@jtl-fics little sea otter baby Smith went off through the aquarium to find a new place to live after being abandoned 💔 not to worry, he found a gentle giant in the big tanks and is almost immediately adopted again. Whoever wants to take Smith away from this tank will have to get through a few of the resident merfolk first but no one gets through Mercer and @silvermasquerade Alyssa
I just found a cute outline version of an aquarium au i’m working on. I ended up changing it a lot after but this was the first draft.
Lance: 24, works as a dolphin trainer at the aquarium. Studied marine biology at school and has loved the ocean his whole life. Lives in San Diego. He gets the best of both worlds with his job because he’s around the ocean all day and he gets to help it and teach people. He was also practically born to do dolphin shows. Looks great in a wetsuit, gets to play with dolphins and yap people’s ears off about them in a big stadium, spend time with his favorite Pacific White Sided Dolphin, Blue.
Keith: 25, met Lance at the zoo when he tried to climb into the penguin exhibit to get a better look. Keith was there with his brother, his wife and their three year old daughter when he saw Lance climbing into the trainer platform of the penguin exhibit. Keith had never seen someone so bright and beautiful in his whole life even as Lance tripped and nearly face planted into the water. Keith ran over and helped him climb out before the zookeepers came to probably arrest him, and Lance treated him to cotton candy and a stuffed animal as thanks. Keith ends up ditching his brother and buys Lance a penguin stuffed animal instead of the real thing. They go on a date the next week.
2 months into their relationship Keith wakes up and sees a cute note Lance left him with directions, as well as breakfast and a dorky aquarium t-shirt he has to wear.
Keith goes to the aquarium and looks around a bit before finding his place in the stadium
When lance starts talking in the over com, Keith looks around like an excited little kid. He probably shouts to the kids next to him in the splash zone that his boyfriend is up there.
Lance shows up in his wetsuit with a pod of rescue dolphins swimming around him.
Keith thinks about the day he met Lance (penguin incident) and how he’s never seen someone so passionate about what they love, and he experiences that first hand, he thinks, with the way his boyfriend treats him. Too good, in his opinion, especially for only two wonderful months.
Keith watches the show and at one point Lance tries to get him to come up on the tank dock to wave to Blue, but he shakes his head shyly and a kid next to him goes up instead. Lance will probably insist next time
After the show, Lance brings Keith around the back really quick to say hi to a dolphin.
They lock up when it gets dark and it ends with them standing at the bottom of the tank glass, watching the animals swim by, and Keith is in love
[oc] so I drew most of the show aquarium merms. Will this help with future consistency? Idk. But I am under the impression that if I shrink Mercer down any more than I already have then I will have people after me so he remains unreasonably large lol (said as if I wasn't ready to be enabled)
Now that mermay is over. I have more mermay content. Much thanks to my buddy silvermasquerade who I wanted to talk about a mermaid au with (specifically their twin oc girlies who feature heavily here) and who had a hundred good ideas because now I’m terminally obsessed
So what if there were merfolk dolphins and they lived in an aquarium that does shows and stuff and most of them have an assigned human “handler” to help manage things and maybe to perform with. I think the merfolk are mostly like rescues or relocations?? At any rate the current set up of humans they work with are largely tolerable and even likeable so that’s a plus 🙏 and yes I’m unlearning embarrassment so you get to see my whole sketchbook layouts
(In this specific au the list of names and animals on the top left (above) are the merms, the right side list is the reverse timeline but we’ll get to that later)
Anyway I’ll put some ‘who’s who’ + rambles under the cut, for now @silvermasquerade GET OVER HERE I HAVE YOUR CHILDREN AND SECRET OTHER ART
Ok so. The merfolk are: silvermasquerade’s girls Adaline and Alyssa, the two black haired dusky dolphins
Alyssa (ponytail)’s human is Bo, Adaline won’t take an assigned handler but if she needs an assistant for her performances she’ll borrow someone (usually also Bo). They’re beautiful and so much fun to play dolls with and I love them. I also love forcing Bo and Alyssa to get through the initial absolute refusal to cooperate bc once they figure each other out they are so funny to me
(The rest of these aren’t going to have pics accompanying them because I’m hitting image limit smh)
My contributions to the merms are Quinton, the spotted dolphin who’s (current) human is a yet un-designed and completely un-introduced dude named Rhydian (annoying, sometimes pretends that the merfolk aren’t as sentient as they are bc it’s ‘convenient for him’). Luckily I’m thinking Q eventually gets put with Kallistos instead, who’s one of his besties in canon. He’s also mercilessly, lovingly teased for not being overly subtle by merfolk standards with how intrigued he is by Alyssa’s handler
Estes, a nondescript seal who doesn’t perform atm but ended up taking to one of the employees (Lolo) who was therefore given defacto responsibility of Estes bc she’s so snappy with anyone else. Lolo also happens to be someone that frequently helps train new employees so when Taorna is hired, he also accidentally gets on Estes’ good side. Oops 💕
Mercer, the unreasonably large orca that was brought in who also doesn’t yet perform because they have no one to work with him on it. He’s not quite built for the elegant types of shows they put on anyway, if they ever do a pirate drama he’d make a great sea monster tho.
And Liana, the common dolphin with the yellow ribbon in her hair. Her handler is Ambrose (eyepatch guy) which means she’s almost immediately teased/razzed by the other merfolk for how well the two of them get along. “He’s handsome and kind and -“ “girl please. he’s a HUMAN” but you best believe they are the media darlings and look so cute in their matching costumes
One day I’ll draw them with their humans bc you absolutely have not seen the last of them, I’m obsessed almost to the point of concern, I also need to figure out how to get Betony in here fr. If you thought Mercer towered over them before oh boy
More show aquarium shenanigans. First what I imagine would happen right after dolphin Q is released into the aquarium proper: immediately in the care of his bestie Estes, and Bo gets distracted by them napping on the indoor sunning rocks almost as quickly 🙏
And with @silvermasquerade oc Alyssa 💕 she doesn’t necessarily want to drown Bo but like. She might want to scare him a little djdhsj
And a new addition! One of my artfight revenges was for silvermasquerade, her changeling oc Magnus! We talked about him being an arctic/deep-ish ocean mer, and I don’t have a reference chart for size comparison yet but he is a big boy in this au. Probably plenty bigger than the big old orca that’s already in here lol. Super creepy and cool, I love him a lot
Hi! Hello! I don't really have a question but could you please talk more about the aquarium au? More funfacts or storyline? Whatever you want! Sending you love <3
Hi!! 💕 I absolutely can talk about them dhsjsk, again Alyssa and Adaline belong to @silvermasquerade and the referenced post is here!
I didn't intend this but these bullet points are kind of ordered from least to most funny, so if you want timeline thoughts start at the top, but if you want goofs just start at the bottom and work your way back up until you get bored. Putting it under a read more bc this got dense
So like working with the merfolk is dangerous right. I imagine it's because there is a non zero chance that you could be torn apart (or depending on the species, eaten) on the job by things using teeth and claws with human-adjacent brains where you are in THEIR domain. Also because some merfolk have siren-lure qualities to their voices, which probably is for facilitating catching prey. And yes some of the aquarium residents have such voices! Namely Alyssa & Adaline and Quinton. Liana's voice doesn't entrance the same way even though it should, so by merfolk standards she doesn't sound very good, but by human standards she still sounds beautiful. For some reason my instinctual thoughts are that Mercer doesn't have a siren voice, while Estes' species definitely doesn't just in general. But the most dangerous part of the job is forgetting that these eventualities exist even if you have befriended one of them
Ada and Alyssa have been at the aquarium the longest, they've also been in contact with humans in general long enough that Adaline has pretty much picked up English. I think it makes the most sense that Bo and Ambrose are working more regular jobs, maybe helping with the aquarium's "natural" dolphins/etc, when the twins arrive. Then later, Quinton, Estes, and Mercer all get there at once, though only Estes is put in the aquarium at first. Quinton and Mercer are initially in a separate facility for medical attention and testing - Mercer is released first once his cuts are tended to, Quinton is kept there longer. Estes does not take kindly to this. Then a little later they gain Liana as well
There's a tiny note on one of the sketchbook pages about aquarium employee Betony - I think they had a very unstable childhood, even homeless for a bit before Bo learned about it (despite Betony's efforts) and eventually got Betony a job at the aquarium. The deal was that Aster would convince their mom, the aquarium owner, to give Betony a job just as a souvenir shop clerk, as long as Bo got Betony to take swimming lessons. Because Aster knew as well as Bo that Betony working customer service was going to be a disaster, and the sooner they could get transferred elsewhere, the better. And like it's not ideal obviously, but the two also underestimated the power of Betony's refusal to embarrass or upset Bo by getting fired or written up. Still, Bo finally convinces Betony to let him personally teach them to swim. So though sales clerk works out, if Betony ever does get dive certified it'll be huge for them
(There's no real substance to this thought but like just the image of the first day Q is brought into the aquarium. Bo walks into work for his early shift one morning and suddenly there's the last merfolk they were supposed to be getting, sleeping on some of the smooth rocks under their big UV lamp curled up close with the seal that's been causing so much trouble, and Bo can see why they were worried about that one but also wow it's pretty)
Since it's a modern au, I was imagining that they eventually start doing post-show interviews for publicity reasons. Like post game interviews lol where they let some reporters in and do it from the side of the pool. Again ofc Liana and Ambrose are media sweethearts. Alyssa and Bo are faves for their dry comments and sarcasm. Rhydian and Quinton can be harder to watch for people that are paying attention bc Rhydian likes to hog the questions and attention (which Q would normally be and technically is fine with, but like. It's the principle of the matter. Plus we know Rhydian is a jerk so)
Speaking of interviews, every once in a while there will be a reporter that just does not or refuses to grasp that the merfolk are people that understand English. Again hard to watch but also funny when it's not Rhydian they're interviewing bc of the varied reactions the humans have. One time a reporter asked Bo if "his mermaid" had any pre-show ritual or warm up and Bo just stared at him in silence for a full ten seconds until the guy folded and asked Alyssa herself properly
Another note from the sketchbook is earrings. Idk why I thought of it but I thought it'd be cute but Q knows that asking Rhydian is a non starter bc Rhydian just dismisses most of Q's questions or requests. But Alyssa asks Bo and instead of dismissing her, Bo points out that Rhydian was lying or just lazy when he told Quinton that any jewelry would just tarnish immediately underwater because there is such a thing as water safe jewelry that will last at least a little longer. However Bo does have to convince his mom that it's not the waste of money it appears to be and that Quinton, despite being "a man" (her words), specifically requested them and should be allowed to pierce his ears if Alyssa was. So the deal is it has to be done completely professionally, and they can only wear small studs for safety reasons. The silly thing I liked the most was the image of Bo, head propped on hand at his desk at home, suddenly coming back to the reality that he really was checking to see if any of the piercing and tattooing parlors in the area would do house calls to an aquarium just because the pretty merfolk asked him (which could mean nothing)
Back to the post show interviews. There's a popular clip of one of Bo and Alyssa's interviews taken after the first show of a new season, in which the aquarium unveiled that they do costumes now! Like a cross between acrobat and figure skating costumes but put them underwater. (I just enjoy designing them tbh)
Reporter: you two look great, how did you decide on your look?
Bo: I had nothing to do with it
Alyssa: he unironically wears khaki shorts everyday, he was not allowed to make any of the decisions
Bo: it's part of the work uniform
Alyssa: I'm not saying it again. Khaki shorts are not your only option, you just keep choosing to live like this. At least get the pants
People of course also take videos at the aquarium and they have social media managers (thank you Ayre and Nell). There's one viral video somewhere out there where someone comes up to Ambrose and asks "what song were you dancing to in the tank yesterday?" Ambrose is clearly a little embarrassed but he laughs because he knows it's funny actually and he goes "uh. It was Nasty" "nasty? Like I've been a nasty girl??" "Yeah, it comes on sometimes on the before and after hours playlists and it's really catchy, the ladies think it's funny to get it stuck in my head." It fades out with the person holding the camera saying "aw, you call them the ladies?" And then it smash cuts to a video of Ambrose in his scuba gear in the viewing tank, with three of the mermaids and one natural bottlenose, doing some admittedly very good improv choreo while two of the mermaids join in to varying degrees and the dolphin waves its head around to the beat Ambrose has going on. it's perfectly overlayed with Tinashe's Nasty
I need to stop or I'll be here all night, maybe I'll keep notes somewhere as I have more thoughts lmao. But yeah they're silly and I am having fun with this little side adventure ✨
