The Sea Shadow
is a Super Mario Bros. by FireFlamerx9z. It is complete at 9 chapters and an epilogue.
The night was the same as most nights at that point had been for Admiral Bobbery. Drowning his sorrows as he thought about his lost love. But on that fateful night, everything changed when he came across an abandoned merchant's wagon, carrying a badly injured and sick shadow girl. She needed someone and so did he.
The story is based around the idea of Vivian being adopted by Bobbery at a young age and how it changes both the characters and the story.
Can also be found here.
The Sea Shadow contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Vivian gets into a Blade Lock with Cortez. And actually manages to hold him off for a while!
- Adaptational Badass: Vivian, due to being motivated to actually fight, is strong right out of the gate and also wields both a sword and a blunderbuss.
- Adaptational Heroism: It's downplayed, since Vivian was never really a villain, but in this story she is on the heroes's side from the start.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Rather then everyone simply falling for Lord Crump's Paper-Thin Disguise, several of the heroes are openly suspicious of "Four Eyes".
- Adaptational Karma: Beldam is revealed to have disappeared shortly after the final battle with the Shadow Queen, with no one caring enough to look for her.
- Adaptational Modesty: Downplayed. In canon, Vivian doesn't wear anything beyond her hat and gloves (not that there is anything to see). Here, she wears an open pirate-like coat, as well as a sash across her chest.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Since she wasn't around Beldam for most of her life, Vivian lacks her canonical Shrinking Violet behavior and is instead a flirty, Hot-Blooded Deadpan Snarker.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Vivian and Bobbery barely interact into canon. Here, they are father and adopted daughter.
- Vivian lacks her canon crush on Mario, simply viewing him as a friend. Instead, she winds up developing feelings for Goombella.
- Related to the above, Vivian and Goombella end up becoming a couple by the end of the story.
- Adaptational Sexuality:
- Vivian is confirmed to be pansexual by
Word of God. - While Goombella's sexuality is never confirmed in story, canon only had her showing attraction to Mario. Here, while she does begin with a crush on him, she later returns Vivian's feelings, implying she may also be pansexual, bisexual, or demisexual.
- Vivian is confirmed to be pansexual by
- Adaptational Upbringing Change: In canon, it's implied that Vivian was raised by Beldam, who was a complete Big Sister Bully to her which left her a Shrinking Violet Socially Awkward Hero. This fanfic, on the other hand, had her get adopted by Admiral Bobbery early in her childhood and, due to him both giving her more support growing up as well as her different environment, leads to her being a flirty, Hot-Blooded Deadpan Snarker as well as on the heroes' side on the get go rather than having to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- In canon, Beldam's abuse of Vivian and Marilyn was limited to insults. Here, she is physically abusive to Marilyn, even using her ice magic to make the blows hurt more and was the one responsible for Vivian's brutal beating at the beginning of the story, with the heavy implication she was attempting a Sibling Murder. Needless to say, she does not make her canon Heel–Face Turn.
- It's revealed that the remaining X-Nauts did not make their canonical Heel–Face Turn.
- Battle Trophy: The sash Vivian wears is from a Gooper Blooper whose tentacle she cut off during a fight.
- Big Sister Bully: Beldam, much like in canon. She slaps Marilyn, using her ice magic to ensure that they hurt even more and was the one who attacked Vivian, leaving her badly injured all because the duo had a disagreement.
- Calling Me a Logarithm: When Koops calls her a Shadow Siren, Vivian assumes it's an insult and snaps at him.
- Catapult Nightmare: How Vivian wakes up after her lost memories come back to her as a dream.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Vivian is missing an eye due to Beldam attacking her as a child when in canon, she could see perfectly fine.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Why did Beldam attempt to murder Vivian? Because they had a disagreement over serving the Shadow Queen.
- Dramatic Irony: Where to begin?
- Vivian repeatedly saying that she's not a Shadow Siren and has no idea who they are.
- Upon learning his identity, Vivian states that she wasn't going to just bail on Mario simply because she knew who he was.
- Drowning My Sorrows: The story begins with Bobbery drinking due to his grief from Scarlette's death.
- Everyone Has Standards: While Vivian certainly doesn't like Grodus, she still tries to warn him about unleashing the Shadow Queen since she's well aware that Beldam most likely hid some details from him.
- Eyepatch of Power: Vivian wears an eyepatch to cover her missing eye and is quite the impressive fighter.
- Eye Scream: In the backstory of the story, Vivian's eye was stabbed out and the wound was so bad that it needed to be cauterized.
- Flaming Sword: One of Vivian's moves in combat.
- For Want Of A Nail: Vivian's closeness with Bobbery changes quite a bit.
- Bobbery receives Scarlette's letter years before canon due to Vivian wanting to learn to sail.
- Vivian agrees to help Mario out without him offering to help her first and also knows who he is, although she does need to have him hint at his true identity before she realizes that's she been helping him.
- Bobbery joins Mario due to Vivian talking about the adventure with him, rather than Mario giving him Scarlette's letter.
- After Vivian gets her memories back, she reveals to the heroes who Beldam is truly working for before they even enter the Thousand Year Door.
- The Gadfly: During their fight in chapter 3, Vivian begins flirting with Goombella and increases the intensity when she realizes that the goomba is getting flustered.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Being a devoted older brother to Luigi, Mario struggles to understand why Beldam would attack and abuse her younger siblings (and in Vivian's case, attempt to murder them).
- Handicapped Badass: In spite of missing an eye, Vivian is an impressive sword and blunderbuss user and lacks the confidence issues that hampered her in canon.
- Happily Adopted: Vivian adores Bobbery and it's implied she wanted to learn how to sail to be like him.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Played with, as no one directly tells Vivian this. Rather, she gives the same sentiment after defeating Beldam in their one-on-one fight, telling her former sister that she's not like her.
- In Spite of a Nail: Vivian and Bobbery still join Mario's team in what would have been the same chapters as canon and for the same reasons.
- Interspecies Adoption: Bobbery, a bob-omb, has adopted Vivian, who is a Living Shadow.
- Interspecies Romance: A subplot of the story is the slowly building romance between Vivian, a Living Shadow and Goombella, a goomba, with them ultimately getting together in the last chapter of the story.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The story begins on a stormy night.
- Loophole Abuse: When Doopliss steals his identity, Mario is cursed to be unable to say his name. However, there is nothing preventing him from describing himself to Vivian and her realizing who he is based on the clues.
- Mythology Gag:
- After the heroes defeat Gloomtail, Goombella notes that at least he wasn't a skeleton, alluding to Bonetail, who doesn't appear in this story.
- After watching Beldam insult Doopliss, Vivian internally notes that had she remained with the Shadow Sirens, she likely would have the group's Butt-Monkey, which is exactly the role she played in canon and the reason she would ditch them in canon.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A general rule of thumb that the team quickly picks up on is that Vivian is freaked out, something bad is either happening, or about to happen.
- As she's getting her memories back, the partners all note how wrong it feels to see one of the stronger members of the team suddenly look so small and afraid.
- As Grodus is releasing the Shadow Queen, as well as when she regains her true form, Vivian's voice outright goes numb, revealing that she's not actually sure if they can't beat the Shadow Queen.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: After Vivian (who, reminder, only has one eye) finds the note on the Excess Express, Koops asks if she wants someone else to read it for her. Luckily for him, she laughs him off.
- Papa Wolf: While Bobbery tried to reason with the mayor of Fahr Outpost, he switches to threats the moment that the mayor makes a nasty remark directed at Vivian.
- Precision F-Strike: Once she finishes explaining to the group what exactly Beldam did to her, Vivian finishes by saying "My own sister tried to fucking kill me!" before breaking into sobs.
- Related in the Adaptation: Vivian was adopted by Bobbery when she was young.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Both Beldam and Marilyn were under the belief that Vivian was dead and are shocked to learn that she is helping Mario from Grodus.
- The Reveal: The second half of chapter 5 has Vivian get her memories back as a nightmare, causing her to reveal to the others (and the readers) who her attacker was: Beldam.
- Rugged Scar: It's noted that Vivian has a couple aside from the one near her eye.
- Ship Tease: Vivian and Goombella get several teases during the story, beginning from Vivian flirting with Goombella during the fight with Doopliss and going from there.
- Shout-Out:
- The Yoshi partner is named Rocky, for Rocky Balboa.
- At one point, Vivian calls Lord Crump Alien X.
- After beating him the second time, Rocky jokes that Lord Crump is blasting off again.
- As he's looking over the picture of Vivian and Goombella on their date, Mario notes that Vivian's outfit combined with her eyepatch gives her a Phantom Of The Opera like appearance.
- Sibling Murder: It's all but outright said that reason Vivian was in such a sorry state at the beginning of the story was because Beldam was attempting to kill her.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Vivian is found near death with zero memory of who did it to her or anything outside of her name. Bobbery basically namedrops the trope.
- Would Hurt a Child: Vivian was only around five when Beldam attacked her and slashed out her eye.
