An Interesting Look

I happened on an unusual mermaid makeup job. It is from a short, independent fantasy film amde in Australia called Glamour; A Faerys' Kiss. It mainly features fairies including Titania, the Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It also has a mermaid or two. You can see one in the FaceBook link.

This is the one that caught my eye.

Notice the gills along her rib cage. I think that Colin Wilson, the person I linked to, did the complete makeup including the tail.

Pibgorn

The on-line comic strip Pibgorn recently picked up a mermaid as a supporting character. You can see her here.

The strip started as a Christmas story about a fairy who took one last flight for the year with a mouse friend. Her wings iced up and she was revived by a church organist who put her in a cup of warm tea.

Originally planned as an innocent joke-of-the-day strip it quickly changed to lengthy stories suitable for gathering into graphic novels. Besides Pibgorn (Pib), the main characters are Geoff, Pibgorn's lover and Drusilla (Dru), a succubus possessed of great power. Both Pibgorn and Dru are usually naked but covered with natural coloring. The mermaid is also naked (topless) and spends her time face-down in the water or in silhouette.

The current story involves a golden genie who hangs out with the mermaid when he is not being summoned through wormholes. Apparently Pib was sucked through a wormhole in the other direction.

The current story began here with the mermaid appearing the next day.

Pibgorn ran a text story with illustrations about a mermaid three years ago starting here. Technically, this was about a Tookora who is sort of a flying mermaid.

Haunted Ship Mermaid

Mermaids and Halloween. They don't exactly go together. But we did one on a haunted ship.

I volunteer on the Columbus Santa Maria. Each year we transform the ship into a haunted pirate ship for Halloween. The event is kid-friendly (as much as it can be with very small children). The monsters are not too scary and there is no gross-out factor or chainsaws.

The background story is that the captain (Captain Boony) has cursed the crew. We have several effects scattered around the ship and we rework parts of it every year.

Last year someone got the idea of being a mermaid. She was planning to just lie on the bunk in the cabin and wave at people.

But, someone else knew how to do a neat effect. By using a pair of mirrors and a round lens (a round fishbowl full of water works perfectly for this) the mermaid was projected into the fishbowl.

We also have some cursed treasure and a seaweed monster who hides in the corner and shuffles out. Usually people don't even notice the monster at first.

It is a nice effect but it requires the mermaid to spend three nights lying on her back with her feet up to show her tail. The woman who did it last year has some health problems and could not do it again this year so we had to get a new mermaid.

This year's girl did a great job.

On the final tour, the mermaid and the seaweed monster shucked off their costumes and joined in. They hadn't seen the rest of the ship. Other effects include an octopus that jumped around inside a crate, a head in a cage, a spider with a human head, and a skeleton that turns into Captain Boony himself.

The Mermaid's reaction to the rest of the ship was, "We were doing Disney compared with everything else."

I wish I had gotten a picture of the effect but it was too dim for my phone's camera.

H2O - relationships

During the first season the main story arc in H2O: Just Add Water involved the reformation of Zane and his relationship with Rikki. At the end of the season they broke up but stayed friends.

In the second season the main story arc concerns the relationship between Cleo, Lewis, and Charlotte. I'll have more to say about that also.

In the first season Emma had a mild relationship with Byron but that never amounted to much. She got a new boyfriend, Ash, in the second season. Their relationship is typical of a show aimed at teens. When Emma first meets Ask she resents him without much reason. In their second meeting, Ask has been hired as the new assistant manager of the juice bar that Emma has been working at for a year. On his first couple of days he changes things around completely, angering Emma who expected the manager's job. Eventually he fires her unjustly. Later he apologizes, hires her back, and asks her for a date. With material like that to work with, I can see why the actress who played Emma left the show after the second season.

Rikki and Zane's romance is featured in three episodes and they are an example of great writing. The relationships seem real and the episodes are based around established personality traits.

Rikki is the most reserved of the mermaids. If she thinks that someone will disapprove of something, she hides it. This is central to these episodes.

In The One That Got Away, Rikki runs into Zane on his new dirt bike. He wants to get together but she declines. He still thinks that she lost her mermaid abilities and she doesn't want to start hiding that from him.

But, she is still attracted to him and starts hanging around a dirt bike track to watch him. He gets suspicious after tossing her a drink from a cooler and seeing her dodge it (the bottle is wet). He is also convinced that she still cares for him.

Later she is talking with Zane at the dock and Zane's friend Nate revs the motor of Zane's boat and covers her with water.

A suddenly terrified Rikki asks Zane to help her. He distracts Nate while Rikki dives into the water.

Zane catches up with Rikki in the Moon Pool and convinces her that she can trust him. Also, unlike his 1950s counterpart, he doesn't care that she is a mermaid. She agrees to start dating but only if he keeps it secret.

In The Wrong Side of the Tracks, everything comes to a head. Rikki is ashamed of where she lives and has been hiding it from everyone. She hasn't told anyone that she is dating Zane or that he knows that they are still mermaids. She has gone so far as to have Zane walk her to a house in a nice area to hide where she really lives.

Things start to go wrong for Rikki when Nate sees an old Harley in a trailer park and pries the emblem off of it. The owner sees them and blames Zane. Zane later takes the emblem from Nate and returns it but the owner catches him and accuses him of stealing more parts. Zane reverts to spoiled boy mode.

It turns out that the Harley is owned by Rikki's father and that he has been working on it for the last year.

Deciding that Zane would reject her if he knew where she really lived, Rikki breaks up with him and swims off.

Zane goes to the other girls, tells them that he knows that they are still mermaids and that he is worried about Rikki. They finally realize that they don't know anything about Rikki (it only took them 32 episodes to notice).

She decides to show Zane where she really lives. He doesn't care and kisses her - just in time for her father to show up and forbid her to see Zane again.

So Rikki is still miserable.

But Zane fixes things. He stays up all night and secretly fixes the Harley, finally getting to start. Zane and Rikki's father bond and a beaming Rikki invites the other girls and Lewis to her house for dinner.

The episode In Over Our Heads concerns trust. The mermaids are not sure that they can still trust Lewis since he is dating someone else now. He points out that he is the only one who knows their secret but they tell him that Zane also knows.

In the meantime, Rikki learns that her father is having money troubles and that they may need to move someplace cheaper. Typically, she doesn't tell anyone.

Zane approaches Rikki about an opertunity. A yacht with a priceless statue on it sank. There is a substantial reward but he knows about it first. He figures that a mermaid would have a better chance of finding the statue than a regular diver but they only have one day before the area will be full of treasure hunters. Rikki agrees to help if they split the reward 60/40. Zane says that he is mainly in it to be a hero, anyway (still trying to impress his father?).

The area is too large for Rikki to search so she enlists the other two mermaids but does not tell them about the reward. She simply appeals to their good nature. She plans on splitting her share of the reward with them and Zane decides to do the same thing.

During the search, Emma hears Rikki and Zane talk about the reward. They blame Zane and leave. Rikki continues the search, exhausting herself. She still has not told Zane why she is so driven.

She eventually finds the statue and uses a rig that Zane designed to lift it. Unfortunately, use used a cheap caribiner. It breaks and the statue falls on Rikki, knocking her unconscious.

Zane rescues Rikki and Lewis applies first aid. The girls decide that they can trust Zane and Lewis after all.

Lewis improves Zane's design for lifting the statue and the two recover it first thing the next morning (we already know that both are divers). They give the check to Rikki figuring that she earned it for finding the statue and getting hurt.

I am impressed with Cariba Heine, the actress who plays Rikki. All three of these episodes have quick flashes where you totally accept the emotion she is feeling. She she is splashed with water she really looks panicked. When she invites the others to meet her father she is glowing with happiness, and when Zane complains that she is pushing herself she really looks exhausted.

While I started watching the show because of mermaids with superpowers, episodes like this got me hooked (so to speak).

H2O: Rikki and Zane plots

In the show, H2O, Just add Water, plots involving the mermaids Cleo are usually a bit silly (she works extra shifts at the marine park because of a sick dolphin and her family thinks that she has a secret boyfriend). Emma's plots can be a bit over the top (Emma accidentally freezes someone solid and Rikki and Cleo have to revive her). In contrast, Rikki's plots are serious and realistic.

Rikki's first plot begins when one of Cleo's fish dies. After realizing that she has been insensitive, Rikki swims out into the open ocean and catches a new fish for Cleo. Someone sees her with it and offers to buy it. He says that he works with the breeding program at the marine park. Cleo is soon making good money selling rare fish and she is generous with her money.

But it turns out that the guy deals in black market rare fish. Rikki confronts him but he grabs her, takes her back to his warehouse, and threatens her. Rather than being intimidated, she starts making things boil and ends up scaring the hell out of the fish breeders. The main one jumps into the water and the other girls have to stop Rikki from boiling him. This is the only time the mermaids start acting like superheroes.

Rikki's relationship with Zane is complicated and spans the entire series.

From various references we know that Emma's parents are long-time friends of Zane's parents. Emma and Zane knew each other since they were two but had a falling out, probably when he became a jerk after his parents broke up.

Just prior to the first episode, Zane insults Rikki somehow and she sabotages his boat which begins a chain of events that lead to the girls becoming mermaids. For the next few episodes Zane and his girlfriend are annoyances.

Things begin to change when Zane enters a video contest. Zane's father set a record for the fastest run on a windboard to Mako Island and back. Zane's father repeatedly makes it clear that he considers Zane soiled and useless. Zane decides to win his father's respect by breaking the record and he hired Lewis to record it. Partway through, Lewis's boat stalls and a shark knocks Zane off of his board.

Rikki has been recording shark footage for the same contest and sees Zane in trouble. She drives off he sharks. Lewis catches up and gets footage of Zane calling for help from non-existent sharks. The footage makes Zane a laughingstock but Rikki, who knows that there were sharks, tells him that she believes him.

Mrs. Chatham, the last surviving 1950s mermaid, has been living on a decrepit houseboat. Zane complains after it breaks free and damages his jet ski. even though her boat has been declared unsafe, Mrs. Chatham decided to take it and leave. On her way out she accidentally sinks Zane's jet ski. He catches up and demands that she pay for the damages. Mrs. Chatham's health is not good and she has forgotten to take her pills. The excitement causes her to collapse. Emma and Lewis take her to get medical care but Zane returns to the houseboat, searching for her "treasure". At the time it seemed like he was just being greedy but in retrospect he may have been trying to save her valuables. Regardless, the boat was unsafe and sinks with Zane in it. Emma saves him and he catches sight of her fluke (the end of her tail). After that he is convinced that there is some unknown sea creature living near Mako Island.

The full moon has strange effects on the mermaids. In Rikki's case, her powers go out of control and she begins heating everything nearby. She goes to Mako Island where she ignites several small fires. Zane, who has been out looking for sea creatures, sees the fires and finds Rikki in despair ("I just can't do this any longer!"). He kisses her and her power lights a ring of fire around them, knocks both of them unconscious, and gives Zane a mild sunburn. The next day Rikki has forgotten everything that happened.

Zane's father is holding an investment seminar and Rikki attends, hoping to learn how to handle money better than her father. She has no money for lunch and accepts Zane's invitation to help herself from the hospitality suite. They go out on the large balcony and the door shuts and locks. With nothing else to do, they talk and, by the end of the episode, are kissing.

In his search for the sea creature, Zane finds footage of a very young Mrs. Chatham who was being interviewed after saving a sailor. He decided to search her sunken houseboat for clues. Emma realizes that there is a large photograph of the 1950s mermaids still in the houseboat and retrieves it but Zane spots her and realizes that the sea creature is a mermaid. Fortunately, Emma had dyed her hair red so he didn't recognize her.

Rikki agrees to start dating Zane if he will stop going on about mermaids.

Zane's father is having a business lunch with some potential investors and tells him to bring a date. He brings Rikki although his father disapproves of her. Emma and her family are also invited. By this point Emma and Cleo are wondering if they can still trust Rikki.

It turns out that he wants to develop Mako Island. Rikki storms out but returns to list all of he rare species on the island and to inform him that she is filing an environmental complaint. Zane follows her out and Emma is impressed.

The 1950s mermaids had three identical lockets made to remind them of their friendship. Rikki sees on in an estate sale and Zane eventually gets it for her. Rikki's 1950s counterpart was betrayed after revealing her secret to someone like Zane and the other girls are afraid that Rikki will repeat this mistake. She does not and points out that she is a different person and will not give away their secrets.

The point becomes moot. Zane's father has not given up on developing Mako Island. He hired a noted marine biologist (Dr. Denman, who is also young and pretty) to do an environmental impact study. She places several remote cameras and manages to photograph a mermaid. Zane is ecstatic since he is finally vindicated. His father doesn't show him a second picture that shows the mermaids' faces.

Dr. Menman is sure that studying how the girls change into mermaids in the presence of water will bring fame and fortune so she traps the mermaids in the Moon Pool. This is a dangerous move since the mermaids could easily overpower Denman and her assistants but she is holding Lewis hostage against their good behavior.

When forced to choose between his father and Rikki, Zane frees Lewis and the two of them free the mermaids. Zane's father washes his hands of the affair and reconciles with Zane.

By an amazing coincidence, there is a lunar eclipse that night which will remove the girls' mermaid powers. They decide that this is the only way to be safe from Dr. Denman.

Rikki and Zane decide that "this relationship isn't going anywhere," and part as friends (until they get back together next season).

It turns out that the girls only lost their powers for 12 hours (surprise!).

H2O - Just Add Water - the premise

No discussion about mermaids can be complete without discussing this show. It was an Australian production that ran for three years. It currently shows daily on Nick Teen and is popular enough that a spin-off (The Secret of Mako Island) just finished filming. The show has spawned several YouTube videos produced and staring children.

The premise of the show is that three high school students (do they call it "high school" in Australia?) are turned into part-time mermaids by a magical pool. As long as they stay dry they are normal but ten seconds after they get wet they turn into mermaids. The girls also have powers that they can use in either form and are affected in unpredictable ways by the full moon.

During the transformation into a mermaid, the girls' clothing vanishes as well as her make-up. Even her hair is loose after the transformation. In addition to growing mermaid tails, the girls also have scales on their chest that just happen to look like a bikini top. This is never mentioned in the show but in a second season episode one of the mermaids is poisoned by a piece of coral and scales on her top start to bleach out so they must be part of her.

The show has high production values and a huge cast. A lot of attention is paid to details and there is a large and consistent back-story to go with the show. All of the episodes are stand-alone but there are story arcs taking place in many of them. Originally I watched a couple of episodes just out of curiosity but I became hooked by the quality of the writing.

The mermaid tails are especially good. They are two feet longer than the girls' legs and hide her feet completely. The amount of mermaid footage varies from episode to episode. The same is true for the use of the girls' powers. In the first season, the middle episodes are most likely to be generic ones that could come from any teen-oriented show. In contrast, there are many episodes that could only be from this show.

The cast is:

Cleo. I think of her as the "any girl". She is the least mature. She constantly fights with her little sister. She gets decent marks in school but needs tutoring to keep her grades up. Her father is a fisherman with his own boat and she is intensely interested in ocean life. She has pet fish, the wall of her bedroom has an aquatic mural on it, and she gets a job at the "marine park" (Sea World is never named in the series). Despite all of this, she can't swim at the beginning of the show and it took several episodes before she would actually go into the ocean as a mermaid. Episodes featuring Cleo tend to be closer to typical teen shows (mistaken identity, etc.). Cleo can levitate water and make it expand. She uses this most often to play tricks on her sister.

Emma (or "Em"). She is the perfect daughter. She gets along with her little brother. She gets top marks in school. She is neat and tidy. She also borders on obsessive/compulsive. Personally I would have her in counseling for this if she was my daughter. She constantly tells the other girls that her family gets along because they never keep secrets from each other. The fact that she is secretly a mermaid drives a wedge between her and her family. Episodes featuring Emma tend to be about her getting out of control, often because she is a mermaid, and disappointing her family. Emma can generate cold and freeze water.

Rikki. She has the most complex personality of the three. She is the rebel. She is outspoken bordering on rude. She never studies or does homework but is smart enough to get passing grades (barely). She is impulsive but surprisingly responsible. She is also the least "girly". She knows more about engines than dying hair. In many ways she is the opposite of Emma. At the beginning of the show she is a complete stranger to the others but she and Emma quickly bond after becoming mermaids (she doesn't really bond with Cleo until Cleo accepts being a mermaid). We find out during the series that she has never had any close friends and that she is an only child living with her divorced father. Note that even though we know these things the other mermaids do not. These tidbits came from conversations with Emma's brother and Zane. It takes until episode 32 (second season) before the other girls realize that they know nothing about Rikki. Episodes about Rikki tend to be the most mature dealing with relationships and trust issues instead of broad comedy. I'll have more on this later. Rikki can generate heat and boil water.

Besides the mermaids, there are a few other important characters.

Lewis. Lewis is the final staring character and is in every episode (until he left the series half-way through the third season). He is the resident genius and thinks of himself as a scientist. He has been friends with Cleo since they were children and tutors her. The girls let him in on their secret early on and come to him every time they have a problem. He reminds me a lot of the people I hung out with in high school (except none of them got to hang around with three hot girls). He and Cleo are dating by the end of the first season. The main plot arc of the second season involves him dating someone else after Cleo breaks up with him.

Zane. Rich, hansom, athletic, and acid-tongued. When we first meet him he seems like a spoiled rich boy and a bit of a bully. Later we find out that he parents are divorced and he lives with his verbally abusive father. The main story arc of the first season involves Zane's transformation from unlikable to likeable and his romance with Rikki. I'll do a separate post on this later.

Mrs. Chatham. The current girls are not the first ones to become mermaids. In the 1950s, a different trio of girls became mermaids with the same powers. Only one of them still survives, an aging hippy who is the closest thing to an instruction manual the girls get.

The first episode sets up the characters. Cleo and Emma are already long-time friends and Cleo is helping Emma train for her swim team. Later Zane asks Cleo to help him with his boat. As soon as she is on it, he casts it adrift. Someone removed the spark plug and for some reason he blamed Cleo (she isn't even sure what a spark plug is). Worse, she doesn't swim. Zane tells her that if she can fix the boat she can keep it.

Before the boat drifts away from land, Rikki jumps aboard and replaces the spark plug. She was mad at Zane for some reason and sabotaged his boat. Once she has it working she decides to go for a joy ride. Cleo introduces herself and they pick up Cleo.

Rikki decides to go out onto the open ocean but the boat runs out of gas and they have to paddle to the nearest island, Mako Island. Emma has a phone but cannot get a signal and decides that they should try higher ground. Cleo slips and slides down a tunnel. The other girls follow her. They find themselves at the base of an ancient volcano with a pool (later to be known as the Moon Pool) at the bottom. Emma finds a way out underwater. Since Cleo does not swim, Rikki helps her.

While the three are in the water the moon shines down the volcano into the pool. There is a light show. The girls escape and are rescued.

The next day they discover, individually, what happens when they get wet. Cleo and Emma also discover their powers.

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

This is a dual-plot novel. One part follows the romance between the mermaid Syrenka and a naturalist named Ezra in the 19th century. The other plot follows Hester, a modern girl in her late teens who is facing the fact that the women in her family die shortly after giving birth.

Syrenka is a thousand-year-old mermaid who periodically falls in love with mortal men. As we learn in the prologue, she forgets her strength and the need for her lovers to breath so she has not successfully consummated any of her relationships.

We know from the beginning that Hester must be Syrenka's descendent. When she was young she was saved from drowning except she insists that she was able to breath underwater.

The modern plot follows Hester's attempts to solve a 140 year old mystery involving multiple deaths.

This book could have been written for me. Not only does it have mermaids, it takes place on Plymouth Massachusetts and Hester has a job at Plimoth Plantation (I have been to Plymouth multiple times and volunteered for special events at Plimoth Plantation).

The book is well-written. I think that it is supposed to be a young adult novel but it is written at an adult level.

The novel does take a few liberties with Plymouth. In fact, many of the important plot elements involve things that do not exist. For example, there is no back door to the church (I went through Plymouth right after reading the book and I checked).

One jarring element is when Hester finally meets the mermaids. The transition to a fantastic undersea world and back is rushed and has a different tone than the rest of Hester's story.

Regardless, I would recommend it.

Why Mermaids?

Why did I suddenly get interested in mermaids? I'm not sure. It started when I read some news reports about girls and women buying expensive mermaid tails as swimming suits. I also became aware of professional mermaids who come to festivals. I saw a few in August at a pirate festival.

What really amazes me is that there is an entire mermaid and merpeople community. Just going through relevant entries on Youtube seems endless. There are even series produced in homage to H2O, Just Add Water by young girls. I thought that there were two or three of these but I found some more last night. I think that there are around a half dozen although I'm not sure that all of them made it past the first episode. None of them are really watchable to an adult.

Then there is H2O, Just Add Water. I've been watching it on Hulu. Originally I only planned on watching an episode or two but I got hooked. It is much better written than I expected and the requisite wacky situations never go over the top. If you pay close attention, the character growth is very well executed.

I'll have more to say about this later.

So, what's the attraction?

I'm not sure but somehow the half human/half fish is a powerful image.

Of course mermaids were not always a happy image. Sirens who lure sailors to their death are often shown as mermaids. In other myths, sighting a mermaid was a sign of bad weather or other misfortune. I know a couple of sea shanties about this.

That image seems to have vanished during the 20th century. Now they are neutral or helpful.