As much as I would love to be able to fly, I don't think I could permanently trade in my hands for it. I need my fingers! They're so useful! How would I make hot buttered toast without them?
The ideal I think would be a shuba-type arrangement, like Greensky, where you have a garment that enables you to float but also you still have your hands.
Hopefully that trade wouldn't involve the mean-spirited "and it will feel like stabbing knives each step you take" (only for a tail). Hopefully you just get the tail and voilà, mermaid!
My imprinting version was Splash (1984), in which the change is painless and flexible.
My defining childhood mermaid media was Liz Kessler's The Tail of Emily Windsnap, which also had a painless + flexible mermaid transition, although there the protagonist was, in the immortal words of Lady Gaga, just born that way, so I didn't feel like that counted for this prompt. (Although she didn't discover her mermaid powers until middle school, because what kind of MG adventure would it be otherwise?)
My defining childhood mermaid media was Liz Kessler's The Tail of Emily Windsnap, which also had a painless + flexible mermaid transition, although there the protagonist was, in the immortal words of Lady Gaga, just born that way, so I didn't feel like that counted for this prompt.
I have not read the series, but cheap and easy recourse to the internet suggests it follows the same conceit: legs out of the water, tail in it. I am delighted. Would you consider the books to hold up? If so, I will try them on my niece.
(Splash features both the ability to move between worlds and the necessity of choosing between them, of which different characters are capable. I carried all of the folkloric parts of the story with me for life and had to rediscover a lot of the human '80's comedy as an adult.)
Would you consider the books to hold up? If so, I will try them on my niece.
I haven't reread it since I was like 10, but I remember it fondly. I think I may have read one of the sequels, but I think most of them came out after I aged out the series.
Not permanently. And if magical transformations (or translocations!) are available, there are other options I'd consider first:
Being able to instantly go anywhere on the planet, as my regular human self (or even anywhere with a matching street name to one's current-moment location—something suggested among science fiction fan friends of mine, years ago),
Being able to fully experience being a particular animal for a few hours or days, in the wild or a good simulacrum or comfy protected space, complete with their knowledge and abilities and mindset—I think it'd be particularly fun to be a dolphin. I might also like to try being a bat ray or manta ray, or an octopus, or a whale, or a ferret, or a smart bird like a crow or raven or parrot, or a bird that sings beautifully and with a lot of variety, like maybe a Bewick's Wren, or a domestic cat with an excellent human companion. 😊
I have recommendations for both pro-fiction and fan-fiction stories that touch on animal consciousness and translocation possibilities, if you're interested...
I was thinking mainly of the gravity of the tradeoff. Who hasn't wanted to fly? But when we imagine flying, we're not imagining losing anything, just gaining something. But I was thinking about how fish with fins, land animals with legs or legs and arms, and birds with legs and wings--we're all on the same pattern. So if you gain wings, you lose fins and arms. And if you gain fins, you lose wings and arm and legs, and if you gain arms and legs, you lose fins and wings.
I like your creatures that you'd like to experience, though, especially the water dwelling ones. I don't know much about rays--what is it about them that draws you?
As much as I love flying, I need manipulatory digits every day. To make a good trade, I would need either winghands or a bird head whose beak/tongue would make an effective manipulator (e.g. kea).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Only if I could trade them back. I thought about this question a lot as a child and I really need fingers.
no subject
Experience wings for a while, then go back.
no subject
Exactly! Or a sort of selkie arrangement, in which the wings can be shrugged on or off at need.
no subject
no subject
no subject
The ideal I think would be a shuba-type arrangement, like Greensky, where you have a garment that enables you to float but also you still have your hands.
no subject
Yeah, I like my hands. I am a human!
no subject
No, but I would pull a reverse Ariel and trade my legs to become a mermaid in a heartbeat.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
My imprinting version was Splash (1984), in which the change is painless and flexible. It was what I wanted, in the sea.
no subject
no subject
The great scene of her in the bathtub by night, running salt into the bathwater as the skin of her thighs crinkles suddenly into scales.
no subject
no subject
My defining childhood mermaid media was Liz Kessler's The Tail of Emily Windsnap, which also had a painless + flexible mermaid transition, although there the protagonist was, in the immortal words of Lady Gaga, just born that way, so I didn't feel like that counted for this prompt. (Although she didn't discover her mermaid powers until middle school, because what kind of MG adventure would it be otherwise?)
no subject
I have not read the series, but cheap and easy recourse to the internet suggests it follows the same conceit: legs out of the water, tail in it. I am delighted. Would you consider the books to hold up? If so, I will try them on my niece.
(Splash features both the ability to move between worlds and the necessity of choosing between them, of which different characters are capable. I carried all of the folkloric parts of the story with me for life and had to rediscover a lot of the human '80's comedy as an adult.)
no subject
I haven't reread it since I was like 10, but I remember it fondly. I think I may have read one of the sequels, but I think most of them came out after I aged out the series.
no subject
no subject
I have recommendations for both pro-fiction and fan-fiction stories that touch on animal consciousness and translocation possibilities, if you're interested...
no subject
I like your creatures that you'd like to experience, though, especially the water dwelling ones. I don't know much about rays--what is it about them that draws you?
No ...
Re: No ...
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject