#acquaintances would refer to another mer by the name of their spawning ground which at least denotes group | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

in-tua-deep · 1 year ago

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I drew up this merfolk character based on a pajama shark while i was at work! decided to digitally line and color it when i got home, though i did use colored pencils to do the original drawing lol

anyway i call them samira but,, don't get me started on the complex mer naming lore that has been tumbling around my brain all week

#my art #merfolk #every month is mermay if you try #pajama shark mer #mer #but yeah samira lives in my monster and magic 'verse which has its own set of magic rules and people #so yeah merfolk in that world worship the old ones which are basically big old sea monster that are created by and linked with deep magic #and because the old ones are made of magic if they are named it impacts what they are #it's super super forbidden in mer culture to name or nickname an old one because it WILL change them (almost always for the worst)#actually cold ones are just old ones who have gone mad after being named and started killing merfolk #there's an entire cultural role of merfolk who essentially kill cold ones to protect the merfolk but in return they can never be in a pod #ANYWAY that's beside the point #the point is that mer culture has weird name vibes because of this whole thing #basically strangers Do Not Refer To Strangers and they'd just say like. 'this one. that one.'#acquaintances would refer to another mer by the name of their spawning ground which at least denotes group #after that you may get a 'call name' provided by a mer which can change #they basically just get to like. decide their name of the day #FINALLY the ultimate level of intimacy is someone bestowing a name upon another mer #this step is usually pre-agreed on because it is INCREDIBLY rude to name someone who doesn't want you to name them #it's all to do with the old ones. like a 'you know me well enough that i will not be changed by whatever name you give me.'#'or if i am change it would be for the better'#this is some long ass rambles for a simple picture but YEAH #samira's name is a given name - given by their partner santino

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