#have some emberfish

[vivitheanimaxen]

Jimmy didn't really expect to have to get in between Joel and Tango the moment they laid eyes on each other, but-- well.

He wasn't surprised.

Jimmy had been chatting with Tango up at the surface, after they'd eaten and Jimmy had taken the plates back inside. Tango was absolutely fascinated by the wheelchair, but unwilling to try and haul himself up into it to really see how it worked. Jimmy had to admit he must look at least a little undignified as he wiggled up into the seat, but normally the only ones to see him were people he didn't care about looking silly in front of.

Not that he cared about looking silly in front of Tango. Nope.

Anyway. He'd slipped back down to the ground, pulling the chair close so Tango could inspect it. Tango had actually hoisted himself up onto the edge of the pool. Jimmy saw it as progress. A curious mer was one less likely to lash out.

Jimmy perked up his ear fins at the sound of Martyn's voice coming from the house, maybe Lizzie and Joel were here?

Yep, there was Joel's voice.

"Joel-- Joel wait--" Martyn caught the back of Joel's wheelchair, stopping it from tipping into the water-- a moment too late to stop Joel himself from slipping down out of it.

Tango had disappeared from the edge the moment Joel and Martyn had appeared from out of the house.

Jimmy had thought that Joel was going to tackle him-- after all, Joel was definitely one to pin Jimmy down as his way to say hello. But nope.

In a flash of bubbles and a twist of fins, Joel was on top of Tango. Neither seemed to be getting the upper hand, but if Joel was really trying to hurt Tango, there would have been blood in the water--

Jimmy spoke too soon.

"Hey-- hey hey hey hey!!" Jimmy whistled sharply, knocking into the writhing pair of mer, pushing Joel off of Tango and spreading his sails to block the line of sight, "Joel-- both of you-- calm down-!"

Joel let himself drift back, and Jimmy glanced back to see Tango push himself up off the tiles, his colors fired up dark. Great. Tango was the one bleeding, red lazily billowing from along his gills.

"I didn't--" Joel had his mouth open, surely he could taste the blood in the water, "Jimmy I didn't mean to hurt him--"

"Didn't mean to?" Tango chirped, pressing a hand to his torn gills, "You don't get to just say sorry after attacking me, jellyfish-for-brains."

"I said, both of you, calm down--" Jimmy twisted, keeping between them. It was getting to be way too often that Jimmy had to take charge like this. At least Joel was listening. "Joel, go tell Martyn to get Lizzie, I'll help Tango up so she can look at him."

Joel darted away, so Jimmy turned back to Tango, reaching out to grab him.

"No-- no." Tango bared his fangs, shifting back away from Jimmy's reach, "I'm not going anywhere near your humans."

"Tango, please. You're hurt, they can help." Jimmy pleaded, holding his hand out and letting himself sink lower in the water so he wasn't floating over Tango. He was doing his best to seem non-threatening. He needed Tango to trust him, to accept their help. "And I don't think Martyn is going to feel comfortable with putting you back in the ocean unless he's sure you're healed. That's what Lizzie is here for. She's a healer, and she knows how to help mer."

Tango just sat there, blood still seeping into the water from under his hand.

Jimmy hadn't gotten a good look at what'd happened, but it probably wasn't on purpose. Not with how quick Joel backed off. Jimmy knew that Joel's plating was rough in places, but normally his podmate could keep it from doing any damage when they were wrestling. But Tango had thought it was a proper attack.

Tango still didn't trust them.

Jimmy let out a mouthful of bubbles. Even if he promised that he wouldn't be hurt, Tango likely still wouldn't believe him, and even if Jimmy had been able to overpower Tango before-- that had onl been after the other mer had been stung by sedatives. Jimmy could probably get close enough to sting him again, if Martyn had more. It'd be easy to corner him with Joel's help. The pool wasn't that big, and with the way Tango pushed himself further from Jimmy, he knew it too.

"Look. I want you to be able to go home as much as you do. But the others won't let you if you can't survive out there on our own." Jimmy tried, "And if your gills heal wrong. . ."

Tango pinned his fins close and turned away.

Hopefully he'd allow them to help.

It took longer than Jimmy would've liked, for Tango to reach out and take Jimmy's hand, allowing him to pull Tango up to the surface o the pool where the others were waiting. Joel was back in his wheelchair, over by the door leading back into the house, with a medical kit in his lap. Lizzie and Martyn were waiting by the edge of the water, out of lunging range, but still close enough to watch what'd been happening.

"Tango, meet Lizzie." Jimmy said, gesturing over to her, before switching to English as he swam to the edge of the pool closest to them, leading Tango by the hand, "Lizzie, this is Tango."

#jimmy solidarity #tango tek #joel smallishbeans #team rancher #team rancher au #team rancher fanfic #viviwrites #emberfish au #dont mind me #have some emberfish #as a treat #maybe one day i'll come back and make this a proper longfic. #rewriting it and everything. #i'd wanna finish Dragonfrost or voiceless or one of my other longfics first though. #hermitfic

[vivitheanimaxen]

Emberfish AU Masterpost

ight, since I was asked, here's the masterpost for the merdude!Tango au.

Scraplets are grouped into 'arcs' and listed in rough chronological order. Some of them overlap, in that case they are in order of first posted. After that are the misc posts with enough worldbuilding to qualify being put on here.

If you want more worldbuilding or have any questions, just ask! I love answering asks <3 they fuel my brainrot for this au as well.

Update:

This au has now (mostly) been cross-posted to ao3! It's still messy, and these ficlets will continue to be posted to tumblr first, and then updated on ao3. Probably in batches when i get a round tuit.

the ao3 fics can be found here!

Prologue Arc

Tango's POV - meeting his new pod

Rescued Arc

Tango's POV - etho isn't the only washed up one

Impulse's POV - marine rescues take mer, right?

Zedaph's POV - first impressions

Impulse's POV - the infamous pole incident

Skizz's POV - temper temper

Tango's POV - wordz r hard

Kidnapped Arc

Tango's POV - grand theft mer

Jimmy's POV - new mer who dis?

Skizz's POV - HE SAID THE THING--

Tango's POV - a new place 2 electric boogaloo

Martyn's POV - don't get in the water if you don't have gills. idiot.

Tango's POV - please stop fighting i am BEGGING you-

Jimmy's POV - welp. everyone is still alive. so far.

Martyn's POV - you would think that they would be done fighting by now, wouldn't you?

Jimmy's POV - I sure hope this is the last fight

Martyn's POV - Things are looking up now

Those Left Behind Arc

Etho's POV - this might be a problem. . . for team siz, anyway.

Impulse's POV - i told you it might be a problem

Etho's POV - miscommunication sure is a b*tch, huh?

Tango's POV - a first foray into the au

(^^^This one is technically not canon, i was simply trying stuff out)

Misc posts:

vesper ask - mer & mimicry

kimi ask - about team zits

kimi ask - Doc & the hivemind

kimi ask - the pod™️

vague plot things

kimi ask - the pod™️ is looking

kimi ask - siz might be in trouble

kimi ask - siz + pod dynamics

kimi ask - ranchers dynamic

more plot things! introducing: Joel and Lizzie!

b ask - more about grian, pearl, and joel

b ask - Etho's backstory :]

klm-zoflorr ask - more about pod dynamics!

b ask - how martyn found tango

b ask - more about bdubs!

worldbuilding, ramblin about Joel

#dont mind me #masterpost! #emberfish au #team rancher au #team zits au #merman au #team rancher #team zits #tangotek au #tangotek #impulsesv #zedaph #skizzleman #jimmy solidarity #martyn itlw #ethoslab #bdouble0 #joel smallishbeans #lizzie ldshadowlady

[vivitheanimaxen]

Emberfish!!! Au!!!! It's so good!

Theres something FISHY going up in this au....... Ahah

Anyways i don't really know what to ask i just want to say i love it nd i appreciate you. Its great

Oh yeah, so here are some questions: how social merpeople are is based on dolphins, right? Are the pods always only 3 people? Do you think merpeople can survive alone or in a sort of close knit "village" with others? They should be able to hunt, right?

Thank you!! There is something fishy going on, i'm glad you've noticed ;)

How social mer are is actually based off of both dolphins and humans. I've found that people underestimate just how social we are as human beings, and how, if you are put in an environment that requires you to work together with a group to survive, natural selection tends to hone those more social instincts. And on top of that, being alone in the vast ocean where sometimes it's hard to tell up from down and day from night can drive a mer mad if they don't have SOMEONE to talk to. Mer find it a lot easier to end up in situations that are sensory depriving. And for a species hardwired to be on alert at all times? That sort of thing takes it's toll.

It's also a little bit taken from space aus and "humans are weird/earth is space australia" stuff I've seen and really enjoyed over the years. Especially with Martyn's thoughts on 'mer will pod-bond with anything that gives them enough attention.' it's essentially the mer version of pack-bonding for humans, and how we tend to build relationships with any sort of animals we can feasibly keep as a pet, and even inanimate objects.

A pods of around 7-15 mer is considered the normal size for a pod, and is typically the size for a stable 'family' pod. A family pod is usually from 1-3 mating pairs, along with their children, and perhaps a few other friends or younger mer from other pods who are courting or become friends with their children.

The minimum for a pod is 3, because otherwise that's just a pair, and from 3-7 mer is considered a small pod. I've gone over this before in other asks, but as mer grow up, it's not uncommon for teenage mer to leave their family pods (sometimes alone, if there's another pod they can join right away, but more typically in pairs or trios of siblings or pod-mates) and strike out on their own. These younger mer will often form friend based pods (like Grian's pod or like the NHO pod that Etho and Bdubs belonged to before they left and met Tango), which are pretty unstable until the mer fully mature, and often end up becoming new family pods as romance blooms, yadda yadda yadda birds and the bees.

Not always, though, as we see with both the 'bet' pod (Bdubs, Etho, nd Tango) and Grian's pod. Etho, Bdubs, and Tango could join up with another pod if they wanted to, they just don't.

Anything bigger than roughly 15 members is considered a 'large' pod. There tend to be fewer of these, and they tend to be more migratory because of their larger draw on the resources around them. Large pods also tend to be more unstable as different smaller pods can join or leave depending on the time of year and the specific migratory path, and teen mer who have left the family pod where they grew up might join or leave whenever. They due tend to be great sources of gossip and general knowledge and skills, though, due to the many members and because they have more hands to do the work they can get more specialized in what they know. They also tend to have more well established migration paths, and normally there's a more stable extended family in a large pod that acts as the 'backbone' and leadership, so to speak. They tend to function like more like close knit little villages, rather than small family groups.

The hivemind pod (lead by Doc) is a very unique outlier in this, being completely stationary, and having roughly 50 members at any given time. They're basically trying to create mer agriculture, and are already a major trading center.

While lone mer can survive on their own, especially as adults, it is very very hard and very very stressful. Most don't do it unless they have to, because of how dangerous the ocean can be. Hunting in general is difficult, and mer need meat in their diets to support their high metabolisms. They can survive off of foraging alone, but clams and other shellfish can be hard to get into without the right strength or tools, and mer can't survive off of only plants in the long run.

When one wrong move can net you an injury that might impede your ability to hunt, and you're alone? That mer is basically shark chum unless they are either very lucky or can find someone to help. A mer alone lives on a kinfe's edge. Most simply choose the safer option to be in a pod.

#vivianswers #klm-zoflorr #emberfish asks #vivirambles about #emberfish au #oh wow look at all that worldbuilding #i hope you like the ramble XD

[vivitheanimaxen]

Hello there, I'm vivi or vivian, she/her, adult, and writer extraordinaire!

Sometimes I doodle, sometimes I drabble, and sometimes I simply lurk quietly on the dash with my fists full of blorbo posts.

Any asks are appreciated and encouraged!

I mostly main Hermitcraft and the Life smps (TangoTek in particular), as this is what I write for mostly, but you can also find scraps of other fandoms, such as Dsmp (Technoblade never dies), Qsmp (Tallulah my beloved), and other non-mcyt related things (Reptiles, Batfam, MCU, various video games, Star Wars, Owl City, Critical Role & Midst, etc. etc.) among my rebloged posts.

I have a ko-fi!

If you like my writing and would like to help support me, you can send a tip my way! I release writing teasers and exclusive sneak peaks for my writing there.

My commissions are [OPEN]

My AO3 is ViviTheAnimaxen, feel free to stop by and check out what I have up there.

Emberfish AU Masterpost - here!

Dragonfrost AU Masterpost - here!

The tags I use most of the time are as follows:

#dont mind me - my original posts

#viviq - posts from my queue (although i dont quite put this tag on consistently. your millage may vary)

#viviwrites - anything to do with my own original writings

#vivirambles about - when I talk about stuff. The thing I'm talking about is typically tagged after this one.

#vivianswers - for answering asks!

#viviasks - for polls and also genuine questions to the ether

#viviplays - for pictures or video of me playing video games. It will probably end up all minecraft. But that's to be expected.

The tags I use for my aus are:

#Voiceless au - this au is mostly over on ao3, but some of it is here. A hermits are deities au, with empires and dsmp crossover.

#Emberfish au - this au has only been on my tumblr. I may move it over to ao3 at some point, who knows! A hermitcraft - life smp mermaid au, focused mainly on team zits and the ranchers. Tango is a merdude, hence, Emberfish.

#Emberfish asks - asks I have gotten about the emberfish au that don't have any particular lore to them.

#Dragonfrost au - this au is pretty evenly split between here and ao3. the 'official' fic is over on ao3, but there is a lot of worldbuilding and general silliness over here on tumblr, as well as worldbuilding. It's a dark ranchers au with a dragon!Tango and warlock!Jimmy, with a dnd inspired setting and magic system. Giggs+Pearl are planned to make a significant appearance, but i'm not sure when as this au is being written chronologically. unlike emberfish.

#Dragonfrost asks - asks for the dragonfrost au. pretty straightforward

The rest of my tags are an absolute mess. I can't be bothered to deal with them, really.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and if you've interacted with anything I've posted or sent an ask-- thanks. I love you, you mean the world to me, have a wonder day.

#dont mind me #vivirambles about #the pinned post

[vivitheanimaxen]

you're taking asks about the emberfish au? :D ooh okok!!! can i ask hmm well i'm curious about doc.. can i ask about his role in the au? :o

Doc is a mer in this au. I just sorta decided that with the last scraplet, tbh so I haven't decided a whole heck of a lot about him yet. Let's see what I come up with, shall we?

I know that Doc is the head of a larger than normal pod (think-- 40-ish members?), one that stays more stationary than most, especially for its size. This pod calls itself the 'hivemind' to Tango’s confusion, and they are working on building an agricultural settlement. Which is new in mer culture, as they are normally at least semi nomadic and hunt and forage for their food instead of growing it.

Etho and Bdubs used to be in a pod with Doc, along with a few others such as Beef, Pause, and Pungence before that pod split up. Bdubs and Etho stayed together and picked up Tango along the way.

Living in the ocean is hard, and unforgiving, even for mer who have a pod, and Etho broke his arm on a hunt. Bdubs knows a little bit about medicine and herbs and such that can be found in the ocean, but not for a broken arm. It was pure luck that the trio of them heard some rumors about doc's crazy plan to tame the ocean and grow food like the humans on the surface were rumored to do. Doc took them in for a while, in exchange for Bdubs and Tango pulling their own weight while Etho healed. Then the three left, as everyone on that pod prefers to be with a smaller group of mer.

On their nomadic travels afterwards, the mer trio would stop by the hivemind every few seasons or so. They'd trade things that aren't found in that region for things like medicine or tools that they can't easily make by themselves.

#vivianswers #anonymous #emberfish asks #this is why I love asks #they let me worldbuild #thank you very much anon for all the asks #I assume you've been the same anon this whole time #the typing style is so unique #if you would like to give urself an emoji identifier then u can #i see that a lot with other blogs #but if not that's valid too #no pressure #i am simply one who loves feedback

[vivitheanimaxen]

So of course Emberfish!Bdubs is covered in Greenery. I'm curious, is it just a camo style coat made of the stuff, or does he actually have stuff growing on him? Because the latter of those sounds not very healthy.

-b

Bdubs is based off of a leafy sea dragon, so some of it is his fins, and some of it is seaweed he's woven in between his fins. He originally grew up in a thick kelp forest, where --because of all the plants limiting mobility-- the best defense was a good camouflage.

So, while Tango is built for mobility and has a very strong bite, Etho is built for pure speed and has all of his venomous spines, Bdubs' natural defense is not getting spotted in the first place. He's perfected the way of hanging in open water to just look like a clump of debris. He is also mildly poisonous! but this is more due to the plants he choses to weave into his 'cloak' rather than him naturally generating any of his own. It makes him taste so bitter and 'spicy' to anything that might take a nibble will spit him back out very quick.

#vivianswers #Anonymous #anon b #emberfish asks #emberfish au #bdubbleo100 #he replaces and generally takes care of the plants in his cloak often. #its a sort of 'preening' for him

[vivitheanimaxen]

hiii vivi i love the emberfish au! if mimicry is a mer specialty, is there a specific purpose mers use it for as a species? like a hunting tactic or something?

(also poor tango so bored, somebody put some enrichment in his enclosure lol)

hi hi vesper!! I think mer having great mimicry skills is more a consequence for them having unique and versatile vocal chords, than any sort of hunting tactics. (also. tango noises. that's the vivi reason rly hahah) But there have definitely been mer who use it that way. There are as many different ways to hunt as there are mer, really.

Some mer are better with mimicry than others (like tango being exceptionally talented vs etho being not so much), and they use their voices for all sorts of different things. Some mer can use it to harm other creatures (think a banshee-like scream), some mer use it to hunt, some use it for recreational purposes like singing. It depends on the mer, really.

#vivianswers #vesperaink #emberfish asks #tango tek

[vivitheanimaxen]

Hiiii its me the incoherent screamer :P

17, 18, and 24?

Hi there incoherent screamer. its me, yah gal~

17.Favorite dynamic to write? (ship, familial bond, friendship, qpr, rivalry, etc)

I've mostly only written friendships, but rivalry is fun to dabble in and I'm sure at some point I'll come up with an au where familial bonds come into play. Time will tell on this one me thinks. /i simply do not have enough fic out there.

18.How similar are the things you enjoy writing to the things you enjoy reading?

Very similar. Most of my writing is me looking at what I've read and brainrotting so hard about different concepts that something new comes out. I have such a compost bin in my brain and sometimes new flowers grow from it. Voiceless came about cause of this. So did Emberfish, to some extent. I got a large chunk of inspo for the mer biology and the 'some mer use wheelchairs on land' and the whole. situation with Jimmy and Scott and Martyn from a fic called 'Cry of the Mer' by FantasyOcean. I've built a lot of my own original ideas into the au, twisting a lot of it to fit the vibes i want, and following a very different storyline, but the basics were from there. Dragonfrost is probably the worst offender in that sense, though. A dnd/high fantasy au with a dark dynamic of my favorite pair and also one of them is a dragon and also it's set in decked out and it's a dungeon guide Jimmy au? yeah. Haven't seen any of that before.

I try to write fics that would induce the same 'kicking my feet and laughing evilly but also screaming crying throwing up' energy that the best fics i've read induce in me. Whether or not i succeed is up to the reader. >:3

24.What work would you like to talk more about?

All of them, really. the most neglected fic i have is honestly the (not quite so) invisible life of ranboo beloved. aka, the ranboo is addie larue fic. I had SUCH an interesting concept there. It is criminally underrated.

But also tbh the voiceless au in general needs some definite love. the poor zedaph fic is still half finished in my drafts.

#vivianswers #vesperaink #ask game! #totally unrelated but vesper while i have u here u might wanna check ao3 for some new dragonfrost >;3 #anyway.