AHHHH I want to eat all your WIP titles like little fruit snacks!!! I gotta know about the motorbike one and Ezra sketches (ok that was 2 but I can’t resist 😵💫)
2 for you my beloved moot <3
Crack Modern AU (Not to be confused with the sad modern AU I posted tidbits of a while ago) where instead of the purgilling Ezra runs Thrawn over.
So I was thinking about Julian not really knowing what a healthy relationship looks like, and Garak not either, but they're both trying their best and muddling along and it's a sharp, spiky, precious thing. And how it might be if Julian was dating the O'Briens as well, and seeing what a long-term healthy relationship looks like from the inside and learning how to be loved in a very different way to how he or Garak have experienced, and he brings all this back to Garak.
And then my mind wandered off to giving Garak another partner (because polyamory has no limits and if Julian's got both O'Briens, Garak deserves someone else right? :p anyway...) and so naturally I paired him up with Odo. Who also doesn't know what a healthy relationship looks like. And so the circle of passing on tips from Miles and Keiko grows....
And goes full circle? When Odo starts dating Kira who's been dating the O'Briens, and idk where I'm going with this really, I just want a circle of people who've been overly reliant on Miles and Keiko's relationship advice without them really realising how much influence they've had 😅 (Which is to say, they're 88.7% responsible for Garak and Odo making it through their first month together... Not that either man would admit it.)
Summary: He apologizes to ladybug for his badly-timed puns. In a punny way. At a bad time. But he has good intentions! He can’t help himself!
“Good morning, milady. Sorry I’m latte to our patrol.”
Ladybug rolls her eyes, but graciously accepts the coffee that her partner hands to her.
“Morning,” she mumbles before taking a sip.
“So,” Chat Noir grins. “Any plans for the weekend?”
She shrugs.
“Not really. My best friend is trying to convince me to go to a party, but I’m not into that kinda stuff.”
“I think you should go. Get out of the house for once.”
Ladybug stares at him dryly.
“I have no choice being a superhero, now do I?”
Instead of offering a response, the blonde just smirks.
“Some-buggy woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
She groans, “Chat I am not in the mood for this today. I swear, you always start punning at the worst times!”
His smirk grows wider, and she realizes a second too late that she just said the wrong thing.
“Do I? Well, purr-lease enjoy your coffee. The art on it looks brew-tiful.”
Raising an eyebrow, she takes off the lid to reveal some latte art. She has to admit, it is pretty. Not that she’d tell him that.
“Whatever. Let’s just get this patrol over with.”
Chat salutes to her before extending his baton and jumping to another roof. Ladybug shakes her head at his antics.
If only he waited until the right moment.
—
Another patrol; more puns.
She was not looking forward to it. Not one bit.
…Okay, maybe she actually was. The jokes he’d crack would immediately calm her nerves sometimes, but she wasn’t about to acknowledge it in his presence.
“Bugaboo!”
She turns to her left, glancing at her kitty, before looking back at the evening sky.
“Yes, Chat Noir?”
He frowns, taking a seat next to her.
“No nickname tonight?”
With a shake of her head, she replies, “Not until you realize when the best time to joke is.”
“Uh, all the time?” He supplies.
She shakes her head again, sighing exasperatedly.
“No.”
He echoes, “No?”
“No,” she confirms.
A few beats of silence pass before he nods.
“Alright.”
More silence.
Then he smirks.
“How do you propose I make it up to you, milady?”
Ladybug wants to groan. She does. But this is a serious matter, and she mustn’t ruin it.
“Hm,” she thinks.
“It might be nice if you apologized for distracting me during akuma battles.”
“I distract you?”
“Mhmm.”
“Oh,” he whispers. “Um. Okay.”
Then Chat Noir takes a deep breath.
And smirks.
“I falafel about my puns—“
“Chat.”
“But I donut think that it’s a real purr-oblem. Purr-haps we should discuss this further.”
She grits her teeth, slowly turning to send him a glare.
If looks could kill… man, he would have been dead two years ago.
“Please enlighten me, Chat. Do you have a book of puns laying around in your room or something?”
He grins.
“Of course. I also keep three browser tabs open at all times.”
“Great,” she claps her hands together. “Now where do you live?”
Chat lets his mouth fall open, then quickly closes it.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“Identities,” he reminds her.
“Not a problem.”
“You sure?”
“Positively.”
“You mean paws—“
She damn-near growls.
“I’m going to need you to stop.”
“And why’s that?”
“I just… do.”
His lady was fuming.
He can’t help but start humming Girl On Fire by Alecia Keys.
A hand promptly slaps over his mouth. He meets her fiery eyes.
“Don’t you dare.”
For once, he’s quiet. Ladybug sighs in relief, still not taking her hand off her partner’s mouth. She needs this moment of silence.
“Chat?”
“Hm?” He hums under her hand.
“Could you promise me something?”
When they lock eyes again, he nods.
Her eyes soften.
“Don’t ever change just because someone asks you to.”
He stiffens, raising a questioning eyebrow.
She pulls her hand away and continues.
“I love your puns. And how childish you act. This seems like a release for you; some type of freedom.”
Chat Noir nods, wringing his fingers together nervously.
“It is,” he agrees quietly.
“That’s good.”
She places a hand on his shoulder, making him catch her serious gaze.
“Don’t let anyone take that away from you. Not even me.”
“B-but you—“
“I’m human. I get annoyed. But that doesn’t mean you’re annoying. All I ask is that you learn when it’s the right time to crack jokes. Please promise me that you’ll never stop being who you are.”
His heart melts right then and there. Tears bubble to the surface.
He nods, a smile forming.
“I promise, Ladybug.”
No nickname. He’s serious.
“Good! Now let’s get patrolling!”
She’s the one who sets off this time, leaving a wonderstruck Chat Noir in her wake.
—
A week had passed since their talk. Everything was going well.
Until Ladybug slipped up during an akuma attack.
The akuma was bug-themed — it went by the name of Beetlejuice (really original, Hawkmoth, really) — so making a bug pun was really the easiest slip-up anyone could have. But something tells him that this pun was intentional.
Beetlejuice had launched his “juice” in Ladybug’s direction, to which she expertly avoided. Something in her said to taunt the akuma. So, taunt him she did.
Maybe it was time to admit that puns calmed her nerves.
Because yelling, “You’re really bugging me, here! I have homework to do!” was a lot more satisfying than she thought it would be.
Even though she came to regret it later.
“Well, well, well…” a snickering Chat came up to her after the fight.
“Look who resorted to punning at the wrong time.”
She could only shrug.
“It was unintentional.”
“For sure. Hypocrite.”
Ladybug rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
That smirk did not leave Chat’s face for weeks.
—
“So,” he starts one morning. “I think we should get matching t-shirts.”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“Oh yeah? What do they look like?”
“They have small, matching Ladybug and Chat Noir decals embroidered on the bottom sides, and the back of the shirt says ‘The Purr-fect Pair.’”
“That’s… oddly specific.”
“Yeah. I was thinking I’d ask my friend to design it, if you’re okay with that.”
Ladybug shrugs, “Why not? As long as you don’t—“
“Reveal anything, I know, I know.”
Chat exhales, pulling his arms behind him to lean back. They listen to the sounds of the city for a few minutes before he speaks up again.
“Thanks for, uh…”
She casts her gaze in his direction, waiting for him to continue.
“Thanks for saying you liked my puns, and that I’m not annoying. I really needed to hear that.”
“Of course, kitty. I’m always here when you need me.”
Idk what's going on with the jar hair, whether there was an official announcement on it being pubic or not. But! I already have an angsty headcanon to explain why he is keeping them in a jar in his shrine:
His general meticulous hygeine standards began in the lab, ostensibly to train him to keep himself presentable but also to give the scientists a clean workspace. His hair can be cut and plucked apparently, so it must also be able to burn at high enough temperatures. Vought wouldn't permit the lab techs to keep his head shaved. He needs to look cute as his public release falls within a peak boyband craze, and Homelander posters must end up on walls alongside the likes of Justin Timberlake. But any other way to lessen the stench of burned hair in the lab and make the subject easier to hose off after acid baths is a way the scientists take. They also had to have tested his fertility at some point, so less hair would probably make that a more sterile process.
But then he becomes Homelander and gets Madelyn as his agent. And she also appreciates good hygeine and a clean workspace so instructs him to keep grooming himself as he did before. Even if she doesn't say anything in particular about his downstairs, he follows the full scope of her orders on this. Then it just becomes habit. It's his routine. Now, from his perspective he was doing it all those years for Madelyn. Maybe he also thinks of it in hindsight as being for Maeve's preference too after he learns that she's bi. Because he's a moron who thinks most women must shave or wax themselves entirely bare or are always neatly trimmed ahead of planned sex, even if none of his sexual partners do so - they're all special okay, better than most. So into the shrine it goes, because in his mind it was something he did for them.
Or maybe it's a more overt display of mental illness. It does also remind me of a clip I saw from Hoarders, where a young man kept his dog's shed fur because he feared that throwing it out would somehow cause his dog's death.
Also, did you know that the term for a male mule is john? Another reason behind why Homelander's civilian name is John? Because there has never been a case of a 50 donkey/50 horse hybrid male reproducing. Female mules have been known to give birth with donkey or horse sires, and their offspring can sometimes reproduce as well. But not johns, they are always sterile. It's a red herring if you know the term for male mules.
She takes that sign and happily wears it around her neck. Just for you, anon, Zhavorr’s going to get enough plaidweave to make all her smalls out of it.
Oh, you won’t ever SEE it. But you’ll know. You’ll know.