#bbpau etho

[ethosiab]

a lighthouse keeper and her weird homeless retired pirate friend who sometimes sleeps on her couch and has also committed numerous atrocities. theyre besties.

[ethosiab]

just two guys, cursed by a god to be eternally bound by their souls

One of the main contributers to Joel and Etho's dynamic in this AU is the supposed familiarity (or lack thereof) each of them has with their curses and the soul god. Etho first picked up that stupid dagger over a decade before the story begins, he's been living with it for a large part of his life. After feeling forced to leave his family because of the bloodlust, and travelling for years trying desperately to find a way to break the curse or get rid of the dagger, Etho's jaded. He's... given up, and is trying to be content with the quiet life he's built in this tiny island village. He's got friends! A friend! The bloodlust has been pretty quiet! The soul god is probably busy doing other things, pestering other victims. He's scared of upsetting this small sanctuary he's built, even if that upset may lead him back to his home and his family.

Then along comes Joel, freshly cursed, shipwrecked, and stubborn as fuck. Joel's got a loyal crew to get back to, a wife, people he's promised to protect. He may not have had much, but he had them, and he'll do anything to get back (Etho thought he'd do the same, once, but then again, he ran away willingly). And in some twisted move on the soul god's part, they're tied together! Feel everything the other does, can't get much more than half a kilometre away from the other before they double over in pain on the verge of death.

Joel doesn't understand Etho yet, and Etho doesn't want Joel to understand him. Neither of them can get what they want without sacrificing the other's needs. It's almost like some higher power orchestrated this whole thing in an attempt to cause drama!

In the end, Etho's the one dragged along on adventure to reunite with Grian, Jimmy, and Lizzie. If he's secretly hoping Joel's quest will bring him closer to getting back to Cleo, Bdubs, and Beef, that's his business.

[ethosiab]

hiiii if you're still doing requests what about more qpr cletho.... (<not normal)

a follow up to the first scene in this post, because i like drawing people hugging and Etho desperately needs it

[this request was propaganda for tangtho in this poll!]

Etho's scared of not being what cleo needs or wants in a relationship, and he's always tried to change himself to be that person. He loves her because she loves him. He's her husband because they want to be life partners. None of this is something etho explicitly doesn't want, which is what makes it harder. He cares about cleo, he wants to grow old with her and spend the rest of his life with her. But he forces himself into these boxes, these expectations, to fulfil those wants, because that's normal right? When he finally confesses after she confronts him, their relationship is already strained. It's hard to keep the act up that long, when every romantic gesture makes him want to throw himself off the boat. He's convinced himself that she might not want him anymore.

From cleos perspective, she's mostly confused and hurt. Confused, because why didn't he say something? Hurt, because ethos hurt and he had the gall to think they would care about something as trivial as the exact nature of his attraction to her. These two have a lot of hugging and talking through feelings to do, but they get there <3 and then etho gets cursed and everyone incouding me is reminded what the actual plot of the AU is

Bonus doodle

[ethosiab]

>:3 (if you wanna) gimme a.... aro etho in some kind of QPR *situation* (up to interpretation, hit me with whatevsies you want, i trust ya)

RAV3NNN you've given me the perfect excuse to doodle out some ideas for cleo and ethos relationship in my pirate au that have been bouncing around in my head

[Vote for tangtho in this poll and I'll draw something for you!]

They'd been together and married for years before etho realises he's aro, and once he does it's over another year of agonizing over his feelings and relationship with cleo before she has to ask him what's up and he confesses/comes out. It's a pretty messy situation, scar and bdubs being 2 and 5 and cleo and ethos relationship becoming strained as etho distances himself without realising. Absolute king of not talking about his feelings o7

they work it out in the end, cleo reaffirming that she doesn't care what his feelings for her are because she cares about him and wants what's best for him and the kids, and etho saying he doesn't want anything to really change he just wants to be... partners, not married. They're so QPR coded in a world in which the term does not exist <3

Bonus cleo as I had to figure out her outfit first lol

[ethosiab]

tfw youre a pirate and made a stupid decision that cost you your soul. and now youre stuck with this other shmuck

AKA boat boys pirate au designs lets gooo

just some thoughts on their designs:

Joel i stuck pretty close to his actual skin but added a bunch of scars because i felt like he'd be the type to get a bunch of scars and proudly show em off

etho i was struggling with slightly because i never really make new designs for him haha

im happy with the finished product though! and the peg leg is because of that one comment he made in last life about dreaming he was a pirate with a spyglass and a peg leg. i started watching his pov recently and only after i made this design did i see that bit lmao

etho's eye(patch) is very important. as is that amulet hanging off of joel's belt

i changed etho's headband in for a bandana because i thought it looked more pirate-y

also im a sucker for vests man

eyepatch etho is very real and i love it

i wanna make joel look much more animalistic with features such as claws, sharp canines, weird eyes and such, but i didn't focus on those here because i wanted their colours + outfits down pat first

i will probably change the belts/buckles up but i think it's funny that theyre matching tbh. destined to be soulmates.

[ethosiab]

drew a few bbpau things last night and i want to clean stuff up and add a little context before posting properly but. take this.

[ethosiab]

Who's the boat boys pirate au villain?

Is there a villain?

Please let there be a bad guy.

In my head there is no 'villain' so much as there is the soul god, who despite not being a major 'character', is a major force that the boat boys are opposing throughout the story. They're trying to find a way to sever their contracts with the god and be free to live their own lives.

There are also side-antagonists along the way, one of which i think is going to be martyn/ren because of ethos past issues with them finally catching up to him.

[ethosiab]

i got this reply but the user deleted it so im going to answer it and just block out the url because i like these questions-

As it stands, Joel's only abilities beyond normal human capabilities are that which the wolf amulet gives him- ie the ability to shapeshift into any animal, fully or partially. These were mostly taken from his 3rd life as inspiration, since this is at its core a life series AU. HOWEVER, even though i don't particularly like talking too much about post-canon for a story i haven't fully developed, i have been toying with the idea of joel eventually ascending to a partial godhood alongside Lizzie (and thus becoming his e2 character). That's still up in the air though! if the AU's current 'ending' changes much more from what it is right now, i might discard that idea.

Etho and Joel both have inherently weird souls, which is the only reason the god didn't just take their souls and leave them to wander a desolate and empty life within it's plane of existence, like it does with many others that cross it's path. Etho's soul frays easily. When the god took Etho's soul out of his body, fragments were left within him that could not be removed because it essentially broke in half. Thus, he is still living. He technically has one! He just doesn't know that because he's a pirate who knows jack about magic and the gods. According to him, he's a lucky bastard wandering around without a soul. It isn't until later on in the story that he gets told that he actually has a soul, albeit tattered and kind of holding on by a thread. (In a similar vein to this, the reason Joel's soul was not taken is because all his time around another god (by that i mean Lizzie) strengthened it, combined with his naturally stubborn nature, and no matter how hard the soul god tried, it could not removed his soul, so it settled for unraveling it, and giving half to etho instead, which gave it control over both of them. Joel also does not know he has a weird soul. He just thought he scared the god off and that's why it didn't kill him. he's kind of stupid ive gotta say).

As for how Etho feels without a soul, he can hardly remember what it was like with one, it's been that long for him. For the first few weeks adjusting to the loss, he got tired really easily, and needed to eat more, but eventually his body coped and he felt fine. It took a little bit to get used to having more soul again once Joel showed up, since he suddenly had a lot more energy. Etho would say that he grew more apathetic and uncaring after losing the soul but i think that had more to do with the fact that he also lost contact with bdubs and cleo and his eye in the same incident. Joel copes with the loss of half his soul badly, but better than most since its technically still connected to him. He just got really, really irritable.

Etho's hair is not naturally white!! it lost it's colour when he lost most of his soul, it used to be like brown-black in colour. Joel similarly has some of his hair turn white when Etho takes half his soul, but his is less noticeable than it otherwise would be because, as explained before, its still connected to him. (this image kind of illustrates what i mean, only point i have to make is that it's not the roots that changes colour its strands/chunks of hair at a time. whoops)

Did you get asked about the boatboys pirate au yet? That sounds so awesome 👀👀👀👀👀👀

hehe im glad you think so !

the AU concept essentially sprung from my sleep-deprived and angst-craving brain, on a flight to melbourne at 2am.

The basic idea is that Etho and Joel are pirates in a nautical fantasy world, with gods, magic, and fantastical sea beasts (+ Lizzie).

Etho and Joel end up with their souls linked after the two of them take and use cursed magic items 'belonging' to the god of souls, a vengeful being who feeds on the emotions and souls of mortals (it does not have a name yet-). So now they share injuries which means neither can satisfy the urge to strangle the other without causing themself harm. Sad! The items do give them powers though, which is a bonus. Yeah Joel might be seperated from his wife and has to deal with etho but he can also turn into a wolf so its not all bad.

Prior to meeting Joel, Etho was a loner, having already lost his soul in his shitty deal with the god (yet somehow still being alive... hmm... smells like a plot point....). He spent a fair while running around causing chaos (got involved with King Ren a while and worked for him, because despite being a pirate and generally against the idea of a monarchy he will not pass up the chance to get some extra coin if it suits him), but eventually settled down in a seaside pirate-ridden town because he was massively wanted after betraying the King's trust and also kind of tired. Here and there, he did the bidding of his god, which generally consisted of killing people (the god could just smite them but this is more interesting for it to watch). Etho's cursed item is a dagger that gives him the ability to go unnoticed when he's sneaking around places. If people are looking for him, their eyes gloss over him, if he's trying to be quiet he will literally not make a noise, and if he's picking someone's pocket his touch is feather light. Unlike Joel's amulet, there's nothing special about the dagger that gives him these powers, it just grants whatever the user would find coolest or most useful. Etho avoids using the dagger in combat for... reasons, and instead opts to use an arsenal of other knives he has.

Before Joel had his soul split in two (because note that difference, Etho was running around soulless for a decade before this somehow) with one half shoved in Etho's glass eye, Joel was a pirate captain with a crew consisting of Jimmy and probably some other empires people, or just random bg characters. Joel was probably one of the most dangerous pirates to encounter out there, not because of his ships firepower (though they've got a lot of that), but because he somehow always had the environment on his side. (Almost like the Ocean Goddess was his wife... or something...)

Most of the plot revolves around them being sent on a long errand by the soul god to find one of its other 'followers' that it lost track of. They end up putting together a shabby crew, meeting character's from their pasts, and desperately seeking a solution to the soul-linked issue that doesn't end up with both of them dead.

[ethosiab]

boat boys doodle page because i have an inability to finish pieces

[ethosiab]

going back through my notes for bbpau again

[ethosiab]

Sorry I can't do work today I've got "too busy thinking about cletho divorce because etho realised he's aro" disease. Yeah it's terminal.

[ethosiab]

I have been going back and forth as to whether make the clockers family canon to the pirate au, but I still CANT DECIDE

[ethosiab]

having a lot of different au thoughts recently has made me realise i have so many of them (bbpau, main hc au, 404 scifi au, ll vampire au, superhero au) and i literally never talk about them on tumblr oops

[ethosiab]

A lizzie in the boat boys pirate au perhaps? :D

I was wondering if she has any role, would she also be a pirate? pirate lizzie would be cool haha

(Feel free to ignore i dont know how requests? work?)

Lizzie is actually the Ocean Queen in this AU! Smalletho aint a romantic ship for me, but Jizzie sure is so it's about the only canon romantic relationship (except for cleo and etho but theyre exes anyway lmao).

She's the only god so far in bbpau that's not just... some guy i made up, so she does make much more of a character appearance than the soul god (I have an idea for a plotline including her but we will see if I'm able to start on the comics soon or not). She and Joel are husband and wife (even though i have no idea how that legally works given Joel is a pirate and Lizzie is a goddess. It probably doesnt legally work! That's okay!), and they met when Lizzie was visiting a village he stopped in in her human form. Sometimes she used to join his crew in human form for periods of time before going back to her duties as a god.

They aren't able to see each other often, but Joel makes sure to stop by her territory and say hi, tell her of all the things he's been getting up to recently, all the adventures he's been on, and all that. She's the only person he's actually close to other than Jimmy, which is funny considering most people think Etho is the 'broody loner type' but actually up until dealing with the soul god Etho had friends. Joel.... not so much (3rd life Joel i love you and cherish you forever).

[ethosiab]

I follow from @cornbread-girlboy

phoenixparker -> ethosiab

Phoenix/Nic - he/she

Hey hey! I'm Nic, an aussie artist whose interest in Etho may or may not have gotten be better of her. I draw, I write sometimes, and I'm studying game art and design this year! So feel free to talk to me about any of that stuff :D

If you send me an ask, don't be surprised if it takes a while for me to answer it. I'm so bad at answering those in a timely manner, it doesn't mean I don't like getting them.

Main ppl I watch right now: Etho, Tango, Bdubs, Rekrap, Kenadian

Links: Ao3 Artfight Bluesky

Tag directory and AU summaries below the cut.

Original Posts: #nics rambles - talking #nic plays games - game liveblogging #nics art - general art #nics writing - general writing #nics clips - my animations #nics wips - unfinished art/writing

Reblogs: #other's art - art/writing #clips - video clips

AUs: These AUs are mostly random art and rambles, I'm always planning on adding more to them. If you take interest or want to know something in particular, please feel free to send asks!

#bbpau - Boat Boys Pirate AU: The boat boys are cursed pirates bound by their souls, and with the help of Etho's old crew, must journey to get back to the people they care about.

#404 scifi au - Episode 404-inspired scifi AU: Etho works for a scientific organisation called the Script Foundation, and during his employment donates his DNA for use in their cloning program. When one of the clones escapes, he is tasked with aiding them in tracking it down, and along the way learns to live a little again. (Meanwhile 404, the escaped clone, gets up to all sorts of hijinks and shenanigans and lives his best space opera life).

#alien/astronaut au - A slabtek planet-exploration AU: Tango, a lost astronaut, crash lands on a strange planet and remains the only survivor of his crew (if you don't count his ship's interactive AI, S.K.I.Z.Z). After he rescues a lonely self-exiled alien–Etho–they begin a tumultuous friendship, complete with communication issues due to the language barrier, communication issues due to the fact that neither one of them likes talking about feelings, and communication issues due to the fact that they're both horrible at social interaction after so long of not talking to a single living being. Ah, romance.

[ethosiab]

Whats bbpau stand for? (Did i remember the acronym right??)

bbpau stands for boat boys pirate au! I am now just remembering that when I redid my pinned I took the part out about the au, so I'll add that back in now :D

Pretty soon I'll make a better introduction post with a summary and links to relevant tags and art, since there does seem to be interest in it. Hopefully I'll at least introduce the rest of TIES first though, because they're pretty relevant very early on (being the rest of joel and ethos party/crew)