#moanaxmerida

Say what you want Just don’t say that you’re leaving I hope this summer breeze Will last more than a season Will you write to me? In time, we’ll see Maybe spend your whole life with me

We’ve packed our suitcases We’ve shut up all the windows Hold tight Soon you and I flow anywhere the wind blows So make life to me Hold tight to me Stay awake the whole night with me

Can I keep you as a souvenir? Can I take your shirt to dry my tears? Can I meet you here this time next year? Can I keep you as a souvenir? We could take a chance and disappear We could run away, get out of here Can I keep you as a souvenir? Wish you were here

I taste salt in the air In your sweater that I sleep in I dream of us riding bikes At sunset by the ocean Those were giddy days, lazy days Sipping rosé, time to waste

Can I keep you as a souvenir? Can I take your shirt to dry my tears? Can I meet you here this time next year? Can I keep you as a souvenir? We could take a chance and disappear We could run away, get out of here Can I keep you as a souvenir? Wish you were here

And if I leave here, you’re coming with me If you leave here, I’m going with you

Can I keep you as a souvenir? Can I take your shirt to dry my tears? Can I meet you here this time next year? Can I keep you as a souvenir? We could take a chance and disappear We could run away, get out of here Can I keep you as a souvenir? Wish you were here

***

...so I guess I should probably post that summer-themed Moanida moodboard I made before summer’s actually over huh

Luckily, the songs that inspired this take place at the end of the summer anyways, so I guess it still works XD

Long story short, I finally got around to listening to the latest Avril Lavigne album a few months ago and for whatever reason both Souvenir and In Touch have huge Moanida vibes to me, so...I made a little modern AU about it!!! Fuck it, I haven’t made content for these girls in a while, so it’s long overdue.

Anyways, the basic story here is that Merida’s family, the wealthy heirs to some old, old, old money that supposedly comes from their Scottish monarch ancestors, often use the rather cushy funds to take lavish vacations. The summer after Merida turns 16, her mother sets her sights on the Polynesian isles, hoping for a relaxing three months of beach-lounging and daintily sipping classy drinks. Although Merida rolls her eyes at her mother’s lackluster vacation plans, she hopes that if Elinor is preoccupied enough in her suntanning quest (as fruitless as it is--Merida knows damn well their pale Scottish skin will go straight from pink to lobster-red), she won’t be paying much attention to her wandering daughter.

Then one day, after several hours of making sandcastles and then stomping on them to pass the time, Merida meets Moana Waialiki. Moana is a local, her family having lived on that very island for hundreds of years. Generation after generation, they’ve made a life right where they are, never seeing any reason to leave. Additionally, Moana’s people are wary of the dangers of the outside world--especially her father, who lost his best friend to a faraway accident that he didn’t get word of until months later.

Moana wants more. She isn’t content to stay cooped up on her town’s island, and dreams of one day being some sort of community organizer...or perhaps the captain of a tour boat. Anything that lets her meet lots of different people and gets her off the island. Merida can understand--she longs to be free of her parent’s strict rules and expectations, and wants to see and experience so much more than the small world they’ve built for her.

Before they know it, they’re sneaking off on adventures together. Moana’s parents are too busy with their town to pay much attention to where she is, while Elinor, bless all the powers that be, is also taking a vacation from micromanaging her daughter’s life, evidently.

Fergus, meanwhile, is honestly thrilled--his daughter finding someone with her same fire and stubbornness who she can truly be herself around is truly all he could have wanted. He loves his wife, but he knows how lonely Merida can be when she feels like no one really understands her. And Elinor’s sternness hardly helps matters.

They steal an entire summer together. Licking ice pops while meandering their way along jungle paths. Sipping cherry-pineapple cocktails smuggled to them by Moana’s rebellious cousin Maui. Sharing lavish fruit bowls, legs dangling into the fancy pool Elinor and Fergus blew tremendous funds to include as a resort add-on. Having beach picnics and biking across palm tree-covered cliffs. Feeding ever-growing “cool shell” collections. “Accidentally” straying off hiking trails and roaming uncharted parts of the island they’re definitely not supposed to be in. It’s full of mischief and hijinks and perhaps something just a little more than friendship sparking...and it’s the most magical summer either has ever had.

The end of that summer hits both of them hard. They hate the thought of being parted so much that they make a brief plan to run away together. It falls apart, of course--the island’s small enough that there’s nowhere to really go, and for all Moana’s boating dreams, no one’s ever actually taught her how to sail. So they do the next best thing--Moana gives Merida a sweater to remember her by, and Merida promises to do whatever it takes to convince her family to come back the following year.

Hope to make more content for these gals soon <3 I miss them!!!

There once was a lass sent out to sea Ordered by the king to stay away from me A princess should not fall in love with a commoner and a thief. Ha! So I’ll sing a siren song In hopes one day she will come home With more than her weight in gold To take me father’s throne

***

So I accidentally ended up thinking up this big complicated AU for this post I saw a while back, AND I haven’t posted Moanida in a hot minute, so...it’s moodboard time!!!

Basically this is in an AU where Motunui is actually a fairly sizeable kingdom instead of a small island village...and Moana really is a princess here XD I imagine maybe the village grew larger and larger because Motunui was taking refugees from the other islands as the Great Darkness was consuming the land. There’s an ever-present sense of dread, and King Tui worries his kingdom’s days are numbered. He tries to proceed Business as Usual, though, not wanting to cause a mass panic among the people. Fortunately, the darkness and disease plaguing the seas has not yet reached Motunui, and food is plentiful. King Tui hopes they’ll be safe for a while yet.

Princess Moana’s whole life has been planned out for her--marry someone of high standing, produce an heir, someday take her father’s throne. She longs more than anything for adventure on the seas, and to save her kingdom from the encroaching darkness. She also finds herself yearning for meaningful connections outside her family, unsatisfied with the distant and formal relationship she has with the palace staff and her subjects. So many seem to other her due to her royal status, and she sometimes feels completely alone--even in a kingdom that reveres her. No one sees her as she is--not Princess Moana, daughter of King Tui, heir to Motunui, but merely Moana of Motunui.

As the darkness spreads, more refugees come in, and the kingdom grows. Fish aren’t as easy to come by as they once were, and resources grow tight as the mouths to feed increase.

Enter Merida.

It’s no surprise that as the kingdom grows, so does the criminal underbelly. When finery and jewelry from the palace begin to go missing, King Tui and Queen Sina wonder if the staff are in cahoots with someone unsavory. Upon searching the servants’ quarters, though, there is no evidence of any robbery or foul play.

When Moana starts seeing flashes of red out of the corner of her eye, and just out of reach around castle corridors, she thinks she’s imagining things. That is, until she walks into a drawing room and sees a scraggly redheaded girl in filthy street clothes attempting to climb out a 3rd-story window. In her scramble to escape, the intruder breaks the outside tree limb she was attempting to climb onto, and Moana hears a number of branches snapping and cursing in some strange, singsong accent. Both intrigued and amused, Moana runs to the floor below to make sure this poor unprepared thief doesn’t fall to her death.

Moana finds her hanging on a lower limb for dear life, tunic even more ripped and mouth spewing profanities that the princess is sure would make her blush--well, if she could understand any of them. Still laughing, she extends a hand to help the thief in through a lower window. The thief swats her arm away the first few attempts, but finally grabs her hand when the branch starts creaking a little too much.

Apparently this girl is so far into the criminal underworld that she has no idea who Moana is. The thief can tell she’s important--not everyone walks around in glimmering red-orange dresses and shiny shell and pearl-studded tiaras. She’s nobility of some kind for sure. But not a princess.

Regardless of her noble status, the thief girl has no interest in groveling, or begging Moana’s forgiveness. She’s quick to pull a weapon on the princess--a lethal-looking bow and arrow whose bad side Moana does not want to be on. The thief girl assures her that she’ll “shoot yeh right in yer pretty face if yeh even think about shoutin’!” Moana can’t hold back her laugh, and assures the thief she has no intention of shouting. Not when this is the most interesting thing that’s happened in months. Maybe even years--the castle has certainly never had thieves this brazen.

Moana takes the thief girl to her room to get her cleaned up; her parents are too busy managing the kingdom to pay much attention to what she’s doing, anyways. She puts her in cleaner servants’ clothes and finds a cloak to conceal her hair before sneaking her out a back door, extending an invitation to come visit sometime. The castle could do without a few pearls, Moana figures--that, and the thrill of abetting a criminal could make her princess life a little less dull.

Besides, meeting someone who has no idea who she is is a gift too precious to waste.

And so Moana takes to “accidentally” leaving many a palace window open, and many a door unlocked. Sure enough, the thief girl comes back--although she claims it’s only because Moana is “a wee soft little lamb who makes thievin’ far too easy!” Nonetheless, she’s quick to tell her story after little resistance.

Merida, Moana finds out her name is. She’s been on the run a long time--how long she won’t say, but from the rugged, toughened state of the girl, Moana imagines it’s plenty long enough for her to harden her edges and teach her how to take care of herself. She claims she doesn’t need anyone--and never has--but from the way she’s more than willing to have heart-to-hearts with a near stranger, Moana doubts that. It must be lonely in the thief world--always watching your back and never being sure someone won’t stab you in it. Moana gathers Merida has deemed her naïve enough to trust.

Moana is hardly naïve, but if that’s what it takes to believe she’s worth opening up to...so be it.

Merida, it turns out, is a runaway from a kingdom far, far away--oceans away, even. She never felt at home there. She always felt like she was being twisted into something she wasn’t--made to fit an image, with no one caring who she actually was. She took off, flitting from place to place. She pickpocketed enough to eat until Wanted posters of her adorned every wall in town--and only then would she vanish without a trace, off to change her name and her backstory for her next grand adventure.

Moana has a feeling that Merida isn’t making up the backstory this time, but she doesn’t say as much.

After a while, Moana admits her own malcontent. The kingdom only continues to grow as her parents do nothing about the encroaching darkness that leaves so many homeless in the first place. She tells of her strange connection with the ocean, and how sometimes the waves themselves would part for her as a child. She talks about how badly she wishes she could help, and how a strange green emblem from her late grandmother Queen Tala might be the key to everything.

Maybe it’s terrible to think, but Moana finds herself wanting to inherit the throne sooner. She really thinks she could do some good, and she’s determined to conquer the darkness and save the kingdom. Merida, she finds, could be a surprisingly big help--she’s tough, she can fight like no one’s business, and she’s lived among the downtrodden and destitute in the slums and knows firsthand the kind of life more and more will be condemned to if something is not done about the darkness. She’d make an excellent bodyguard, and could even help with law-making and battle strategy--she’s politically savvy in a way Moana didn’t expect.

Things shift between them after a while. There are more and more stolen touches during their meetings, more physical affection. Moana finds herself looking at Merida for longer than she means to. Merida brings her gifts and trinkets from the seedier markets royals don’t usually go to--tiny, pretty seashells, wildflowers from hidden crevices, knives that are usually considered “improper” for a young princess to use.

For the first time since Queen Tala--perhaps for the first time ever--Moana feels like someone sees her for who she truly is. Not a princess, not some otherworldly, ethereal authority to be worshipped, but just Moana.

And when Merida inevitably learns the truth of who her new luxuriously-clothed friend is, Moana is surprised to see she barely bats an eye. She shrugs, says “yeh, I figured you were someone important, from the way yeh dress like a fancypants. But yer not some self-righteous snob like the rest of them, so ah like yeh.”, and then moves on like nothing happened.

By the time Moana realizes she’s fallen in love, the palace staff have gathered there’s something suspicious about the princess sneaking out the back door as often as she does. Moana was just starting to be less cautious when King Tui walks in on her and Merida kissing.

The king is furious. No princess should grow feelings for a dirty peasant--and a criminal, at that. Although Merida is spared the noose, she is exiled from the island for good, given a ship and told to never return.

Before the thief is sent away, Moana is allowed one goodbye. Merida vows to come back one day--despite what Tui says--with her ship stuffed with treasure. She’s gotten a fruitful tip from the criminal underworld, and if all goes as planned, they should be able to buy the kingdom for themselves. Then, no one can stop them from being together--and, at last, conquering the creeping shadows.

In her absence, Moana writes Merida songs. Crude, scrawled haphazardly on palm paper, but full of heart. She shoves them into corked glass bottles before sneaking out and dropping them into the sea. Maybe they’ll never reach Merida...but then again, maybe they will.

The days without Merida drag, and Moana has never felt more alone. Nonetheless, she has faith that her love will return with riches, and the two of them will take the throne and save the land, just as they’ve always planned.

***

@takaraphoenix so anyways I accidentally made a super in-depth Moanida AU with that lesbian thief x princess TikTok that was going around a while back, thought you might enjoy ^^

I realized I hadn’t created any content for my girls in a while, so I made them something special.

IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW

Our coming-of-age has come and gone Suddenly the summer, it's clear I never had the courage of my convictions As long as danger is near

And it's just around the corner, darling 'Cause it lives in me No, I could never give you peace

But I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm If your cascade ocean wave blues come All these people think love's for show But I would die for you in secret The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Your integrity makes me seem small You paint dreamscapes on the wall I talk shit with my friends It's like I'm wasting your honor

And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences Sit with you in the trenches Give you my wild, give you a child Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other Family that I chose, now that I see your brother as my brother Is it enough?

But there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best But the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me

But I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm If your cascade ocean wave blues come All these people think love's for show But I would die for you in secret The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

***

WELP, it’s lesbian awareness week apparently, so I had to post something for the girlies <3

So a few months ago I finally listened to Folklore in full (idk why I didn’t before...I think for a while I was kind of leery of “New Taylor”? I was hella wrong though, New Taylor is so valid and I’m happy for her she’s finally making music she feels like is really “her”!!!), and it hit me like a damn freight train how much of a Moanida song Peace is. Like???

“I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm If your cascade ocean wave blues come” BRO THAT IS THEM

Help me I love fire/water ships so much ;_____; And it works on so many levels!!! Moana’s control of and connection to the ocean!!! Her generally calm-under-pressure and down-to-earth temperament, which is one that Merida greatly needs in her life to not to Dumb Shit!!! Merida’s extremely strong and passionate personality AND fiery hair to match!!! The way she gives warmth and excitement to everyone around her when she’s happy!!! Good god it’s perfect!!!

I like to think it’s mostly Merida @ Moana, basically saying trouble inevitably follows where she goes due to her absolute refusal to play by the rules, and if Moana chooses to stick by her side, she’ll inevitably get dragged into predicaments and won’t know a moment’s peace. Together, they’ll always be on the run from something--constraining traditions, the confines of society, the burden of responsibilities and expectations, the latest mountain lion or member of the gentry they managed to piss off. A life with Merida is a life on high alert, one filled with danger and adventure and close calls and narrow getaways. It’s a wild ride--a tale told at breakneck pace that never once slows down.

Merida loves Moana, of course. She’d give her everything and more, if she could. She’d give her the softness and gentleness and quiet reserved only for those dearest to her. Still, she thinks Moana deserves to know what she’s getting into, and that she’s forever giving up a tranquil life. And, as brave (heh) as Merida claims to be, she’ll often as not run--run from her fate, run from a life that tries to suffocate her, run from a kingdom where she was never truly happy. Though she sometimes visits her once-home, unable to shake the urge to check up on her brothers, she spends most of her life on the move.

Merida sometimes feels like nothing, standing beside a girl so devoted to her family and her people. Moana is good-hearted with a strong moral code, stubbornly maintaining her dreams while having a sense of duty and honor that Merida could never dream of. She finds herself often wondering what Moana sees in her. When their voyaging adventures eventually take them away from the ocean and into the mainland, Merida often finds herself having one too many drinks at taverns, rambling to the bartender and anyone else who will listen about the mother who once tried to mold her into something else. She wonders how Moana manages to stay so loyal and devoted to a community that once tried to hold her back, and suppress who she really was to be what they needed. Still, some part of Merida deep down wishes she had been able to do that. Be the queen Elinor dreamed of.

She knows that was never truly an option. When it comes between freedom and duty, there is simply too much of Merida to hold back and force into some confined role. It would be like trying to use a single tree branch to dam a cascade of floodwater.

Little does she know that Moana has no reservations about giving Merida her entire heart. She would follow the fiery Scottish lass anywhere, dive with her headfirst into peril and pleasure alive. Merida is the only one who can bring out Moana’s wholly wild side--the only one who she is wholly, hectically, and beautifully uninhibited around. With Merida, she can be the version of herself that, so far, she’s only shown to Grandma Tala--the Moana she’s too mortified to put on display for her parents and her people. She can be her most embarrassing and clueless and unsure, and Merida will only love her all the more for it. And, of course, when Moana finally meets Merida’s little brothers, she loves them as her own.

Merida Dunbroch is a torrential storm, and wherever she goes she brings lightning and rain and chaos. Moana Waialiki, it turns out, can live with that. Embrace it, even.

***

I’m actually very pleased how this came out!!! Luckily for me, TSwift aesthetic pics are a dime a dozen here on the interwebs XD I like all the bright colors on this, because that’s just so very Moanida <3 They are the loudest sapphics, both aesthetically and in every other sense XD Let me know if any of the text is too small to read, though, and I’ll try to find alternate pics lol

@takaraphoenix happy lesbian awareness week to THEM <3 <3

@moanida WELP I finally did it!!! I finally made the Peace moodboard!!! I can rest easy now XD

I don’t know about you, but I am having a fantastic time with all of this Live Slug Reaction content and I would be an absolute fool not to take advantage of it for my own nefarious purposes, such as promoting my extremely valid rarepair

Partly inspired by seeing the iconic “It’s okay I am a lesbo” comic adorned with a Live Slug Reaction

Pagan Holiday Shipping Moodboard Project #5--Litha Moanida

****

Take me down into your paradise Don’t be scared ‘cause I’m your body type If it’s something that we wanna try Then you and I We’re cool for the summer

****

Haaaappy Litha!!! Honestly, there was no ship besides Moanida I could use for the summer solstice. Like bonfires are a big thing for summer, and like...is Merida NOT the human embodiment of a bonfire??? Like the hair??? The ire??? The REBELLION??? And Motunui and the South Pacific in general is like...THE place you think of when you think of summer. And they’re both such high-energy, passionate people, they just ABSOLUTELY have the summeriest vibes I’ve ever seen.

I actually highkey love how this came out and I’ve been super excited to post it!!! Especially the mango popsicles, like man...don’t tell me they WOULDN’T eat those! I like to think that when Merida visits Motunui (or hell, maybe she’d just MOVE there), they make their own popsicles out of the local fruit and they taste SUPER good because they’re literally as fresh as you can possibly get!

At first I wasn’t crazy about the blue outline, but...it kinda grew on me??? It’s surprisingly relaxing to look at. Kinda has ocean/seashore vibes.

See y’all in August for lughnasadh!

alSO I’M SO MAD I SPENT SO LONG WRITING ALL THESE JACKUNZEL HEADCANONS AND THEY’RE NOT SHOWING UP IN THE JACKUNZEL TAG OR THE ROTBTD TAG AND I JUST--

10) Your ship is on a road trip. Where are they going? What song do they belt together, overdramatically, as they travel the open road?

11) What song from a musical best describes your ship?

10) Your ship is on a road trip. Where are they going? What song do they belt together, overdramatically, as they travel the open road?

SO the cliche option, which Merida would definitely scream standing up in Moana's convertible as they're zooming down the highway, and which Moana would also get way too into to yell at Merida for being a huge fucking reckless idiot, is obviously this one:

Yes obviously I had to use this actual AMV of them XD

BUT I also think this one for whatever reason???

I think my logic is that in a modern AU I can easily headcanon one of them meeting the other while traveling/studying abroad, and I can see them having to have a long-distance friendship/relationship for a while. But they never want to stop talking, so they're constantly facetiming and skyping!!! And always waiting very, very impatiently for that next video call! Hence "I see her online and I gotta see the girl on the screen" XD Anyways they hear it and they're like "YES OUR SONG PLZ" and they gleefully steal it from the heterosexual men XD I also feel like they have a whole Extra, synchronized dance routine to it, and they've probably rehearsed it much more than is reasonable. Moana also definitely tries to still do the hand movements while driving, and nearly gets them into a wreck a number of times. It's still a better option than letting Merida drive, where she'd purposely ram into some asshole who cut her off before they even get to the freeway

They're probably driving to the beach!!! Or maybe just out for a drive in the mountains or the forest! Either way, they're definitely either going to the ocean (surprise surprise) or someplace wilderness-y. Bonus points if one or both is grounded (although I imagine they're like college-age in this, so it's kind of ridiculous for their parents to ground them anyways, but like...have you MET Tui and Elinor???) and they give 0 fucks and sneak out and go on a joyride anyways.

11) What song from a musical best describes your ship?

...damn, I deadass can't believe you went and made me google "most lesbian broadway songs" XD

Well obviously the first place I went was the Wicked soundtrack, and I thought for SURE I was going to end up picking a Glinda and Elphaba song, BUT...it's actually this one that reminded me most of Them???

I'm imagining an AU where Moana and Merida have just started dating, but they're keeping it a secret and are too scared to tell their parents they're girlfriends. Merida has no idea what Elinor's going to think (and uhhhh full offense but I am not at all convinced her traditionalist ass wouldn't be at least a little homophobic lmao), and Moana is worried Tui's going to be mad she's not carrying on the family legacy by having kids and such (even in a modern AU, I imagine Moana coming from an important and influential family). Both Moana and Merida are total musical theater nerds (that's part of what they bonded over in the first place!), and eventually they save up enough to go on a "totally platonic best friends' trip" to NYC to see Wicked on Broadway. When As Long As You're Mine comes on, they both just start SOBBING and pressing up as close as they can against each other in their seats like "THAT'S OUR SONGGGG"

Fwiw I see Merida singing the Elphaba parts and Moana singing the Fiyero parts!

Also they definitely cry during For Good, they're just a mess by the end

“Let her come to me.”

Cyan waves ripple aside, and Moana steps onto the wet sand. In the distance, glowing veins of bright red stand out against pitch black and smokes and sparks and cinders fill the sky.

All fire and fury and burning...like the worst of you. And the best.

The creature in the distance shrieks, drops to all fours and starts crawling across the seafloor. Mindless, furious, feral--far out of her reach. But she has to try.

Water coats her like a protective shell, flowing and rippling across her skin in a sort of dancing armor. Her hair rises and falls like ocean waves, encased in a little pocket of sea.

I have crossed the horizon to find you.

She’s come so far, sailed oceans and followed stars and felt so lonely and pained and lost she feels like she might die--but she kept on anyways. She kept on because all she wants in the world is fiery hair and eyes like the morning sky and the loudest presence she’s ever known and if she fucks this up now, she might never have that again.

And Moana would cross another horizon, if she had to. If that’s what it took to get her back.

Searing, clawlike fingers throw up wet sand. Moana keeps on. 

I know your name.

“You’re Merida Dunbroch,” she says, voice cracking. “You’re the best archer I’ve ever met. You’re crude and brash and unapologetic and fearless. You’d take on the whole world if it meant you could prove yourself. You love empire biscuits and apple tarts and you’d finish a whole roast chicken yourself if no one stopped you. You snort when you laugh and you eat like you’ll never see food again. You love feeling the wind in your hair, and getting it even more tangled because your mom used to hate brushing it out afterwards. You’ll climb to the top of any rock or cliff you can, no matter how dangerous it is, just so you can take in the view and drink in the wind. You’d do anything in the world for your little brothers, but you’d never, ever tell them that. You carved my name into your bow and told me it was so...so you could always take me with you, wherever you went.”

Moana’s voice breaks.