still shaken but realized things worked out better than they might have. “And apparently she got engaged to somebody,” she told Yova. Yova gently tried to remind her that we told her about that the night of the rave. “I don’t remember any of it,” Bella said. She squared her shoulders and told Yova how Tony wanted her to go have dinner with her family. “Do you want to go have dinner with them?” Yova asked. Bella started crying, talking about how much she missed her family, and Yova hugged her, suggesting they go back to Pam’s and talk about something else so she could get her mind off it. Bella agreed and we all got back into Yova’s car, heading to Pam’s.

Our first order of business was trying to figure out who, if anybody, we could call about getting backup on storming the castle. Pam reiterated what she’d told Cassi about the Summer Court and Day and Yova both agreed that it sounded like something along the lines of what the Summer Court was all about. “Do you think the Autumn Court might also be able to help?” Pam asked me. I thought for a second and said, “I’ll try calling Stella. She’s not going to want to come, but she might be able to tell me who can help us. Or who can help us crack the riddle about getting them out. And I’m going to call Evain, too. He’ll definitely be on board.”

I stepped out onto the balcony for some privacy and called Stella’s number. It rang and rang and just as I thought it was going to go to voicemail, she picked up. “It’s Stella, state your business,” she said with her trademark warmth and sympathy. “Hi, Stella, it’s Derek. I was wondering if maybe you could help point me in the right direction of anyone in our Court who knows how to deal with a couple of things that might seem completely unrelated at first but actually have a lot more to do with each other than it looks,” I said. “Speak,” she told me. “First, anyone who might be able to help us get back into Arcadia and break out some of our friends who we had to leave behind when we escaped, and second, anyone who might know how to untangle contracts and agreements with the True Fae.” There was a single beat of a pause. Then she said, “As to the first inquiry, are you insane? And as to the second, possibly. I will look into it and call you back within the hour.” I got out, “Thanks, Ste-” before I heard the *click* on the other end.

The second call I made was to Evain. Like Stella’s call, it rang for a few times before he answered, saying, “Hey, Derek, what’s up?” I said, “Hey, buddy. Wanted to let you know we’re about to break back into Arcadia to try and bust Cassi and our other friends out and I was checking to see if you wanted in?” A full thirty seconds of dead silence went by. Then he said, “Yes. Yes, I do. Holy shit. I would be insulted if you thought I didn’t want in.” We talked for a few minutes about supplies or anything we might get and he told me that he’d ask around, but things were probably going to be difficult to find outside of the Goblin Markets. “Oh, and just so you know, Cassi says she’s punching you in the face when she sees you,” I said. He paused for a second and said, “Yeah, that’s fair. I deserve it.” “You totally do. Catch you soon, dude,” I said.

While I was doing this, Yova was calling the Summer Court. She only had the one number to contact and was hoping to get Cahir and not Dania on the line. However, she ended up hearing a new voice she hadn’t encountered before, a woman’s voice that was inviting and oily all at the same time. She introduced herself as The Red Lady and asked Yova what she could do to help. Yova explained the situation and the Red Lady said, “Interesting. I’d love to hear the story, but I’m frankly not sure what the benefit to our Court would be and the resources spent would be extreme, to say nothing of the risks.” Yova was grinding her molars by this point, but she had to admit The Red Lady had a point when she said, “We’re here to keep the Fae at bay, not to pick fights.” Yova did her best to schmooze The Red Lady by asking if there was any information or advice she could get, which The Red Lady seemed to think was fair enough. She thanked Yova for passing the information along and hung up.

Yova joined me out on the balcony, where I was white-knuckling the railing. She pulled out a cigarette and asked me if I wanted one. “No thanks, I don’t smoke, even though I would look so grown-up doing so,” I said. She gave me a look and held it out. I sighed and said, “Fine,” then took it and put it in my mouth, chewing on it. Pam, Bella, and Day came over to the frame by the balcony and we tried to figure out what our next step was going to be. “I hate to say it, but I think it’s time for us to pay an old friend a visit,” Yova said. “Yeah. She is definitely overdue on hearing from us,” I said. “This whole thing is freaking nuts,” Day said. “But what choice do we have? We can’t leave them there. We already left them there once,” Yova said.

I straightened my back, looking out over the city and thinking about what had happened that day. From the queasiness over talking to my Fetch to Bella actually managing to get her life back to the possibility of getting everyone – especially Adrian – back, it had been a complete roller-coaster of a day. “Yeah. We’re not leaving them there. I’m not going to leave them there,” I said.

And that’s as good a place as any to stop for now. Next time, war preparations and other shenanigans. Until then, stay safe and may you never get snubbed by your doppelganger.

#Changeling: The Lost #ctl #changeling #ic #recap #the answer is yes stella we are completely insane for even attempting this

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read-red · 6 years

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Portrait #3

Ladies and gentlemen we’re back at it with another friend but the same camera...another portrait This week’s guest is Lea Aka Katchan Cosplay . We were classmates back in the days when I was studying manga. I slowly watched her passion for cosplay grow and decided it was the right time to harass her for photos... So without further ado lets dive into that interview !!

Me to her: How did you get into cosplay? (we were classmates but I never noticed her interest for cosplay)

Her: I think it was back in 2k14, I went to Japan Expo (last time was a while, like since 2011). So I went with a cosplay that I had bought, but it was an ugly ass cosplay of Asuna from Sword Art Online you know? I just had this cosplay and a wig , I didn’t have any make up on.... But I wanted to try and people still took pictures of me. I enjoyed the posing and stuff so later I wanted to do it seriously. Also seeing other Cosplayers I thought you really don’t wanna do this like it did.

Me to her: So after all this where did you start?

Her: My first real cosplay was Ahri ( League Of Legends champion ), and this one I bought from an other cosplayer. I worked for like a month to get it because it cost like 300 bucks so... And from there I started making efforts on wigs and make up looking at tutorials, bought a sewing machine... Then I did my own first cosplay, it was Kurisu from steins gates you know? I enjoy doing its myself as well as buying it, specially when I’m lazy :3

Me to her: How did you choose your nickname?

Her: hmm, since I was 12 it kinda was my nickname, because with a friend we used to call ourselves kit and kat.. so that’s where it’s from.

Me to her: So you went to Japan right? did you start over there?

Her: No I started here in France, for like a year or so and yes I kept going on in Japan and it made me “level up” (big time). They have all these make up techniques and stuff so my posing a make up improved in japan.

Me to her: right, because you had the opportunity to meet other cosplayers in Japan?

Her: yeah, I met people and I went to conventions. They have a different way of seeing cosplay, they’re more professional. Like, they don’t go to these conventions to have a good time they’re going to work so... That definitely inspired me.

Me to her: So did some photographs take pictures of you?

Her: Yeah, some good ones took pictures of me. and I also met some famous cosplayers. Not necessarily from Japan but from Asia in general.

Me to her: How do you choose your cosplay and what’s your workflow?

Her: First I choose from an anime or video game I know and like. If I have no affinity then it can’t really work.

Then, usually the chara-design catches my eye. The personality of the character matters too, if it’s in opposition with my own personality or I don’t like it I just can’t... Then I look at the costume’s level, like...if it’s too hard I’ll just buy it ... I don’t want it to look bad because I can’t make it myself. If I can do it, I start by drawing the patterns in a sketchbook and then I buy the fabric. I often go to the Saint-peter market (Marché Saint-Pierre) in paris. After what comes the full size patterns and the sewing.

Me to her: So how is the sewing practice?

Her: it’s tough, and I’m not that patient so...Like some times I think its gonna be so simple but the machine is not working as you intend it to, the thread is gonna jam...yeah...its painfull.

Me to her: Have you seen some of the USA’s cosplayers? who is on top of the game? Japan? Us? Europe?

Her: I think on the international scene Europe is not that bad you know? Then US definitely rocks too, specially with the patreon girls. But yeah we’ve got some good ones in Europe, creating great armors or fabric costumes. I feel like Japanese are very good with their photos, like they make some dope photos but they have their own network and they don’t really export their work, you don’t hear that much from them. Oh and the Taiwanese and Chinese are popular too.

Me to her: What was the craziest cosplay you’ve ever seen?

Her: humm, let me think..i’ve seen so many.

I remember a Blackthorn Morgana ( League Of Legends champion ) cosplay back in Japan Expo. It’s was crazy, she had the tree bark done, the feather of the wings were all hand made...it was really impressive. That is one of the best work I’ve seen.

Me to her: What cosplay did you enjoyed the most?

Her: hmmm...it’s hard to say...in terms of embodying a character I really enjoy Spider Gwen. She’s my favorite.

Me to her: how do you consider going on with cosplay?

Her: Still like a hobby, no restrain, just me doing cosplay when ever I want. But I’ll admit if I could go pro and make a living out of it I’d do it. Even if I had to take requests from time to time, because an anime is working and I have to promote, it wouldn’t bother me because it’s a passion and what I like is the make-up, the role play aspect and all. I know that going pro wouldn’t be a restrain and I would enjoy it.

Me to her: I saw that you have a Tomboy side, tell me more about it.

Her: Yeah, I do some crossplay, which means I make Masculine characters. I make it so I really look like a boy. That’s also an aspect I really like about cosplay because: on one hand I can play a sexualized character and on the other hand you can just play a dude, I think it’s so cool.

Like that time where I was in a convention dressed as a boy and when kids really thought I was a boy, that was funny.

Me to her: Any thing funny happened to you?

Her: oh yeah, one time I was going to a shooting at the Trocadéro (facing the Eiffel tower) and I had to wear a mask so me being early I thought I’de put the mask to buy some time. But once I got it on people started to gather around me and later 2 cops came in asking me about the mask and stuff. So then I explained what I was doing and one of the cops started saying that his daughter was watching that anime. We laughed and then they said that I could help them defend Paris. it was funny but i really thought they were going to peace me off...

Me to her: If you could send a message to your past-self or your future-self which one would you choose?

Her: hmmm the past I think.

Me to her: what would you say?

Her: Don’t give up and go for it !

Well that wraps it up, thank you for reading this interview, tcheck out Kat’s link https://www.instagram.com/katchan_cosplay/ . Don’t forget to sub for more of these organic experiences !

#Photo #people #cosplay #katchan #kat #red #portrait

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icybeanheadcanons · 7 years

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Hihi~ I know I said I'd drop this by a while back, but I wanted to wait till your ask box was calmer so you wouldn't feel overwhelming 💖 What are your headcanons for the different Gasters, if you don't mind? (Like before, please feel free to take as long as you'd like to answer; it's always worth it!) ~

I was wondering when I'd see this ask in my box. Bless you for waiting for my ask box to calm down. It really helped.

Gaster Headcanons

Undertale

Goop

-Royal scientist as we all know

-holy fucking memes. The memes never stop it seems. Probably Alphys who introduced him to them.

-plays piano, and composed a piece of music for his boys. He taught Classy Bean how to play piano.

-The dad jokes never stop.

-bad habit of forgetting to eat when he works on his experiments

-SCIENCE. The more complex the science, the more interested he is.

-what’s sleep? He forgets to sleep. A lot.

-his sleep schedule is so out of whack oh my god. His internal clock is fucking jacked up.

-adores kids, and kids tend to adore him.

-Dotes on the people he cares for, and made sure he made time for his kids.

-Classy Bean’s love for science comes from him.

-Tale’s love of puzzles is from him.

-Puzzles are wonderful he loves them

-Coffee is his savior okay

-When he isn’t working on something he loves, he’s pretty lazy.

-made a scrapbook of sans and started on one for papyrus before he fell into the core.

-was a great dad until he fell into the core.

-Wasn’t completely erased from existence after falling into the core. Nobody dared speak of him, (it hurt too much) though many forgot him, a few never could. These people include Classy Bean, Toriel, Asgore, and Alphys.

-the void is the worst place ever, but now he’s able to watch his boys grow up and check in on them. Its the best he can to be there for them. He wishes he could do more.

-Classy Bean’s machine isn’t to other multiverses. It’s him trying to make a door to the void so he can have his dad again.

-Always hums the tune he made for Classy Bean and Tale when they go to bed, almost as if he’s singing them a lullaby. Whenever he seems to do this Classy Bean seems to be able to go to sleep that night. He hopes it’s because of him.

-6 ft. tall by default, but he goop now so he can shift to being a bit taller or being much shorter.

-loves dogs. Annoying Dog is an actual dog that fell into the underground. Some animals fall in all the time, and the dog was one of them. Gaster took the dog in as a pet which is why Annoying Dog is around Tale and Classy Bean so much. Annoying Dog though has become the town’s dog.

-Alphys was the one to get him out of the void. She had found a weak spot in the void so he could step out. It was a really dangerous operation and she was trembling with the phone when she called Classy Bean in a panic.

-Classy Bean Shortcuts him and Tale to the lab immediately. He’s still pretty goopy from the void, but Classy Bean runs to him already sobbing.

-Goop is crying too, scooping his boy into his arms. Tale hardly remembers him but he gets pulled into a hug too. Goop lives with his boys now.

Underfell

Grump

-Super fucking cautious holy shit.

-Red Boy whenever he’d go out to play had this lecture he’d have to go through, a list of everything he’d taught him.

-Ha, he was never alone though. He watched over him, stalking him through town because he was worried.

-He’s the one who installed several thousand locks on the house. The windows have puzzle locks. Ain’t no one crawling through windows.

-He was super strict with Red Boy and Soft Edge, but behind closed doors super affectionate and loving.

-He taught them to stick together. No matter what. They’re family and they are going to be the only ones to trust down in the underground. He was enforcing tight bonds as much as he fucking could.

-Taught Red Boy piano and how to sew.

-Made all of Red Boy’s and Soft Edge’s clothes by hand.

-Taught Red Boy some science along with Soft Edge. Soft Edge vaguely remembers it.

-When he went out with his boys he would pick them up and carry them. No excuses. He couldn’t let them trail behind. Sure killing children was frowned upon but it didn’t really stop monsters from doing it. The harsh punishment didn’t always get carried out when they couldn’t find the culprit unfortunately.

-Was friends with Jerkby, who was a bit older than Red Boy. Probably about three years. Jerkby didn’t have parents, they were dusted after all, and he’d allow Jerkby to stay in the shed (Jerkby refused to step inside a stranger’s house). When they grew closer where Jerkby trusted him more he let him stay in the house.

-When he disappeared into the core they were all still relatively young. Jerkby got rougher, and meaner. Red Boy is the only reason he kept any bit of kindness that he had beforehand.

-He was violent in the void. He hadn’t ever killed anyone really just beated them to near death before leaving them alone. So he’d never been outright violent. The void made him beyond angry though.

-When the barrier breaks, the void wavers enough from the pulse to let him out, and he immediately tracks down his boys.

-Red Boy almost threw a bone attack at him until he realized it was possibly his dad.

-Soft Edge doesn’t buy it, but the uncanny resemblance to his hazy memory is too much for him to deny. He is the one who demands to hear the his story.

-Red Boy quizzes him on things only he would know and he passes with flying colors. As soon as he does Red Boy is LAUNCHING HIMSELF AT HIS FATHER.

-Red Boy cries for the first time in a long time, and honestly he can’t blame him. He’s holding back tears himself.

-He’s so proud of his boys and who they’ve become. He’s proud of Red Boy for not trusting him immediately. It meant he did his job to keep him safe in the underground. He’s proud of Soft Edge for achieving his goals. So what they’re rough around the edges? They’re alive.

-They live together on the surface.

-He’s 8 ft tall. He likes to tease Red Boy for ending up short.

-The surface??? Is so different??? He’s baffled.

-There’s cute shit and edgy shit. How the fuck is he supposed to choose between these things. He’s serious.

-Very indecisive when choosing shit. Like he likes both the cute things and edgy things. Though he leans toward edgy more, it’s hard for him to deny anything cute.

-He’s all about adapting to new living situations, so he’s proactively trying to improve.

-Literally makes notes on a notepad so he doesn’t forget what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

-Watches some TV to figure out some basic interactions. Red Boy and Soft Edge also help him learn.

-he’s still a little rougher around the edges than his boys though. It’s surprisingly difficult for him to wrap his head around a peaceful environment.

-He argued with his boys on how many locks they needed for the door. They went with 3. The windows have 1 basic lock much to his irritation.

-oh my god he hates country and the pop genres. He thinks their bullshit and the grate on his nerves.

-his aura is terrifying and so he’s very difficult to approach.

-He fucking loves cats. He wants 20 of them. Soft Edge constantly tells him no. “WHY THE FUCK NOT?”

-Okay he knows he’s supposed to love the sky and the surface but could the sun shut the fuck up??? Just??? Turn down the brightness.

-He discovers quickly that he isn’t a morning person. Mornings are awful and whenever someone greets him with good morning he stares them dead in the eye looking utterly exhausted as he says, “There are no good mornings.”

-Please get him coffee. He is dying. No he’s not being dramatic get him fucking coffee. (he’s being a dramatic lil shit)

Underswap

Oddball

-He’s not the riverperson. He’s still the royal scientist. But it seems as though he has more of Riverperson’s personality.

-Ya know Goop? And his dad jokes? Increase ten fold.

-Speaks in riddles it sounds like, but he’s just talking I swear.

-Look at his boys!!! His boys are good. He’s kind of,,, a weird dad. A parent figure who doesn’t know shit about raising a child let alone two.

-When Honey Bear showed interest and an advanced understanding in science and other things he instantly jumps on this chance to teach him.

-He’s a semi decent teacher. Some of the material went over Honey Bear’s head which frustrated him. He’d try to explain only making it worse. Honey Bear had random clicks of when it suddenly occurred to him what he was talking about and he’d become very angry at his past self because it was so easy.

-A chaotic neutral kind of person.

-what a fucking brat holy hell. Shit eating grins are his signature smile.

-He loves to go around and calling random things cursed for no apparent reason.

-enjoys the looks of horror and confusion from people when he does something odd again.

-When he disappeared everyone was confused. No one knew what happened to him except the King and Queen along with Honey Bear and Sassberry.

-He’d only been able to teach Sassberry some music theory, and Honey Bear sewing. He was very disappointed.

-spent his time in the void listing what he was gonna teach his sons. It kept him from going insane.

-During a reset, he was spit out of the void like a spitting bullet when they arrived to the surface. He keeps a close eye on Chara to make sure they don’t reset. Who knows what’ll happen if they did, he’s finally out and he refuses to go back to the void. Chara is semi terrified of him and making him made so they refuse to reset. Even went to the point of breaking the reset button. This makes things a million times better between the two.

-The day he disappeared he had asked Honey Bear a riddle. “How is a raven like a writing desk?”

-Honey Bear tackled him to the ground he was so happy to see him, and the first thing he says to him, “I’ve been thinking about it for what feels like 50 years of how a raven is like a writing desk and I need to know. How?” He shrugs and gives him a shit eating grin. “How would I know I’ve been in the void for 50 years.” Honey Bear is screaming.

-He lives with his sons after that still though.

-He is a mess to live with. He leaves shit everywhere and he has to ask constantly where he put something down.

-Sweet tooth. He visits Sweetby’s cafe often and has become good friends with him.

-doesn’t make puns but he thoroughly enjoys hearing Honey Bear make them.

-He’s 5’4. Taller than one son, shorter than the other. He’s fine with this.

-he’s very poor at reading a room. He says such weird shit that people generally have a hard time understanding him, but when he gets weird awkward stares is when he figures out he needs to probably shut up and pay attention to what the fuck is going on.

-He wants to teach people things.

-loves to learn and he grabs too many fucking books at once to learn something.

-Seems to oddly? Be a genius at languages and he quickly learns French, German, and Russian.

-makes random noises because he feels like it while he does things. Sometimes it’s just random humming other times it’s squawking.

-kind of has hipster tastes but just cause he likes really weird shit.

-loves spicy food that feels like you’re standing on the surface of the sun.

Swapfell

Worrywort

-Paranoia and anxiety bean

-also the royal scientist.

-He double checks his work about a hundred times before doing anything.

-He’s the epitome of internal screaming, but is calm on the outside.

-A fondness for riddles. He doesn’t indulge them often because it pisses off a lot of monsters.

-taught his boys how to hide and keep out of trouble. He also taught them ambush attacks, and other guerilla tactics. It was in case they ever got in a fight. Hit and run tactics would keep them alive.

-Is an amazing at strategy for combat surprisingly. He learned about it because of how the underground became so vicious.

-he has a billion locks on the doors. Windows have iron bars he welded on them. They’re wide enough for hands to reach through and open the window but that’s it.

-Was a very stressed bean with his work as the royal scientist. He brought his boys to the lab constantly just so he could relax enough to work.

-Undyne worked with him closely, and ended up becoming friends with Rus. Undyne ended up being a close family friend.

-Voice of reason. Please don’t do the thing. That thing is bad. How does he know? It’s literally written on the thing.

-When they started working on the core, he started writing notes for the boys. They were full of advice, and reminding them he loved them very much. He made them in case something bad happened because of how dangerous the project was.

-HE TOLD UNDYNE THE CORE NEEDED TO HAVE RAILS.

-He fell in during a check on the process of putting up rails.

-Undyne kept an eye on Rus and Scaryberry for him, but could only do so much since she was the new royal scientist. She kept them afloat for as long as they needed. He appreciated this deeply. He noticed she took care of them financially for as long as she could.

-he blames himself for Scaryberry’s anxiety and Rus’s extreme levels of stress. That was… his bad. He must have looked rather frantic to the kids which couldn’t have been very good for them.

-He spent a lot of time crying in the void. At least they had his letters to look to for guidance even if it didn’t cover all of their problems.

-He experimented with the void and managed to cause a reset that spit him out of the void. He doesn’t understand what happened but he accepts this bullshit.

-He finds the fallen child immediately and explains what he did, and apologizes. He begs for them to do another pacifist route, one last time. Chara wanted to live on the surface with everyone and agreed. With his help after breaking the barrier, he helped them break the reset button. It scared Chara but, he reassured them it was the right thing to do.

-7 ft tall. He’s on the taller side for monsters.

-His reunion with his boys is full of tears for everyone. Scaryberry is crying. He always wanted to know his dad and he has the chance to do that now.

-He lives with his sons because he missed too many years with them.

-He takes turns cooking with Rus, but Rus is much better than him at cooking.

-He’s okay at cleaning. He doesn’t clean up often though and will tag team a room with Scaryberry.

-He’s got insomnia, and so he struggles with sleep. He passes out on the couch often and when he wakes up he gets a bit startled before he remembers he’s on the surface and not the void.

-When the boys leave the house he’s always making sure they have everything they need. It’s important to him that they have a way to contact him.

-He listens to music a lot to relax. It helps to a degree.

-Reads to Scaryberry a lot because he didn’t get to do that a lot and Scaryberry still wants to have that sort of childhood experience.

Horrortale

Eerie

-Scratched and clawed his way out of the Void.

-His body ended up being very torn up because of this, and he lost a limb. Specifically his arm.

-Do not ask about the Void. He’d rather not talk about it and suffers PTSD from everything he witnessed. He barely escaped with his sanity.

-His humor is morbid, and self deprecating.

-low self esteem from the void. Lets just say he wasn’t exactly… alone.

-He has a rather unsettling vibe, but so do most monsters from this AU. It’s not that he’s bad, its just that… you can feel he’s seen some shit.

-Loves his boys. He couldn’t confront them right away when he crawled out of the void because he was barely keeping himself together. Not only that he was not prepared for a brawl.

-not a fighter. I’m serious. You will kick his ass. You can be terrible and still win.

-pacifist

-Loves his boys! He’s so proud of them, and they’re so brave for everything they did.

-Axe was upset about him not coming to them as soon as possible until he heard about the condition he came from the void to the underground. Now he’s just happy he has dad back at all. He could’ve been eaten so easily… It scares him.

-Scared of the dark. Requires a nightlight or some form of dim light.

-He heard one superstition and then proceeded to look up others. He now treads very lightly.

-He starts to study mythology. He loves the stories and learning what Humans believed in the time they were underground. It seems they weren’t the only ones who suffered great ordeals.

-Not a goop dad. The Void was the reason for the Goop like appearance, and he was painfully and barely holding himself together.

-believes in the paranormal. He’s seen shit that he will never elude to that makes him believe. He’s not a fool. Is everything paranormal? No, why the fuck would it be?

-After some time of getting to know his boys more, they let him move in. He’s thrilled with this.

-Rate of success for cooking is debatable. Sometimes he just shrugs and says, “It’s a fire day today I guess.”

-he’s 5’6. The Void made him shrink a bit, and was originally 6’ tall.

-excitable. He’s not loud like Sugarskull, but he’s very eager to do things and talk with people.

-He understands monsters had done what they had to do to survive. He ends up learning about how some humans have been known to cannibalize without lack of food, so he likes to shoot that back at those who judge him. He also lists any other instances of cannibalism humans have shown if people continue their rants.

-He knows how to argue/debate. It’s an important skill to him. If he makes a mistake he’s reasonable and backs down.

-Actually pretty good with people. He’s generally well liked.

-Surprisingly functional, but there are days… Those days that pull him down in the void again and he can’t escape. He’s not grounded and they sneak up on him randomly.

-Nightmare every night, but he doesn’t remember. He wakes up smiling, but with a slight feeling of terror that he tends to brush off. He’s fine nothing happened as far as he’s aware.

-Constantly reminds himself he is safe. He’s with his boys. Everythings okay. They’re on the surface.

-Randomly stomps his feet on the ground to prove to himself that it is indeed real, and that he is indeed solid. He needs the reminder.

-not a fan of Undyne. He knows what she’s done, and her decisions as a queen were foolish in his opinion.

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actuallyvady · 6 years

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Loki progress masterpost

So now that I have this gorgeous fucking photo:

... and now that I’ve won a costume contest with it:

(... technically second place but don’t tell Loki that)

I should probably talk about the design and construction process and such, since I have an actual fuckton of progress photos for this. LONG POST so I’m gonna put this all under a cut:

ALRIGHT SO. This was made on a fucking whim because I was hypomanic and wanted to make something, so I raided my stash, found some lovely Loki-colored wool, and went “hey, I should make a Loki for NYE” because I always go to an event where dressing as a formal version of a character is part of the point. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I remembered there being a male Elsa design I had really liked, and went to find it:

(I still love this design and might actually make it some day)

Anyway, a little while later I had a plan:

I am not an artist; this is better than my usual cosplay plans. And it has color! Hypomanic Vady is fun. Anyway, I did not bother doing a muslin mockup; you all should probably do so, especially when you have limited fabric but who cares I got this, right?

I started with the torso:

Had I felt like not winging the entire thing, I’d have pulled out pattern pieces from a blazer I’ve used before; it’s what I usually do. You can see where I had chalked the outline-- I measured where I wanted that line to be on my body and drew it on the fabric, then cut it with extra for seam allowance.

Next was the black:

You can see that on one side I have sewn the leather strips on; that was a fun process. I started with the top one and stitched where I wanted the top to lay, sewing along the center of the strip with the strip face down; that way, when I folded it over, I had no visible seam line. I did the same with the others, using that center stitch line to secure the bottom edge of the one above it. Sadly, I didn’t take photos of that process, but I can do so for demonstration purposes if anyone wants.

Since I was going to line this, I also used the pinned-together green and black bases as patterns for my lining, since it didn’t need to be pieced-- one piece is always easier to manage than two. I don’t have any photos of the lining, but it’s an identical jacket, without the adornments, inside out.

Once I had gotten the leather strips on the torso done, I took a break to make piping. I used yarn I had lying around instead of a nicer cording, cut strips about an inch and a half wide of the gold, and stitched it into basically a tube with a tail-- fold the fabric around the yarn and stitch it in place with a zipper foot. The tail lets you install it much easier by putting it in between two pieces, like so:

Generally speaking, it is easier to make inset sleeves if you leave the sides of the torso open and attach the top of the sleeve, then sew the length of the sleeves and the sides at the same time (seriously, life hack, sleeves are so much easier that way), but since I was improvising I forgot to do it that way. So I got the torso done first, and promptly discovered that I had made it ever so slightly too small, so I added gold trim to the front:

Turns out I had drafted it with the wool, which has a bit of stretch, and forgotten that the pleather emphatically does not. Lesson learned. Anyway, I like this look, so... happy accident?

NEXT UP, SLEEVES. I did something very similar with the leather on the sleeves as I had done on the torso, but this time I alternated back and forth:

You’ll notice that I changed my design a bit; the leather is lower on the sleeve and the gold doesn’t have the point that it did in the artwork. The first was not entirely on purpose, but I decided not to fix it when I noticed that it lined up really nicely with the torso; the line between the green and black is continuous this way, and I really like it, even if I didn’t actually mean to do it, initially. The change to the “gauntlets” was pure laziness. This was much easier, and I like the look anyway.

I went back and forth on whether I wanted piping at the shoulders; I had planned to include it but ultimately I chose to leave it out, because I liked the uninterrupted green, especially with that delightful through line I had created with the sleeve.

As you can tell, in the mean time, I attached the lining. I left the bottom open because I was going to be attaching the tails anyway. I also did it in sort of a cheater way, lining torso and sleeves separately and attaching the lining of the sleeves to the lining of the body by hand. While I do not like hand-stitching, I do not shy away from it; sometimes, it’s the best available technique. I’ll show you an example in a bit.

Also, I don’t have many photos of the back, so here’s one while I was trying to decide on the piping:

Anyway, next up was the tails. They ended up short than I planned, mostly because I didn’t have a lot of fabric, partly because I accidentally made them backwards and had to cut a few inches in order to attach them correctly. More reason to not simply wing it, lol.

I pinned them on before sewing because I wanted to see what it was going to look like; I wasn’t sure whether I wanted the gold I had drawn on the design.

While I like this look, I eventually decided it did need something... and that something was more than just piping at the waist. See, Loki has all these goddamned zipper stops as trim:

I had no intention of doing that-- in part because I was working from my stash and didn’t have any-- but I could add piping around the edges of the tails in order to mimic it.

I mentioned up above the idea of hand stitching being the best thing for some jobs-- on this, I used it to attach the gold details to the tails. I was able to stitch one edge down with the right side of the fabric facing in, like I had done on the leather strips, but to get the other side attached with no visible seam, I used a slip-stitch.

It’s a technique that allows you to sew something from the outside without having the stitches be visible. You also use it when closing lining (I used it to attach the sleeve linings) and things like repairing upholstery, where you literally can’t sew from the inside. If you learn no other hand stitch, learn a slip stitch. It’s more useful than you think.

I attached the gold detail, then put them together with right sides in and pinned the piping in place between them so that when they were turned right side out, the piping would edge the pieces. I did topstitch around the edges of the tails, just to make sure they would stay relatively flat. Then the only thing left to do was attach them and close up the jacket lining, which I had left loose until this point so I could do this all at once.

The first time I wore it I did not attach the sparkly cape; I was planning to wear it to school on Halloween and I didn’t want to have to deal with a train. I also wore it with a shirt, even though it was designed to be open, because, well, dress code. And it was cold.

I don’t have a picture of the method I used to close it, but I attached a black panel to one side and some snap tape, so I could have it closed without a visible closure-- the panel allowed me to have the matching snaps underneath the opposite side’s trim. It’s not perfect and I usually have safety pins to help it look nice, but it works.

When I did attach the cape, I edged it just with my serger, gathered it with pleats, and stitched it to the jacket by hand-- I wanted it attached to the outer layer but not to the lining, and it would have been hard to do that on the machine.

For the day I shot it without a shirt, I used fashion tape to hold it in place. See how it’s bunching there? That’s because it’s pulling against the tape in a weird way.

Anyway, that’s basically it! If you have any questions I’ll happily answer them. And Happy New Year!

#cosplay #cosplay tutorial #loki #mostly tagging so I can find it later lol

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f1ypup4f1y · 7 years

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Tutorial: Cupcake Petticoat by Blueagainlikemorning

This is a tutorial for making a bell/ cupcake petticoat, commonly found in lolita fashion.

*a quick suggestion: I lose things all. the. time. So to keep track of my sewing tools, I keep them in a little bin like so:

anything that belongs in the box, goes immediately back inside the box when I’m done with it.

Now, on to the tutorial!

MATERIALS YOU WILL NEED

Above, I took a picture of the materials I used, plus some I thought I would use and didn’t. You will need:

- tulle, petticoat net, or organza (I used stiff, synthetic organza)* - safety pins (a whole lot) - regular pins (also a lot) - fabric scissors (20dollarlolita talks about them here; it’s best to have a dedicated set of fabric shears that you only use for fabric so they stay sharp) - measuring tape - thick elastic, as long as your waist measure plus 2″

*I used a material that did not fray, so I did not need to hem it. This tutorial will work best with fabric like tulle or synthetics that don’t fray.

**I recommend 4-5 yards of material. I can’t give an exact number, for reasons you’ll see below.

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Decide how long your petticoat will be

Take your tape measure, and using the shortest dress or skirt you will wear with the petti, measure from the waistline down to the hem. Here, you see me measuring my blue dress; the skirt length is 19″.

Once you’ve found that, you will take 1″ off of that measurement and that’s your petticoat length! For me, that was 18 inches (that’s pretty standard for someone 5′3″ like me).

Step 2: Cut your tulle

As 20dollarlolita mentions in this post, a cupcake petticoat is made up of two tiers. The second tier is twice the height of the first tier, and 2-3x as long.

Since my petti was going to be 18 inches long, my top tier was 6 inches (plus seam allowance on top and bottom) and my bottom tier was 12 inches (plus seam allowance on top).

Typical seam allowance is 5/8″, but I use 1/2″ because it is easier for me to measure.

Above, you can see the 12″ pieces on the right, and the 6″ pieces on the left, as well as my cat Hamilton.

Okay kids, time for the Do Not Do This: I wanted a really big petticoat, so I used about 15 yards for the bigger bottom tier and about 5 yards for the smaller top tier. You’ll see the results below; it’s kind of completely fucking ridiculous. It also had kind of a weird shape. I would recommend trying 1-2 yards for the top tier and 3-5 for the bottom. You could probably get away with less, even.

Step 3: Fold that motherf*cker

You’re going to do this for each tier. I’m showing you the process for my bigger bottom tier below. Mine was so long, I had to spread it all the way down the hallway to get it flattened out nicely.

First, fold it in half:

That’s the halfway crease closest to you, next to the cat food bowl. Put a safety pin at that halfway point.

Fold it again, so it’s in quarters now. Add safety pins at all the folds. Make sure you pin each layer of fabric separately (you’re not pinning anything together, just marking where the folds are).

Above: in quarters

Below: check out those safety pins!

I measured both of my tiers into eighths to make this easier, but with less fabric 4 might be okay. I still recommend 8.

Do this on both tiers before you continue.

Step 4: Pin together your tiers

Now that your tiers are both divided into the same number of sections (mine were both 8), you’re going to pin the tiers together at those safety pins. Below, you see me matching the pins:

Hamilton was helping.

You’re going to pin the layers together with the tops of the strips lined up together. It’s almost impossible to see, but that’s what I’m doing in the photo below. You should end up with a smaller strip on top of a bigger strip, pinned together near the top of both strips at your 8 waypoints. The upper edges of each strip should be even, although the bigger tier is not going to lie flat between the pins. This is as intended.

Step 5: Question your life and your choices.

You’re sitting in a giant pile of tulle or whatever, and everyone is staring at you like you’re crazy, cats included. Hamilton was obsessed with the organza, and it was very hard to stop her from helping out too much, because her idea of helping is NOT the same as mine.

Step 6: Rufflin’ time!

I’m not going to lie to you, this step is kind of shitty without using a ruffler foot. If you can get your hands on one, follow the directions and use that so you’re ruffling the bigger tier onto the smaller one. For hand ruffling the Blue way, keep reading.

Spoiler alert: I’m lazy, and the idea of threading something through layers of organza in order to gather it by hand was incredibly daunting. So I just kind of winged it. If you want proper gathering instructions, 20dollarlolita has them on one of their petticoat tutorials.

Here’s what I did. I lined the pinned tiers up with my sewing machine so the bigger tier was on top, and the seam allowance (1/2″ for me) was towards the inside of the sewing machine. You know the bit where the arm curves down into the base and it’s hard to push a lot of fabric through? Yeah, you don’t want to have to shove your ruffles through there.

Like so. Now, I just held the bottom layer (smaller tier) flat and fussed with the top layer with my fingers as evenly as I could to ruffle it up, because that’s how I swing. I don’t necessarily recommend this, but it worked out okay for me. Remember, when you get to the safety pin, the tiers should line up again; take the pin out, and keep going.

You can add a ribbon along here, which I did; you can see it a little below my organza. This helped keep everything from sliding around too much (it still slid around some).

do that all the way to the ends of your tulle!

Step 7: Gather the top edge to the waistband

Again, this part is kind of... haphazard, but it worked for me and was low-ish spoons. I got a big elastic trim-thing to use for the waistband. Pin that and the top of the petti in quarters or eighths, just like you did with the top and bottom tiers.

You’re going to want to pin the OUTSIDE of the top tier to the OUTSIDE of the waistband for comfort reasons; it’s not as pretty, but no-one should be looking that closely at your undergarments. I decided the outside was the side where the seam allowance between the tiers stuck out, again for comfort reasons.

This time, I gathered the top edge before I sewed, because it wasn’t as slippery with the waistband. So I pinned the ruffle all the way around.

See what I mean?

Step 8: Sew on the waistband

IMPORTANT: YOU’RE GOING TO USE A STRETCH STITCH FOR THIS PART, SO THE ELASTIC CAN STILL STRETCH TO GO OVER YOUR HIPS.

20dollarlolita writes about how to do a stretch stitch on a variety of machines; mine has a stretch stitch setting, so I used that.

Sew the waistband carefully to your top tier.

Remember how in Step 6 I said you don’t want to have to shove your ruffles through the bend in the sewing machine? Well, guess who pinned their ruffles the wrong way and had to do that. *raises hand*. That’s another Do Not Do that I did so you don’t have to.

Step 9: Sew that bitch into a circle

So now you’ve got this weird, strip of waistband + tulle + more tulle. You’re going to need to stitch the raw ends together to make it into, you know, a skirt shape.

Pin the ends together, and just sew a nice little stitch down all the way from the top of the waistband to the bottom edge of the petti. Again, I actually sewed it so the seam allowance sticks outward away from my body for comfort reasons; you can choose your own adventure here.

Step 10: Prance around like a fairy showing everyone your cool new petti

Dude! You did it! Holy shit, look at that petti you made! I hope it’s a lot less weird than mine was, because as I said, I fucked up the length of the tiers.

Mine ended up like this: (forgive the underwear shot, I was so tired by this point)

You can’t super tell, but A) it’s SO POOFY! Like, borderline *too* poofy, and definitely too poofy for casual daily wear. Since you used less tulle, this hopefully won’t be a problem for you.

B) theres kind of a weird angular bump between the top and bottom layer, I think because I had wayyyy too much tulle in the top layer, so it got so bunched into the waistband. As above, hopefully ain’t no thing if you’re using the right lengths.

I actually made myself a second casual petti, with much less tulle; it’s slightly under-poofy, so I’m giving you measurements for hopefully a happy medium.

Maybe someday I’ll add a picture of a skirt over it, but you’re just going to have to trust me for now.

Have fun, and get thee to making petticoats!

#20dollarlolita #petticoat #tutorial #blueagainlikemorning #sewing #lolita fashion

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