New mermaid from Finland, Lapland

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Hi! My name is Mermaid Nerissa and I live in Lapland, in the Arctic Circle in a city called Rovaniemi, the Capital of Finnish Lapland. I love this place, cause it's beautiful in summer when we have the nightless nights and sun shines 24 hours a day! But I also adore winter time, when it's completely dark also during the days, we call this time "kaamos".

I've kind of been mermaiding my whole life, since I was a little kid. I've always been playing and diving in swimming halls and also in oceans and rivers, I've used dolphin kicks as far as I can remember and also dived always eyes open. I remember of thinking that maybe some day I just magically will see as clearly in the water as in the air but... well, hasn't happen yet, so... maybe some day :D

I've also been acting my whole life and that's one thing amongst many others which I love so much! I've recently (not anymore though) been working with Santa for three years. In work I had to be in a role of an elf, ice princess or troll or whatever needed :D I do also aerial acrobatics, for more specific aerial silks, so through two seasons I was playing a fairy in a show which was shown three times a day.

I started scuba diving in last new year, and in these days I have Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water Diver and Nitrox-diver certificates from Padi and a Rescue Diver certificate from CMAS. I would love to have the AIDA2 certificate also, considering trying to get it next summer. I'm also constantly trying to improve my diving times, now I can hold my breath over two minutes (to be exact, computer had numbers 2 min 21 sec), but I want to get over 3 minutes! :)

I'm so proud to be a member of this community and it really feels, now when I have let my mermaid soul out, like I've found a good, safe, calm and loved place to travel in this huge journey called life <3

With Love, Nerissa

[Mermaid Adriel]

Nice to meet you :D Welcome!!!

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Thank you <3 I forgot to say one pretty important thing, I'm waiting my first tail to arrive, it's custom colored turquoise partial silicone tail from Mertailor! It's suppose to start it's trip from USA to Lapland during next to weeks, can't wait!!!

[deepblue]

I'm happy you find this place as welcoming as we hope it to be. :) Welcome to you, indeed.

[PearlieMae]

Hi Nerissa! Welcome!

[Mermaid Galene]

Welcome, Nerissa!

[Miyu]

Welcome to mernetwork! I grew up on fairy tales from around the world, and Lapland always kind of fascinated me a bit, so it's neat to see mermaids/fairies who hail from there :3

You have such an exciting resume! Can't wait to see you in your tail!

[Genevieve]

Welcome! Your home sounds lovely. You'll have to share the excitement when your tail arrives!

[Merman Jamie]

Where you live sounds amazing


and welcome to the forum

[Mermaid Kelda]

Hey there! Welcome to the forum :)
I grew up in a household with a lot of Swedish influence (I've always loved the culture of the Sami people!) and I'd love to visit Finland sometime, next time I'm in Sweden maybe!

I know you'll find lots of useful information here :) plus, there are already a few Scandinavian mers here!

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Oh and I also have a facebook profile for my mermaid self, address is www.facebook.com/merenneitonerissa :) It's still in finnish only, but when I have time I'll translate everything to english too! So if you like go to click like :DD

[Yulia]

Welcome Nerissa! <:
Cool to see more Scandinavian mers here!

[Lucinda]

And then there were three... :D Welcome! Terrrrrvetuloa! Counting you, me and Riia that makes three Finnish mermaids. :)

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Wohooo so cool! We were actually wondering with Riia is there really only two of us or is there three...? Cause she remembered that someone send her something in insta and thought it was me! And I'm not in instagram yet :) Eli vihdoinki paikallistettiin sinut! Onko sulla facbook-profiilia?

[Lucinda]

I'm not on Instagram, so that would have to be someone else. (I did however contact Riia here on Mernetwork.)



Minulla ei ole julkinen Facebook-profiilia merenneitopersonaani varten koska merenneitous on harrastukseni, en tee sitä työnä. Mutta olisi kuitenkin kiva joskus käydä uimassa muiden merenneitojen kanssa. Minun alueessani en ole vieläkään löytänyt ketään muu. Asun pääkaupunkiseudussa.

[Mermaid Riia]

Whooot? Hi hi hi popped my head here cause I heard someone siren calling my name :D

Welcome sis! <3

Lucinda did contact me and I totally forgot to share that with you, Nerissa. I have insanely bad memory.. Sorry. But yeah I did think (somehow) that it was you Lucinda. So there might be a 4th mermaid? Our pod grow rapidly :D ain't that cool!



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[Merenneito Nerissa]

Oh yeah it totally is, A Huge Mermaid Invasion in Finland haaa! :D

[PearlieMae]

May I say that the irony is not lost on me that there are so many mermaids from FINland?

[Yulia]

Omg Pearlie that is so perfect, why didn't I think of that! XD

[Lucinda]

May I say that the irony is not lost on me that there are so many mermaids from FINland?



Epic lols.



~~Finland~~

Where the women have fins...



That should be on a postcard... :)



BTW, I read somewhere in some journal article that lakes make up roughly 10% of the county's surface area. That's one tenth of the country! So of course there should be merfolk here. :)

[Lucinda]

Whooot? Hi hi hi popped my head here cause I heard someone siren calling my name :D

Welcome sis! <3

Lucinda did contact me and I totally forgot to share that with you, Nerissa. I have insanely bad memory.. Sorry. But yeah I did think (somehow) that it was you Lucinda. So there might be a 4th mermaid? Our pod grow rapidly :D ain't that cool!


It's OK. :)

In a google search I did find a cosplayer in Kouvola who had some pics of herself as a mermaid in her blog. But I didn't find any indication of her being active in the mer community. It just seemed like one costume among countless others. But this mysterious forth mer could be just about anyone. Let's just wait and see who surfaces...

[Mermaid Riia]

It's OK. :)

In a google search I did find a cosplayer in Kouvola who had some pics of herself as a mermaid in her blog. But I didn't find any indication of her being active in the mer community. It just seemed like one costume among countless others. But this mysterious forth mer could be just about anyone. Let's just wait and see who surfaces...

Soon we'll have FINland lakefest here lol


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[Mermaid Galene]

Lol, Pearlie! I didn't think of that either! I'm slipping...

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Wohooo amazing, FINland :dance: No wonder our language is one of the hardest languages in the world, maybe FINnish was originally mers language...? Oh, hey!!!! And the first people who moved hear long time ago weren't people at all...? :D Maybe they really had fins and our ancestors were all mers, but then our ocean got so dirty that they wanted to stay on the land, and they gave away their ability to change into mermaids... But they wanted that something of our real history would remain and they named this land FINland........ :jawdrop:

[PearlieMae]

Okay...but where does LAPLAND come from? I may be sorry I asked, if you guys are as twisted as I am. ;)

[Mermaid Riia]

Okay...but where does LAPLAND come from? I may be sorry I asked, if you guys are as twisted as I am. ;)

Omg Pearlie! ::::D you're killing me

We had to put our twisted kind somewhere


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[Merenneito Nerissa]

Haha and I'm the one from LAPland, well... Maybe I'm not going to be an un-naughty mermaid... :D

[Lucinda]

Wohooo amazing, FINland :dance: No wonder our language is one of the hardest languages in the world, maybe FINnish was originally mers language...?

Not really my language. Besides, if it were a mer-language, shouldn't it have more gurgling sounds in it? :)
Anyway, it's my third language (after Swedish and English) and I totally agree with the "hard to learn" bit.

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Well yep, I always find this example the funniest thing ever; http://sironawolf.deviantart.com/journal/What-do-you-mean-finnish-is-hard-412484980

The best part is when foreign people usually don't believe that's not a joke :DDD

[Lucinda]

Okay...but where does LAPLAND come from? I may be sorry I asked, if you guys are as twisted as I am. ;)



And naturally, the local dance would be called a lap... Eh, never mind.

[Lucinda]

Lol, Nerissa. You just made me have a flashback to grammar class. (Eeeek!)

[Merenneito Nerissa]

I have btw done the rest of that, the plural forms... :D I can tell it took like half an hour, but I survived! Even when there's those few forms which are same in singular and plural I still had to think few minutes with those too :D

[Lucinda]

Lol. But what most people don't realize, is that there are things that can be said in one word in Finnish that would require several in another language. For instance "There is a parasite in our dog" becomes "Koirassamme on loinen"
((Koira (dog) + ssa (in) + mme (our))

[Mermaid Galene]

I've always loved the sound of Finnish. We gave two of our dogs Finnish names: Koiratähti (dog star) was a little Papillon who performed in our puppet shows. And Lumilapsi (snowchild) was our winter-loving golden retriever. Sadly, both have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. But their musical names bring back sweet memories.

[Merenneito Nerissa]

so beautiful names... :) I think my favorite word in finnish is maybe kuiskaus. I don't know why, it's just so lovely. It means " a whisper". And when you whisper a word kuiskaus, it sounds even more beautiful.

BUT HEY, wonderful news, I just got a pic of my tail from Eric ans it's really everything I hoped, the coloring is amazing, and he even did the stripes on the fluke which I asked from him earlier but he said that he sticks on the first plan I send cause that's how it goes, but still he did them!!!! Now I've no idea how the heck can I survive this shipping time waiting.....

[Genevieve]

Congrats on the tail! Keep us posted.

[Merenneito Nerissa]

Yeah I totally will! And I'll post a full review when I got the tail and get to swim in it, I've had so much doubts towards Eric and have sent him a tons of messages during the tail making process, and even if he seemed to be a lil bit frustrated in a few replies with my long messages and questions and doubts and everything, he still kept it professional. And in the end he really made the tail even better than I requested on the first place. So, whenever I'll get to see how the tail works in water I'll write everything here. Well not here but in the tail maker threads. Cause I personally think even if eric has had some issues with some clients, I think he has improved so, so much, or then I'm just lucky...? I don't know, but at this time I couldn't be happier with my choice to order from him. When also checking the other partials he had around my tail they were as gorgeous as mine was :)

[Lucinda]

Ummm, Nerissa... On your Facebook page, why are you making it sound as though you and Riia are the only two mermaids in the country? I don't want you to mention me by name or anything, but referring to yourself and Riia as "ainokaiset" (the only ones)... lets just say that it's been bugging me. Hobbyist mers count too, you know.

[Merenneito Nerissa]

I understand, but as you said you don't want me to mention you by name, yes, there is more than two of us here, but I call us two the only ones who are performing at the time and the only ones who want to be known as mermaids who are mermaiding, I mean in publicity. It'd be pretty difficult to say anything if you'd have to think if someone would might get hurt or get angry of one word... Also wondering why you are posting this here, as that everyone sees it and might think that I'm a selfish person or something, when you could have easily post it in my facebook page's inbox as I thought that we are some sort of friends and we could have talk about this together...? Well, don't know, I did not guess that already now I'm having negative feed back even though today was my first public performance...

[Lucinda]

I didn't mean to lash out at you. I'm sorry. :( Don't let what I said bring you down. Your first performance is much more important than me.


I haven't been sleeping well these past weeks. It's been extremely stressful and I've been battling a nasty infection. But these are both lousy excuses and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I'm sorry.

But anyway, what you wrote, it just gave me flashbacks to my school days. People would pretend to be friends, but then when they'd introduce their circle of friends to new people it was always the awkward girl who got left out, who didn't get invited to parties etc. In my sleep-deprived state, I just looked at it and went "but I thought we were friends?"
I know you meant to say, in general, that Finnish mermaids should stick together. Instead it came across as, "there's only us two, nobody else counts". I just felt left out.


The reason I didn't post on Facebook, is because I didn't want to embarrass you in front of possible clients. Your are building your own image, your own brand and I respect that.
But at the same time, I feel that here on the forum, people should be able to talk about these things mer to mer. Afterall, this community is for us mers and not for the public (althought posts may be visible to it).


But don't let anyone get you down (Not even me). Keep swimming and do your thing and be awesome (as I know you and Riia will be). :)


(Still friends?)

[Echidna]

This is probs more of a private conversation, but I'd like to say that it's apparently a fad among perforMERS to call themselves "the first ...", "the only ...", "the best ..." etc.
It might be done with no ill intent, but it's not a very good style imo.

I know of several cases where a mer calls herself "The only mermaid of ...", while in fact, there are whole schools of mers in that very area, with many of them also performing, but they are deemed "inferior" by the one with the self-given title because she somehow assumes she's the best, and therefore the only one worthy to mention.

Not saying this is the case here, but I totally understand Lucinda wasn't so happy about it.

If you have to give yourself a title stressing your uniqueness, why not come up with something unique?
Be creative.
Simply saying "the one and only" when you aren't (and chances are even if it's true, sooner or later others will appear, will you then change it?), is always problematic, as are other made-up epithets.

I've never heard singers, dancers, musicians etc saying "the only performing pianist in this town", I don't get why mers are so prone to do it.
^^this is not to bash anyone, it's said generally, because many mers do it, I just don't get why.

[Lucinda]

I understand, but as you said you don't want me to mention you by name, yes, there is more than two of us here, but I call us two the only ones who are performing at the time and the only ones who want to be known as mermaids who are mermaiding, I mean in publicity. It'd be pretty difficult to say anything if you'd have to think if someone would might get hurt or get angry of one word...


It is possible to acknowledge people without mentioning names. This is just a suggestion, but...

You could say to the public, that there is a whole mer-community out there in the world (which is true) and that there might also be more merfolk here in Finland but that they are shy and don't normally show themselves to humans.

This would keep the door open for other people who want to become mer-performers, acknowledge that there are other mers than just performers and also serve as a nod to Mernetwork for those who would like to become mers but are unfamiliar with the online mer-community. (But you can save this until later. It's better for now that you stick to the story of you and Riia being the only ones. It will confuse the public less).


I'm on the forum because I love mermaids in general. I'm my happiest when I'm swimming (and its the only form of exersise that really keeps me in shape). I love dressing up and I've done so ever since I was a child. I love sci-fi and fantasy. I care about the environment (my major is in environmental biology). I also studied Limnology (freshwater ecology) at uni and I hope to learn SCUBA diving and become a research assistant involved in lake research. This is what being a mermaid means to me, and the the activity of mermaiding is for me a way to occasionally let other people see my enthusiasm for these things. To be that embodiment of water and nature.


What I'm trying to say, is that besides the professional performer type of mer, these is also the more withdrawn type who just like doing our thing without the public's attention. While people of this type are not interested in being singled out in public or promoted, a little bit of consideration would have been nice. A discreet nod, perhaps?

[Merenneito Nerissa]

That message really brightened my mood, and I think I will say in the future that we are the only performing, public mermaids here (at this time) but also mermaiding is a hobby for many other people too, there's so much mers in the world that you can't even count them. It's a peaceful way of living, loving and taking care of each other and the whole world <3

Ofcourse still friends :)

[Lucinda]

Ofcourse still friends :)


Awww. Thank you. :hug:

[JaceAquarius]

Welcome Nerissa! Wow it sounds like you have quite the bit of water experience! That's so cool! I'm not dive certified yet, but I want to be! I'm glad your out there enjoying life and all things water! Great name by the way!