Svsss mermaid au (kind of dark I guess) where the characters of pidw are all products of an unethical mermaid store.
Uhhh CW: there’s a bit of body horror and there’s a theme of treating intelligent life forms as lesser beings (mermaids in this case) so,,,
Honestly this au is a horror au www
There are a few that were bred into captivity but the rest are hunted and captured. In this world the rich and bold keep mermaids as objects of pleasure, pets, and also consider them a delicacy.
Xiang Fei is transmigrated as one of the mermaid stuffed in these tiny cages. He’s one of the ones that had been bred into captivity. Through inbreeding and inherited traits, XF finds that the original body’s tail fins are abnormally long and that he puts on weight easily, he’d already pretty chunky when he transmigrates. He’s not the most mutated, and is actually on the tamer side of things.
His colors are vibrant and catered towards the human eye, going against the dark tails spattered with bioluminescent scales meant to lure prey towards them. It’s clear his lineage has been through hell.
Anyways point is, Xiang Fei is placed in this unfortunate situation where his survival is dependent on the aesthetic choices of the people shopping.
Many of the other mermaids around him—mutated to the point of twisted features—all creel for attention, pressing up against the glass with desperate songs. Their eagerness—not borne to their own wills but from their lack of—almost sad in the eyes of XF, who understands the cruel reality of these mermaids.
There’s mermaids who are aware, not all of them are dumb mindless things but most of the ones with brains are the ones that were captured on the outside and/or ones that grew up in exhibits with ‘the wild ones’.
XF’s original body was one of these brainless mermaids, but because of how fickle people are nobody really cares about the ‘dud’ mermaids and tend to focus on the more unique ones.
There’s a few attractions in the mermaid shop, one being the newest capture, known as the “war god” (we all know where this is going btw).
He’s rather big for a mermaid and quite aggressive so he’s mostly placed in the ‘depths’ which is just a fighting ring/betting area where people can do a ‘quality check’ over their purchased mermaids by having it go up against one of the stores kept mermaids.
LQG—aka the war god—is the newest addition to this fighting roster. He’s popular because he hasn’t been broken down yet and people like the fight in him, the enjoy seeing him snap at the underpaid handlers that have to deal with him, at the mermaids rushing into a fight believing that their only use is to follow orders, and snap at them through the protective layers of glass separating the ring from the spectators.
So far the only ones that have survived the war god are the shops other main attractions, namely:
SJ aka “little jade” or “the elegant blade” (a play on the Xiu Ya sword title). He’s a siren captured from the outside, his tail is twisted and crooked, as if the bones within it are mangled and unable to properly heal. (Was done during his capture) He’s quiet and introverted, hostile to nearly all other mermaids. The only creatures he seems to tolerate decently are the female shop workers—and even then, it’s usually for personal gain (such as trinkets and snacks)
He’s a siren that has a sky high price because despite the crooked tail, he is extremely beautiful and when the light shines on his tail properly it becomes almost translucent. He’s also popular because of his healing factor, many rich clientele enjoy eating his flesh—often discussing what a “pure” taste and flavor the meat from his tail has.
YQ aka “the gentleman’s mer” as well as “the solemn siren” (A play on his Xuan Su Sword title… But he’s not a siren). He’s also one captured from the outside, however unlike SJ, YQ is a mermaid. He’s known as the gentleman’s mer/the beginner’s mer because of how unresponsive he is to most stimuli. It’s like he doesn’t register pain—which is good news to some and odd news to others. He’s usually never violent and has only ever had one incident before, which is how he got his other name.
During an encounter between a buyer, SJ, and YQ it was reported that after an interaction between SJ and YQ, YQ attacked the buyer unprompted. YQ ate through the person quite thoroughly and needed to be sedated several times because he was showing some extreme aggression. Uhhh yeah after that any interaction between SJ and him was monitored closely because the shop assumes SJ is the reason behind YQ’s attack.
Like SJ, YQ also has a slight deformity in his tail, however it’s a matter of fins rather than the entire tail and it’s also due to his own actions rather than something he’d been born with. YQ is missing like a good chunk of one of his main fins and can’t swim as well as he could before.
(Mmm getting a bit lazy on these backstories and descriptions)
MQF, who possesses an extra pair of arms and supports many little “false leg” structures on his tail, making him look close to a centipede. He’s distantly related to XF’s original body, however the initial contrast in intelligence means that nobody ever associates the two with one another.
WQW who has horn/spike/spine like growth scattered around his body. His skin is translucent and you can often see his organs through it. He’s also missing like one cheek, so half of his teeth are exposed at all times—which is really inefficient when trying to eat fish and keep it in. WQW’s wild and the cheek injury happened during capture. The spine/spike growth isn’t harmful or anything, but when broken off they sure are pretty.
QQQ who possesses a false mouth on her face. Her real mouth is located a bit lower and the one on her face only produces noise (which she can also do with her lower mouth).
and quite a few of the shops other main attractions.
Anyways so XF really wants no part in this whole thing and dreams about escape because there’s not much else to do besides dream. He knows that realistically, escaping would be sending most of these mermaids to their deaths since they can’t survive out in the wild
(This is all I had written from earlier, I actually fell asleep at 4am this time which is way earlier than before but like still bad but like YAYYYYY I GOT SOME SLEEP)
