#2026-05

continuation of my merm connor au from last mermay related merm au posts: 1 2 3

sailors always told tales of how merms were man-eating creatures that drowned wayward souls so markus fully expected to be killed and eaten when he finds himself face-to-face with the creature. but then the merm saves his life by dumping him on the nearest island instead? the mysterious creature sticks around and they begin to talk. as the conversation continues, old memories stir in the back of his mind and he realizes that he's met this merm before.

SORRY I'M REPLYING TO THIS SUUUUUPER LATE </33333

but TYVM <33333 here's my take on if we swapped the roles with merm markus and pirate connor!!!!

related merm au posts: 1 2 3

see below the cut for this specific au's ramblings

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.