#goldfish mer

[finrinrinfin]

ITS MERMAY YAYYYYY!!!! gonna start off with this goldfish merman :D

[duscarasheddinnswriting]

I’ve made a visual design for Flan from Son in a Fish Tank, but it’s an edited recolor of part of the artwork that gave me the idea for him.

That artwork is Ponyo Parody by Friendlyfoxpal. I edited the smol Koi merman Kelan (an OC created by Shortshifter) into a smol common goldfish boy... by turning the fish body orange and adding a dorsal fin like that breed of goldfish rather than keep the dorsal fin of the koi (who are closely related domesticated species).

In his universe, all mers have the same body plan Flan does, but unlike goldfish (which can get huge), the average adult size is a mere four inches long. Flan is three inches long due to being young.

The question is not whether or not I can upload the design for him. It’s whether or not I should upload an edited recolor of a fellow Tumblr user’s art.

[martincrushcameback]

First have a Chris as a glowy confused secretary bird. I just think he's neat. X3

Next, have a MerMartin. I dreamed a villain wanted to use the creature power suits to show off at their freakshow with other "weird" animals, so they went to Zach for his disruptors and Martin got turned into half a goldfish by accident and became an instant hit being a cryptid and all. Too late for mermay I suppose. Might play around with this one.....

water tutorial

[xray-vex]

[source]

[lil-inky]

Shark boi HOO HAHAAH 🦈 🎯

Full pic under the cut:

[bookgobloblin2]

back at it again with another Yoimiya<3

this time mermiya as requested by a friend

[sometimesanartdragon]

[adrianecarday]

Print Here - Gold fish mer hunting a dragonfly

[kaeyx]

pussy inspection w merchuu...

Oooooh he'd be so curious..... very gentle too, spreading you apart with his thumbs and looking at your soft, pink insides. Rubbing his thumb slowly over your clit and dipping into your hole, asking curiously if the slime coming out is good. You have to reassure him and guide him a bit, even if it's embarrassing, but he gets confident pretty fast and begins to act on his own. Of course he'd want to dip a few fingers into you, and of course he'd gasp when you clenched around them. Of course he'd poke and prod that hard little nub sitting at the top of your pussy and ask you what it does, and give it special attention when you explain it makes you feel good. He'd even use his tongue, long and dexterous, to lick up your mess and wriggle inside you for a better taste. It's pretty easy for Chuuya to fall in love with how warm you are, how your thighs close around his head when you cum, such an unfamiliar feeling.

[merakiui]

I read your octopus biology class and can I just say. *Has a bag of newly brought school items* that I am very interested in learning more. I'm especially delighted to know more about the next lesson; I heard we'll be having a live species as a demonstration? ✍️✍️ Yes yes, very interesting... On another note, what about Mer! Riddle? Apparently, goldfishes have a playful mating ritual. I think it'd be funny seeing him confused on why reader isn't releasing any eggs despite his attempts 😂

Yes yes!!! A live species demonstration!! After we finish the octopus unit, we will move onto discussions of the moray eel. :D but I can give some information about goldfish behaviors for our dearly beloved goldfish mer!Riddle.

Goldfish do indeed have a very playful mating ritual! They chase each other until the female eventually releases her eggs. After which the male goldfish will then release semen called "milt" and the eggs will be fertilized. They can chase each other around for a long time and the male goldfish might even playfully nip at the female goldfish's tail or fins. It's a very exhausting ritual because they do this until the female eventually releases her eggs (and that might not happen right away). Goldfish can mate in a tank so long as the conditions are proper and the tank is large enough to house adult goldfish, so a captive mer Riddle will try to mate with you if everything in his tank is in the perfect condition for it. :) but also he's just really in love with you, so it's the mix of animal instincts and fluffy romance feelings that puts his mind on the track of mating!

Female goldfish can become egg-bound, which just means she's unable to release her eggs normally. It can be dangerous and uncomfortable because it could also potentially lead to the death of the fish. But it can be fixed with gentle handling to help her release the eggs, usually by carefully running your fingers along her bloated belly to help ease pressure and hopefully get her to release the eggs. (Riddle helping you through it hehe <3)

Also!!! Goldfish may mate more than once if all conditions are comfortable and the water temperatures remain warm.

[mychlapci]

Super curious, were you the one with that one Mer!Bee idea? He's like, a chubby goldfish I think? Chubby enough that when he did get pregnant, no one really noticed until suddenly his tank had all these tiny fat baby mers swimming around with him and then it was all like, uh, what just happened. It was super cute and sweet and I can't find it again on Tumblr.

no, we haven't had mer Bee in here yet... but if you find the person who talked about this pls send it to me because i love this...

[arttsuka]

In the Star Trek mer AU, are the different alien races instead different types of merpeople based on varying sea creatures?

Yes, based on different species or just completely imaginary (aka based on vibes), although I do want to insert real animal characteristics if not to their appearance then to their habits or abilities(?).

[mossykove]

Part 3 of the au!! I'm doodling them so much now! @quewp1 sorry to ping you enjoy :D

[deviousfatestudio]

Mermay stickers are available on my sh0p and they’re holographic!

[creatingblackcharacters]

Lesson 7: "That's the Black one!"- Imagery and "Black-Coded" Characters

Now, you see me writing it!! I'm writing the lesson on Black-coded, non-human characters!! Y'all better go tell your friends and reblog, y'all been asking me forever about it!

This one was a bit hard for me to write. It didn't feel… New. It felt like a regurgitation of everything I'd already discussed. I was honestly confused every time people sent me questions; I thought we all understood how it worked. But I realized: that's not a bad thing! We can consider this an application of everything we've learned so far, because that’s all coding is, is an application!

The Definition

Coding (in media): giving a character or a group certain traits (physical or cultural experiences) that are similar to/that of a real-world specific group, without explicitly saying this fictional group is the real-world group. One may or may not mean to do it in their writing (which is where the opportunity for racist stereotype can leak in).

E.g., “queer-coded characters” gets used a lot on Tumblr; whether accurate or not, it is understood to mean that the blogger sees their/a queer identity portrayed by that character, or that the character was written with ‘queer’ traits in mind. Another example; Darwin Watterson is a goldfish in a world with no humans, but Darwin is Black-coded. The Fishmen in the One Piece Live Action are fantastical creatures, but they are Black-coded (of a very specific type of Black person; even!)

Youtuber KermitCurry explains and reinforces what I’m also going to explain here, but with a cool drawing of (the gorgeous) Grimmjow. She’s a Black artist and animator; go check her out and support her!

Here is a list of a few characters both canonically and Black-fanonically Black-coded:

When Coding Characters as Black

To keep it simple: if the rules apply when designing and writing a Black character, the same rules apply when designing and writing a Black-coded character! The moment you decided that this nonhuman entity was going to resemble a human group of people, you were obligated to be aware of the cultures and stereotypes of those people!

You can’t have a Black-coded character, emphasize a stereotype of Black people, and then say “oh, well, it’s not actually racist because they’re actually a cat-wolf creature!” Yes, it is. You’re still being racist, and upon noticing or being told, there’s no need to be defensive about it- just acknowledge ‘ah yes, I’ve messed up, I'm sorry for my actions’ and then actively work towards a better design or writing that does not include those things.

Example: Hair

Let’s say you want to draw hair on a fish-like Mer species, and you want them to be Black-coded. It would still be racist to give that Mer-woman pickaninny hair, even if "well they're not really Black!" You could find fancy fish scales or seaweed or something fish related to draw ‘Black hair textures’, so that we understand what it’s visually supposed to represent while still being fantastical. Or a robot! Someone mentioned tubes for locs, and you could do curly wires for twists. It's possible! Get creative!

I’ve been asked numerous times about Black hair on furries. Not that I’m the most educated on furries or furry culture- I am not- but they’re already anthropomorphic animals that talk, have human hobbies and habits, and often have pretty rainbow colors. It should not, then, warrant a complaint of “unrealistic” if you respectfully add Black hairstyles to them.

Example: Species

The point about furries actually brings up another good point. Watch out when you're coding Black characters on animals or animal-like species. Often people will have the “dark-skinned, struggling with balancing their humanity monster” Black/Black-coded, and the “pale skinned monster that somehow understands this battle more than them and can save them from themselves”. This is rooted in racist imagery.

I have mentioned it before in response to an ask, but if the only people you find yourself coding as your ‘monkey/animal/monster/beast’ creations are Black and/or dark-skinned, you are- however intentional it is or isn’t- replicating a racist, dehumanizing pattern in league with King Kong and ‘ravishing the white woman/body’. I’m not inherently ‘rugged and masculine’ as a queer Black woman, thus meant to be pushed into the werewolf role. Black men aren’t beasts that can’t control their violent impulses, thus meant to be pushed into the animalistic role. Why do you think Black bodies being beast-like is sexy? Why do you think we are not physically capable of delicacy? Of gentility?

This doesn’t mean that Black characters can’t be werewolves or those sorts of creatures- but you need to be writing/designing with intent, and that means recognizing when you just ‘thought it looked cool’, and that thought turned out to be a racist belief upon further reflection.

Example: Skin

Let’s say your demon species has dark grey skin bc they're rock people or something- yes, the grey skin is because it's a demon species, we recognize that it's not desaturated brown skin. Fine. But God forbid that this grey-skinned ashen group of Black-coded characters are the unequivocal villains? And everyone else that isn’t Black-coded are the ‘good guys’? But ‘it’s okay, because they’re not Black, they’re grey!’? Yes, this is still racism. There’s no getting out of it.

Example: Intelligence

If your Black-coded species is the one that is ‘less cultured’, ‘talks funny’, supposed to be ‘stupid’, or in need of some good (white) character to ‘change their ways and become better people’… Just don't do that. I should not have to say this. Black people are not less intelligent, or ‘more inclined to brawn over brain’, 'more likely to act out of instinct', ‘in need of more education/direction’, or every other reason that was used to justify our enslavement and now, present arrest and imprisonment rates.

Example: Culture

This segues from my last point on intelligence. There’s arguments on coding species that are meant to be "savage" or "inhuman", giving them stereotypical loin cloths or tattered clothes and having them "need to be saved". Now, I'm not informed enough about D&D to make valuable commentary on the existence and history of orcs. However, if you've decided to create an Orc culture, and it's clear that your imagery is taken from Black and/or Indigenous cultures, in addition to the language of savagery and white saviorism itself… That's extremely racist. And if you're thinking "Ice, of course no one would do that in 2024", Yes. Yes, they would. The bar is low, but don't ever assume people can't, don't, and won’t find a way to limbo under it.

Black and Brown people don’t need to be ‘saved’ from our own cultures or ‘introduced’ to anything. We don't need to be 'made better'. If that’s the narrative that you find yourself buying into while you write your story, Black or Black-coded characters, you need to step back and evaluate.

How This Imagery Lasts

Jim Crow Museum- Racist Cartoons and Anti-Black Imagery

This is obviously not everything I could put here as a example, but I wanted to offer a small example of how heinously racist imagery has made its way into the present. From depicting Serena Williams as an overgrown, childish, large-lipped Black woman (and whitewashing Afro-Japanese woman Naomi Osaka into the ideal, victimized blonde white woman), to Lebron James’ Vogue photo (this Black, married man now suddenly slave to the intensity of ball and white women for this cover), to the entirety of the Black Pete festival in the Netherlands.

This is imagery and behavior that evolves and lasts. What you put to paper will have an effect on someone else's ideas. You might not even think you believe these things, but someone looking at your art or reading your work will think you do! You should not want to be evoking any of this, coded or not, regardless of ‘if there’s a human involved’ because frankly… well, people already don’t see Black people as humans. We need to be treating our Black and Black-coded characters with care, and that means doing good research and avoiding replicating caricatures.

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

So as we know sharks are very territorial and sometimes little attention whores, they tend to love divers and get territorial over them with other sharks. So I was wondering if Price ever gets protective or territorial over remora reader with the others, or if he feels miffed when she spends time with the others more than him? If some part of him likes her cleaning him and only him?

using this as a follow up to shark mer Price being a territorial bastard >:)

to recap: Price is super protective over you--you're his territory--but you spending time with the Ghost, Gaz, and Soap doesn't bother him because they're his territory too.

however this does not extend to anyone outside the 141. this is a problem because you're naturally curious. because you're a remora mer, right?

and way too friendly for your own good. and extra extra prone to lapsing into a fawn response instead of a fight or flight response.

so you can't really blame Price for being kind of overprotective.

when he's not around, you can bet you're juuuuust dumb enough to swim right up to, say, a diver. or even the small diving boats humans putter around in near the reef.

you might meet a friendly human diver like perhaps Alex Keller (◕▿◕✿)

who for sure doesn't mind your poking and prodding and general lack of boundaries.

he's totally chill about it. actually he's into it. he loves your curiosity! swimming with mer is rare. being this close to one is a dream.

you're basically doing this (video).

you're idly aware that he's examining you as you're examining him, but it doesn't stop you from checking out his suit, his tank, his legs--weird plastic fin-feet he's got--you'd even pull his goggles right off his face if he's not careful.

you have more curiosity than sense. so does he.

because the moment Price sees you, he immediately pushes his way into the middle of this little... mutual exploration you're allowing to happen.

more accurately, he snatches you away. diver Alex is lucky if he escapes with a glare instead of a warning bite.

you, meanwhile, are fucking grounded.

plead ignorance if you want, but you know it's against the rules to do what you did.

you were sort of hoping you could avoid punishment by acting cute. or by not getting caught in the first place. idiot.

no dice. Price takes you straight back to his cave--and you are to stay there. you'd better stay put on your own free will, too. Price isn't above tying you up. he knows Gaz will feed you anyway.

and Gaz is the only one allowed in. if he's good.

it sucks for everyone when you're grounded. Soap is bored and horny out of his mind. Ghost says nothing, but he conspicuously moves his usual day-sleeping spot closer to the entrance of the cave.

how long can you expect it to last? you're not sure. maybe until Price isn't fuming at the thought of you getting snatched up like a goldfish in an aquarium net.

more mer au / more Price / masterlist