OPEN - Holiday Spider Is Comin To Town

[kumoko]

Who: Spider and YOU.
What: SHE SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING, SHE KNOWS WHEN YOU'RE AWAKE
Where: Literally everywhere, no escape.
When: Day 25 of Catfish
Notes: Moderate spiderwebs, no spider descriptions. If you have questions about your character's gift, ask in this plurk.

[ Originally, she had intended to make new clothing for a few people. You know, just for appreciation for the constant feeding and the Not Attacking Her thing.

So she had! And then, she's not sure how, it became a project. It became a thing. By the time she blinked out of her excited daze, she was knee-deep in fabric, trying to pleat a skirt against a roughly human-sized rucksack stuffed with other rucksacks.

It was weird. She'd shrugged, and gone back to it.

But! Now! At long last!

It's happening, be cool, be cool. Ten days of solid sewing and silk production and staring at the Thunderstorms until they showed her how to colour thread or sew a dart or line a skirt or whatever skill she hadn't gotten yet. Ten days of eating for an army, because she couldn't check her stamina and mana bars any more, and that led to an embarrassing number of times she had to stagger drunkenly into the kitchen and just scoop an entire carton of eggs into her mouth before passing out on the floor from producing too much silk too fast.

Ten days of innovation, recreating the system's Thread Manipulation magic from first principles, until she could force cloth into the thickness and consistency she wanted. Until she could pour mana into the threads just so, creating glitter or fur-like qualities or just a faint glow.

She has one experimental square of cloth that looks and feels exactly like human skin, and that one has been stuffed to the back of her cabin nest in 1-D and no one can ever see it.

Feels great, though.

ANYWAY.

She has no idea what time of year it is, and no idea what holidays the others on the train celebrate, but it was snowing for two days and that's close enough to winter that she has stuck a tiny Santa hat jauntily onto her head for the next step.

Which, primarily, is ambushing everyone and throwing simple white sacks at them, roughly the size of a school PE bag, containing some kind of outfit tailored alarmingly well to them.

Hey, spatial magic is useful for a lot of things OTHER than teleporting and storage, and one of those things is being able to look at someone and understand their body's dimensions. She now knows way too much about everyone's sizes and three measurements, and she will be deleting it all from her memory starting tomorrow probably.

WHATEVER.

Take your bag! ]

Comments

[marriedanidiot]

Arma? [ She blinks, surprised ] What is... Oh! [ She draws a dress from the bag, the cloth a rich green, the bodice close without being tight and the sleeves practically fitting ]

Why Arma, it's beautiful! Is it for me? Thank you!

[kumoko]

'Happy 25th Catfish!' [- is the banner she holds up, having not had the time or attention necessary to actually decide what to call her spontaneous holiday. It was that or 'Whatever Day'. She has that banner too, just in case she changes her mind.

It was that or just admit that she got totally carried away designing clothes for no actual reason, which is... kinda embarrassing?

Ahhhh, she wants to see how it looks, making fancy dresses was really fun even if she can't wear any. ]

[pleple]

Gah!

[ Ple Two swats the bag aside, wide-eyed - her reaction time served her well, but there's really no need to fear so she feels kind of dumb. ]

Er... that was for me?

[kumoko]

[ Ah, hmm.

Yeah, probably should've seen that coming. No hard feelings, she understands! She scoops the bag up and holds it out again. This time, her banner reads MERRY CATFISH. ]

[myblueskies]

"For me miss spider?" Romeo blinked at the bag that had been thrown at him. He didn't know why the spider lady would be giving him a present but he recognises the hat she is wearing.

"Is it Christmas time?" It had been Christmas not so long ago in the heavens, so he had learned all about it!

[kumoko]

'Merry Christmas Catfish!' was the banner promptly waved in his face.

[runs_on_batteries]

[ Tony had just been minding his own business and leaving his cabin after freshening up post-work out when he gets a bag thrown at him. He was just tired enough that he was stunned instead of drawing up his armor. Blinking, he looks at the bag and then realizes Kumoko is standing a few feet away. ]

What is this?

[ Was that a Santa hat on her head? He opens the bag and stares. Looking from her to the clothing inside and back, he was completely floored. ]

You made me a suit?

[ He was normally a lot faster at processing things mentally, but this was taking him a minute for it to sink in. ]

[kumoko]

[ If she was a talkative person, she'd explain that his suit was the work of half a day of solid mana-infusing and Dread explaining buttonholes and linings to her. But, she isn't. So she just waves all three banners at him. ]

'Merry Catfish!'

'Happy 25th Catfish!'

'Happy Whatever Day!'

[deductiongeek]

There were some things that were just habit. Catching a bag when someone tossed one at you was one of them.

Unfortunately when you were Conan's size, that habit resulted in nearly knocking him over.

[kumoko]

Oops.

Hey, is he... okay there...

Just gonna... prop him up like a fainting damsel. Stay with her, Conan!

[runsfast_rollsfar]

The bag smacks Prisoner across the back and he jumps and spazzes out like a cat who just saw a banana. He jumped up on his feet and spun around with his hands in karate chop position, but this movement is mostly dramatized. If he thought he was in any actual danger he would have summoned his weapon.

He looked down to the bag, then back up at Kumoko, then down to the bag, then back up at Kumoko. He pointed to the bag, then to himself. Is this for me? he seemed to be asking.

[kumoko]

The totally extra motions startled her as much as him, really. She almost reached out to grab the bag back before it can hit his head, but it was fine. It was fine! If he set her work on fire she'd absolutely stab him, but it was fine.

She nodded, instead.

Santa Spider is adorable!

[azrthmtrnznthos]

[Raven had not expected to be ambushed. Hands raised defensively with dark-energy, and mantra on the tip of her tongue before she noticed the Santa hat. Also the lack of hostile-intent despite being an ambushing giant spider. Wasn't there one that lived in the the dressing carriage?

It did mean that the white sack was stopped by dark-energy, but no attack came otherwise. Raven blinked at it, letting the bag be suspended in front of her. Then blinked at the spider.]

Um...hi? I don't do well with ambushes--sorry.

[She really is sorry about the almost-attack.]

Raven is also adorable!!!

[kumoko]

[ Luckily, resistance to dark energy is a species trait, and her threads share that resistance. The sack is remarkably unfazed by hanging in the energy's grasp. Feels kinda nice, actually. Nostalgic? ]

'It's fine it's fine' [ she holds those words up twice and wiggles them for emphasis. She's under a ceasefire, after all! ]

'Merry Catfish!'

Achievement unlocked

[tinkerheart]

Kumoko should award herself a gold star for an achievement almost impossible to attain: making Fëanor speechless.

He stares in shock for a good minute at the content of the bag, a set of exquisite robes expertly crafted in red silk. They are a little austere, lacking his usual ornamentation but he wouldn't dare to utter a single word of complaint. It takes an expert, and a connoisseur of textile arts like himself, to fully appreciate the craftsmanship that went into producing those garments.
But more importantly, those are real clothes. Fëanor can survive wearing the train provided uniform if he must but it offends his aesthetic sensibility. Wearing what he just received he can finally feel like a person and not a prisoner. It makes a world of difference.

"That is most generous gift, Charlotte. Thank you."

He bows before her with a smile.

"Or would you prefer I call you Amra?"

heck yeah 'cheevs

[kumoko]

'Arma' is her initial response, faster than her other line of text simply because she has the word pre-woven and accessible. She's overwhelmed by the responses she's been getting, but simultaneously she's so overwhelmed that she's passed terror into serenity, in the same way someone freezing to death stops shivering. So, this is fine, she can converse with people. She can take gratitude.

'I put in some damage resistance attributes so it shouldn't rip or tear. Let me know how they fit whenever you try them on!'

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin grins when Kumoko tosses a bag at him. He catches it expertly.

"Uh, what is this?" He opens it and stares at the beautifully made red shirt. "Thank you, Kumoko! This is most generous of you. I must make something for you, too. Let me think of what it should be. Oh, I know. Do you like music? I could compose something on my flute."

[kumoko]

Her initial instinct is to tell him not to worry about it, but then... she gets to thinking. And then the thinking gets excited, and she spins out a demand before she remembers she's meant to be disengaging and moving on.

'Write me a theme song.'

[futhark]

Caster has spent those last few days (has this really been over a week? Almost two now? Weird) exploring... until there wasn't much to explore. At least he had found some important information and items.

Procuring cigarettes around here wasn't easy, but at least after learning that luggage car is a designed smoking car— ah, someone just left half-finished pack here. Probably for later use. They won't notice if one of them is gone, right?

So he takes the smallest blip on the metaphorical mana bar to fire off ansuz rune and light the cigarette. It's a momentary bliss, because suddenly he gets hit with a bag in the face.

"What the hell—??"

[kumoko]

Finding Cu is relatively easy, she just waits for magic and then follows that. It fails the first two times, as she crashes into first a woman in red uniform (bag deployed!) and someone in blue (bag also deployed!) but the third time she recognises both the sense of magic and the actual feel of the spell, and perhaps she's a little overenthusiastic as she slings the bag at him. Ambush!

Hmm, they could make a game of it. She misses hunting.

ANYWAY. She gathers herself, wafts away the smoke, and readies her 'HAPPY WHATEVER DAY' banner for when he looks up.

[unholyandbroken]

Yell if I need to aim downwind! [The common call as Jessie ducks in for a quick smoke. But the bag lands next to her pack of cigarettes. So she opens it to find the black outfit from pants to jacket.]

Thank you!

[kumoko]

[ She's used to just closing the door to Luggage when the smokers come through, too nervous with the lighters around her webs, but this time she had a plan, and that plan has worked great, actually.

She'd give thumbs up if she could, but she can't, so she just kinda stares. ]

'Happy Whatever Day! Let me know if they fit okay'

[dredefulchilde]

"...You made me a...suit?"

Joscelin doesn't quite know what to say. It's oddly reminiscent of something he might have worn at the turn of the last century, but there's green accents and green is his favorite color.

Plus, it beats a purple hoodie.

"Thank you." He's taken aback. "I don't know what I did to warrant this gift, but thank you."

[kumoko]

'You're welcome, vamplet' is his first waved response, and then a, 'Merry Catfish' as an admittedly lacking explanation.

Ah, she almost forgot. She reaches into one of her subspace pockets and plucks out a teeny top hat with a froth of lace attached to one side. She barely got it done in time! Take it, small vampire boy, and live out your weird gothic dreams.

[inquiryguqin]

Lan Wangji took noticed that she keeps going in and out of the kitchen, eating all the eggs in one go. Why does she need so much eggs in her system? He said nothing at first, just observing.

Once he figured out what she is up to, he did make a wish for an apron, a type to wear as he works while doing chores to keep himself busy. So once he received his gift.

"Thank you for the gift. Is there anyway to repay you in kind? I shall find a gift suitable for you in return." Since he's becoming familiar with the gist of the holiday.

[kumoko]

The apron he received is admittedly a little... cutesy? But in her defence she had been about forty outfits and a hundred eggs deep at that point and she doesn't remember much from about #43 onwards. He's lucky she kept her wits enough that it isn't just a maid uniform.

'Don't worry about it,' she waves, because what she isn't going to tell him is that she stole his robes while they were drying to make patterns from them for Feanor's outfit, and there might be a little bit of red dye on the lining of his middle robe that she couldn't get rid of in time. Guilt, huh? It's a powerful motivator. But... greed... 'Just make me something to eat sometime.'