#(( they just come off as such because of the existence of the merkingdom

[royalreef]

@matty-m​ inquired: what type of merfolk would the Interdimensional Prince be?(not a particular niche pick, but he's been on my brain a lot lately)

(( The first and main issue to labeling the Prince as any given type of merfolk is the fact that we don’t know very much about him and the place where he comes from. Yes, I know he has an ending of his own, but this doesn’t really clarify much in this issue, since we would need to know about inner-kingdom politics and history.

The first and only thing we have to go off of is his need to find a proper marriage candidate, which does help in determining his position in the Merkingdom’s hierarchy of royals, but it doesn’t so much as help with species.

The merfolk who become suitors and enter into the suitor system are primarily Middle Royals, with a heavier bias towards Lower-Middle Royals. There are far less Low Royals in the system because they usually have otherwise guaranteed positions and very few options for upward mobility, alongside there just naturally being fewer of them.

They’re also all the non-inheriting children of their lineages. See, since Merkingdom inheritance switches into going to the youngest as you move from High Royals to Middle Royals and Low Royals, any given royal can decide that, if their heir is unsatisfactory in some way or they don’t want them inheriting their position, then they can simply have another child.

This has the side effect of producing a lot of children who couldn’t cut it as an heir or are otherwise unfavored in their given family lines, and their families have to decide what to do with them. They could give them some meager position within the family itself, or, they could use these children in a different way to bolster the reputation and position of their family inside of Merkingdom politics.

The families will then pressure and push their children into entering the suitor system. When someone becomes a suitor, they will select a given Lower-Middle or Low Royal heir in which to become a suitor of, and enter the Suitors’ Court of that royal. These Suitors’ Courts effectively work as pools of potential partners for that inheriting royal to select from and to secure their position in furthering the family lineage. Suitors can switch which royal they’re suitors under, but this is discouraged, because when I say they’re Courts, I do mean this in a literal way.

There are a lot of politics involved in governing Suitors’ Courts, and these politics determine hierarchy within the potential candidates. A royal can select any potential suitor within their court, but it’s discouraged for them to pick a lower-ranking suitor within that court, because the higher-ranking suitors are still royals with royal families behind them.

If a higher-ranking suitor feels scorned by their royal, then they can still pull on strings to politically punish that royal, justifying that they were unduly and unfairly judged and that their royal is not acting with the best interests of their family line at heart. If their families feel a royal has scorned a suitor that they sent, then they can begin to refuse to comply with that royal, souring political arrangements and poisoning favor for that royal and even potentially starting to bully them in the royal’s other Courts, if enough other royals likewise take their side or feel as though the royal is not acting with their best wishes. Especially since the family lineage of the selected suitor reaps additional benefits from the family the suitor has married into and can be used as a pawn in further negotiations, this isn’t a zero-sum game for them.

But this isn’t the only factor. There’s also the issue of the politics among suitors themselves and inside each Suitors’ Court. Suitors do not naturally form this hierarchy, even though they already come with their own available resources from their family line and their existing ranking within the system of royals. Suitors are encouraged to enforce this hierarchy over each other, trying to deliberately deter other suitors from getting in their way or working against their best interests to secure a position as a Low Royal. Suitors will even make subordinates of other suitors or form inner-Court coalitions in order to better increase their chances, and see no issue with doing whatever they can to force another suitor from their position.

Those higher-ranking suitors get first dibs on interactions with their chosen royal, better resources with which to convince their royal that they’re a more suitable candidate, and even resources at their disposal to try and force their royal’s hand in picking.

So, I think it goes without saying that the Prince would be one of these non-inheriting royals who was forced into the suitor system, obligated to pick another royal to convince to marry him so that he and his family can reap the benefits of a higher position within the hierarchy.

This is a little ironic considering he’s effectively a parody of The Bachelor, and this would make him moreso one of the candidates on The Bachelor rather than the titular bachelor himself, but I can’t see him behaving the same way he does if he was the inheriting royal in this situation. Most royals don’t feel positively towards their Suitors’ Courts, and it’s not hard to imagine why, and they often end up putting off marriage (in the not-quite marriage definition for what Merkingdom royals actually do) as long as they can.

However this also doesn’t tell us any more about what species of merfolk he would be either. He likely wouldn’t be a “vampire” merfolk, a “grouper” merfolk, an arctic merfolk, or either Mediterranean species, as all of these are extremely rare to see even as Middle Royals, and would immediately be lowest in the pecking order in any Suitors’ Court. I also don’t see him being an abyssal either, since abyssals have almost all crammed themselves into the ranks of the Low Royals and slowly lost genetic diversity from there.

Most reasonably, I think the Interdimensional Prince would likely be a Pacific Reef Merfolk, simply for the sake of retaining his bright and flashy colors, as they have multiple subspecies with different coloration that can be used to tell populations apart.

Reef merfolk are a little worse at swimming than their more pelagic cousins, having longer, thinner bodies that are better at weaving through shallower water — but they also have historically ventured out onto land more often than other merfolk, often scavenging from shorelines or seasonally moving inland for stretches of time. This isn’t true of them anymore, due to greater historical movements within the Merkingdom itself, but it does suit him as the closest merfolk come to inhabiting an “interdimensional” role.

Some of the largest and most populated cities in the region were founded primarily by them and their cultural groups, and they’re some of the most densely populated merfolk. Most of them first gained power through being major hubs through which the nomadic groups would visit with and trade, but retained their power through military might and technological innovation through specialty cultivars of sedentary organisms, able to grow them far larger and for far longer.

[royalreef]

FUN ASK!!! If you were forced to play as your least favorite character in the fandom, who would they be? How would you play them?

(( I have an assortment of least favorite characters, but they do depend on why I hate them.

There's the characters who are designed specifically to be hated, which in this case, is Leonard. Ironically, this is something that I've already been thinking of lately — not writing him, but just how he would work in the context of the redesign universe and some of my increasing interest in amphibians. While he exists to be a classic example of a transphobe in a way that turns people off, I think this could be sincerely interesting to explore? As in, I'm interested in why people think bigoted things and what are the contexts in which they exist, the way it shows up and presents, because I think sincerely understanding these in a way that isn't immediately throwing it out can help to understand the ways to get rid of and alleviate these behaviors and lines of thought. You have to speak their language, at least in part, to de-radicalize them, basically.

And because I'm interested in the way it presents in different cultural contexts and the complexity there, something which is particularly interesting in terms of frogs, which is what I'd probably go with kappas being, and the different behaviors of male and female frogs and how they might be translated through the lens of culture. I already debated on how gender, for them, might be something that exists in either a seasonal or a strongly stratified manner, and potentially adding in faeder males as an additional complexity. I think, evolutionarily, males were pond-builders with strong territoriality to guard a specific body of water, which would act as a display alongside loud calls to convince females to lay eggs in that pond, and would then act as dedicated caregivers for the rest of the season for that pond. Which would then have implications, as these ponds maybe became longer-term staples and tied into settled architecture and agriculture.

Then there are characters that I hate for personal reasons. Adrien... Adrien, I will likely never touch and continue to pretend doesn't exist in my lore, because it will continually piss me off that Miranda wasn't seen as a "lore character" and what she had to say on the Merkingdom didn't matter unless it was coming from a male character. I have a vendetta against Adrien. I will never be happy with Adrien. If I ever write Adrien, then that's not me.

And lastly, there are characters that I hate because they're simply too popular in the fandom and it ruined them for me. I ironically have considered writing most of these before: Oz, Damien, Zoe, etc.

I'd want to go with the old way of viewing and handling Oz, where I don't just make him the same token anxious pushover character you've seen a thousand times, and let him be mean and nasty at times, and try to do something more interesting with his lore. ( I notoriously hate OP Oz's and eldritch Oz's. There's so many embodiments of fear as a trope in fiction. Do something interesting for once. )

Damien, I feel like I could handle and write very well, even if his voice might be hard to get down for me? I like a lighter touch with Damien in comparison, letting him be pushed around a little more and be more than just what the fandom presents him as. I think there are ways you could be genuinely very touching and heartfelt with him in a very subdued and gentle way, and unfortunately everyone is so eager to overuse and overapply him that these lighter notes of his characterization is often lost. If you're going to act like he's a fine dish, then at least treat him like one.

Zoe... Zoe might be the hardest one, just because I know I couldn't write her in her existing form. She's too... all fan-culture and fan-content and reference-to-other-media focused that just thinking about writing her in that way hurts me.

However, I am a VERY big fan of older speculations on Zoe's character, before she was an RO and when we just had the one ending with her. I think writing her as deeper in that learning curve of figuring out how to be a person would be MUCH more fun, especially if you fully commit to her being creepier and more unsettling. I don't like her eldritch nature being reduced down to the flashy and the overt, and I especially don't like treating her as fairly cut and dry. I think MonProm had one idea of a weird girl, but said idea of a weird girl is... well, a lot more mainstream than they want to admit to themselves. I think I'd probably commit a lot harder to her being similar to other neurodivergent people I've known, people who aren't and will never be palatable in any broader sense, and who are much better off for it. I've said that I'm unable to write anything that isn't a disability narrative, and I think the best way to write Zoe would be fully hitting her with the disability narrative hammer.

[royalreef]

Anonymous inquired:  🦈 Random Merfolk Species Information - Accepting

Name for Themselves: Jrh’yhwa’t, Jrr’hywt, Hry’ywt, Rr’wthe, and other variations. Name Meaning: Small, in the shadows/in the cracks. Alternatively: dappled/speckled. (General) Mer Name for the Species: Crr’ione (General) Mer Name Meaning: Searing, like how a cut or venom will burn. Ragged. Languages: Rb’ttyi, Ypt’olie, S’er’gg, Enth’k, etc. Many smaller, regional languages, some only spoken in isolated communities. OOC Shorthand Names/My Nickname(s) for Them: Vampires, Cookiecutters, Lampreys

(( These are one of my favorite species of merfolk that I’ve had, developed and waiting, for a WHILE now! They’re one of the most unique of the merfolk species, which in this case, refers to how specialized they are! 

When I make merfolk, I’m typically creature-creating in the same way that actual evolution works. Which is, namely, that I have certain traits that I keep in mind for their ancestor, and I think about the environment which they are endemic to, and I then use both of those to extrapolate and figure out both what niche they would occupy and what adaptations they would have to fulfill that niche.

Which means that I’m usually working with the existing environments and ecosystems that are in the world, which usually means that merfolk fall into fairly typical roles in their ecosystem. This happens all of the time in nature, and largely I consider it good for that reason. Having a small, canine predator to eat generalist small mammals and birds is a common thing irl for good reason, since that’s both how ecosystems and evolution works. Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken. And, typically, similar designs work similarly well, which is why in places without canines, mammals might still evolve canine-like body plans in a method of convergent evolution. Taking advantage of similar resources and living similar lifestyles typically leads to similar solutions.

So that’s why a lot of my merfolk feel like they’re taking notes from everything from sharks to dolphins to mosasaurs - because they are! Their branch on the tetrapod family tree is closer to amphibians than anything else living today, but all of those animals evolve to look very similar for good reason! There’s only so many solutions to being marine megafauna and swimming efficiently, which is why everything kind of decides to get big and blobby in the ocean!

Which is why this species is SUCH A TREAT to me!

Because, every so often, I end up in a solution where my worldbuilding creates its own niche in an ecosystem. There’s a lot of different merfolk species, they’re pretty successful in what they do, and when you get one successful species, there’s only so much time you have before other species change to take advantage of that resource.

Which is all to say - the jrh’yhwa’t are specialist predators of other merfolk.

This is why I’ve taken to calling them ‘ cookiecutters ’ - after the cookiecutter shark! They are tiny, unassuming little sharks, about the size of a pencil, who have GIANT teeth and have evolved to sneak up on much larger animals, cut perfectly circular chunks of meat out of them, and dart away with their easy meal!

The jrh’yhwa’t are among the smallest species of merfolk. Miranda herself is actually closer to being in their range for a fully grown healthy adult at just under five feet tall, though they have shorter tails than abyssals and longer torsos, both proportionally. They’re usually pretty dull colored - dark browns are common, with lighter tan underbellies or black markings, which are usually minimal and largely take the form of barring or dappling, but melanism is semi-uncommon among them. Their eyes are large with slitted pupils and usually blue, with some uncommon or rare colors that have the chance to pop up. They, like most merfolk species, lack bioluminescence. Unlike most merfolk, however, they’re heterodonts - with larger piercing fangs in the front of their mouth and larger shearing “molars” in the back of their mouth which come together like scissors.

They’re a part of the one genus of merfolk that I actually haven’t shown on this blog yet. For now I’ve just taken to calling the genus the “Atlantic Genus”, because they’re the main genus that’s adapted for life in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, alongside the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, but I’m probably going to find a better term for them and the other two genus as well. There’s plenty of the “Pacific Genus” in the Atlantic Ocean, and plenty of the “Atlantic Genus” in the Pacific Ocean, and the “Basal Genus” is just a misnomer because they’ve definitely been evolving along their own paths as well!

However, for this discussion, know that the “Atlantic Genus” is unified through the fact that they had their origins in adapting to life in the Arctic Circle first, and for that, they typically have reduced scale coverage in favor of thicker skin, a more “evenly balanced” tail ( looking closer to a fish’s tail than the massive lower lobe that the abyssals, some others in the “Basal Genus”, and the leviathans - this is a similar thing to what happened to marine reptile tails in their evolutionary history ), some steps towards true warmbloodedness, adaptations for colder weather, and more-fused ( and less-useful at extracting oxygen ) earfins than the “Basal Genus”.

Typically, jrh’yhwa’t are less social than other merfolk. They’ll form smaller, but very close-knit, groups with each other, and will usually skirt around and shy away from other, larger, merfolk social groups - but merfolk are a lot like whales, in that they’ll sing to each other to communicate and bond over long distances. Jrh’yhwa’t absolutely will join in this, and that’s where they’ll usually shine, in terms of being included in other species of merfolk’s social groups! In terms of merfolk, they’re usually considered as having some of the overall prettiest or best-sounding voices, with there being some specific refinements in their vocal chords to allow them to produce sharper notes at higher pitches, which ends up in them sounding unusually “clear” to other mer. 

Of course, evolutionarily, this was so that other merfolk would come closer to them - where they could dart in, quickly shear off pieces of the other’s fins, tail, sides, or even limbs, and then dart away while the other mer was still trying to understand what was happening. The same can be said for their attunement to higher pitches of sounds, since they work better for shorter distances, and thus are more useful in communicating to each other without other mer possibly listening in.

But this is the modern day, and it’s been modern history for them for well over 27,000 years. Well before the Modern Merkingdom was founded, they had stopped this pattern of predation, with the rise of things like domesticated animals and the shifts in diet and lifestyle that come along with agriculture, much less forming established groups and civilizations all to their own. Life changes. For humans, it was adapting into being reliant on cooked food and developing the dietary infrastructure to handle dairy, and for the jrh’yhwa’t, that meant starting to rely on food sources that weren’t other merfolk.

Unfortunately... Well, other merfolk tend to view the jrh’yhwa’t as sly or devious or dangerous. When I talk about when the jrh’yhwa’t were true specialist predators, that really was in their evolutionary history, and well lost by the time any merfolk was building their first cities ( a rare few still inhabited to this day, but most fallen or lost to time ), and it’s not in recent memory nor even ancient history, truly closer to something like the stone age for merfolk, but when other mer dislike them, it’s not really rational. They’re small. They keep to themselves. They prefer staying out of everyone’s business and only joining in from afar. 

Really, it’s more about them being counted as outsiders first and foremost for why other merfolk are biased against them, and their history as specialist predators is used for justification for that, even when no one could possibly even remember when that was a larger part of their lives, or even when other merfolk themselves aren’t immune from the same issue. The Merkingdom has an existing method of which merfolk meat can be bought to be eaten, and Merkingdom royalty and those in power will even show it off as a gesture of their authority. It’s not about their history, it’s just about the fact that they’ve been deemed an other. It’s all hypocrisy for the sake of a different goal.

They’re very much a minority in most places in the Merkingdom - with exception for a few of their own enclaves where they’ve lived for generations. Typically their cultures are very specific to which family or village they’re from, with stories passed down verbally that can differ greatly from even other jrh’yhwa’t. They can be private, so a lot of their history and stories and culture is kept very strictly within their own communities and can be hard to document otherwise, with entire collections of their knowledge going extinct in one fell swoop with the destruction of one community or family line. They have a lot of languages for this reason, and would have even more if you count their languages that have gone extinct. 

They’re actually known cultivators of various sturgeon, and have their own techniques to handle their anadromous life cycles - though, not every community keeps sturgeon either. Most of their villages are closer to shore than other merfolk, typically favoring the North American or European shores of the Atlantic Ocean, but there are definitely those in deeper waters as well, and they’re one of the species of merfolk who stay in place instead of living more nomadic lifestyles. 

Most other merfolk communities only really know where those villages are because of their songs, as I mentioned, as merfolk behave like whales and will “sing” for long-distance communication. Unfortunately, there is a nasty history of then finding those villages and destroying them completely, even though most of the time other merfolk will mentally note to keep away from those areas. Sometimes those villages will then respond by entirely closing off and not even “sing” at all - but due to how merfolk psychology works, that’s super stressful, even for them. Especially for them, even.

[royalreef]

(( Since its the dash topic right now:

Miranda has a strict regimen of birth control that she’s been placed on and will remain on until she’s been properly married and the time has come to have heirs. Until that point, she can’t go off of it, because it’s maintained by the Merkingdom and doing so before ordained by them could be seen as potentially questionable behavior that takes the rest of her rule into question.

This is primarily for the prevention of bastards — any royal that’s caught with a bastard child, had with anyone who they are not properly wedded to, is a massive black mark on their record. Other royals highly prize the sheer blackmail potential of the existence of a bastard and would absolutely use the, intentional or accidental, weakening of another noble family’s inheriting line to their full benefit. Royals are incredibly eager to stab each other in the back, and the existence of a bastard child is practically a target painted onto their back.

This is bad enough when it’s a bastard child between two royals, but it’s far worse when it’s a bastard child between a royal and a non-royal. The more powerful the royal’s station, the lesser the non-royal, and the stronger the blackmail material, and the stronger the potential repercussions of having made a bastard.

Because of this, if a royal has a bastard, chances are that they don’t know about it. If a royal does come across the information that they have a bastard child somewhere in the world, who potentially could claim inheritance of their family line but was not claimed by said family line at their birth, then their first and immediate move will be killing said child. There’s too much at risk to let them to live, and they’ll often murder the family and community of the bastard child as well, just to make sure that their tracks are fully covered and no one finds out about this. It’s too dangerous to let them live, and it’s too dangerous to let anyone know.

Because of this, if communities discover that one of the children within them is the bastard child of a royal, well...

While there are certainly communities and families that will happily welcome a child in, even a child who was born of a royal, and will swear themselves to secrecy and promise to keep them safe — they aren’t a majority, and it’s easy to see why. A bastard child puts them all at risk, implicating all of them in the political games that royals play, and the commonfolk seldom get out ahead in these games. There are other children too, other people, other lives put at risk, all because of this single action, and they all know what the wrath of a royal looks like. They all know how painful and brutal those deaths can be, and they know entire communities have been wholly wiped off the map because of this.

Oftentimes, if a community discovers one of their members has had a bastard child of a royal, they’ll turn that member and bastard child in. Whether to the Merkingdom, or to a competing royal who is all too eager for blackmail and willing to offer protection in turn, or to the royal parent themselves — it seldom ever works out as fully intended, but it’s still better than the alternative for most of the communities who do it.

Even children between two royals who are properly married to each other that aren’t fully planned out and arranged to be born ahead of their conception aren’t immune to this backlash either. The royals take the manner of inheritance and their family lines seriously, and implicating themselves as not taking their duties seriously and having full responsibility to hold onto their title is not only dangerous for what the consequences could be, but also dangerous for how other royals will react.

The hierarchy of royals within the Merkingdom shifts constantly, and holding onto what control they have is a deadly and tricky game.

[rxttenfish]

my biggest changes in merkingdom/miranda lore that are fairly important as i work on stuff i can show off over here:

miranda is the heir. she’s still the youngest of four sisters, and there is lore reasons for why it goes to the youngest-born in the royal family, but she is very much the heir. mostly this is because both, i was here before we ever even discovered miranda had siblings at all, but also because i just like it more. gives a tighter story.

i’m ignoring the fifth sister. 

and most of the lore that comes out about the vanderbilts and each sister as time goes forward. i had my bellanda lore figured out before the bellanda ending came out, i’m not changing it.

there is only one merkingdom. there are no other kingdoms underwater. they effectively control all saltwater. this also has lore and lore implications.

the merkingdom has been isolated for millennia. they haven’t talked to the land or even made any indication to anyone else that they existed at all, and there are still laws preventing merfolk from interacting with landfolk. while its starting to lift a little with a new push to interact with the land and forge new political relationships outside of the merkingdom, only royals of a certain rank are allowed on land. 

serfs and merfolk are entirely different things.

most people are only ever going to interact with one merfolk and its miranda. sometimes bellanda, they hang out more than in canon, again due to lore reasons.

basically no one goes what’s going on in the merkingdom besides what miranda tells them and what they learn from her.

no one has visited the merkingdom either. they get... touchy, about that. and also it’s not exactly safe.

the king has never and can never come up onto dry land.

the queen is dead, and miranda has never known what she was like in life.

bellanda is very much the black sheep of the family. miranda is the closest person to bellanda, and bellanda’s the closest person to miranda. 

[royalreef]

@biteyourcrush​ inquired: 🐶 Feesh time....... for Ravi.............. Muses as Merfolk - NOT Accepting

(( I think Aaravi would be a hybrid of an Abyssal merfolk and a Pacific-Migratory merfolk!

The thing to remember about merfolk and their various species is that I’m basing them off of the various species of human. That is — when there was more than one species with the genus Homo, there have been multiple occasions where those species successfully interbred, and those hybrids were also able to have kids of their own. This is the braided stream concept of evolution, of multiple closely related species being able to add to each other’s gene pools successfully, to the point that there are people today who still have some fraction of Neanderthal or Denisovan in their DNA to act as genetic fossils of that trade. So, when different species of merfolk get together, the resulting hybrids are much like their parents beyond the genetic quirks. Most extant species of merfolk actually do have some traces in their respective gene pools of this mixing, because if you put any two populations close together you will get kids out of it, but their phenotypes fully reflect what’s standard of their species. Time goes on, the kids look more and more like one species because it’s not a perfect and even split between the two, and at the end they’re usually fairly indistinguishable from the more standard mer.

That said, any Abyssal hybrids in the modern day within the Merkingdom are... taboo. 

The exact politics isn’t the same for every hybrid — it very much depends on who the parents are. If they’re both essentially just your average person but different species, then usually it’s not a big deal. It varies based on location to location and culture to culture, but overall, the closer match in lifestyles and positions within society means the greater the chances that a hybrid won’t be an issue.

The issue comes in with Abyssals. Abyssal merfolk started out mostly restrained to a few locations, but not every abyssal was in a position of power and most were still laypeople. But, as the Modern Merkingdom formed, there came a bias towards Abyssals and especially those from those initial populations, and they got placed into more and more powerful positions, and the new royals ( who were Abyssals to begin with, solely because that was just the species of that initial family who started it first ) began inbreeding and having issues associated with it, and pulling from the outside Abyssal population, which pulled them up in power, who began inbreeding again, and so on and so forth. Eventually you get to the issue today, where being an Abyssal is synonymous with the Low Royals, and Abyssals in the wider population is unheard of, similarly reinforced by how heavily the Crown prefers to be seen as the only Abyssals in existence. Therefore, by Merkingdom standards, Abyssal genetics should not be out in the wider population. Either the hybrid was from a marriage between a Middle Royal and a Low Royal, in which case they would have a title, or, if they lack a title, they’re a bastard and a stain on a Low Royal’s bloodline.

In terms of Merkingdom law... It’s an unwritten rule that bastards should not ever occur. They can severely mess up a royal’s inheritance, and it’s seen as dragging a commoner into a position which they are entirely unfit to have. If a bastard is born, but they’re claimed at birth and brought into the title, then there’s still an issue, because it can be seen as a betrayal to the marriage to their intended partner to continue their royal line and thus proof that they aren’t taking their commitment and their duties seriously. To know that a royal has a bastard is a point of blackmail that can be used to extreme effect, even capable of labelling a royal a traitor.

Unfortunately, royals also like to sleep around, and sleeping around with commonfolk is still common, particularly since it’s seen as a no-strings-attached bit of fun, whereas sleeping with another royal means they cannot avoid the inherent politics of the matter. If a royal discovers they’ve contributed to the creation of a bastard in some way, then they are almost guarenteed to try and destroy them. The easier they can dispose of them without anyone knowing, the better, and this makes any bastard meeting their royal parent a major risk. Particularly so, because in effort to cover up the existence of a bastard, the royal will often have the associated family killed or destroyed in one way or another to get rid of witnesses.

In terms of Pacific-Migratory merfolk, on the other hand, they are... fairly ordinary. They were one of the species that existed in the Pre-Modern Merkingdom, and for that, they were already fairly used to the Merkingdom and the Merkingdom to them. Quite a few were grandfathered in and even occupy positions up to being a Middle Royal with fairly little note, but most are fairly ordinary and still tend to the same routes and patterns that they always have. They often tend to shoals of fish livestock that they tend to as they follow those routes, or form thriving trade systems, and are heavily associated with leviathan hunts, as they’re often those best-suited to managing them.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t exactly make having an obvious bastard in their mix any easier. In a way, it’s seen akin to harboring a fugitive, and while there are communities that will work to hide them, there are also communities that are afraid that, by having them around, they’re also in danger. They’re potential witnesses and accomplices, and for that, the royal who sired them would very much want the community destroyed as well. While turning in a bastard doesn’t exactly go well, it’s also sometimes still seen as the better option.

On a biological slant — hybrids come in two varieties. Much like hitting the randomize button in character creation, you get the hybrids that look mostly like one species but a little weird, and you also get the hybrids that look bizarre and are very obviously hybrids. Facial proportions often look odd, as do fins and coloration, and they might be the worse version of what either parents are adapted to do.

In this case : another merfolk would be able to immediately tell that Aaravi has the body of a migratory species of some kind, but her tail isn’t shaped right to reach those higher speeds, as well as heavier plating and scaling to weight her down and produce drag. Fins are too small to be an Abyssal’s and pointed, but they’re also not fused and frilly in a way that no migratory species has. She has the teeth of an Abyssal, but her face is too thin to have the same skeletal and muscular reinforcement Abyssals do to make full use of their teeth. It’s covered up by her fins, but she has four gill slits like a Pacific Migratory and with extra inner lining like an Abyssal, but one gill slit is sealed and improperly formed which makes it unusable. She’s also a VERY obvious red, connected to Abyssals, but the Pacific-Migratory genes both dilute the color down to a nearly metallic sheen, as well as give her markings that Abyssals lack, such as countershading and unique patterns on her tail. She has bioluminescence on her face, shoulders, fins, and tail, but far less than a true Abyssal would.

There’s also other things she’d get from a Low Royal lineage, but it’s not the type of trait that you can see, unfortunately.

[royalreef]

(( When Miranda first started coming to Spooky High, she wasn’t the same as the Miranda you might see today. All of the original ROs would be aware of this, and even most of them probably were freshmen right alongside her back then, but with the passage of time, most students haven’t seen Miri like that, even if they have heard stories about it.

The simple fact of the matter is that when Miranda first arrived, she was... Way more mean and cruel. She was tense and strict, practically obsessed with punishing even other students and teachers when they faltered even slightly, standoffish and closed off from everyone else. Very much a stickler for the rules too, though this applies to the Merkingdom’s rules and not necessity the school’s, all whether or not someone falls under their dominion.

In short, freshman Miranda was an asshole.

However... That’s all due to her being fresh out of the Merkingdom. There wasn’t really a cultural stepping stone for her before that - sure, she was taught English and basic guidelines on how to behave around landfolk and how to walk and move when gravity’s suddenly a thing that exists, but those are all technical skills at best, and they were done via the Merkingdom and approved by the Merkingdom. Her freshman year was the first time she was ever really set loose upon the land and expected to hold herself together.

When Miranda was such a stickler for rules and startlingly harsh to everyone, that was still her running on Merkingdom rules. Which involve her never letting her guard down, assuming everyone is out to kill her or worse, unable to trust anyone other than Bellanda, and incredibly used to the Merkingdom watching everything she did when she wasn’t locked up in a known safe room. A good rule for her back then was that she was wound up like a spring with all her repressed emotions and terrified. She was dealing with culture shock, suddenly presented with a place that she could actually have a looser leash while there, and so much trauma was still fresh in her mind that not being an asshole, that she might be able to actually talk to someone like they weren’t either a lesser to be crushed below her or a fellow authority figure to either brutalize or be brutalized by, just never occurred to her.

And yeah, she did think the Merkingdom was watching her! They’d kept a close eye on her all her life, and in the kingdom proper, there was no escaping that to speak of. If you’re in public, the kingdom is keeping an eye on you, and for Miranda, that meant what she did was being directly relayed back to the King, and if she started to even look disappointing, then she could be seriously hurt. Sure, even on land she’s still being monitored and the kingdom has their methods of surveillance, but much more falls through the cracks in comparison, and it’s just harder when merfolk aren’t really made to be land-bound for long periods of time.

But you know no one ever told that to Miranda. She had to figure that out on her own, and it was... rough.

However... As you can guess, those walls didn’t last forever, and Miranda did make it over that learning curve! To someone else, it would’ve looked really quick, only maybe six or so months after Miranda started coming, but that’s just how she was publicly showing it. A thing about Miranda is that she tries to hide her emotional cracks, and she’ll often have to do something or another for days at a time, so her taking even a week off to go have a breakdown wouldn’t be noticed by the staff nor the students. 

It was overwhelming!! All her life Miranda had been chronically starved of affection and attention, and outside of literally one of her sisters, she had no basis for warmth or understanding her need to actually be loved and liked. Time and time again she had to repress it, had to hide it, had to do literally anything other than acknowledge that she was just a single mermaid who needed social interactions ( which is bad enough, but with just how hyper social merfolk actually are, it’s a particular kind of hell all to itself ) - and suddenly!! Here were landfolk who just freely did it, right in front of her, with no repercussions to be seen or known!! 

I absolutely imagine that once, Scott got really excited in his usual doggy way, and forgot that Miranda would have a fit over being touched, and he actually picked her up and hugged her... And Miranda just went limp. Her mind just stopped working, because it felt amazing and wonderful and like a dehydrated person finally being able to taste water for the first time, and she just. Didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even tell Scott off afterwards, she just ran off and stayed home for a week, consumed with terror that the Merkingdom had seen and she was about to be disposed of as an unsatisfactory heir. But... After a week with no family-sent assassins, no guards to drag her from her bed, not even a scolding letter from the palace, she just... awkwardly shuffled back to Spooky High. And realized that not even anyone else at school would mention it.

After that point, Miranda very quickly picked up on the fact that... Oh yeah, she can just be hugged here! And no one will blink an eye! She can start to relax on her mannerisms. She can let stuff slide, and no one will hurt her for it. For once in her life, Miranda had a real, sincere place that’s the closest she’s ever gotten to being out of the Merkingdom’s control, and it felt amazing. 

Miranda is very much a character who has been chronically starved for affection and attention. It’s part of why she’s so eager to seek it out, why now she’ll sit in other people’s laps and kiss them as a platonic thing. It’s part of why she’s so flirty and why she demands to be touched and held and just loved all the time. It’s a large part of why she’s so easy to ship with, why she wants to be in relationships with people.

Because it’s a need that’s gone almost entirely unmet until she arrived at Spooky High, and she’s trying to make up for YEARS of nothing.

[royalreef]

@biteyourcrush​ inquired:  🗡 DOI and two to three of them have already~! (Listen, Vera's ABSOLUTELY stoned a few folks off-screen, come at me) Would you kill for Miranda? - Not Accepting

                     She knows.

      That’s the funny thing, isn’t it? She knows. Even with only two out of three personally witnessed and the third easily guessed ( Vera had the best chance of personally understanding where Miranda was coming from, even with their differences being what they were ), it feels right. Right enough to not make Miranda blink, to not make her falter, to not even change that much beyond the gentle fluttering of her heartbeat.

      It’s hard to describe the personal sense of connection she had to the concept of the knight. Not the literal ones, of course, even her own in her Knight’s Court, rude and boisterous and seldom motivated by anything other than tormenting others in the thin guise of doing it for the crown. No matter what was taught, that giving them that much freedom to do what they pleased was for the better of the people and Miranda’s control over them - it wasn’t personal. They were not any more invested in her than anyone else who worked beneath Miranda in her domain, and she tried to avoid meeting them for that.

              The land, with all its flaws, came with a better envisioning of the system. 

      A personal code. A sworn oath. Those who walked proudly into battle bearing her flag and her name upon their lips. Who would protect her until their dying day and lay down their lives for her. Standing watch over her and her able to feel so safe under their watchful eyes and strengthened shields, who answered to her above all others of her family name, who looked upon her and knew that her health and safety was exactly the reason they were given life.

      Miranda wasn’t sure how it was supposed to work. Not really, as the stories never exactly dealt with how to ensure that her knights were loyal and true and they would all hold her to the same high regard, as opposed to what her real knights were like, merely exploiting an opportunity given to them for their own ambitions. Even with Vicky so willing to pledge herself as Miranda’s knight, with Aaravi knowing all the dangers that existed and swearing to keep Miranda safe regardless - neither truly were the same as the stories. Neither Vicky nor Aaravi were citizens of the Merkingdom ( though she was... in a grey area, considering the tokens of teeth that Miranda had made with utmost love for her ), and Miranda could only ever visit the land.

       But she didn’t really care. It wasn’t about it being literal. It was about the meaning behind it. It was that she was loved. Loved above just her title, above all of the flaws that Daddy or the royal tutors would be only too happy to list and her two eldest sisters would be so happy to dig into her back. She was valued. Her life was given weight beyond being a role that could just as easily fit another if she proved to be a failure.

      Maybe that was a part of it. Sure, she had those that would kill and die for her. Soldiers, guards. Her personal little worker ants, serving her will because she was Crown Princess and her will was ultimate over hers. But she never had a part of their life. Wasn’t supposed to. They were little machine parts to be fed to the larger machine of militarization and war and enforcement, nameless numbers who she directed without ever seeing their faces if she didn’t want to. She had bigger game in mind. They would die for her because serving the kingdom was the only good they would ever get in their lives, and everything else would be taken from them if they did not comply. The propaganda machines spoke of how honorable it was, how noble, how doing that would keep their loved ones alive and safe, that their entire world would be overturned if they didn’t personally join and it would all be their fault, their fault, that their world would flash-boil and the last thing they would ever hear would be the screams and the last thing they would ever think was that they knew they caused this by denying the crown their rightful firepower.

      But it didn’t have anything to do with Miranda. She had nothing to do with them. They lived so far beyond her realm that she wasn’t permitted to touch them, to know what they were nor who they were. They were not permitted to touch her own inner circles, to ever dare speak with her. It made them more willing to die that way, and her more willing to use them to do what she must.

       She wanted connection. She wanted to know why, to know that someone was doing this for her. To be permitted even that much was too much to ask of her real empire, but it ached in her chest and filled her with a want to have another. Someone else who would hold her and touch her. Who didn’t do it for the Merkingdom nor fear, because it was about her, her alone, in a role that couldn’t be replaced. They who wouldn’t leave nor become faceless, bodiless numbers, because they were real and they were people, and they loved her above the kingdom and above her title and above all else. That they could find and discover the part of her that she didn’t think she had, something that wasn’t just a flaw nor a mistake, that wasn’t a role binding her by virtue of her birth and what she was given without asking, a part of her that existed on its own without anyone to witness it - and to so strictly form a code of honor to keep that safe.

      It wasn’t real. Miranda knew that. She knew she couldn’t ask it of Vicky nor Aaravi nor Vera even if she wanted to, because it was not real and there was nothing for them to do from there.

      Yet the desire sat so heavily in her chest. She wanted things to have meaning, because nothing else in her life had any meaning beyond what the Merkingdom told her, trying to fit her into shackles that were too tight around her wrists. She wanted herself to have meaning, because certainly she didn’t think she had any value beyond the crown atop her head. She wanted actions to have meaning, because she could sit and watch someone have their body and soul and mind broken in one go and not feel anything, not have it soothe any of the hurt that haunted her every step, not feeling anything beyond a growing despair and self hatred. She wanted other people to have meaning, because it hurt to be so alone in the world and so afraid of all that it contained without someone else to help her through.

              All Miranda really wanted was to feel safe.                             And, around them, she finally got what she had been asking for.

[royalreef]

@preparetodie​ inquired:  MELODY.... I MUST KNOW Melodies for Muses - Accepting

Plan on Coming Home - Expus ( ft. Jubyphonic )

When I was younger I would listen to these stories They speak of happy runaways and superhero glories Let's start another chapter, please just never fall away from me Because I promise there's still so much good left within me

So reach your hand out, don't you ever let me go I know my demons try to sink this sailing boat Just walk right next to me along this winding road And we never, never, no we never plan on coming home

(( I think a lot about these two in comparison to their specific tropes. I suppose that’s a bit of a given, after all, with how Aaravi exudes protagonist energy and Miranda is literally meant to be the next closest thing to a Didney Princess, but it’s something that just sticks on my mind! Especially since... Miranda in particular is a bit of a subversion of it? And of course there’s the canon-typical subversion, that she’s a tyrant and cruel and merciless while still holding the appearance of a fairytale princess, but I never like to just settle for that kind of trope.

Because my Miranda in particular both knows about the fairytale stories of princesses and enjoys them! In a way, it’s what she wants to be. To not have to question the given, that she is royalty and that the kingdom both exists and must be served to utmost devotion, while still being able to have that happily ever after. To just have someone come around and save her from her fears, all the dangers and pain that she has to deal with, to have her cake and eat it both. She’s been severely abused her entire life, and when that happens, you start to feel like finding any way out is impossible. Freezing up and taking the punishment, to just accept it time and time again without trying to get out in some way, is something you learn, not something you’re born with. And the Merkingdom was good in teaching her that there’s nothing she can do to stop it, that this is how things will be and either she changes and adapts to that, or they break her. 

When hope gets rung out of you so fully, so entirely as to teach you that nothing you can do will change it... You kind of start idealizing a situation where the responsibility isn’t on you to fix it, that you needed someone else to take you away from the nightmare, to set everything in order for you. And sure, it isn’t good, but it’s a method of coping - and when Miranda first started to learn English and began her journey of eventually coming onto land, the fairytales of princesses were easily accessible to her, served as a good stepping stone for her to start picking up on landfolk habits, and were something she could imagine herself in and find comfort in. That’s part of why she picked up she/her pronouns and comes off so fem - because it was her way of bridging that gap and comforting herself.

Yet, through all of this, Miranda still doesn’t see herself as the hero. Not only does she not see herself as having that kind of agency, but there’s just a lot of unaddressed self hatred that she feels. Her kingdom tells her that she’s the peak of goodness who all others should strive towards, and she’ll try to act like it and sometimes even believe it - but it never really... Sinks in. More often she thinks she’s tainted, or wrong, or just broken, and so she can’t be the hero. She doesn’t feel like she’s good, so how can she do any good?

And I think all of this is just unbelievably ironic with how she and Aaravi ended up falling for each other. Especially since we didn’t really plan for it to happen this way either! Miranda likes the ideal of a fairytale knight, or a hero to save her, yet at the beginning... She just saw Aaravi as The Slayer. Someone who hunted monsters, and very little else left to it. Not a savior, just someone else who she found amusing to tease and useful to do jobs for her. With this coming so out of left field for her, growing more concerned and caring more about Aaravi, until she realized, oh, yeah she does love her, starting to coincide with Miranda considering Aaravi ( unconsciously or not ) more in her hero’s role - it just feels particularly right. That they both start to show their vulnerable sides to each other, trusting each other with their pain, and they both start considering each other more fully part of their own stories.

All this to say - I think this song just perfectly captures all of that! Feeling like you can’t be a hero until you start a new story with someone who you can trust to handle your demons with, to start a journey with someone else and grow out of the point of pain and trauma that the place that was supposed to be your home was. Finding that there is some good remaining, encouraged by the person who both helps you heal and who you help heal too. To finally write their own story, together.

[royalreef]

(( As much as I love Monster Prom, some of its decisions as it comes to canon are just... boring. Disappointing and kind of a letdown in comparison to what was previously implied. They aren’t necessarily bad, and even in another story they could be perfect and impactful, and they’re all written nicely - but it’s just... A letdown in comparison to all the other possibilities.

Like I remember when the only lore ending we had available for any of the ROs was Damien’s Hairstylist ending, and the RPC was FULL of unique takes on lore for all the other characters! Like the old idea of Liam and Polly being childhood friends, or lore with gorgons, or even just how Zoe would behave after becoming a student. I’m not mad with how they all actually turned out, as again, I do think they were written well and were impactful in the intended ways, but at the same time... They feel like simple answers. Answers that don’t play as much in the idea that, these are monsters, in a world where magic and utter nonsense are commonplace and nearly anything is possible so long as you have the stats for it. It’s boring. It’s simple, and easy, and not too unusual once you get the gist of it.

Maybe it’s just the fact that the rest of the game is so wholly based in anything other than realism that having the serious lore be realistic just... I don’t know, feels strange?

As odd as it is, I feel like I lucked out with Miranda. The Bellanda ending was just bad, providing next to nothing lore-wise, coming off in a way that I’m sure wasn’t intended, and fumbling everything that’s been implied with Miranda up until then. Most of my Bellanda lore was developed before its release, since Bellanda herself was known about before then and I know someone had looked through the game files to find the picture for that one ending, so other than getting the other sisters’ names and adding a few chunks of things for me to work with, not much with my lore changed. Hell, the entire ending was just about lampshading how Miranda had no character nor lore nor motivations, and it just.... Felt like the worst possible way to explore Miri in any further detail?

Especially because she’s not a boring character!!! Once you start looking at her, laying out the consistencies and all the little things that we’ve been dropped, it paints a wonderfully interesting picture with a lot of fascinating things at play! She’s mega-rich in a way that even existing monarchies aren’t and weren’t even historically, she mentions things which have no business being in a fantasy kingdom, what is implied about her culture is bizarre and suggests that the Merkingdom has been isolated from other influences for far longer than even monsters and humans have from each other, what we hear about the Vanderbilts themselves and Miranda’s upbringing and all her little traits is sincerely concerning, and even the most obvious “ something is most definitely going on in a way we can’t see ” trait of her having eating serfs and not eating for herself is entirely undiscussed and never touched upon. She’s a character with a TON of vague, interesting concepts and a whole lot of unknown space between, and canon’s answer of “That space is totally empty, Miranda has nothing going on whatsoever” just feels like a copout!! There are so many interesting ways you could take it, and to completely dismiss that is BORING!!!

Like... I don’t know, maybe it’s me fanning my own flames, but I feel like it makes sense that the blog I really stuck with and the blog that’s been active in the MonProm RPC the longest would be a Miranda blog. She, out of all the characters, has the most big, interesting concepts behind her, and canon has almost entirely abandoned her. To be a Miranda blog, you have to deal with those concepts one way or another, and you have to wade into all the implications of them to continually write her, and with canon and fandom both ignoring her, you have to be very internally motivated to keep going with her. While I’m sure any other character had the same possibility, that they could’ve been the one in my place who got started at the beginning of the RPC and stuck around as long as I have - it just feels fitting to me, that Miranda was the canon character who it happened to. Canon didn’t really have a chance to kill her lore with a boring answer to who she is and why, and even in being canon divergent in the way that I am, it’s still less canon divergent than how a lot of the older ideas on lore would be anymore.

Maybe this is wholly me connecting red string on a corkboard. I’m willing to accept that, and it’s probably the truth. But it feels like a lot of wasted opportunities to make really unique, complex lore that just fell through the cracks because canon played it safe. 

If anything, I’d liken it a lot to the monster designs themselves. There was a chance to create beautiful, unique, horrifying monsters that you can date and be your worst self with, and while what we ended up getting is still good, they’re also kinda just people in face paint.     

[royalreef]

@candyredmuses​ || ℑ'𝔪 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔫’ ♥: Most wanted AU

(( Answered!

♠: A character I desperately want to roleplay with

(( Is most of them an option? Because most of all the Monster Prom characters. Off the top of my head, my most desired ones to roleplay with would be:

Joy, Hope, Liam, Damien, Milo, Dahlia, Vera, Polly, Aaravi, Norah, Scott, Coach, Narrator, Fellow Student, even Leonard to a degree - basically any and all Monster Prom muses. Please just. Gimmie. I need all of them.

‽: An unpopular/unusual ship with my character that I love

(( I mean, most of Miranda’s ships seem to be unpopular, and even of those that are better known, they’re almost all her with a PC. I will say Miranda x Valerie and Miranda x Faith because Tam has SPOILED ME with the good content for those ships, but honestly? Any Miranda x RO or Miranda x Side Character ship. 

✄: Something about my portrayal that differs from others

(( Honestly, everything. I highly doubt any other Miranda out there has my kind of worldbuilding or backstory attached, so that’s a big difference! Likewise with how I’ve tried to delve into my Miranda having some neurodivergences of a degree - since usually you just see Miranda written as pure neurotypical, if neurodivergence is even a topic at all.

But I feel like the most telling one is her personality. I’ve long since diverged from the pure idea of Miranda as the innocent and sheltered Disney princess with a dark twist - since ultimately it was a kind of personality that was just... really boring for her? It works in canon, because none of it is supposed to be very deep and mostly focused on comedy, but when it comes to actually fleshing Miranda out, you run out of content fast. While I do tend to portray Miranda as otherwise naïve and inexperienced with a lot of things in the world, and as much as I joke about her being a dumb fish, she’s not stupid. She’s not completely unaware of the world around her, and while her lack of experience makes it difficult for her, she knows how to read the signs around her. 

✰: A reaction image I will probably never use

(( These two icons, appropriately named Homestuck Joke, v1 and v2.

☠: A popular fanon headcanon about my character that bugs me

(( WHERE DO I BEGIN? Honestly, the fandom has a CHRONIC issue with Miranda, from how little they pay attention to her at all to how hate for her is even widespread! Even in canon there’s still an issue, and as much as I love Bellanda and her plot there - there wasn’t much that was actually said or developed. 

The fandom is seemingly allergic to discussing Miranda in any depth. Worldbuilding for her is virtually untouched, and the Merkingdom itself feels more like a punchline in a lot of stuff I see for her. Canonically Miranda is merciless to an extreme degree and very good at manipulating others to do her bidding. Any content for her beyond shipping is absolutely unseen, while even other ship-heavy characters still get attention in a more nuanced way. Likewise Bellanda and the other sisters seem nonexistent in the fandom, with even the most I’ve seen for Bellanda being ship content, and somehow there’s even no speculation about the fifth sister??? True, I cut out the bit about the missing sister because it felt like it would be bloat for my own Miranda’s timeline, but no one else even seems to realize she exists! 

One of the most egregious fanon headcanons that I see is that Miranda would be a bottom or a pillow princess. And true, while I don’t rp out smut here anymore - that girl’s a top. Everything about her says “I am better than you and you will serve me, and if you dare try to make me submit I will destroy you.” Even when you have Miranda as a virgin, I cannot see her as a bottom. No. Also, stop making her busty. I appreciate curves just as much as anyone else, but this fish is a proud member of the itty bitty titty committee. 

In less saucy talk - generally everything fandom has about Miranda has her as a pushover and so, so very flat in character. She has become nothing but a background spoiled brat, and it physically pains me, especially with how she seems to be the second most hated character in canon, behind fucking Leonard. 

Just. Why.

[royalreef]

@necrodanger​ || ℑ'𝔡 𝔪𝔞𝔨𝔢 𝔞 𝔯𝔬𝔱 𝔧𝔬𝔨𝔢 𝔟𝔲𝔱 ℑ'𝔪 𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔶 𝔣𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔬𝔣 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢

(( I FUCKING SEE U TAM.

Does a big spin and pose to show you off.

Tam, you are a DELIGHT. In every way there possibly could ever exist, ever. I first met you through your old Val blog and you always encouraged me with my wildass worldbuilding and character for Miranda, even long before I rebooted this blog and kicked canon to the side to go absolutely hogwild. Val and Miri’s relationship was so good and wholesome and I LIVED for how the two grew together, how Miranda came to question what she knew and began to care about people and realize just how fucked everything was, and how she could provide Val a safe place to be loved and cherished and adored, away from the world that rejected her, and how they genuinely just cared so much about each other to be willing to go to the ends of the earth for each other... I still keep the merfolk word for soulmate as ul’kiha from those rps, and you are the person from whom Sprinkles came to be and Miranda’s animal came to be an octopus.

You INSPIRED me and so many aspects about Miranda and her worldbuilding, you truly taught me what a good experience in the rpc was and you showed me the best of what this particular hellsite could offer!!!!!

You have been there with me through thick and fucking thin, through ups and downs, and I always want to do better by you because YOU ABSOLUTELY DESERVE IT!!! You’ve done so much for me over all this time, it is truly AMAZING. You’re someone who has been through hell and come out singing and I swear to god I want to cherish you and protect you and see you grow up into a big strong keter-class SCP. 

You have somehow lasted through all my nonsense, and you are as kickass and creative and awesome and kind as anyone could ever hope to be!! You are so understanding and welcoming, but have absolutely no problem with KICKING ASSHOLES TO THE CURB, and just!! Holy fuck!!!!! The english language doesn’t have enough words for how great you are!!!!!!!

And Faith??? My girl???? BEST CHARACTER. 100000000/10, HANDS DOWN. NO CONTEST. Canon does NOT appreciate what it has but YOU DOOOOOO and you have carefully written out Faith’s backstory and character with such finesse and immaculate detail, everything coming together perfectly in such an awe-inspiring way, taking a side character that canon treats as a joke and refuses to do anything with and just fills her out to be a beacon of personality and content and so fully rounded out that I stg she could absolutely be her own goddamn person. The way you’ve worked with the Coven and your magic system is amazing, and you KNOW that shit has influenced me and all of the Merkingdom’s fuckery, and I am SO EXCITED to see Faith learn and discover all that Miranda has behind her, to see her help Miranda through her own abuse, and just the fucking heart-to-heart they have....... It is enthralling, I love it so, so much, they are so WHOLESOME and I ADORE IT TO NO END. I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW AMAZING EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER YOU WRITE ENDS UP BEING, HOW AMAZING KNOWING YOU AND TALKING TO YOU IS, HOW MUCH I FUCKING RECOMMEND YOU TO EVERYONE I MEET. 

( Not to mention? FAITH AS TRANS AND AUTISTIC? Exploding galaxy brain moment. Holy shit. I will never be able to take a cis or allistic Faith again. You’re a fucking genius and I love this so much. )

Like there is a REASON I cannot trust anyone else to write a Bellanda for my Miranda, or even any other Bell at all, and it’s because you have SPOILED me and I could never trust another person to handle Bell as masterfully as you can.

Basically TL;DR: YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT, AWESOME, AMAZING PERSON THAT I ADORE SO MUCH, IN EVERY WAY, AND I CONSIDER YOU ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS!!!!!

[royalreef]

@candyredmuses​ || 𝔑𝔬𝔱 𝔖𝔞𝔣𝔢 𝔉𝔬𝔯 𝔉𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔰𝔰

(( Ask and you shall receive the merfolk sex talk.

So. Merfolk junk, reproduction, and why I say there’s no gender in the ocean. Buckle the fuck up, because you’re in for a ride.

To begin with, merfolk have 5 associated genital setups.

The first two are what you’d expect, only a vagina or only a dick. Fairly standard here. The only thing of note is of the dick itself ( I’m getting to the appearance of it ) exists within a sheathe, so basically, all merfolk junk looks the same from the outside - just a slit on their crotch. 

The third is having both. Full dick, full vagina too, both of them working and fine and everything. Dick just as big as the solo dick version. as you would expect.

The last two are basically the intersex options between those, and even then, they have their own uniqueness. In either one, either the vagina or the dick isn’t quite as... I guess developed, for lack of a better term, as with the both option, but both dick and vag are functional to themselves. The dick is usually smaller, less textured, more sensitive, or the vag is tighter, more sensitive, not as accommodating on large insertions ( GETTING TO THAT ).

However, there’s a particular thing to keep in mind here.

The distribution of these junk-options isn’t even.

In shallow areas near the surface, you get the closest to even. 30% of the population has the sole dick or sole-vag option, and that’s about the highest that it gets. In other areas, I’d say about 10% of the population has only a dick or only a vagina on average, but in a lot of places, it’s even lower, highly favoring the intersex options.

This occurs because, well... The ocean is a big place. When merfolk were still in their evolutionary stages, it could be very hard to find a partner in the big blue, and you really want to make sure when you do find someone, you can actually make kids with them. So, it is evolutionarily beneficial for these fish to have both sets, and likewise, they tended to disfavor sexual dimorphism since there wasn’t much difference in the first place. Not to mention, then you’re both more reproductively fit in an evolutionary standpoint if you can both have babies, and there’s more overall.

That’s why boobs and having boobs is not a secondary sex characteristic for merfolk like how it is in humans. I have yet to fully figure out what boobs DO and I still can’t decide if Miranda has nipples or not, but I can say so far that it’s really not sex-linked at all.

( Similarly, why merfolk don’t have a concept of gender. In the languages of mer, pronouns aren’t gendered, and why there’s a certain struggle when it comes to interaction with landfolk, because gender is HARD to understand when your entire culture has no care, need, or even idea of it. )

And this still goes even further. Merfolk can switch what their genitals look like. Of course, it’s more of a process and did happen more at random in the past, but with the merfolk forming civilizations and technological advancements and all - nowadays, the Merkingdom can easily trigger that switch as needed and/or desired. Of course, you can’t just go back and forth like a light switch, you need to have a recovery and acclimation period, but you can switch multiple times within your lifetime. Merfolk don’t see a problem with any of this.

And I should go into what their junk looks like, feels like, what their reproductive strategies are - but also this is long enough already so I’ll make it quick with no explanation.

The dicks and vaginas both are HIGHLY textured with exquisite muscle control. The dicks are semi-prehensile and have a few moving frills and textures attached to them beyond that, and the vaginas have intricate control over the muscles around them, both as a means of stimulation, and also just to keep water out, but they can straight up massage a dick too. The dicks are criminally big, 10 inches being on the smaller side, 12 being average, 14 being hung, and 16 inches being pornstar size for them. This has to do with a relevant “in-season” which has since been incorporated into a full festival in the Merkingdom, with a date corresponding with the spawning of reefs, but outside of like a week per year they’re “off-season”. There’s also probably a suppressant you can take if you want to limit that particular biological reaction, and no one judges you for going for it.

Merfolk pregnancies go forth like tiger shark pregnancies - they make many eggs, the eggs hatch internally, the pups all eat and fight each other, and when they’re born there’s usually only one pup remaining.

Miranda has the both-a-dick-and-vagina option, genital-wise, but most people won’t ever see her dick since she prefers to get off using her vagina and also people don’t expect the tiny mermaid princess to have a 14-inch dick that can tie itself into a knot and has more texture than a Bad Dragon toy. But most people do see that she has a larger-than-average “clit” and she has weird internal textures and a LOT of muscle control.

She’s also on constant birth control, due to the crown and no royal wanting to have a bastard running around.

( And if you’ve talked to me in the past and got Miranda’s dick size as 10 inches: yes, it was 10 inches before, but then I was challenged and I made it 14 inches. )