#mafia mers

[catsitta]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Instructions not clear. Floor now covered in thumbtacks.

Bittiebones | Mafia Mers | Oneshot

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@hansama I blame you for this. <3

[catsitta]

COLOR ME - SANS

You are welcome to color this lineart, draw over it, etc. I only request that you credit/tag me if you use it, and to use the tag #Catsitta Collab. That way I can more easily find it~

I'm planning on occasionally offering clean lineart for folks to color every so often. For neatness sake, I will probably keep them grouped together by character or ship. So keep an eye out!

[catsitta]

Oh? None of the boys are pure mermaids?

Where did you get that impression? I'm not saying all the boys are pure Mers (there's some dialogue by Striker specifically that suggests otherwise) but I didn't say none of them are. Was that from my magic faerie fish comment? Because Mers are a subspecies of fae/faerie in SwtF. I may refer to them as Mers, mermaids, skeletons or fae, as all are accurate!

In fact, I'm mashing some of my monster soul theory stuff with faerie lore in this fic, so if suggestion of non-traditional reproduction is where the confusion happened... well...we will get there!

[catsitta]

I feel like Price would be the first one to fall for Mc (though, I may be wrong). Is to say, that he is the only one in the group that understands Mc better than the others, he has/shows more emotions it seems. Plus he a softie.

I even believe the others don't understand love (romantic). They all seem so clueless to many basic things in human culture. ;-;

Hmmm. You might be onto something there. Though I will say his initial feelings towards MC were far more platonic, though not quite paternal. Like... I'm gonna be that big strong masculine influence in your life that you seem to need right now. However. Has that changed? Well, fic is marked as a romance, so the answer is there, but him developing feelings before the rest does have precedent.

Though, I will argue this. Boss knows just as much about humans as Red does...he just doesn't...uh...care? xD Empathize the same way? In fact, when it comes to dealing with humans, there are only two really... clueless ones. Those being Mercy and Striker, though for different reasons.

As for love.

You do have a good argument there.

Love and the fae is quite the sticky subject~

[catsitta]

In swtf why did striker kiss the human as he turned her? And what’s up so special about the kisses afterwards?

Spoilers!

MC actually asked Striker this very question in Ch. 10!

"...Kissing you was to acclimate me to YOU, not the other way around." - Striker

And if we take him at his word, the others basically told him to do it, because it was important for a later step in the Plan for him to be more familiar with human customs. We can also infer from this that Mers don't traditionally kiss as a part of courtship behavior.

The later kisses were part of bargains. They are not significant as kisses, exactly. MC sassed Striker and asked him if he wanted another kiss in sarcasm in the middle of a discussion of a Bargain, and Striker accepted the deal to A.) teach MC a lesson about the power of words, and B.) Have an excuse to basically tattle the others' plans. The next kiss, the one MC gave Price in another deal with Striker, was Striker being spiteful towards Price. He was essentially weaponizing Price's evident soft spot for MC against him.

[catsitta]

You mentioned before that for swtf that the mers are not monogamous. Are they polygamous then? One mate for everyone type thing/that why they took the mc?

Indeed I did mention they're not monogamous! We will get this mating behavior lesson later on in the fic, but it was won't hurt to elaborate here.

To start, the mafia boys don't need MC to form mate pairs to have their own little mer guppies. It being a reader fic, I decided against any inter-mafia shenanigans, but have joked here and there about Price and Striker having chemistry. And if the boys wanted guppies, they could have them. Reproduction works a lil different for them.

That out of the way! Mers in the Fishes 'verse can and sometimes do matepair. Like many species of real world animals, this can be for a single breeding season or across multiple seasons, even to the extent that they do matepair for life. But, Mers aren't strictly monogamous even within a breeding season.

[Since we're not working strictly within the traditional binary of sex since they're magic skeleton faerie fish, I'll use receptive to describe a mer who is, literally, receptive to carrying offspring. ]

A receptive mer can accept multiple courtships and can mate with many different partners during a breeding season. Jealousy and aggression between individuals courting the same receptive mer can happen, but it's generally perceived as a taboo. It's a sign of insecurity since strict courtship of true matepairs is actually less common than a more polygamous one, and an aggressive, jealous mate is more of a hazard than a help. A receptive mer with a harem of harmonious mates is a well-fed, well-protected mer that is more likely to carry healthy offspring. Mers basically follow a mating practice where nobody knows who daddy is, so everyone pools resources to take care of the babies, assuming that either the guppy is theirs OR being a continued provider will allow for a chance to sire offspring in the future.

So. In short:

Do they need MC to have babies? Nope!

Does everyone in a mafia strictly breed with a single receptive mate within that mafia? It can happen, but not always!

[catsitta]

In SWTF, what would happen if Mc already knew what she was and know how do to magic? She knew what was Price really is and ever still she met him, she has been avoiding him? Would the boys still have try to take her with them?

Well, that would have been a completely different story indeed! If MC knew magic and the truth behind her heritage, then it is very likely she wouldn’t have met Price the way she did. In fact, the only reason she would have stayed in her home town would have been for her Nan, and without her there, MC probably would have embraced her magic and gone on some mythic journey into the faerie realm. Maybe had some kind of self-discovery journey. As such, there would have been no reason for taking her. However, that is not to say she and the mers would have never met. But the circumstances wouldn’t be the same at all. 

[catsitta]

See in SWtF, when mc wakes up in the cave and has the situation explained to her, how would the mafia mers react if she straight up has a full blown panic attack? Because to be honest I would be a complete mess in that situation! XD

If Reader had a full blown panic attack? 

Karma: He isn’t getting involved, this isn’t really his specialty. As far as he is concerned, the human will calm down eventually.

Mercy: Poor human!!! He must make a special sedation drink so she doesn’t hurt herself. He’d defer mostly to Boss and Price on how best to handle the human until she can drink some medicine.

Boss: He’s flustered by the human’s reaction but not surprised. This just affirms his belief that they should have just killed her earlier. But, he is both great and terrible, so he barks orders to the others to make sure they give him the room and supplies he needs to calm the human. He doesn’t touch Reader, but he does use magic and take advantage of Mercy’s Charm to steady Reader. 

Price: He knows what he’s seeing and he doesn’t want a certain Dolphin anywhere near Reader. Given that he may very well be the closest thing to an ally Reader could percieve herself as having, he’d be trying to anchor her with his presence and voice while the others go the ‘less human’ route of handling things.

Striker: He is tossed out of the room the moment it starts up. He’s not allowed near the human. 

Lucky: He’s playing goalie. Keeping Striker away from the human because let’s be honest, he has no idea how to help unless the Reader smokes. He finds smoking quite calming.