mermaid oh murmur into my ear

[pipers_son]

MERMAID AU MEME



Rules:
● Put down character name and series in subject line.
● Add any preferences (romance and/or general, human and/or mer) in comment.
● Reply to other people!

Scenarios:

1 ♢ Little Mermaid
♢ Mer
♢ One of you is a mer person with something you want. The other is a powerful mage who can possibly give it to you. Can an arrangement be made...?

2 ♢ Exploration
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ Whatever you are, your curiosity has gotten the best of you. Whether it's a sunken shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean or a mysterious cove hidden away along the cliffside... Venturing with a friend or running into something unexpected... What will you find?

3 ♢ Exchange
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ Sometimes, territories are broached, but it's not always a bad thing. Whether you're of entirely different species, or just from different seas, you've met in peaceful circumstances- perhaps as a direct result of those! So it's time for a cultural exchange. Just ignore the fresh water mer.

4 ♢ For Science
♢ Mer and Human
♢ This is a one in a lifetime chance.... for at least one person. Are you on an isolated island? A ship far out to sea? A highly funded aquarium? Or perhaps even a laboratory with more than questionable methods... Either way, you have the chance now to study something rarely seen before. How will it turn out for both of you?

5 ♢ Ariel's Dream
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ Some say it's impossible for a mer to live on dry land... except that's been quietly proven wrong. One of you has taken to living among humans, whether for years or still learning the ropes. As for the other... Are you a concerned friend, checking in on them from the sea? Or are you a landdweller, stumbling onto a great secret?

6 ♢ Sea Life
♢ Mer and Human
♢ While they have the legs for landdwelling, some humans seem to have more saltwater in their veins than blood, and those are the kinds of humans that end up with dealing with the mysteries of the sea the most. A surfer catching waves with shark mer? A pirate bartering with sirens for safe passage? A fisherman working together with those who know fish best? There's all sorts.

7 ♢ Stranded
♢ Mer and Human
♢ Well, fuck. Good job. One way or another, you're stuck where you shouldn't be. Whether that's a human lost in the tides, or a mer trapped against the land, you need help.... So don't be picky with what you do get.

8 ♢ Not Safe For Water
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ The scenario made explicitly for Guillermo Del Toro and anyone who was extremely anxious for a xeno sex scene in The Shape Of Water. Get your smut on. Feel free to mix and match it with any of the other scenarios as well.

9 ♢ Siren Song
♢ Mer and Human
♢ Sometimes, there's a good reason people fear the too wide expanse of the sea, or how deep its depths an reach... Strange songs which string through coastal towns and cause disappearances... The sound of something slipping through the water around a ship in the dead of night... Unexplained shapes which flicker outside of deep-sea vessels or submarines or installations. Do you want to know what's out there?

10 ♢ Capture
♢ Mer and Human
♢ Sometimes, there's a good reason why people fear humans. You don't belong here, being gawked at through thick aquarium glass or trapped in a too-small freakshow tank, but what can you do? Is there anyone who cares for your plight, or are there only people responsible for it?

11 ♢ Chance Encounter
♢ Mer and Human
♢ Well, this is awkward. You didn't mean to stumble onto a mer just... there, doing whatever, on the beach or by the docks or tangled up in your fishing net, but, well. It's happened. Now what?

12 ♢ Transformation
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ For one reason or another, you want to go where you've never gone before... A mer, venturing on the land either as a rare chance or every day business? Or a human, accepting some sort of trade or just to run away from the life you have now? Either way, it might get messy.... Feel free to mix in with other scenarios.

13 ♢ Fantasy Meets Fantasy
♢ Mer and OTHERS!
♢ Who's to say that humans are the only other creatures in the world? Maybe people living beneath the sea's waves aren't the only strange things. Maybe there are centaurs who travel along coastal roads to watch the night sky along with mer astronomers. Perhaps selkies are just distant cousins. Or who's to say that mer can't be a host of things unto themselves? The ocean's the limit.

14 ♢ Sci-fi
♢ Mer and Human
♢ Some say astronauts are nothing more than sailors venturing off into another unexplored sea, one that's above instead of below. And, befitting those same sailors of older days, they seem to tell tails of strange melodic frequencies coming in over the radio to their ears, and strange comets that look like tails passing them by on a landed planet. Do they not know what's accompanying them in space, or is that what they're actively chasing?

15 ♢ Divinity
♢ Mer and Human
♢ There are stories told of what exactly it is that could be both human and fish... So it's not surprising that, eventually, one would land upon calling them divine entities, either gods of the sea or lakes, or just their messengers. Is that true, or just a very clever, long lasting ruse?

16 ♢ Afterlife
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ Some say mer are just humans, wrongfully forced overboard by superstition or cruelty and welcomed by the sea into something more. Others say that they're the spirits, haunting a particular sea or lake town for a wrongful death. What's the truth? Time to find out.

17 ♢ Peaceful Living
♢ Mer and/or Human
♢ Not everything has to be a dramatic mess. Sometimes, things just... work out for the best. These are better times, and mer are just another part of life. Water-side towns where everything is built around those that share the waters with them, or huge metropolises with water tubes and sprouts for mer to travel through. How will you imagine this sort of life?

18 ♢ Wildcard
♢ follow your dreams, make up whatever

Comments

Naomi Kimishima | Trauma Team | OTA

[chatwithdeath]

[OOC: Though I have a preference for the Mer role, she can be human too.]

[detectiveforhierophant]

[Hellooooo so what are you up for?]

[chatwithdeath]

[I don't knooow. Which one catches your eye?]

9 It is then /o/

[detectiveforhierophant]

[If it wasn't one thing, it was another; if he wasn't dealing with the murder case, he was out following up on ridiculous paranoia or rumors of the townsfolk late at night.]

[People had always talked about odd things before this, sure; rumors and gossip were common in a small town. Urban Legends weren't much different; the Ghost at the Tatsuhime Shrine, the odd creature that lived there (a fox, he was pretty sure at this point) and of course, the 'Midnight Channel' was popular now (which... was complicated, in his mind right now). All of them and more were things he'd heard and rolled his eyes at. He was a detective after all; he looked at facts and evidence, real, tangible things. It was too easy for the human mind to make things up, after all...]

[There were rumors now; of a large, fish like creature in the Sawegawa river--far too big to just be a regular fish, even the fabled 'Guardian'. Of something with shining eyes staring out at people who walked after sunset. Something that looked like a person.

Dojima'd just write it off as overeager anglers and people coming back from Shiroku's Pub. But... his daughter, Nanako. She had mentioned, once, after... well, an argument? A blow up? Something like that, that before Souji had brought her home, she'd talked to a strange lady in the water. Who was 'very nice and shiny'.]

"..."

[And that made Dojima uneasy. With the murderer still on the loose... he couldn't risk it, even if it was just rumors and possibly his daughter's imagination.

He'd promised to protect this town and his family, after all.

[So that's why, i nspite of everything, he found himself at the Sawegawa in the dark, flashlight in hand, and his second cigarette between his lips.]

"...This is ridiculous."

[...Even still, he couldn't help be frustrated at the whole thing.]

Yosh

[chatwithdeath]

[She doesn't always reside in the Samegawa River - it was much too small and the fish didn't compare to those in the sea. However, like many others, she had begun to sense a change in the small town - a change that caught the attention of the Ghost, the Fox, herself, and others though the humans might not notice them all.]

[She certainly didn't have to be returning, but someone had caught the River Guardian and left her presence more... required. Monitoring the streams, making sure children didn't hurt themselves while the nature of the town began to warp around them, that sort of thing. Now, if only it had been children who knew she was there, but she must have been fairly careless. It wasn't hard to miss when the rumors about her presence started and they weren't about to end. All the more reason to make herself even more scarce.]

[... But she had to at least speak to that young girl...]

[Still, what good that did she thought as she lingered beneath the bridge and stared. A human out this late was generally not good news, but he had a flashlight... and she recognized them just after a few second of staring. She had spoken to his daughter after all...]

[So, what brought him back? Did she run off again? Her eyes thinned slightly.]

[detectiveforhierophant]

[The hairs on the back of his neck pricked, as if someone was there, staring at him.

Narrowing his eyes, he swept the flashlight over the water, causing it to reflect along the cold water's surface. Dojima could make out silhouettes of fish, perhaps, and darkened rocks, but not much else.

He was torn between his intuition saying 'something is there' and his logical mind telling him he's just being paranoid- it's dark, it's late, he's tired and stressed, and even if he wants to be objective, he is only human-

The light of the flashlight swept under the bridge, and it--

Wait--

He saw something, like a cat's eyes at night, glowing--]

"Who's there?!"

[Hi voice was loud and authoritative enough to either frighten away the animal there and make him look like an idiot, or get the person causing all this to startle-- so he hoped.]

[chatwithdeath]

[When the light caught her eyes, her pupils thinned and she sunk into the water at his call. Whatever happened next ultimately depended on him - he already saw her so... what was he going to do?]

[Really, she didn't want to approach him unless she had to - and right now, she really didn't need to. He could go on, imagining that he saw something like a cat on the riverbank that must've scampered off, or that his exhaustion was getting the better of him...]

[... or, there was something larger in the water. If he did come and look too closely, well, she couldn't hide all her tail.]

[detectiveforhierophant]

[...That movement wasn't normal for a cat. The shining eyes getting smaller and then... sinking down? His eyes were probably playing tricks on him, but the way it moved, just... it just didn't seem right.

His grip on the flash light tightened, and he moved closer, his normal heavy footfalls lighter, careful. Trying not to disturb the rocks along the shore of the river. The beam of light swung back and forth, over the bank, back over the river, and--

Something... shimmered. Under the water's surface. Much bigger than just a random soda can. Much longer than a normal fish, and he followed it up to--]

...What the...?

[Was... was that the top of a head? He was close enough to it now to see it better now, and...]

...Ma'am?

[Was it someone taking a late night dip? This time of year?]

[chatwithdeath]

[Eyes watching, pupils thinning again as the light passed onto her face, she moved quickly towards him, towards the shore...]

[Shooting out of the water towards him to pin him down and cover his mouth.]

Shh...

[She used her silver-scaled tail to push his other hand down and lower the beaming light from his hand, head glancing around. Next she spoke, her voice was just low enough for him to hear.]

... You are a persistent one... only rivaled by that of your blood kin. [She withdrew her hand from his mouth slowly.] What do you want?

[detectiveforhierophant]

[It was like looking at liquid silver-- that blur of shimmering light, moving fast-- far too fast...!

He didn't have time to react to that inhuman speed, and took the full force of it's tackle, falling hard onto the stony shoreline. And then the sudden, heavy weight of a body against him, soaking wet against his clothing--]

[Any outburst of pain or anger was quickly hushed, it's cold hands covering his mouth, and it took him a moment for his sight to readjust to see what he was looking at-- both his cigarette and his flashlight tossed aside from the force of it all.]

[Or... her... tail?]

[Her eyes were a piercing, pale blue-- and it was a 'her', he could tell now from... ah.

Dojima swallowed involuntarily as she spoke, the wind still knocked out of him as she asked what he wanted.]

[...Wait, blood kin...?]

...W-what... are you...?

[It had taken him longer than he'd like to respond, but... his mind was swimming from the pain and the shock of it all, give him a break.]

[chatwithdeath]

[She gave him a look - was he really asking that? Didn't humans all know those sort of tales? Still, she supposed that would be inaccurate anyway...]

... Usually, I'm an Ocean Guardian. Consider me your temporary River Guardian until the next one grows.

[Moving herself from his lap, she moved well for being stuck to mainly tail. Into the water she returned, but she crossed an arm beneath her chest while the other hand came to rest on her cheek.]

Meanwhile, what are you doing out here?

[detectiveforhierophant]

[Maybe he did, but they were just that-- tales, fictional stories that were told to kids either to put them to sleep at night or warn them of some danger or another.]

River... Guardian. You mean that urban legend about the giant fish...?

[He sat up when she shifted off his body, wincing from the dull ache in his back. God, he wasn't getting any younger, was he?

Meanwhile, she was already back in the water, and when he glanced up--

--And futher up, punching down that distracted thought, though he couldn't stop that heat rushing to his cheeks. This was far too surreal...]

[Not that her face was much better in some ways. She was clearly not human, but not that alien, and...

Weren't there legends in some countries about creatures like her leading men astray?]

...Looking for whatever people were seeing in the river.

[Which he's pretty sure he's found.]

There's a murder investigation going on, and I can't leave any stone unturned...

[Though, his hand went up to gingerly rub the back of his head, noticing that new bump that was oh so graciously forming.]

...This can't be real...

[Because... mermaids didn't actually exist, right? It would be far more logical that he slipped while checking the river and this was now just a halluciantion...]

[chatwithdeath]

Right, urban legend. Tell you nephew the next time he fishes the 'urban legend' out of the river, he returns it.

[She sighs and makes herself comfortable on a small pile of rocks gathered in the river. They're probably going to be here for a while.]

If that's all, you've likely found it. Unless they saw something besides my scales, but not likely. The river is calm for the most part. No disturbances besides the occasional kid or two splashing at the shore.

[Or... fist fighting nearby. So, he could go.]

Murder investigation? You'd have better luck going to the shrine to find answers.

[But... it doesn't seem like he was paying full attention to her. Raising an eyebrow, her tail shortly flicks, sending a cascade of water upon him.]

[detectiveforhierophant]

...Why am I not surprised Souji is involved...

[He still wasn't quite responding to her directly, but he was listening. Maybe his unconscious mind could provide some insight. Why his unconscious mind decided to take the form of a... mermaid was a disconcerting question he didn't want to deal with, but--]

The Shrine? Wh--Hey!

[Annnd he's getting splashed with water. At this point it really shouldn't matter since his front was already soaked through, but this was just insult to injury!]

I'm wet enough already, damn it!

[chatwithdeath]

Tell him the same if he goes after my own temporary replacement in the sea.

[She could hear that old man muttering on shore. Could he just accept not seeing that one fish?]

Huh, my mistake. It looked like you were still trying to decide if I'm real or not.

[detectiveforhierophant]

I'll... mention that, next time I talk to him.

[He has a feeling they're going to have a looooong talk next time he can get the kid alone, without Nanako listening in. Now he just needs to work on it not sounding like an interrogation...]

... Well, I am. I did hit my head, after all.

[Dojima could at least be honest...]

But... my daughter mentioned seeing a 'shiny, pretty woman' one time she came here on her own... I'm guessing that was you?

[chatwithdeath]

Good.

[Humans really aren't supposed to know she's here, but... que sera, sera sometimes. At the mention of hitting his head, she shrugged.]

Hm... small girl, brown hair, and pigtails? Yes, I spoke to her.

[detectiveforhierophant]

[It was sort of distressing how much this woman-fish. Thing. Seemed to know about his family, describing his daughter perfectly.]

... it's probably rude to ask 'what about', but I'm curious why she's the only one who seems to have actually seen you compared to everyone else who's just seeing odd shapes under water.

[Though he had a sinking feeling... that perhaps she'd overheard him that night as well. That wasn't something he wanted to relive...]

[artificialrose]

[I rolled a '12', so transformation it is! I could probably roll with Garry being the one turning, if you want to keep Naomi as a mer.]

[chatwithdeath]

[Sure. So, Garry'll be the new mer in class (haha), sounds good. Though, she'll probably watch him and shake her head as he tries to get swimming.]

[artificialrose]

[Listen... Let him live, okay.... But any particular backstory for why she'd be interested in helping some lanky ass nerd before I write a starter? I know nothing about her canon or... her, lmao, so I'm not sure how to BS it.]

[chatwithdeath]

[Oh, she will... but just silently judging always. Well, for a long and short summary, Naomi was a surgeon (still sorta is) that became a medical examiner that can hear ghosts. Whenever I put her in a mer role, she has some kind of magic and I've ever cast her as a Sea Witch before for instances of 'The Little Mermaid'... book not Disney film, she'd be someone more aligned with King Triton like '... You want legs for what?'. If anything, she's probably the one transforming Garry, constantly going 'are you sure about this?' because sweetheart, there are sharks in the sea...]

sorry it took me a while to get back!

[artificialrose]

"So do I need to.... do anything in particular...?"

Sometimes, Garry isn't entirely sure that his life has actually been his life. Far too many things have been happening lately that don't feel like they should happen to him. Just.... string after string after string of bad luck, as if he shattered a mirror or was cursed by someone. The kind of bad luck that happens in melodramas, not to real people. Not to him.

Perhaps it's no wonder that he had almost been too accepting of the existence of a mermaid off in the waters of his town, or that a person could just... become part fish and live in the water.

So really, when nothing seems real or any less of a dream, why not go along with it? It's by far not the worst thing that could happen to him.... Because that already has.

No problem

[chatwithdeath]

"No, you've already done enough."

For what he wanted, he was already going to give up more than he might anticipate. However, she was not to be the one to point this out. Given her abilities, she could only grant wishes and would do so at their desire. Whether or not the people seeking to have their wish granted truly wanted what they believed, that was not her problem.

Looking back along her silver scales, she picked one and pulled it out. Bright and reflective, it was really a mystery how more people didn't see her.

"Remember: once you take this, there's no going back."

[artificialrose]

Has he really? Garry has to wonder, although he doesn't voice those particular questions out loud. Instead, he just reaches out to carefully accept the scale from her fingertips. Somehow, it's nothing like he was expecting.

"I know." He's sort of accepted that. At least, probably? Maybe he'll regret a lot of this, he reflects as he turns the scale in his hand, but that could be said for a lot of things.

"Do I just.... swallow it, then?"