#tidebound elf

His name comes from a type of sea slug called the blue glaucus, which is what his design is based off of!! I'll add a photo of one below:

and then his fullbody below 😛 was made using a free base by MisoTopRamen on Toyhouse!

More Glaucus Facts™:

•Glaucus is not a fan of being touched—he hates most physical contact, especially if it's unexpected or from a stranger, he will literally crash out if he gets touched LMAO (based on the fact that IRL blue glaucus’ are venomous and therefore not good to touch!!)

•He mostly just tries to mind his own business and do his own thing, he is very introverted & does not really care for other people. He doesn't *hate* other people, he just tends to get overwhelmed by them very easily, and he has a hard time trusting them, he is always suspicious that they're out to get him 💀 He also gets irritated very easily, especially when around people who don't know how to stfu LMAO so it's easier for him to just avoid others.

•He is bisexual, and demisexual & demiromantic 👍 It's hard enough for him to consider someone a friend, let alone find them attractive, so he's never really gotten involved in any sort of serious relationship, but he is fine with that. There *was* a girl, named Selkie, that he liked years ago, but he doesn't talk to or about her anymore...even if he still thinks of her sometimes.

•Glaucus works as a messenger! But usually only within the ocean since he’s not a huge fan of going on land (and it's not common for other Tidebounds to have a message that needs to go to someone on land anyway, since most Tidebound elves keep to themselves in the sea.) Glaucus takes messages and transports stuff between other Tidebound elves in different parts of the ocean, he kinda just travels all over the place. Because of this, Glaucus doesn't really have a set home base. He has a secret underwater cave that he stores his rarest valuables in to keep them hidden, but he doesn't really hang out there often, and he carries most of his stuff with him anyway.

Glaucus *tries* to stay out of trouble while doing his job, but is often bribed (or sometimes just straight up threatened😭) by a gang of Tidebound outlaws to deliver stuff for them or go collect payments that they're owed 💀 He gets annoyed having to go back and forth for them all the time, but doesn't have much of a choice, otherwise he'll miss out on his reward or just straight up get killed 💀 The leader of the outlaws, a woman named Niall, chose him specifically to do that kinda work because pretty much everyone knows him and sees him as an innocent & quiet messenger, so nobody bats an eye when they see him around, which means nobody will suspect that he's doing anything wrong when he's smuggling stuff around for a bunch of outlaws because they assume he's just going about his usual business. 💀 So he's like sort of a criminal?? Except not like directly,, he doesn't do anything bad himself, he's just the messenger, but he *does* take the bribes to do the work, because he obviously wants the reward (and he also doesn't wanna die💀), sooooo he's like kinda an accessory to the crimes I guess,, and sometimes he like spreads lies and propaganda around, he can be a devious fellow

•Occasionally he gets assigned to deliver letters from the Tidebound Archipelago to some random ass islands far out in the sea, but he obviously can't take a paper letter into water 💀 so he puts them in sealed glass bottles to deliver them without getting them wet.

•Niall (the leader of the Tidebound outlaws I mentioned) thinks Glaucus is adorable, but like not in a cute romantic way, more like a “he's so pathetic and funny looking that it's cute” way 😭💀 Glaucus, meanwhile, is sort of terrified of Niall because he's seen what she's capable of 💀 so he does everything possible to avoid getting on her bad side...though he does secretly cuss her out whenever nobody is around to hear it LMAO

•Glaucus is also sort of friends with Niall’s daughter, who is named Marsh, but like not really? They don't get to see each other much, as Marsh lives on land, and Glaucus actually secretly thinks she's kinda weird 💀 but he would NEVER dare voice that, because he’s terrified of saying anything that could upset Niall’s precious daughter.

•Glaucus has a small spear that he carries around as a weapon, but he's made it extra dangerous by stabbing big jellyfish on the end of it, so if he's fighting someone and he stabs them then they get both stabbed by a spear AND also stung by a jellyfish, which is not a very pleasant combination 💀 It's a good way for Glaucus to defend himself, but he has accidentally gotten himself stung by his own jellyfish spear before lmao

•Glaucus stands at a height of about 4’ 11’’. The canon TDP wiki about Tidebound elves says that Tidebound elves tend to have obvious sexual dimorphism, with male Tidebounds having long & colorful fins, while female Tidebounds have shorter & duller colored fins, but for my OCs I decided to make them different sizes too to make the sexual dimorphism even cooler 🙏 So my male Tidebounds OCs tend to be small and short, while my female Tidebounds are much bigger & taller. Obviously there's plenty of exceptions to this, it's not like a set in stone sort of thing,, I have some Tidebound OCs that don't follow that headcanon at all, but for the most part my male Tidebounds tend to be smaller, hence why Glaucus is built the way he is.

My Tidebound elf OCs also have fish tails!! I wanted to give them more unique traits to separate them from both humans & the other elven races, and also because fish tails makes sense since many Tidebound elves literally live IN the water. A tail would make them faster & stronger swimmers, and it also gives me an excuse to design all sorts of cool extra fins for them (also silly fish elf go blub blub)🙏 But tails are a HUGE inconvenience on land because they'd only slow a Tidebound elf down outside of the water, and I'd imagine that the skin/scales & fins on their tails would also get scraped open and cut if they spend lots of time walking on rough surfaces like cobblestone (because their tails would be dragging over it.) And all of their clothing has to be made to accommodate for their tails, which is obviously a hassle 💀 but it'd definitely be possible, just annoying, expensive, and probably time consuming for whoever makes said clothing.

I ALSOOO gave all of my Tidebound elf OCs whiskers/barbels like a catfish to help them sense things underwater! IRL catfish use their barbels for smelling, sensing other creatures & movement in the water, and navigating their environment (useful in dark murky water or tight spaces.) I thought it would be a cool & useful feature for Tidebound elves to have, and it's also just funny looking LMAOOO I love drawing their whiskers, especially if they have long ones. Glaucus' whiskers are very short tho💔

Glaucus of course also has four webbed fingers & toes like all Tidebound elves! His nails, however, are more like little claws similar to those of a sea otter. This makes it easier to grip things underwater.

•Like many Tidebound elves, Glaucus also technically has no hair—he just has lots of long fins that *look* like hair, but are not actually hair. LMAO his fins are low-key so goofy, I feel like the fins that frame the sides of his face look quite silly 😭🙏 but I don't care I'm too lazy to change his design 🥀 and his ugliness is part of what makes him cute

•The colorful patterns all over his body are a part of him, not any sort of painted on markings. Since Tidebounds can have colorful fins, I figured they could also have cool colorful patterns like IRL fish do (though, as mentioned earlier, males like Glaucus tend to be more brightly colored. Females can have fancy patterns too, but don't usually have such vivid coloration.) Glaucus isn't the most colorful male out there, but his cool patterns & dazzling shades of blue are considered very handsome by Tidebound standards.

•Though Glaucus travels all around the ocean and hangs out wherever he pleases, he absolutely DESPISES cold waters (basically anywhere above the Tidebound Archipelago, so like around the Black Tundra, the Shiverglades, the Frozen Sea, Skall’s Hook, etc..) He genuinely cannot tolerate cold water, and obviously can't put on a coat to keep himself warm because he's underwater 💀 The Tidebound outlaws he’s involved with do not care about this, however, and force him to travel in cold waters on their behalf anyway 💀 Poor Glaucus has suffered from hypothermia and almost lost fingers & toes to frostbite far too many times 😭💀 This is another part of the reason he despises the outlaws, because they're constantly endangering his life.

•Glaucus has an older sister, named Lir, who used to pick on him a LOT when they were both kids simply because she thought it was funny 💀 Being both older & bigger, Lir always had the advantage when they fought, so Glaucus often got his ass kicked LMAO As a result, Glaucus is not a very big fan of Lir, so he doesn't visit her much now that they're both grown. He is also low-key scared to visit her anyway, because she has two young & rowdy daughters that also love to pick on Glaucus 💀 Anytime Glaucus comes around, Lir will yell “OMG HEY GIRLS LOOK it's your Uncle Glaucus!! go tackle him as HARD AS YOU CAN AND BEAT HIM UP to say hi!!!” so Glaucus practically gets ATTACKED by his nieces LMAOO

•Glaucus also does not like to visit Lir because he does not get along with her partner / his brother-in-law.

•Aside from his sister & nieces, Glaucus doesn't really have any other family. He and Lir were not raised by their biological parents—they were two of the many orphans raised by a Tidebound woman named Cordelia and a giant coral dragon known as Cor Maris. Glaucus likes Cordelia as a mother figure, as she was always very kind to him, but she never had very much time for poor quiet Glaucus with a bunch of other more rowdy children requiring her attention all the time 💔 so Glaucus isn't very close with her. He did like hanging around Cor Maris, though—she was quiet and calm, something stable for him to latch onto admist the chaos of the other orphans.

•Glaucus is a VERY picky eater, mostly because his diet has always been somewhat limited in the sea 💀 For most of his life, he has lived off of seafood and the few edible plants that grow along Xadia's coastlines & islands, and he feels no desire to try anything else. This means that things like fruits and sugary treats are pretty foreign to him,, the sweetest thing he's ever eaten would probably just be plain coconut.

•Glaucus is quite fluent in sign language! Most of my Tidebound OCs speak their own form of sign language (modified to accommodate their webbed hands & also to include usage of their tail & ear fins to further express themselves) so that they can communicate underwater.

•also yes Glaucus' eyes are normal/fine!! Nothing is wrong with them and he did not do dark magic 😛 That is just how he looks 👍 I wanted his eyes to look like seal eyes LMAOO

anyway thanks for reading my Glaucus yapping 😛 have a small writing snippet of one of Marsh & Glaucus' first interactions, from Marsh's POV. Still a wip 🥀 and no context other than they are on a beach

okay bye bye now hope you enjoyed my Glaucus talk