#victor's mer mcyt au

[occasionally-victor]

shitty mer au spiderbit comic be with you (it took me 17 hrs im not joking🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥)

and another lore dump: mers mostly eat seafood (they can still eat various land food, but that can cause some stomach problems if not consumed moderately), and they can eat it both cooked and not. Cooked is generally preferred because tasty and nutritious, however it's normal for a mer to catch a stray fish and just. start snacking on it.

It's regarded as generally good thing to catch and give fish to a person you care about (family, sign of friendship, all that). However, it gains romantic meaning when the fish is carried in mouth - especially if the teeth marks are very noticeable (don't have to necessarily catch it by mouth, but the whole thing kinda implies this - something something this has the roots in a legend i haven't fully thought through right now). It's more regarded as confession without confession thing - the size of a fish typically tells how much the giver is into the other (not always, but typically).

When mers started interacting with land people, inevitably, some of the mers started falling in love with some of those land people. The fun part - the overwhelming majority of land peeps obviously do not know about the fish thing, and yes, mers happily took advantage of this to constantly give fish to their crushes while avoiding actually telling about their feelings. At some point they would still reveal the whole thing tho.

Another fun part - after all these years, the knowledge of the fish giving thing is very much not universal even in places near water sources. Meaning, to this day, mers still tend to just give fish to the land people instead of yknow. Talking about their feelings.

And yeah, this is exactly what i drew there. When you give a guy you really like a fish, and he just straight up eats it in front of you (dw he's fine, he spent his teenage years in Hell dimension, he ate stuff worse to survive 👍).

[occasionally-victor]

this one is like ultra rushed, i did it right before a flight to another city (im already back) and im still in a bit of a artblock so yeah

mer au !jaiden + changed !bobby a bit

!jaiden is a harpy (blue jay)

she was actually the one who found !bobby - he was passed out on some rocks and !jaiden happened to fly right by, and she basically decided to take care of him "until his parents find him" (because surely a mer kid is being seeked for right now?). A week passed, !jaiden stole some old raft (because she basically had to live there for a while now, and rocks suck for that, so raft and and a tent will do) and there was still no sight of anyone looking for !bobby (apparently a kid has some amnesia as well, he seems to not remember anything before waking up here). By the time another week passed, !jaiden was already kinda thinking about how to maybe set up a more permanent station here (she's already kinda used to sea and she's fully getting along with a kid, so reasons are here...).

until! one day she does see someone! and it was a mer! basically, in mer settlement (i really need to give it a name) by that time several more dragon mer kids were found. less mer start to go out for search, and the one who do need to go farther because well everything closer is already fully checked. !roier was one of those and that day decided to go out very far away from a city (like, basically other side of sea far away. just in case.). he did eventually found a raft, were apparently another dragon mer kid lived (and also a harpy, who took care of him)

uh basically that's how !ro and !jai met for the first time. they went on to become friends and eventually become a full on co-parents to !bobby. !ro helped !jaiden move a bit closer to mer settlement, and now she lives in basically a floating home made of basically scarps in a middle of a sea (i drew it there, im not explaining how tree ended up there. the blue lantern there is for when storm hits, it would put a protection bubble so the house would be fine). !bobby mostly lives with !jaiden, but often goes to city; !roier doesn't live with the other two, but he goes there almost every day.

so, that bracelet on !jaiden's leg. Time for another mer lore drop: mer, that considered "family" to eachother (basically that are really close to eachother, not necessarily an actual family) can basically feel where the other one. It's more of a subconscious thing, tho mer can "send" signals for "family" to catch in case of something. so, i did established before that mer have generally good relationship with land people. basically, it became a tradition to give to a very close people, who are not mer, a little trinket (usually a wearable), that basically works the same way (and both ways). It's normal for a mer to have atleast a specially enchanted stone prepared for it, if not the trinket itself. ! jaiden's bracelet contains the stones of both !roier and !bobby (they are not actually seen - usually those stones are hidden inside of trinket)

[occasionally-victor]

some mer au sketches, this time figuring out some designs for brazilians (does. does Brazil even exist in this au-) (also kinda tweeked Richas' design to look a bit more. for water yknow) ("mer au" doesn't draw any mer)

talking about them under the cut:

!pac is aquafolk (i genuinely don't know how to call just partially fish people), he's, well, partially fish (blue fin tuna as an inspiration). He can transform from "looks human of you dont look too close" (still needs to cover fins and gills) to "40% of body is scales" (can really only happen in water). On a pic is a middle form, for when he's only with family and friends.

!mike is dryad, the three parts (just like that ribcage also has a tree spine basically) are flexible. The green stuff all over the body are not because of him being dryad, it's actually moss. That is a result of "moss disease", when basically moss starts growing on body. Unless you have been born with it or it was completely removed, it can be deadly (because the moss uhh incompatible with the host basically. however, if a person was born with it, that person will be fine, because the body was born already compatible with moss). !Mike was born with it, so it's fine, however he can't really wear clothes on top of it (it's not a requirement, it's more for a comfort of moss). Oh, and also he has a goddess wife, yeah.

!felps is a human sorcerer (or maybe enchanter idk, and he is pretty powerful). His main thing is doing potions (that's like. basically the only thing that he is actually interested in practicing). And he's like, stupidly good at it, both normal use ones and completely ridiculous ones. He carries a lot of ingredients in his ig it can be called a skirt? a 3/4 skirt's pockets. That also makes him pretty good at doing homebrew medicine, so that's neat.

both twins are human (tho for shits and giggles their very distant ancestors are catpeople, but at this point the only things left are just sharp senses) and good news they actually got to reunite again when they were just 19! slightly less trauma for them! what happened in a first place? someone just happened to accidentally dimension hop to a basically hell dimension (im actually thinking about calling it Nether fr, i think it's just a nice name tbh) when he was like 10, right on the eyes of his sister. That also led to both if them acquiring pretty powerful demons (that what basically everyone who lives in Nether called, in the same way that everyone who lives in this dimension are people) as companions.

!bagi at first thought that Jorge is her imaginary friend that appeared to help her feel less lonely after her brother was gone. She didn't question the fact that they were a bit too real sometimes (she was just 10, it didn't exactly matter to her at that point). Jorge, who is fresh out of Nether and doesn't really know how to get back anyway (the passage was closed immediately after some boy ran through it) doesn't really want to break it to a kid, so they just. Stick around and eventually become an actual friend. (a bit background for them: Jorge was a spirit, who on a way to a Rest Place (basically dimension for dead) accidentally gets stuck in Nether (it's basically normal occurrence to be stuck in some dimension on a way). Jorge basically uhhh starts consuming other spirits that were not yet found by grim reapers and by that amasses enough power to basically become a demon themselves. They do not remember any of that tho, however Jorge on themselves at this point is rather a conglomerate of spirits with og one in charge basically). When !Bagi started working as investigator (when she was 16 - she was really persistent), Jorge was actually really useful because, well, they are still a spirit, they can go through walls and all that. ig that also makes them working partners.

not going to get into how exactly the 9 years of being basically in hell went for !cellbit, but making a pact with a demon was probably the thing that saved his life the most. Rapaziada (or Chat - affectionate nickname) is a hivemind creature that manifests itself as voices in a head of host or dark evergy. At the cost of 80% of !cells memories, it's main task became to protect the host in any way possible (physical and mental). Unfortunately, surviving in Nether outside of big cities, especially for someone who is not from this dimension, requires kill or be killed mindset so. Let's just say, Chat was really good at it's job, to the point when by the time the host turned 15 the demons help wasn't really required outside of physical protection (the dark energy is pretty flexible in what is could become). When eventually !Cellbit returned to his home dimension and dare i say even got better, Chat kinda became more of a slightly annoying, but usually ignorable roommate (roommates? it is a hivemind). Also it just being there gave !cell ability to see all what considered supernatural in world (like spirits who stuck and can't move on, or demons who for one reason or another is not in Nether and all that basically), so he became a paranormal investigator? (i dont think yall know what im talking about, but he basically becomes Yashiki from Death Mark, just with a bigger field of work). He basically helps spirits move on (or destroys them if needed), help lost demons to get back to Nether (surprisingly easier than to work with spirits!) or repairs the "holes" through which others can accidentally get to another dimension.

(I'm not going to get into details now, just to set a scene: !pac, !mike and !cell first meeting was in Nether and it went as well as you would think it is (a disaster), !cell and !felps became friends a bit after !cell returned from hell and are roommates atm.) So, those 4 happened to be in the same place - a cave, that is basically right by a abandoned house on a small hill (!Tazercraft are there because they were searching for some minerals (they didn't find any). !Cell is there because he had a request from someone living in that area to check the cave because "there were some weird sounds" - the standard stuff. !Felps is there because back then he sometimes joined !cell in investigations, so that what he did that day). However, right before the reunion might have turned violent, all 4 happened to catch some barely noticeable sounds - it was however, undeniably sounds of crying. A child's crying, which kinda made them to "deal with eachother later" and go check on whoever was making the sound. What they found was a small dragon child with left leg being just. gone (now that they think about it, there was some blood on caves floor). That basically how they found Richas (and that how they went from "barely know each other with most of them wanting having nothing to do with eachother" to family)

Richas basically now has three places to live: !Tazercraft's absolutely legal laboratory they pay all taxes for, !Felps' apartment in a city nearby, !Cellbit's house right by that cave (because that cave happened to be just perfect to be somewhat of a personal office for work;) (for reference, they live pretty close to eachother, the longest distance is no more than 2 hrs by motorbike).

!Bagi, well, doesn't live over there - she lives in another city, like 8 hrs on motorbike far away. She rents an apartment with !Tina and as of recent !Mouse.

[occasionally-victor]

the cruelty of having summer being my yearly artblock season is unreal, i literally have so much time but no motivation, can't draw properly for shit, here's more mer au (this is the most i committed to an au so far lmao)

brown-deluque family yippee (idk if i wrote it right actually, welp, that's a problem for later me). i went for a family's portrait thingy and then realised that i kinda still need to show the tails lmao

!foolish is basically a reincarnated living tool of ancient god (totem of immortality specifically). back then he wasn't himself exactly immortal - inside of him he had an inner vessel of god given energy that kept him alive (for as long as the vessel wasn't destroyed). Well, it did get partially destroyed, but with a help of an old friend instead of fully dying he just started reincarnating over and over again(instead of moving on to Dead dimension of whatever i called it last time). None if those reincarnations remembers the past lives (!foolish is 25th reincarnation). The mer part is blue shark, because that would be a crime to make it anything else.

!vegetta mer part is black sea bass (but uorple). i didn't really created much stuff for him admittedly so yeah.

!roier was the first one to be basically adopted by !fool and !vege back in another settlement (they had to move out to a current one after uhh An Incident). I'm planning to yap about him later tho.

!leo is supposed to be some sort of cloud dragon (the hair is basically a very thick cloud. i made it black because uhhh idk in this world some clouds can be other colors yeah). the mer part is nursehound inspired. she's was found the first out of all other dragon child in this mer settlement; mostly because she somehow appeared exactly at family's doorstep.

[occasionally-victor]

threw some designs and what not for mer au, took me way longer than i expected (again)

au is not really plot heavy, more like just some ideas in a trench coat that plague my mind every other day

i will gladly take asks about it👍 (while spiderbit is my personal main focus here because. yknow. i actually have some stuff about others as well)

all eggs are dragons in it, however some are dragon-mer's, and that fact definitely isn't relevant in any way nuh-uh no experiments here :)

richas is some sort of sea dragon (detail number one he doesn't really use his prosthetic in water because to move freely there he really only needs tail and fins, barely even arms); bobby's probably earth dragon (the mer part based on betta fish); roier's loosely based on giant squid (fun fact! while there are exceptions, mers in au usually dont wear any clothes all time. well guess who does :) for no reason at all :)); cellbit is a human. for now. (i was just lazy to draw it now, but it happens later anyway sooo)

[occasionally-victor]

(click on a pic if its blurry👍)

more mer au! today's the talk is about spiderbit's first meet and some other stuff + there's another picture with cave layout

okay, so, !cellbit (and richas, but like partially because, yknow, other parents) lives in a small house on a a hill that's just as small tbh; it's like an hour on motorbike to a big city (tho theres already some houses around, but his house is pretty seperate from those es well. i also think his house is also surrounded by small forest) and 15 min on foot to a closest beach (this beach is like. imagine really non-tourist-ey beach. like, very much the beach for the locals). Despite living near a what considered a Very Big Sea (and it's very known around as the place where a lot of mers live), because mers kinda prefer hang out in more populated places closer to the uhh Big City i need to think a name of later, so !Cellbit never saw a mer (not like he doesn't believe they exist, he just never thought about ever seeing one). Partially its probably because if Richas isn't with him he is either in his cave (working) or not home at all (also working).

Tho, even when richas is with him, !cellbit doesn't like, stop working (he works much less, and actually often brings his son on some of the non-dangerous missions). However, that does mean that every time !richas is not also in a cave (drawing or something), he spend a bunch of time at that beach playing with other kids from around (he isn't completely unsupervised - !cell gave him an amulet that when activated will alert the parent and then release a captured there monster made of pure energy that will deal with danger on hand)

so basically, on one of these days, richas and bobby meet (he kinda wasn't supposed to be there - he was only really allowed be around more populated places. however, that didn't stop him from sneaking out and exploring). they eventually went on becoming a very good friends, even tho they couldn't really meet as often as they wanted (they also only really briefly mentioned eachother to their respective parents)

so, on one of these hang outs, richas decided to show the cave to bobby (he really wasn't supposed to do it considering it was a secret cave). and it was pretty easy to do - there was a very direct way through an underwater tunnel (so it was perfect for a mer and a water dragon) and !cellbit wasn't supposed to be in a cave that day (idk cleaning up the house or something like that). there's, however, was one thing richas didn't know - is that despite not looking like that, the water passage was also protected, probably even better than the main exit. so when the second bobby's was able to see the inside of the cave two snakeropes dragged him out of water and hanged him right above it, richas was pretty horrified. so, of course, the best decision was to ran to his dad and get help (he could deal with the consequences of letting a stranger into a secret cave later). the trap that !cellbit set up is supposed to give him a notis in case of activation, so, well, he was already on the way.

so, he sees some kid being hanged up, clearly distressed and also his own kid thankfully on a ground, being equally distressed. he's equally pissed off (why theres a stranger in this cave) and happy (the trap worked perfectly) and also relieved after deactivating the trap because that kid does seem okay and not hurt (tho bobby definitely took some offense to being caught in a trap). The serious talk can wait tho, because it seems like bobby lost something while being dangled up (by richas words, it seems like he had a hairband tied up on a hand (paw?). weird but ig it can't really fit on his head). considering that !cellbit already need to go underwater to disable the trap - it might go off again if he won't do it, he also decided to look for a hairband - it isn't supposed to be too far away.

last time i talked about the whole "mer that consider themselves "family" can basically send eachother signals". that is especially true for a danger situations - in that case the signal can be sent almost unintentionally. so, let's just say, !roier got his weekend interrupted the worst possible way. and the signal weakening while he was already on his way did not, in fact, made him any less stressed. and maybe that's the reason why he immediately threw himself on some unknown guy that was in some underwater cave that was holding his sons hairband. and maybe that's why !cellbit didn't even register being outside the water and that Chat was the only reason he didn't hit the shelves as he was thrown out of that water.

the kids (especially bobby) were alright and explanations were given (because that's probably the only thing that could help with the air almost cracking with tension for obvious reasons). and then there's some small talk and some talking about kids (because of course parents will bond over kids) and family and stuff and suddenly couple hours already passed and that guy who [wanted to kill you/you wanted to kill (funnily enough, it seems like both agree that that was pretty justified, even if it was mostly because of lack of information)] could possibly be considered a friend (or already more, because i need yall to know that mer au spiderbit are like. ultra fast burn. the only reason they dont get together for some time are some plot stuff lmao)

also, the cave layout: the exit door is protected both by password and magical protection; the shelves are full of different books (various encyclopaedias), boxes with various artifacts, amulets and all that stuff, papers with a lot of information related to cases !cellbit worked on; theres actually a lit of different plants and moss and all that on walls, and some of the moss actually glows (not enough light on itself tho); the cave was definitely used even before (the wall between desk and richas's "room" is obviously man made and theres a lot of traces of previous furniture.

[occasionally-victor]

i feel like i need to start atleast sometimes talking about my au's, they can't keep cooking in my brain for years without output because for some reason i always need to visualise (draw) what im gonna talk about lmao. and when i day years - i mean it, my mer au was first conceptualised back in march 2021 (even though the most recent version of it was developed in 2023)

Anyways, mer au, huh? It isn't restricted to one specific smp (like all my au, ig), i just put anyone i want there.

I wanna talk some general things about it because i never really did (also, every time i say people - it means just everyone living in this dimension on this planet, who possesses the level of intelligence of a human irl. Sometimes i just need to specify which species of people we are talking about, like here about mers. and yes there are other dimensions im not talking about them tho.)

The world itself is pretty much just more or less normal fantasy world. I don't really go into world building more than necessary considering i mostly focusing on mers, but there are a lot of non-mer characters as well so. I basically kinda bullshit through there, but oh well. One thing i know for sure is that the planet they all are on is implied to be really fucking big. It's very common to often not be aware of existence of another species just because there never been one living close enough. Mers are very much one of the biggest "victims" of that (it's not bad nor good - it's just is). They are not hiding tho - it's just the ones who have contact with them are mostly people living by big bodies of water like sea or giant lake.

Talking about people living by big bodies of water, overall relationship between the ones on land and mers is pretty good - like, they trade between eachother; mers often seen around bays and beaches just hanging out with their land friends; it's very normal for food places that are right by the water to have an area for mers to access (and some are even ran by mers).

Mers usually live in underwater cities - each city is protected by Heart of the City (HotC) - a system of runes scattered in secret places (its one main rune and a bunch of smaller ones). Those runes also can be "found" in some other protected places outside of city. Making one rune is not hard (for mers, everyone else is fucked tho), but time consuming. How does it protect? By basically powering up mers in all ways. To not mess up with perception of their own might, mers tend to not "use" this power up until needed. Also, a lot of entrances in important places are made with much more heavy materials so without the rune active they would be hard to open. However, there's another thing about those runes - they also make non-waterbreathing creatures be able to breath under water when around. No one really understands why. But it does make tourism to underwater cities more accessible (tho, its pretty limited if going with a tourist group. however, if you have a mer friend - they totally can just get you there np)

Both qsmp and hermitcraft parts (they kinda separate, but also not really, it's just me splitting up lmao.) of au happen around the same sea. The two underwater cities would be pretty far away to really interact tho. (i also already kinda have the thing showing who's mer who isnt, but it isn't fully finished). Also, like i said, the au doesn't really have a plot lmao i just think mers are neat.

[occasionally-victor]

mers of mer au (qsmp side, considering im kinda more here im gonna focus on it for now)

!!!This is me asking yall to send me suggestions on what type of mers to make them (because i could only decide for some, but then my mind keeps blanking out lmao). I tend to base the designs on a specific type of fish (or not-fish, whatever), but then make the colors different, so yeah.

The ones that are already fully established: Roier (giant squid), Bobby (betta fish), Etoiles (sea cucumber), Foolish (shark, tho i wouldn't be against suggestions on which one, but this one is not a problem), Niki (octopus), Slime (jellyfish)

I also thinking about making Rivers some sort of crab, but this one is not cemented (for now)