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Mer Worldbuilding

Ooooohohohohohoho!!! Man oh man oh man oh MAN!!!!! I have!! SO!!! Many ideas on mer culture but no where to publish them UNTIL NOW!!! With @keferon's mer au!!!

I just have so many thoughts!!!!

Different kinds of culture in different regions! Merfolk who live in rivers and lakes and near the shores, vs those who live out in the open ocean near the surface vs those who live in the abyss zone vs those who live near the ice caps. Religions centered around moon and stars and the rise and fall of the ocean as she breathes.

So like, this is more of a worldbuilding post than apocalyptic ponyo post but whatever, we ball.

merfolk who live in colder waters like the deep sea or near ice caps have antifreeze proteins in their tissues so they don't freeze

hey, a tf thought here: Skyfire being a big giant marshmallow of a mer, chilling in the north and just minding his own business, doing some research on the magnetic fields in the poles, but gets bothered by this tiny screaming little creature. He's pretty sure that's a human, but he's also pretty sure that humans aren't supposed to be this far north. Maybe it's lost? Poor thing. Meanwhile, researcher Starscream is screaming at whatever giant stupid fish keeps fucking up his readings and it's cold as SHIT out here and god DAMN it, he just needs ONE GOOD READING before he can go back, BUT THE STUPID- oh fuck that's a giant human-fish-mer thing actually. Oh shit.

counterpoint: skinny ass mer starscream doing research in the north who befriends the weird human that also lives here (though he didn't befriend Skyfire initially cuz the whole POINT of moving out here is so that he didn't HAVE to deal with the weird nosy uncanny things that have two weird arm things instead of a tail. But Skyfire wore him down and now they're buddies :) Skyfire is all bundled up in his arctic gear and Starscream is just out here like the temperatures here aren't cold enough to kill a man.)

Also, this means that Starscream has to worry SO much about Skyfire freezing to death, oops :)

and they were BOTH researchers! :D

merfolk who live near the hydrothermal vents being more poison resistant cuz of all the toxic metals there.

Much like how humans fucked around and found out with fire and electricity, merfolk fucked around with currents, thermal energy, stupid amounts of pressure, and magnetic fields. Those are their main power sources, depending on the area, like how humans primarily use electricity.

Hey hey hey, who wants to talk about eels for this tf mer au? Because i wanna talk about the idea of electricity being a relatively new power source for merfolk, that used to be a less common thing. Like, it was definitely used before for a LONG time, but it used to just not be feasible to have on a wide scale, and limited to just areas that have eels. And with transformers in the mix, combining mechs and eels and electricity, i don’t know what to do with it man, but the potential for something fun is there.

Ooooooo, prosthetics and cyborgs and mechanical enhancements maybe? I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to this later.

FUCK MAN, THINK ABOUT THE WHALE FALLS. Some regions who see it as a gift from above, other seeing it as just another part of the cycle of life, part of the ebb and flow of the ocean, life dying and feeding many others, and other regions just seeing it as a tragedy, a great majestic creature dying and lost to the deep abyss below.

I spend a lot of time on how people will have different philosophies based on the world around them and the ocean is a very different world indeed.

Speaking of religion, what about Drift? What would his religion be if he was a merman? I don't know enough about Drift to say what sort of philosophies and ideals he would have as a mer, but it would be so fun to think about.

Red is one of the first colors to go the deeper you get into the ocean. Many fish that deep down there flat out can't see the color red cuz they never had to. Ergo, red reading as caution or danger or scared or sneaky, etc, to any merfolk that come from the deep, because red is used as camouflage at those levels.

BIOLUMINESCENCE. Oh my FUCK can we talk about bioluminescence? Because ooooooo pretty shiny lights that flash and flicker go brrrrrrrrrr.

You know that moment in ponyo where they communicated via flashing lights? That morse code bit? Yeah, that but for merfolk. Flashing lights at each other so they don't have to whistle so loud, or in closer conversations, biolights just being used as a mood indicator, like posture and body language.

Also! Speaking of all those different mer cultures in different regions and zones, the TRADE!! The travel and trade between these regions and zones! Deep sea folk swimming upwards and having to squint from the bright lights, needing sunglasses. Surface layer merfolk swimming downwards and having to use specialized sonars or red light flashlights, like glowing red rocks or torches or something, in order to being to see their surroundings.

I have! More to say! But I am eepy and if I don't post this bit now, I never will, so out this goes, hit post.

#my posts #transformers stuff #my writings #writing ideas #apocalyptic ponyo #worldbuilding #mer au #i love thinking about different cultures and anthropology was my favorite class #I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON WHAT IF'S ON OCEAN CULTURE #clothes! music!! FOOD!!!!#DANCING AND TRAVEL AND SONG AND POEMS AND AND AND #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA