#jellyneil au

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Ok life cycle of a jelly mer is a GO. I’ll stick it under the cut in case anyone doesn’t want to see the lil development/newborn stuff

BUT before that since I know at least a few people are going to ask; yes, you can hold tiny baby medusa Neil, it can’t even sting you yet. Just a lil tingle

(Shout out to @the-tortoise-lady for the idea of baby Neil with no common sense or self awareness being very certain it both can and will eat that thing it found wading in the water near the beach (fisherman Andrew))

So normal jellyfish polyps grow into what looks like little stacked saucers or plates and when one breaks off it grows into the actual medusa we all know. So like. I’m just imagining the upper body/human part of the mer grows inside more like two cups stacked together, and there’s only one per polyp (i don’t even know if regular polyps have multiple discs break off tbh).

But according to some v quick research and not being able to find specifically Sea Nettle reproductive cycle, I am declaring their polyps the average size of Small (about an inch/3cm or something close) and their baby medusae have A LOT of growing to do :D

#which is unfortunately why so many don’t make it to that size #they need lots and lots of supervision #so if they don’t get it for whatever reason #they’re picked off quick #also. depending on the timeline and what you want to believe #I made it so those hands could with minor changes #become either Nathan’s or Andrew’s #or yours if you really want hehe #oh yeah I want to do shark life cycle too #did you know basking shark pups are born at a starting size of roughly 3ft/1m #love that #anyway #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #mer au #jellyneil au #jellyfish #jellyneil #mer research notes

[emry-stars-art]

not to be dramatic or anything but I would die for baby jelly Neil

You will

#for legal reasons this is a joke #he couldn’t hurt you if he tried #Andrew tho! #that kid has a fishing knife from age like 6 #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #asks #mer au #jellyNeil au #jellyneil #jellyfish #tw knives #chibi #digital

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I'm so obsessed with your aus omds I just wanna *cups jelly Neil in my palms*

Good news! It loves that 😌

Find the mer au masterpost here 💕

#softest comfiest cave to snuggle into #as long as it’s got a few tentacles in the water for oxygen we are SET #and yes #the hands I drew are little Andrew’s hands #he gets to hold the baby jelly #Aaron was too rough One Time and now it’s on sight for him and those stingers #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #mer au #jellyneil au #asks #jellyfish #jellyneil

[emry-stars-art]

Extra posting bc I was going back through my sketchbooks to figure out where I left a note on smth, found this. Still don’t super like it and I actually think they’d be a couple years older when Neil finds its way back to Andrew’s beach but maybe you’ll get a kick out of it 😘

#did I ever post this #sorry for the bad quality lmao #I hope it’s still easily legible #but yeah Neil’s instincts are 1) bite and 2) hey I remember this pillow #neither are comfy rip Andrew #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #jellyfish #jellyNeil #jellyneil au #mer au #sketchbook #shout out to ash’s #Aaron watching andrew leave the house: #why are you wearing a shirt you never wear a shirt to work #Andrew: protection #Aaron: from the sun? #Andrew remembering jellyNeil stinging him and how a sting to the chest is NOT something he wants to repeat: yes #(I could be remembering that wrong actually but I thought it was great #either way)

[emry-stars-art]

Question: how long does medusa neil takes to grow?

Like, taking the hands as Andrew's, is it more of a "whiplash because I was petting this baby a month ago and it's now Big" situation or "wait what you're telling this hot mer is that tiny cute thingy I'd found around as a teen?" one

Ok ok so I had just put out “Andrew finding baby jelly neil would be really cute” as like a fun little side thought but now I REALLY LIKE IT AND I WANT TO PUT IT IN THE TIMELINE

so to answer this question: physically? A Sea Nettle mer like Neil I’m going to say takes about 17-19 years to reach physical maturity/full size (which in jellies is pretty far removed from mental and emotional maturity, jelly brains take a good while to develop because they start with so little)

So this. This is what I’m deciding thank you so much @snazzy-jas-z-is-a-fan-of (which counts as your second option, dear galacticvampire)

And it looks like this:

@exy-is-sexy medusa admirer 🥰

So Andrew always comes back to the beach (fisherman’s son, they’re there a lot) and always gets distracted going to a specific tide pool housing this little thing he found. Aaron thinks it’s really cool too, their dad is too busy with work down the beach and is happy his kids are entertaining themselves while he gets ready for the day. Of course, yes, he tells them. Very good, finding such a mer in these waters. (He thinks it’s kids being kids. No one’s seen a jelly mer, they’re kind of believed to be extinct if not simply legends. But a little imagination is healthy.)

Then one day, Andrew checks the tide pool and finds it empty of the tiny jelly. It’s nowhere in sight, he looks all over the nearby waters and in any grass or rocks it could have gotten caught in. Nothing at all.

Maybe by the time he’s taken over his family’s fishing business, Andrew has convinced himself it really was in his imagination. His memory serves him well but if he’d convinced himself it was real back then, that would be what he remembered now.

Until he finds a monster washed up on his beach.

(A shot of the process under the cut)

IT DOESNT COME ACROSS IN THE PANEL. BUT I CANNOT PROPERLY EXPRESS TO YOU HOW TINY THAT SECOND NEIL IS. literally I think that is the single smallest thing I’ve ever drawn. Look at this

That’s me sharpening my 0.3 mechanical pencil to get it small enough to draw the eyes. I just need everyone to know this because I think it’s so stupid and funny. And we all love tiny baby jelly Neil and it doesn’t get ANY tinier than this folks

#BABIES #not pictured: directly before and after #before when Andrew got seaweed on his foot #saw a bug in it #and flung it across the beach in his surprise #then went looking for it bc wait that didn’t seem like a bug #found it in a tide pool #huh. jelly mer #and after when Aaron says ‘can I hold it’ #and Andrew tries to drop it into Aaron’s hand #but it’s barely hanging on to his finger by its teeth. hanging straight down #love them #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #mer au #jellyNeil au #jellyfish #asks #tags #jellyneil

[emry-stars-art]

“They said something washed up on shore last night.

Something no one had seen in hundreds of years.

Something that was supposed to be dead.”

Mermay au pt1 / pt2

In which Andrew is a respected, if lone, fisherman designated to safeguard the shores and nearby ocean. Neil is a very large and very dangerous Black Sea Nettle mer jellyfish. Who shouldn’t have ever been anywhere near Andrew’s shores.

#fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #mermay #mer au #neil josten #andrew minyard #jellyfish #jellyNeil au #comic

[emry-stars-art]

“It should be dead now, too.

But I couldn’t kill it.”

Mermay au pt1 / pt2

#fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #mermay #mer au #jellyNeil au #jellyfish #comic

[emry-stars-art]

Hey tumblr happy mermay

I have a mini comic for you later, but for now here’s some concept sketches/brainstorming 👀

#fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #mermay #mer au #basking shark #shark #jellyfish #black sea nettle #sketchbook #jellyNeil au #sharkdrew au #oops all mers au #sharkdrew #mer research notes

[emry-stars-art]

Wips and sketches from the insta live this morning 💕 sharkdrew and pirate Neil, fisherman Andrew, and possible design squid Jean

#or as my chat calls him #squean #Star Wars hair for squid boy #idk it’s a first pass design #and also sharkdrew is observing from a DISTANCE if he looks so small here #context what context #we’re just brainstorming plot points here idk #up next: great white Jeremy #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #wip #sketchbook #neil josten #andrew minyard #jean moreau #mer au #sharkdrew au #jellyneil au #oops all mers au #sharkdrew #jellyneil

[emry-stars-art]

We may branch off into separate masterposts as we keep going, but for now, here’s this ✨ there may be some overlap or ambiguity with various posts, but I’ll do my best to organize!

mermay 2023 pdf/zine (free download)

oops all mers au 🦈🪼🐋

brainstorming pg1 mermay 2023 piece head pats for jellyneil whalemack

mer cuddles

squid jean take 1

hybrid mer Kevin

jellyneil’s gender

Neil tries to catch food for Andrew

How Neil sleeps sometimes (and harbor seals being cute)

Tiny baby squean?

When sharkdrew surprises jellyneil

Jellyneil and its stingers

sharkdrew au 🦈🏴‍☠️

brainstorming pg2 sleepy baby sharks/some lore sharkdrew and whalemack

Neil meets the shark (evernote scene)

sharkdrew finds a washed up pirate

Mer Kevin and human Jean&Jeremy

Maybe another first meeting

jellyneil au 🪼🎣

first mini comic pt1 / pt2 jelly life cycle/baby jelly neil little Andrew finds a baby jelly

harpoon fisher Andrew

baby jelly sounds

bubble rings snippet

#masterpost #not art sorry guys #aftg #aftg au #mer au #jellyNeil au #sharkdrew au #oh i was kind of surprised that sharkdrew and pirate neil won the interest vote lol #just because i have the least figured out about that timeline i guess i was like 'these other ones are too fun' #but now we're getting into all of them and im exploring shark/pirate au more.... #i see you #they're still all fun lol but like. im excited to work this out like the royal au if you are willing

[emry-stars-art]

I didnt mean to rediscover how much I like brainstorming and world building stuff but here we are - this time it’s (mostly) pirate Neil and shark Andrew flavored!

@tell-me-your-vision had some very good tags on the last post like this so of course I started thinking harder about it lol, you all know by now that the best way to get me to draw more is to leave ideas and questions in your tags 😘 it’s very interesting figuring out what parts I want to be drawn directly from the source animal and what I want to have artistic liberty with! Sometimes you just gotta say “it’s this way because I decided it is” and offer no more explanation, not even to yourself.

That being said. If the snippet interested you, find more of the unfinished scene here :D (and if you want to leave a comment… 👀)

I don’t know how clear this image is going to end up being, so here’s the important notes typed up:

Does [Andrew’s] missing fin cause maneuverability problems? Yep. Fins keep the body stable and streamlined in the water. No fin/half detached fins means Andrew spends a lot more energy to be equally as efficient while swimming. (That’s part of why he had more upper body strength than most mers.)

Does jelly Neil feel pain like humans? Not at all. Pain vs nociception - the detection of averse stimulus. So Neil can sense and respond to ‘painful’ stimuli, and he does feel some pain like a person would in his upper half, but it’s mostly just a sensation that he responds to. (This is dangerous. Less pain means he doesn’t realize how dire a situation may be.)

A second eyelid - like a crocodile/etc; a clear secondary eyelid that closes horizontally beneath the primary eyelid, developed to keep the eye safe and clear underwater. Why jelly Neil rarely ‘actually’ blinks

Pirate Neil’s prosthesis. Most of it is always hidden under clothes; it’s made of leather, copper, rubber, and cumaru wood. It was given to him by Stuart as soon as the man found out that Neil had lost his leg, and Stuart had it custom made through his vast connections. At one point in the timeline, Neil angrily takes it off to show a wary and lashing-out sharkDrew that he has also once been on the wrong end of a ‘whaler’s’ knife.

The tiny two panel comic in the bottom right corner: pirate Neil says “stop trying to stab me in the leg” while sharkDrew was fairly certain he just took out this pirate’s kneecap with his sharp rock

The snippet:

“And it was terrified. It’s second eyelids fluttered, it’s eyes were hazy. It held the rough stone ready in case Neil tried to get close again. It still wasn’t breathing right. It was still bleeding.

“Okay,” Neil said softly. He held his own hands out a little to the side. “I’m not going to hurt you more.”

The shark snarled, though it’s mouth never opened.

“I didn’t hurt you in the first place. They’re still finning mers?”

Neil tried to step in, slowly, and was met with another vicious swing. He was ready this time, avoiding the sharp stone neatly.

“Hey, thing. Keep moving like that and you’ll bleed to death.”

Another attempt, and another swing. Neil looked at the place it’s fin had been, now a horrible, gaping wound on its back. He could see the meat beneath the blood. If he didn’t help soon, the shark would go into shock, if not simply die here on the rocks.

“Do you even realize what’s at stake for you?”

#oops i was so worried about links I forgot tags #uhh #mer au #jellyneil au #sharkdrew au #mermay #aftg #fan art #my art #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #brainstorming #sketchbook #shark #basking shark #jellyfish #sharkdrew #mer research notes

[emry-stars-art]

Jelly Neil please!! I just wanna give him a hug

(Had to think about which scene to write out lol but let’s return JellyNeil to Andrew’s beach after many years apart!) ⤵️

8 Nov 2023 ww game

Find the mer au masterpost here 💕

Andrew didn’t even get to the beach that morning before his peace was entirely disturbed. One of the neighborhood kids ran down the path toward him, almost falling over her own feet as she recognized who she was passing.

“Mister - Mister Andrew!” she gasped, and Andrew got a blinding flash of panic - he couldn’t tell if she was scared or just excited, if she was running to or from something. He held out his arm and leaned down to let her hold on for balance. “Mister Andrew, there’s something on the beach!”

“Which beach?” Andrew asked, still searching her for any sign of harm. None that he could see. She was only out of breath.

“Yours!”

His. True, since Andrew had opted against using the main piers for fishing, the ones that had been built only shortly after his father’s passing; he instead used the single-boat dock that his father had built, on the little beach with no one else to bother him.

“What is it?” he asked next. The little girl lit up, shaking his arm and beginning to pull him down the path once more.

“It’s a monster!!”

#aftg #all for the game #my writing #neil josten #andrew minyard #mer au #jellyneil au #jellyneil #asks #emry wip Wednesday

[emry-stars-art]

The end of May approaches, I am recovering from sickness and my shaky hands have produced this :D

Pretty much all of my aftg mermay this year worth seeing.

It’s a 29 page pdf that you can get for free/pay-what-you-want on my kofi, if you want to see all the brainstorming in one place and find things that I never posted! Lots of ideas in my little rat brain

Find it here!

#is this #is this a zine #have I made a zine #huh #well it’s full of art and writing and editorials and thoughts #so here you go 🤲 #fan art #my art #all for the game #mermay #mer au #sketch dump #my writing #jellyneil au #sharkdrew au #kofi #aftg #neil josten #andrew minyard

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We got some hefty stickers, my Star tier is gonna get their moneys worth this month on god 😂💪

Im also making a shark-only design, for those that don’t like jellyfish 💕

#fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #mermay #kofi update #stickers #mer au #jellyNeil au #sharkDrew au #shark #jellyfish #jellyneil #sharkdrew

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HI YES MER AU WITH JELLY NEIL PLEASE - @jtl-fics

HELLO ASH 💕

You can absolutely thank @halfpintpeach for me writing this out a while ago, I just haven’t gotten around to even a quick proofread until now but I can happily give you a morning of little Andrew and baby jellyNeil on the beach 😌

Read it here!

8 Nov 2023 ww game

Find the mer au masterpost here 💕

#aftg #all for the game #my writing #neil josten #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #asks #emry wip Wednesday #jellyneil au #mer au #jellyneil

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“Now do mers kiss or is this a little surprise nuzzle” i like to think they do both but the idea of them surprising each other with little nuzzles is so dear to me

I think jellyneil does eventually learn how to control its sting but. Andrew you startled him 🥲

#apparently it is unofficially #kiss a ginger day #??? #so I HAD TO #and yes I know Neil is not a ginger #which is why I drew a not-technically-Neil #that’s how math works right it balances out #and I’ve missed themmmmmmm #the mers :) #also trying out new hair for Neil? hmmmm #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #asks #mer au #oops all mers au #sharkdrew #jellyneil