#sirpaverse

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Saw a dream where there was this three-dorsal finned species of dolphin. Mistook it for both an orca and a southern right whale dolphin, until I saw those fins poking out and had to go, "yeah uhh.. I'll google this species later."

The species was very friendly, two older dolphins let some young offspring of theirs (parental care from both parents? Maybe, more likely two sisters with their children) play and interact with me.

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Felt inspired! Drew my character as this :]

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KARLEEEN CLOTHES KARLEEEN CLOTHES!!!!!!!!!

I've been itching to redraw Karleeen's various outfits and design her new ones since forever and now I actually sat down and did it over the past few days. I wonder what her favourite colours might be !!

Not much to say here that wouldn't be obvious. When it's cold, Karleeen wears more clothes, and when it's warmer, she prefers to be barefoot and wears less clothes. They don't always cover her abdomen because culturally having your abdomen (arachnid, insect or otherwise) exposed is the same as wearing a top or a short shirt that leaves your human stomach exposed, since taurs don't have anatomy that's one to one with their "species of inspiration". Karleeen's pants tend to be loose because her legs can bend at so many places, and they open at the top (at the top of the cephalothorax or "spider back")!

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A comic, in which Karleeen has an extremely normal reaction to the idea that her friends might ever interact.

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Ahti II redraw

I took a break from artfighting to do some personal art. Behold: I redrew my profile picture image! I added more fish and Ahti's pet pike Kultakutri :)

Here's the old one in full, made in 2021:

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Ohoho prev! Your blorbo sounds awesome!!! She must be one amazing and tough fighter! Who is it!?

Alas, you did eventually figure out who I was talking about (it’s okay, I always speak of the Man very cryptically ;)), but Pigeon Washing Machine Man who you guessed first…. He uh, I’m not sure if he can be won in battle. He wields absolutely zero weapons, but what makes him dangerous is the everything else he does! He is able to rewind time and delete physical space to his liking, for cod’s sake. I imagine that he would not get into battles, but that is simply because he would not create a situation that ends up in a battle. If a battle was initiated on him he would not be there, that’s not a world where that’s possible. In my mind I imagine that if I ever made a comic where someone tried to attack him he would exit the panel and walk several pages away to a point in the comic his opponent has fucking vanished.

My sister has previously asked me the question of “who of your characters would win in battle?” and I think the answer (at least excluding the idea people ones) is indeed Pigeon Man, but we like, never learn in any way how he wins, we just cut to six months later from the start of the battle and he’s there, alone, standing.

….Also yeah your blorbo would obliterate the Man he stands no chance at all

This request was sent to us and we made a poll in response to it. Send any Blorbo-related question you want to our inbox and we’ll make a poll on which people can vote with their own Blorbos in minds

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My vacation has given me ample opportunities to find inspiration and references for the sort of architecture merfolk have. Most everything is made of stone and decorated with colourful mosaics and tiles!

City centers are like massive, maze-like, colourful swimming pools. Everything is very smooth to try and stop algae, bivalves and other undesirable stationary animals and plants from growing everywhere. Naturally, it doesn’t always work. But that’s why we’ve got our friends the cleaner snails, slugs, shrimp and fish!

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You know that art trend that was like “draw your OC before and after the trauma” with the Undertale quote? I did a version of that with Karleeen in April! Although with her it’s less of a “before and after” and more like…. during? Well, in any case. It gets a lot better :)

Still images:

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Black wenley

The black wenley is a fish belonging to the order Perciformes. It is a slow-growing freshwater fish that is often the apex predator of its habitat. Its colours range from all black to a dark brown. Its diet as a juvenile consists of zooplankton, and as it grows it starts hunting for bigger and bigger prey, moving to crustaceans, fish larvae, small fish and finally medium fish. Opportunistic adults will also feed on small mammals and young birds. While juveniles tend to band together, adult black wenleys are solitary and will readily attack and consume others of their kind if they feel crowded. They prefer cooler waters and tend to inhabit the deepest parts of lakes, ponds and rivers. Their natural distribution spans through Central, North and East Europe.

A young juvenile and a mature adult of a few years of age, respectively. Besides for the eel-ish appearance of the juvenile, the beginning and end of life stages of the black wenley are completely ordinary and unassuming. Likely this fish would've been entirely forgotten if these were the only life stages this most confusing animal goes through. But, no. The black wenley is among the most studied fish in the world, and it's all thanks to its older juvenile phase:

What in the world!! What is that? That cannot possibly be the same animal, let alone a fish! That's a strange frog, in no way can that be a black wenley!

That's an entirely sensible conclusion to come to! A good portion of people used to think the same, centuries and millenia ago. If a community of people lived in a place with no merfolk who could explain the real deal (merfolk used to be restricted to large bodies of water, before the two-legs spell was invented), they would often view the big black fishes that appear each spring and the strange froglike creatures of the late summer as separate animals. Most European languages give them separate names, in fact! Only when information became more available and the scientific method improved did it become clear that these two were one and the same...

So, how exactly does the life cycle of the black wenley work?

The fry hatch in late spring, and start their life as normal. They eat, ferociously! Once they reach about 10 centimeters in length, they not only grow in size, but change in shape, too. Their pectoral fins begin to develop into lobe-fins, then into legs, and two hind legs rapidly sprout from their side. During the summer months their appetite and search for food is neverending, but even then, they still absorb their tail fin and tail into their bodies to obtain any new bit of energy possible. Inside their bodies the swim bladder becomes highly vascularised, and on the outside their black scales slowly morph into a messy green colour. Perhaps the strangest change of all, the head of the fish slowly moves up its body, and its eyes migrate higher on its head to view the environment better. By the time the transformation is complete, it is already August.

That's when the migration begins.

The black wenley juveniles spend more and more time out of the water as they develop, but the moment their four legs are strong enough to carry their weight, they leave their home waters and venture out into the world. Their tall stance allows them to see their environment better and assess possible threats much more efficiently. Their swim bladder now a lung of sorts, the black wenleys can travel considerable distances through forests, through fields, through swamps, and through city suburbs to the amusement of onlookers.

Their stumbling is... very silly. Their flippers seem to be all awkwardly placed hind leg and no front leg, making their walking slow and waddly. It's common to see them fall on their stomach or their knees. For fish on land, they do rather well though!

The goal of the black wenley juvenile is to find a fitting body of water with few or zero conspecifics, many food sources, and deep water. Once the juvenile has found the home of their dreams, they settle down and resume aquatic living.

All throughout winter, the black wenley transforms in secret under the ice. The legs that it spent so much energy building shrivel up: they use the extra energy to sustain themselves in the harsh cold darkness. Slowly, their head moves back down to a straight continuation of the spine, and their body elongates once more. Spines begin growing from their back. In the spring they regrow their fins, as if nothing had happened at all. As if the black wenley had been but an ordinary fish all this time. A one-year-old black wenley is rather slim and small, but as the fish matures it grows in height and develops its distinctive large head. It remains this way for the rest of its life! Black wenleys seldom reproduce in their first year and tend to wait until they are two years old to begin their courtship. They spawn in the spring, and so the cycle begins anew.

The black wenley is a fascinating example of metamorphosis and how the influence of magic in the genes of animals can cause them to develop otherwise-impossible-to-achieve forms. Its semblance to frogs in its middle stage was a key piece in the creation of the theory of evolution, and in times of old before DNA testing became possible it was even hailed as a missing link between fish and land animals, an all new class of animal! Now of course we know that it is a perciform fish, just as distantly related to tetrapods as any bass or grouper. While it is fairly obvious this land-dwelling form is the species' unique answer to dispersal, it is not exactly known how the magic in its DNA causes this froglike form or came to cause it: few animals go through such large changes in their life cycle, magic-induced or not. The species is a common test subject to this day, for these reasons.

The black wenley is a beloved favourite of anglers, due to its aggressive nature and tendency to quickly bite into fishing bait. It is a symbol of change and escape from dire situations by any means necessary, especially in merfolk culture and literature. In everyday life, merfolk view it akin to a fox: it can bite, but only if you bother it or something is wrong with it, so it's best to leave it alone. Kind of cool if you spot it, actually. It's a very beautiful fish!

The black wenley is a species of least concern, though industrialisation and overfishing has made a dent in its populations and their average size is smaller in the modern day. While it is native to Europe, it has also been introduced outside of its range. Due to its extremely high affinity to travel from a body of water to another and eat everything that moves, it is classified as a harmful invasive species in North America and Asia.

Most importantly: yes! Some merfolk in the sirpaverse have the lower fish half of a black wenley. They develop into the older juvenile stage at about 5-7 years of age, and into the mature form at puberty. They don't feel the need to leave their home to find a new one as children.

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WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT!!!!!!!! YOU DREW SIRPA FOR ME???? FOR FUNSIES???? Your attack on Artfight was already a great piece of art, my friend, and this! This is simply brilliant! You’ve done Sirpa good, thank you so much :] <333

a gift for @fishyfishyfishtimes!!

I was really burned out by the end of last year's artfight event and I felt bad when I couldn't do your ocs justice because of it. and I love!fantasy character designs!! which keep!!! real life species in mind!!!!

so here you go, your baby Sirpa, as a sorry and as a thank you for all you do on your awesome aquatic blog! <3

(I also gave her an ear-fin because those are very very cool. hope you don't mind)

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Karleeen gets crushes very easily

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I want it to be known that merfolk and other taurs with an invertebrate half, though their skin may be tough and jointed like an exoskeleton or alternatively very soft, all have internal skeletons on account of being humans. They unironically have skeletons that look like this:

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Our non-marine heroine Karleeen McQueen

You know what, you already know lots of stuff about Ahti II, I’m now going to tell you about Karleeen the spidergirl, Ahti’s best friend and the protagonist of a story I’m writing! A quick information sheet:

(+ Art reference)

Karleeen (with three e’s)… well, who doesn’t know about Karleeen! Probably not by looks, but you could read all about her on the papers some years back. It’s been a while, you'd hardly recognise her if you saw her now! Especially among the other jolly beachgoers, joggers, shoppers and summertime tourists; Karleeen lives in Naantali after all, with her single father on the coast of southwest Finland. In the summer it's busy, in the winter it's very quiet, all year round it's a very appropriate place for Karleeen, she thinks.

Now in her mid-teens (the Sirpaverse “starting point” is 2021), Karleeen is a most open and jolly girl! She loves socialising and chats with just about anybody she has a chance to interact with for more than five minutes. She’s always planning outings and looking to spend time with her best friends, too! She enjoys being silly, making wordplay and coming up with puns with ridiculous set-ups. Karleeen is a sensitive soul, she feels all of her emotions very strongly and shows them strongly, too. She sometimes has trouble regulating her emotional reactions and has a tendency to spiral. It's very difficult for Karleeen to lie, her feelings will be very clear from her facial expressions and body language no matter how hard she may pretend to feel otherwise. Not that she'd even lie! It would make her feel too bad.

Karleeen has loved nothing more her whole life than making "thingamajigs" — you know, machines, things that move, little inventions! It's so fascinating to her, how pieces that are little more than scrap on their own weave together into intricate creations that are far more than the sum of their parts. When she was a young kid she'd make things out of twigs and rocks and rope, but in her teens she's now moved onto more sophisticated methods, legos and actual robot-building sets. She's also dipping her toes into coding, so far it seems fun and it offers an additional medium for making things (only digitally this time). Karleeen would love to study mechanical engineering when she's old enough to go to a university, but it'll be a while until then! Besides for robotics Karleeen enjoys hiking in the outdoors, climbing trees, basking, collecting fun and/or useless trinkets of various kinds and strawberry-themed items, playing platformers and action-adventure games and doodling.

Karleeen’s a smart girl, but she struggles a lot with languages. Or, well, don’t let me entirely misrepresent her: she does have the achievement of knowing some ASL signs. Still, Finnish is the only language she speaks fluently and it’s her own mother tongue! She can’t quite get anything else stuck to her brain, speaking Swedish or Surish or even simple English feels like a chore. Like stated above Karleeen’s body language is very clear, one of the more common actions Karleeen does when she’s nervous, scared or sad is holding her hands and arms close to her chest.

Karleeen's favourite genre of music is classical, but she can't listen to it casually because it makes her very emotional. She likes pop, rock and soundtracks when it comes to just playing music in the car or with friends. Her favourite animals are elephants, and her favourite fish is the electric eel. Her favourite meal is minute beef steak with seasoned butter and chanterelles, but her actual favorite singular food item in general and favourite snack is wild strawberries. Her favourite drink is tap water. Her favourite flower is fireweed.

(Nowhere else to really mention this but Karleeen is also asexual and biromantic, it took a long while for her to figure out because her relationship with having human connections is rather complicated and unusual but she’s comfortable in that identity and doesn’t really overthink it, she has a lot of love in her heart for so many things so it’s only natural she would have a lot of love for many people too, she thinks)

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Ah, so many things!!! I am being treated, indeed!!

I like the idea of aquatic people having floaty toys :) We have kites. Underwater if something is less dense it's like a forever-kite! It makes perfect sense. Also mosasaurs I miss you :''(

Trick or treat!!

you get: floatie toy!

while more common in communities closer to the surface, floating toys or pull toys are small, usually animal- or merfolk-shaped toys, that have a light inner core made of a material less dense than water, an outer core that's denser and more resistant to wear, and a string or rope attachment at the bottom, usually with a handle or weights at the end. the general idea is that a merfolk can hold onto one and it will float up in the water above them, being pulled along by the merfolk and controlled by them, with some fancier versions having multiple articulating points to make them look like they're swimming. adding bells and chimes and other noise-makers is also popular, though these are limited by how much can be added before they start to weigh the toy down.

ideally, the weights at the end of the string are there to prevent it from floating up and away from the child, but this isn't always the case, and plenty of toys like this have been lost because their owner let go of them and didn't catch them again in time. most of the time they're created with this in mind, favoring less complex and time-consuming methods of creation, making those with weights usually on the more expensive and permanent side of things. risk of loss is also higher in communities closer to the surface, because a favorite pasttime is dragging them through waves from below, which increases the risk of them getting pulled out of someone's hands.

as ever, with all merfolk toys, they usually have a few tooth marks in them, where someone started to chew on the ends. even moreso if they were passed down a generation or two.

also because i was doing this last year as well, have a common descent episode and globidens phosphaticus:

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Tried something new :)

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I'm drawing various outfits for Karleeen (because what are you even doing if you aren't making digital paper dolls of your characters?) for the first time since about 2022. Back then I drew this pretty cute overalls design and I wanted to redraw it, compare!! (click to see full images)