I’ve been thinking of the mermaid au so much lately in between comms and other stuff I’ve been doing, here are some quick drawings to get back into it since I haven’t drawn Brook or Yorki in a few weeks
I finally have a species decided for John and Rio, which means I only have three more Rumbars left until I’m finished. I’ve been very picky with the tails they get, I want them to all be unique and not blend in too much with each other. My first thought with them was to make them all reef fish; vibrant and social, but I found something else I like more. They come from all over the ocean and I think that fits better, Yorki finding people and bringing them together rather than them just being there.
That presents them with different ways of interacting with each other and their environment too. Rio being benthic, he’s completely comfortable with the usual hangouts in the reefs and rocky structures because it’s what he’s familiar with (lionfish), whereas the Mizutas (whale sharks) have been primarily pelagic where they’ve been free to roam in open waters. Being too far along the shore feels suffocating to them at first but especially as they begin to follow Yorki’s antics, they warm up to and even become curious about the exploration of reefs since there’s a lot to find and interact with. But it’s hard for them to keep still.
John is a yeti crab so he becomes appointed with managing/demonstrating cooked meals using hydrothermal vents, where yeti crabs often live. For meals to be cooked, it’s usually a delicacy since one would have to travel to the deep sea or find a shallow water vent, and there are dangers in doing this. But John knows the ‘sweet spot,’ he can navigate these areas. Any time Yorki has an appetite for something cooked, it becomes a trip in itself. Weeks worth of food is harvested and cooked inside giant clam shells. At least, traditionally. Yorki starts wanting to try discarded pots that he finds.
So John cooks, but it isn’t labeled the role of a cook since most mermaids don’t view cooking as integral, and it really depends on where you live, whether one would place value on that or not. It’s like a staple of culture for communities living around any vents. Yorki loves it though, and when he meets Crocus who is a human, it only furthers his curiosity on how humans do their own food prep.
Because that’s another thing, their relation to humans, and also the misunderstandings between them. Yorki especially wants to get along with people. He hears humans playing music and that establishes a common interest between them that he’s aware of, but that isn’t how most humans see it. They’re aware of the existence of mermaids and genuinely believe the Rumbars’ music is meant to lure them into the water to drown them. They hold many superstitious beliefs. But it’s furthered by Yorki’s misguided attempts at ‘helping’ people.
Because Yorki just isn’t very aware of himself. He’s an 8 ft shark man, no human is willing to be near that, especially when they already know so little about the mermaids in the first place. And it’s the same thing on the mermaids’ end too, they don’t know what humans need. So if a human is in danger, a mermaid’s first thought would be to pull them to safety, and ‘safety,’ to a mermaid, is not the same thing as it is to a human. To mermaids, it means dragging them into the water and hiding them away in protective coves, or pulling them out further into the ocean. They’re generally unaware people can’t breathe underwater. They assume that since they look so similar, they must be adapted to water also, which isn’t the case. And humans think they’re just trying to kill them, which is where the myths and tales take root. It’s a lot of misconceptions on both ends. And unfortunately, it ends in Yorki’s death. Crocus warns him many times but it never quite reaches him.
I have thought about how Yorki could die in this au, and instead of a sickness of some kind, I think having it reflect issues that have been taking place across our oceans makes it very real, hopefully very eye-opening for people who maybe aren’t familiar with the horrors sea life is vulnerable to. Very, very uncomfortable but fitting for how a shark might be treated by people. And that’s finning.
‘Finning’ is a practice done on sharks where fishers slice off all their fins, which are their desired parts, and the rest of the shark is thrown back into the ocean still living. Without fins, sharks cannot swim obviously, so they suffer suffocation or bleeding out as they sink. Insanely disgusting practice, sharks are massacred like this all the time for shark fin soup; (don’t buy or consume shark fin soup. Side tangent, idc, you are supporting shark finning by doing this. So just don’t do it, at all. Never.)
So Brook tries to help him swim and to recover. But the thing with remoras, they’re not great swimmers. They don’t have swim bladders which is why they rely on others for a lot of transportation. Brook is able to swim but not very good with long-distance, he hitches rides on Laboon a lot. So imagine a remora trying to become the transportation for a shark. It just doesn’t work, it can’t last forever. Yorki gets weaker and weaker until he gives out.
Those are some of my ideas, I know I’ve rambled but I’m happy to be figuring this out more. I’m not sure when new, finished art will come but hopefully soon, as well as the inclusion of Rumbar oc’s in the au.
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
ellievsbear
kianamaiart
germansingergirl
