#I guess this can be considered a late Mermay piece | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theaviskullguy · 3 years

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What's a mermaid to a king? A lover, apparently

i wrote this a while ago on my Wattpad, bringing this here for Mermay!

Ship: Emperor x Gloves

Fantasy AU!

Please, enjoy!

-----

It was a simple run along the cliffsides, but a misstep caused Emperor to fall off of them. It happened too fast, it seemed. The blonde let out a cry for help but no one seemed to care.

Even though the cliffs had water, Emperor was sure that when he hit the surface he would die-the cliffs were high up.

So, he closed his eyes and braced for the impact. And when it came, he passed out.

..Only to awake on the shore.

Emperor opened his eyes, rather groggily, and saw startling, pure coral pink eyes-sclera and all- staring into his own. The next thing he noticed was tan skin, and seaweed green hair and...scales?

The creature smiled, showing sharp teeth. "Great! Thought you'd never wake up, two-legged!"

The blond was confused, obviously, and sat up, pushing the green beast off in the process. "What...What happened to me?" He asked.

"You seemed to take a nasty dive off of the cliffs. I found you, swam you to the surface so you could breathe, and brought you here!" They explained, lifting...a green betta-fish like tail.

Emperor backed up. What this real? Did he actually get saved by a freaking mermaid?

The mermaid only tilted their head. "What? Did I scare you?" A look of realization dawned on their face. "Are you scared of me?"

"No, I'm not. In fact, I am in your dept." Emperor answered, still a bit shaken. "Just...I thought mermaids were nothing more than a child's nursery tale, not real beings.."

"...Guess that makes sense." The mermaid shrugged, and held up and out a hand. "The name's Gloves. Nice to meet you!"

The blond took it and gave it a firm shake. "Emperor Castilo."

Gloves' eyes widened in excitement. "Castilo? As in the Royal Family Castilo?"

Emperor only nodded and Gloves smiled widely. "Oh, sweet!! I get to tell my friends I rescued a prince!"

Said prince chuckled. "I suppose you do. Now...need help getting back into the water"

Gloves nodded, and chuckled a bit sheepishly. "Yeah... Will I ever see you again?"

Emperor nodded. "Meet me at the cove tomorrow, when the sun rises. I'll bring something for you then, alright?"

"Okay!" They smiled, and Emperor scooped them up bridal style and walked until he was waist deep in the water, and released Gloves into it.

Gloves gave a small wave, before swimming off into the ocean.

---

Days of meeting at the cove turned into weeks, into months and soon, a year. Every morning, Emperor and Gloves would meet at sunrise and talk well into the day. On a few occasions, the prince would even get in the water and swim around with the mermaid.

Gifts were given both ways; Emperor gave Gloves beautiful golden jewelry that wouldn't really weight them down or get in the way of swimming if they wore the pieces correctly. In return, Gloves gifted Emperor with small trinkets from their little collection of junk that fell to the bottom of the sea, or some beautiful piece of coral, a shell, or even an occasional pearl. The prince would tell the mermaid the object's name and purpose or treasure the object dearly, putting it up in display in his room.

Slowly but surely, Emperor fell in love with Gloves, finding himself wanting to be able to run away from the stress and responsibilities that came with being royalty and spending the rest of his life by the seashore, with his fishy lover.

But, one day, Gloves did not come. Emperor waited until the sun set.

For weeks the mermaid didn't come. The prince felt his heart break every day his friend was a no show.

Two months after Emperor last saw Gloves, his father called him to a freak show of sorts. To see what scum his people would be.

The prince wished he could save each and every being there. And then... someone caught his eye.

In a small tank, there was a mermaid with coral pink eyes and hair and a tail of seaweed green, golden adornments on their wrists. They were curled up, as small as they could make themselves, but even then their tail had to drape over the side of their tank.

It was Gloves.

Emperor ran over to the tank, his father following.

"Now, that is a mermaid. They're terrible creatures," His father started. "Sabotaging our fisherman's hauls. This one got caught in a net trying doing just that. Don't stare at it for too long. It'll think you're a meal."

The prince just stared at Gloves with a look so sorrowful you'd think his brother would have died. He reached out a hand to touch the glass and Gloves put one against his.

The king scoffed and walked away, leaving the two practically unsupervised as Gloves poked their head out from their tank. "You came."

Emperor nodded. "But it seems a bit too late... The show is moving out tomorrow and I have until sunrise to help you all escape."

"Midnight." A separate caged being said. Emperor turned to face them.

It was a kitsune, with 6 fluffy orange tails and in the form of a human with ginger hair and emerald green eyes. "Come at midnight. No one guards us then and the keys are left lying around."

The prince nodded yet again. "Alright. Just...try and stay alive."

Gloves nodded. "Will do."

------------

The full moon shone high as Emperor snuck out of his window, a cloak over his figure. He headed to the freak show with purpose. He needed to save his people. And most of all, he needed to save Gloves. No aquatic creature should be stuck in a tank that small.

With the lockpick he was given by the mermaid once upon a time, he picked the lock of the building and headed in, to find most of the creatures asleep, and the hall completely devoid of guards.

Perfect.

Emperor took the keys from the stand they were on, and unlocked the cages. Some beasts simply flew away. Some thanked him and others used claws or talons to help with others.

Soon all of the cages were empty and the beasts were freed, but... Gloves was no where to be seen.

The prince felt himself begin to panic, but the kitsune brushed his shoulder with his tail. "The back room. They were taken in there after getting sick."

"Sick?" Emperor asked, rather concerned.

"Mermaids can't survive any part of them being dried for more than a few weeks. They got deathly dehydrated." The kitsune stated.

Emperor nodded, and raced to the back room, unlocking it.

Inside, there was a small but simple pool, and in it was an unconscious Gloves, who looked almost deathly pale. The prince bit his lip to keep from loosing his cool, and knelt down to gently shake the mermaid. "..Gloves?"

Gloves stirred, and opened their eyes. "...E-Emp?"

Emperor nodded. "It's me, Gloves. Listen, I'm going to get you out, but I need to lift you out of the pool. Alright?"

The mermaid nodded and allowed themself to be lifted by the prince, who dashed out of the door and ran to the ocean. The cove, more specifically.

As the two arrived, the sun was starting to rise, reflecting off of the water with a golden light as Emperor lowered Gloves in it. "There..."

Gloves smiled, already starting to look better, "Thanks, Emp... And, can I ask you something?"

Emperor nodded. "What is it?"

"..Can I kiss you? Not in a romantic way I promise! Just.. A mermaid's kiss can grant someone the ability to breathe underwater and I want to show you something.

"...S-sure?"

The mermaid nodded and leaned up, their lips being met by Emperor's own as the prince felt the power flow through him. And then he was pulled into the water by Gloves. "A-ACK-"

Gloves giggled, their hair billowing now they were both fully underwater. "Gotcha!"

Emperor huffed, taking a deep breath to find he really could breathe under the water now. "...I'll get you for that."

"But for now, follow me?"

The prince nodded and followed the mermaid as they led him to a smallish cave-on the outside at least. On the inside, it was huge and full of wonderful things. Even a makeshift vanity on a shelf-like rock formation, using fragments of mirrors. Much of the jewelry Emperor gave to Gloves was on this shelf, but other pieces were on other shelves or adorning Gloves. The prince guessed this was their home.

Gloves stopped after finding a bottle full of some strange gold liquid. "I got this a while ago at a market." They explained. "I... I wanted to give it to you to drink."

Emperor raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Well, it's apparently a potion that can turn a human into a mermaid. You often expressed how stressful the prince life is... I thought it'd help." Gloves explained. "I could help you with learning the basics of stuff, and you could even live with me!"

This seemed to be something out of a dream! But, Emperor wasn't willing to go. Not yet. "..I'll consider it, Gloves. I still have things to do on the surface."

Gloves looked a bit down, but nodded. "I get it... Well, take it in case you decide to drink it." The handed the potion to Emperor, who nodded and placed it in his pouch.

-----

The elixir was kept in a locked safe of sorts and almost forgotten. A few months after that exchange, Gloves didn't bring it up. But Emperor had been shown more and more of the watery neighborhood Gloves lived in; from the motherly siren and his selkie husband, to a sea nymph in love with a kitsune who lived on the surface, the prince had become as well known and respected as if he actually lived in the area.

Every night, Emperor would consider packing a bag and writing a note and drinking the elixir, to live there with Gloves permanently. And each time he decided not to drink just yet.

That all changed one day.

"Son," The king said. "I'd like you to meet your fiancé-"

Emperor tuned out her name, being frozen in fear. He didn't want this at all! He just... all he wanted was to spend his life with his mermaid friend!

So the moment he could, he sprinted up to his room and grabbed a waterproof bag, filling it with keepsakes of his brothers, along with the things Gloves gave him and the rest of his adornments (He wished to give some to his new neighbors, along with keep at least two matching rings for himself and Gloves). He grabbed a piece of paper and a quill, writing a note that simply he was running away, and to not look for him.

And with that, he unlocked the safe containing the elixir and headed out the window and to the cove with his bag.

When the prince reached it, he smiled in relief. Carefully, he stripped himself of his clothes and folded them to set on the rocks, keeping his circlet. He opened the bottle of the potion.

"Well, bottoms up.." Emperor said, to only himself. He downed the liquid in one fell gulp and jumped into the water.

He felt a weird sensation in his lower half but he didn't look until it was gone, and he saw a gorgeous and elaborate yellow mermaid tail, with specs of iridescent purple scales. Upon looking at his arms and feeling along his spine, Emperor noticed he grew fins as well, along with fin-like ears much like Gloves, though the ex-prince felt he paled in comparison to the mermaid of his affections.

He took his bag from the shore and quickly swam to where Gloves' cave was, his tail beating the water as hard as he could to get their faster.

When he arrived, he simply knocked on the stone, and was greeted with a tackle of seaweed green as Gloves hugged him tightly. "EMP!!!"

Emperor chuckled and embraced the betta fish back. "I missed you, Gloves."

Gloves smiled and looked Emperor up and down. "You drank it. You..."

"What can I say? Why would I not want to stay with the one I love?"

Gloves' face turned a shade of red, and they nuzzled into the crook of Emp's neck. "...I love you too, Emp..."

---------

When Prince, Regent, and their father found the note, a search for Emperor was called for. The kingdom searched far and wide before anyone thought to check the cove. All that they saw left of the kingdom's heir was his royal robes, folded neatly on the rocks with an empty bottle.

As for Emperor himself? He moved in with Gloves, permanently, and the two got together for reals. After a few years the two were married, and had two wonderful children. One was named Princess, and the other, Prince.

Some say the family learned of a way to turn into a humanoid form and roam the land as humans, and returned as the royal family when the kingdom fell to the grasp of chaos, but no one knows for sure.

All we can say, is this truly was a happily ever after.

The end.

-------------

The father shut his book, and the faces of his two children lit up.

"Are you saying you and Zaza are MERMAIDS?" The young girl asked.

The father only laughed. "Don't be silly, Princess. It's simply a story. A child's tale."

The son hugged his plush betta fish. "Y-yeah, sis. It's n-not real."

Princess pouted. "Awww! But that would be so coooooool!!"

"You know what else would be cool?" The father asked. "If you two went to sleep, now. I let you two stay up past your bedtime, your Zaza is going to get mad at me."

The two children nodded. "Night papa!" The son called.

He smiled. "Goodnight, Prince. You two, Princess." He blew out the light, and headed out of the room.

The other parental unit, Zaza, was waiting just outside the door. "Telling the kids the story again. Huh, Emp? "

"Gloves! You startled me there, love." Emperor stated. "And, yes. Princess won't stop thinking it's real."

"Well, who knows?" Gloves placed a kiss on Emperor's cheek. "You thought mermaids were a child's tale and yet you met me."

The king rolled his eyes playfully. "I suppose you're right. Now, it's been ages since we've done a good one, so..."

Gloves raised an eyebrow. "Midnight swim?"

"Midnight swim."

The two lovers headed out of the palace and to the cove, hands intertwined under the moonlight. they stripped away each others clothing as not to ruin it, and dove into the water.

A flash of colors followed, then green and yellow mermaids swam around the large cove, their laughter like springs of fresh water.

They got their happily ever after, after all.

#coroika #splatoon #Galax Writes #coroika Emperor #coroika gloves #emperor x gloves #gloves x emperor #empergloves #Lemon Lime #mermaid AU #mermay writing #mermay

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md3artjournal · 5 years

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venting angst productivity failure time sleep practice progression

12:10 AM 3/25/2019

My daily figure photo series "Waiting for Ryuji" plus the daily/monthly drawing challenges I keep doing, are both destroying my days. x____x; It's been more than a week, and I haven't even finished the 23 paopu halves plushies I was supposed to do within 1-2 days! I have so many projects to do for artist alley in early July! ;O; So many new products I want to make, but I have no energy! It's becoming clearer that I only have energy for 1 (maybe 2) projects per day! ;O; That's just the 2 daily art projects/challenges to keep my art muscle in shape! ;~; Aughhhhh! ;o;!

Thank goodness I take notes for how long it takes me to draw different stages of a drawing, or else I would never have noticed I've been taking 3 hours per sketch. O~o?!!!! How is that?! I'm not trying to be polished with those! That was supposed to save time! I mean, I'm not doing all-nighters anymore, like I did for Inktober 2017, so that's an improvement. But 3 hours?!????????? It takes me 10 minutes to do the primary sketch. I know I can have problems designing a costume or conceptualizing a monster design, but 2 hours and 50 minutes?!?!?!?????? Omg... I'm so hopeless. Is this worth keeping my illustration muscles/skills in shape? I've already accepted that I'm not an illustrator. I suck too much. I usually call myself a crafter, a jewelery, or a clay sculptor...Even though I've been drawing more frequently than ANY of those in a LONG time. x~x;;;; Is all this time really worth just TRYING to become better at drawing? ;~; I wanted to be able to nurture this skill so I could express myself with drawings, whenever I needed to express something. But today was "Kiss Ryuji Day" and I was still too intimidated to draw anything for it, because I'm too afraid of how bad my attempts always turn out. I couldn't even draw a good hug between Ryuji and Akira during OTPtember2018! (It was such a bad drawing...That I tried SO hard on! ;_; ) I mean, I have to admit that I could turn some of my Magical March and MerMay challenge drawings into merch for artist alley, but objectively, none of it is good. It's good *for me*, but compared to the competition in artist alley...What am I even doing there?!? Looking at my sales data, the answer is I'm selling polymer clay sculptures, so again the question becomes, why am I using so much time to learn to draw, just so I can express myself, when it eats all my time away from making more clay sculptures that actually sell? Is being able to express myself such a hang-up for me? ...Yeah. ~.~;

So what about the figure photography? I'll admit that those answers are simple. It's a good way to practice an "eye" for composition, lighting, posing, etc. I suck at it, and I don't put much effort into my lighting to mean anything against such greats as Kixkillradio, Love Pink Cheeks, Nendo Stories, etc. When I look at their stuff, I can recognize how little I'm trying, and I have to ask myself "why am I even trying?". Considering my self-expression fixation, figure photography is a good fill-in medium until I can better develop my drawing skills. And I did originally start collecting figures to use as drawing models, which unavoidably funnels me into figure photography, so it's not like it's something I'll fully stop doing even if I stop setting up photoshoots and dioramas. But I also really like making miniatures, figure accessories, diorama props, etc. My sister said something like that if something makes me happy I shouldn't feel guilty about it and I should pursue it. Whether I vent about how terrible I am for spending so much money on Nendoroids or when I refrain from buying supplies that could make my life less irritating out of frugality. Maybe just feeling happy from doing figure photography is enough to justify it. So maybe I shouldn't stop. ...But I need to stop spending hours on Photoshop elements for figure comics. That needs to seriously cut down, especially for a daily photo project.

I know it never works when I resolve to stick to a schedule, but I really need to cut down how much time I use for these daily art projects, when artist alley is in a few months. I don't outsource my products. I have to make each and every one by hand. That's the curse of the crafter. I need to use more time for these crafts. Jewelry, sculpting, designing, problem solving fabrication, etc...It's all stuff I love to do and once I start I don't want to stop... But at this rate, I'm never going to get to it. And then it'll just be a repeat of my horrible history. Sure, last year I was able to finally make enough polymer clay Wayfinders to not sell-out my entire stock, half-way through Anime Expo---for once! But it was still a situation of crunch time focused only towards my essential products and past best sellers, vs the thing I really wanted to do, which is making new products as well. I waste so much time watching productivity videos, trying gameified motivation apps, and so much time wasted trying bullet journal techniques, thinking that if I just use this tracker or try this analog gameification technique, I'll finally stick to a schedule and thus be able to do everything I need and want to do.... But it always fails. I really can't do more than 1 thing reliably per day. And I have to practice daily to keep my skills up---my skills are too low to keep it to a once-per-week practice session.

And it's started to wear down on me how much all these attempts and failures at a schedule are ruining my sleep cycle. Everyday, there's a midnight I don't manage to get into bed on time, or a midnight in which I don't manage to be truly productive before midnight, so I have to stay up to get something done so I can go to bed, feeling good about myself as a person. It's not as bad as school, but it is still a daily sense of failure, like school. I recall the months (years?) that I resolved to no longer try to have a normal person's sleep schedule and just simply work on my projects as long as I have the will for, and than collapse into bed whenever. I worked hard to have no social life, to have no one in my life vying for my time, so I should have no need to live in the same Time as anyone else. But I had a breakdown last year, where I had to accept that I wanted the revive the good relationship I used to have with my mom, and I had to resolve to put some effort towards that. So now I guess I have to live in the same Time as other people. So I can't just be noctural and asleep while everyone else in my life is awake. Yesterday, I think they tried to wake me to go to my uncle's birthday party/luncheon/dinner, but I sleep during the day and wake at night now. I don't have FOMO for parties, being an introvert, but the next time---or rather how many times has my mom wanted to spend time together and I'm just in a different Time than her? They go to movies every Tuesday sometimes invite me, haven't mentioned it in a long while, and for the past 2 weeks, I haven't even been able to be awake enough to go to two movies I've wanted to watch during the Tuesday-discounts. Even right now, I'm staying up late again because I got sleepy during the day, and had to nap (and quite frankly I get better quality and more productive recuperation during daytime naps) so now I'm all rested to be awake...and it's past midnight. Last week I finally got to a place where my sleep cycle more resembled a normal person's pattern, after 2+ weeks of work towards that. And then one or 2 projects that went into the night, and all that progress was gone. Sleeping like a normal person wouldn't be such an issue for me if I would actually be rested enough to be awake for when I want to get to work. But I can't sleep even when I'm trying to sleep. I'm amazed how spectacularly my attempts to sleep fail whenever I get to bed early ("early" as in a normal person's sleep pattern). Is this all a lost cause? Just like the rest of my life?

Ugh. I need to eat and sleep.

2:13 AM 3/25/2019 Earlier today, my mom seemed to imply we could watch a movie on cable together, but I was in the moddle of a project. I was fixated on a project instead, since sleep/fatigue had taken all my time, so the rare moments of productive will I have, I don't like to let go of it whenever I happen to have it. It may ruin me, but in the end, I'd rather pay the cost of an all-nighter to get a good piece done, and have something as proof that I can be proud of myself (as well as use for artist alley for years to come), vs getting sleep on a normal person's pattern and have done nothing that stretched me beyond the limitations I thought I had. I like that proof of worth. (I've been seeing posts lately about "your productivity/skill is not your self worth" but I can't completely buy into that for myself anyway.) With my lack of memory and sense of self disappearing along with it, having artwork left along the way, as proof of who I was, what I'm capable of, and as concrete encouragement, proving that I can do great things, I have that inside me, even if those "great" things are just stretching beyond my subjective limitations by only milimeters...those are memories and senses of myself that I want and value. ...And having new pieces in stock, ready to be turned into new artist alley products at the last minute, while I'm feeling bad that I hadn't had time to make anything new, is also great.

#please ignore my idiocy

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viperbranium · 6 years

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Is awaiting your stucky mob boss AU

I’m... guessing this is about that post with mob boss finding someone’s wallet and realizing they’re fucking broke and that their life situation is just sad and starting to help them? Cause if it is then, oh... oh, anon... me too. T^T

(and if it isn’t please remind me of the post cause I forgot... I know there’s a bunch of stuff I’ve reblogged as “stuff I might write” that I’ve probably forgotten about).

Writing has been... complicated lately. Save for a few short things. I’m having trouble finding the time (as in, more than usual), and when I do I have trouble finding inspiration, or words don’t cooperate, or I want to write so many things at once that I can’t settle on just one. So I’ve mostly been trying to devote my energy and what little inspiration I have to the upcoming RBB fic and reward ficlets for the patreon thingy.

And also, the Muse is being weird as of late, in the sense that it mostly wants me to experiment with new pairings? Some I’ve never even considered myself -- and also to try writing a One Piece fic or two... which tends to always happen when I have commitments and thus NEED to stick to a ship, but the urge has been getting stronger, so there’s that too...

(also I probably need a beta. Like, an actual one so I won’t have to keep pestering friends when I can’t get prepositions right because English is the worst, but I haven’t motivated myself enough to put up a post for that yet, and I’m still not fully convinced about it... *sighs*)

If it helps keep you guys excited, a non-comprehensive list of things I want to give you at some point (man, I wish I could say soonish, but you never know...), includes:

the mob boss fic

the fake married shrunkyclunks fic

the accidental sugar daddy bucky shrunkyclunks fic

possibly at least 2 other shrunkyclunks fics because i am weak

a buckycap x modern!steve fic

the thor x tj hammond fic

the thor x modern!bucky fic

a few more thor things

a merman bucky au (I’d love to do this for mermay but... yeah...)

the pwp where steve gets de-serumed and shifts back to his beefy self right in the middle of fucking bucky

an identity porn stony (oops) fic where no one actually knows who iron man is

a modern au with artist!steve and gogo dancer!bucky

a samstevebucky fic in a fantasy setting

a fantasy x arranged marriage sam x t’challa fic

two magical realism evanstan fics

an evanstan fic based on chris’ truckstop hooker shoot for flaunt magazine

and honestly many more things but those are the ones i’m more !!!!! about atm that i can remember...

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