since you mentioned AUs!!! I am beaming my fma merpeople and pirates AU right into your head!!
Greed is a shark merman who has a little mermaid-style meeting with the gang when he sinks a military prison ship and drags all of them to shore. I haven't really worked out if the gang is nonhuman or just humans who used to be soldiers, but Greed leaves them be on the beach. They end up stealing a small ship and Greed shows up like a month later to be like "hey I'll protect y'all if you follow my rule and take me wherever you want. Btw I saved you :)" and it's very silly. And ofc Greed's big power is that he has his shield and claws +strong teeth and extra agility. Also he still wants money and power and whatnot, but it feels a little silly because he mostly just sits in a bucket when he's not in the water.
As far as other things go, Lust is an eel mermaid, Envy is a catfish merperson who can become a sea dragon, Gluttony is a basking shark from the waist down (mouth and eyes included), Sloth is an ocean sunfish, Pride is still Selim but he controls a kraken and has to be near the sea regularly, and I still haven't decided what's up w Wrath
oh I am chewing on this so hard hello
greed is legally required to be something shark related in any sort of aquatic au I don't make the rules (he's part shark fishman in my one piece au 🤝 we love pirate aus in this house)
him randomly saving them and disappearing for a month so they're all just like "hey what the fuck happened" until he decides to show up again is so funny. like yeah I guess you do just roll with it and be pirates now and work for this shark guy what else can you do
those are all SUCH good concepts for all the rest of the homunculi I'm looking sooo politely 👀 especially the basking shark for gluttony is so smart
