The Captive Mermaid is one of those very specific cultural images which I think has only been around for the past forty years or so, but it’s basically everywhere at this point. A mermaid has been captured and is on display in a fish tank or an aquarium or in some kind of government research site.
Splash, 1984
Siren, 2018
May: The Mermaid of Lily Lake by Andy Ivanov
“Deep Trouble,” Goosebumps Terror Trips, 2007
This is also everywhere in fanfiction and fanart. You can’t swing a stick without hitting a mermaid AU featuring The Captive Mermaid.
And I can’t stop thinking about The Captive Mermaid, because it’s such a huge and recognizable image, and as far as I can tell, nobody’s recognized it as a. Thing. A theme. A trope. If you look up “mermaid aquarium art,” you’ll get hundreds and hundreds of extremely talented and beautiful pieces of art by artists online, but nobody I’ve seen has stopped to say “Oh hey this is a recurring image in western art and media, I wonder why that is.”
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y'know what else i'm thinkin about?
splash! au steddie where steve meets the merman that he would swear up and down was real when he was little; the little merman he'd see every time his family would visit the coast.
steve, who moves permanently to that (now much bigger, touristy-adjacent) town and runs into (no, literally, smack into) a fully naked (very handsome, holy shit!) man when he's on his way to the little shop he runs on the coast early one morning.
steve gives him his sweater and shuffles the softly smiling (vaugely familiar???) man to the shop and gives him a spare set of clothes that he'd had there from the remodels he did a couple years ago.
the man follows steve around the shop all day, poking around the books and tchotchkes the shop sells, listening to the tourist stories steve tells him, never speaking, until steve closes up early, taking him just outside town to get him some more clothes and such.
at one point while at the store, the man wanders away and steve panics, eventually finding him gazing wonderously at all the screens in the 'home entertainment' section, completely entranced by the multiple screens playing MTV and blaring music through the speakers for sale as well.
He tries to explain the non-speaking-ness of his new friend to the employee trying to close up their part of the store when the man suddenly speaks, "Hi Steve, how was your day?"
The employee ushers them out and the pair leave, walking back into town. Steve asks, "So what's your name, anyway? Did you learn it from the TV?"
The man rolls his eyes, "I had a name before today, sweetheart."
Steve's stomach flips at the term of endearment, assuming it's just a product of whatever commercials he may have seen today, maybe he thought it was a normal thing to call your friend..they are friends, right?
"O-okay, what is it?"
"It's kinda hard to pronounce in english,"
"Try me, I wanna know."
The man gives him a look, but does, squealing out something more suited for something living in the tanks at Sea World than for a person.
He grimaces at Steve's bewildered look, "I told you."
"Uh.. yeah. Well hey! That's okay, we just need to find something else to call you."
"Like what?"
"Well lets see.. There's Andrew?"
"No.."
"Joseph?"
Another no.
"James? Isaac? Brad? Seymour? John?" more and more names and 'no's until they're nearly home (and no closer to a decision). "Wayne maybe? Where are we... Ah! Edmonton." Steve mutters to himself. Only a couple more streets to go.
The name 'Pablo' is on the tip of his tongue when he's stopped by "Edmonton! I like that one."
Steve snorts out a laugh, "Edmonton isn't really a name, it's--" he cuts himself off this time, seeing the horrible kicked puppy look on the other man's face. "Hey, no, okay, Edmonton it is! We'll call you Eddie for short!"
Eddie grins at him so bright and sincere in that moment, that Steve can feel it hit him, and snap something into place inside him.
He's going to fall in love with this man.
He can feel it.
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