Marshy the Swampmaid

is an original character designed by Frostbite_Carno. Marshy resides in an AU of Noah's Ark, where Noah has a twin brother who goes on to save the creatures no one else wants to, and that would be the fantasy creatures and mythical beasts you find in lore and fairytales, including Mermaids, Trolls, Sirens, dragons, unicorns and many more.
Marsh, or "Marshy" as she like to go by, is a friendly, laid back, outgoing mermaid who lived with her family nomadically traveling through different swamps, rivers, wetlands, and marshes with her pet frog Lily at her side. or, on her head rather, who is a mythical creature called a Haze frog. They hunt fish and whatever other small critters they could find together, making a life for themselves in the swamplands. they make their home on the enormous supercontinent, known far and wide as Valliera, which is a world full of extent, extinct, and extraordinary creatures.Work in progress
 
==== Current/Main ====
Marshy is an adolescent freshwater mermaid with a plump, curvy body, with long wet and slimy hair, which is wavy and reaches down to about her waist. and she has slightly broad forearms and frog-like hands which are pointy, and webbed, and which have 4 fingers, though some swampmaids do have 5. Marshy’s head, along with other swampmaids, is noticeably more human-like then their close cousins the swamp sirens, having rounder proportions, but still having a wide mouth full of sharp, conical teeth, with a very long forked tongue with burn marks at the tips. She possesses large fin-like appendages on either side of her head which look like ears, but are actually her gills, but like ears, they can move to show her mood, drooping when sad, perking up when happy, flaring when she’s mad, etc. and Marshy has a lil button nose, 
She has bright lime yellow-green skin, dark olive green hair, and a long, green tail with orange fins at the end, along with the webbing between her fingers which are also orange. She has a small dark brown dot on her forehead followed by some speckles beneath it and dark brown speckles on her cheeks, giving her a freckled look to her face.  she has a bunch of little speckles running down her shoulders and arms, she also posses slight countershading, with a brown hue on her back contrasted with the green of her face and belly. She has eyes with yellow scleras, red irises, and black slit pupils, and long black eyelashes on each eye. Similar to her mother, she has blotchy vertical bands on her sides which are most prominent at her hips and are dark brown in color, running all the way down her tail, and her skin has a beautiful, opalescent green sheen similar to a frog's belly. 
Though her skin is usually a bright lime green color, it can fluctuate a little bit with temperature and humidity, sometimes looking more minty green or sometimes being a dark lime color. 
she gets around the ark in a wooden bucket with wheels filled with artificial swamp water and held together by a cylindrical frame. It has seen a fair amount of use apparent in its worn appearance, and there are lilypads engraved into the wheels of her bucket. She also is seen without it sometimes and can crawl or "slither" around instead if need be. 
Marshy doesn't wear any clothes, but she does have a lilypad with a pink lotus flower that adorns her head, and a large trident with a crescent moon and a lilypad carved into it that she sticks on her back when not in use. 
==== PollyWog ====
As a pollywog, Marshy had a vertical tailfin that resembles that of a newt's or salamander's, she had a slimmer body and she didn't wear a lily pad on her head, and she was missing a tooth.Marshy is filled with an adventurous spirit and excitement, is fun-loving yet determined, and like her father will not hesitate to protect her friends and family. She also loves exploration, as it's one of her favorite things to do.  Marshy generally maintains a positive outlook, is almost always friendly and generous, she loves to help others and whenever she sees that someone is upset, she does her best to cheer them up. Strangers, in her eyes, are just friends she has not met yet, (well, unless they show otherwise that is, she does have common sense) 
she has a happy-go-lucky attitude and always tries to put a smile on everyone's faces. She’s also a pretty chill, mellow, and down-to-earth person who enjoys starting up casual conversation. Although She is Laid-back, she also works very hard towards her goals, so much so that she will sometimes end up greatly sleep-deprived. at times, and she can be something of a trouble maker. While not malicious, she will get into trouble if she is bored and comes up with some crazy idea that will have unforeseen outcomes, or if the situation is presented to her in an enticing way. She isn't a picky eater in the slightest, she'll eat almost anything but she does have favorites. Marshy loves music and dancing, and is also very curious about land dwellers and how they live, and she is also very observant too. She likes to chill and and hang out with her friends, she's pretty much just vibing through life. 
According to the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator, Marshy's Personality type is Campaigner ENFP-A 
==== Natural Abilities ====
*Jaw Unhingment: Marshy can unhinge her jaw like a snake
*Constriction: Like a lamia, she can squeeze the life outta things with her tail.
*Puffing: She can puff herself up like a pufferfish by filling her body with water or air until she is much larger and almost spherical in shape. While in this state she can use her larger mass to crush an opponent with a belly flop or be used as a beachball.
*Acid Spit: Marshy can spit stomach acid at a potential enemy in an attempt to use said highly acidic stomach acid as a defense mechanism.
*Expert Swimmer: Being a mermaid, Marshy is an excellent swimmer.
*Darkvision: Marshy has the ability to see in the dark
*Amphibious: Marshy can breathe both air and water
*Prehensile Tongue: Marshy can make great use of her tongue to reach objects out of her reach, as it is able to extend quickly and up to 5 feet at the most. Marshy can also swing it fast enough to use as a whip.
*Ocular illumination: Marshy has the ability to project light from her eyes when she is in dimly lit areas.
*Prehensile tail: Marshy is able to use her long tail to grasp things. She is also able to support her entire body by hanging herself upside down by her tail, sometimes using her tail to climb trees
*Croaking & Chest Inflation: Females of Marshy's species can croak like frogs. They can inflate their chests full of air or water. 
==== Skillset ====
* Woodcrafting: Marshy learned a great deal about crafting from her dad. Her many years of learning and practicing have certainly paid off. She has created many things throughout her life, such as making a prosthetic tail for a dolphin she used to know. She can make just about anything, if given the materials.  
* Musical Talent: Marshy is a gifted singer like her mother.
* Weapon Proficiency: Marshy is skilled at using her large trident to slice up or stab enemies as well as the ability to trap other long-weapons between the prongs to disarm their wielder. 
* Close Combat: Marshy is adept at close combat. She has the arm and tail strength to twist and snap an enemy’s neck, as well as strangling them or drowning them to death if there is water nearby
* Dancing: Marshy is a good dancer, which is a talent shared with her mother. She makes good use of her hips and tail when she dances looking quite graceful dancing in the water. She's also a pretty good dancer when out of water as well, being able to pull some sick breakdancing moves on land. she also is interested in learning dances of the other cultures of mythicals to the best of her ability too.
Unique Abilities:
* Purring - Marshy is able to purr like a toad. Marshy will purr when she is feeling relaxed, safe, or tired, sending out waves of calmness. She may also purr when flustered or titillated, but its a bit louder when that's the case, She emits a soft rumbling sound from her body, And her whole body will even start vibrating.
*Saltwater: Swamp Mermaids/Sirens thrive in freshwater and brackish water but cant handle saltwater too well, if completely submerged in it, they will die in minutes
*The cold: being amphibians, Swamp sirens/mermaids probably become sleepy and sluggish when in cold weather for too long, which could leave them vulnerable.
*Bucket Dependency: Marshy almost never leaves her bucket when on land. Without it she can actually crawl and slither around just fine, and is still very good at defending herself, but she cant get places significantly fast or far on foot…because she doesn't have any, she would need to be carried. In the water or in her bucket though, this usually isn't an issue, but on land without it, she isn't getting places very quickly.
*Crescent the Swampmaid: Mother
*†Cypress the Swampmaid: Father 
*Uncle Coontail the Swampmaid: Uncle
*Auntie Baynes the Swampmaid: Aunt
*3 unnamed swampmaids who are friends of her parents and uncle: other family members
*Lilypad the Hazefrog: Pet 
* Lilypad the Hazefrog: Loyal animal sidekick
* Azure the Swamp Siren Close friend, and someone she likes hanging out with, she thinks he's pretty cool and enjoys his company very much, and often knocks on his door to invite him to do stuff, and she simply enjoys talking to him, and sometimes he will say things that are unintentionally funny. She also doesn't tolerate anyone bullying him, one time Azure got a black eye, and told her he got it from falling down the stairs, she was skeptical, but played along with it to not make him worry, but later she went and told the girls about it and then they all went and proceeded find the guy who did it and beat his ass, so that aspect of it was pretty fun. Azure to her is one of those people who are just nice to have around. He is also the first poison dart swamp siren she has ever met, and she thinks he is cute and very beautiful, with his colorful skin, beautiful eyes, cool looking crest, and not to mention his fabulous pet crab.
* Welba the Swamp Siren: Close friend, and someone she likes hanging out with, she is just the sweetest lil thing ever in Marshy's eyes, if someone dislikes Welba, they are evil, simple as that. she enjoys talking with Welba about random stuff in the soaking center, and Welba seems very smart, she knows her stuff, she would do anything for her. Now that she thinks about it, Azure and Welba are pretty similar in a lot of ways, both of em are sweet, shy sirens who wouldn't hurt a fly and Marshy wouldn't have it any other way, she's very glad that she met them
* Coin the Crab Turtle: good friend, and Azure's pet. She thinks he's so fricking cool looking, and has never seen a shellbabe that looks quite like him before.
* Hilda the Swamp Siren: Good friend, and very kind and affectionate to her, She's also someone she can go to to ask questions about certain things that she wouldn't feel very comfortable asking her mom or anyone else about, and she really admires her confidence. She's a great hugger and cuddler, and Marshy she also think she pretty hot.
* Bubby the Swamp Siren: she's a friend, and while she thinks Bubby can be a little over the top at times, Marshy admires and respects her tough as nails attitude 
* Saal the Swamp Siren: She's a friend, and she can be pretty fun at times, and really good at cooking too, and Marshy really wants to learn from her because frankly she sucks at it, like really, she would probably burn her room down trying, and she has. and she may join in on some of her pranks every now and again depending on what it is. And While she knows Lily can probably defend himself, she keeps him close to herself or away from Saal for the sake of caution.
* Matthew the Neko: friend, someone who hangs out with them sometimes. he is pretty chill for the most part, and also pretty funny, but damn can he be sassy.
* Robin the Ropen: Friend, and someone who hangs out with sometimes, she's a good friend and very helpful too, a notable instance being when she helped her get a coconut out of a tree.
*Karen the Kitsune: Friendly acquaintance, and ally, occasionally helping the gang out using magic spells in exchange for certain items. Marshy wants to learn how to do magic too, and one day she is gonna ask her.
* Summer the Pink River Dolphin: a dolphin she helped when she was younger. hopefully he got very lucky and maybe, just maybe, is one of the two dolphins safely aboard Noah's Ark.
*The chainmail shark that ate her father.
*Bubby the Swamp Siren: (Formerly and Briefly)
*Rhedo the Rhedosaurus: in her eyes, a jerk. which he certainly can be at times.
*Coal the Gargoyle: Some random asshole who stole her coconut once.
Marshy's development in terms of design was rollercoaster to say the least. I wanna say she had about 5 iterations total? though I'm not gonna show all of em. To the left is Marshy's first iteration, and while I still think it nice, feel like I was trying way too hard to be realistic when I really didn't need to be, and honestly was just harder for me to draw in general, so I decided to stylize her some more, but still wasn't 100% happy with her design, mostly because next to the other characters I felt like the designs/style clashed too much with each other and then eventually I was just like "screw it" and fully embraced the cartoonyness, and hence the design you now see in the info box above, and how I draw her now and now I think Marshy fits right in with all of the other characters.
*Marshy was created on December 5th, 2021
*I always like to imagine if my OC's had voice actors/actresses, and Marshy's ideal VA would definitely be Zendaya.
*Fun fact, Marshy's name was actually "Swampy" for a long while while she was still in development, before finally settling on Marshy, however the name swampy was repurposed as a nickname for her species, and since the swamp sirens have been coined as "Swampers" it kind of checked out, Swampers and Swampies.
*Marshy's colors and patterns were inspired by yellow perch 
*Her father's death was inspired by a scene from Animal Planet's Mermaids: The Body Found 
*Marshy is a high functioning autistic individual like myself
*Though she'll eat almost anything, Marshy's favorite food is eggs, but she has recently discovered she also loves lamb chops 
*I imagine this song being Marshy's theme, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x71dDdmJaPk and this being Marshy's 2nd theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WltiiJrqBVY
*When Marshy's bored and she doesn't wanna bother Lily, she just chews on her trident, then she looks at the little gnaw marks just to see how deep or weird they look afterwards. Just a little habit she has.
*Marshy likes befriending shy people, shy people need friendship and affection just like everybody else does. They’re not weird and they don’t need people saying: “Why can’t you open up?” or “Why are you so shy?” Marshy just feels like they often tend to be really sweet people great at keeping secrets, She also thinks in a way, shy people are like mysteries waiting to be discovered, succeeding in getting them to talk to learn about them, about their passions is something she enjoys. But she does respect when someone genuinely does not want to be bothered, and if someone asks her to stop doing something she will generally stop doing whatever that thing is and do her best not to do it in the future.
*When Marshy sleeps, she likes to wrap her tail around things, whether it be her pillow or blanket, the frame of her bed, her mom, or Lilypad. just a lil sleeping habit she has that she isn't herself aware of
File:Jonah's Ark Wave-shredder encounter.jpg|Marshy and Azure next to a Wave-Shredder to show scale. Drawn by my good friend professorPuffNadder on Deviantart
File:Wave-shredder encounter 2.jpg|Marshy and Azure encounter a Wave-Shredder, zoomed in. Drawn by my good friend ProfessorPuffNadder on DeviantArt
File:Coils Jonah's Ark.jpg|Marshy coiling around Azure not yet knowing she is flustering him
File:Marshy bucket.jpg|Marshy peaking out of her bucket while mostly submegred
File:Azure and marshy watch the military deploy freddy by frostybites16 df1f4vu-pre.jpg|Azure and Marshy reaction meme image
File:Marshy puffing up.jpg|Marshy puffing up like a pufferfish
File:Disgusted Marshy.jpg|Marshy with a disgusted look on her face
File:Marshy tongue.jpg|Marshy using her long tongue to hold a leg of lamb while holding Lily
File:Tongue Tied.jpg|Marshy and Azure helping Welba unwrap her tongue from around her body after a little mishap
File:Azure and Marshy sleep.jpg|Marshy and Azure fall asleep
File:When ur friend too thicc to carry joke by frostybites16 df1auar-pre.jpg|old picture of Azure trying to hold Marshy up Marshy while they try to preform a dance
File:Aftermath of a dance.jpg|Marshy falling on top of Azure after their dancing attempt doesn't go exactly according to plan.
File:Truth or Dare, Azure & Marshy.webp|A game of truth or dare leads to Marshy having to kiss Azure, leaving Azure surprised and confused, and both of them very flustered afterwards
File:Suprise hug by frostybites16 df36leg-fullview.jpg|Marshy givin her friend Welba a greeting hug. (Marshy's Has a bit of a older design here) )
File:A gentle pinch by frostybites16 df1xc6w-fullview (1).jpg|Marshy gives Azure a smol but soft pinch for saint Patrick's day, making a joke about the fact that she's green and he's blue. (Again Marshy has a bit of an older design but getting closer to how I draw her now) 
File:A not so gentle pinch by frostybites16 df2a887-fullview (2).jpg|After Coin see's Marshy and Azure he decides to try his own pinch, but perhaps it was a bit too hard, and Welba out of curiosity and a bit of concern comes to check on her friends.
File:Df1ksib-126b23d5-5327-41ec-b8b8-4748e3d3861f (1).jpg|A meme drawing of a small interaction based on Azure and Marshy having a small talk before they attempt to preform a dance Marshy witnessed a pair of Jackalopes doing, as it was a form of dance she was unfamiliar with and wanted to try it. (also slightly outdated Marshy)
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