#remind me to draw puppet coming in with a steel chair

[frightguard-watch]

I think that every character in Frightguard should be allowed to hit SpringTrap with a metal chair. As a treat.

The grand finale of Frightguard just looks like this.

[amuerion]

Meihem SFW Valentine’s Day Headcanons Incoming!

Hello to everyone out there! 

Final uni exams and presentations will be over for me in a few days. So, I thought I take a little break from studying and join in the fun of sharing Valentine’s Day headcanons about Meihem – and friends - to give this tag some love!

For compactness’ sake, you will find them all beneath the “read more” link!

Basis: Overwatch Joined Forces AU

Mei never believed that she would get very excited about Valentine’s Day at some point in her life. That changed as soon as Junkrat’s enthusiasm for it rubbed off on her. He loves the idea of a day dedicated to being especially thankful for how far the two of them have come with their relationship - not to mention that he and Mei come up with countless nice surprises for the other people who enrich their lives, with or without a special someone.

Nowadays, Mei’s Valentine’s Day usually starts with being woken up by Junkrat in the morning over the communicator. He rings her up, in order to just quickly tell her something he adores about her and hangs up again - only to repeat that around every full hour with another fact, until the two finally meet in person.

Flowers have been removed from future Valentine’s Day plans for Mei, at least until further changes of mind. There was tohubohu enough, when Junkrat surprised her with an HQ meeting hall that was neatly decorated with the most vibrantly-coloured flowers - only to find out that he stole these all by himself from the King’s Row Garden Festival Plaza, beaming with pride.

Mei has made it a habit of hers to already prepare Valentine’s Day cards at least a month in advance. Not only for Junkrat, but as a thank you for everybody on the team. She loves drawing things on it that the recipient likes, decorating it and even writing small verses of motivational poetry. She doesn’t consider her skills for making these to be all that fantastic. Junkrat certainly knows that he will keep all of them safe in a fire-proof box, though. He can’t stop himself from dancing whenever he gets a new one. He is amazed by how great Mei handles animals in her drawings and the frilled neck lizard with his frill of fireworks is by far his favourite.

Junkrat however is happy to know that he can gift Mei with something that makes her just as excited. She loves the lucky charms and trinkets he makes for her, because she can use them for absolutely everything. Junkrat made her a little mail penguin that keeps all of her to-do notes in order in his beak and bag, a snowman to hang from her car keys and a little fluffy yeti that hangs from the zipper of her bag. Mei likes to play around with it and how warm it gets in her hands, whenever she is nervous before important job meetings.

Mei on the other hand loves to surprise Junkrat with gifts that ensure a feel-good time. She loves to surprise him with bath bombs and let specialists help her to choose ingredients that would make a nice mix and remind him of places and events they learned to love together - much to his excitement of seeing the “brewing of a witch’s potion” unfold. Mei even got into sewing and made a pillow cover with bomber rats. She filled it herself and left little pockets inside the cover to fill with sweet herb bags that encourage a soothing sleep with their smell. 

Another reason why Junkrat settled on these smaller gifts is because he has a rather unusual style of wrapping presents. He doesn’t know how Mei does it with those perfect edges and cute figurines folded out of paper. He certainly cannot make it look any less like an UFO traveller creature of those alien conspirancy movies they sometimes watch together...and on their very first Valentine’s Day, he got Mei’s gift wrapped just in time for her to walk in...and realize that he was so focused on getting it right that one of his hands got stuck in it.

They love to make ice cream and slushies together with the help of Mei’s drone Snowball. A lot of experiments with countless fruits are done and perfected with chocolate sauce and sprinkles in heart shape. Often they even share the delicious results with the team.

Speaking of fruit, Junkrat gets incredibly excited whenever Mei lets him add flambéed fruit to the ice cream as a larger dessert. As usual, through many trials and errors, with Snowball to the rescue in the HQ roof garden, he has become exceptionally good at it.

Sometimes Mei and Junkrat also lend Mercy a hand at baking her legendary guardian angel buns on Valentine’s Day. They come in cupid shape that Mercy takes care of, Mei decorates them with raisins, while Junkrat powers them up with lots of strawberry jam. Then, the doctor is on her way to gift anyone who could use a sweet treat in transparent, ribboned bags. No payment required. A warm smile will do. 

No, not even on Valentine’s Day Mei and Junkrat stop it with the puns. What is worse however is the fact that they expand the puntests also with pickup line contests: Who manages to come up withe the most cringe-worthy ones until the day is done wins. As soon as things like “Damn it, seem ta have lost me phone number...Can Oi borrow yours, by any chance?” and “You hear that? The airport lady just told me to not leave my valuables unattended...Guess it is my duty to not take my eyes off you ever again now.” are uttered from their mouths, their friends know it is time to run for self-protection.

Both of them enjoy to come up with dress up prompts for Valentine’s Day. That can range from serious things, like matching outfits, to downright goofy things, like “The most hideous Christmas sweater you did not dare to show off at the party last year” and “Setting trends with my new bin bag hat”, that confuse everyone else.

Mei loves writing old-fashioned love letters to Junkrat on Valentine’s Day. It helps her to cover absolutely everything that she considered to be outstanding in their prior relationship year and to show gratitude and pride in how much both of them grew together as people until now.

Junkrat loves doing standup comedy shows with his steel trap for Mei on Valentine’s Day. It took some getting used to to this unusual hand puppet, but it’s now one of her favourite things to watch - it just baffles her how Junkrat uses his diversity in vocal range and comes up with good punchlines quickly.

Junkrat can’t help but be very affectionate towards Mei when his love for her overflows. He couldn’t care less who sees it and what they think of it, if there is something she says or does that is too adorable for him to handle, he will lift her up, hug and squeeze her and kiss her until her cheeks glow from all the giggling.

Mei gets him back for that with a smooch-a-thon. When her love overflows and both of them are in the middle of a conversation, she will determine the flow of it by kissing Junkrat after every word she utters. Junkrat has never forced himself to make a discussion about where to go for dinner as lengthy as possible and with a respectful consideration of any munching palace in reach - until that happened. 

As for Valentine’s dates, one of Junkrat’s favourite things to do is to drive way out into nature with Mei. They go hiking and camping together, while Mei gets to tell him a lot of fascinating things about their surroundings. Junkrat’s highlight however is to enjoy a nice view on the landscape cuddled into Mei, after a delicious and satisfying barbecue for such a long trip.

Sometimes, when they stay the night in nature, Mei and Junkrat team up to make a movie night for themselves. As Mei gets to attach a huge fabric to use as a screen from the HQ attic to the trees with the help of her ice walls, Junkrat gets an old projector he found in the same place to work. There is something magical about seeing Olivia Rai in action, surrounded by the cries of owls and the crackling camp fire together in a large sleeping bag.

If the weather does not want to assist them, though, they take it easy or find a way to make fond memories with their friends indoors. There is nothing like enjoying a hot chocolate together and sinking deep into adventures of the past, turning the night into day at the arcade with D. Va and Lúcio, or visiting the sanctuary and petting café for pigs with Roadhog.

Mei’s favourite place to use for a date experience on Valentine’s Day is the Winter’s End Fair that is hosted every year. The ice rink of the fair is also their training area for Junkrat’s new prosthetic skating leg. Junkrat can’t get enough of the fireworks whenever they stay for dinner on the boats of the lake tour and the most horrifying rollercoasters.

As much as Mei isn’t fond of extreme rides by intuition, Junkrat begged her to give it a shot at least once in her lifetime to find out whether they could still enjoy them together, after all. Half an hour of persistent encouragement talk later, he successfully convinced her to step into a half full “Sombrero”. From the first gentle swinging side to side until the highest circular spins, Mei screamed her lungs out. She was never that happy to have solid ground beneath her feet before, but Junkrat couldn’t stop laughing when he saw how many new customers to the horizon line her reaction had drawn to them, after the ride was over. “If she gets so much out of this, this must be one heck of a rad ride!” they thought, leaving the bucks at the counter. Mei however was certain that this was the first and last time she pirouetted in the sky.

Mei prefers the world’s hugest chair swing and the ferris wheel, but gets an adrenaline rush of her own for becoming extremely competitive at the shooting galleries and prize booths. One cannot deny however that both of them are the most aggressive bumper cars participants far and wide.

They aren’t sure how often they could repeat it, but they once felt dangerous enough to sneak backstage onto the dark boat bridges inside the fair’s Tunnel of Love. The ride itself didn’t thrill them. However, they surprised the couples they heard passing by on their boats in the dark. Mei would sometimes throw little boxes of chocolate onto their laps a the boat stopped before the waterfall. It wasn’t easy to keep their cover, since Junkrat couldn’t help but whistle or throw in a cheeky joke from time to time. They are waiting for the reviews online - once the guests think this is all part of the ride, they’ll have to come back.

Sometimes however, it is even for the better to not split from the team even on this special day. It took a bit of overcoming to suggest it, but Mei and Junkrat really wanted to launch “Appreciation Pigeon Holes” at the HQ. After long thinking, they came to the conclusion that you can indeed also love someone without loving them romantically and they hate how days like these pressure certain people or make them feel left out. They are all in this together, which is why they launched the pigeon holes to be filled with thank you cards and small gifts from one Overwatch member to another for the great teamwork and strong bonds.

This project was a big success, everyone got something out of it and some members even grew fonder of one another. The members who found the most content in their pigeon holes were Winston, Mercy and - by far - Roadhog. The cards literally fell towards him just by looking at the collection. They hid letters, almost entire articles about how the senders were thankful that one could always rely on him, how often his approaches to problems and his calm self had saved them time and time again and how much they wished for him to stay with them for many years to come and feel at home, at least to some extent, in their extraordinary and large crew. There was a lot to say to someone who does mind-blowing things on a weekly basis, but never gives you a chance to talk properly about it - and there is something mind-blowing in so many people wishing you well and making a genuine effort to get to know your person even when you convinced yourself this would not happen again for as long as you live.

Celebratory meals have become quite a nice tradition at the HQ, too. Even when they do not work as heroes on the missionary job, it is always great for Mei, Junkrat and the others to have Emily brought over by Tracer, or experience the halls ten times livelier with Torbjörn’s wife and their kids around. Some stories and feelings fully blossom only in the understanding and experience from couple to couple and so far their shared but rare time has been charming. It is reward enough for preparing the enormous lunch for everyone else together, before everyone is up and away to enjoy their respective bonds.

A small act of kindness and lucky chance that D. Va came up with for Valentine’s Day was to send out “The Swarm”. She worked on little messenger bird postcards with Mei together and with their Oversquad, they were determined to send hundreds of them flying, attached to helium balloons, for as long as their luck would carry them. This way, anyone out there who might needed it could stumble across some uplifting words. Junkrat could only focus and be of help to the noble cause, until he figured out what helium did to his voice by accident. It can be guaranteed that none of the balloons came down faster than the squad passed out from laughing, once Junkrat made use of his self-proclaimed, new found rat voice to still deliver accurate impressions of every single person present.

The biggest Valentine’s Day project Mei and Junkrat were involved in so far was something that Lúcio had set up, though. He and D. Va have been members of the “Heart’s Content Foundation” for quite some time now. Members of said foundations are mainly celebrities, who sometimes are willing to offer their talents and crafts for charity events, in which all earnings go to several groups of disadvantaged people and into donations for groups of people that try to make the world a better place. Lúcio has been a massive help for raising awareness for this by bringing together countless of artists, who wished to work on collaborations with him and even support him on the “Audio Medic Tour”. The massive popularity of the projects allowed for all profit to be split under the collaborators to help their world-improvers of choice little by little. When a Valentine’s Day themed album was considered for the future, Lúcio threw the topic into discussion with Mei and Junkrat. Upon hearing their suggestions on what to spend the earnings on, he immediately supported the idea of working on songs with them. Under pseudonyms both of them were fine with it and this chance of a lifetime was more than intriguing. 

The ambient chillout, yet adventurous tracks, which were inspired by how Mei and Junkrat see one another individually, are treasured by them forever and also by many fans. Mei decided to donate her earnings to a team of revolutionary inventors that were in search of funds to give their ocean-cleaning technology a kickstart. Junkrat’s earnings turned out to be a financial boost to an initiative, whose teams were travelling from town to town by bus to serve free meals, clean drinking-water and showering possibilities to homeless people, whose struggles went unseen by the political authorities.