bakerstreet | (no subject)

(( Would love to play him as the merman, maybe one that's curious about the surface world ))

[Bare bones about her: sarcastic seer with a knack for finding trouble, or having trouble find her. More in-depth information about her is here. She can easily be a mermaid or not.]

[Up to date with DD:BA but mark for spoilers!

Prefer him to be the merman for this one! He's got the lower half of a blue piranha, all sparkly and deadly at the same time, and the sharp teeth of one as well. He's also got webbed hands and claws. He's highly territorial and aggressive if provoked but will leave other alone as long as they do the same to him. He can be placated by shiny objects like jewelry, weapons, and even just random bits of metal.]

[it's a peaceful night, until there's shouting from the deck. a stowaway has been discovered, a young woman who flees from the sailors who try to capture her and demand explanation. it was meant to be a short voyage, so ava had thought. but the stormy weather for the last few nights has delayed the arrival into the port she had intended to slip away to.

now she's been found out while trying to sneak food, and in attempt to put distance between herself and the two men has her up against the rail with a glinting knife in her fist. the wooden deck is slippery with rain, and so when the waves pitch the ship suddenly to the side, ava loses balance and SPLASH topples overboard.

she can swim, just barely. but that was in small ponds as a kid. she stares up at the ship in fright, the silhouettes of the two sailors who know it's not worth jumping in after her bobbing in and out of her view. ava kicks wildly against the waves in attempt to keep herself above the surface. the ship rapidly gets farther away, with no hope of her managing to get back upon it.

ava's fear of drowning is what keeps her fighting, even if she has no idea how long she can keep it up or how close to land she even might be.]

[Dex is looking for something to eat in the water when he spots a vague shadowy shape suddenly land it. He immediately goes on the alert, hoping that it might be a big fat seal that he can take as his dinner. He goes up and bites into what he thinks is a flipper....only to be severely disappointed when he bites into some kind of combination of thick animal hide and wood instead. He's not sure what it is but this is definitely not a seal. He spits it out, scrubbing at his mouth.

He goes in for an exploratory second bite to figure out what's going on here and this time he realizes what he's dealing with here. Great, it's a bony little human body with almost no meat on them the way that there would be on a big seal! Meh. What is he supposed to do with one of those?

Still, he's curious what a human is doing this far out in the ocean. Most that swim stay close to shore for obvious reasons. This is his territory, not that of humans, and they generally know better than to swim here. He goes to the surface and breaks through. His hazel eyes meet those of the woman in the water. He doesn't say anything, merely floating there in the water with his tail gently swishing back and forth to help keep his balance.]

[ava lets out a terrified little shriek when something takes hold of her foot, more out of surprise that something is lurking below the surface. not really out of pain, her shoe takes most of the damage. but in the brief scuffle to kick her foot free of the second attack, she ends up losing the shoe. she lets out a low curse, frantically swiping her arms under the water to attempt grabbing for it, but it's long gone. the water is far too dark for her to even see it sinking, but she knows the the water is impossibly deep.

and her focus is honestly more towards what's lurking below, than the lost shoe. she tucks her legs up best she can beneath her soaked swirl of skirts, trying to hide them from being bitten. she peers into the water, knife poised to attack...

she doesn't expect the creature to pop out of the water.

she doesn't expect the creature to be...] A man? [a shirtless one, of all things. not that it makes it any less alarming. but maybe a sign that land is closer nearby than she expected?

still, in interest of self preservation and lack of trust, ava points her knife at the stranger.] You grabbed me!

[Dex shakes his head when she calls him a man. No, not a man, but it's not so easy to see his tail in the water when it's vertical instead of curved behind him when he dives. But he doesn't bother to correct the misconception more than that.]

Thought you were a seal.

[As if that makes everything alright. He shakes his head again in slow disapproval and prods her with a sharp claw.]

Don't taste good.

[As if she'd deliberately tricked him into biting her rather than Dex making the mistake all on his own. Rather than be afraid, his eyes gleam when he sees her point a knife at him. What an amazing look shiny! He wants it. He wants it a lot.]

[she doesn't consider the shake of his head as denial of him being a man. clearly he is one and she has no reason to think otherwise. still, she keeps her distance. he's handsome, but in an eerie way. maybe it's the glint of the moonlight.

she frowns at his unfamiliar accent, his basic English phrasing. but ava knows she's traveled far from England now. everything is unfamiliar.]

A seal? [she sounds offended, baffled, and mildly amused.] What on earth. Of course I'm not a seal, do I really look that plump?

You bit into my shoe, and now it's lost to the sea! [ava wrinkles her nose, but keeps eyeing him warily. he seems rather intent in return, though she's not sure on what.]

Are you a fisherman then? Do you have a boat nearby?

Only saw a silhouette. So yes. Thought you were seal. Too small. Too skinny.

[He shakes his head again as if this these are major faults of Ava's which cannot be corrected. What is he supposed to do with a puny human woman in his territory? She's miles from land and will surely drown after a while.]

Fisher? Yes. Boat? No.

[He nods and shakes his head in turn. The movements are used much more under the sea among mer than they are among people on the land due to the lack of sound that can travel.]

... You know it's rather rude to point out a lady's weight. [she splashes her knife-free hand across the surface of the water towards him in half-hearted retaliation. she doesn't want to piss him off too badly if he's her only chance back to dry land.]

So you swam all the way out here to hunt seals? [look, maybe it's some local custom. she knows that the world is full of things that would seem strange in London. but she's got to get used to that, considering she's fleeing from home. and the authorities...]

How far away is the coast? [she vaguely points in a direction that has no indication of being correct.] That way? [she kicks her legs a bit more insistently, but she's visibly already tiring out. the weight of her drenched skirts isn't helping at all.]

You're a lady?

[A genuine question. He doesn't sound familiar with that particular term for humans and wonders if it's a title of some sort. Is she a very important human? Not that it makes a whole lot of difference to him. Most of his interest in her is still wrapped up in the shiny she's holding. He's still figuring out how he can get his hands on it without cutting himself.]

'All the way'? What? [He tilts his head in confusion.] This is my territory.

[He sweeps an arm out in a vast motion indicating all of the water around them. Mer swim so far and so fast that Dex's territory is very large. But he knows every inch of it from top to bottom. He wouldn't be an apex predator if he didn't.

At her question, he thinks for a moment and then points in the opposite direction from where Ava was guessing.]

That way. Long way. Many clicks.

[Click of echolocation, he means, which is the main form of measurement Dex uses to figure out how far away or near something is.]

I'm-! [she cuts herself short. probably wouldn't be wise to identify herself by family name or title. not like it would mean anything significant out here anyway. and worst case scenario he could later report her to the authorities as a missing woman, who would then recognize her as the runaway bride turned murderer.

not that he seems particularly concerned on any of those points, for her safety nor ransoming her. still, she wants to be careful, wants to cover her tracks.] Just Ava.

Your territory? Well, excuse me for intruding. But I am just passing through. Trying to find my way to Spain. Or Portugal. Before I got tossed off that ship... so I'll. [she changes the direction of her pointing, with the blade, to match the way he's gesturing.] Be on my way. [she still doesn't quite imagine it being that far out, given he's managed to swim all this way without a boat. she's just hopeful she can make it before the sunrise. she pushes herself against the water, in a side-stroke.]

Dex.

[He says by way of introduction. Just one name with no titles or even a last name put in there. He reaches out for a moment like he's going to pat her on the arm or something by way of greeting but thinks better than that when he realizes she's still got the sharp shiny.

He wonders where this 'Spain' and 'Portugal' are. Mer don't give their territory labels, at least not any kind that could be interpreted by human beings. Instead, it's things like echolocation and scent markers that linger in the water at the edges of where different groups or individuals reside. To give a place a physical name seems like a strange custom to him.

He watches as Ava attempts to swim and it makes him genuinely laugh. Humans look so funny when they swim! They are seal-shaped but not nearly as graceful as the aquatic mammals as they skim their way through the waters. Their feet are puny and don't make for good flippers. He watches her swim for a few yards before he follows. He dives under the water, his body curving until it disappears with a flick of his shiny blue tail. He swims underwater, watching Ava's progress curiously before he comes back up next to her. Dex shakes his head again, once more disapproving of Ava's very existence.]

So slow. Will never make it.

[she has no clue how far a 'click' is, figures it's some nautical term. like knots? she only has a basic understanding of geography too, only from maps she's seen in books and an outdated globe. but the overall goal is 'away' so she figures it doesn't matter too much where she ends up as long as it's not back in england.

she doesn't expect fisher dex to follow, given he seemed more concerned with stating his preference for seal and claiming his territory. she splashes about clumsily when he resurfaces suddenly beside her. she had been swimming with quite a bit of effort, and energy, so it does sting her pride slightly.]

Oh, so I'm too skinny and too slow? I'll have you know I'm a perfectly adequate athlete outside of the water. [she tries kicking her legs a bit harder to prove him otherwise, but it's clearly an exhaustive endeavor. she puffs out a labored breath.] Bloody skirts...

Too skinny to eat. Yes. Too slow to get to land. Yes.

[Never let it be said Dex ever tries to spare the feelings of others. Dex glances curiously at all the layers of fabric that are weighing her down and making it so much harder for her to swim than should be necessary. He reaches out and grabs a bunch of the waterlogged fabric in his hands, tugging on it with a fascinated air.]

Why wear them?

[If there's one thing that Dex simply cannot wrap his mind around, it's the insistence of human beings in wearing clothes. And not just some clothes, it's always a lot of clothes. Shoes he gets. They have to protect the skin on the bottom of their feet, for it is probably more sensitive with the skin there than animals who have things like hard hooves, the way the end of his tailfin is much more sensitive than other parts of his bodies.

But clothes? Dex sees no need for them. Heat and cold don't bother him, so wearing some decorative animal hides or fibers would just get in the way of being able to speed sleekly through the water.]

To eat! Go gnaw at somebody else's ankle! [she's heard sensational tales about cannibalism, though that was far off in the remote corners of the new world wasn't it? and she was fairly certain they were just wild claims to make their travels sound far more dangerous and impressive. ava doubted the truth of such a thing.

but she's certainly not much of a meal, that much is true. she's not sure why she feels quite so annoyed at such a rejection. not like she has any desire to be eaten.]

And of course I'm not going to go about naked. Once I get back to land, that'd be most improp- hey! [a bit of a scandalized slap at his hand that's grasping at the fabric of her skirt.

that's when she notices the claws. her hand jerks back, she looks up in surprise. and notices the strange slits? along his neck. ava's eyes widen, and she rapidly kicks backwards to put more distance between them.]
What the hell are you?

[She'd be a cute mermaid but she could be anything else too. OTA gen, shipping 20+ OTA! Castmates (especially JINUS), crosscanon, crossmedium, assumed CR, AUs, OCs etc all always welcome!]

[Okay so someone on Tumblr posited selkie-Shane, who as a child when he refused to get off the ice would just grab his sealskin out of his bag because good luck catching him and making him go home when he's all bouncy and slippery, mom. Which I think is delightful, so I'm gonna go with it.]

[She is/was a pirate and she still heads out to sea now and again. Doesn't mean she's not a mermaid in disguise too, but totally down with her knowing the local pod/school/whatever of mer in her current-era Florida home, or just running into some during her travels in a historical setting.]

[Good with being the human (ghost) or the mer, and there's lots of things to go with, like maybe he didn't actually make it out of the lake before dying, came back as some kind of water spirit to prevent it happening to anyone else.

Basically just throw me something, I'll roll.]

[Henry as an actual siren out in the ocean would amuse me to no end.
Henry as an actual siren from the ocean but now on land and, somehow, in a rock & roll band would be even more amusing.]

[Testing new peripherals now that the Sea's clean again? ISOs = mer? IDK man, she's super pale and has a black tail with clearly hexagonal scales and irregular blue streaks, probably looks like some kind of betta, or lionfish, or weird combo of the two.]

[Could be the mer or the human/ghost, and either way there's plenty of variation to be had. Hit me with something, I'll roll with it.]

[I'm good with always-been-a-mer or some kind transformation, because being on the swim team and lifeguarding for a summer is one thing, but tail and possibly gills is something else entirely.
OR
Mer-Steve as a creche guardian that definitely took on a shark that was trying to eat the kids once.]

Legs were confusing enough, but a tail was moreso, even though there was only one of them and not two like there were with legs.

At least it was nice to look at, bright blue scales edged with black and flecked with white and gold speckles here and there, really looking like a drawing of a mermaid's tail rather than a tail itself.

[Open to basically whatever!]

[Okay but the Mandalorians as a tribe of merfolk who have been hunted to near-extinction? Something else? Whatever y'all, hit me.]

[Definitely a mer that's been experimented on and/or kept in captivity like some kind of exotic pet, yellow/green tail and fins, scattering of bright blue scales in irregular places.]

[~~This is where I lament not having any icons of him in the pool~~ I think this is an Aquamarine-ish situation where he doesn't actually know he's a mer because he's only gone swimming in pools before and not natural water that would trigger a transformation (imagine everyone's surprise at the lake That Summer.)
Obviously his mom was the mer, he just never knew it.

Alternately just full-on mermaid AU like it says on the tin, IDK what they've got instead of hockey, but he's good at it!]

Pararibulitis attacks were different in Wendimoor and always had been, but this was the first time that the effects of one had stayed with her when she passed back home.

Which was to say, she was sitting in a ~~stolen~~ borrowed bathtub full of room-temperature water and no less than a dozen small rubber ducks because ~~Vogel~~ someone had thought she needed friends. She wasn't going to lie, they did help, a little.

[If you can think of a different scenario, lay it on me. Cross-canon encouraged.]

[Definitely the merman, and an cephalopod-based one at that. OTA for gen stuff, more inclined toward canon-mates for shippy stuff, but pitch me a shippy scenario and if it twigs me, I'll give it a go.]

[After perusing his collection of Katsushika Hokusai's works, he definitely would not be meandering around on the beach all "wow what a nice day for a stroll, I sure hope some giant sea creature doesn't show up to do terrible things to me 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀" like some kind of freak or something.]

[ ooc — I'd love to play him as the human for all the sailor x mermaid (or any other sea creature) fun 😌 ota! ]

[ ooc — I'd love to do a fun spooky circusy spin on this, with both characters as part of a sideshow and yours as the mermaid. ota! ]

(no subject)

Dorian Storm | Critical Role C3 | OTA

Zoey Westen | original character

Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter | MCU | OTA

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Rumi | KPop Demon Hunters | OTA

Shane Hollander | Heated Rivalry | OTA

Anne Bonney - Pirate of Legend and Lore (sorta) - OTA

Charles - Dead Boy Detectives - OTA

Henry Stillman | X-Verse OC | OTA

Quorra | Tron: Legacy | OTA

Edwin Payne - Dead Boy Detectives - OTA

Steve | Stranger Things | OTA

The Tardis (AU) | Doctor Who | OTA

Mr. The Mandalorian | Star Wars | OTA

Techie | Dredd | OTA

Ilya | Heated Rivalry | OTA

Amanda | Dirk Gently's etc. etc. etc. | OTA

Albert Wesker / Resident Evil (game 'verse) / OTA

Ri!Kusuriuri | Mononoke (2007) | OTA 20+

Edward Little | The Terror

Edward Mordrake | AHS: Freak Show