#fic cover ig????

[eepy-bells]

Art for @chaos-and-sparkles fic

READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT

[lonelychicago]

i have a new wip (don't judge me) and i haven't really started it yet, but i already have a cover and an edit and im buzzing with excitement.

[wild-flowerhoney]

reading smut in your language after getting used to english feels scandalous. like, omg that's too explicit...

[grape-writes]

Trapped in a Net

A/N: A lil somethin ive had rotating around in my brain for a while! Me and one of my friends have been brainstorming this one!!! Inspired by Subnautica and a few others fnaf fics floating around that really stuck to my brain

It's a bit rambly, but I'm happy with it :D

Masterlist

Ao3 link

Warnings: Oceans mentioned and shown/described, isolation, blood mentioned, violence implied, [to be added to]

--

[Day One]

Fazbear Technologies, or FazTech, was a rather well-known company across the galaxy, known for starting as a simple pizza diner and later becoming a conglomerate big enough to have its own space program. Weird? Absolutely, but it was profitable for the company to move with the times, especially as humanity began to search the stars for new places and homes to inhabit.

One such place was a planet several dozen light-years away from earth with a mostly water surface. One of FazTech’s scientists had found it while searching for another planet. From the pictures, it was a gorgeous giant planet covered in different shades of blue, dotted with islands (the biggest being about the same size as Australia) and vast deep oceans. It had two moons, one far larger than the other.

And so, FazTech decided to try and send squads of people down to the new discovery, claiming it to be a mission for humanity. Yet they kept sending people down... and no one ever came back... not a word ever came back from the planet's watery depths. It was effectively radio silence on the planet's surface since they’d been sent down.

That was, until the twentieth or so squad, a desperate little team made of five or so recent college graduates that applied for the mission to prove themselves. They'd sent out a distress signal, finally. And for the first time, was FazTech made aware of what was happening in the ocean planets waters. Just FazTech, not the public, or even any of humanities governments were made aware of it as they tried to keep it under wraps.

So FazTech decided to send out one final squad.

Well, sort of; it was just going to be a small group of scouts to get a confirmed status of the survivors then leave with however many of them they could. The mission was canceled after the company board reviewed the situation and decided it wasn’t worth the time, resources, or money. Unfortunately for one of the members of the squad, they had yet to inform any of them or the robot in charge of the ship to the planet.

Thus, the singular member who arrived early, Yvette North, was sent to the ocean planet alone. And she was fucking pissed about it. Or she was, when she was awoken from cryo sleep days before they landed on the planet and found out about what had happened. She stood on the ship with just the robotic pilot keeping them on course.

Yvette was a diver who’d been hired by FazTech for previous missions (all on Earth), had accepted this one mostly out of a desire to see the stars. It seemed perfect, being on a planet made mostly of water, searching for a group of survivors while exploring new aquatic places. Maybe she was just fascinated by the ocean, but it sounded like a breathtaking experience.

Until Yvette was stuck on the planet, alone, anyway. Because no, they were not sending anyone out to get them after this. This was FazTech we’re talking about, they swept things under the rug all the time. FazTech had been doing this all the way back when they first started and got into controversy with one of their cofounders being accused of something bad (Yve genuinely forgot what, too busy to really do any meaningful research) and they had tried everything to cover that up.

Yvette was pulled from her thoughts by the ship shuddering, almost falling from her chair in the cockpit as they approached the planet's surface. She straightened, tugging her luggage closer to herself so it wouldn’t go flying, and clutched onto the arm of her chair.

The landing was a bit rocky, especially entering the atmosphere, but as soon as they entered it was smooth sailing to the coordinates of the distress signal. A scan from before they arrived told her that it was on an island, not The Big One, but a decently sized island. It must've been around the same size as – maybe – the United Kingdom? No, maybe a bit bigger. It was difficult to tell without having them side by side.

The distress signal was made a few weeks before they set out to the planet; which would’ve been impossible to get there within a quick timeframe. Even with warp technology, the nearest warp is months away from the planet's system, much less the planet itself. But the group knew that going into this, so hopefully they stayed put.

Hopefully.

The ship slowed to a halt overtop the island itself, landing carefully on a clearing made into a cliffside, the ship's front window providing a decent view of the foliage of the island, the ship lights illuminating the forest in the dark of early morning. It was lush and green, even atop the rocky cliff, with trees and bushes filling the land to near capacity. The clearing was obviously cleared away by one of the squads to make way for new arrivals or provide a space to escape from the ocean blue around them.

Once they landed on the cliffs edge, the robot, a typical Pilot Bot with a vaguely humanoid upper half and a wheel for a lower half, turned on its wheel and rolled out of the cockpit. Pilot Bots were modeled closely after the old Staff Bots FazTech used to use in some of their facilities. The only major difference between the two is a hat and programing.

Yvette sighed and got up to follow, luggage rolling behind her. She’d only really packed a suitcase and a carry-on bag, believing this mission wouldn’t take more than a month at most. She had a feeling she was under packed.

Time to check the signal out, she supposed.

The planet, despite being much larger than earth, had a breathable atmosphere. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent anyone down, obviously. But it was a comfort to say the least, being able to take a deep breath of almost familiar air. It had this heaviness to it that seemed to stabilize her, if not drag her down. It was also warm, indicating the more tropical climate of the area, if not most of the planet itself.

The robot led Yvette into the foliage and down a little path, stopping at a hatch in the ground at her feet. It was large and rectangular, with a panel stuck up from one of the corners nearest her. The panel was just a keypad, and a larger set of buttons lower on the panel.

Oh, that’s how she gets in.

“Thank- ah.” Yvette watched the robot roll its way back to the ship and away from her. She sighed when it closed the door to the ship and began to take off. “Okay, that’s fine.”

A part of her felt like she should’ve run back after the stupid thing or stayed on the ship. But she knew she couldn’t, not without seeing this through. The last squad sent a distress signal and could be in trouble, and alone or not it was her job to help. Though she wished she wasn’t alone in this endeavor.

With an annoyed huff, Yvette pressed one of the buttons; the door opened with a harsh hiss, allowing the stairs down to be visible. With a tug to pull her suitcase along, she made her way down into the depths of base beneath the earth. At the bottom of the stairs was an elevator door.

When Yvette stepped down to the elevator door, the doors to the stairs slammed shut. With a jolt, she cursed under her breath. A glance around the space told her there wasn’t an obvious way to open that back up, so she’d probably have to go around. Annoying.

The elevator trip was short, leading into the cave the base resided in. The cave was easily three stories tall, human construction cutting into natural rock formation to create a usable space. This was how they typically made bases for exo-planets in the past, apparently, using natural formations to use as a foundation rather than building directly on their own. Not that they never started from scratch, but this was more efficient in terms of time and resources.

The room the elevator exited to was massive, it was the main dock, framed by the giant curved window where the cave would have opened out and into the water. The cave was under the water itself, the window and metal flooring by its entrance being the only things keeping the cave free of water. The floor just by the elevator was just stone from the cave, cut around the metal docking area. Said dock was just a railed off opening into the water covered by a metallic door.

The wall deeper into the cave was a mix of rock, doors, and windows. They’d managed to build a second story to the base, install a catwalk above, and make it look nice. To the immediate left of the elevator was a set of doors with the words ‘Meeting Room’ plastered above them. The next set of doors appeared to be just to the main space of the base. The second story had a few windows looking into some of the rooms, but with the angle she stood at made it nearly impossible to catch a glimpse of what was within. That was probably by design.

The place looked and felt... abandoned. The whole building was entirely silence, equipment around the docking bay was scattered about, a couple of the doors looked like they’d been left open, vines from the surface seemed to have been growing through the ceiling and into the rocks. It was as if they’d all run, or potentially worse, and left the base abandoned and empty of life. Despite sending the distress signal.

Yvette just hoped she wasn’t too late.

“Okay... distress signal...” Turning on her heel, she pulled the sliding door to the meeting room open. “There's gotta be a terminal in here somewhere...”

The room was, unsurprisingly, in tatters; the table was knocked over, chairs scattered about, papers torn and tossed about, A pool of blood dried on the floor by the desk. Evidence of a scuffle clear as day. The pin board on the far end of the room contained a map of areas the group had scouted out, beautifully drawn by the previous squad's resident navigator, and on it was a string.

The blood was… concerning. Especially considering it was splattered on the wall by the pool, followed by bloodied footprints moving from the pool towards the door.

On the desk, thankfully, was a terminal; turning it on allowed her to turn the distress signal off and scan the computers files for information. Most of it was mundane updates on the base's workings; they had quite a few issues getting the solar panels to work, and sometimes the dock bay doors would get jammed. Typical issues for a base of this size.

There was also a slew of strange happenings in the waters around them. Strange lights moving in the dark of night, alerts on the security systems that vanish in a second, something making noise by the secondary doc when everyone was trying to sleep.

Brushing those off, she clicked into the final message left on the terminal, labeled ‘signal’.

--

To whoever finds this message,

If you're reading this, we left. And we’re either dead or going to.

This was a suicide mission. There are things in the water, and I don’t mean the monsters who live here. This planet... changes you, and if you don’t go along with it, you die in the process. We’ve already tossed so many to it. Our captain, Fritz, didn’t make it...

I didn’t want to send the distress signal, but Dave was insistent. So here is my warning, get the hell off this world, warn whoever you can, I don't care. Just leave. The discoveries are not worth the risk The Change entails.

FazTech should never have found this god forsaken planet.

Signed, Jeremy

--

Well... shit. Now she was really regretting not running back with the stupid Pilot Bot back to the ship home. And now, not only was she stuck, but she knew no one was going to send a squad down to help. They sent their rescue ship and that was all they would do; less people to pay when they're stuck on an alien planet. Or dead.

God, she should’ve quit working for FazTech years ago.

The file was helpful, she supposed, but mostly confusing. Where did they go? Were they all alive? Most worrying of all for her was the mention of monsters; fear can drive people to do irrational things, but what was frightening enough to drive a group of grown adults out of their generally well-defended base? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

But, since she had nowhere else to go, she had to stay in said well-defended base.

Alone.

Because a squad couldn’t stay in one place until the rescue team arrived. And while she sympathized, and somewhat understood, she couldn’t help but be annoyed by this. It was not a good idea to leave after asking for help, foolish even.

The silence in the base made her skin crawl, knowing something had happened within its walls. The mess of blood on the floor, the implication of it seemed to make the feeling of isolation it presented worse. And it only made her question why they left even more.

Sighing, Yvette made her way back to the docking bay to collect her luggage, grabbing the handle of her suitcase to drag it away from the mess that was the meeting room.

It was probably best to find the rooms, so she made her way towards the other set of double doors.

The new room was large and open, giving way to a lounge area, dining area and kitchen, a large wall to ceiling window was set against the far wall, a glass door was set into said window and into the secondary docking bay. A spiral staircase by the window led her to the second story, which gave way to the living quarters.

There were a handful of rooms, the ones that weren’t locked were left in tatters like the Meeting Room. Furniture knocked over, blankets and clothes tossed about. Personal items appeared to still be in the rooms, left scattered and abandoned by their owners.

The dread in her stomach twisted.

Yvette chose one of the few rooms that weren’t locked, the one off to the side with the captain's quarters. It was one of the smaller rooms, and only had a few scattered clothing at the most. That and it had a floor to ceiling window out into the ravine the base was partially built into.

Her scanning through the files earlier told her that a lot of the life on the planet was bioluminescent and would provide a light show at night. And while she wasn’t the type to be able to sleep with light, there were thankfully curtains the previous owner had set up to block out the glow.

Setting her luggage down on the floor, she made quick work of the mess in her new space; putting clothes into a laundry basket and collecting personal items she found into a box. She decided she was going to leave the previous squad's personal items in storage.

Day one here, and Yvette was cleaning up a mess. She ended up cleaning up a lot of messes day one; reorienting furniture in her new bedroom and picking up some of the fallen papers in the meeting room, picking up laundry to do later (if she ever found the laundry room), cleaning out the fridge. It was all a good distraction for her mind, something to focus on that wasn’t her current situation.

At around noon, she found herself in the secondary docking bay, rummaging through crates of supplies for swimming gear. Of course, there was, as FazTech would’ve been in trouble if they didn’t provide their squads with the basic necessities when sending them on missions to water worlds.

Typically, the swim gear was supposed to be a full body swimsuit with flippers and a rebreather. FazTech almost never supplied those, instead offering (at least for women) a one-piece swimsuit with optional leg and arm pieces. Supposedly it was to allow better movement in the water, keeping joints clear of restrictive fabric. But anyone with half a mind could see it wasn’t very appropriate in a workplace environment.

Regardless, Yvette didn’t care whether it was appropriate or not, considering she was obviously alone. She was a diver and was originally assigned to this mission because of that fact, and she wanted to swim. She wanted to get a feel for the ocean around her, familiar yet so foreign compared to home.

Once she found the new swimsuit, she held it up to get a good look at it. It was not actually a one-piece swimsuit, but a two-piece swimsuit; the two parts were just clipped together with cheap, light weight, metal clips along the place where the two pieces met. Finding the leg and arm pieces wasn't a difficult task, they were right next to the suit itself.

Altogether, the swimsuit was a deep green, with lighter green along the center of it and under the limbs. It was lined with purple rings down the limbs and center piece. She remembered reading a manual on these, the rings lit up to ward away dangerous creatures on foreign planets, modeled after an octopus.

Slipping into the swimsuit was rather easy, as was getting the flippers and rebreather on and adjusted. All of it fit like a glove, the material was lightweight and comfortable, though a little snug. But that was better than it being too loose fitting. It would do for now. After a bit of stretching, she decided it was time to go.

The secondary docking bay was a lot smaller than the primary one, but it was easier to cover from the other side. It was simply a hatch she could lock shut with a bit of effort. The primary docking bay was for transporting items or loading aquatic vehicles, while the secondary bay was for human only entrance.

Tugging the valve to the side, she pushed the hatch open, dipping her feet into the water below. After a moment, she slipped out fully, allowing the cool water to surround her entire being.

The water felt... tingly on her skin, like invisible needles were pressing into every inch of her exposed flesh; it wasn’t painful, but mildly uncomfortable. It almost made her want to leave the water at the sudden sensation, but she was determined to stay put and acclimate herself to the blue.

She floated there for a moment, slowly getting used to the sudden pressure of the waves, it was heavier than Earth's oceans. After a moment of floating, she pushed herself up and pulled the valve back down. She probably didn’t need to do this, but it made her more comfortable to know it was properly closed.

With a deep breath from behind her mask, she began her swim.

Yvette kept mostly to the rocky wall of the island, decided it best to be cautious in new waters. The plant life of this new planet was gorgeous, faintly familiar yet alien all the same. Vibrant corals in shapes she’d never seen coral grow into, anemones and kelp, underwater flowers. Not to mention the fish that lazily floated past her, each strange and unique compared to fish from Earth. It was all so calm, she had to pause to take it all in, leaning onto a rock by the cliff to simply observe her surroundings.

Only that calm did not last.

A flash of yellow and red darted amongst the rocks directly below her caught her eye, moving far too fast to be like the rest of the fish above it. Whatever it was, it was quick in the water and probably hunting. Though its movement only seemed to startle some of the smaller fish, it obviously wasn’t very good at hunting yet. She followed the flash of yellow until it moved too fast for her to see where it had gone off to, darting between rocks and plants beneath her in the ravine.

She leaned over the edge of the rock she was leaning against to try and get a glimpse of whatever it was. Nothing, it must’ve swum off, weird. With a shrug, she turned and pushed herself off the rock to continue her route around the base. The primary docking bay should’ve been relatively close.

Yvette yelped when something grabbed ahold of her ankle, tugging harshly. As she was pulled down, she kicked at whatever had grabbed her ankle as best she could in the water, flipper coming into contact with a solid mass. It took a few clumsy kicks for the grip to lessen and for her to be able to tug her ankle away.

Now she could see what grabbed her-

Her vision was fuzzy for a moment, tears stinging her eyes in her panic. This made whatever she was looking at look like a blob of yellows, golds, and reds, but a few blinks allowed her to get a good look at it.

It – they? - were a vaguely humanoid creature with a fish's tail, like an alien's depiction of what a mermaid should look like. Above the waist they were a lanky thing, with long arms and large webbed hands; their head was also notably larger than Yve’s, framed with frills that made them look like a sunflower or a child's drawing of a sun. Notably was the fact those frills surrounded red spikes that stuck up from behind some frills that hung in front of their face like bangs. Their upper half was a pale yellow, spotted with an even paler tone across their flesh; it covered their face in a crescent moon pattern. Below the waist was their tail, the same yellow their upper half that faded into a shade of gold that could only be described as sunset gold. Their body was dotted with small red frills, lighter in color than their tail.

What in the goddamn...

The creature (Yve was going to call it a mermaid) had swam back to rub their face, expression scrunched up for a moment, then they blinked at her with wide pale blue eyes. And in a moment, they shrunk in on themselves, their brows furrowing nervously, and frills twitching atop their head.

The two of them seemed to stare at each other for a while, before the yellow mermaid let out a series of chirps and chitters that she could just barely hear under the water. The mermaid swam closer to chirp and chitter at her, large hands reaching forward.

Yvette froze in place as the massive palms cupped around her face and breathing mask, clawed fingers tapping against her mask’s protective layer. After a moment, it moved to pick at her hair, swimming about around her. It was a surprisingly gentle creature, barely tugging at her braided hair before it moved on to mess with her hands. Once curiosity there was satisfied, it moved to grab her flipper, wiggling the end in fascination.

A part of Yvette was cursing at herself for freezing up. But really, what was she supposed to do? The thing could clearly chase after her, and who knows, it probably only hunted things that ran- er swam off. Some speed predators did that, cheetahs were a great example that came to mind.

The mer chirped at Yvette again, finished in their prodding, and swam back to give her some space. It seemed to be content and mostly just curious about her. So, free from the prodding, she just... swam off. The mermaid hadn’t really given her any indication that it wanted anything, and she had a job to do.

So off Yvette went, heading around the curve of the rock towards where she gathered where the cave was. She swam around a bend of rock, eyes trailing from the rock to the life all around her. So much was going on that she so easily got distracted; it reminded of her diving in a coral reef on Earth, breathtaking.

Much to Yvette’s surprise, the sun-finned mer swam after her leisurely, almost lazily. She only really noticed when she’d briefly turned back to watch a fish swim past her, only to spot the yellow being following her. It chirped when she made eye contact with it, speeding up to meet with her again.

In a mild panic, Yvette chose to swim faster, to get away from the beast following her. Yet they didn’t seem dissuaded. In fact, they seemed to take it as a challenge, propelling themselves after her with their strong tail. They followed her as she carved around the bend of rock.

Ahead of Yvette was a break in the wall, the entrance to the cave. Bingo! Picking up speed, she darted around the break in the rock. She was right, as a quick glance proved the mer had simply swam past. She let herself relax behind a rock wall, the grips of her gloves keeping her from floating away from its surface.

The yellow mer came to a skidding halt in the water, arms flailing to keep themselves from swimming too far. The expression on their face, from Yvette’s angle at least, seemed startled. A nervous warble came from the mer’s throat as they frantically looked about for the suddenly missing human. Almost like a dog with separation anxiety yowling for their human to return.

Yvette snorted to herself at the comparison.

Yvette took this as a chance to head for the docking bay, leaving the strange yellow mer to their own devices. The cave leading to the docking bay was shallow, but deep enough that the shadows hid her from prying eyes. The window in the base had been built above the cave, a few feet of rock hiding the secret entrance.

The docking bay, unsurprisingly, was closed. Yvette hadn’t opened it on the other side before she left. Cursing to herself, she swam up to the small control panel beside the massive door, gently pressing at the buttons. It was a number pad, simple enough; she just pressed the enter button, hoping that it would just kick start into opening.

No dice.

All Yvette got in return was a beep and a red light blinking at her. Fuck, there was a code. Why was there a code for opening the door into their base??? What on this planet could even open this door? Regardless, none of the aquatic species could even do anything once inside, no legs and all that.

After a few minutes of guessing, she growled under her breath in frustration. Great, now she’d have to swim all the way back and that fish was still outside the cave.

Today was not her day.

The warm presence of something behind her made her jump. A familiar yellow hand came up behind her and reached up, pressing in a four-digit code and hitting enter. 0742. She registered the code and stored it away in her mind for later, to not forget it later. She would have startled more had the door into the base not opened seconds later.

Yvette didn’t waste any time, pushing herself onto the metal platform. Once mostly above water, she tugged her mask up and off her face, gasping in a breath of cold air. The base was frigid after her swim, air biting at her exposed shoulders and thighs. Her wet hair seemed to stick to her back in its braid

She probably should see if one of the other suits in storage that don’t leave her skin exposed would fit. Probably not, considering most of the men on the previous squads were far taller or bigger built than she was. Maybe she could modify it...

Modifying FazTech suits was technically worthy of an infraction, or even firing if the higher up it was reported to was particularly stingy. But considering they sent her off and left her here, she didn’t really care what FazTech thought. They sucked as a company anyway, from their attempts to cover up rumors back when they were still just a pizza restaurant, to recent rumors about their android program.

Apparently, the rumor was that they were trying to replace their staff with android copies, but Yvette didn’t really believe in any of that.

A chirp from the pool broke her from her thoughts, the yellow mer had swum to the edge, rayed head sticking up from the waters. They seemed curious, as well as concerned. Not that Yvette was very good at reading people's expressions, but the furrowing of their brow helped a little.

Up close, Yvette could see how blue their eyes were, a sharp contrast to the yellows, golds, and reds of the rest of them. Their pupils also seemed to grow from slits into white circular dots at her, like a cats or snakes. Thinking it over, snakes were probably the more apt comparison, seeing as they were scaley.

She could also see slits in the middle of his face, like a human nose; though she doubted they served the same purpose. On the Mer’s neck and around where his ribcage ended were slits decorated in red frills, where his gills must have been.

“Can I help you?” Yvette found herself asking the beast without really thinking about it. She shifted on the metal to get her legs out of the water to pull her leg guards and flippers off.

The mer went still, a strange warble leaving their throat, nervous leaning on wonder. They watched her remove her leg guards as they rested their claws on the metal by her feet, tapping against it. “...Help? No...?”

Yvette all but froze at the rasp, eyes darting to the yellow mer’s face, “Did you just talk?”

Their fins bobbed up and down as they nodded, the air making them flatten against their head. “...Yes? Yes!!”

The voice was strange, alien as the being who it belonged to. The mer knew English, if just barely. Which meant the previous squads communicated with the local wildlife.

Gods, she needed to read their logs as soon as possible.

“Holy fuck.” Yvette didn’t stop the words from falling from her mouth, staring at the mer- merman? - like they’d grown a second head, “Holy fuck.”

The mer’s nose (or what was where a human nose was) scrunched up at her cursing, “No... bad.”

...And she was being scolded for cursing by an alien mermaid.

“I’m sorry, but this is bizarre!” Yvette leaned closer to peer at the beast in front of her, “Do you have a name? Are there more of you? Can all of you talk?”

The mer chittered softly to themselves, whistling in the air. When she tilted her head at the noise, they huffed, tapping the metal beneath their claws, “…Uh!! Sun! Mm… yes! Maybe?”

Curious answers.

Of course, his name was Sun, looking back to when he was chasing her, his fins reminded her of the sun's rays. Though now they were in the air and flopped uselessly against his skull. Like a wet sunflower.

His other answers were especially curious. There was more of him, and they could maybe talk. If they could talk, that meant there could’ve been an entire society on this planet covered by ocean. And that by itself was both a fascinating and terrifying possibility.

“Huh… very fitting.” Yvette offered a half smile, “I’m Yvette.”

Suns face scrunched, mouth moving to try and sound the new word out. He sighed when he couldn’t, “…Not good at… words...”

“That’s okay. It happens all the time.” Yvette laughed softly, offering a hand to the mer, “you can give me a nickname instead?”

Yvette wasn’t sure why she was inclined to befriend this strange creature, but she wasn’t opposed. It may have just been because he didn’t try and kill her earlier. Or because of how friendly he was right now.

He perked up curiously, taking her outstretched hand, a chitter sounding excitedly, “I see!!! Nickname?”

“Another name for people?” she offered, letting the mer mess with her gloved palm, “Like, growing up, my family would call me Yve instead of Yvette.”

The yellow mer made an ‘oh’ sound, “Oh! Yes!! Other-You's called me Sunny!”

That confirmed her previous suspicions. Humans will see a creature and ask, ‘anyone gonna pack bond with that?’, and not wait for an answer. That thought made her snort.

“Well, Sunny is very fitting! You look like the sun at sunset, very pretty.” Yvette offered a small smile. She kept her tone light, mostly to help the mer before her understand it was a compliment.

Sun seemed to understand, lighting up at the praise with a chitter between his teeth, “Pretty... like you?”

Oh my.

A flustered smile broke out on Yvette’s face, rubbing the webbing on her gloves between her thumb and index finger, “You think I’m pretty?”

“Yes! Yes! Like... when the...” the mer waved a hand towards the top of the window behind him, clearly trying to get a word.

This only severed to distract her momentarily on his hands, webbing formed between each finger. The ends of Suns hands were the same pale yellow as half his face. The color bled into the webbing between each finger, partially transparent compared to the skin besides it.

“Water?” Yvette offered, forcing herself to focus on the conversation at hand, squinting at the window when he shook his head rapidly, “uh... glass? Air?”

Sun frowns, gesturing again, focusing more upwards than he was previously, “...No... above? With the... white poofs?”

Oh! He was talking about the sky. Where was this going...

“The sky?” Yvette concluded, running a hand through her slowly drying hair.

The mer lit up like a firework, nodding rapidly, “yes! That word! Sky! Like when the sky- uh... is dark? And the lights fall?”

With a laugh under her breath, Yvette rung water out of her hair, “Oh, shooting stars.”

“Yes!!!!” Sun chirped, his tail swishing wildly in the water behind him. “Pretty like shooting stars.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet. But I must insist you are prettier.” Yvette teased, poking his nose.

The flesh above it scrunched in Suns surprise, the spines along his scale twitching upwards. His pupils had slit at the sudden movement.

Yvette retracted her hand quickly, “Oh, sorry. Habit. Used to do that with my siblings.”

Sun tilted his eyes, pupils returning to the size before, “is... okay? Sudden...”

Yvette tugged at her arm guards to pull her gloves off, “Right, I’ll warn ya next time, okay?”

If there was a next time... oh what the hell, there definitely was going to be a next time. Where else was she supposed to go? The only ways out of the base were the water exits and the surface exit. And the surface exit was most definitely locked tight, if it slamming shut on her earlier said anything about it.

Sun hummed, nodding. He tapped his claws against the metal again, thinking for a long moment, “Are... you? Staying here?”

Yvette shifted, pulling one of her gloves off as she thought about the question, “Well... yeah? Nowhere else to go, really. I need to find the others... who stayed here, and- I don’t know...”

Sun’s face shifted into a frown, frills drooping, “...You will... come back? And... be careful?”

“Yeah, okay...?” Yvette’s brows furrowed at the questions.

He seemed to accept that was a hopeful expression.

The two talked for a while more after this; it was mostly Yvette trying to explain her gear and teach the mer a few more words in English. She ended up learning that the previous squads had interacted with Sun a great deal, even letting him watch a few ‘guppies’ they had, as Sun put it.

Guppies… there were children in the base? Why the hell were their children??? And they trusted a mermaid - merman? - with them?? Sure, when she looked at their files before going on the mission, it said two of them were married, but FazTech wouldn’t be so irresponsible to allow children on missions like these.

Would they?

The conversation after that became stilted, as Yvette forced herself not to explode with frustration at not only her situation, but also the events surrounding it.

The setting sun painted the window a brilliant gradient of red and purple, tainting the water to darken with it. She watched it for a long moment, Suns own form leaning against the metal to get a look at it through the railing.

Yvette collected her gloves and leg guards into one hand, pressing her other hand onto the metal beneath her and using it to stand, “Well, it’s getting late... I should go, sorry bud. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Sun’s face perked up, hand lifting to wave Yvette off, “Oh!!! Okay! Bye bye, Shooting Star!”

And then, the sun disappeared below the darkened waters. The darkness leaving barely a trace of him behind. There were spots along his frills and spine that faintly glowed under the cover of dark.

Okay that was cute.

Yvette waved him off, closing the door to the docking bay behind him. It closed with a harsh shudder.

Turning away from the docking bay and into the rest of the base, she left her gear by the door. She would need it for later, as she promised Sun she’d be back in the waters.

Once she made it to her newly acquired room, she took a shower. Her hair had mostly dried since her swim, but the sea left a sensation on her skin she wanted off. Thankfully the water in the base was filtered.

Yet that didn’t stop the prickle along her skin that occurred while under the rain of water.

Yvette chose to dress into a tank top and shorts for the night, paired with an oversized jacket she wore everywhere when she wasn’t swimming. It was a random find at a thrift store, oversized so it’d cover everything when she wore it properly.

Slumping into the beanbag by the window, she let herself relax for the first time since she’d arrived.

She’d gotten stuck on this ocean planet… because she arrived early to work; which was a normal occurrence for her. She was too anxious about being late to not be early, plus it helped get her ready and in a cryo pod quicker.

Common procedure, to cryogenically freeze squad members as they arrive rather than at a certain time. It was so no one would complain about others being late, or something. So that everyone was prepared and ready to go before they took off.

And she arrived an hour or two before they decided to cut the human part of the mission. No higher ups knew she was there and didn’t tell the robot in charge of the ship to remove her from the ship. The last ship they were going to send.

The robot probably took off so quickly because the people it was assigned to ‘rescue’ were not in the place they landed. FazTech wasn’t one to wait around.

And now she was stuck.

It was partially her own fault for getting off the ship in the first place. She’ll admit that. That was fucking stupid.

But she… couldn’t help it. It was a giant ocean planet, and she was a diver who adored the oceans of earth. Only this one… was free of the pollution that plagued Earth’s oceans. Even her brief dive earlier proved that much, the water was so clean. Free of mankind’s waste.

Yvette scowled to herself, resting her forehead against the cold window. She was still stuck, trapped literal light-years away from any family or friends she did have on earth.

Because FazTech was fucking stupid. And greedy, and negligent, and had no respect for their employees. This hadn't even been the first time they’d lost squads sent on interstellar missions. It was a desert planet last time. Squads either dried out, starved, or were eaten by the weird alien life on it. Only a few survived long enough to get rescued, spewing tales of all that occurred.

Of course, they’d do it again, waiting at least a decade since the last time. This time it was an ocean planet, they probably thought it’d be fine. It wasn’t. So, they’ll probably give up on it and try to cover it up. Claim there were complications with the alien life.

Stupid fucking FazTech-

Her mental ranting was silenced by a ‘tap tap tap’ next to her ear. It came from the other side of the glass, sharp, like it was from a clawed nail.

Something about it made her veins fill with ice. Maybe it was how slow and methodical it was, a sharp contrast from how quick Suns tapping against the docking bay was earlier.

Yvette jerked up in the bean bag, almost falling to the floor to get away from the glass. The little light from the LEDs around the bed allowed her to see the general silhouette of the being on the other side of the glass.

It was another mer, their lithe form longer than Suns, with less frills and more spiked fins. Their eyed pools of black, dots of red narrowed into slits on her face as they grinned. Their coloration was a dark blue, with similar splotches of paler scales formed a crescent shape on half their face, like Suns. Behind their head was an appendage that ended with a bulb, like an angler fish; though its shape reminded her of those old timey sleeping caps. Dots of bioluminescence trailed across it and their tails were like stars in the night sky.

Their grin widened when she finally fell to the floor, razor sharp teeth breaking as they opened their lower jaw. It was almost as if they were laughing at her, bubbles floating from their open maw. She could almost hear the cackling through the glass.

Yvette wasn’t sure how long she laid half ways on the floor, but when she got the courage to stand and pull the curtain closed on the mer, she could still almost hear the bubbling cackles on the other side.

It was decided, the curtain stayed closed at night.

-

Word count: 7,111

Bonus! Concept art <3

[umlewis]

📷 @.nathangallagher / instagram

[deus-ex-mona]

yurusanta: the ✨gift✨ that keeps on ✨giving✨

[sxfterhearts]

omg chat why is writing kinda hard???

ok so this is a bit of an aside (warning: this post is long) but @348kg and i talked about this and honestly writing fanfics is a way for us to express ourselves creatively while using our idols as inspo for our work. and it’s fun most of the time.. but like honestly, 70-80% of the time, writing is hard. it’s not easy, like… it’s actually quite hard work.

and i know everyone has seen posts of like “pls reblog instead of just silently reading” or “pls like at least to show your appreciation” etc etc etc and ur probs sick of hearing it but like, it’s so true???

writing is honestly hard. and for most of us fanfic writers.. im sure you know but we have lives outside of our blogs. we are students, or we work normal jobs, we have life responsibilities, we have problems to deal with, and yet somewhere in between our busy lives we manage to find the time to sit down and create these pieces of writing for you, the reader, to read.

and tbh, i don’t really know where im going with this? i just want to let you know this: a typical 1-2k words one-shot probably takes me around 2-3 hours to write (on average, on a good day - sometimes longer or shorter). but it takes you maybe 10-15 mins, at most 30 mins to read depending on your reading speed. isn’t the time gap a little wild 🫠 on a typical work day, i get home from work at about 6, i cook myself dinner and eat, i shower and clean up, and if i know im writing that night, i make sure to clear my schedule (ie no overtime, no phone calls to friends or parents etc) and i sit on my laptop and write from about 10ish to about midnight. then i pause and i edit, and set things up to get ready post (think: pictures, title, word count, writing the warnings, summary, doing the tags) and by the time i post, it’s probably 1am.

i breathe a sigh of relief because it feels good! it feels really good to release my labour of love (literally) out into the world. and honestly, you know who you are, but those of you who constantly read and reblog my work, i see u!! (Alexa play i see u by p1harmony) and those who leave comments or reviews in the tags, i also see u (that’s why i like to reblog and respond to your tags too)!! it honestly brings me so much joy when someone comes and talks to me about something i wrote and how it made them feel. or even when someone recommends a fic i wrote. all these things that are so little and take so little of your time actually mean so much to me and im sure other writers as well.

and so i guess what im trying to say to everyone is: if you are a fic reader, if you read any fics, i just want you to know that the fic you loved reading took the writer a lot of resources to write (brain power, creativity and importantly time). i hope this gives u an insight into the process of a writer/writing a fic because im hoping it might help with whether or not you decide to hit that like or reblog or comment button in the near future!!

(also, i think it’s a shame that as writers sometimes we have to compromise on what we actually want to write vs what to write to get more engagement, likes, rbs etc. personally i have been writing on tumblr since 2020 on and off so ive been on here for four years now and i have a good sense of what is a good formula for a “successful” fic - usually it’s smut, usually it’s for the most popular member in terms of fic reading, and usually it’s of a certain length posted around a certain time etc etc. but i guess i don’t rly care anymore bc im a kinda old tumblr writer who isn’t bothered about the notes as much as i am just grateful for the little comments people send me saying that what i wrote made them feel seen or resonated with them. cos i think that is priceless 🥹)

PS. in no way am i complaining about the engagement or lack thereof that i personally get, nor am i complaining about the mere fact that writing is hard bc yes i am aware that i wanted to write in the first place and so it was my decision haha

[ai-higurashi]

It's so funny how I created Bela exclusively to be Webby's dead mum but, now that she's developed on her own, her turning out NOT to be is the route that makes the most sense for her.

[llitchilitchi]

i reallyyy like ur oblivion au it seems so cool! im bad at asking questions slbut i wouldove to know more, so use this ask to say things about ur au u havent said yet :D

ohhh gosh you really just gave me all this power

note: if you need to look anything up regarding the lore stuff I'm dropping because you're not familiar with the games, PLEASE go to UESP and support their hard work! alternatively, FudgeMuppet has really good videos that go pretty in depth

->there's a 30 page word document detailing the whole progression of the story and another 20 page document covering the maps for all the travel Dream has to do through the story (I did want to turn this into a full fic but got busy with life)

->Dream is a dark elf, George's mother was Breton, Sapnap is an Imperial, Bad is a wood elf (this might not mean anything to people who never played the game, but yes, everyone had a race assigned. there's a good chance that Karl will be an Argonian)

->Dream has a proper angsty backstory, since the player character in the actual game is up for interpretation and we don't know why they ended up in prison I had to come up with something for Dream. unlike in the game, Dream has been in the Imperial City prison for a couple weeks at the start of the story

->Dream had long hair before, but it got gross in the prison so he chopped it all short and grew it out through the story

->some of the other ccs that are in the au are Ant, Punz, Techno, Tommy, Tubbo, Phil (and Kristin), Tina, Foolish, Sylvee and Niki. I'm sure I forgot some

->Dream has a tiny bag of flax seeds that he constantly chews on. it drives George crazy

->Dream and George didn't get along at first and would constantly argue

->if you've played the game you would know this, but George was part of a daedric cult

->Dream's an Azura worshipper and a huge supporter of the Reclamations (this is just A Lot of Morrowind lore to unpack)

->Dream and Sapnap both get their hands on legendary weapons that are in the game

->beside the main quest of the game, there's a couple more quests included in the story, one of which is Go Fish. Dream ends up bitten all over by the slaughterfish and George has to heal him while laughing in his face about getting fucked up by a bunch of fish. but they needed the money, so the work was worth it

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Matters Of Will And Testament

Fandom: Bug Fables

Characters: Maki, Kina

Summary: Maki's injuries from the Wild Swamplands land him in the hospital. Kina pays him a visit for some much-needed talks.

Contains: Hospitalization, extremely dysfunctional family relationships, mentions of child neglect, fear of loss of family members, and one particular line in which one character mentions they wish another would die, albeit in a context where it’s more an emotional response than any genuine desire.

WHUMPTOBER 2022

No. 28 IT’S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Anger Born of Worry | Punching the Wall | Headache

Find it here on AO3

[biueprint]

"It's not my fault, not even slightly"

— Fuuta, right before being voted unforgiven

(backdraft spoilers in the tags)

[starswallowingsea]

Goes insane actually

[nyctophobia-au]

* Blinks one eye at a time. *

I need to write more fics, huh?

[louixstyles]

do you ever read a fic and something happens and it gives you that hollow feeling in your chest

[sandersgrey]

All the posts about not being so picky about the amount of kudos and bookmarks a fic has are right but dont apply to me. Ive been shoulder deep in this cranberry bog since I was 9 and Im tired, okay. I have 7k bookmarks on my ao3 account and 1k fics downloaded and sorted by type of media, fandom, ship, and common trope. I burned myself out. If Im gonna look for a fanfic now (which is rare) ill look for top fics because quite frankly i have done my time.

All you youngins, though? You get right down into the mud and search for hidden pearls the way youre meant to. No 'search by kudos', we die like gold miners.

[deus-ex-mona]

w a i t suki kirai is how old now????