#lightning bug au

[nutsandbees]

hey hi um is anyone else down for some more body horror angst in their pokemon

[bug-buddies-yume]

"Stop, STOP! Guz, stop!! Don’t force yourself! You’re obviously too tired already!" "N-No, no…! I have to… change back… Ion wanna… sleep on the couch…" "What the hell are you talking about!? Why would you be sleeping on the couch!?" "Why wouldn’t I be when I look like this!? P-Please, Veebs… I-I got this, j-just gimme a minute… I-I can change back, just—" "I said stop. I will NOT have you hurting yourself over this!" "B-But I wanna sleep next to you… please…" "Y-You don’t need to change back to do that, idiot!!"

i sorely missed this AU so heres a breadcrumb scene

additional yap: but changing/shifting takes an Amount of concentration and energy, depending on the body part/s involved. full body transformations would usually exhaust his energy almost immediately, and the docs over at the foundation have warned him against pushing himself beyond his limits. a good ole snack of AA batteries would help replenish his spent energy.

[curlicuecal]

lightning bug!karkat, how did you first meet dave?

lb!Karkat:  I ENTIRELY BLAME EGBERT AND I HOPE HE REGRETS HIS PART IN THE FUCKFEST EVERY DAMN DAY OF HIS LIFE BECAUSE EMPRESS KNOWS I HAVE TO.

BUT YEAH, IT’S A SHORT, STUPID STORY.  MR. BUCKTOOTH-THE-OBNOXIOUSLY-CHEERFUL LIVED DOWN THE HALL IN ONE OF THE HIVESTEMS I CRASHED IN, EARLY ON WHEN I STARTED WORKING. HIS JACKASS OF A FRIEND IN SHADES DROPPED IN AND STAYED WITH HIM A PERIGREE BECAUSE, I ASSUME, HE IS A MASSIVE FUCKING IRRITANT ON THE BULGE OF LIFE WHO CAN’T KEEP A JOB FOR MORE THAN A MILLISECOND ON ACCOUNT OF BEING SO DAMN INSUFFERABLE.

ANYWAY, THEY’RE BOTH TREMENDOUSLY NOSY NOOKSNIFFERS, AND JOHN DOES THAT PUSHY, FAUX-PALE, PLATONIC CARETAKING THING THAT HUMANS GO FOR BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL UNCULTURED HEATHENS THAT JUST BARELY JOINED THE IMPERIAL ALLIANCE A DECADE AGO.  SO LATER ON WHEN THINGS CAME UP AND I WAS LOOKING FOR A SHIP TO BERTH ON, EGBERT HOOKED ME UP WITH STRIDER WHO HOOKED ME UP WITH HIS CLUTCH-MATE AND NEXT THING I KNEW I WAS TALKING TO CAPTAIN CROCKER.  

TA-DAH, NOW I LIVE WITH A PACK OF MANIACS ON THE GOOD SHIP SERENITY.  

…I GUESS IT’S PRETTY OKAY.

WELL, EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE AFTER THAT STRIDER JUST… *NEVER WENT AWAY.*  HE DOESN’T EVEN *LIVE* ON THE SHIP.  SO WHY, I ASK, DOES HIS STUPID FACE POP UP EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE I GO LIKE SOME KIND OF DEMONIC SPRINGED PREDATOR-IN-A-BOX TOY FOR WRIGGLERS?  

I SWEAR HE DOES IT JUST TO BE A PAIN IN MY ASS.  WHICH IS STUPID, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T NEED TO WORK TO BE A PAIN IN MY WASTE CHUTE, HE COULD BE ONE ANY DAMN DAY JUST NATURALLY–AND *HOLY FUCK*, GAMZEE, STOP LAUGHING, THAT WAS NOT AN INNUENDO *SHUT UP.*

OKAY, I’M DONE HERE.  GONNA GO EXPLAIN TO THE DUMBASS IN PAINT OVER HERE HOW THINGS LIKE *PRIVACY* WORK AGAIN.

[bug-buddies-yume]

[curlicuecal]

Someday, SOMEDAY, I am going to get around to writing that Dirk/(Caliborn|Calliope)/Roxy threesome for lightning bug AU. And good luck to anyone who tries to parse what sexuality label that alien clusterfuck amounts to.

[curlicuecal]

Lighting bug Roxy or Dirk, how much of a logistical issue is your girlfriend or boyfriend's... cohabitation? Do you ever enter the negotiations is or is it purely between them?

lb!Roxy:  oooh ooh i got this 1 :3

cause like dirk will go all srs science-y on u if u ask him but cherub biology is actually super fucking neat ok?

ive been researching! ;) which is a trip and a half let me tell u when we only even know about maybe a couple 100 cherubs in the universe and theyre all super territorial and spread out across a bunch of star systems and it would require a ton of different types of cultural and political shenanigans to get near all of them

it is a mess

so the thing u need to know is that –as far as we can tell– cherubs do this thing where they like genetically encode and evolve their value systems? straight up heritable personality awesomeness.  so on top of all the usual fun height an eye color and stuff the cute new babbu also gets like parent 1s way of doing things and parent 2s way of doing things and maybe also like parent 3 and 4 and etc –and then i guess the different ways fight it out and either 1 way wins or if theyre similar enough they just kinda merge together

which is not really how humans do it by a long shot :p

and then way out on the end of the spectrum of cool cherub personality shit weve got cal aka callie and calib who are just kinda rocking along flying their own flag like the awesome rebels they are doing their own thing not settling on 1 at all :3333

so thats how the cherubs do

idk i sort of think of it like calliope and caliborn are different people but theyre also kinda like two different version of the same person

if that makes sense

which now that i read it over it HELLA does not lmao, but aliens whatre u going 2 do?

tl;dr --

any negotiations that go on are p much just me and dirk working shit out between us bc it wouldnt even occur to callie and calib to interact w/ each other like that

its all the same brain and whoevers got the body makes the calls

(also if u dont want them to switch on u, u just have to keep them suitably ~invested~ *wINK WINK* )

[curlicuecal]

They only mindfuck you if you demonstrate criminal antisocial tendencies. You know, like not speaking appropriately well of the Beneficent Alliance, or being kind of rude at parties.

It’s therapy! and it’s in your own best interests, of course. :o)

Luckily Jake is inhumanly good at accidentally charming people and they thought he was adorable like a small fluffy animal. It completely distracted them from any whim of going poking around at his social phobias. (Which they wouldn’t really be supposed to do anyway, but, hey–who’s going to tell a pair of subjugglators how to do their job?)

Gamzee does not go into anybody’s brains by intention. He is way too broken in his own brain. Also it gives him badfeels these days, and that’s pretty much a guaranteed meltdown loop.

[curlicuecal]

Fic title: The Imperial Masquerade

Basically the only thing I want from this right now is to put Dave in a crow mask.  Also, mistaken identity.  I don’t even know where I’m going with this.

Okay, no, here we go:  

Fireflystuck ‘verse, and the Calliope’s crew infiltrates a political gala hosted by Her Imperial Complacency herself (or more likely her Heiresses) annnd, shenanigans.  Karkat is there.  He’s working.  He recognizes them all immediately.  He’s just like ‘why do you guys even do this to me?  Why is this my life?’

The whole thing is utter chaos.  Jane’s wearing an adorable bunny mask.  She has three guns.  Roxy’s filching all the food off the buffet table.  Dirk and Dave are waltzing for some reason.  Cal gets in a fight. It’s actually probably Calliope, idk, she has strong opinions.  Jake is supposed to be distracting some of the higher-ups, but he winds up hiding in a side room.  He somehow manages to befriend a pair of subjugglators, it’s really weird.

Jane hate-flirts with Heiress no. 2 (it’s Feferi) which might have been part of the plan or might have been because she thinks it’s hilarious.   The whole event is an elaborate ruse for them to steal some documents to hawk to the highest buyer, and like three different ship members pretend to be lost trying to find the bathroom and Karkat actually has to bail Dave out of trouble by turning up in the nick of time and lying through his teeth.  Dave will never live it down.