Betta

Pronouns: She / They / Mer

Date of Birth: June 25th

Age: 18+ (In other words, adult of an unspecified age)

General Description: Betta is my general-use sona! She’s a  laid-back artist who just so happens to be a mermaid. She’s a pretty  malleable character as she’s more of a mascot than my usual  narrative-based characters. Betta is friendly and sociable! …while also  being introverted. She will rarely initiate interactions with those she  doesn’t know, and gets easily flustered. However, once you earn her  friendship and trust, she really opens up! If that happens, be prepared  to be lovingly infodumped upon.

Setting: They live in an as-of-yet unnamed tropical beach town.  Their home is a two-leveled houseboat. It’s half-submerged, with the top  floor being above the water line and the first floor being below it.  That way they can have easy access to both the aquatic and terrestrial  realms!

The interior of their home is bright and  has eclectic keepsakes and decorations. They fill it with the things  that they like with little regard for any particular aesthetic.

The  exterior of their home sports many kinds of plants! They’ll also use  just about anything as a flower pot… a lot of things are planted in  recycled popcorn buckets.

Abilities: 

Mermaid Shifter - Mer can freely swap between mer aquatic and terrestrial forms!  Although mers aquatic traits are a bit more dominant; mer’ll dry out  easily if mer stays in arid conditions for too long. Additionally, the  magic transfers to mers clothes! Whatever mer’s wearing will adjust to  mers body. (For example, mer rarely bears mers midriff in human form…but  has to in mermaid form because mer has a set of gills on mers sides.

Friend to Animals - She’s great with creatures of all sorts! Animals are perhaps her oldest special interest, and her love for them is as deep and vast as  her wealth of knowledge about them is. With very few exceptions, she can  make friends with nearly any nonhuman creature. (I’m including mythical and fictional creatures here as well: like Pokemon, Neopets, chao, cryptids, etc) She can empathize with them and  understand their needs, wants, and feelings.

Visual Storyteller - They love to write and illustrate stories. They’re always thinking up  new plots and characters, and draw a lot of joy out of sharing what  they make with others. Please, please ask them about their OCs. They  primarily work with digital art, but they also enjoy working in the  mediums of colored pencil and watercolor.

Green Thumb - Mer recently got into gardening and… it turns out mer’s got a knack  for it! Mer dedicates mers mornings to tending to mers various plants…  and mer spends a lot of time outside with them in general. Mer’s so  proud of them! Lately, mer has been taking mers sketchbook outside and  drawing underneath the shade of mers gumbo limbo tree.

Approximate Knowledge of Many Things - She’s a naturally curious person! When a question pops into her head,  she will go and find the answer instead of just wondering. This has  resulted in her having an awareness of a lot of things! Her friends call  her a walking search engine. She denies this, because being perceived  as “the smart one” is a lot of pressure…but every time she’s asked a question, she inevitably has an answer. Please help her.

Connections:

Mercats:

Betta  has two pet mercats: Garlic and Moon! They are their only housemates at  the moment, and mean the whole world to Betta. They’re not just pets to  them… they’re precious family.

Moon  is the older of the two! She’s been with Betta for a long time- since  before Betta found their happy houseboat. (I have yet to draw her, but  she’s all black, and has a celestial-themed collar)

Garlic is still practically a kitten. He views Betta as a parent, and if mer  is honest with merself…Betta views him as mers “precious baby sonshine  boy.” 

Both mercats are strictly indoor pets but Betta does have little harnesses for them and will take them out on strolls sometimes.

Design Notes:

-Their scales and fins have an iridescent, glittery shine to them.

-Mer teeth are always sharp, no matter what. They’re also like a shark’s  teeth- if mer loses one, a new one will grow in its place.

-Her gills will sometimes present themselves in her terrestrial form- she  will instinctively flare them out when stressed or scared.

-For their Team Seafoam design, the silver petticoat has a shiny finish that makes it look metallic- it matches her actual-metal accessories! 

Other Info: 

- Them being a mermaid is not a secret to anyone. They live in a world where merfolk just casually exist alongside landfolk.

-  Her hometown is based off of Florida’s gulf coast… most prominently Sarasota. The most heavy influence is specifically Siesta Key.

-  There is a merfolk town within swimming distance of her home, but it’s  located in the reef a few miles off of the coast. As a consequence, Betta has more human friends than merfolk friends.

-  Their day job is receptionist at a local public pool. The manager keeps  trying to get them to be a lifeguard as they’d be “perfect” for it.

“Please! Your fins let you swim circles around Michael Phelps and you can breathe underwater… you’d be perfect!”

And they’re like, “That is… way too much pressure. If I mess up, someone dies. And for 10 dollars an hour? No thanks.”

-  Mer actually does not like mers job very much. Ideally mer will score some  sort of work from home gig in the future. Not having to deal with  hordes of fickle customers face-to-face is like. Mers dream.

-  All of her electronics are water-compatible! I imagine she has to  exclusively buy mer-tech because otherwise it would be too easy for chaos to happen.

- They play video  games…but like, it’s pretty much the same 12 games again and again.  “Well I could finally check out A Hat in Time… but then again it’s also time for my yearly Sonic Adventure playthrough.”

 They’re trying hard to branch out, though.

-Mers personal style of dress is comfy, breathable, colorful clothes. Mer  often wears sundresses because it’s easier to put together an outfit  when it’s mostly just one piece of clothing. 

- There's a wide array of music she likes, but usually defaults to listening to yacht rock. People are like “You listen to the same kind of music my dad does…” to which she retorts, “Well maybe your dad has awesome taste in music!”

- I actually have a YouTube playlist for them! You can listen to it here. Because they don’t really have a story, it’s mostly just songs that fit their personality / vibe.

- Mer gets cold very easily… it can be 85 degrees (Fahrenheit) and if there is a breeze, mer will shudder.

-  Despite this, she loves cold sweets and beverages. Ice cream, smoothies, milkshakes (especially malted), floats, iced tea, shirley temples, iced matcha lattes,  sodas, fruitjuice, mango soup… you get the idea.

It should be noted: she does NOT vibe with whipped cream. She is very averse to the texture. Foam is on thin ice.

-  Mer’s functionally a pescetarian (with exceptions made for special occasions or if mer is in a place where seafood is difficult to come by–  like if mer is travelling to a landlocked location.)

-  Although she’s a homebody, she enjoys the occasional travel. Her ideal destinations are usually theme parks… though she also likes to attend anime conventions and visit botanical gardens. After any vacation  though, they are always happy to sleep in their own bed again.

- They’re aroace!

-  Mer is a demigirl. Mers pronouns are listed in order of usage, though  not of preference. In fact, if you use mers neopronoun, you’ll tickle mer pink!

- Her birthday is exactly 6 months from Christmas. She asserts that she is lucky, as this is the  best possible birthday for a Christmas-celebrating person to have. You  get a perfect distribution of gifts throughout the year.

-  The design of their tail is based off of the betta… specifically the dumbo lavender betta. This is also where they get their name!

-  Mer is pretty physically strong, despite mers appearance! Mer can lift  heavy things and has pretty good grip strength. However, mer is almost  comically unathletic. Mer has poor performance in pretty much every  sport there is… mostly due to mers terrible spatial awareness. Mer is  also just simply lacks the competitive drive to find most sports  enjoyable. In fact, the only reason mer enjoys ArtFight so much is that  the “fight” aspect is secondary to the “art trade” aspect.

I intentionally picked the type of fish mer is for the inherent comedy of a “fighting fish” that could care less about fighting.

- She’s a magical girl enthusiast. Almost all of her stories and characters have some kind of magical girl aspect to them.

-  I kind of imagine her themed ArtFight outfits as magical girl  transformations but like… I haven’t really figured out a way to  incorporate this into her main “lore”. We’ll just say they’re her team  uniform or something, lol.

- They have a  cooking / baking hobby. They enjoy making food and trying recipes that  they find appealing. (They are also a very picky eater, so cooking for  themself is a way to avoid any “I asked for no pickles” scenarios.) They  aren’t a remarkably good cook or anything, but they also aren’t half  bad at it.

- Mer is autistic!

-  She has a common stim where she waves her hands. She’ll do this  whenever she has an excess of energy that she needs to unleash: be it  stress or excitement. She also likes to rub soft material when she is  thinking deeply about something. Additionally, she’ll twirl her hair or  fiddle with her clothing if she becomes restless.

-  Avoids eye contact, but has figured out a workaround. When talking to  someone, they’ll look at their forehead. Nobody ever notices >:)

-  Mer wants so badly to like denim… denim makes you look so cool. But  alas, mer doesn’t. It feels itchy on mers skin. Mer instead opts for khakis.

- She always has a huge backpack or messenger bag with her… she has a habit of over-packing. But on the  bright side, she’s hardly ever unprepared for situations! She also likes  to decorate her bags with pins and keychains.

-  They have dyscalculia so. A couple of the items that are always with  them are a calculator and their phone (outfitted with a good map / GPS app).

-  Mer has to consciously make facial expressions and tone of voice happen… so if you encounter mer when mer’s tired, you’ll get a very  deadpan Betta. Mer tries very hard to be as expressive as possible, so  this tends to shock people when they see this side of mer! It does not  mean mer’s upset, though.

-Mer is nearsighted! 

- She sunburns very easily… even with sunscreen. So she actually quite likes cloudy and  rainy days! Plus, one of her favorite clothing items is her mint green  raincoat. (Yet to draw)

- Her favorite color is mint green, actually. Although caribbean blue’s a very close second.