#mermen designs

[huffle-dork]

Merm forms for the swaps from todays SATCV chapter!!

[yzegem]

Sirens of Encounters in the Frontier.

In my setting, sirens are a kind of shark, descendants of a creature most similar to an epaulette shark, wich adapted to hunt fish and mollusks trapped during the low tide and eventually evolved to be fully lunged and mostly amphibian.

There are 3 species of sirens, all 6 limbed.

-The continental mernewt is native to the vast beaches and coral reefs of the southeastern coast of the continent. It's similar in bodyplan to a mudskipper and just as agile. They have jaws strong enough to open shellfish and don a venomous spur next to their tail fin, wich can kill small animals and cause pain, swelling and even necrosis of the limbs in larger animals like humans.

Male mernewts are known to "fence" each other as they are very territorial during mating season. This fights envolve leaps into the air, stabbing with their spurs, biting and their characteristic shriek.

These animals are very important in the culture of the warrior caste in the Sun Empire and represent masculine violence and war, sometimes positively (they are kept in artificial ponds ocasionally) or as a critique in poetry of the futility of war, since the mernewts are vulnerable to birds of prey or other predators while exhausted after a fight.

-The lesser siren is the most terrestrial of all sirens. Its native to the eastern and southern coast of the continent, the north of alwaysummer and the Twisted Islands.

These creatures feed mostly on fish stranded during low tides but many hunt seabirds by staying still between rocks in the shore until the perfect ocasion to leap and catch its prey with their clawed pectoral fins. They usually drag their prey to the water and drown it there. They are very capable of climbing rocks and can be quite fast in short bursts of speed.

They can get quite large and pose a significant danger to some cattle and humans.

-Sirens are native to the Twisted Islands and are the most aquatic of the three, even though they can still return to the sea if they get stranded.

They spend most of the day in underwater caves and are actually quite good at hunting in the sea floor, as they use their long arm like pectoral fins to move rocks and expose mollusks and other small prey. Still, their prey of choice are terrestrial animals. Sirens are indeed quite intelligent animals, though far from sapient, as they resemble the intelect of a marine crocodile, wich manifests in very specialiced hunting tactics.

They have learned to attract land animals close enough to the water by leaving small pieces of fish in the shore as bait for seabirds or imitating animal cries for help to attract unsuspecting predators or worried members of the imitated species. When they get the chance, they rapidly extend their arm-like fins and drag the animal to the sea.

Some sirens have specialiced in hunting humans, specially those on boats, wich is a big problem given how common reed boats and low canoes are for transport in the twisted islands, often used to also transport cattle.

Sirens can easily climb on top of these boats or colaborate between many to topple a ship.

They don't hunt in organized groups, rather they all hunt individually but at the same time, if that makes sense, and later fight for the prey.

These human eating sirens have learn to stand on small islands or unlit shores ar night and waive their arm-like fins while screaming (they can imitate a great variety of sounds) to lure humans closer to them.

The Iliryi people (those native of the twisted islands) have developed many methods to sail safely, such as covering their boats with down facing spikes, tying themselves to the boat or just carrying harpoons and being ready for action. Still, these tactics are not very efective when overwhelmed by a large group of sirens.

The government of the twisted islands hires whalers and fishermen from all across the eastern sea during their low season to work as sirens hunters, wich escort other ships and keep the siren population at bay. This is a high risk high reward job for these fishermen.

[wolf-kaisken]

Most recent design of my boi solstice, an albino deep sea artic siren. Yes he glows :3

[im-thekeeper]

what if Aiden but with long ears?

[crazy-pe3p]

this was just an au concept at first but i really like them...

struggling w/ henry and ellie's designs atm but for now take these guys

[ant1draws]

[arttsuka]

Octavius and Jed but merman AU. Maybe they're tiny mermen who live inside an aquarium 😂

How did they end up in there?

[nerdyartist101]

Hello, my creative people 😀 today is another mermaid Monday, and I wanted to draw my precious couple as merman 🧜‍♂️ I'm still pushing myself to draw more male characters so doing my oc couple is the perfect excuse ☺️ I hope you all enjoy 😄

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Izzy Hands, "Burying Your Cripples," and That Fucking Finale

(Note: this is a cleaned-up/expanded version of a post I made earlier regarding disability rep in this show bc I was chatting with @itswhatyougive and @notthewriteryourelookingfor about "Burying Your Gays" and the parallels with the "Burying Your Cripples" trope in media, which is often more insidious because people are less primed to notice it and call it out.

Also, although I am analyzing a trope in media in the most unbiased way I can, I am going to get angry. Because this is a show that did its job at making us care about its characters and their portrayals and you can't get mad at me that I did just that.)

On a fourth note when it comes to the problems with the writing in this season of ofmd...the handling of disability. Because good God.

To preface this before anyone jumps down my throat about getting upset: I am disabled myself, both physically and mentally. I carry a small laundry list of mild to moderate conditions that impair my daily functions. I understand what it is like to desire to see characters that carry disabilities similar and dissimilar to my own onscreen. I also understand that there ARE multiple disabled characters in OFMD (ex. Jackie with her wooden hand, Ed with his knee brace, Pete with his cleft palate, Lucius with his mentioned bad back/wooden finger). I UNDERSTAND that these were all generally handled decently well, incorporated without drawing attention to them (although the disappearance of Ed's knee brace was strange to me in season 2, even that I could get with bc personally I only need to use my cane when my knee flares bad and can walk perfectly normally the rest of the time without an aid).

Which is all to say: the way that Izzy's death was written is insidiously (likely unconsciously, but still) ableist. His entire arc this season revolves around community and recovering from trauma and accepting himself both in a queer sense and a DISTINCTLY DISABLED sense. The way he remarks upon his own disability and his acceptance of himself and the way that the show is written to have his crew member ACCOMODATE him joyfully as an EXPLICIT SYMBOL OF LOVE was a breath of fresh air when it comes to disabled characters. I also enjoyed the way that he pokes fun at it occasionally in the same way that I do with my coworkers/friends (joking "oh really, you're going to ask an invalid to do that?" *gestures at my cane*).

But that ending. God, that fucking ending. *vehemently taps table* The fact that this character who opens up, who is accepted for both sides of his identity after dragging himself through the fucking pits over them, is killed. BECAUSE HIS MOBILITY AID COULD BE SEEN BY THE ENEMY. BECAUSE HE WAS SEEN AS UNIQUELY VULNERABLE. And then they FUCKING PULL HIS MOBILITY AID, the very symbol of his acceptance, from his FUCKING BODY SO HE CANNOT BE BURIED WHOLE?

I'm sorry. I really am. I don't mean to get furious about this. But as a disabled person who saw such hope in this character, who saw a storyline about a part of myself that is rarely displayed onscreen (that slow acceptance of the part of yourself you considered broken + the acknowledgement of love by your family/community in the form of loving accommodation without complaint), this hurt me at a very primal level that I didn't know I could be hurt at.

Bringing this back around to the "Burying Your Cripples" trope: the reason why an ending like this is so horrifying is because it is very much telling you that you can have a healing arc, that you can finally find yourself accommodation and acceptance, and it doesn't matter. Your disability will be the thing that kills you.

To people who say that this ending is justified because sometimes death is just random like that, that saying that death makes healing not worth it, I get what you're saying. In real life, of course you're right.

But this is a CLOSED NARRATIVE. It is a story with BEATS that MATTER, made of decisions by writers who had to purposefully decide to put scenes together. There's a reason they're called "arcs"- they're supposed to aim at a specific point. IF YOU LET EVERY CHARACTER IN A SHOW LIVE THROUGH THINGS THAT SHOULD HAVE KILLED THEM EXCEPT FOR THE DISABLED CHARACTER, YOU ARE MAKING A FUCKING POINT WHETHER YOU REALIZE IT OR NOT. Izzy's death is not showing "random chance" or "the risks of piracy"- HE DIED BECAUSE HIS MOBILITY AID WAS VISIBLE.

Lemme repeat that: costume concepts showed that the original design of Izzy's naval outfit covered his wooden hoof. It was a conscious decision to have the shot of the naval officer looking down at Izzy's leg, at his exposed leg, and pinpointing him as the weak one despite there being entire scenes dedicated to showing that he was still as strong as the rest of them. In a show where the budget and runtime was restricted, not a single shot or costume decision was on accident. They had to pay more to green screen in that leg.

If Castiel went to superhell because of his gay confession for Dean, then I cannot think of a clearer way to Bury Your Cripples than having Izzy die because someone saw his mobility aid.

Do I think they did this on purpose? Well, no more on purpose than David Jenkins looking at Izzy's Hayes-Code-era gay coding/arc and saying that he knew that Izzy would have to die because that's what characters like that do. No more on purpose than saying that the mentor character had to die because that's what characters like that do.

Izzy's disability was visible, was the cause of his death, because "that's what happens" to pirates who gain disabilities. They are weaker. They are more at risk.

I'm sorry, but fuck that.

Fuck the idea that in a show that created a careful space in its narrative (for a season and a half at least) for queerness to be treated ahistorically kindly, that often disregarded geographic, historical, and medical accuracy to tell a compelling story, and that purposefully provided racial and body diversity while calling out racism, that the disabled character getting offed is a "kind ending." It's not. It never has been. And I'm tired of accepting that sort of thing.

I am SO GLAD that fanfic exists with better depictions of disabled arcs/endings in OFMD bc I don't know if I could recover otherwise. Hope my fellow disabled folk out there are recovering as well, and that they understand that there is positivity to be made out of poison- it just wasn't what the finale gave us.

[pollyhyde]

Collection of digital art pieces I made for different Mermays. I'll do a collection of my favorite traditional Mermay art pieces as well.

[sparrow-writes-draws]

Ahhhh I just wanted to try painting and ended up making a fishmen scene but I love it <3

(Progress pics, speed paint, close up under break)

[gold0kapi]

Istio doing what he does best (sunbathing on the beach)

[saudahpop]

Merfolk are just real snazzy

✨This sticker sheet is now available here✨

[whereserpentswalk]

Just though up a fucked up creature:

Merman but his lower body is the top half of a squid. Like just a giant long pointy squid head from the waist down. He has two massive squid eyes on either hip too. If you want his hair and/or beard can be tentacles.

I feel like this is what we need to compete with centaurs. I need a medieval monk to draw this for me.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

i think mermaids should be freaks always

[mintymuses]

4/12/23

The first entries in my mer series!! I may have kicked off MerMay early lol

This is actually a redesign of two of my older lads in their mer forms, Max and Cal. Max is the smaller shark(a leopard shark mer) and Cal is the larger(a blacktip reef shark).

All merfolk in this series have bioluminescence. It's innate to mer, and color/patterning depends on their strength in magic. The brighter/more detailed, the stronger magic they hold. This can be seen just between Max and Cal here; Max is a hybrid mer, his mother was human, and his markings reflect his weaker blood attachment to magic as lines of dots. Cal is a full mer, and has more detailed swirling designs.

And for reference, this is what Max and Cal looked like the first time I drew them as mersharks back in 2018.