#legs are hiding behind the tail so it looks a bit funky but they’re just a bloody mess so it’s all good :3

[vidawhump]

@inkwell-and-dagger Made a lil thing for your lil dude :)

[ask-sincerely-sea]

A rundown of the Mermaid AU

Here’s a bullet list of my Mermaid AU and most of the content I have imagined for it! These are taken from three different posts on my main blog, but for simplicity, I compiled them all here! It is long, but feel free to read and get a feel for this universe!

All the Murphys are sharks, but they’re all different types of sharks.

Science doesn’t exist in my world so don’t expect genetics and aquatic ancestry to be something that is strict. Most families tend to stay within the same family and/or genus.

Connor is a Shortfin Mako Shark.

Zoe is a Blue Shark (Fun fact: Blue Sharks are a species of Requiem Sharks).

Cynthia is a Whale Shark.

Larry is an Oceanic Whitetip Shark.

Evan and Heidi are both octopus.

Evan is a Coconut Octopus.

Heidi is a Mimic Octopus.

Alana is a Pacific White Sided Dolphin.

Jared is a White Spotted Pufferfish.

Although intelligent like humans, mermaids will exhibit behaviors akin to their aquatic ancestry.

Evan being a Coconut Octopus will hide within ocean debris as a form of camouflage. This is often triggered by spikes in anxiety, but he also uses it to avoid interaction.

Jared absolutely puffs up. It’s usually caused by elevated emotion. Sometimes he’ll puff up because he’s upset, other times he’ll accidentally cause himself to puff up just from laughing too hard.

The Murphy family is a family a predators. They all have an acute and accurate sense of smell. Larry, Connor, and Zoe are active hunters, and when they are in hunting mode it’s hard to break them out of it until they are satiated.

Merpeople do form societies and interact with each other. They don’t hunt each other and unlike their aquatic ancestors, they don’t all follow migration paths. Some merfamilies will migrate.

Now I’ll give you all the cute and fun and interesting stuff…

Connor loves to explore any wreckage he can find. He’s super fascinated by human life and loves finding shipwrecks, plane wrecks, and even leftover skeletons.

He frequents the wrecks of military vessels most often and collects dog tags from fallen soldiers. He refurbishes them as much as he can because he likes to see the names of the men and women lost.

He often spies on humans who are boating as well. Be it a wedding boat, fishermen, or just vacationers, he just loves watching them from afar. However, the moment they spot him (usually only his dorsal fin on his tail), he dives away

.Hes accidentally becomes and ocean cryptid when a group of divers got a photo of him, albeit it fuzzy/blurry.

He’s obviously not aware of human cryptid culture.

Redditors think his viral photo is photoshopped.

Zoe isn’t as curious about humans. She is curious of the sky above and loves to watch birds as they fly around and feed on fish.

She goes stargazing a lot against her parents wishes. It’s dangerous at night and her parents (and most merpeople) fear poachers.

Zoe collects starfish on her tailfins. Since they are living creatures, she always communicates with them and makes sure they are okay with it.

Connor will leave jewelry and funky human artifacts he finds in Zoe’s room. She doesn’t know Connor is the one that leaves her random items and just assumes it’s Cynthia.

Cynthia is fascinated with human artifacts and frequents a lot of merpeople who are traders for human trinkets.

However, she is terrified of humans and doesn’t dare go near them. When she was younger, she got tangled up I’m a fishing net that belonged to poachers.

Larry is also fascinated with human trinkets, but not as much as Cynthia. Being an Oceanic Whitetip, he loves the tale of the USS Indianapolis.

He and Connor used to search shipwrecks together, but they’ve since grown apart and haven’t hunted or scavenged together in a long time.

I already said a bit of this in my last post, but being a Coconut Octopus, Evan uses physical objects to hide in and behind as a form of camouflage.

Though camouflage isn’t really necessary for merpeople being that they are able to fend for themselves and create/use tools, weapons, utensils, etcetera.

Evan’s camo is more of a reflex with his anxiety. If he’s nervous, anxious, or embarrassed, he’ll find the nearest Evan-sized object and fold himself up to fit. His tentacles can fold together tightly, he just has to account for his upper body not being as flexible.

Heidi is a Mimic Octopus as uses her camo as more of a fun party tricks. Mimic Octopus are able to disguise with many backgrounds, but are also able to contort and arrange their tentacles to resemble other species.

When Evan was little, they would travel to shallow banks along islands where the sun shone through the water really brightly. She’d contort her tentacles and do little shadow puppets of other species for him on the sand.

So, Jared is a pufferfish and not a porcupine fish. He has spines, but they’re very small and thin. They usually only show up when he’s inflated.

He HATES being inflated but it’s happens a lot.

Basically any elevated emotion inflates him. He’s angry? Puff! He’s playful? Puff! He’s excited? Puff! He’s sad? Puff! He’s [redacted]? PUFF!

He doesn’t care too much about human culture, but he is aware of this cursed video. He was hanging around a boat with a bunch of spring breakers and slipped a phone for a few minutes, stumbling across Youtube. Connor thinks it’s the funniest thing ever.

Oh, yeah, so merpeople don’t have any sort of electronic technology, but some of the most curious ones will snatch devices from boats. They are aware they don’t work underwater, so it’s usually like a dramatic spy scene of mermaids hanging out by boats with phones and tablets and messing around as much as they can for five to ten minutes.

Alana is super social and during vacations from school she’ll travel with merpeople and regular aquatic life and migrate around the world.

She’s traveled literally everywhere and has been doing it since she was a child. Her whole family used to go, but now it’s just her. Her parents trust her to be alone.

Alana has come across Sea World and other marine parks with Orcas and it makes her incredibly angry. There have been a few instances where animals in captivity have… Mysteriously escaped back into the wild…

She does have a super playful side and is very curious of humans despite often having a negative judgement/attitude towards them. When she just wants to have fun or relax, she goes bow riding along the wake of boats. She’s clever enough to not be seen.

Yes, there is merpeople high school because why not.

Again, science doesn’t exist and this au honestly doesn’t have rules.So just go ham and make mermaids, y'all!

I’m still deciding on how I want to portray Miguel, but right now I’m thinking Red Lionfish or Pacific Seahorse.That boy is something very colorful and proud!

So previously I mentioned there being an education system for merpeople as they do form societies.

So all the teens (minus Miguel) go to school together.

Their school, as well as most of the buildings in their particular society, is made up of scrapped parts from shipwrecks and other human debris. There are also some buildings and landmarks carved out of the landscape, but they gotta keep it fresh, keep it interesting. They’re still discovering and learning technology, but in their own unique ways.

(Okay, you probably didn’t even care about that fact but as an enthusiast for a “rebuild from the remains” aesthetic, I have to sprinkle in my little funky twists.)

The particular “town” of merpeople they live in isn’t very large and is constantly changing size and population due to some mers moving in and out.

Evan broke his arm over summer break in a coastal accident.

Seeing that merpeople don’t fully abide by the living standards of their aquatic ancestors, they tend to mix, mingle, and migrate without too much structure. Obviously certain families with stay together and there are some pockets of merpeople who live by more strict cultural rules. But for the sake of au, Evan and the gang live in a more relaxed mer civilization.

So, over the summer Evan was working with a group of mers that focus on coastal wildlife. Evan in particular focused on coral health and how it was being affected by human activity.

But our boy is depressed and lonely, so one day he strays from his usual group of coworkers and ventured toward a cluster of fishing boats. The general rule is don’t go near humans, especially when on the job.

He noticed that some of the boats were anchored, so he grabbed one of them from the seabed, hoisted it up the surface, and launched it above water for his to come crashing down with force behind it.

His arm got pinned under the anchor, thus breaking it.

Now, the rest of the AU at the moment is more freeform and doesn’t follow the plot of the musical, but I did want to included how Evan broke his arm.

Connor is not dead in this particular version of the AU, but feel free to craft multiple storylines and arcs with different outcomes!

Connor does paint his nails!

As previously mentioned, he is very fascinated by human society and like to get a little too close.

So, one day he came across some spring breakers and watched as they went about their activities sunbathing and painting their nails. As soon as they looked away, he stole several bottles.

It’s rare for him to find nail polish, especially since he ruined his first bottle by opening it up under water and losing the contents. But whenever a party boat or a boat of spring breakers rolls by, especially with a bunch of girls, he always has to check.

He quickly learned that whenever he wants to do his nails he has to make a whole thing about hauling himself up to surface and propping on a rock or a beach for some time.

He’s collected his signature black as well as a metallic purple, glittery pink, and bright turquoise. He wears the black and purple the most. He loves the other two colors, but poor baby is insecure and wearing nail polish as a mer is already enough to cause stares.

Jared also thinks that human legs are hot.

When Jared is puffed up, other mers will bop him around like a volleyball. It’s an unfortunate thing for any and all puffers.

Evan’s dad is a Barracuda mer, which for a Barracuda and an Octopus to mate is incredibly rare. It’s a wonder that Evan didn’t come out a totally wack and new sea monster.

But like I said, science doesn’t really exist here! Anything goes! Be whatever mer you wanna be! Love whatever mer you wanna love!

[bettsplendens]

Character profile: Meso

Meso is a small beastformer, somewhere around minibot size, whose alt is a hare. 

In root mode, he’s relatively average build, but slimmer through the torso than most. He has fur down much of his back, and in some areas on his flanks, thighs, shoulders, and a bit over the top of his helm. Cute lil white triangle on his forehelm. And ears! He has long bunny ears that fold up and tuck under the plating on his helm if they need to hide, but mostly he keeps them up and lifted to listen. They have a soft fuzz along the backs, and he twitches his legs real nicely if you scritch behind his ears. He also has long whiskers and wide, round optics. Basically, if one doesn’t mind beastformers, he’s cute as heck. 

His alt mode is a bit chubbier. His legs are fairly long and digitigrade, but slide down over themselves, the thighs telescoping a bit shorter, into alt mode. He walks a bit funky in root mode due to having bunny legs, and is incapable of walking on two legs in alt. Instead, he hops, moving on all fours on servos that transform into paws to protect his fingertips. That fur comes into play here- it’s rooted in thick, tough skin over some of his plating, and breaks up his silhouette a bit. Bots trying to spot another bot in the shadows don’t look for long ears and fur. He’s a bit faceless in alt, too- a visor kinda like a cross between Soundwave’s visor and one of those newer style gas masks folds down over his face, giving him a rabbit-head shape, whiskers peeking out of slits in its sides. He can retract his whiskers and close the slits if he needs to be absolutely as streamlined as possible. 

And he has a tail! A puffball tail made of fiber-optic lights, with lights around his lower haunches. If something tries to chase him, he can activate the lights in a blinding flash, giving him just enough time to dart out one way or the other or down a hole while his pursuer is blinded. All it takes is that one instant, and he can dive away. 

You know that quote from Watership Down? “All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed."

That’s Meso. Smoke bombs, sticky traps, tripwires, but mostly just his speed and that tail-flash trick. And Meso has never, never had someone catch him. He’s been trapped a few times, he’s been cornered, but he has never had a person catch up to and catch him. He’s a bit twitchy about things flying overhead, though. 

And he’s VERY twitchy about being caught. He’s had a couple of people get clever and set snares for him after he caused trouble, and laser-hardlight-reinforced wires will work if you chase him enough to get him going too fast to spot it properly. If he gets a snare around a leg at full speed, he will hit the ground hard, and he will panic. If he knows there’s danger, if he knows someone will be coming to get him, he panics beyond all reason and will hurt himself trying to escape. Little guy’s a spook! He can’t afford to get caught. 

If you spook him, or if he gets excited, he drums his hindlegs hard before running away. If given the chance, he’ll happily do a bit of a hopping dance on top of a steel drum or anything else that makes good noises. 

Most of his job is to scout, and to carry hard-copy messages. Little bit of spying here and there, little bit of opportunistic sabotage. He’s a clever little opportunist who takes advantage of anything and everything he can get ahold of, and is hard to keep ahold of if you somehow manage to obtain him. Lil guy kicks like a horse! And he will bite you if you make him. 

He comes with buck teeth, which keep growing, and he likes to gnaw. He may or may not gnaw at random objects if they happen to be offered. They’re not half bad for sabotage, either. Duck under computer consoles, strip the insulation real quick off a few wires, nudge them together, and run away while they short out. 

If you want him to like you, rub behind his ears, let him perch on you, and give him crunchy treats. If you’re big enough, let him sling a hammock on you. Meso loves him some vantage points, and big bots make great vantage points. 

He’s fairly sweet, but he’s a mischief boi. You can tell when he’s pondering mischief, too. His ears go up high and start quivering, his whiskers perk, and he does the :3c face at everybody. 

(oh, and he hasn’t quite figured it out yet, but he’s got a pretty major kink for being pinned and held still by a partner so they can grind on him. He likes being teased by a partner who’s showing him what he’s about to get)