for the WIP ask game... nighty knight sounds interesting 🤔
I’ve been on a Legend kick lately, and I’ve been dying to explore one of my favorite headcanons about him in a fic: he loves physical affection but is also touch starved and wary of it. And I’ve also been wanting to do something with the very canon fact that Legend doesn’t like/doesn’t respect/is possibly afraid of knights. So! Both! In one fic!
It’s more vague ideas at one point, but Legend is going to get in a Situation (nightmares, injury, insomnia, probably all three tbh) and winds up having to trust Warriors, a knight he’s antagonized before, to keep him safe. In the process, Warriors picks up on Legend’s discomfort and accidentally finds out Legend loves cuddles. Something along those lines.
you're reading tress of the emerald sea?? i love that book!!
I AM!!!!!!! ITS SO GOOD
I had to return it to the library cause it was due, but I am planning to get it back at the earliest opportunity! I am LOVING the narration style and all of the characters!
are there any major differences between what the mers look like in your mer au?
Short answer: yes! Most mer share similar traits between tribes, but there are a TON of color and structure variations (Legend and Twilight being some of the most strikingly different). I could tell you more about them if you (or anyone else) would like, but I get the feeling from your ask you’re talking about the BIG differences, so these are a few:
first, general mer structure: human/humanoid top half, fish lower half (but the tail fins are all structured more like a dolphin’s fluke; they move their tails up and down to swim, not side to side). They all have gills on their neck, as well as a dorsal fin along their human half’s spine and webbed ears. Haven’t decided yet if their hands are webbed, too
the REALLY different looking groups:
The Minish Tribe: extremely small by mer standards (they only get about as long as a 9-10 year old). Unusually feathery texture on their fins, and more likely to have multiple sets of fins than other mer. They grow a special scale with magical properties that sheds once in their lifetime. They also have more pointed faces and rounder ears than most mer
The Demise Tribe: most unusual. Sometimes their top halves barely look humanoid at all (a la the Ganons). Their underlings seem to be the least merlike and tend to have low intelligence and high instinct. Commonly piglike, but there are some more reptilian varieties. The higher-ups seem to retain more self-awareness, but they’ve all been changed to some degree by the pollutant. No one gets out of it without damage, and whatever the Demise Tribe does to make their members thrive off it fundamentally changes how they look. Results vary (but they tend to look fairly close to how they would in-game)
The Twili: they’re a scavenger group that’s taken to revolution against the Demise Tribe, and they DO have magic that protects them from dying for a while inside the pollutant, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed them. They tend to have mottled skin and scales that are part teal, part orange, and part slate-colored. They all have deep black markings that take a variety of shapes and locations on their bodies. Their faces tend to be flatter than most mer. The magic has altered their bodies, making it so they can’t spend too long in polluted OR clean water. Twilight wonders some times if Midna left him because she didn’t want him to become like them …
Scavengers: differences aren’t as drastic as the others on this list, but they’re very important to the story. Most are young (rarely survive to adulthood) and exceptionally small. Older ones aren’t as small as the Minish Tribe, but by mer standards, scavengers tend to be tiny and sickly. They don’t grow as large because 1) bigger mer are bigger targets and don’t live as long as the naturally little ones, 2) mer growth gets impacted by how strong a family/tribe group one has/levels of physical affection, and scavengers are almost always on their own or with mer they don’t trust at all, and 3) scavengers never get the right amount or nutrition from their food to grow big and strong. They also tend to have more scarring than mer from tribes, especially compared to mer their own age. Legend’s missing a particularly large chunk from his dorsal fin that cuts right down to his back.
Time: It’s very unusual for a mer to have no markings or highlights on their tail. But to also have pure white scales? Unheard of. Time’s lower half looks like a blank slate, almost as if it was designed by someone who had a general idea of what a mer should be but didn’t do any of the necessary decorating. It’s even more odd, since he has natural markings on his face. Or so the Chain Tribe thinks. They’re not sure if he was born with those marks, and none of them want to be the first to ask
Those are the main groups with huge differences, but I’m sure I’ll discover more! (I doubt it’ll ever show up in the au, but the Zonai Tribe lives at the bottom of the trench the Demise Tribe crawled out of, and the Zonai look VERY different—even have some bioluminescence!)
for definitely no reason at all what does mer rulie look like? 🙃
Aww, I love Rulie in any universe, he’s one of my favorite Links
A few general mer traits for this au and then I’ll get into his specifics:
-mer all have claws where their fingernails would be, and they take on a similar, faded color as their tails
-they all have dorsal fins that grow along their human half’s spine
-webbed ears, but not webbed hands
-gills on the sides of their necks
-other than that, pretty similar to the standard mermaid form
Hyrule:
Small, very scrawny (but not as bad as Legend; Rulie’s been with the Chain Tribe for a few months and they’re trying to get him to put on some much-needed weight). Tail is a true, muted green, but his scales have gold tips. His eyes are golden as well. He has more scars than a mer his age should, including the one from the LU scars comic on his torso. Other than that, he’s pretty on-model for LU, at least on his human half. He wears similar clothes, except they’re made out of kelp and seaweed. They’re also normally a bit frayed and torn from him exploring, but he does try to take care of his stuff (because he actually has stuff that’s his own now, and he’s so excited about it). It’s strange for a mer to wear long sleeves like he does, but he has his reasons …😁😈
to legend: hi legend i'm very sorry for earlier when i hugged you without asking. i should've realized you wouldn't've liked that because i'm a complete stranger. my apologies. (/silly)
i also made cookies if you would like them *offers a tray of chocolate chip cookies that've somehow survived the ocean water*
Legend: That's ... really nice of you. Uh, what exactly are these? *hesitantly takes a cookie and inspects it* They sort of smell like pudding, but different, too. What do you do with them?
is it in any way, shape or form related to the writers club (I don't really know exactly what it was but that's close enough I think?) from like a while ago that had J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis as members--and a few other people I don't know off the top of my head--called the Inklings?
or is it just coincidence lol
YOU!!!! YOU GOT IT!!!!!!! YOU’RE LITERALLY THE FIRST PERSON TO MAKE THAT CONNECTION WITHOUT ME TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT THE INKLINGS!!!!!
Idk why more people don’t know about this fun little bit in history, it’s amazing. Yes! I learned about the Inklings years ago and my brain clung onto that idea of history’s greatest authors becoming friends and working together. And then my brain started playing with it like a bouncy ball🤣 And now there’s time travel.
The basic premise of my book is that the Inklings writers’ club with Lewis, Tolkien, and a few others is what they *want* the world to know about. But due to some sinister shenanigans, holes in time open up and history’s greatest authors are the only ones who can fix them for Very Specific Reasons (will reveal later). They form a time-traveling group called the Inklings to keep protecting time. We get to see Lewis and Tolkien in my books! I had to do a ton of research to get their personalities right-ish while also keeping the story working haha
and I’ve found so many other cool friendships between famous authors! Turns out, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Jules Verne (love that guy) were all buddies! They were disappointed that Hugo’s (I *think* this was him, but don’t quote me, could have been one of the others) books didn’t catch on in English as well as theirs did. And Hans Christian Andersen had a mental breakdown facedown in Charles Dickens’s yard after a bad review. Always good to have friends with nice yards like that🤣
thank you so much for the excuse to ramble about my book! I’m actually finishing up a few last bits of polishing today before my agent sends it out for getting audiobook/film deals (!!!!), prayers appreciated all around! No promises, especially on the film stuff, but that would be so. amazing. I would scream. Well. A Morgan scream. I can’t actually scream that loud. The one class I ever failed in school was a fire drill because I couldn’t scream “FIRE” loud enough🤣
*i'm wearing a bunnydragon costume. you know the pink bunny onesie from A Christmas Story ? It's that one, except with wings and a longer tail teehee*
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
*has 13 bunnydragons airlift a giant Snickers into your Halloween basket, at least 5 of them stand on 2 legs and try to mimic The Tall and Wise Bunnydragon before I can pull them away for our next delivery*
