#estrictia

1. Mal Wear doesn't celebrate Christmas. It's simply a tradition that many denizens of Hell don't practice, they have other holidays.

Mal is a unique case among demons in that he's not indifferent but is instead - to put it bluntly - a hater ass bitch who can't stand cheer and generosity and anything in the spirit of peace. Sugar and everything nice aren't actually a physical weaknesses of demons (well - spice might be), Mal Wear just refuses to let anyone be happy.

For some reason he despises Christmas more than any other holiday about good feelings. It was on sight the minute he discovered humans celebrated it centuries ago, and he didn't think he could hate it anymore - until it evolved into the flashing fairy-lights and plastic Santa glory that we know today. Then it truly was an eternal hatred (He has a lot of those)

Year after year he has tried to ruin Christmas, year after year he has failed. It's come to be almost a role he enjoys playing. However, after he got hired, he treats it like any other day. Christmases in the corporation aren't very exciting, after all, plus he was already ruining Christmas plenty by doing his job and assisting villains on a mass scale. He doesn't get an off day nor does he join any events, he just builds what he's told to.

However, there are certain aspects about the holiday that he does warm up to, like the tale of Krampus, or the idea of Black Friday, or whatever inane goodies Estrictia shares with him. Sometimes he runs into her on that day and they end up doing missions together.

Once, as a joke, Estrictia caught him under mistletoe. Nothing much ended up happening, and Mal ate the plant out of spite. Over the years it accidentally became a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever Estrictia 'wins', they really only talk. Then Mal can have the poisonous berries and they'll head off to do the next thing together.

2. Estrictia gets into the Christmas spirit because it's everywhere, that's it. Christmas is fun in the sense that it's a bit she can milk for all it's worth to amuse her. She doesn't have sentimental attachment to the day itself, but she likes being kept busy with the challenge of hosting events and the buzz of all the holiday customers. Not to mention the pretty lights and obnoxious music. Some of her company-mandated responsibilities lie in decorating, hosting, extra cleaning, and preparing for more spying since the holidays are when many heroes and villains let their guards down.

When spying, she's a fan of collecting non-useful information, and any interpersonal drama always get twice as interesting around holidays. Whether it's face to face with clients, employees during breaks, or weeks of stalking a target, she gets plenty of ammo to use as gossip. She also gets to witness the travesty that is other people's holiday preparations and yell about them like her own personal TV show.

Personally, the way she celebrates Christmas is rather impersonal. She doesn't get a day off, only down time. On this day, during her private time, she would get herself a new candle, treat, or ugly apparel. Then she would make a nest, and then curls up to watch Christmas films/specials. She might even attend Christmas open mic nights for terrible comedy or to play Christmas covers on her keytar. After that, however, she doesn't stay for long if there's nothing left to eat or drink or laugh at.

She's generally well-liked by the people she hasn't gotten in trouble with yet. However, she doesn't exactly have close friends she can drag to concerts or parties. Forcing a hostage to go out with her is fine any other time, but it feels boring and pathetic on sentimental holidays like Christmas or Dia De Los Muertos.

So Christmas is just a work day for her that's slightly pine-scented. Sometimes, her schedule intersects with Mal's and they end up on the same mission. She finds those missions entertaining, even though they see each other almost every day.

Once, just to do a bit, she caught Mal under mistletoe. Nothing really happened and then Mal ate the berries out of spite. Somehow, over the years, it became a game. Estrictia would plot to catch Mal under mistletoe and Mal would plot to combat it. Neither of them really know how it became a whole thing.

3. Captain Flugslys would usually spend the day attending events, or working, or reading and drinking, or taking one of his planes for a flight in the cold night air until sunrise.

Again, like with Halloween, he doesn't think much of the holiday unless it's about the extra seasonal profit or memories he'd rather stay buried. Then 4.0.9 would find himself attached to this holiday as well, so the Captain would have no choice but to follow suit.

4. One issue: Santa does not exist. Another issue: 4.0.9 thinks he does. The Captain detests childish fantasies, but he cannot find it in his cold, bionically-modifed heart to deny his abomination the Christmas Magic.

So every December, in between missions, 4.0.9 writes a letter to Santa. He pesters Estrictia to make treats and cookies, follows his father to shopping, swats at Mal if he so much as grumbles a word about festive cheer, and helps set up everything like they are in a cozy home and not a massive fortified base. Maybe Captain assures 4.0.9 he'll disable the security system so it doesn't blast Santa out of the sky or something idk, jesus I am having too much fun writing this

Every Christmas morning, without fail, 4.0.9 wakes up to find exactly what he asked for waiting under the tree. To him, Santa is real and he is on the nice list.

And every Christmas Eve, the Captain runs his staff like the military to maintain this illusion. If the gift requested is elusive enough he sends his top officers to retrieve it on schedule. Usually the task falls to Mal and Estrictia…and Captain Flug too, surprisingly. While overseeing these processes, Captain ends up being very personally involved. He's aware it's not an intelligent use of resources, he does not give a damn, he does NOT want this messed up.

Unrelated but - one year, 4.0.9 did most of the decorating himself. The Captain had to go lie down, he was too proud.

(that ended up way longer than expected. I'll try to keep the Valiant Cast's brief!)

Valiant!AU:

1. Dr. Zug is pretty apathetic towards Christmas, leaning towards disliking. In his previous workplaces he would gladly accept gifts given to him no matter how impersonal or thoughtless. They were interesting results of an experiment to him, and he'd privately make cruel judgements of the gift-givers based on what he got.

Quite frankly Christmas to him is so easy that it's impossible to screw up. Just stay on schedule and know the other person's qualities when giving gifts, and Zug is exceptional at both of those. It's just that he doesn't put much of an effort to do that for people he doesn't respect, which is most people. So he just doesn't put much effort into Christmas most of the time.

He was very happy that there wasn't a company-mandated party when working for White Hat. Business proceeded as usual. The end of the year means more work, because of all the accidents and villain attacks and resources to distribute to those who need it, but around the holidays, Zug would have lots of free time because of all the paid time off combined with his time management skills.

So while there were still missions to go on and bad guys to do extensive research on, he wouldn't be opposed to joining Lumencia in celebrating Christmas, especially since he did gain something from doing Halloween with her.

2. Lumencia, of course adores Christmas! You couldn't ask her to pick between Christmas or Halloween, it's a headache. She loves the candy, the outfits, the tree, even the bad movies. Something she likes to do for Christmas, in between all the training and missions, is making plenty of unique paper snowflakes and trying out new Christmas treat recipes.

She also loves to play in the streets with her guitar, singing Christmas song covers of any pace or tone. It gives her a chance to patrol after and look at the pretty decorations, or window shop.

Getting into a snowball fight with this menace takes preparation for the onslaught. Even if her plans aren't the greatest, she still makes a point to give it her all against whoever is facing her. Of course if it's a kid, she'd majorly backpedal, try not to hurt them as much as possible and then lose on accident. Another thing is that she can take a snowball covered in frozen water to the head like a champ and then pop back into the house for hot cocoa with a big dumb grin on her face.

Lumencia would spend a lot of her time screwing over villains who try to ruin the holidays for others. It's an insult to the Christmas spirit to literally take candy from babies. It doesn't make sense to her why these crooks can't just chill for like a month or so. In any case, after foiling the villain's plans, she'd leave those same villains a gift, maybe even decorate their place if they celebrate Christmas. She just wants everyone to have a good time.

Only recently she watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and cried so hard she got dehydrated, before proceeding to get into a long fight with Zug about the ending.

3. To White Hat, Christmas isn't particularly special. He definitely loves celebrating it and finds it very interesting as a human holiday. He doesn't think much of the modernization except that it's natural progression to mediocrity. And he still finds the mediocrity incredible and whimsical.

He spends a lot of December organising charities, giving clothes, food, heat, toys, etc. to households and individuals all over the globe. Something he can arrange is having some kids' favourite heroes hand deliver those supplies. Something White Hat wants to make sure is that help does not stop arriving during the holidays for people, at the same time not overworking his employees and organisation members.

Alone or not, every year there will be a decorated tree in his house. He usually spends his December working or taking walks around different cities, marvelling at all the sights and enjoying the events that do happen. More than one occasion, he'd disguised himself as one of the performers on a parade float, dancing and miming along to the music in front of a crowd.

Despite himself, White Hat enjoys testing out those Christmas recipes with Lumencia and joining her in the kitchen. He also enjoys arguing with Zug over petty topics over decorating. Once, he invited Zug, 624 and Lumencia to see a Christmas play, and that was a fun time - until it turned out to be another scheme by a villain to take over the holidays...

(Note: one of White Hat's favourite books is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

4. 624, like his creator Zug, isn't a massive fan of Christmas. Just like Zug, 624 doesn't have to leave his space to 'join the cheer' in this business. Unlike Zug, 624 is far more transparent about his distaste for all the goodwill floating in the air.

He just knows that it's a time when the food is different and the weather is cold.