Hi everyone! We’re organizing a gift exchange for the Lukadrien gang this year! The theme revolves around winter. Once we have all your works, it will be put together in a free digital zine!
All participants will be assigned someone to make a gift for. It can be fanfic or fanart. We’ll also need two or three beta-readers (which you may apply for with this application), if you’d like to volunteer!
Dates (subject to change)
October 7th to October 20th (11:59 PM EST): We will be accepting your applications if you are interested in participating! The application will be pinned on the blog or you may click here.
October 21st-26th: Assignments will be sent out via email or Discord. You will receive your giftee’s preferences like what they want included and excluded from their gifts.
November 30th: Check-in! We’ll ask everyone how much progress they have made.
December 17th: Fics must be sent in for beta-reading (if you require it).
January 8th: All final pieces must be sent in to the mods (via email/discord) to be put together in the digital zine.
TBD: The zine will be released with all your gifts! You may post your pieces only after the zine is released.
Rules
1. No NSFW
2. No salt or character bashing of any kind, the goal is to spread love and happiness.
3. No sharing or asking questions to the person you’re making the gift for, it’s supposed to be a surprise! Don’t even think about being sneaky with it :P
4. Check your Discord messages or email frequently, we will contact you and inform you of the event that way.
5. If you cannot finish your gift on time or need to drop out, inform us ASAP, we will ask a backup gifter to take your place.
6. Once your piece is done, send it to a mod via email or Discord. Do not post your piece until AFTER the zine is posted.
7. When you post your gift, tag the person you made the gift for and lukadrien-winter.
Writer Guidelines
♡ Fics must be a minimum of 1500 words and maximum 8000 words
♡ Fics must be edited. No spelling/grammatical mistakes should be present. Fics will be sent to beta readers if you need it (if you know a beta you would prefer to ask you may, just as long as they are not your giftee).
Artist Guidelines
♡ Art pieces must be 2480 pixels x 3508 pixels, 300 DPI in portrait mode (like an A4 canvas) or 1080 pixels x 1350 pixels at 300 DPI.
♡ Sketches/rough work will not be accepted, the art must be completed.
♡ If traditional, it must be photographed or scanned with good quality.
If you have any questions shoot us an ask or a message! We’ll try to answer as quickly as we can.
Howdy, @box-of-birds! I’m your gifter for @lukadrien-winter. I hope you enjoy this fluffy Flower Shop/Tattoo Parlor AU! (P.S. Please let me know what AO3 username I should gift this to! I figured it was probably your main account name, but I didn’t want to assume.)
Summary: Adrien is pining hard for the florist next door, and his coworkers just hope that he’ll make a move sometime within the next century. (And before he bankrupts himself buying flowers.)
Word Count: 8211
____________________________________
Anime songs blast through the tattoo parlor’s speakers as Adrien stands at the counter, waiting for Lady Chance to officially open. The analog clock on the wall reads 10:54, and with six minutes until they open their doors, the owner is still nowhere to be seen.
Adrien snorts, idly counting the bills in the cash register. That’s nothing unusual for Marinette, who usually stumbles through the door just before the first customer walks in.
Nathaniel glances up from his sketchbook, an eyebrow raised. “Can we listen to some instrumentals one of these days? Maybe some movie soundtracks?”
“Sorry,” Adrien says, grabbing the remote and pausing the music. “Superhero songs, coming right up.” He clicks through Spotify until he lands on a playlist with different superhero movies on the cover, then hits play. “There you—oh, no.”
To his horror, the Miraculous theme blares throughout the shop. Nathaniel smothers a laugh and dives back into his sketchbook, leaving Adrien to remember his cringeworthy voice acting role from when he was fourteen.
The bell above the door jingles as Marinette trips through the door of the shop, her panama hat nearly flying off her head. She whips it off and tosses it onto the counter, then hastily shrugs out of her pink jacket.
“Is this for me?” Adrien jokes, flipping the hat onto his head. “The green ribbon suits my eyes, don’t you think?”
“I’ll make you one,” Marinette says absently, dropping her purse onto the counter. “I’m so sorry—I overslept, and when I was halfway here, I realized I forgot one of the designs I was working on, and then—”
“Marinette,” Adrien says. “Relax. You don’t have any appointments until 11:45 today.”
Marinette sighs and slumps against the counter. “Thank goodness.” She pauses, lips scrunched in an almost-smile. “Why are we listening to the theme from your movie?”
“We’re not,” Adrien groans. He skips to the next song, which is one of Pinar Toprak’s from Captain Marvel. “Seriously, though, you can—”
“Oh, no!” Marinette smacks her forehead. “I forgot to get a gift!”
“A gift?” Adrien echoes. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t missed any of their friends’ birthdays—he keeps careful track of those on his calendar, and the closest one isn’t for another few weeks. “For what?”
“Rose,” Marinette says. “Her flower shop! The grand opening is this afternoon.” She moans and lets her forehead fall onto the pink granite counter. “How could I forget?”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Adrien says, patting her arm. “I’m sure Rose won’t mind.”
This fic is a @lukadrien-winter gift for theriveroflight. Thanks to River for giving me an excuse to write this fic, and thanks to @zekroudon and @pawsomelybuggy for organizing the event! You all are awesome. ^_^ ♡
What I’ve Tasted of Desire
Word Count: 9,951
“Viktor,” Adrien calls softly, half-hoping the servant won’t hear so he’ll have an excuse to abandon his half-baked idea. Jitters flare in his belly. When Viktor turns around, Adrien raises his voice to mask his nervousness: “Could you send someone to play while I eat?”
“As you wish, my prince,” Viktor grunts and moves to leave.
“Wait! The youngest minstrel. Please.” A blush prickles his cheeks like frostbite as Adrien adds the last instruction, but the orange and red lamplight conceals it.
Viktor’s brow crinkles in an obvious effort to figure out which minstrel Adrien means.
“The one with black hair and a snake tattoo,” Adrien says, hiking up the embroidered sleeve of his robe to point at the inside of his right wrist, indicating the spot where the minstrel boy has his snake. “I like how he plays.”
He lets his sleeve fall back into place, feeling shaky with embarrassment. Pointing out the tattoo feels like a confession of all the times he stared at the boy’s hands while he played the lute, mesmerized by his agile fingers, waiting for the black sliver of that snake to peek out at a fortuitous turn of his wrist: a glimpse of something secret and waiting to be explored, like a flame dancing between the delicate geometric cutouts of a Fierzan lamp.
Hello there! Here’s my gift for the Lukadrien Winter Gift Exchange!! Thank you so much @lukadrien-winter for organizing the event, I really liked writing this one! This is for Zane_is_not_on_fire on Instagram, I hope you like it! 💜
Summary: One would think that, at least for Christmas, there wouldn’t be any major unexpected and possibly dangerous events occurring in the life of a random civilian such as Adrien Agreste. Wishful thinking of course.
Does the blonde mind? Not in the slightest.
Summary: A double date, except the two couples are seeking to get together instead of being together in advance. Fun, right?
For @the-fourth-queen as part of the @lukadrien-winter exchange!
Read on AO3
Thursday morning. Sometime before Christmas.
“Hey, Adrien,” Marinette asks. They’re at school, sitting next to each other because Alya and Nino are both absent due to illness.
Adrien hopes they hadn’t caught it from each other, but that is a distinct possibility. “Yeah?”
“I was thinking, since you can’t come over for Christmas, we could go to the Christmas shops and I was going to plan out a mini Secret Santa, kind of. I’ll be asking Kagami because she can’t do Christmas with us either, but you can bring whoever you want, and it’ll just be the four of us.”
“And because you have a crush on her,” Adrien teases. “It’s okay, by the way, because I was going to ask Luka and make it an attempt at a double date. And maybe we can both get the people that we want to be with.”
She offers him a fistbump. “I was thinking this Saturday after you both have fencing practice — you don’t have anything after, right?”
“I don’t, but something might come up — I’ll text you if something comes up.” Adrien smiles. The bell rings to signal the beginning of class, and Ms. Bustier breezes into the classroom to stand at the board and begins teaching.
Adrien scrolls slowly through his phone to find the unnamed contact in it — sometimes, he has to put in the number again, because he has to delete it before he lets someone look at his phone, but he makes it work. He texts Luka quickly, extending him the invitation to Marinette’s...outing...with Kagami. He doesn’t call it what he wants to, because they aren’t boyfriends (yet?).
Luka responds with a yes, and he doesn’t say anything but he’s tempted to jump for joy or squeal or something overly enthusiastic.
Well, Adrien needs to do some homework, and then practice piano, and hopefully there won’t be an akuma attack to interrupt that.
It’s just a matter of waiting until Saturday.
He ends up abandoning the homework in favor of improvising something on his piano. While he’s been neglecting practice in favor of being Chat Noir, he doesn’t really enjoy the pieces.
Kitty Section renews his enthusiasm towards music — their songs are simpler than the classical that Father insists he play, but they’re more energetic, and he can feel the energy there when he plays with them. Not that he gets to very often — but it’s still something that he enjoys.
And, of course, thoughts of Kitty Section bring with them thoughts of Luka. His fingers still upon the keys, pausing to think up something else. The emergent melody is something slow, improvised, more harmonious than he expects.
He hears Plagg snigger, and switches what he’s playing to the sheet music on the stand, playing more angrily than the piano dynamic marking requires of him.
There is no akuma attack to interrupt his practice. By the time it’s time for bed, he hasn’t even touched his homework.
***
Saturday morning comes, and with it the 8 AM fencing practice. Adrien’s always been a morning person, though, and so he’s been doing his homework since he woke up at 5:30.
Well, he took a break to eat, but otherwise it’s been almost all homework (that he neglected to do Friday due to the akuma attack).
It’s 7:30.
Shoot.
He quickly gets changed into his gear. The gym bag is all packed and ready to go, and he’s already eaten, so he just needs to get downstairs and get going to practice.
He runs downstairs. It’s 7:45 — he has time to walk, but he’s going to get driven anyways, so he’ll be early to practice.
He casually plays that Ladybug and Chat Noir match-3 game on the car ride, as short as it is. He only gets one round in before it’s time to go. Still couldn’t beat Evillustrator…
He deposits his bag in the locker room, and then proceeds to the area where they fence and begins to warm up.
Kagami begins doing jumping jacks next to him. They’ll pair up during practice (if not assigned to help the less advanced students, that is), but he isn’t going to ask her if she’s coming. He hasn’t heard from Marinette — he told her that Luka was coming for sure, but last he knew she still had yet to ask Kagami to come along.
Marinette was a late riser, though, so he doubts that she would have asked her if she still hadn’t on Friday at school, but perhaps she did after school and he just hadn’t heard about it yet.
Mr. D'Argencourt comes into the area.
He is the worst part of these practices — at least he tends to leave Adrien and Kagami to their own devices.
“Partner stretching,” Mr. D’Argencourt declares. “Hold your partner accountable for stretching. I will return in fifteen minutes to announce today’s activities.”
Adrien scoots over to sit across from Kagami. “Did Marinette ask you to come out with us to the Christmas market?”
“She asked me yesterday afternoon.” Kagami doesn’t elaborate any more. “I told my mother that I had a lunch and study session with some of my classmates for a few hours after fencing. Tatsu will be picking me up from the library at 1:30 PM.”
“That should be plenty of time to go to the markets and get lunch. I don’t know exactly what Marinette’s planned, but...”
Kagami nods. “I was hoping to take the opportunity today to confess my feelings for Marinette.”
“Best of luck, then.” He stands up to finish stretching. “Do you think I should go for it with Luka?”
“It can be difficult to discern his feelings, because I do not get to see him as often as you do, but I do not think you should be afraid of telling him. Even if he doesn’t reciprocate, you will both recover from it.”
Adrien nods, but it feels weird because he’s bent over going to touch his toes.
So...maybe he can take a chance.
***
He and Kagami walk from practice to the square where the market appears annually. He’s only heard about it — he’s never actually been.
Marinette and Luka are casually chatting when they get there. He checks the time — it’s 9:53.
“Alright. So, you’re going to draw a name from my purse,” Adrien spots a flash of red darting out, but he can’t tell exactly what it is. “If you get your own, put it back, because you shouldn’t get a gift for yourself. You can go round the market and buy something for the person you draw, and in an hour and a half, we’ll meet back up here for something to eat.”
Adrien reaches into the purse first. He withdraws Kagami’s name from the pouch.
Oh, thank goodness.
Kagami steps up at the same time as Luka to take the next slip. She goes to grab one, unfolds it, and nods.
Luka withdraws a slip, unfolds it, and pockets it without doing anything else.
Marinette takes out the last one. “Perfect! I’ll see you all in an hour and a half, starting...”
“Wait,” Adrien says, “let me set a timer too so we can split up in pairs, or something.” He pulls out his phone and quickly sets the timer.
“You ready?” Marinette asks. He nods in reply. “Starting, now!”
Marinette takes Kagami by the wrist and walks off.
“I wasn’t expecting her to be so bold,” Luka remarks. “So, who’d you get?”
“What if it’s you?” Adrien asks.
“That question tells me it’s not.” Luka winks. “I have Marinette’s.”
“I got Kagami.”
He nods. “So they got us.”
“Well,” Adrien says, looking up at Luka, “that means that we can stick together to shop for them?”
“Of course.”
The two begin to explore the market.
“Look at this,” Adrien says as they walk by a stall, trying not to laugh too hard to the point where it drowns out his words. “I should totally get this. Kagami would love it.”
It’s a really awful sweater. “No you shouldn’t.” Luka lightly shoves him. “I already know what I’m getting for Marinette.”
“Then why are you with me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just get it and go straight back?”
“Because I like...hanging out with you.”
“Aw, I knew you liked me,” Adrien says. But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t.
He hears Luka mutter something, but Adrien doesn’t catch it.
“Come on, Adrien, we can get Marinette’s and then you can wander around looking for something fitting for Kagami.” Luka smiles at him, and though Luka isn’t physically dragging him, Adrien still feels compelled to go with him.
And then he spots it. There’s a shop with some wooden statues — they’re all fairly small, they can fit in the palm of his hand, and while most of them are Christmas-themed, there’s a small wooden Eastern dragon.
When he picks it up, the shopkeeper says, “You know, I wasn’t expecting to sell that today. It’s Christmas, after all.”
“This is for a friend of mine.”
“They say that the Eastern dragon brings good fortune.”
Adrien tilts his head. “Well, that’s not why I’m getting it. How much is this?”
“Seven Euros.” That’s...surprisingly reasonable.
“Do you do wrapping, or will I have to request somewhere else?”
“I can give you some paper?”
“Great.” Adrien holds out a 10-Euro bill, and the shopkeeper hands him back three. They grab the dragon, and wrap it in tissue paper. The wrapping is functional, but that’s all it needs to be.
“Thank you!” Adrien says to them. “Have a great day.”
Luka smiles when Adrien turns back to him. “I’m glad you found something good. You know, I’m not actually fond of shopping.”
“I...me too, kind of? This is different from all the other shopping I’ve done before.” Adrien pauses to think a little bit, but they keep walking. Luka’s directing them — he’s going to find Marinette’s gift. “I mean, I get to be with people that I like, and I’m free to buy whatever. If I want something ridiculous, I can do that, too.”
He looks up at the sky. Since when were the clouds that grey?
“We should get going,” Luka says, as though he’s reading Adrien’s mind.
“I always have an umbrella,” Adrien says, digging around in his bag. “Oh, huh, the one in here isn’t there. I might have moved it to my messenger bag after I gave it to Marinette...”
“Well, there’ll probably be a place where we can buy one.” Luka shrugs. “And then you can probably ask Marinette to give it back, next time you get the chance.”
The lights in most of the little popup shops are still out. “Yeah. Let’s get it before the rain starts.”
Adrien takes Luka’s hand, and they start running for the shop. Luka somehow knows where the stand is with what he wants.
Now it’s Adrien’s turn to wait while Luka browses — not that Adrien minds, it gives him the chance to take Luka in.
There are a lot of reasons why Adrien is fond of Luka. It starts with his care towards others, and ends with Viperion. Alphabetical list, after all.
Not like Adrien has a physical one, but the mental one is ingrained in his brain.
They both walk out of the tent, Luka with a small bag and Adrien carrying his present in his pocket with his gym bag still over his shoulder.
The skies open up on them. Adrien ducks under a tent to check the time they have left — they still have forty-five minutes before their timer. He texts Marinette, asking her where they’re meeting up now.
Marinette texts them directions to one of the food stands — well, at least they’ll be out of the rain.
Luka puts up his hood. “You ready?”
Adrien puts his bag over his head, a little bit of shelter. “As I’ll ever be.”
They go out into the rain, and the two of them begin to run in the direction given to them.
Adrien can tell Luka’s starting to run out of steam, so he slows down, even though being Chat Noir has fueled his endurance.
“Hey, you good?” Luka looks tired, hood soaked, and he’s still asking Adrien if he’s the one doing okay.
“I could ask the same as you,” Adrien replies, breathless not from the exercise but from Luka — it’s a miraculous moment, and in the Christmas lights it feels almost romantic.
“I...mean, it’s always good, as long as I’m with you.”
Adrien looks up at Luka. “Really?”
“We should keep moving.” Luka turns away. Adrien grabs his jacket.
“No, wait, this is important, because...”
“Adrien, I don’t...”
“Me too. ‘Cause I’m in love with you,” Adrien whispers, the sound of the downpour in the background fading away as he listens for what Luka says next.
“You are?” Luka replies.
They start to walk. “I don’t know when it started, but it was only recently that I realized,” Adrien says.
“I was distracted from realizing. It’s not that the person I liked wasn’t worthy of loving, but it’s you for me, right now.”
They arrive at the pavilion.
Marinette and Kagami are already sitting at a table.
“How’d it go?” Marinette asks, when they sit down. She and Kagami seem to be holding hands under the table, though Adrien couldn’t corroborate that without seeming suspicious.
“I think it went just fine,” Adrien says, looking over at Luka.
“Are we ready to begin exchanging gifts, then?” Kagami asks, removing a small box from her bag.
“I believe we are,” Luka answers.
“We’ll go in order of drawing,” Marinette declares, “so Adrien, you’re up.”
He removes the paper-wrapped statuette from his pocket. “Here you go, Kagami.”
She unwraps it from its packaging. “This looks very nice. I think it will compliment my room nicely. Thank you, Adrien.” She slides the box over to Luka. “I do not know you very well, but I still hope you enjoy this.”
He opens the box to find a ukelele inside the box. “Oh, cool,” Luka says, picking it out of the box and starting to strum a few chords, testing out the instrument. “Thanks, Kagami.”
She nods. “I’m glad my gift was to your satisfaction.”
“Well,” Luka says, “I had you, Marinette, and I hope you’ll like this.” He passes the bag to her over the table. “It got a little wet in the rain.”
She pries away the wet tissue paper to find a black cat glass ornament.
“I love it,” she says, smiling.
“I know you and Chat Noir are friendly,” Luka says, “so I decided to get you this.”
“Better than Ladybug,” she mutters. Then, louder: “Well, last but not least...Adrien, I know this time of year is hard for you, so I got you this at the market...” She passes him a box, with an ornament that’s a golden dove. “And I made you a sweater.”
“You did?!” Adrien says. He slides the box into his gym bag. She gives him a bag, with something soft in it.
He takes it out, and it is one of the worst things he’s ever seen. Adrien absolutely loves it.
“I actually knitted one for each of you,” Marinette says, taking one out of her backpack for Kagami and Luka, respectively. “Merry Christmas.”
Luka nods, looking at his sweater.
“Why are they so...strange?” Kagami asks.
“It’s called an ugly sweater,” Marinette explains. “They’re supposed to be like that.”
Kagami nods slowly.
Time flies as they chat away. Eventually, Marinette walks Kagami to the library, and it’s just Luka and Adrien.
“So, about the rain,” Luka says, “does that mean that...”
“I want to date you,” Adrien says. “I don’t know how we’ll go about that.”
“I want to be boyfriends with you, too.” Luka interlaces their fingers. “We’ll figure it out.”
And even though Adrien knows he’ll have to go back to his lonely home again, he feels the opposite of lonely, whatever that may be.
Hey @komorebirei, I’m your @lukadrien-winter gifter! Before we got our assignments, I had been rereading a lot of Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot books, so this is kinda based on Sarah Dessen’s book Just Listen. If you have read it, don’t worry, I made sure it didn’t have any of your triggers in it. I hope you like it. I based it off one of my favourite scenes from the book. Mentions of ‘the cult’ and Nathan are from Divergance by @depressed-teacup-inc and @sarcasticsparkles (TwiglightMaster15). Hope you enjoy!
Clara Nightingale played from the speakers of Adrien’s computer as he dialled the number for the radio station.
“MIRC Radio.”
“I wasn’t at the mall to see Clara Nightingale; I actually know her,” Adrien defended. He then realised Luka would just use it as an excuse to tease him more.
“That doesn’t exactly clear you of being there,” Luka said. God, he walked right into that one.
“I had a meeting for the fashion show? I’m surprised Rose didn’t tell you.”
“She was more focused on seeing you and getting all that stuff from the swimsuit store. Also, why is Paris’ biggest model doing a fashion show at a mall?”
“You mean, the biggest mall in Paris that holds a total of 30 different stores that sell my father’s clothes? Kinda don’t have a choice.”
“Woo of being a model. Any chance you get to choose what you eat?”
This is an event where you will be assigned someone to make a gift for! Whether it be writing or artwork, in the end it will all be placed in a free digital zine displaying your works!
Check out our Guidelines, FAQ, and Calendar for more information!
This is an event where you will be assigned someone to make a gift for! Whether it be writing or artwork, in the end it will all be placed in a free digital zine displaying your works!
Check out our Guidelines, FAQ, and Calendar for more information!
This is an event where you will be assigned someone to make a gift for! Whether it be writing or artwork, in the end it will all be placed in a free digital zine displaying your works!
Check out our Guidelines, FAQ, and Calendar for more information!
A: This is a fun little event dedicated to the ship between Luka and Adrien. Everyone is assigned someone to make a gift for secretly. All the pieces are going to be put in a digital zine at the end!
Q: Where can I sign up?
A: Here is the application! Fill it out before October 20th.
Q: What if I miss the application deadline?
A: You can still participate! An application for backup gifters will open up and you can create a gift in place of anyone who drops out. If nobody drops out and there are enough of you, you will be paired with each other to make gifts!
Q: Do I need to include every preference my giftee asked for?
A: Nope! You need to at least include one in your gift. You pretty much have free reign over your creation other than that (just be mindful of what they do and don’t want).
Feel free to send us an ask or a message if ever you have a question, we’ll happily reply as fast as we can!
October 21st: Back-up gifter applications open (they will remain open until January 7th, all assignments will still be due January 8th)
October 21st - 26th: Mods will start making matches and sending out assignments.
November 30th: Check-in! We’ll see how your piece is going.
December 17th: Fics must be sent in to be beta-read (if you require it).
January 8th: All final pieces must be sent in to the mods (via email or Discord, however you’ve been contacting them) we’ll start putting together the zine once we have everything.
TBD: Zine release! You may post your gifts once it’s up.
