#i want to incorporate this into my mermaids! mermaids that take after certain fish species can change their sex

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Which sea creatures are able to change their sex

Oh, so many! Clownfish are the most well known, but many species of wrasses, groupers, sea basses, sea breams, ribbon eels, some moray eels, damselfish, marine angelfish, gobies… probably even more I cannot find right now! There’s also fish that can be both sexes at the same time, like hamlets and the comber! And that’s just the fish. There’s many sequential or simultaneous hermaphroditic marine animals out there, nudibranchs are hermaphrodites, so are flatworms! The ocean is full of little and big guys changing their sex, sometimes some animals can even flip between the two!

[joeys-piano]

50 for the writer’s asks, I’m sure you have plenty ;)

50. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had. 

I’m gonna share you the strangest, most ambitious one that inspired all of my other strange, ambitious story ideas. Because if I didn’t do this idea, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today. Nor, would I be the experimental writer I am today xD

Back in the Fall of 2017, I was writing for a non-discreet fandom that I used to love and during that period, I dipped my toes into urban fantasy. Fascinated by the concept of a mer!AU but unsure of how to tackle it, I created my own original lore. You’ll see this is a running trend where I’ll just make stuff up in worldbuilding and somehow tie it all together in the end.

The concept I went with originated from the earliest version of the Little Mermaid, I believe. Remembering that the Little Mermaid didn’t have a soul, I decided to work that into my lore and this was the earliest worldbuilding draft that I have of this idea (it’s on AO3, it’s pretty obvious to find):

Merfolk were humans who had died at sea. While their souls may go to Heaven or Hell, their bodies transform. Scales protrude across the skin, a vicious tail is all that remains of what once were legs, slits span down the neck, and the body is reanimated. Driven by wild instincts and led by ravenous hunger, Merfolk patrol the waters like zombies.

In the open waters, these creatures feast on fish and are quite the catch for a shark or lone predator that wander so willingly into their territory. But near coastlines and against shores, Merfolk are on the prowl to satisfy another hunger. Without a soul to call their own, these solitary creatures congregate on the edge of civilization and are on the prowl for any who bear the misfortune of falling into their waters.

Over the next few weeks and subsequent months, I began to expand that lore. At the time, for the project I was working on, I only focused on saltwater mers. I hadn’t considered freshwater or other variants yet. I didn’t consider aquatic species of mers or the different body compositions and characteristics depending on where these mer originated from or where they live. However, this was 2017-Joey, and he wasn’t thinking of these things. He didn’t think about it because he wasn’t worried about it. He was more focused on the lore than the biology, ecology, and whatnot that goes behind this.

I believe in the November of 2017, I began to expand the mer!concept from a a group perspective than an individual one. This was when I started to consider what were the ecological and behavioral characteristics of these creatures. Mer are solitary but then I considered, many aquatic species are solitary but they congregate and show up in mass populations during certain or special events. So I thought to myself: wouldn’t it be scary if you’re out at sea and you see a school mer trying to yank you from a ship so they can do away your soul?

And thus, I added that to the lore:

 Merfolk are notorious for creating storms. A passing boat or a humble ship could easily find itself in the eye with nowhere to run, with nowhere to hide.

The storm appears normal at first: torrential rains, lashing winds, and with the vessel rocking back and forth over the mounting waves. Those who have survived to tell the tale often report of hearing voices, ghostly wails luring the ships and boats closer to the centre of the storm. Suddenly, the ocean is at peace, but a gray veil cloaks the sacrifices before the grooms stroke it back. Bobbing in the water are Merfolk. Tails swishing and their scales glistening like gems. They bring color to the chaos and sing their songs.

And then following that passage is a rather graphic scene of shipmates getting tangled in sea nooses and being yanked into the water, where the surface bubbles over with red and thrashes as mers are picking a shipmate to the bone and are snarling at each other to consume his soul. Because a mer understands that they’re lacking something that’ll make them feel whole. They lost their souls when their human selves died. So in order to truly come back to life and escape this Hellscape they’ve been surviving it, they have to steal and kill for another chance at life.

Even if it means sacrificing an innocent and having that innocent exchange places with them. For a young writer who had been writing pretty safe content for 5 years at that point, this was a stepping stone into more abstract and darker ideas. This began my journey into writing about the human condition and what it meant to be alive.

So you’re probably asking me: it’s been a few years, how did the idea and lore change over time? Back in May of this year when I thought about participating in MerMay, I decided to take my notes and polish them. I moved away from the sea and moved inland to incorporate freshwater mers, and I researched on the different body compositions and structures of how these characters would look like. I developed and fleshed out a more human side to the lore and talked about how some mers transitioned into society and are living comfortably amongst people. I wrote about mers that don’t want to be human, mers that are domesticated, mers that are wild, mers who couldn’t care less about having a soul, and about mers who’d do anything to have a soul and be human again.

I developed the mer!language. It’s not extensive, but it gets the point across. In addition, I included accommodations on how mers could live amongst humans and what were the challenges in doing so. Humans aren’t very tolerable of a lot of things. If we have trouble tolerating each other, imagine how difficult it would be for a mer that used to be human and who’s now living amongst humans and are having to adopt what humans expect of them when they aren’t able to do certain things that humans consider normal.

So I’d say that over the years, what started off as a curious pet project turned into a catalyst that made me become the writer and worldbuilder that I am today. It helped me approach and develop different worldbuilding styles and techniques, how is fictional reality intertwined with real reality, and how I can use stories to tell a bigger picture of an issue or problem that I see we as a society are still struggling and trying to find common ground and understanding on.

And since this is the end of the ask, I’m gonna share a little snippet from my most recent mer!notes. This one is for Dazai, who I turned into a freshwater betta fish mer:

After drowning in a familiar river near a bridge in Yokohama, the suicide ironically sparked the beginning of Dazai’s life as a Mer. Was he disappointed? Absolutely. He learned quite quickly that it was a lot harder to die as a Mer than it was as a human.

To visit him at the Armed Detective Agency, Dazai is typically seen wearing soaked, fettered, and messy bandages sprawled around his neck as he spends the majority of his day soaking in a kiddie pool. A pool that was a little smaller than himself so he’d be half-drying and half-dying while still having enough water to keep him from completely dying. If it wasn’t morbid, seeing a fully-grown Mer in such a tiny space was actually quite entertaining. Especially when Dazai would get his antsy fits and try to squish himself into the corners of his kiddie pool to completely submerge himself. Alas, it wouldn’t work and he’d silently curse himself for damning his existence to an inadequate space.

While Dazai does wear his signature trench coat, he’s merely draping it over his shoulders and the fabric spills behind him while he soaks so it doesn’t get wet. He does live on his own in the Agency dormitory, where he commutes from the office to the apartment and vice versa. Because of the soaked bandages meandering across his body, Dazai doesn’t dry out quite as quickly as other land-dwelling Mers. Although traveling on land doesn’t bother him as it would for others, he does prefer to have assistance merely for ease and to conserve his strength.