Hi hi! It's me again, i love to that i can be here for your beautiful work, now hear me out, what if, we think out of the box and look out of the animals that were familiar with, do you know what i haven't found yet? Mythical and folklore 141, a bunch of tritons falling in love with a surfer? A pack of wendigos that had been hiding until they want to be seen by dear reader? Omg such an abundance of mythical creatures to choose from! I hope it could help a bit, with love and care
~🐰❄️
Hello, love! Thank you so, so much for your kind words and the amount of inspiration you gifted me!!! I'm sorry I respond so late, I was actually thinking about your ask a lot. I wanted to collect some recommendations for you, but realized I actually don't know any fics like that? I somehow felt that I did, but either I forgot and will only remember later, or I made it up. BUT I do have one recommendation! It's not folklore, but I think it can count as mythical? It's this monster!au fic by @brineoffire that is inspired by @bluegiragi 's very famous monster!au (which I also absolutely love and recommend, but I feel like everyone already knows it lol). I also know that @forestshadow-wolf has some yummy kelpie!Soap, which duh, of course kelpie and selkie Soap fics are the finest.
However, this made me realize that I want to make a masterlist of recommendatons! So thank you for pushing me in that direction :3 Also - and that's for everyone - feel free to send recommendations of your own! I'll be happy to read and share! Self-recs are also very very needed!
Coming back to your ask directly, I actually skimmed through it at first and thought you meant tritons as amphibians and was like "hmm why not axolotls?" and then realized you're talking about mermen xD Which are always on top of my list of mythical creatures because I (in case anyone didn't notice yet) LOVE sea. And everything it holds as well. And also mermaid-adjacent oviposition.
By the way, a long time ago I saw this painting (TW!blood and gore, so not putting it here directly) by Sergei Kolesov of a whale-sized mermaid and it has been on my mind ever since, even moreso after I saw the Drowned Giant episode of Love, Death & Robots. What if they actually were of a monstrous size? If a normal, human-sized tritons/mermen with a surfer feel like a fresh, light, summery and full of laughter and sun romance, these abyssal creatures and a whale researcher (stranded in the midst of an expedition, perhaps?) would make for a hauntingly beautiful, thalassophobic story. A tiny human coming to terms with their insignificance in the face of the eternal, bottomless ocean and at the same time learning what's it like, to be loved by the abyss itself - to be cradled in hands as big as their little boat, to look in the huge eyes of a horrifyingly powerful creature and see mirrored reverence. To soothe scars left by something you'd rather not know existed, if it can harm these giants. Size difference who?
Surfer!reader and tritons/mermen of smaller size would be so fun tho. So much space for mischief and playfulness, strong tails flipping the board over, sunscreen smell mingling with salty seaweed. Drifting while you wait for a wave and feeling something brush against your hand submerged in the water - only to get grabbed by your legs next, because someone just can't leave you alone. Getting shells brought to you seemingly by the sea surf if you don't surf on a lazy waves day and stay on the beach, making sand castles. Being the wind to their waves, kissing the sunburns away from their noses, not used to being out of water so much. Making love on the beach and SUFFERING from sand everywhere. Laying on the board on your stomach and kissing the most beautiful creatures surrounding you like curious dolphins or sea otters, heads sticking out of water, scaly fingers in your hair, webbed ears fluttering adorably.
I would actually love to write a selkie story, since they are one of my most favourite sea mythical creatures and I've written multiple fairy tales about them (including a biopunk take, which I am still proud of), but I am SO sure I've seen someone metion that someone's already writing it... I'll put it in my recommendations list 100% when/if I find it. Also plugging this precious thing by @the-shotce-newsletter since I look at the chonky seal Soap almost every day for happiness boost.
(CW! dark themes including cannibalism and such in this paragraph)
I am a little hesitant to touch on the wendigos yet, since I am not sure I have enough cultural knowledge on them and I do not want to add to the harm done by popculture depictions of them, but I am a sucker for intertwining love, lust and cannibalism. Isn't one type of love exactly that - a desire to merge into one whole with your loved one, unable to be separated on atomic level? To consume, devour and celebrate the strength they gave you? Or - to give up yourself completely, to be devoured, to become that strength by burning in an insatiable stomach? What is oral sex if not cannibalism of sorts? The erotisism of letting someone to touch your heart not metaphorically, but quite literally... and the long, drawn-out way leading up to it, coming to terms with the initial horror until it blossoms into sincere desire? That is something to think about.
There's definitely a lot more to dig up in folklore. For example, the legend of Herne the Hunter? The antlers-wearing ghost keeper of Winsdor Forest, that is often linked to Celtic Cernunnos in modern re-tellings? Is reader seeking spiritual liberation in neopaganism, catching attention of the forest spirit in its hunting grounds? Or are they just enjoying the nature, not knowing yet that they're kept safe by a power as old as the oldest trees in this forest? Or! Maybe they're in a world similar to the Robin of Sherwood series (I fucking LOVE that series and I WILL cry every time I hear Clannad's theme song play)? An archer blessed by the Hunter (why not make it four Hunters? there aren't just deers roaming the forests, after all! but if I had to choose one, I'd say it's very Price coded) to fight for what's right?
Or maybe they're trolls? Cave-dwelling brutes, enchanted by your beauty so much that they take the first opportunity to steal your child, replacing it with a changeling, just to have at least some part of you close to them? What will they do though, when they find out that there's so much kindness in you that you're ready to raise the changeling, protecting the innocent troll child from the wrath of your husband that blames you for your newborn's kidnapping? Of course they have to make everything right. And also - take you away from the man that dared to be cruel to you. You'll find out that being a troll princess is much better than it seems.
Somehow I couldn't remember any suitable slavic entity that wouldn't have some already well-used counterpart (like vampires, water or forest spirits - somehow every single other one I recall is a female entity, wow, that's interesting). But I'll think on it. I like the general image of paradise birds with human faces, like Sirin, Alkonost or Gamayun (which are all female. also, I encourage everyone to check out this short animated film about Sirin, I saw it on a short animated film festival and absolutely fell in love, it's a beautiful work of art. english subtitles available!!!). So maybe the boys are of same species? Powerful, prophetic human-birds, capable both of luring anyone and bringing destruction with their voices. And you, coming to learn your destiny from them, or - offering yourself in exchange for salvation of your village. They won't take your life, but they will make you theirs. Every bird needs someone to sing to.
I do like presonifications of winds, too - not from any particular mythilogy, but just in general. After all, it's wind and sun we're caressed by the most in life, isn't it? And there are four of them, so you'll never be lonely, whatever direction breeze blows today. Living somewhere on a hill, where there's always wind rustling in your curtains, playing with your hair and drawing gentle swirls in the dust under your feet. Cool, breezy kisses on your cheeks - or pranks, when they bring a singular pocket-sized cloud to hold over your head and rain specifically on you? Do you dare to learn just how loyal the winds can be?
I think I went a little too serious, solemn and dramatic route with this. Maybe I should look into some little shits that just cause harmless chaos. But I will definitely put pins on every single idea I wrote out here - and everyone is welcome to tell me, which one you find the most interesting, what would you like to read the most; maybe you wanna expand on some of them? Or you have some completely other view on some of them? Everything's welcome! I loved thinking about it. Thank you so much for asking <3
I will also think about other COD characters in such AUs. Heh. My brain looks like a Chritmas tree right now, so many pretty lights glowing. Many tasty thoughts.
A bit of a later addition, but I suddenly remembered the Sandman (Sandmann) legend/stories/interpretation, and I am actually incredibly fascinated with him (I'm a little bit of a Hoffmann fan and I'm not talking about the Saw character for once, even though that's my babygirl too). I love the complicated relationship of humanity with sleep, dreams, nightmares and death he embodies. And honestly the eye imagery always gets me even though I don't think I mastered using it myself. Anyway, I think task force 141 as four different sides of this entity (sweet, calm sleep with nice dreams; insomnia and nightmares; heavy, restless, hot sleep like with fever/just too intense but not bad (potentially sexy) dreams; and finally, the eternal sleep, death) would be an interesting concept, but obviously it would be more fair to seek one of the German/German-speaking at least characters to take on this role. Can't really see König in this, though. But Krueger and Golem don't really strike me as Sandmann material either... and I don't remember any other German speaking guys...
We also have Orla "Banshee" Murphy in game already (one of my hardcore crushes btw, she's so my type), so, like. There's your banshee hahaha. I actually would like to try writing a banshee in special forces... or maybe IRA... they'd make a powerful enemy I think. With her destructive tendencies (I told you she's my type) that would suit her so well.
Also on the topic of my operator crushes (help, I'm really trying to stay on topic here) I am literally obsessed with Raptor (Natalya Orlova). I don't know what folclore entity she could be (well, could always make her Baba Yaga, but I'm afraid I see our little Yaga as too harmless of an entity, all those films I watched in childhood made her too lovable to me), but she would be fucking terrifying. She's from Kamchatka, and I am unfortunately not too well-versed in the mythology there, but my quick research told me that in that region people have a six-legged white bear demon Kochatko - considering that her bio states she single-handedly killed a white bear proving her hunter father wrong, that would honestly be a great ballad of a hero slaying the monster to take its place. Like Schwartz's "Dragon" play, but this time we spin it as a good thing, empowerment and reclaming of identity and shit. I'm already so far in this yapping aren't I.
There are so many other operators from so many regions I am not even remotely familiar with in terms of culture and folklore... so many opportunities... mm...