In the form of pages they would make on a hypothetical scrapbooking date.*
Set loosely in the beginning of season two, Pope finds himself an injured mermaid on the run. Desperate to prove to himself that he's good, he decides to help her blend into the human world.
You were forced onto land after an ambush from a neighboring pod chased you up-current. Humans are known to destroy everything they touch, but you'd rather be ripped apart by barbarians than allow the invading Belama the pleasure. Lucky for you, the first human to find you is probably one of the kindest to exist. Especially since it turns out that humans are a bit harder to fool than you thought they were.
Vibes are pretty much Corbin and Leeloo from Fifth Element, like fed-up and off-putting guy meets weird-but-alluring girl. She looks up to him to learn how to be human, and he tries to not let his cynicism of the world get to her. And with Pope, learning social skills is basically the blind leading the blind, love my unnerving king.
Rambling more about it below the cut:
*(I believe that Pope would arrange his with each picture evenly spaced and exactly upright, but that made my designer heart cringe, I didn't have the space, and I wanted to keep the pics inclusive by hiding the mer-model's skintones)
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Reader Details: Has bad eyesight on land, in part due to how eyes have to work to see underwater, and just because above water it's too bright. No gills bc they gross me out, her lungs are dual purpose air/water. Will have long hair, though texture will be kept vague. Body is kept vague beyond saying she's in a "smaller" class of mermaid, specifically saying built for speed rather than combat. Tropical mermaid, so her tail is the brightly colored blue and red one on the moodboard, the Damsel tail by Merbella Studios x Finfolk Collections, model is The Caspian Mermaid on Pinterest, Tiktok, and Insta, if you're curious.
Grew up around the Revillagigedo Archipelago Biosphere Reserve, Socorro Island, off the Pacific Coast of Mexico, and bc the humans her pod has interacted with speak Spanish, her pod speak a pidgin version of Spanish, where they use Spanish words for human objects, though the meanings of them don't always line up.
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Not sure yet if Cath is alive or not in this, and in general I think the plot of the show will only come into things when I want them to. Trying really hard to be less neurotic about canon bc fics are supposed to be fun. Also I decided to make Pope the wholesome version that he is with Lena and Amy, who would still kill, but out of love and not obligation. The ideas I had about a Dark!Pope will probably be a short run au or alt ending for the baddies who love horror and all of that.
I will probably make a separate post for some lore, just bc I like what I've built but it's not super relevant to the plot or anything. Also the reader doesn't speak english or know much about the human world, so it's difficult and clunky to explain all that lore through that perspective, so there'll be bits and pieces where it fits and makes sense, but other than that anything more will be explained in detail on the lore page.
I love weirdos who feel incapable of connecting with the world around them despite being desperate to, and this says nothing about me as a person!!!!
Okay I don't have anything for my Matt fic, I swear that I've been working on it, I just haven't been happy with anything I've written in so long.
Butttt, I recently began lurking in the Pope Cody fandom, watched the first two seasons and love that messed up little weirdo. And I was inspired to write a very self-indulgent and low effort mermaid story.
Then I spent like a month working out the various social structures of a fictional mer society, before waking up and remembering the whole thing is supposed to be fun and chill. We're so back though and I will have the first chapter out soon. I'll try and post like a teaser of what it's going to be like tonight.
Also I want to shout out @bullet-prooflove and @alvfr for their work really getting me into the character and inspiring me to make a fic of my own, they're both so good, you won't regret checking them out.
