the sea emperor is a milf. who said that

subnautica sideblog 🩵

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i'm autumn. she/her, adult. this is my subnautica sideblog.

my main is @leavingautumn13

my fanfic blog is @new-eyes-extra-colors

the tag for the fic i'm working on: protean waters

this blog will contain reblogs, my own art and videos, and commentary. navigation is under the cut.

i also take art requests so feel free to send one in

if you need something tagged just ask 🩵

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protean waters is plugging along, so here's another snippet.

tw: this part deals with the baby emperor and the implications surrounding her death. nothing that's not in-game already, but it's heavy stuff, so feel free to skip this one, and/or let me know if it needs to be tagged further.

“Hey, so, there is one more thing.” Ryley crouched on the ledge. “I don’t know how to tell you this. But, um, I think you might want to know.”

She blinked at him curiously. He took a deep breath.

“So, there’s a baby leviathan up here. She’s… uh… she’s dead.” He worked his jaw. Walking through the facility before meeting her, he hadn’t thought anything of it—just another sample, just another experiment.

Now?

That was someone’s child. Her child. Cut out of her egg casing before she was ready, vivisected on an operating table, and put on display like she was a curiosity and not a person.

The sea emperor’s mandibles clicked. I know, she said, her voice low. She was taken from me shortly after I was imprisoned here. I could sense her just beyond these walls, and spoke to her until the bright spark of her mind was snuffed out. I could feel the cold bite of metal into her flesh….

Ryley pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as her head drifted to one side, gaze pulling away from him. Grief saturated the air through their link, a heavy pressure on his shoulders, and his eyes welled with tears as his chest tightened. “I’m so sorry,” he said, lowering his hand. “I—I know that’s not really enough, but—”

She keened softly. Your compassion is enough, and I thank you for it.

Well… it didn’t feel like it, but he wasn’t going to press the issue. They both just had to keep going, despite despite despite. “There’s an egg up here too. Is she…?”

Gone as well, the sea emperor murmured. She passed slowly, growing weaker over time until she simply faded away.

His tears spilled over and he took another breath. Two. Two out of seven. God—okay, he could have a breakdown later; right now he needed to be there for her.

“I’m sorry. But—I have one more question. My people bury our dead. Well, sometimes, some people prefer cremation. And, uh…“ Sometimes they didn’t get the opportunity. All the ghosts on the radio… crew members he couldn’t save, friends he couldn’t save. Nothing but bad luck and hungry wildlife. “Well, I would hate to leave your kids here all alone, so if there’s anything you’d like me to do, I’d be… well, not happy, but I’d like to help.”

A deep rumble caused the water’s surface to ripple. We fall when we die, she said. Further down than even you and your machinery can travel. Slowly, she looked back up at him. In doing so we return to the water, feeding more life. You are kind to offer such a repose to my lost children. I will… consider what I would like to be done.

“Okay,” Ryley said, nodding. “Well, whenever you’ve decided, just let me know, alright?”

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out of context

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okay, subnautica fans, i have a question: are there sapient aliens in this setting other than the architects and the sea emperors? what evidence to we have for and against other sapient species besides those two and humans?

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I said this in my reblog tags, but thanks for answering. I gotta agree wholeheartedly. c: Cheers, looking forward to reading!! - Ryley

hey, thank you and i'm really glad people are liking my characterization! that's really gratifying, especially since i'm pretty new to the fandom

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How do you characterize him, then? 👀 - Ryley

thank you for asking! i do have some general notes here but since i'm working on fic-specific stuff i'll try to keep it focused to that now!

also this got long so it's going under the cut (oops)

at the beginning of the fic, ryley's doing pretty bad: the kharaa's spreading and so he's dying, he's been alone for months, he's trying to come to terms with alterra not caring about aurora or any possible survivors... there's a lot going on with him when he finally meets the sea emperor. he's initially a little anxious about exploring the places he is, but he doesn't have any other leads--he's desperate. and so meeting another person is like a burden lifted off his shoulders, at least for a little bit, you know? a kind of balm for the loneliness.

this whole conversation is from his pov, so we don't know what she's thinking, but for ryley i wanted to hone in on his empathy and how he keeps seeing the emperor's circumstances reflected in his own. he's a nice guy! he's a little awkward, having not spoken to anyone for so long, but he's earnest and curious. he's not putting up any kind of pretense. to me, those traits are the core of his personality: he's just himself! this goofy, sweet, earnest guy who is in a hell of a bad situation and honestly trying to do his best to keep his own morale up.

and his survivor's guilt is pretty bad too: there are a lot of people he couldn't save, and since he's not a callous person, that affects him deeply. you know: if he hadn't been knocked out, could he have helped? and it's kind of a useless exercise, trying to figure out all these what-ifs, but it weighs on him anyway. these people were his coworkers, and i'm sure some of them were his friends. that's got to hurt.

something else i think that's important about his character is how determined he is; his goals might change but his determination never falters. sure, he might die, but he'll definitely die if he does nothing, and that's sometimes all that's keeping him going but it is at least keeping him going.

so all in all: part 1 of the fic, ryley is having a bad time. but something else i wanted to focus on is how he starts on an upswing as the plot progresses. like, it's ultimately a character study: the focus is on how his experience has changed him. he's still a little scattered, being off adhd meds will do that to a guy, but i think working with the emperor is genuinely really good for him: finally, here's someone he can help, someone he can relate to and talk to, and that really galvanizes him.

so yeah, i think he's a really interesting character and it's been fun delving into his head for this. i guess my take is that if you strip ryley down to his most fundamental trait, what you get is compassion. compassion for his surroundings, for the emperor and her kids, for his crew that's now gone... yeah. that's the throughline.

anyway, i hope this is coherent and fun to read, and maybe enticing as far as the fic goes. thanks again for the ask!

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since protean waters is getting longer than i expected, i probably need to do what i do for most of my fics and make narration notes for my ryley...

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debating whether or not i finish this one

[kidaaaaaa]

4546b has already become part of ryley

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i'm sure he's fine

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the more i write the sea emperor the more she feels cat-adjacent to me. she schemes.

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the nature of writing fanfiction is that you think "oh, this would make a great 5k word oneshot" and then you hit that and you're not even a third of the way done...

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nickname checks out

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genuinelyyy this game is so good. i love that it slowly acclimates you to the ecosystem in the crater and teaches you how to interact with the wildlife

like, looking back to when i started, i can't believe how scared of reapers i was, y'know? and yeah, some things like the ghosties you just have to avoid or hit with the stasis rifle so you can get past, but if you pay attention and learn about the animals + the areas they keep to it's pretty easy to do.

i'm so happy this game isn't some kind of fucked up power fantasy about dominating the environment. it's gratifying to see the philosophy of working with nature reflected in a game

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prev i am so happy to tell you this post was directly inspired by me figuring out you could feed the reapers and then immediately finally exploring the dunes

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I hope this isn't uh, weird of me to send (from our main), but absolutely LIVING for that reference sheet. Shaving with the survival knife and the Kharaa being cured but leaving behind scars, absolutely A+ stuff. - Ryley

not weird at all! i'm really happy you like my work!

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finally posting my ref for ryley before, during, and after my fic protean waters.

[aurora-radiation-zone]

genuinelyyy this game is so good. i love that it slowly acclimates you to the ecosystem in the crater and teaches you how to interact with the wildlife

like, looking back to when i started, i can't believe how scared of reapers i was, y'know? and yeah, some things like the ghosties you just have to avoid or hit with the stasis rifle so you can get past, but if you pay attention and learn about the animals + the areas they keep to it's pretty easy to do.

i'm so happy this game isn't some kind of fucked up power fantasy about dominating the environment. it's gratifying to see the philosophy of working with nature reflected in a game