Good heavens... no, mermaids are much longer lived than salmon. They do in fact mutate when it's time to spawn, but afterward return, exhausted, to the sea. As mermaids outlive other fish on average, they spawn less frequently and create less offspring.
when you say the mermaids are huge, how much of that "height" is the tail? i always love seeing mermaid illustrations where the mermaid is kinda normal head to torso but the tail is super long and elaborate and kinda snake or eel-like. or are the tails kinda normalish size and the mermaids huge as a whole?
Most of that height is the tail, yes! If the mermaids had legs, they might be a bit taller than the expected height of a human (like above 6’5), but their tails give them a couple extra feet in height. :)
MERMAID AND MERMAID ADJACENT CREATURES FOLKLORE & MYTHOLOGY
Hey friends, I'm currently on a bit of a mission. After a really long and difficult creative slump, I have finally latched on to a few projects again. The block was burnout and trauma related, I'm talking about a few years of writing block unfortunately, so I'm not making myself any big promises about what these ideas will turn into just yet. That being said, I am revitalizing an old story concept about freshwater mermaids and things that go bump in the night in a fictionalized version of my beloved Northwest Florida.
I really love stories that create their own kind of folklore and essentially I wanted to make a story around all the little stories I'd imagine about my home when I was younger. The biggest of those is mermaids that can only be found down slews that you could have sworn weren't there the last time you went down this stretch of the creek.
I have lots of preliminary ideas but it occurred to me that researching mermaids and mermaid adjacent creatures could probably aid me on my quest to create a rich, complex mythology for my story. I've also been looking into general folktales and legends of Florida. I'm very fortunate to have found a treasure trove in that department.
Now I need to look into mermaids though and that's where you come in. I'll be doing my own digging very soon but if you have any recommendations or even tales you've been told I'd be oh so appreciative if you could drop the info for me. If you have any suggestions for scholarly works on liminal spaces that would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to read and even, hopefully, responding! I wish you well xx.
In this story of a flooded world with endless danger and tragedy... one question still stands: Is the pain of having hope worth it?
...well, let's dive into the deep together and find out~
《Part 1 - Lore》
Warnings ⚠️: This post will include talks of - cannibalism, war, species discrimination, slavery (minimally) and death. Please beware!
Song to listen to while you read:
《Lore - a detailed diatribe》
In this world, humans and mer's are linked in more ways than one. Humans evolved from mer's, pulling a reverse whale situation - instead of starting on land and evolving to live in the water, they started out mers ! And evolved to have legs/live on land in order to capitalize on certain ecological niches. Branching away from their 'mother species' to become something all their own.
Of course, all those many different genus of humans also still existed at different points of history.. but homo-sapiens (what modern day humans are) were the only ones to tough out the passage of time and persist long enough on land to establish themselves. Eventually conquouring all land (except the poles).
As humans, they distanced themselves from their sea-fairing familia, interacting with them less and less, to the point where most modern day humans didnt know mer's existed - thinking they were just myths. Mainly the only humans who still knew they were real were governments, scientists, and anyone living on a coastline. Beach dwelling civilians - especially but not exclusively fishermen - would often do trade with mer's, and established friendly repore with them.
The history of where humans came from would of course be rediscovered and recorded, thanks to various fossil finds - allowing the existence of mers and humanity's link to them to become more well known to the public. but many remained firm in their lack of belief. Especially the more religious-leaning humans, who regarded mer's as "demons swimming up to earth from the depths of hell to lure humans down to their doom". (Most likely a mindset derived from sailors' tales of sirens).
Some human world leaders would classify mer's as a protected species and tried to work out alliences/peace agreements with them, while others would label them as being threats to humanity - choosing to start often times bloody conflicts with the mer's to keep them away from any and all pieces of land, even islands. A few countries declaring war on the mer's as a whole on multiple occasions, but it usually only ended up being small scale conflicts.
《Note: human/mer eomance has existed throughout history, with many viewing it as taboo. But both sides had their own niches of forbidden romance literature/entertainment due to those cross species romances. Technically its possible for humans and mers to cross-breed, but even if its not explicitly illegal - it is frowned upon in many places. usually the procreation statistics of cross-breeding tends to vary, but for the most part its not that difficult for mixed species couples to conceive.
Just.. dont think too hard into the logical biology differences between humans and mer's for this stuff xD this is fantasy, sort of. Typically though, its far more common for different types of mer's to mix with eachother - with each of their offspring usually just being the same type of mer as one of their parents, mer's who are an even split of what mer they are is somewhat rare and only possible with specific kinds of mer. For human/mer children its a lot more like a punnet square kind of situation with what genetics their kids could possibly get from either parent.. though there isnt any magic transformation between human form and mer form for anyone, thats not a thing in this universe even for full blooded mer's. Everyone only has 1 form that they have 24/7, lol.》
These differing political stances would cause many conflicts, and going into the 2030's tensions were at an all time high.. causing a global war to break out - both on land and under the waves, both sides relentless and vicious. The mer's had similar political conflicts to the humans, some trusting humanity and some not. Eventually the global conflict, known as "The Wave Wars", finally ended in a stalemate and truce after 10 grueling years of back and forth conflict, with many lives on both sides being lost. sadly the peace wouldn't last forever, but both sides reveled in it while they still could.
《Sidenote: Its been known that in a few different parts of the world, at various points in history, humans would often consume the flesh of mer's... and not just their tails or fins for soups like they do with sharks (though they would happen sometimes). In certain places, mer-meat is considered a delicacy, and eaten due to cultural or religious reasons. The teeth and scales of mer's became hot commodities on the black market, fetching hefty prices from poachers.
Poachers of whom would take far more from the mer's than they should and making the numbers of certain mer species dwindle. Some very rich people even buying live mer's, often children, from the black market- to keep as pets. Though mostly the poachers would sell them to aquariums and zoos so they could be put on display like living trophies. There was many human groups that opposed such practices, but they sadly weren't able to do much to stop it ither then protest. even then breaking into such places to release the mer's free willy style would only make small dents in the evil practice..
Some view the consumption of mer's to be evil, since mer's are intelligent sentiant beings, and as an act of cannibalism due to how closely linked their speices are. Viewing them as humans, and thus, taboo to eat. Though, some mers have been recorded throughout history to eat humans , mostly sailors or those who end up shipwrecked. Some view it as acts of malice intent of evil hearts, while others see it as just beings of opportunistic tendencies with no feelings involved in the process.
But its not as well recorded (by the humans), since many didnt live to tell the tale of the experience, and because... well, many refused to believe the word of a traumatized sea-captian who was clearly shell-shocked and not thinking straight. So, much paranoia, conspiracy theorizing, and anti-the other side rhetoric spread across humanity and mer society as time went on. 》
And then, about 100 years ago - just 6 short years after the established peace that was gained at the end of the wave wars... trouble stirred up yet again. No one truely knows which side or who in specific reignited the conflict, with both sides refusing to take accountability and of course pointing their fingers at the other.
Due to a combination of mass global warming, and various newly started war related complications effecting the earth as a whole (coming from both on land and under the waves), 50 - 60% of all land on earth flooded.. and became submerged under the waves. Of course portions of higher ground, most mountains, and some islands were able to survive this flooding, but for the most part much land & land dwelling life was lost. Valleys, cities, forests, highways, etc were buried underneath miles of raging oceanic water, still being there till this day..
the underwater forests/jungles becoming favorite home picks for various different mer-predator species, viewing them as good places to hide and ambush prey. Meanwhile many mer-prey species garnered interest in the flooded cities & towns, taking up residance in the various submerged houses and skyscrapers - viewing the brick and cement structures to be valuable protection for themselves against predators and any other kind of danger.
Instead of being in the high end of the billions in population, due to the disaster - humanity now stood at a staggering 3 - 4 million people, and is trying to rebuild their numbers as the years go on, with some struggle here and there as its a slow and difficult process. This tragedy, this mass scale loss of life, was referred to by both human and mer historians as "The Blood Flood" due to how many died. 10 - 20 % of all mer life was also lost in this event, but it wasn't as much of a hit to their overall species population like it was for the humans.
The remaining human population managed to survive but either living on mountains, kept safe and dry from the floods via being on high elevation, taking on fishermen lifestyles and managing to turn whatever swafts of land were left untouched by the floods to use for farming (both crops and animals).. or by fleeing ahead of time - right before the disaster was said to strike - onto one of the dozens of giant floating mobile cities that were made for 'salvation'. Of course most who got to get on were rich peoole who payed for exclusive spots on those floating cities, leaving the poorer people to fight over which spots were left. And of course not everyone was able to get on..
Most scientists actually chose to live on mountains alomg with many poorer civilains who didnt have the chance or couldnt afford to live on the floating cities, wanting to stick close to nature - and also not have to follow such strict rules & regulations that they would have to abide by on those floating cities. Religion amongst humanity surged around the time of the disaster, and has stuck around since - with many people believing the event to be a 2nd coming of the biblical flood, or to be some sort of godly retribution (despite the very clear and obvious knowledge that what happened was cause by humans/mer's and no a deity).
Life has continued on, with new life emerging to fill the niches that gained openings after a lot land animals either went extinct or were just no longer at their mass potential like they were before. Though, new life doesnt always mean new promise.. as a lot of those new creatures in the oceans are quite dangerous, and pose many threats - not just to the mer's but also to the humans. Some animals that were exstinct for a very long time prior to everything happening, had managed to re-evolve themselves back into existence.
《Note: in some cases, these "new creatures" also mean new mer's! But of cours3 not 100% of the time. Either way, any extinct marine creature you can think of, no matter how far back in time they existed, could possibly be alive and thrivimg again in this world/timeline... and also be available to make a mer-character from ;P》
Relations between humans and mers are still rocky, as to be expected, but are much better then they were before.
I just learned that in folklore mermaids can also represent what is different or outcast, symbolizing the alienation and isolation of those who do not fit into conventional norms and now it makes more sense to me why Hans Christian Anderson (a gay man) wrote The Little Mermaid.
