Hello! My name is Ranch (she/her), I study aquatic sciences and I have a very big interest in aquatic life and biology! I've always really been into fantasy creatures and worldbuilding and this is my blog for my urban fantasy universe, the Sirpaverse, and my art in general!
Here's the Sirpaverse overview where I go over the world and its components.
General tags:
#sirpaverse - The urban fantasy world all my critters and funny guys live in.
#man swears forever - Things related to the story I'm writing. Man Swears Forever is about an undeniably strange man who ends up in the middle of the wilderness and finds a child all alone. Events ensue.
#dream weirdness - I have pretty vivid dreams! Here's various retellings and drawings of them.
#featuring the creature - Sirpaverse has normal animals, but this tag is for all the animals that don’t exist in real life! Some overlap with dream weirdness but not every dream critter ends up in Sirpaverse and not every Sirpaverse creature has dream origins.
#taur hour - Posts that talk about Sirpaverse taurs and how they do things.
#magical malarkey - Posts that talk about magic and spells in the Sirpaverse.
#now thats an idea! - Idea people of Sirpaverse and information about them.
#this is the ghost one - The ghost tag. The. Yeah.
#osmeri - Information about Osmeri, the merfolk kingdom that's situated snugly in the Baltic Sea.
#merfolk - Tag that's generally about all kinds of merfolk.
Character tags:
#ahti II - We all know him! The blond, extremely blue-eyed pike merman in red, white and blue dapper clothes. Merman crown prince of the Osmerian kindom who’s currently… not doing that.
#anglerfish mermaid - Giant pitch black anglerfish with a beautiful woman as a lure. She's beauty, she's grace, she will stuff you in her face! My nameless anglerfish siren/mermaid exists outside of the Sirpaverse but she's too good to not draw or speculate upon.
#annika - Red-haired older zander mermaid. Impulsive and starts new hobbies every year. Sirpa’s mother.
#antercine - 18-eyed idea person in the shape of a massive whale-like creature. She flies through the infinite skies of the idea realm, always weeping and in mourning of her family. The “grandmother” of the Cryptograph family.
#bertta - Brown-haired white-tailed deer taur with a purple pigment-inducing mutation. Looks soft but her hooves pack a painful kick and she’ll do anything to protect those in vulnerable situations. Good with kids.
#billiam - Four-eyed yellow-purple idea person who’s usually in the shape of a man in a purple vest. Unbearably lax and apathetic to greater world events, he has an interest in humans if only because he thinks our limitations make us adorably rudimentary and instinct-driven. Likes drama and performing and insects and making you into an insect for the vine.
#caroline - Rainbow-coloured fish alien furry, my fursona!!!!!!! Loves fish and drawing and swimming and popcorn and media analysis and musicals and video games. She’s also a Sirpaverse resident believe it or not :)
#cheikh - Long-haired great white shark merson in light blues and reds. Former marine biologist, Cheikh is VERY CONTENT staying on land far away from home indefinitely after their….. encounter, underwater. Smart and thoughtful and always a little bit on edge.
#face stealer - Hairless pale man with a weird face and a purple suit, crocs included. 18th century painter who went crazy and decided that the best way to preserve the human form is to take the real thing! Apathetic to humans as individuals, he’s very determined to save us all.
#hömbädiido - Idea person in the shape of a black and white koi fish. The sole ruler of the idea realm. Does not much care for human affairs, but loves Earth! And her realm just a bit more...
#kari - Dirty blond-haired older man. Sailor planning retirement, content with life. Sirpa’s father.
#karleeen - Black-haired wolf spider centaur girl in warm colourful clothes. Happy-go-lucky and just raring to go and explore and create! Protagonist of Man Swears Forever, which could mean nothing.
#lazlo - Tall brown-haired man in brown or orange clothes, yellow scarf and brown trilby are seldom left home. Strange occurrences and people seem to be drawn to him like metal to a magnet. Usually chronically tired of it all but we stay silly!!!!!!!!!
#laura - Long-haired trad goth beetleperson. Karleeen and Samira’s friend. Quiet and friendly, lover of cute things.
#liisa - Young daughter of Sirpa and Lazlo, blonde hair, blue and orange clothes. Generally a quiet child, but she’s just very content with everything is all. Really into spoons for some reason.
#niklas - The ghost of a high school bully who died in 2012 and now possesses a television. Main motive for existing is to cause as much hurt as possible. Interests include ice hockey and “wouldn’t you like to know, #*¥%@&”.
#the man - Angry mouthless man in a dark blue trenchcoat and red tie. Observant and taciturn, stuck in an endless loop of getting angry about mistakes and delays, and as a result of getting angry, keeps noticing even more problems. Protagonist of Man Swears Forever, I bet you’ll never guess what he does during the story
#marie - Headless tall woman. Very shy and hard to read despite her best efforts to make all the right emotive poses and say the right things with the right voice. Truly gets to be herself under the comforting and protective guise of a fursuit.
#peregrine - 3-eyed idea person in the shape of a cloaked humanoid. Lives the fake life of a marine biologist, cataloguing and categorising marine invertebrates day to day. The “mom” of the Cryptographs.
#pigeon man - Smiling man in the yellow shirt. Also called Pigeon Washing Machine Man. He doesn’t know what he’s doing
#pollen - Vines with red eyes puppeting the corpse of a human. Blessed with human-level consciousness, Pollen wants to feed and grow and outcompete other organisms, like all plants do. Unfortunately, blood, bones and guts are an excellent nutrient source.
#remington - One-eyed pink and green idea person in the shape of a young girl… at least, when you know it’s him, that’s how Remmie looks. Her dearest object of adoration, humans, are suffering, but unfortunately her powers aren’t much of help. Envy ruminates quietly inside them as their loneliness grows.
#rsula - Karleeen’s mother, spiderperson. Only a distant memory in Karleeen’s mind, but one that creeps up on her in times she never expects. Wanted best for her daughter.
#salli - Dark brown-haired woman with crutches. Lawyer in her prime! Extremely intelligent and uses that intelligence to think of more and more elaborate pop culture references and be silly.
#samira - Long, curly-haired girl in red and pink clothes, never seen without a conical hat. Drowns out neurotic tendencies and deep anxieties with cartoons, video games and escapism galore. Despite the witchy aesthetic is more of a tech and botany whiz.
#sirpa - Dirty blonde-haired zander-porpoise mermaid, usually wears cyans, purples and greens. Modest and quiet outwardly but has the soul of a bored working dog just itching to tell people what to do. Captain lieutenant by day and weekend fisherwoman and gardener by… weekends.
#ulysses - 5-eyed idea person in the shape of a a man in maximalist rockstar clothing. Head over heels in love with rock music and would like to talk about it with you extensively. The dad of the Cryptographs.
#vilhelmiina - Brown-haired glasses-wearing girl. Karleeen and Samira’s friend. Movie buff, nerdy and awkward, but great company.
Ecological trap = A scenario where an organism settles for a poor-quality habitat after following cues that were previously reliable indicators of a habitat's condition.
Would genuinely love to rent a space, however, I think my art is a little too OC-centric where you kinda have to know the guye to “get it”, and a little too digital as well
Ecological trap = A scenario where an organism settles for a poor-quality habitat after following cues that were previously reliable indicators of a habitat's condition.
The final entry for Mermay did not quite manage to become finished for the final day of May, but I wanted to be sure that I could properly draw what I had in mind: basics of merfolk anatomy, as illustrated on a rainbow trout merm! Er, somewhat simplified, but my style is simplified in general. Enjoy, and happy June!
Retractable, inverted breasts were the original plan! But when I pitched this idea to my friends at the time they found it a bit too silly :/ Not that I mind not having them in this current iteration of Sirpaverse! I like that, although they’re very well adapted to an underwater existence, some features on them show that they did not naturally evolve into it.
The final entry for Mermay did not quite manage to become finished for the final day of May, but I wanted to be sure that I could properly draw what I had in mind: basics of merfolk anatomy, as illustrated on a rainbow trout merm! Er, somewhat simplified, but my style is simplified in general. Enjoy, and happy June!
Huhhuh huomen mun pitää niin sanotusti "lukittautua sisään" x12
Bill Merm *thumbs up emoji* He likes to have a nonspecific Disney-esque tail, which makes everyone around him feel very uneasy because he looks like he's missing several vital body parts (LIKE GILLS!???)
Art of a fictional video game series named MOUSEQUEST. I wrote some stuff about it down:
The MOUSEQUEST franchise is a widely known action-adventure video game series. While one can trace its origins to a humble 8-bit dungeon crawl game from the 80’s, throughout the decades MOUSEQUEST has blossomed into a massively successful megabrand that makes new well-beloved releases every few years! The basic premise of each game follows Marjorie (occasionally called Missus), a small blind stuffed mouse, who must rescue her husband from evil shadow demons of darkness. She is very small and her fabric body is very fragile, but fortunately she is not alone! She is always equipped with her trusty flaming sword that slashes right through the demons, and through the years she has amassed a large group of allies who want to see the despicable demons destroyed once and for all!
MOUSEQUEST is a cornerstone of the gaming industry and has inspired hundreds, if not thousands of video games since its creation! It's very popular in Sirpaverse, and Karleeen and her friends also play games in the series :)
More MOUSEQUEST art! This time of Marjorie's main three friends.
Most of Marjorie’s iconic companions originate from MOUSEQUEST: Umbra Island Trials, an action-adventure game from 2000. Iconic characters such as Strike the Bluebird, Wenge the Lizard and Morlon the Forlorn started out as simple one-off foes that Marjorie had to challenge in a fight to get on her side! As fate would have it, they ended up becoming such an iconic part of the series that they’ve appeared in almost every release since then. Indeed, the current MOUSEQUEST format usually allows you to choose which character you play as, with each having certain strengths and weaknesses and their own signature melee weapon.
Strike the Paper Bluebird is fast and energetic, her tongue is as sharp as her double hooks and her temper is fierce. Her attacks are fast and cover a large area, albeit they’re a bit unfocused. Wenge the Wooden Lizard might as well be made of stone with how steady and deadpan he is, he looks down on others literally and metaphorically and coolly lets his medals show. His large hammer packs a massive punch, but he isn’t the fastest attacker. Morlon the Forlorn Puppet carries a long career of fighting behind him, but all he has to show for it now are creaky joints, faded colours and a melancholy attitude. When asked nicely, he’s still half-willing to rub the sand out of his eyes and take a fighting stand with his (t)rusty scissors. His attacks are few in numbers, but they’re extremely precise and his technique is well-developed.
What if Morlon's gender differs between games/translations and by now both fans and game devs are confused about which it was originally supposed to be?
Great idea! Strange localisation differences and apparent internal communication issues make it so that Morlon is typically a woman in Europe and Japan and a man in North America, except for MOUSEQUEST 4 (1991) where Morlon is a woman in all versions besides for the first “demo” German localisation (in that one Marjorie’s husband has a moustache too), and MOUSEQUEST 8 - ETERNAL NIGHT (1997) where Morlon is a man in all the versions (possible female voice actors remain), and MOUSEQUEST: Origins (2012) where Morlon is a woman in both North America and Europe and a man in Japan, and Morlon’s solo adventure section in the MOUSEQUEST spinoff Slice, Cut and Smash (2024) where Morlon is exclusively referred to with gender neutral terms or by name, and the brief period when MOUSEQUEST MINIS (2009) was “apparently mistranslated” in Europe and Morlon wa
Art of a fictional video game series named MOUSEQUEST. I wrote some stuff about it down:
The MOUSEQUEST franchise is a widely known action-adventure video game series. While one can trace its origins to a humble 8-bit dungeon crawl game from the 80’s, throughout the decades MOUSEQUEST has blossomed into a massively successful megabrand that makes new well-beloved releases every few years! The basic premise of each game follows Marjorie (occasionally called Missus), a small blind stuffed mouse, who must rescue her husband from evil shadow demons of darkness. She is very small and her fabric body is very fragile, but fortunately she is not alone! She is always equipped with her trusty flaming sword that slashes right through the demons, and through the years she has amassed a large group of allies who want to see the despicable demons destroyed once and for all!
MOUSEQUEST is a cornerstone of the gaming industry and has inspired hundreds, if not thousands of video games since its creation! It's very popular in Sirpaverse, and Karleeen and her friends also play games in the series :)
More MOUSEQUEST art! This time of Marjorie's main three friends.
Most of Marjorie’s iconic companions originate from MOUSEQUEST: Umbra Island Trials, an action-adventure game from 2000. Iconic characters such as Strike the Bluebird, Wenge the Lizard and Morlon the Forlorn started out as simple one-off foes that Marjorie had to challenge in a fight to get on her side! As fate would have it, they ended up becoming such an iconic part of the series that they’ve appeared in almost every release since then. Indeed, the current MOUSEQUEST format usually allows you to choose which character you play as, with each having certain strengths and weaknesses and their own signature melee weapon.
Strike the Paper Bluebird is fast and energetic, her tongue is as sharp as her double hooks and her temper is fierce. Her attacks are fast and cover a large area, albeit they’re a bit unfocused. Wenge the Wooden Lizard might as well be made of stone with how steady and deadpan he is, he looks down on others literally and metaphorically and coolly lets his medals show. His large hammer packs a massive punch, but he isn’t the fastest attacker. Morlon the Forlorn Puppet carries a long career of fighting behind him, but all he has to show for it now are creaky joints, faded colours and a melancholy attitude. When asked nicely, he’s still half-willing to rub the sand out of his eyes and take a fighting stand with his (t)rusty scissors. His attacks are few in numbers, but they’re extremely precise and his technique is well-developed.
Fuck uhhh here’s Karleeen merm form drawn in two minutes on the notes app <3 Diving bell spider would’ve been a viable option too but I don’t careee I love crayfish they’re so cool I wanted the Leeen to be a crayfish (different versions of the same spell may yield different results)
Art of a fictional video game series named MOUSEQUEST. I wrote some stuff about it down:
The MOUSEQUEST franchise is a widely known action-adventure video game series. While one can trace its origins to a humble 8-bit dungeon crawl game from the 80’s, throughout the decades MOUSEQUEST has blossomed into a massively successful megabrand that makes new well-beloved releases every few years! The basic premise of each game follows Marjorie (occasionally called Missus), a small blind stuffed mouse, who must rescue her husband from evil shadow demons of darkness. She is very small and her fabric body is very fragile, but fortunately she is not alone! She is always equipped with her trusty flaming sword that slashes right through the demons, and through the years she has amassed a large group of allies who want to see the despicable demons destroyed once and for all!
MOUSEQUEST is a cornerstone of the gaming industry and has inspired hundreds, if not thousands of video games since its creation! It's very popular in Sirpaverse, and Karleeen and her friends also play games in the series :)
I've pondered the nature of scuba diving in the Sirpaverse for a while now. With magic, merfolk and readily available chances to change one's shape, you'd think that there would be no reason for a terrestrial human to dress up in weighty gear to explore underwater for a few measly minutes. However! The desire to remain as you are not only goes for merms, but many ters too: learning to work a seal body or sea spider legs first thing on a Sunday morning isn't really fun. I drew some pictures of my diving gear ponderings!
First, something obvious from all of these is that instead of a respirator second stage (the mouthpiece you see on divers that supplies air and blows bubbles) and a mask, everyone has a bubble around their head! This is something I've always envisioned to be usable in the Sirpaverse with the help of magic. The first doodle otherwise has the same or similar gear that real life scuba divers use, which is a little clunky, I'll admit, hence why I don't think people would casually wear this kind of getup. It would probably be used for more long-lasting, thorough, extreme underwater exploring, like inside caves. For more extreme stuff wetsuits and drysuits would be employed as well: as it turns out, terrestrial humans have an awful habit of losing body heat in water unless they have clothing or spells that stop it.
The second doodle has the barest getup that I think one could feasibly have underwater, featuring a bubble, flippers and a dive computer, which typically measures depth, temperature, and possible safety stops one must take to let nitrogen leave their bodies. Merms can either get oxygen from the water directly or they hold their breath, meaning they don't tend to have a risk of decompression sickness! Terrestrial humans are another story though.... since the bubble lets a person breathe constantly (and you should), there's that pesky nitrogen creeping in! Hence, the need for a computer. Much like how a diving bell spider's bubble works, the bubble around the head lets oxygen enter and carbon dioxide leave via diffusion, however, there is an issue of pressure causing the bubble to shrink up until it's practically nonexistent.
Enter the air bag! Different from a heavy air tank, the air bag is easy to carry and can hold extra air that is automatically deployed into the bubble when going deeper, and sucked inside when rising up closer to the surface. A dive computer is a necessary accessory with this gear too, I just forgot to add it lolllll
And that's that! Sirpaverse leisure scuba diving probably features people dressed up in their everyday (waterproof) sports gear with a light backpack and a bubble around their head that lasts for hours upon hours. I must speak for all of us when I say... cod, I wish that were me.
Mermay today was answering that ask ☝️ I seem to have a most awful habit of drawing whatever I want early in the day and then not having the time for the merm until late in the evening, how dastardly….!
You know? I’ve sometimes pondered the idea of a Cars (2006) but they’re humans, I feel like Cars is the sort of movie where, even though it’s actually about humans, them being cars makes it work better. Humans can drive, but a car can hardly do anything else but drive, it’s their way of living, therefore the message about taking it easy sometimes conveyed through the driving metaphor is clearer than if they were humans who drove cars. At least in my opinion! Tender moments like Lightning and Sally’s drive together or wicked cool moments like Lightning dodging all the wrecked cars and doing the jump — which is also impossible for a real car — would be diminished in my mind if the cars were bound by realistic car physics and were being driven around by people who would have to, like, phone each other or yell out of their windows haha.
However, if they did reanimate Cars, then I think they’d benefit from Lightning McQueen being a disabled Chinese-Am
Hi Ranch, long time no talk (hope you’re doing alright and hoping research is still fun and fantastic)
Hey, are mermaids mammals or are they whatever type of Mer they are?
Like, whale mers are mammals because both halves are mammal, but what about octopus mers or lion fish mers? What’s the deal?
I am doing good! I should start with post-hoc but shhhhh. In due time.
If you’re asking from a Sirpaverse standpoint, then all merms are mammals! They’re 100% human, they can reproduce with normal humans, they give birth to live young and nurse their children with milk no matter their animal of inspiration. If you’re asking if mermaids in general are mammals, well…. that’s a little bit more complicated, since merms are numerous in their interpretations! Some merms are mammals — even humans, some merms are a second secret clade of vertebrates, some merms are whatever it is that they are based off. My answer therefore is a simple “depends”.
