#merfolk complicated! merkingdom complicated!

[rxttenfish]

tbh tho this is EXACTLY what merfolk relationships look like

and they just keep track of this. in their heads. all the time.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass' #they dont have gendered pronouns but they do have tone modifiers for every other fucking word depending on their relationship to the other #and their mood. and if theyre referring to multiple people at once or just one person. and often layered on top of each other too. #merfolk have poor vision but they DO inherently think of things in a more ''three dimensional'' way than we do #considering they live underwater and youre operating with another axis just to move around anywhere #which then gets applied to the rest of their everything #ESPECIALLY language because theyre nerds who went hard into the sound focus #their visual art in comparison has simpler elements than ours (but a lot more focus on light/movement) #this is why merfolk have some very unique spellcrafts and theyre notorious for complicated and detailed spellwork #like yes a part of it is the fact that theyre older than the other species and have had more time to work on it #but also they can just DO really unique things compared to other cultures because they emphasize layered detail in this way #this is also why - from the outside - so much of miranda's job looks like parties and balls and attending to the courts #because again. its all about the emphasis on who has what relationship with who and how to operate within that. #legal agreements are multilayered and come with terms and conditions a mile long and you need to have a very careful hand on the pulse #of all of this #even moreso because royal families go even harder with treating the lineage as the individual and the merfolk #as just limbs and organs of this equation #this is why it was so important that miranda be good at manipulation and speaking and just *charismatic* #literally making people do what she wants or needs them to do is just what makes the merkingdom GO and operate #and why she (and the other royals) occupy a space a little like a public performer does as well #and why royals showing personal favor and having close personal relationships is frowned upon as #mixing pleasure and business #since those relationships ARE their business and so much of the underlying politics #if youre showing undue favor to someone because you personally just like them then you aren't judging them based off of actual talent #merfolk complicated! merkingdom complicated! #(the merkingdom is also SUPER fucked up but thats tangential from this tangent)

[royalreef]

@halfghcst​ inquired: 👁‍🗨 ///gimmie them fish facts (they do not have to be fish facts) MISC. Worldbuilding Facts - Accepting

(( Since I’m going along with Tam’s lore for necromancy and how that works—

Merfolk are more familiar with how necromancy works and the uses of necromancy than landfolk, as they have no ban, legal nor historical nor cultural, placed on necromancy specifically.

For this, most merfolk think the jumpiness around necromancy is... weird? Historically merfolk have had far greater issues with sourcing any magic at all, so fussing about schools and forms of magic after that was something they never were able to fuss with. Nowadays, it’s even moreso not worried about which particular type of magic is at use in comparison to magic at all being a factor. Likewise, because of these, there’s never been able for rumors to spring up around necromancy specifically, or myths and stereotypes to form about it.

To merfolk, necromancy has always been maintenance of and for the undead, so the stories about necromancers raising armies of the undead to them not only doesn’t ring a bell to them, but doesn’t even make sense in the first place. Since merfolk are likewise more comfortable with death and have more interactions with death, they aren’t... particularly scared of the undead? They know what bodies look like, and they know their physical qualities, and when you add on how often merfolk like to “ferment” their meat, they know that living flesh is always going to put up more of a fight than dead flesh. An undead army doesn’t scare them, because it’s ostensibly worse than just having a living army. Alongside having greater fear of living armies and historical precedent for that.

Mostly merfolk just think it’s weird how much landfolk are scared of what’s fundamentally a healthcare profession for them.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #halfghcst #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #(( its a little more complicated and a little more. connected to government work for merfolk. #(( especially because there are much much less undead in general in the merkingdom #(( so the context in which they do show up is primarily associated with things that the merkingdom is fussing with #(( but you know. still a healthcare profession primarily. #(( and working with whole undead/an entire undead person is a tiny chunk of their work anyways #(( mostly its things like dealing with necrosis or literally reversing death (ie healing more complicated injuries and diseases) #(( unfortunately for land necromancers merfolk DO have their own independent study and takes on magic overall so like #(( even your most basic magic has entirely different fundamentals for their magic and theories on how it works

[ravenouswreckage]

(( All merfolk have a tiny amount of innate magic. It’s nothing special nor all that interesting, only technically a step above humans or wholly nonmagical animals, but it’s still there!

It has two effects — the first of which being that it assists in hybridization between merfolk and non-merfolk.

Technically it’s a form of probability magic. The right genetic combinations are made for any children they have with non-merfolk to have fully functional bodies and for both genetics to blend together fairly non-obtrusively. This is not to say that any merfolk hybrids won’t have problems ( one of Miranda’s big fears especially comes with tails — if she were to have kids with someone who lacked a tail, that could have effects on how their spine forms and their child can have scoliosis or other issues ), but they’re comparable to something a wholly merfolk child might be born with or otherwise have to deal with.

Likewise, they often have a far higher percentage of providing fertile hybrid offspring than you would expect because of this. A theorized part of why merfolk innately have this type of magic is because of their different species — regular hybridization would have happened with each other, and this ability to add genetic diversity from elsewhere seems to have been a boon to their populations. Longterm studies of mer hybrids down the generations prove that they usually end up leaning more towards one side of their family or the other, with successive generations retaining some of that genetic diversity but becoming more typical examples of one species or the other.

This also combines very nicely with how merfolk pregnancies work, and part of why Miranda would like to be the one who carries if she were to have kids with someone. The multi-egg, multi-fetus setup where they eat each other in the womb already helps ensure merfolk are born without immediately-fatal birth defects, and furthermore would help make sure any hybrids between her and a non-mer would have the best chance in inheriting the best health situation possible.

+

Miranda’s exact fertility situation is... a lot fuzzy, because her own genetics are not helping her, nor her current health. If she were to take care of herself and get help for her various assortment of problems, she would have a much easier time of things.

That said, not being able to conceive has never been a worry of Miranda’s, because reproductive care in the Merkingdom is very advanced and very normalized in their society.

This is why, even with partners who are AFAB, Miranda still wants to be the person who carries and sees no contradiction, because their reproductive care can remove the genetic material from her partner’s eggs, repackage it inside a protein case that behaves like a sperm, and it works effectively the same way. This is one of the simplest things their reproductive care can do — and it gets a lot more complicated from there. The process to create heirs like Miranda is much longer, much more involved, and a wholly different beast than merely switching what protein packaging genetic material is in.

#OOC. #HEADCANON. #DASH COMM. #(( and now we see the other side of the birth control discussion #(( merfolk also have like. famously low fertility rates across the board. #(( tis what happens when you live forever and you fuck to solve problems #(( miranda might not be that likely to get you pregnant but she can Get You Pregnant #(( (but also she won't because her birth control takes care of Both Sides so to speak-) #(( this is also why i think so much about regulatory genes #(( mmmmm delicious genes

[slxrpindust]

The door creaks open softly, gentle as could be. There's the telltale swish of a thick, powerful tail, the sound of claws clicking against the door as it's closed, and the smell of saltwater - but that's not Miranda. All cold blue scales crossed with dark stripes and a single eye, an average height for the school, yet compared to the single merfolk to walk these halls, she felt like a giant. A proud crown atop her head and papers stamped with a heavy seal in her hand long state her position, even with her military walk up to Angel's desk. "Greetings - you are Miranda's literature teacher, correct? I'm her sister, Princess Bellanda Vanderbilt. She's not well and will have to be out for a few days, and I was sent to collect any work she'll miss."

Angel had been wiping down the chalkboard when the door to his classroom opened. Of course, the school could afford better technology, but when they’d offered to upgrade the room, Angel had refused. He preferred it this way. The scent of the gentle dust in the air, the texture of the chalk in his hand as well as on the board; it was all a pleasant stim to him, and it helped him focus when writing out diagrams for his students. Students who also seemed to enjoy the chalkboard, if the little drawings they always left in the corners were any evidence to go by. The thought brought a smile to his face as he erased their latest creation. Apparently, the during the last free period, they’d played a game of Extreme Hangman, and at some point the doodles had become quite graphic. The teacher was almost impressed by the amount of effort went into detailing the various victims. Something he suspected Damien was responsible for. 

Well, at least they’d been using vocabulary words this time. 

It was the movement, more than anything else, that inevitably drew his eye, and he turned to greet his guest. He quickly took her in, observant eyes giving her a once over. There was something about the air she carried herself with.. it was clear that she was mer-royalty. Perhaps the crown shining on her head gave it away, or maybe it was the notable lack of merpeople in this school. 

Or maybe it was because Angel is a teacher, and Bellanda was listed as one of Miranda’s emergency contacts. 

Not that he had any idea of what to expect from her. Beyond basic information like a picture, a name and their contact information, teacher’s didn’t know anything else about these contacts as a sign of the school’s respect for their privacy. And students at Spooky High tended to like their privacy, and Miranda was no different. Sure, she could talk about the Merkingdom’s political endeavors and conquests ad nauseum, but she’d never been particularly forthcoming with any sort of stories about home or her family. Not that Angel had ever pressed her. Or any of his other students for that matter. 

But he could tell by her walk, the way she carried herself, that she was perhaps a different beast than his deceptively sweet student entirely. While Miranda may be the flower, he suspected that Bellanda may be the sea snake underneath. He’d do well not to get on her bad side, he supposed to himself.

When she spoke though, he couldn’t help but grin. That formal, almost stiff cadence. It was comical to him, who’d never considered his high school class room to require ANY sort of propriety. Although as she continued, he did feel a bit of concern. Miranda had never called out sick before. It made sense when he stopped to think about it though. A deep sea monster living on land for so long was bound to have health complications eventually. 

“Yes, I’m Mr. Cadaverini. Nice to meet you ..Princess Bellanda.” 

If he was honest, the title was sort of a last minute thought, one he barely remembered to tack on at the end, and it came out stiff and awkward on his tongue, and he didn’t even think to extend his hand to her. Truly, formality didn’t suit him.

He made his way over to his desk instead, sifting through papers in one of the drawers underneath.

“Do you have any idea of how many days she’ll be missing?”

#The Leaked DMs ;; ask #School is the Real Monster ;; verse #me before i started writing this: worries about length #me now: worries about length but for entirely different reasons #long post is long #royalreef

[royalreef]

@infernalpursuit inquired: does your muse believe in an afterlife?

(( As with all things with Miranda: it's complicated.

The religion that Miranda has the most contact with and could most be considered as being brought up within is the religion attached to the Crown, the one that Amanda's currently the head of. This isn't to say it was a particularly strict connection. Even the other members of the Royal Family aren't necessarily too fussed about believing strictly in the religion (save except Amanda herself), and mostly care about presenting the image that they do, less than self-enforcing it among themselves and within themselves. If Miranda said and did the right things when it mattered, then what was behind closed doors didn't, since the political connection is far more important and far more vital to what they do. Miranda was walked through all the ritual parts of what she was expected to do, was given all the things that she was expected so say, and so long as she upheld both of these and followed along for major holidays and interactions, she was allowed a fairly long leash when it came to religion.

Of course, this also included tutelage under Amanda herself, with a certain degree of religious schooling by Amanda being necessary to Miranda's title as Crown Princess, but also in other classes and studies as well, since there was a lot of information that needs to be passed down to the future ruler.

Which is... where things get complicated.

The crown's religion is mostly animist, like a lot of other merfolk religions, and centers on the Sleep and the Wake, with the mortal world being in the middle of the gradient between the two, as the Sleep filters up to the surface and the Wake filters down to the seafloor. They believe that merfolk have souls, yes, but so does everything else, not just alive, but also inanimate objects and places and phenomena. They also believe that souls are plural in the first place, giving away pieces of themselves and picking up pieces of other souls, constantly changing, and that the lines between souls are blurry.

When a merfolk dies, they believe that the soul will reincarnate into another body or bodies, and there are gods devoted to ensuring that the correct soul finds the correct next body where it will be needed. Other gods are devoted to messing up this process and switching up where the soul will go, to ensure it ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other gods will protect the soul as it lingers in the mortal realm, waiting to take on the next body or just observing the living, and other gods yet will help lead the soul down to the Sleep, where they return to being the raw material of creation and become something different entirely. Or, souls might wander down into the Sleep, but then later wander back up to the realm of the living, without taking on a new life. There's considered to be a lot of souls who remain in the uppermost layers of the sleep, living in cities and towns that are strange reflections of the living world, where one of the living might accidentally wander themselves and not realize that all of the people around them are dead.

The most common interpretation of all of this, and the one held mostly by the more commonfolk of the Merkingdom, is that care should then be taken to help guide the soul into their next body or where they need to go as much as possible. There's a lot of ritual involved around deaths, including examples of funerary cannibalism, to ensure the soul takes care of the people they loved in life or that they become a form that would be helpful to the people they loved.

The royals usually take a more indirect approach, however. They will still invoke the gods and write their symbols and have complicated funerary rites dedicated to capturing certain gods' attention, but enforcing where it goes is less important to them. Considering one of the gods which leads the peaceful dead to the next body and life that needs them most is a mythologized, godly counterpart to the Royal Family's very real ancestor, you can imagine why their living counterparts would feel fairly assured in what is happening to the soul after death. Even moreso when the dead Vanderbilts are then interred in the Royal Catacombs, where their last resting place becomes an altar and a dedicated space to this god, where converts can go to worship.

For Miranda, it's this last part that's the biggest stickler in her mind. Seldom outside of proper events does Amanda allow her down into the Royal Catacombs, and especially not to see the tomb of the Former Queen — since the entire area is considered to be under her purview, and it's something Amanda can hold over Miranda, poking and prodding at her and making her behave as she wants if Miranda wants to go see their mom for herself.

Which, really, the heart of this problem is Amanda. Miranda... tries not to think about religion because of her specifically, and especially doesn't like to think about what would happen to her after death, or what happened to her mom, or even what's happened to all of her ancestors. Would they be angry at her? Hate her? Think she's squandering all the gifts she was given, gifts which said she would have been a perfect ruler, a perfect Vanderbilt, a perfect Cees'rril'ta, if only she actually did what she was told? Amanda tells her they would be. Amanda drives the message home that Miranda's not worthy of seeing their mother, that she's done something insulting to her memory, that that's why their mother would have nothing to do with Miranda from beyond the grave. And it's not like Miranda can openly challenge this, she's no expert and Amanda is supposed to be one, and how would she even know if there's been any influence of their mother hanging around and trying to help her?

And even worse: what will happen to Miranda, after she's dead? Miranda's seen the tomb where she's supposed to go after she's dead, and the thought of people coming by to leave prayer charms around the door and begging her bones for kindness is... a lot. It's a lot in a bad way, and Miranda doesn't want people to see her like that, all her bones laid out on display and vulnerable and dead, and for them all to come by, them all to claim some ownership over her body... Does she even have a soul, really? What if she doesn't? What if she fucked up, what if she doesn't actually have a soul, that she's all dead and wrong inside and not even really a person? Or what if she does? What if she has to come back? What if she has to do this a second time? What if there really isn't any escape? What if she has to look at all the people who come to worship her bones and who look at her and see her as her final form, a holy relic, a priceless object forever owned by the Merkingdom, with nothing ever able to change that?

The thoughts get worse from there, especially regarding Bellanda and the entire genre of terrifying thoughts that involve her and death.

So Miranda just... doesn't think about religion. She wouldn't say she doesn't believe, no, because that would still require a degree of thought devoted to that conviction. Instead Miranda just snips the thought out of her head entirely, removes religion from her thought process and her mind, never speaks on the issue unless it's a part of her duties and she has to, and then all she has to do is parrot what she's supposed to.

But there's still a degree of worship there, too. Not in an actively-thinking-about-it way, just... Just in the fact that Miranda still tries to make prayer charms to attach to the former Queen's tomb every time she attempts to sneak down there. She still holds on tight to the single charm she was allowed to have as a pup from her funeral. She still goes to the altars and does the brief prayers when something especially bad is on her mind, and to Miranda, she just lets it come automatically, without thought. It's easier if she doesn't think about it. If she doesn't try. If she just hopes and wants and tries to get some good luck anyhow, please, and only feels these in her chest, and never thinks about them at all.

#Glory and Gore || IC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #infernalpursuit #(( miranda. kinda really feels fucked up about her mom. #(( but she wont ever let herself parse just how fucked up she feels about it #(( so she just panics and doesnt think about the vast network of problems of WHY she feels so fucked up about it #(( from how much shes supposed to be a perfect mini replica of her mom #(( to being a perfect example of a vanderbilt #(( to just not knowing her mom and wondering if she would care about her at all #(( if she'd be like her dad and like the other royals or if shed ever actually legitimately feel something for her #(( or if miranda really is just a massive fuckup and tarnishing her memory and mocking it by being so similar to her #(( all her life shes been compared to someone who is dead and received the expectations of the dead #(( to the point where miranda doesnt really think shes alive at all #(( let alone her own person #(( and amanda coming in and twisting the knife and using all of this as a weapon to bludgeon miranda with doesnt help either

[royalreef]

Anonymous inquired: if you ever decide to release all your world building notes n stuff you have for miranda and the merkingdom i feel a lot of us would love to see it! just from what you show on the blog right now, you've put so much amazing work into the lore of this blog and the redesigns you've done 

(( I might! Some day!

Right now the biggest thing holding me back is pretty simple, in that all of my lore is... very disorganized right now. I have some very outdated Google docs ( 12, to be exact... Most over 10 pages long, to give you a reference ), and all of my many, many lore posts on here, on my personal sideblog, and on the NSFT sideblog — but most of my lore, and my most up-to-date lore, is all on Discord in various conversations with friends, or it’s being kept in my head. I have also started a note-keeping journal on the go, and I have other notes on a personal server that I can just toss my junk into, but again, neither of these are in a share-able state.

Likewise, I would REALLY want to doublecheck all of it, making sure it’s internally consistent, and there’s a lot of stuff I STILL haven’t finished yet! I’ve been seriously putting off actually fully mapping out what the merfolk vocal organ looks like, which I need to do first before I move on into their languages, as I really do want to create several conlangs to reflect what they’re speaking. Language is incredibly important to merfolk, so having that is a cornerstone I still refuse to work on in this whole project, as I kind of... do NOT want to figure out grammar or sentence structure or anything. I’d also want to put some study into music for that too, since so much of their language is song and music ties heavily into how they think of the world, but, surprisingly, I am notoriously musically un-talented. My family are all big into music, but it skipped a generation for me. But I need all of this before I can start actually drawing out what their written language looks like, and similarly, I need to figure out how I want to handle the written/spoken/signed language divide, since merfolk senses are incredibly different to our own.

This is not even to mention more fully fleshing out the other merfolk species and cultures, which I’ve kind of also been dragging my feet on, since it’s just... A lot. And I only have so much spoons I can allocate to so much at a time.

Beyond even that too — I’ve long been thinking that I might, eventually, make my worldbuilding into its own independent project. It wouldn’t be hard to slice off the remaining threads of Monster Prom still holding onto it, and my work on the Redesign Universe has kind of been a result of this. That said, if I ever do fully make it its own project, I wouldn’t want to share all of my lore here, and might never share the lore bible in its entirety based on what I end up going with. It’s complicated, and while it might not occur for a LONG while, it’s still a thought and an impulse enough to make me hesitate.

And lastly, I just kinda like when people can discover the world and lore on their own! I like a decent exploratory aspect, and yeah of course I’ll share it OOC with someone if they just come up and ask me whatever they want to know, but I also think it’s just downright fun to have them learn things alongside their muse. I like to have that option for people! I know it’s not for everyone, but hey, that’s why I say over and over that you can just ask me and I’ll tell you, though I might doublecheck and make sure you’re okay with getting all the secrets long before they show up naturally.

Unfortunately, this aspect has ultimately kind of... died off, I suppose, since the RPC seems to be changing and leaning away from long-form and long-running continuities that grow and extrapolate on themselves, so I guess I worry sometimes about not being able to show it off at all anymore. It’s not supposed to be this obscure or hard to find, not really, not if you just keep at it, but you can’t really do that in shorter threads, shorter replies, less serious content, etc etc etc. More than anything, I guess I’m just used to showing off this information in a certain way, and that way is no longer a liable method to use.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #The masked ball || Anonymous #(( its just kind of extra exhausting too because #(( if you know me. i hate shorter/lighter roleplays and LOVE longer/heavier stuff. #(( i am All Plot All The Time #(( but there's not been a lot of chances to dig into plot lately so like. yaknow.

[royalreef]

@fatecrafted​ inquired: does your mer-kingdom have any influence or relation to atlantis in canon (whether it be in like former trade connections etc. things like that) or is that considered a totally separate/non-canon thing? owo 

(( I uuuuuused to have lore about Atlantis — namely in that it was a specific Merkingdom city that was created first as an outpost and then later became a hub city, well after the modern-Merkingdom was created and rose to dominance, with some connected lore. But I’ve since realized I really didn’t like how it was going and it felt cheap and, worst of all, boring to me. I think the actual story of Atlantis — specifically, as it exists irl, as a story of a story of a story, of a war that may have never happened, and all the messy details of humans being humans and retelling this story to each other through time — to be far more interesting and compelling to me.

I don’t actually like a lot of “all myths are true” stories because of this, as they remove the most fascinating parts for me, in that myths themselves are weird and complicated and by making them refer to physical things you remove a lot of that staying power. It’s why my merfolk are still called merfolk — it’s not actually the word they use for themselves, not beyond translation and making their lives easier in these early stages of contact, but the human power of myth meant that we were the ones who looked at them and said “hey, this looks kinda like this story”. They had no part in it, and they have their own words for us that are much the same, referring to stories or things that don’t actually exist but are the closest comparison. It’s the same reason we named sea cows after sirens, or quetzalcoatlus after a deity. I think removing the power of stories is the single worst thing you can do to the stories you tell. By making the minotaur be an actual guy who’s just walking around, you retroactively make history and culture a thousand times more boring.

( This is also why I make such a point of, the gods that are walking around and doing things are NOT the gods that are worshipped and are a vital part of religions. I feel like mixing up the two is horrifically boring and... just not how belief works. )

So, no. Atlantis remains a story. The Merkingdom remain their own thing, and mostly just view Atlantis as any other weird story humanity can come up with. Any resemblances to it, as of me writing this, are entirely just happenstance.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #fatecrafted #(( tl;dr: myths are fun and cool and i think you ruin them if you make them just. ''oh yeah this is real'' #(( also. uh. #(( stares at ALL of the racism associated with atlantis #(( its so bad you have no idea

[royalreef]

@bluemoonmuses​ inquired: smash or pass + cala maria Smash or Pass - Accepting

                “Big.”

         That’s all she has to say, for a long moment. As though ruminating on the bigness, on the size difference, but to those who know Miranda, it’s no surprise that size alone is such a factor. She might be upset at everyone being taller than her, but she’s still a merfolk. A merfolk with very simple tastes, and very simple needs. Even she isn’t immune to such a thing.

          Unfortunately, that said — “I... It is a complicated thing, however, being as she is another merfolk. It would depend... As it is, I refuse to sleep with those who have betrayed my kingdom and our laws, as it would be as unbecoming of my title as their refusal to follow our legal conduct upon contacting the land and fleeing our borders. It is also a rather... complex thing, as you could guess from my title and position, that tends to ensure my relationships with fellow merfolk have complications that are not present when I fall in with landfolk. Or if she is even one of mine, and within the legal jurisdiction of the Merkingdom.

         It would... We would have to see. Within time, and such. For now, on pure physicality alone, smash.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #bluemoonmuses #(( ''i don't sleep with traitors'' and THAT WAS THE BIGGEST LIE SHE EVER TOLD- #(( dont sleep with traitors my ass miranda not only wants to sleep with them but #(( she wants to marry them and then be enabled to become a traitor herself

[rxttenfish]

i think SO MUCH about the mer definition of selfhood and how weirdly that intersects with how the land defines selfhood - and how this combines with merfolk mannerisms and social philosophy, alongside stuff like how their technology works

calculester is not considered a robot nor ai by their standards and their laws, vicky is considered an ai, most of them are not even considered a person (a lego brick part of what could be a person, maybe), aaravi is considered The Exact Same Person as miranda, most merfolk are surprised landfolk even have faces much less skin, damien has gone missing, there are merkingdom politics making everything ten times more complicated, miranda has to be the friend bus-

#all the care guide says is 'biomass' #theres a LOT going on down in the ocean #and miranda has been trying very hard to explain literally Any of it #but for all her ambassador work and training she is still just one person #and the first person to interact with the land THIS MUCH #for THIS LONG

[royalreef]

Anonymous inquired:  Considering how humans can find ways to dehumanize each other. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone would chase after a squishy mermaid. Though good luck for what little reward it brings.

(( To be fair, she’s not squishy in the sense that she wouldn’t be fucking terrifying to anyone who’s not already familiar with her. She has some BIG jaws, with BIG teeth, and BIG claws. I compare merfolk to a combination of crocodiles, hippos, sharks, and whales for pretty good reason! Miri’s tiny and small and fragile, but she’s still a merfolk, and all of those descriptors are comparative to that. Hell, merfolk evolved to hunt and kill whales, the biggest animals to ever live, with their faces and hands.

But also, largely I can’t help but see them as outliers, mainly because... There’s no historical precedent to target merfolk in particular. While merfolk are only prevented from coming up onto land because of the Merkingdom’s laws heavily banning it, with any exceptions only recently made for certain members of the Low Royals with a new ambassador system, it’s strict enough and has existed for long enough that generally mer don’t feel the urge to question it too much. Most of what they consider useful or important is all underwater anyways. Likewise for how difficult and uncomfortable staying on land for extended periods of time is for them, even being impossible for some individuals. Similarly, landfolk have also been pretty heavily barred from entering the Merkingdom, albeit they aren’t aware they’re breaking any laws or even that the Merkingdom exists. People just go missing in the ocean, and it’s usually chalked up to accidents.

They wouldn’t have HAD any prior interactions with humans, or other land monsters, or anyone else outside of the oceans, and mostly, they view themselves as separate from it. Merfolk are likewise new and rare enough on land to where most people aren’t aware of them at all, and neither group has any solid notions or thoughts on the other yet.

This is made further complicated by how all the merfolk who have actually interacted or come up onto land have all been... royalty. Like, actual royalty, with the full set of defenses and guards and hard-to-fuck-with-edness that comes with being royalty. They chat up and talk to others in high society all the time and pretty exclusively default to interacting with them so far. They aren’t even directly doing anything on land, not that anyone can prove, and mostly they seem interested in just playing the same political games as everyone else, trying to win other people’s good favor and figuring out what’s going on. There’s no merfolk on the street, none within the grocery stores, you can’t just go out to an amusement park and find a merfolk there. There’s not even a guarantee they’ll be at any high-brow events, they’re mostly just interacting with the land as they see fit and not much more.

Largely, they’re just too big of a target, too inaccessible, and too new for anyone to really consider them worth it yet, even if they have formed an actual opinion on what merfolk are like ( which is rare!! extremely rare!! to where I think the only people who have might be Miranda’s classmates and campmates who interact with her on a daily basis! most merfolk just don’t stick around that much and don’t do anything other than see to their business ).

That’s not to say there’s not exceptions, and that’s mostly what I’m talking about here when I put that post on my Plot Wishlist. There’s always That Guy, basically.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Dreaded rumors || Asks #The masked ball || Anonymous #(( yeah im not exactly sure you could uhhh. dehumanize merfolk in the same way that humans dehumanize each other. #(( not right now at least. #(( and im kinda uncomfortable with suggesting otherwise rn #(( you'd mostly have to be somewhat familiar with the idea ''merfolk exist'' and thats just not something most people on land are aware of

[royalreef]

(( Thinking about inner-Merkingdom politics again...

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #(( literally one of my fav parts of worldbuilding #(( i say this because im thinking about how miranda doesnt respond to every marine thing in the same way #(( and how she actually. kind of Fucking Hates anything that reminds her TOO much of other merfolk #(( (this is why i cant let her around many marine muses. because YYYYYEAH she would NOT be. pleasant.) #(( but theres also a golden spot where they remind her just enough of home to get her excited without being a threat #(( and then theres the total opposite which is how violent she can be towards freshwater aquatics #(( (or yet again fall into that goldilocks zone- it really is a delicate balance) #(( or remind her of OTHER aspects of her kingdom which set her off #(( its complicated!!! and i love it for that!!! #(( and then theres the whole structure of how social issues actually WORK in the merkingdom #(( since they structure their society in a very particular way #(( and it is very much not something there's a one-to-one comparison for

[royalreef]

      ...... Can they trade? Miranda would really appreciate no one wanting to marry her for once. That would be really, really nice.

#Glory and Gore || IC #The rumor mill || Dash Commentary #(( (and now is when i feel the impulse to remind people) #(( (that ''marriage'' in the merkingdom is a political agreement and not done for love) #(( (miri oft picks up the habit of saying she's married to her ul'kiha but thats an ENTIRELY different concept for merfolk) #(( (and often her suitors still view her as unmarried and thus still compete for her hand) #(( (its complicated-)

[royalreef]

@pxppinmolly​ inquired:  🐶 mer molly ... Muses as Merfolk - (Very Selectively) Accepting

(( I think Molly would best fit as the Mediterranean Reef species of merfolk! Mostly for the sake of where they fit into the socio-political climate of the Merkingdom, alongside a hefty dose of their history. Effectively, when the Merkingdom conquered the nations that composed the total merfolk population of the Mediterranean, they were considered... one of the holdouts. The places where the Merkingdom came down especially hard in forcibly dominating them through military might. However, unlike the Arctic nations and their associated cultures, the geography of the Mediterranean Sea means that they were effectively trapped inside of a fishbowl. This meant the Merkingdom could be especially cruel and break off more and more of their contact with other merfolk outside of their location, which often meant targeted and purposeful famines, biological warfare, extended years of brutal fighting and gruella war, alongside very real psychological torment... While the other Mediterranean species got it harder ( being as they’re specifically adapted to fulfill a migratory role, with several of their cultures being driven to extinction ), their Reef species was most associated with the larger permanent settlements that acted as trade hubs as well as population centers, and thus when the Merkingdom wanted to put a puppet leader in control, they often defaulted to working with at least one Reef merfolk.

This was... complicated, as you might imagine, as a lot of their own cultures got torched and otherwise destroyed, and even though they were often given resources and assistance by the larger Merkingdom, it was all under the implication that the same thing could be turned upon them too if they stepped out of line. Most of their own wants and needs were ignored for the sake of the Merkingdom’s conquest, and while they acted as stand-ins for the Merkingdom in a region that was far away from the Merkingdom’s original borders and served their will, they were getting screwed over in their own ways.

Today, the same region still very much bears the scars of that conquest and brutality, even with the Merkingdom’s laws fully established and their hold solidified. Organized crime is more of an open secret, alongside the Merkingdom’s approval and willingness to work with them, and all of the worst aspects of the Merkingdom are fully on display.

In this case, Molly would likely be a non-inheriting child of a Middle Royal, given dominion over a decent slice of land, containing a few cities. She might have been encouraged to try and “marry up” into a family with more power and more dominion than they — but likely her family also has their hands in plenty of less-than-legal places and more capability to enforce their will outside of their written boundaries. She also likely speaks a language that is specific to one of the cities within said domain, that both originates from there and is the largest location of those speakers. Though, these are merfolk, so I have no doubt that Molly would know many, many more languages as well.

On a more biological slant — Mediterranean Reef merfolk are very long and lanky and has retroactively lost the upper fluke of their tails, meaning they swim much more like eels. They evolved to occupy a niche more akin to a weasel or other small predator, being able to reach into and navigate the smaller crevices and cracks that come with reefs, and favor agility over speed or open-water swimming. They have round pupils, being much more used to even lighting conditions, and fairly simple fish-eater teeth like crocodiles. Similarly, like most other groups of merfolk, they have reduced outer scaling, keeping the osteoderms inside of the skin, but feeling and looking a lot smoother and sleeker when compared to something like an Abyssal or “Grouper”. They have many different sub-species with their own different patternings and colors to tell them apart.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #pxppinmolly #Dreaded rumors || Asks #The Parasitological Museum || Mun Art #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #(( i still dont have a mer name for their species so like. YEH. #(( im just calling them mediterranean reef merfolk for now bc its easier on me

[royalreef]

The Pros and Cons of Dating my Muse

Name: Miranda Vanderbilt (to landfolk) Gender: Barely knows what a gender is Race: Merfolk Sexuality: Pan + Poly 

-List all the Pros and Cons of a relationship with your Muse below-

Pros:

Literal princess! Just like you might find in Didney movies or fairytales!

Very willing to hand you a sizable chunk of cash, because she just has so much of it that it means nothing to her.

Curious and very inquisitive! Wants to know what you’re doing and why. Will all-too-happily listen to you for hours or even join in herself, if you offer to help teach her.

Loyal to a fault. If you’ve earned her love, you’ll have to work to make it go away. 

Can make your enemies disappear! Literally. Even the records of their prior existence will start to vanish, as well as others’ memory of them.

Unbelievable +CHARM! Not only will she sweep you off your feet with romantic gestures, big and small, but she’s full of love and affection. You can always count on Miranda to be down to cuddle.

Makes adorable sounds. Just listen to that purr.

Will sing like an angel, all for you to enjoy!

Overall the cutest mermaid princess you could ever hope to find!

Being a mermaid and years of training for self defense means she could absolutely kick your ass. Terrifying and beautiful.

Totally understanding of casual flings and doesn’t mind a lot of flirting and playing around without getting too serious.

Gets along well with other trans and nonbinary people, as Gender Is A Fuck.

When she falls in love, she falls HARD. There is not a place she won’t go or something she won’t do for you if you’ve earned that from her, and it goes well beyond her loyalty to her title. Miranda can and will commit treason for those she loves deeply enough.

Ask her about the biting kink. Very good at fulfilling all your wildest sexual desires.

Cons:

She’s the Crown Princess of the Merkingdom. The politics alone are a nightmare that even she’s not immune from, and by getting serious with her you’re guaranteed to have a target on the back of your head. And all of the other royals are as merciless as her.

If you don’t get serious with Miranda, then chances are she’ll lose interest entirely and move on without considering anything you had with her as special.

TRAUMA. SO MUCH TRAUMA. Not necessarily a con in any given relationship, but you will have to be able to handle her at her worst.

Used to living underwater and with other merfolk. You will have to saltwater-proof your furniture, as well as making sure its sturdy enough to handle any accidental tail-slaps.

Be very careful whenever you try to voice any doubt in the Merkingdom. It can be done, but Miranda’s also surrounded by a lot of Merkingdom propaganda, and to openly try to crack that in her is liable to make her freak out over destruction of literally everything she’s ever known. It’s good for her, but have a gentle hand.

Hard to earn her trust. You have to work for it. She’s too used to being manipulated and people are scary.

Also very easily manipulated by both her lack of knowledge about the land and how desperately she wants affection.

Unless you’re a fellow mer or specc’d into their same convoluted and overly complex understanding of sound, reaching not only to their vocal cords and earfins, but all the way down to how their brains are wired - you won’t be able to speak any merfolk language. With how much merfolk depend on sound to fuel their hypersociality, she’s bound to feel like something that she needs is getting neglected.

One bad swipe of her claws or crunch of her jaws could be the end of you. Given how big of a risk Miranda is for going into a frenzy, it could happen without warning.

Very complicated health needs. Again, not a con, but you have to be prepared to help her.

The land is not made for merfolk and giving her the wrong type of water or the power going out in winter could kill her.

This mermaid will die if you put her into a pool. It will be a painful death.

If Miranda dies on your watch, the Merkingdom will torture you and prevent you from ever knowing the mercy of death.

Most definitely way too into torture for most other people.

Is still a predator and a deep sea one at that. Can your heart handle the stress of seeing a giant crocodile run at you on all fours down a dark hallway, making the worst noises known to man? Are you prepared to deal with her need to climb up the walls in the middle of the night?

Both does war crimes and is a war crime.

SCARY.

Tail and unique anatomy requires specialty furniture. And clothing.

Tapetum lucidum will most definitely ruin every picture you take with her.

If you get her to eat, she needs meat. Raw meat is healthy and necessary for her. Vegans need not apply.

Can live up to 600 years. Be prepared for commitment.

Thinks people dying for her is fun and romantic.

Lies to herself. All the damn time. She’ll try to avoid lying to you, but if she’s also lying to herself then she thinks it doesn’t count. Lives in a perpetual state of denial about how much she hates herself and how much being Crown Princess sucks.

Bellanda. You will be questioned by Big Sis. The questioning will involve Giant God Cleavers.

At any moment you could be taken out by an assassin or a suitor who views you as a threat.

Clarifications: 

-Explain any of your Cons-

     9. Miranda can’t help when her frenzies happen. Merfolk can push themselves into a frenzy, but Miranda’s body tends to enter survival mode and, without her permission, just start biting and trying to eat the first thing that bleeds around her. It can and does happen with herself too. It sucks and is always super upsetting for her to lose control of herself like that, especially since she knows she can’t stop herself from hurting people she cares about. Her body thinks it’s starving, and can only respond in desperation to keep herself alive.

Tagged by: @awesomelyblind​ !! thank you! Tagging: steal it from me

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Seahorse games || Tagged #long post #(( the moral of this story is #(( miranda is a lovely RO choice but you GOTTA be ready for her

[royalreef]

(( While I’m thinking of it: Miranda’s particular feelings around Milo and thoughts relating of.

Miranda, honestly, has some... Complicated feelings about Milo. Her relationship with death and dying is not a cut and dry thing. In some way, she’s not particularly affected by it. Death would be an end to her responsibilities after all, but it’s also just as planned-out as any other aspect of her life, with the Merkingdom absolutely not about to let her die unless they willed it or were unable to stop it, which is an unusually high bar. On any given day, she’s surrounded by death, death is a major part of what she deals with and she’s well aware of that fact.

But at the same time, she’s terrified of death. Particularly, the pain and torture that would come as a result of her dying at the hands of the Merkingdom, but also what comes after it. What would happen to her soul once it’s no longer tied to her body and the mortal realm.

It doesn’t help that the Merkingdom has some... reservations, about reapers. It’s not something they’d discuss nor openly show, but there’s a lot of distance they keep from them. Even from embodiments of death. The Merkingdom royals keep their secrets long beyond the grave, and their baggage is a lot harder to dump on someone else when its everyone else’s baggage too. They’ve been taught to think a certain way, and it involves not trusting the divine nor truer supernatural beings.

All of that said.

Miranda, honest to god, really enjoys being around Milo. They are one of the people around camp who she will go to and just want to be around, reservations be damned. She is aware of she has been trained to think, fears what the kingdom has told her to fear from Milo, and keeps her cards close to her chest - but in the same breath, they’re practically a relief to be around.

This is, very simply, because of Milo’s own mannerisms. They aren’t a royal, so Miranda doesn’t have to keep up appearances around them in the same way as a fellow noble when the camera is off her, but they’re just regal enough to make her feel comfortable. To not particularly challenge her in any way, so that she can enjoy the finer things that money can buy and be extravagant without really having to think about it. They’re an influencer, so even in having the appearance of power and authority, she feels like she’s in a place that’s familiar to her, that she’s aware of already. Their own ideals about appreciating life is something she can even relate to, since she’s effectively trying to be happy for once in her life before the Merkingdom pulls her back under, as I’ve detailed out before. They’re comforting to her, and she’ll happily take them over Joy, who might challenge Miranda about the morals of what she does and is in ways that she doesn’t even have answers to and stresses her out.

Even the fact that they’re nonbinary is just something that automatically gets her to relax - as merfolk don’t really have a concept of gender, and hold no distinction like it, so being around someone else who is nonbinary just lets her... finally relax a little.

It’s a mixed bag, and even Miranda can’t fully balance out these two dualities of thought in her head, even though she knows she likes Milo’s presence and hanging out with them.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #(( and ofc theres the fact that they ARE very beautiful but #(( thats neither here nor there

[royalreef]

(( Okay, so. Important lore piece here. I’m finally fully stating it now, since with the rpc generally being smaller and quieter, I’m not sure if people will even get to the point where I can discuss it, plus my own pickiness in who I roleplay it with.

If you would like to go about slowly discovering my Miranda’s lore with your muse and enjoying that slow-burn investigation into everything, like how I’ve generally been presenting this blog so far, then skip over this. It’ll come up again in time.

I just have a lot of passion for this one piece of Miranda and I want to be able to say it somewhere.

                                                          -----------

Truth be told, this might not come as a huge shock to those who have been around longer, since I’ve definitely used the tag as a CW and have teased it before, but I want to do a full confirmation and discussion of it.

My take on Miranda involves her having childhood-onset psychosis. I myself have schizophrenia, and while I definitely wonder about making it so that Miranda also has schizophrenia - for now, I just use Psychosis NOS as my general going-off point. 

She hallucinates. She has delusions. She experiences negative symptoms. This has been happening with Miranda since she was a child.

Particularly, her delusions are delusions of persecution and delusions of grandeur, and one delusion I know I’ve brought up before is her having latched onto Polly’s joke that Hope is an evil version of Miranda herself, thus generally making Miranda think that Hope is a creature from merfolk mythology that is trying to steal her image and take Miranda’s place. Which is why Miranda is very adamant in her fear and dislike of Hope, because of the delusion - which itself is based upon how I know I form delusions.

I’m very picky about how I present Miranda’s psychosis. I’m all too aware of the ableist stereotype of the “””insane ruler”””, along with the ableism around psychosis and violence. Honestly, I know Miranda isn’t a great muse to add a psychotic headcanon onto, since she is described as genocidal so many times and is so bloodthirsty, but at the same time... I guess I just really do want to see her with psychosis. To have that discussion. I do fear that it’s encouraging armchair diagnosises of other evil people, but at the same time, I do have a passion for the idea of Miranda as dealing with the same thing I deal with.

So... Hence when I’m roleplaying it and discussing it, I really want to make a distinction between when Miranda is being affected by her psychosis and when she is hurting others. Her urges to hurt and be violent are far more complicated - being as she was effectively encouraged to have that reaction by both the abusive system and the abusive family she was born into, first goading her into taking her frustration and emotions out on others by harming them, and then rewarding her when she did act violently. She wasn’t born violent, even as a merfolk, with them being highly specialized predators, but it’s a far more complicated issue of her being melded to think that hurting people is good, and she should do it, and being given no other outlet for anything, just further pushing her into that loop until she feels, subconsciously or consciously, like all she can do to deal and cope is to be violent. For that reason, even getting her to realize that, hey, she probably shouldn’t be hurting people, will be a long and painful road that won’t be enjoyable for her to go through, if necessary. But no one ever said healing from such severe abuse would be a painless path.

But when Miranda is having a psychotic episode, she isn’t violent. I’m very careful about that, and the only time she would be violent is when she’s terrified and basically backed into a corner, and it’s for the same reason a scared cat might scratch you. She wants you to go away, to pay attention to all the signs that she is terrified, and she just really wants her space. For that reason, it’d be much more limited and far less dangerous. Speaking as a schizophrenic person, yeah, I can absolutely say I’m far more dangerous to myself than to anyone else while in a psychotic episode.

Mostly, Miranda’s just afraid while in a psychotic episode. Reality is so much more difficult to navigate, and it’s confusing, and the amount of paranoia that delusions can dump on you and the unpleasantness that comes with hallucinations make it all the harder to deal with.

Likewise, Miranda knows about the ableism thrown at people with psychosis. Hell, she even has to deal with internalized ableism herself. While she’s never seen any kind of psychiatrist (or, she has, but... well, let’s just say it wasn’t for good reasons), and really doesn’t know that the term psychosis fits her, she has a pretty good idea that something happens to her that distorts her perception of reality. She has no name for it, but she can see the similarities, and it freaks her out, due to how she knows the treatment of herself would change. She’s always had psychosis, but she knows that others learning about it would make them think differently of her, and the sheer thought of the depersonalization that comes with how ableist people treat those with psychosis is enough to make her desperately want to hide it from everyone.

And, functionally... yes, she does feel shame for it, all due to that internalized ableism and her feeling like it’s some kind of character flaw that she has, instead of it being just how her brain is. The abuse doesn’t help either.

Not to mention how the Merkingdom would react. I don’t want to spoil too much, but yeah, the other royals definitely would use her psychosis to manipulate and abuse her and discredit her, including saying she’s unfit for her title due to being psychotic, and she knows what being unfit for the title would mean for her.

But... There’s still quite a lot I don’t want to spoil so freely, not yet.

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #You built up a world of magic ; Because your real life is tragic || Self #ableism #abuse #violence #long post #psychosis