#im sooooooooo tired pls will my dog let me sleep

[lighthouseborn]

thinking abt mermay a little but tell me about. mer!henry

I must have opened this and immediately forgotten about it but now here it is. it's 6am and I haven't slept much and I'm on mobile so I'm sorry in advance for the inevitable typos but yes hello--

I know this is a? fairly common? au for people to have for their canon beloveds and I think that's neat but you know I don't have a mer!au? in Henry's case specifically I almost feel like it's too near his canon to... fit? and also. maybe this is why I don't really do fanfic the way other peo0le do fanfic but also. mer!au is sooooo open ended and I feel like the way people invoke it implies there is some universal mermaid world and lore that, just by going mer! implies all of the inherent like... universe rules (like how if you go 'omegav.erse!' you've invoked a specific set of physical and social standards inside of which to create this au version of the (or just? a?) story) but,,, there isn't? and. so if I invoked a mer! clause all I'd really be saying is "he's nonhuman" which is totally a fun thing for some people I'm sure but in this case. is a) wrong and b) SO adjacent to his canon already that it's feels Weird and also doesn't have a ruleset to play inside of so that means.... that I don't get it clskakdkskksjskd because like.

I dunno if this is an interesting answer btw sorry for goung "I don't and won't have one" in many many words but like. one of my whole things with aus in the fanfic style of it is that I don't .. get them a lot of the time? like. mermaid Henry would fundamentally alter him in ways that like... his story would change enough that *i* feel like he wouldn't be Henry. so I wouldn't want that, u know? and then. things like coffee shop au. I completely do not get. and its all just like. I dunno it's like, I could go read/watch something with a mermaid protagonist if I wanted a mermaid protagonist?

or maybe more like. many people have an "any au can be done" kind of vibe and I love this for them but I do not brain that way I feel like different characters suit different aus and sometimes you can pretend mess with them a little (like borrowing pac.ific ri,m concept language to go "henry and carina are drift compatible actually" even though i wouldnt ever write them in that setting because i dont feel it suits them) but other times is just like. at some points it is too different and you are writing a different, new character entirely and if I wanted to do that I would make up yet more ocs, you know? and specifically Henry is... I can't say nonmagical for obvious reasons but. he is very Human, to me. I don't think mer!henry as a concept works that would be somebody else at that point, with the way it changes fundamentals. he is not the magical thing he is near the magical things and in some ways there in spite of the magical things but in many ways because of the magical things. if any of that made sense?

you maybe be asking yourself "how does dbh work but a mermaid au doesn't" and that is. a valid question that honestly mystifies me a little bit. but I think it's because... the setting itself does demand heavy change of him, just what's around him? and there are differences I don't mean to imply 1700s henry and ,,, 20whatever, when is dbh even set oh no why don't I know that... anyway he's different across those verses, and the others I have, for sure. he's just not fundamentally altered..... if?? this is tracking??? idk maybe im just inexplicably self contradictory about aus