In Llŷr's world, supernatural beings exist; there are faeries in groves, dragons hidden among the Himalayan mountains and ghosts haunting graveyards. However, humans are rarely aware of this thanks to a secret pact among non-humans that is generally known as the Veil. This Veil makes sure the main population of humanity are not told just how much of their old fairytales and stories are actually true.

Naturally, this Veil isn't foolproof because people are people, but it has been more and more heavily enforced in the later centuries, where humanity changed towards industrialism and started seriously polluting nature. It was the last straw for most of the supernatural population.

A few human beings do become aware of non-human existence even today - most of them are halfbreeds or Enlightened; humans that learn magic or otherwise break through the Veil. Others learn the truth by accident, and some even decide to profit from it.

Then there are those that decide to turn their fear to slaughter. Humans are not safe because their reaction to the unknown is nearly always violence... and many hunted by them know this far too well.

Categories of supernatural creatures come in many different forms, and if you've ever heard of it, it probably exists somewhere - or did, before humans destroyed it (either by accident or purposely). This even includes gods, a name given to supernatural beings that grow in power due to worshipers. The more worshipers, the more powerful you are. (Angels are damn heavy hitters among non-humans.)

Creatures like vampires, shapechanging werefolk and other mostly-humanoid beings are more easily mixed in the human population, while most creatures that fall under the umbrella term 'fae' has done their best to avoid them. Some have their own pocket dimensions and veiled realities - while others live so far away from populated areas that they may never even see one of the so-called Unenlightened.

This is the case with most merfolk, as humans still struggle to explore the ocean. While some are curious of the surface world, many never even see the surface itself and live their while lives down in the deep.

Llŷr is the former. Ever since he was young, he had a fascination of the surface world and collected human things from wrecks. As an adult, he split from his pod for a while and swam closer inland to Wales in order learn more about them. He was watching humans under the Victoria Pier in Colwyn Bay when a girl dropped her phone in the water. Unable to stop himself, he grabbed it.

Waterproof technology soon became his biggest obsession, because it had the most amazing thing of all time:

The Internet.

He learned a lot of the human world on the web, and while not everything made sense, he wholeheartedly enjoyed it. Unsurprisingly, he loves to drag Disney's The Little Mermaid for all the dumb stuff in it. (He secretly loves it.)

More information about humanity came from a swimmer who got caught in a riptide. Llŷr accidentally bumped into her while looking for crabs, and they spent several days together on the ocean until the coast guard found her 'miraculously' alive.

It was after this he decided to cross the Atlantic in a whim of exploring the Enlightened and fae in the US. He knew that there was a very large underground society of them in New York, and after a long time of traveling he reached the Hudson River.

From there, he started gaining friends among the supernatural beings in the city, and ended up having some interesting adventures.

● strengths:

Supernatural Knowledge 🐚 Knows that supernatural things exist. Knows a little about most standard creatures (from his world). Generally very accepting and curious about them, and does not judge a non-human for their nature. He can happily talk about hunting with vampires and possessing with demons. As long as they don't go after 'his' people, Llŷr doesn't care. His grandmother lives of humans, after all.

Ocean-Wide Loyalty 🐚 Speaking of 'his people', Llŷr is really loyal and protective of friends. Mer are very social creatures in general, and since Llŷr was a bit of a loner before he came to the US, he treasures friends fiercely. This can also go in the other direction, where he's overprotective.

Curiosity Killed The Catfish 🐚 Llŷr wants to know everything about everything. He's always ready to learn something new, and thus he also has a fascinating amount of knowledge about different subjects.

Waterproof Tech 🐚 He knows how to work human technology... or at least an Iphone and the internet. This is very unusual for his kind. (Llŷr still wishes there was such a thing as underwater charging stations.)

Stubborn Like A Storm 🐚 Fae have lots of willpower. He is hard to sway both by word and magic (but not impossible). If he sets his mind on something, he'll do it. Like swimming across the whole damn ocean.

● weaknesses:

Fish out of Water 🐚 Llŷr can spend up to three hours out of water comfortably, after that he'll start having trouble breathing and the scales itch as they dry out. Ten hours could kill him, but it can be extended if he's splashed with water and kept cool (similar to moving a dolphin or whale). That would be quite painful and uncomfortable, though.

Fins Forever 🐚 Changing into a human is a siren skill that Llŷr has not yet mastered, and thus he has a hard time looking inconspicuous out of water. A wheelchair and sunglasses may help to move him from place to place, but it can be quite awkward. He hopes to unlock this within himself one day, but he's not sure he actually inherited that magic from his grandmother.

Ooh, Shiny 🐚 He is easily distracted by shiny things. Mer in general love shiny things, especially if they glow with their own light. This also ties in to the fact that Llŷr has a lot of random whims and ideas, causing other kinds of distractions. It might take him a while to get places if there's too much to explore!

In Your Bubble 🐚 What is this personal bubble thing? His curiosity might get too personal at times, and he doesn't always pick up on the awkwardness. This might unsettle or even piss people off, and he still needs to learn why.

Llŷr the Curious SPECIES Merfolk/Siren HOME SEA Celtic/Irish Sea HISTORY Here AGE Unknown, looks mid-twenties GENDER Cis-Male SEXUALITY Pansexual DIET Fish, Crustaceans, Seaweed, Humans LANGUAGE Merspeak, English, Welsh FAMILY Ceridwen (Grandmother) Brynllyn (Father) Rhiain (Mother) Aelwyd, Bronwyn, Maegan, Wynne, Sara (Sisters) Gwaun, Erwin, Jaime, Baeddan (Brothers) PB Eugeniy Sauchanka VOICE Peter Hollens AU VERSIONS X-Men, Medieval/Fantasy

APPEARANCE From his waist up, Llŷr looks like a Caucasian male of average height and with a slim swimmer's build. His features are very conventionally attractive thanks to his siren blood, all in order to 'lure' people to him. He has very long reddish-blonde hair that always seems to be in some form of disarray, and he enjoys braiding it into random shapes. Less human are his pitch-black eyes, lacking any kind of sclera. He also has gills on his cheeks that almost look like scars at a brief glance. His ears are finned, although rarely seen since they're usually buried beneath all that hair. In addition to that, his fingers are webbed with green membrane and lack fingerprints. Beneath the waist, the merman has a long fish tail, stretching about two feet longer than where his legs would end. The scale colors start out a greenish black around his hips then brightening into a lighter green further down. His ears count as pectoral fins, and he has semi-transparent dark green pelvic fins at his hips, a dorsal fin that runs from the mid upper 'thigh' to halfway up his (humanoid) back, and smaller anal fins just before his tail fin. Said fin is quite long and flowing, oddly delicate for a cold water merperson. POWERS Merman 🐠 Llŷr has what you could call standard merfolk powers; breathing underwater, fins, webbed fingers, etc. He's quite tolerant of cold temperatures and water pressure, able to dive down up to maximum of 2,992 meters (9,816 ft) (Cuvier's Beaked Whale) before it starts to crush him. His eyes are able to see in the deep dark of the water, and he has a minor ability to echolocate. His strong tail gives him about the same speed in water as an orca (34.5 miles per hour). Siren Song 🐠 Thanks to the fact that his grandmother is a siren, Llŷr can entrance and hypnotize a person with his singing (as long as the person he is focusing his song to is attracted to men). This mind control is quite strong, and the general focus is for the target is to fall in love with the siren - often to be dragged off into the deep and get eaten. (Although he has never eaten anyone, thank you very much.) Llŷr mainly uses it for protection, to make any assailants stop hurting him. The effect is weaker against non-humans. Animal Companionship 🐠 Merfolk have a natural ability to coexist with and befriend other marine mammals, even large carnivores like orcas. While they cannot talk to them a la The Little Mermaid, they communicate well with gestures and sounds. No dolphin or whale would ever hurt a mer and they often create lifelong friendships. However, fish, squid and crustaceans tend to be jittery around mer since they're the staple of merfolk diet. Other predators of the sea would gladly have a merperson for a feast, but thankfully they only attach solitary merpeople. Kiss The GirlPerson 🐠 The kiss of a mer magically grants a non-mer the ability to breathe underwater for about an hour. This has to be freely given and freely accepted, and it does not affect anything but breathing - pressure and cold would still be a problem. Legends say that a mer falling in love could completely change their non-mer mate, but such things are nothing but stories. Right? Fae Blood 🐠 Being part of the supernatural population and especially the fae family, Llŷr has an innate ability to sense magic and other non-humans. He cannot tell what they are, just that they are not fully human, and he cannot tell the form of magic, just that there's magic. WEAKNESSES Fish out of Water 🐟 Llŷr can spend up to three hours out of water comfortably, after that he'll start having trouble breathing and the scales itch as they dry out. Ten hours could kill him, but it can be extended if he's splashed with water and kept cool (similar to moving a dolphin or whale). That would be quite painful and uncomfortable, though. Fins Forever 🐟 Changing into a human is a siren skill that Llŷr has not yet mastered, and thus he has a hard time looking inconspicuous out of water. A wheelchair and sunglasses may help to move him from place to place, but it can be quite awkward. He hopes to unlock this within himself one day, but he's not sure he actually inherited that magic from his grandmother.

( codes by whambam )