Something Fishy has Happened

Use a metaphor to describe your relationship with your strategist, they said.

Nothing's going to happen to you, they said.

 Nothing fishy is going to happen... 

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Only Youjahime knows how long I've had this idea in mind. It started as a series of fantasies, evolved into a few imaginary scenes and finally came out as this drawing. Granted it is real watered down compared to what I fantasized about, but I'm glad nevertheless. Which fangirl doesn't like to see her favorite male polymorphed into a hunky mythological creature?

Those of you familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms lore would probably know Liu Bei's famous quote regarding his relationship with Zhuge Liang: "Gaining Kongming makes me feel like a fish recieving water." It has actually given rise to the official name used for the Liu Bei x ZGL pairing: "Shuiyu" (水鱼), or "water + fish". Obviously Liu Bei is describing himself as the fish, and given the evil nature of the fanbase, it's just a matter of time before parodies pop up...

I've seen pictures of Liu Bei as a mer-person before, but they were just caricatures or chibis; so I thought, if I really wanted to portray him as one, I'd rather make him into a full-fledged, somewhat plausible mer-creature instead of the usual "copy-paste human torso onto fish tail" job. That's why there is no border at the place where his human and piscean parts meet. Everything is supposed to be uniform and fluid.

Somewhere in Three Kingdoms China, Sun Shangxiang is fangirling. And somewhere in Modern China, a certain nerdy teenage girl is fangirling, too.

Enjoy!

Liu Bei (c) Chinese History, design (c) KOEI

Mer-Bei design and art (c) me