a trade

[asakiyume]

This question popped into my head when I looked out my window and saw a catbird balancing on a stick, using its wings to help it balance.

Would you trade your arms and hands for wings?

Comments

[asakiyume]

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!

[troisoiseaux]

Oof, yeah, no, I forgot about that; I was thinking of the Disney version.

[asakiyume]

HCA--"let's reinforce this with a little more misery!"

[sovay]

Oof, yeah, no, I forgot about that; I was thinking of the Disney version.

My imprinting version was Splash (1984), in which the change is painless and flexible. It was what I wanted, in the sea.

[asakiyume]

painless and flexible: ideal

[sovay]

painless and flexible: ideal

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.

[asakiyume]

As I read the words, I can remember the scene.

[troisoiseaux]

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?)

[sovay]

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.)

[troisoiseaux]

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.

[asakiyume]

Have to have it be in middle school! Preferably when 12 years old!