Hi 👋! l like Sharks!!!🦈🦈🦈

Yipe two left:)

one of the reasons i took awhile to do this was bc i couldn't figure out what fish to model markus after. i ended up asking the rk1k discord server and we came up with multiple options and then i spun a wheel to pick one LMAO. it ended up on siamese fighting fish!!! i really like this option because it's SOOOO colorful. idk much about the fish behavior of this particular breed (except they will fight if you put two males together i think????) so i can't vouch for how accurate it is a match for markus. but i do like how the design ended up looking.

as for connor, i kinda imagine him originally part of the navy before pirates absolutely obliterate his fleet and he "volunteers" (totally wasn't coerced into it) to join the pirate crew as their navigator. (apparently good navigators were hard to come by during the pirate age and were often kidnapped by other crews LMAO) maybe he also has a background in tracking (tying into his whole "hunter" aspect of his character) and the pirate crew he's a part takes up mermaid hunting.

i imagine that they're trying to hunt down markus bc maybe in the past he's interfered with their hunts before (freeing caught merms and whatnot). connor is forced to tag along initially but he prides himself in being the best navigator in the seven seas so he takes his job very seriously. and eventually he becomes desensitized to the heinous antics of his crew because he's just here to do his job (he gets very prickly whenever the crew doubts his skill and the captain 1000% uses that to their advantage). eventually, markus reminds connor of his humanity and connor sides with the merms by the end of it.

anyway, thank you so much for the ask!!! it was fun thinking up of this version of the au and even if it was just a quick sketch i really liked how the drawing turned out.