What do you think about characters of "Inside out 2"? Do we have some lees here?
Ok I somehow didn't experience the original Inside Out until like 2 weeks ago, and then immediately rushed to theaters for the second one, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since! Of course the first thing I started daydreaming about was the chaos that would ensue in Brain HQ during tickles. So yes, I've definitely got headcanons. XD
EMOTIONAL * RESPONSES
When Riley Gets Tickled
Joy squees, claps, bounces up and down, the usual. "AAAH Tickle time! Awww, our girl is still so adorable..."
Disgust: "Mm-mm. I hate this. Hate it. Majorly messing with my zen."
Sadness: *confused and a little uncomfortable*
Fear: *open-mouthed and deeply uncomfortable*
Envy gasps and hops up to the screen. "Omigosh omigosh they're touching us. That means they like us and think we're cute, right? Right?!"
Anger: "Oh, so that's how it's gonna be, huh?! You want a fight, kid?! I'll give ya a fight! Right up your -"
Anxiety: "Wait! There's a million possible variables in what'll happen if we decide to fight back! Accidentally punching them would be devastating to our network!"
Joy's not paying attention, she's too busy laughing and hammering the serotonin injector.
"I-I got it! Scream! Just holler, really loud!"
"GUHH, get out of the wayyyy; stop hogging this thing! We have to run! Come on!"
Ennui: *exists in French*
*Meanwhile Embarrassment is just spread out like a starfish and rolling his entire girth back and forth across the keyboard.*
When Riley's Tickling Someone Else
Joy takes the wheel here. The others know not to disturb a master plying her craft. She's an expert tickler, so she feeds Riley a whole bushel of fun ideas, and Envy is her eager troublemaker minion.
There is in fact a dedicated "Tickle" command button. The plastic is slightly stuck in the slot because it hasn't been used much.
Anger keeps trying to grab his levers and switches, but Joy usually shoves him to the side with her foot.
*tries to wrest control from Joy and rein her in*
*barfing in the corner somewhere*
When a Tickle Scene Pops Up in a Movie
Joy giggles happily and squirms in her seat, then boops the control panel so that Riley follows suit.
Disgust is a tiny bit antsy...she's not influencing Riley yet but she's on standby in case stuff gets weird.
Embarrassment gingerly taps the console at increasing intervals until Sadness pulls his arm away.
Ennui: Probably watching something else. Or doomscrolling.
When Someone Asks Riley if She's Ticklish
*screams like a little girl*
*hides, bangs head on the desk*
"That is NOT funny!"
"Oh no! What do we do; whaddawedo?! Riley's way too ticklish! What if they tickle us and don't stop for the rest of eternity?! What if they think Riley's laugh is weird and we're socially ostracized and forced to get a job in a fish cannery?!"
“Ew ew ew ew no. Lie. We have to lie right now!” *jumps for the controller*
*Joy grabs Disgust's arm* "Whoa whoa whoa, eeeaasy there. Let's just calm down...this is a fun question; we're having fun..."
Envy: "Ooo, what if they're ticklish and they want us to tickle them?" *already wiggling her fingers in the air*
"But if we misread that signal and make them mad at us, then..."
Ennui: *groans and taps her console app*
Riley, being super casual: “Meh…a little. Not really.”
Suddenly Riley's eyes dilate. Her throat hitches and there's the tiniest bit of pink in her cheeks. Everyone turns their heads to look at -
“EMBARRASSMENT!!! *dry heave* WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
"Ohhhh boy. There it is. We're doomed now."
When They Get Tickled Themselves
Come on, we all know that Joy always draws first blood. (Er...first giggle?) She's such a switchy monster. Tickling is her default method of cheering others up. It's canon. Case closed.
As someone whose default setting repels positivity, Sadness is not ticklish at all, and this actually upsets her.
*silently grabs the tickler by the neck and tosses them out the window*
Nobody protests like Disgust. She gets mad. She slaps. She hurls insults. She runs away. Disgust is both extremely ticklish and extremely touch-averse, so this is Code Red for her.
Fear is the type who doesn’t so much “laugh” as “have a shrieking, spastic outburst and breakdance like Sonic the Hedgehog in a malfunctioning taser-testing facility."
At first, Anxiety is overcome by stressful jitters, miserable and whimpering, and her whole body contracts. After a few moments of tickling, though, she starts to let all that tension out and relaxes into nervous vibrato laughter. It becomes sort of a therapeutic stress release, like her special chair.
It's not exactly the physical sensation of tickle torture that Envy craves, it's the attention. The sound she makes when tickled oscillates between wild, snorty cackles and the dulcet hoots of a baby owl trapped in a pinball machine.
Ennui is dead. No reaction. Her body is a neurological cemetery. ...EXCEPT for her heels and the back of her knees. (And if you thought phone loss made her experience Vietnam flashbacks...)
What do you think Embarrassment does? He plops himself down on the floor and pulls his hoodie so tight around his face that no one can tell if he's laughing or sobbing.
Misc.
As Riley's primary protector, Fear is always scouting ahead for any potentially-tickly environmental hazards, and gently nudges her away from catastrophe ("you forgot your shoes! put them back on before you walk on grass;" "don't lift your arms up around Bree and Grace;" "those massage chairs in the mall are actually full of rusty knives and drug dealers sleep on them;" etc.)
When Riley gets tickled, the emotions don't "feel" it, exactly, but they perceive something of a contact buzz.
These are typically how the reactions go, but they're not universal. If Riley's been in a bad mood, Anger might be more proactive in grabbing the handles. Embarrassment may have more or less of his body mass pancaking the buttons, depending on who's tickling her. (Like...a boy?! Or Val?! Or -) Standard variations like that.
Riley
Riley has an extremely ticklish tummy! She’s sensitive all over, but that's her death spot. (Just the vibe I get; IDK.)
Bree and Grace are really ticklish too, but Riley is the weak link... the member of the trio that the other two team up against. Lots of tickle fights and sneak attacks.
She obviously loves to laugh and goof around with her friends, but probably isn't over-enthused by that last part.
Val
The most popular girl in school, the tough athletic one - her adulating devotees wouldn't think it, but beneath that too-cool exterior, Val is very vulnerable to tickling.
All the other Firehawks know, and like to tease Val by poking her.
She's a good sport about it and takes it like a champ - just yelps and laughs and pushes back. They have fun.
Her biggest weakness is her feet.
Lance Slashblade
Crop top alert. The abs are asking for it. (Just sayin.')
The thought of being tickled is intolerable to him. Even in this...what should be a moment of joyous camaraderie...he is haunted. Forced to laugh like...like some sort of...clown swordsman?! How could he be so weak...so degraded...so unworthy to carry the holy blade of his ancestors, they whose destinies were written in the stars ere these centuries long past? Will he never be a true warrior, with the strength to stem the tide of encroaching night? It is too painful to think about...the icy whips of humiliation, always ravenous and bitter in their lashes, strike! and cast him into the shadows and okay the joke's over now we're getting long-winded and edgelordery big words drama sparkling vampires and junk
Here's the info on the latest updates at AchillesHeelArt!
Last time, a member had a rather unusual request: Gepetto tickled on both his sheer stocking feet and his bare feet. I decided it would be perfect to have Stromboli (a great villain) trap him and tickle him silly with his puppets, trying to get the secret of turning puppets into real people out of him. I think this one came out surprisingly sexy.
This week, infamous gay horror director Jason Paul Collum is trapped in a tickle chair and tickled TO DEATH by two evil scientists. Of course he's wearing his trademark over-the-calf thick and thin sheers. JPC is guilty of putting so many sheer sock and tickle scenes in his films, he's like the gay Tarantino! Still, what a terrible way to go. Poor guy.
P/N (publisher’s note?): WOWOWWOW this is amazing and definitely worth the wait and awesome and beautiful. I love the Maui and Moana dynamic, all seems exactly like it would have fit in the movie. Thank you so much for this amazing fic you are the best! /thebest-medicine
submitted by Negligible!Anon:
Words: 3878
A/N: At last, the long-awaited Secret Santa fic … I’m not going to make any excuses for how late this is, because there’s no excuse that can justify you having to wait this long, but I want to thank you and calmturquoise for being so patient with me. It’s definitely an honor to write.. well, anything for you, and you deserve all the fic in the world, and I really loved Moana and your fics made me love it even more <3 I hope this is good enough to make up for, at least a little, how long it took to get to you. Also, I wish you the happiest of birthdays! -Negligible!Anon
^^^
In her sleep, Moana dreams of her island. It’s not always visions of black rot creeping over the sand and trees and her village – as the days spent on the sea drag on, her dreams are filled with memories instead. Shadows stretching over the sand as the sun sets in a blaze of color overhead and the sizzle of palm leaves over a fire, her mother stroking her hair back from her face and her father’s hand on her shoulder as he explains some new part of chiefhood.
All her life, Moana has never been alone. There have always been people around her, laughing and teaching and caring about her. Here on her boat, with no company but a chicken and a pompous demigod, dreams of her home ache almost as much as visions of its destruction.
At least she can always wake up.
The sun is high overhead, she notes, and there is still nothing but ocean in sight. Sighing a little, she props herself up on one elbow so she can watch the waves lap smoothly at the water’s surface, entrancing as always. “Good morning, ocean.”
A wave breaks off from the rest and reaches to her in silent greeting. She stretches out her own hand with a smile, wiggling her fingers as the water wraps around her hand. It’s cool and soothing, playing over her skin, and she doesn’t think she’ll every tire of the way the light breaks and scatters in flashes over her palm. “It’s good to have at least one friend around, huh? I wish you could talk. Hearing good stories always cheers me up.”
In the corner of her eye, a flash of grey and white in the water – the colors of a manta ray. She swings her head to follow its motion in the water, suddenly distracted. The next moment, the ocean tugs sharply at her captive hand and drags her, flailing, into the water.
The world goes cool and blue for a moment, and then her head breaks the surface. She’s still next to the boat, the ocean bearing her along with the current. She struggles into an upright position, treading water with one hand and pulling wet hair off her face with the other. “What was that for? This is not cheering me up.”
The ocean ripples in response around her, a gentle massage on her arms and legs. Moana experimentally stretches out an arm, twisting to float on her back. “Mm,” she sighs, eyes fluttering closed, “… feels nice. You’re the best, ocean.”
The massage lasts for a few seconds more and then… changes, somehow. She’s not sure what happens, but all of sudden every single muscle in her body wants to squirm. “Okay, that tickles a bit, can we maybe – ahaheek!” She looks down, looking for the cause of the upset, but that just means she can see the whorls of water as they spin around her stomach and knees and all the way down to her feet, light maddening touches on every bit of exposed skin. It tickles so badly, every nerve alight in breathless anticipation and humming with electricity. She shrieks and squeals and flails, trying to turn herself over and swim back to the boat, but she can hardly move for laughing – every time she so much as twitches, the swirling around her stomach intensifies, making her double over in laughter. She’s being tickled half out of her mind, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Oddly, it does make her feel better, even as tears of laughter well up in her eyes – the ocean is trying to make her happy, and she appreciates the effort.
Just as she feels like she’ll burst if she has to take this any longer, the ocean surges up, depositing her on the deck with a desultory pat on the head that leaves drops of water sparkling in her hair. She gasps for breath like a dying fish, still inhaling jaggedly as sensation prickles over her water-slicked skin. Everything feels fresh and cool and salty; finally she feels fully awake and refreshed, in the moment and not longing for home. “Fine, fine. You have successfully cheered me up, ocean. I’ll get back to the quest now, sorry for falling asleep.”
Come to think of it, Maui should have woken her – where is he? Suddenly panicked, she looks over the cramped space of the boat – Hei-hei’s head is sticking out of the hold, twitching as he pecks in his sleep, and Maui is –
Asleep. Still upright, cross-legged by the tiller with his head tipped over onto his shoulder. Mini-Maui sleeps beneath a grove of palm trees on his chest, wrapped in a blanket of starry sky. At first, she’s angry – he teases her for falling asleep and then does it himself? They could have drifted off course! – until she realizes that she’s never actually seen him sleep before. He’s always awake in the day to bicker and brag and begrudgingly advise her in wayfinding, and when she’s nearly dead on her feet at night and finally gives up on staying awake, she always wakes to find him expertly handling the sail and rope, casting a mocking smile in her direction. That famous demigod resilience, it seems, has finally run out.
And now that she looks closer, he is handling the rope – before the sail rope is knotted to the tiller, it loops loosely around his wrist. If the sail so much as twitched, he’d feel it. “He must be really tired, if my laughing didn’t wake him up. Did you keep the boat from moving so he’d fall asleep?” she asks the ocean, still watching the sleeping demigod in something like fascination.
The wave, still floating alongside her boat, bobs up and down.
She huffs, but not without a smile. “All right, we’ll let him sleep for a while. But as soon as he wakes up, I’m going to tease him just as much as he does me. And if he gets upset, I’ll dump him overboard and you can cheer him up. Deal?”
The wave nods at her once more before it sinks back down into the vast expanse of water before her. She waves goodbye to it as it sweeps away from the bow of the boat to ripple across the ocean, probably to wash up on some distant shore. She’ll follow it there, someday.
But for now… tugging an extra length of rope out of the hold, Moana settles against the mast and begins to practice knots, one eye on Maui, waiting for the day to truly begin.
^^^
When Moana dreamed of exploring beyond the horizon, Lalotai was not what she had in mind.
They’re searching for something shiny enough to distract Tamatoa – there’s plenty of gold buried in the sand, but most of it is either too small to cover Moana or too heavy for her to lift. Maui rolls his eyes and huffs something about weak mortals under his breath, and she decides abruptly that they should split up while they look, stalking off before Maui can say anything about it.
Well, she’s already survived at least five minutes by herself in the Realm of Monsters, certainly she can do it again. Maybe she’ll find some vines to strap a golden shield to her back, or something she can balance on her head –
Something wraps around her leg in the too-quiet darkness, and she bites on her tongue to keep from screaming. Nothing but vines, she tells herself, nothing but inanimate objects that are definitely not going to eat her. She tries to pry one off her leg so she can pull it out of the ground, but the grip doesn’t budge. She pulls harder. Nothing, and now there are tendrils snaking up her arms too. Her heart beats faster and faster in her ears, and in perfect time a pulsing light spreads beneath her feet, all neon blues and yellows and oranges that are too sickly, too bright, none of them like colors she’s ever seen before.
She screams. For help, for Maui, for fear that this thing has a mouth and is about to swallow her up. As she struggles the colors get brighter and brighter, spreading further out, and as her eyes dart wildly around she thinks she can see the glint of teeth under her feet –
“Curly? Where are you?” She twists around to see Maui skid out from behind a rock outcropping. He spots her and advances slowly, palms out. “Whoa, it’s okay, just calm down.”
She can’t – every time she tries to take a deep breath, it comes right back out of her in a scream. “I’ll calm down when I get these things off me!”
Maui steps closer, looking – concerned? “Some of the monsters in Lalotai feed on fear, okay? I mean, they feed on people too, but the scared ones taste better.” Moana feels dizzy. She wants to stop screaming but she can’t, the raw horror is seeping out in whimpers that leave her throat raw and she can’t, she can’t - “So I need you to just… calm down, okay? The lights will stop, and it’ll let go, and I’ll get you out of there – Maui to the rescue, right?”
“W-what if it doesn’t let go?”
The pulsating light beneath her feet as the thing feeds off her fear is so bright now that it’s nearly blinding, and it’s easy to see where the ground turns from sand into writhing tentacles of … something. Maui walks right up to the edge so he can reach out to her, squatting at the edge and wrapping his hands firmly around her waist, getting in her face so she can’t help but look at him. “I got you, princess. If it doesn’t start letting go, I will personally pull you out with all my demigod strength.”
Without really meaning to, Moana shakes her head and keeps tugging at her arms and legs. “You won’t, it’s going to eat me -”
“Just trust me!”
“I can’t! You didn’t want to come here, and you don’t want to help me, and –“
“Hey,” Maui says, sharply, squeezing her waist. Moana jerks away with a tiny eep, and for a moment the neon lights oozing from the ground dim to something almost bearable. He studies her carefully, still crouching in front of her. “I’m going to help you, I promise. Are you ticklish?”
Moana blinks down at him. “What?”
His fingers dig into her waist, and she giggles. Maui drums his fingers on her back, looking determined. “You know what monsters hate even more than mortals who aren’t afraid? Mortals who are laughing.”
Moana’s eyes widen. “Don’t you dare-“ Too late. Maui’s huge fingers are already digging into her sides, surprisingly nimble, and past all the fear a peal of laughter comes winding up into her throat and right out from between her clenched teeth. “Stohohop it – Tomotoa will hehehear us!”
Maui grins at her. “I told you, monsters hate laughter. And that big crabmouth won’t care about you unless you’re edible or covered in gold. We have aaaall the time we need to get you out of here, and I’m more than willing to help, no matter how long it takes.”
Now Moana’s shrieking for an entirely different reason – Maui’s teasing combined mixed with his wiggling fingers are just too much for her to handle. To her relief, as she laughs she can feel the grip of the monster on her arms and legs recoil as if it can’t stand touching her any more. Bit by bit, they unwind, giving her more freedom to move and pull. Maui notices, too – abruptly reaching down, he grabs one of her ankles, using the new lack of restriction to pull her foot off the ground and scratch his nails up and down the calloused sole.
“Cootchie cootchie coo!” he teases.
Moana grabs at him for balance. “AhahanOT THERE!” she pleads. The tentacles release her foot like they’ve been burned
“Hey, it works!” True to his word, the vines are sinking back to the ground, flattened by the force of her laughter. Her freed foot is placed gently onto the safe path, and then Maui grabs the other one. She’s seconds away from punching him at that point, laughing so hard she thinks her lungs will burst, but suddenly his hands are firmly back on her waist and he pulls. The vines slip off her elbows and wrists, and now she’s standing safely beside Maui, gasping for breath through residual giggles. He’s grinning back at her, wraps one arm around her and pulls her into a sideways hug with a whoop of victory. Unthinking, she hugs him back.
Head against his side, she comes face to face with mini-Maui, who winks at her. Blushing, she lets go and stumbles away, pulling her hair and skirt into some semblance of order.
When she looks up, Maui is regarding her, one eyebrow aloft. “You okay, Princess? Good thing you had a hero around to save you, right?”
She sighs. “Still not a princess. But…thank you. For helping me.”
He smirks, and her eyes narrow. “You’re welc -ow!” They both look down at mini Maui, who has apparently just punched Maui in the arm.
Now he’s just… looking at her. “As… fun as that was, you really shouldn’t be down here. And you definitely shouldn’t be anywhere near Tamatoa.”
“But even the Demigod of the Wind and Sky needs a distraction to get his precious fishhook back.” She doesn’t want to fight with him, and she doesn’t exactly feel safe down here, but she needs to be useful, and if this is the only way – it is what it is.
Maui grits his teeth, mini-Maui looking back and forth like he’s tracking a coconut being thrown from person to person. “I don’t need anything from you. This is just so we can get out of here faster – because someone decided they needed to come down here even though mortals aren’t meant to be in Lalotai, and now we need to get out before something actually eats you.”
“Well, I trust you to protect me.” His lips twitch into a reluctant smile at that, and she smiles back. “Let’s do this.”
Later, as Moana grabs Maui’s hand and they sprint towards the geyser that will finally get them out of here, she tries very, very hard to ignore the neon lights that flash out every time Maui’s feet hit the ground. She isn’t scared anymore. She trusts him. They can do this.
They have to.
^^^
“You’re telling me we’re running out of water because you let a chicken sneak onto your boat?”
Moana picks up said chicken protectively. “I couldn’t just let Hei-hei die of thirst! And that’s not the only reason - I packed as much as I could, but I wasn’t expecting a storm to wreck the canoe, or for us to take a detour to the Realm of Monsters… maybe if we ask the ocean nicely, it’ll bring us a rain cloud and we can get some water from there.”
“You can’t expect the ocean to do everything for you, Curly,” Maui says, squinting at the night sky above them. “Lucky for us, there’s an island near here with some fresh water. I can have us there by morning.”
“Really? That’s great!” Maui’s chest puffs out as he poses dramatically, one hand outstretched to measure the stars, and it reminds her so much of Hei-hei getting ready to crow that she can barely keep from laughing. “Wait, how long has it been since you’ve been there?”
Maui’s hand drops a little. “Uh…’
Now she does laugh. “Maybe you should fly ahead and check.”
He turns around just in time for her to see mini-Maui unroll the tally chart from the ever-shifting canvas of Maui’s chest and draw another mark under her name. Maui looks down and scoffs, but that doesn’t stop him from showing her the star-path that will lead her to the island before he leaps into the air and soars away in a flash of blue light.
Maui drops back out of the sky in about an hour – yes, the island is still there, and yes, it still has water and food. Moana lands them on the beach just as the horizon starts to turn the pearly grays and pinks that signal the oncoming sun, and she can’t help but smile. The trees here are still lush and green, the sand soft beneath her feet. This island is surely closer to Te Fiti than her own, and it’s far from dead. She thumbs open her necklace to let the green stone inside see as well. “Look,” she whispers. “It’s not too late. We can still bring you home.”
Minutes later, she’s lugging hollowed out gourds to a beautiful spring while Maui kicks around the sand and hums approvingly. “Good for sculptures,” he declares, and kneels, apparently intent of making a little version of himself right then and there. On his back, mini-Maui shrugs at her before running over the demigod’s shoulder to give his input on the muscled torso coming into form from the sand.
Moana rolls her eyes, fills every container they have with cool, fresh water, and starts carrying them back to the boat. Every so often, she glances over at Maui’s progress. He works fast – the head is already recognizable, and the curl of a tattoo has already been sketched out on one side of the chest with the point of his fishhook. Judging from that statue on the island where she met him, Maui must have a lot of practice sculpting himself.
Not that it makes watching him play as she does the actual work any less annoying. Halfway through her job, she stops in her tracks, glaring at Maui and bending to scoop up a handful of wet sand from the shoreline’s edge.
“If he likes the sand so much…” she mutters, pulling her arm back to throw. Suddenly, her hand is enveloped in cool wetness – the ocean, staying her hand. “What?” she hisses. “Come on, not even once?”
In reply, the ocean swirls her handful of sand into a perfectly smooth ball of mud, cold to the touch and somehow sticky and gritty at the same time, before releasing her hand. Moana grins and lets the projectile fly.
Maui’s head snaps up as wet sand splats messily over his shoulder. “Are you trying to start a sand fight with me? You want to tangle with a demigod?”
“Well, I want you to do some of the heavy lifting with all those muscles of yours,” Moana shoots back, already scooping up another handful of sand.
Maui stands, cracking his neck, and stretches his arms wide. “Oh, well, if you want me to lift something heavy-“ The next moment he’s rushing across the sand to her, swinging her up into the air before she can even think to run, fingers finding the spaces between her ribs and starting to tickle.
Moana kicks her legs helplessly and tries to pry his hands away, only lasting a few seconds before she’s laughing too hard to fight back. “Nohoho! Help!’ she begs.
“No help for you, princess – you start a fight with me, it’ll get finished one way or another,” Maui says, teeth bared. He’s still holding her, effortless, above the ground, his thumb brushing the edge of her belly button and making her shriek. “Not even the ocean can help you now!”
He might be right – they’ve moved away from the shoreline, and the ocean doesn’t seem especially inclined to help anyway, inching languidly up and down the sand with the swell of waves. But it’s not the ocean’s help she’s asking for.
Swinging himself out of a panel on Maui’s arm, mini-Maui winks at her and makes his way down to Maui’s stomach, wiggling his fingers dramatically before poking a single finger into the tanned expanse of skin behind him.
Maui flinches, fingers stilling on her sides. “What-“
Still in the air, Moana shrugs down at him. She’s probably grinning evilly. “Help.”
He drops her a few seconds later, reaching to flick his mischievous tattoo away from anywhere particularly sensitive, and then she and mini-Maui try their best to tickle him to the ground – he is, as it turns out, even more ticklish than her, letting out a sharp exclamation every time her fingers so much as brush his skin, but he also has long arms and excellent reflexes and is more than capable of holding Moana back with one hand and clapping the other over mini-Maui to keep him in place. Moana ducks out of his reach and grabs at his knees, his hips, but nothing seems to work - that is, until mini-Maui manages to get under one of his arms. Doubling over in a fit of laughter, Maui pushes Moana gently back with his free hand and turns, staggering towards his hook. “Okahahay, that’s it. I – stohohop that or you’ll be sleeping under my arm, jerk! – it’s hawk time, ahahand I’ll turn back when you two decihide to be nice again.” Seizing the giant hook in the arm that’s not pressed against his side, trying to keep mini-Maui contained, Maui twirls his wrist and prepares to leap. A flash of blue light, cut by a squeal as Moana makes one last play at his huge stomach and mini-Maui gets an especially good spot at the top of his ribcage– and Maui is still there, precariously balanced on a shark tail.
He blinks and looks down, his upper half stiffening. “Oh, nO-“
Moana lunges, pushing him to the ground and tickling everywhere she can reach. Mini-Maui scampers into all the places she can’t get to, dragging feathery-looking palm fronds over the small of Maui’s back and the back of his neck. She jabs at his ribs, runs her fingers over the join of soft human skin and rough shark scales with a light touch that has Maui begging for mercy, wiggles a finger into his belly button and watches in fascination as the surrounding fire roars to life under his skin in swirls of green. Maui shouts and laughs and pounds on the ground until it shakes beneath them and he, breathless, chokes out a promise to carry every single gourd and an entire tree’s worth of coconuts to the boat.
Moana rocks back on her heels in breathless delight, feeling powerful enough to wield Maui’s famous fishhook herself. “So, the mighty Maui can be defeated by tickling?” Maui gasps for breath and spits out a mouthful of sand. “Hey, if I beat you, what does that make me?”
“Living on borrowed time,” Maui growls playfully, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her down next to him so he can rub sand into her hair. Still, Moana holds her head high as they walk back to her boat, the sunlight glinting off her necklace as she walks. Ready to finish her quest, and ready to fight beside Maui.
She’d beat the Demigod of the Wind and Sky in a tickle fight. What could the world possibly throw at her now?
Merry Christmas @nerdtickler26 Not sure if this counts…
Usually, GoGo found it prudent to NOT put Honey Lemon’s chemical compounds in her mouth, but Honey assured her that her new formula for extra-strong, extra-sticky, ultra-long-lasting gumballs (guess what flavor) was perfectly safe, so the biker reluctantly gave it a go - a decision that backfired when her bubble exploded into a giant blob of extra-strong, extra-sticky goop that cemented her, splayed out, to the laboratory wall.
GoGo was not amused (at all) and grunted angrily through her nostrils, but Honey was all smiles, all oblivious excitement at the potential uses of her new invention, and that’s when, mid-stream, the peppy chemist spontaneously perked up with inspiration and queried, “Ooo, hey GoGo - are your feet ticklish?”
Now, it’s a well-known fact that in times of great fear or panic, the resultant adrenaline rush can grant humans incredible boosts of super-strength, and as soon as GoGo heard those words, and saw Honey bending down toward her shoeless foot, she suddenly & violently tore through the hardened glue ball like it was made of styrofoam.
Irrelevant side note: GoGo’s armor in the comics is cooler than her movie look. It’s a bit Bibleman villain, but it’s still badass.
Val's basement was not at all what Riley expected. It probably hadn't been touched since the late 90s…solid white walls, weirdly low ceiling, scratchy and thick cream carpet that looked like it was made out of rope, a neglected Foosball table, and a really squishy toffee-colored leather couch almost thick enough to be a beanbag. It was nice and homey, but the ordinariness threw Riley off.
She figured that because Val was the coolest and most popular girl in school and such a successful hockey captain and so inspiring and pretty and (shut up, shut up) the Ortiz family must’ve been, like, uber-rich or something. But nope. Totally normal. It was kind of comforting, actually.
A friendly little spot on the carpet, next to the edge of the couch, invited Riley to sit down there, among the towering pizza boxes. So she did.
“Okay everyone, just relax and let’s all have some fun!” Joy was peppy as always. Game time.
“But wait, why are we worried about this? We’ve hung out with the FireHawks plenty of times…”
“BECAUSE, Sadness: this isn’t our first time hanging out with the FireHawks, but it IS our first time hanging out with them as an OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE TEAM,” Anxiety chimed in.
“The importance of this event literally cannot be overstated,” the green girl grimaced, jabbing her finger.
With one roll of his sleeve, Anger was ready to go. “I’ve been warmin’ up the swear button all day for this. Oh! Maybe we'll get to watch an R-rated movie!”
"Uhhh, do you WANT Mom to kill us?"
“Alright,” Val announced to the team, with an uncharacteristically sly side-eyed smirk on. The game had been going for a while, and it was her turn. “Never have I ever…kissed a boy-band poster on my bedroom wall.”
Everyone’s hands stretched out into the air, all accompanied by varying degrees of smarm or giggliness, but Riley’s arm shot up to its full height much faster than the others’. Her lower lip curled up beneath her teeth, almost like it was trying to hide. Her eyes drifted around the room unfocused. And if she'd looked to her left, she would've noticed Nour's suspicious smile.
"Riley looks embarrassed," the latter teased. “You sure there isn't something you wanna tell us, Glow Girlie?” With her free hand, Nour reached out and playfully poked beneath Riley's raised arm.
What happened next, Riley couldn't stop. It was a reflex. She didn't even have time to think before she shrieked loudly, slapped her hand over her armpit, and scurried away on her knees. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets and she was tingling all over.
“Nowaitpleasedonttickleme!” she begged. It all just blurted out in one rapid breath. By the time she realized what she’d said, it was too late.
A collective gasp echoed throughout the command center. Every head turned, each with a different expression. On the desk, the "Panic Button" was lit up, its soft glow blinking through the fingers of a single, orange hand.
“....Oh no…was that bad? ...What did I do?!”
“Hey…that reminds me…” the visage of Ally chuckled on the big Jumbotron screen, and tugged with malice of forethought on the edge of her beanie. All the emotions swiveled again to look at her. “We haven’t put Riley through the official FireHawks initiation yet.”
Suddenly, five pairs of eyes were staring right in at them. At Riley.
Gulp.
Gulp.
Riley yanked her feet behind her and clumsily tried to sit on them. “W-wait, wait,” she stammered. Except for Val (who was just enjoying the show), the rest of her team were all crawling toward her with their hands outstretched, twisted smiles on their faces, their fingers dancing like spider legs. Riley's shyness overcame her, and she felt herself blushing, only to be distracted when old white plaster bumped against her shoulder. She'd backed into the wall...there was nowhere to run. And her puppy-dog eyes weren't dissuading the others. “Wait, guys!”
The eight terrible arms that hovered over her descended in sync like a hungry swarm, and smothered her until all light was blotted out.
“AHHH!!”
Dogpiled on the floor. Enveloped on all sides. Riley quickly hugged herself tight and curled into a defensive armadillo ball, but the wriggly hands of her teammates all fought and shoved and tunneled their way into every nook & cranny between her arms and her torso. They scuttled like crabs at her waist, and her belly, and her armpits, and her neck, until she crumbled into screaming, helpless laughter.
Side thought: I'm guessing that Riley’s tickle laugh probably sounds a lot like her overdone “pretend I get the joke and fit in” laugh.
“Hihih HA-Heh! *heave* HA-Ha Ha-Ha Ha!! AHH!! *gasp* Gai…G-huys, stop!” (So much for ever keeping any future secrets from these girls.)
“We all had to do it, Michigan; now it's your turn…” Dani, always the bully among them, did not lie convincingly. But she did tickle very well.
"Andersen, two minutes in the Penalty Booooox!!" Ally's voice dropped several pitches in a goofy pantomime of their Coach. Her pinching claws electrified Riley’s sides and made her jump like a popped corn kernel.
“Oho my g-hahawd, I barely touched you.” Sofia, clearly having the time of her life, tucked her glasses into her pocket (for safety) and moved down to grab Riley's ankles.
"Ha-HA!!! Dohon't!" Everything went hot. Riley couldn’t breathe or see straight. Her blue hoodie held her snug in its warm cotton folds, but even its extra layer wasn’t thick enough to protect her from the barrage of poking FireHawk fingers. She was used to being wrestled and tummy-tickled practically to death by Bree & Grace...that was normal, sometimes even a little exciting. But her new friends were older girls: bigger, stronger, better at holding her down, and way meaner.
"NO! Nnnnn-NO!! Thisisnothappening!!!" Disgust was mortified. "Stop fidgeting; I can't tell what kind of looks they're giving us!!"
Underneath the table, Embarrassment held his entire body in a death-grip bear hug around the central pedestal, and the fuchsia on its surface rapidly emanated from him like an inky stain. In a fit of panic, Fear followed suit and threw his four limbs around the nearest sturdy object he could find... which just so happened to be Ennui's entire face.
"Wait! I-I can fix this!" Anxiety hadn't moved this fast since Hockey Camp.
Joy, though? She was over the moon. Giddy, buzzing, practically levitating off the floor. "Awww, remember when Dad used to tickle us all the time? Heheheh...Riley's our little monkey!"
"No! Stop it! This is not cute!"
"Wait a minute; Val! Val will save us! We have-togettamessageto-er somehow!" The faster Fear talked, the tighter and tighter he squeezed Ennui's head, until both of them crashed to the floor.
Anxiety gasped. "You're right! She's always stuck up for Riley! How do we signal her?!"
"Guys look she's looking! She's looking at us!!" squeaked Envy.
It was then, as if in answer to their prayers, that Val pushed herself up off the couch and spoke. All the others on the hockey team heeded her call. “A’ight, girls..."
She was smiling warmly, practically moving in slow motion, like a knight in shining armor. Time ground to a standstill. All the emotions held their breaths in anticipation…
"...let me get in on this."
At their leader's command, the four minions happily parted like the Red Sea. Dazed, Riley suddenly felt two rough hands clasping her wrists, and then two more closing around her ankles, and then her head sliding up into someone's lap. Dani's. Carpet burns stung her back. She was breathing hard. Someone had been using her diaphragm as a trampoline. By the time she got her wits about her, her limbs were stretched out like rubber bands, and Val was sauntering toward her.
No. No no no not Val. Please not her!!
“Uh-oh…awwww, yeah; get ‘er good, Val,” Ally teased.
Riley desperately squirmed and wiggled to escape, hoping to hide in a fetal position, but the hockey captain plopped right down on top of her jittery knees. She was pinned.
Say something. What are you doing; SAY SOMETHING!!!
She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a squeaky, low-decibel croak, like a leaking balloon. Crud. And as Val smiled down at her, one eyebrow raised, Riley noticed something else that made her even more nervous: her hoodie had hitched up from all her writhing around, and her bare belly was peeking out.
Oh no. Her earlobes had a heartbeat. Could the others tell how red her cheeks were?! Oh no.
"Heheh…What’s this? What’ve we got here?" Snickering, Val slowly reached her left hand forward, making sure to drag each movement out for as long as possible…and then…just as the tension reached its agonizing limit…she scratched her fingernail right in the freshman FireHawk's belly button.
The scream that burst out of Riley could've killed a Symbiote.
BANG!! BANG!! BANG!! Embarrassment’s massive schnoz pummeled the keyboard like a whack-a-mole hammer, engulfed by the machine's belches of sparks and smoke. Sirens blared, red lights strobed.
“Fight BACK already!” Anger dove for the controls, but a hyperactive orange fist sent him flying into the ceiling.
“No! We CAN’T!! Just retreat! Submit! Roll over! O-or something!” Anxiety no longer knew what buttons she was pressing on the neon-pink-and-orange console, or if they even functioned. She just desperately pounded whatever wasn't currently blocked by Embarrassment's flailing body.
“She’s right; what if we sock one of them in the face like we did to Bree during the slumber party?!” Fear whimpered.
“That was YOUR fault!”
Joy, meanwhile, rolled around on the floor in wild hysterics, laughing and snorting and totally oblivious to the surrounding office chaos. Beside her, Envy bounced up and down in tandem.
The apocalypse was here.
“HA-HA Ha-Ha Ha-Heh…Ah-HEHH!! *cough* HHA-Haw HA!!” Riley wailed through cracking and creaking pipes. She hated how crooked her braces-wearing grin looked, how wide her nostrils flared. It was too much: Val squeezing her tummy like a marshmallow, Sofia scratching and tickling her foot through her sock, Nour prodding her in the ribs with a big toe…she was going to cry from laughing if they didn’t quit. She wanted to die - to lock herself in her room and never come out again.
“Ok, girls, I think she’s had enough,” Val declared. Her word was law…the torment immediately stopped. With one last flourish, the captain gave her youngest subordinate’s achy belly a gentle, affectionate little pat, and even sweetly pulled her shirt back down again. Aw. How helpful.
It had only been a minute or two, but Riley felt like she’d been tickled for hours. Free at last, and totally exhausted, she groaned and wiped her eyes and conked her head on the carpet, still trembling and giggling like a baby. Oh thank God.
“Haha-Ha! You’re fun, Andersen.”
"Nah, Val, I know that look; you think we were too 'mean' to her," Ally mocked as the five returned to their original seats. Val hopped onto the couch once again and crossed one leg over her knee.
"Oh, I don’t know; everyone loves tickle fights, right?"
“Uh-uh. No. Not me. I hhhate being tickled,” Dani shuddered.
“It depends; it’s not THAT bad,” interjected Sofia. “Well, except like when I’m getting my nails done, and they start going for my feet…”
“Oh, yeah, I hate that feeling,” Val laughed in agreement, resting her cheek in her left palm. “In the mall? Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing…one time, I was getting a mani pedi, and I legit accidentally kicked this Chinese lady in the face.”
That cracked the rest of them up. "Girl, the criiiiinge," Ally snickered.
“I couldn't help it! Heh-Heh…hey, you ok over there, Ri?”
Clearly upset, the largest and pinkest retreated into his sweater. The control console was still sputtering in pain.
"Not ok. Not ok. We were JUST making an impression!"
"Ok, let's everybody just cool your jets," Joy smiled.
“Wait she called us ‘Ri;’ does that mean something?” queried Envy. “Are we super-friends now?”
“What are we even supposed to say?!”
But as usual, whenever the group got stuck filibustering, it was up to Ennui to save the day. "S'cuse moi."
BOOP.
Still splayed out on the floor like a snow angel, still sucking in air by the gallon, Riley weakly raised a single thumbs-up, high above her head. Do. Not. Make. Eye contact.
“Hiiiiieeee…….yaah….*gasp*...’mokay…*gasp* …neverbetter,” she squeaked.
“Well that couldn’t POSSIBLY have gone worse. So help me those girls are gonna GET it!”
“Oh I messed up…Imessedupsobad…” Anxiety yanked down on her wiry hair, pulling it down to her waist, to the point where she appeared to be wearing suspenders.
“I don’t know,” Sadness mused. For the first time all evening, her cheeks raised up in a tiny smile.
“I think…I think they like us.”
Riley wheezed and sighed and blew a bang out of her reddened face, while the others just laughed playfully. They were way too happy about this…the kind of happy that girls only get when they discover a piece of juicy gossip. Deep down, in the pit of her stomach, Riley had a feeling…this wouldn’t be the last time her new gal-pals punished her for the crime of being unbearably ticklish.
…somehow, she didn’t really mind all that much.
**********
I wasn't originally planning to write an Inside Out 2 fic, but got a lot of positive feedback on my headcanons and my prompt ideas, so this is ‘sort of’ a reader request. Now, I am not a teenage girl. I have never been one. I don't plan on being one in the future. So, I’m not entirely sure how ‘believable’ this is. My hope was that this fic would feel authentic and familiar to some of you, and maybe drag up some high school memories (or fantasies) of those warm, squiggly, flustery feelings that come with a tickle attack from your BFFs. Just something cute and silly.
I don’t ship Riley & Val, I’m not super comfortable with that, and this fic was not intended to be interpreted that way. But, some people who read this are probably going to anyhow, and that’s fine I guess as long as you don’t push it. Lol
Also I don't actually know if the Muslim girl's name is Nour. I read on some dubbing wiki that it was, but that was the only reference to her name I could find, anywhere, online. So if I get different info I'll fix that.
Hi,I found your old post about Disney Princesses and wanted to give you my thoughts - choosing the most ticklish one is hard! Belle and Jasmine are both up there, sheltered people who are so much more ticklish than they thought (plus Jasmine's outfit exposes two of her worst spots). Ariel's feet and legs are the worst of all the princesses (an unfortunate side effect of transformation), and Tiana gets tickled out of overworking herself all the time. They're all super ticklish, though!
First of all, thanks! I was honestly hoping to get a lot more responses on that post than I did. Haha The Disney Princess characters are somehow both overused and overlooked at the same time, but they're perfect for tickle content.
I'm surprised by your placement of Belle; I actually would've guessed that she's one of the less-ticklish ones! Not that Belle isn't great, and the "sheltered" aspect totally makes sense. It's just that, as Disney princesses go, she was always one of the more mature and emotionally-reserved. I'm picturing someone who kind of yelps and gets frustrated & snippy if someone tickles them, rather than collapsing into giggles or laughing really hard.
I think everybody's in agreement about how ticklish Ariel's lower extremities are; she literally never had them until her late teens and the sensation would be totally unfamiliar to her. It's logic! A+ for the thoughts on Jasmine and Tiana too.
But yes, agreed - differentiating so much between these girls is kinda needless. Why be picky? They're all super ticklish! XD
Uhhh...so, you basically just wrote my favorite headcanon setup out of nowhere like that. XDDD Those two, joining forces, making it their personal mission to tickle everyone else as much as possible? It's perfect. (Also I would pay so much money to see an Anna/Rapunzel vs Moana/Merida tickle battle.)
Dang it, I'm gonna have to start writing about this now, aren't I?! ...Could somebody please do it for me? lol
YES. YOU'RE RIGHT. One of Rapunzel's most endearing traits is her curiosity (being locked in a room for 18 years will do that to you). And I love the scene in Tangled where her feet touch the grass for the first time, and she's just enraptured with this new thing she's never felt before; of course she'd want to experience that again! And until she met Flynn, she never even touched another human being besides Gothel, so it's absolutely believable that Rapunzel would be excited by the concept of tickling and want to try it out with other princesses. Whoever you are, anon, you're a genius.
They're kind of loophole Disney princesses...including them is cheating a little...but I also think Anastasia and Crysta from FernGully might like tickling too. Maybe not as much as the aforementioned pair, but they've got that spunky down-to-earth energy that would make them really fun 'lers.
Anybody reading this: any particular matchups you'd like to see? Who's your favorite (official or unofficial) Disney princess, and what are your tickle thoughts about them?
While I’m thinking about it, does anyone want me to write a really quick, short fic based on one of these Inside Out 2 prompts? Any of them sound fun to you?
Inside Out 2 fic ideas (that I had during a rewatch but will never actually write:)
- Joy comes up with increasingly harebrained Wile E. Co
