Fish Are Friends
(The Merged Realms of Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid)
(The Merged Realms of Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid)
“Marlin!
Slow down!”
It was the
fastest Mindy ever swam with a mermaid tail, and she was not quite used to it
yet. It was more exhausting than she realized, requiring a lot of lower body
strength to get herself moving faster and faster to keep up with the frantic
clownfish she trailed. If she were born
a mermaid, it would have been a pretty easy task.
“I have to
find my son!”
“He’s not
in this world anymore! He’s been erased!”
“NO! I’m
not listening to you! You’re insane and a freak of nature!”
She would
have accepted him referring to her as “insane,” but a “freak of nature” was
where she drew the line. She was angry enough to put more force into her
swimming, almost becoming in sync with Marlin. But then the clownfish surprised
her by stopping and diving into some seaweed below. “Get down,” he desperately
whispered to her.
“Oh, so now
you want the freak to hide with you?”
“Right now,
I’ll take you over them!”
Mindy saw
him point his right fin ahead and followed it to see a sunken pirate ship a
short distance away. It was the same sunken ship where Flounder and Ariel went
to early on in The Little Mermaid.
However, due to current events, it was the site of interest for Bruce the great
white shark and his comrades, Anchor the hammerhead shark and Chum the mako
shark. Surprisingly, they were accompanied by Ariel, Flounder, Sebastian, and
Dory as they entered it.
(Authorial Note: Livingston chose the sunken ship as opposed to the submarine for the convention group in Nemo for the irony of Ariel and Flounder being in the same setting as they were in the shark attack from The Little Mermaid, only with good-natured sharks this time.)
“There’s
nothing to be afraid of, Marlin.” Mindy reassured. “Those are vegetarian
sharks.”
“There are
no such things as vegetarian sharks!” Marlin barked in frustration. “I’m
through listening to you. All you ever do is talk nonsense. Just being around
you raises my chances for getting killed – it’s already caused me to lose my
son. So do me a favor and leave me alone!”
She knew
there was no reasoning with the stubborn clownfish and turned her nose up at
him. “Fine. I can take a hint. You want to be left alone? I’ll leave you alone.
Just be on the lookout for other
sharks. Not all of them are the
vegetarian type, and they just might bite
when you’re not looking.”
Giving this
warning, she noticed the growing expression of fear on Marlin’s face before
swimming away to join Bruce, Ariel, and their friends in the sunken ship. As
she swam at a pace slow (but not obviously
slow) enough to occupy time for Marlin to change his mind (as she anticipated
him to), she quietly counted backwards from three just for fun. And, when she
got to “one”…
“WAIT!”
She stopped
and waited for the clownfish to regroup with her.
“You may be
crazy…you may be a freak…but I’m not
getting eaten today!”
(Disney Note: Mindy's moment of reverse psychology with Marlin mirrors that Ariel pulled on Flounder in The Little Mermaid prior to adventuring into the sunken ship. Both women used sharks as a way of scaring the fish into joining them.)
Mindy
smirked with satisfaction. “I’ll get you your son back, Marlin. I promise.”
She
continued swimming towards the sunken ship, only to be stopped again by a
still-hesitant Marlin. “Why are we
going into the shark-infested ship again?”
“I’m going
to leave you with them.”
“What? You’re not leaving me with a bunch
of strange fish I barely even—”
“Do you
want to find Nemo or not?”
Marlin
sighed dejectedly. “Yes…I do.”
“Then you
have to trust me.”
Mindy knew
that the “Your Lost Son Has Actually Been Erased from Time and Space” talk was
no longer doing any good, so she resorted to a different approach with Marlin:
making him believe she was helping him find his son. She knew it was deceitful
of her to do it, but she had to lead Marlin on for his own good if he would not
listen to reason or logic.
The two
swam inside the sunken ship; the further they reached inside, the clearer they
could hear the voices of the previous “trespassers.”
“I hope
this will make up for the…um…what was it called?” Ariel questioned.
“A
submarine.” Bruce said. “A big metal fish that humans use to swim down here in
the depths with us.”
“Wow!”
Ariel exclaimed in fascination. “Humans swimming under the sea like fish?”
“Metal fish.” Anchor clarified.
(Disney Note: "Metal Fish" is the title to an episode of the Disney television series based on The Little Mermaid that aired November 6, 1993. In the episode, a fictional version of Little Mermaid author Hans Christian Andersen uses a prototype submarine to explore sea life and ultimately encounter the very characters inspired by his story, in turn inspiring him to write the story.)
“Hmph! I’ll
believe it when I see it, mon.” An incredulous
Sebastian said.
“Ariel? Are
you sure we can trust these guys?” A frightened Flounder asked. “You remember
the one we ‘met’ earlier, don’t ya?”
Ariel
giggled. “Oh, Flounder. You’re being a guppy again. These sharks are nice. They
only want to be our friends.”
“That’s
right. It’s the whole point of our meetin’s.” Bruce vouched for himself and his
comrades. “This ship’s a perfect replacement for our missing sub. Plenty of
fishtail room, too.”
“Didn’t
have that back in the sub.” Chum stated.
“Nope.”
Anchor attested.
Mindy and
Marlin followed the voices into the captain’s quarters at the rear of the ship.
From afar, they saw the characters gathered there – Bruce took to the “stage”
while the others floated by in a semicircle. “Right then,” Bruce began. “The
meeting has officially come to order. Let us all say the pledge.”
Together,
Bruce, Chum, Anchor, and even Dory all raised their right fins, reciting their oath:
“I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this
image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.”
“Except stinkin’
dolphins!” Anchor blurted in anger.
“Dolphins,
yeah!” Chum reacted with the same attitude. “I hate dolphins! They think they’re so cute! ‘Oh, look at me, I'm a
flippy little dolphin, let me flip for you. Ain’t I something?’”
“Right
then. Today’s meetin’ is Step Five – Bring a fish friend.” Bruce announced.
“Now do you all have your friends?”
“Mine swam
away on the way here, so I’ve got Sebastian.” Anchor said, curling his left fin
around the crab, who was shocked to discover that he had been claimed by the
hammerhead.
(Disney Note: In Finding Nemo, Anchor's "fish friend" was a small, bubble-eyed yellow fish whose name was never revealed on screen; however, a Macintosh video game for the film states his name to be "Blenny." Although Blenny escaped in the film after he was brought into the meeting by Anchor.)
“Wait now,
mon!” Sebastian exclaimed. “I didn’t agree to dis madness!”
“It’s
alright, Sebastian.” Ariel calmly assured. “He only wants to be your friend.”
“How
‘bout you, Chum?” Bruce inquired.
When
the question was directed toward him, Chum appeared to be very embarrassed.
“Well, um…I seem to have misplaced my…um…friend.” As he uttered the word
“friend,” his pronunciation of the first syllable led to the skeletal remains
of his “friend” protruding out from his mouth – a sight that brought shock over
Sebastian and Flounder (and even Marlin).
“It’s alright,
Chum.” Bruce reassured. “Just follow Anchor and choose one of our new friends.”
“Aw,
thanks, mate.” Chum then pulled Flounder close at his side. “I’ll take the
round, squishy yellow fellow. A little chum for Chum, eh?”
(Disney Note: In Nemo, Marlin was the chosen fish to be Chum's friend.)
Flounder
grew increasingly nervous near the mako shark, especially after seeing what
happened to his last friend. His body
quivered with fear as Chum bounced it along on his fin.
“Dis is
ludicrous!” Sebastian yelled. “I am not a fish! I am a crab!”
“There’s a
difference?” Anchor questioned.
“Well,
that’s alright.” Bruce said. “Anchor can swap Sebastian for Dory or Miss Ariel,
who is only half fish.”
“Can we
take a ‘half fish’ for a friend?” Anchor asked.
Bruce
appeared highly tentative. “Well, I don’t know. We’ve never had a half-fish in
the group before.”
(Authorial Note: Just as he has with many other fish in the Nemo universe, Livingston enjoyed incorporating the sharks' confusion over whether Ariel can be counted as a fish or not. In their perspective, it is a conundrum that brings no plausible reasoning.)
As the
sharks debated on the issue, Mindy noticed Marlin turning more agitated by the
second, coming upon a sudden realization. “I know what happened to Nemo now – these guys got him.”
“Oh, don’t
be ridiculous.” Mindy told him. “And keep your voice down or they’ll—”
“I’m being realistic, unlike you, Miss Vegetarian Sharks!” Marlin
shouted, loud enough to catch the attention of the meeting participants.
Bruce
smiled as he spotted them across the room. “Ah! Looks like we’ve got some
wanderers. Join us. Don’t be afraid. We won’t bite.”
“Hey, look!
Another mutant fish!” Dory excitedly pointed to Mindy. She gestured to Ariel
and added, “Now we have a complete set!”
Having no
other choice, Mindy and Marlin swam across the room and joined with the group.
Ariel was notably surprised upon seeing Mindy, another mermaid, so far from
home. “Are you…from Atlantica?”
Mindy knew
she had to continue playing the part; as hard of a time she had in trying to
convince Marlin that she was from another word, it was a fruitless effort with
a character like Ariel, who was already baffled of the human world. “I am. I
met with your father, and he has been incredibly worried about you since you
left.”
Ariel felt
guilty hearing this. “Oh, Daddy,” she said quietly. “He just doesn’t understand
the human world like I do.”
“Dat’s not
your home. Down here is your home.”
Sebastian said. “Ariel, listen to me. The human world…it’s a mess. Life under
the sea is better than anything they’ve got up—”
“I’m gonna
stop you right there, Sebastian, because I know you’re gonna start singing, and
we do not have the time for that.”
Mindy quickly said, surprising the crab with her accurate foresight on what he
was going to do next. “Ariel, your father will
eventually understand.”
“How are you so sure of that?” Ariel asked.
Mindy
almost did not know how to respond; there was so much that she knew about
Ariel’s story from the film it inspired she could not just outright tell her
“that’s how it ended in the movie.” She knew she had to be truthful and tell
her something that would convince her. So she dug down deep within her heart
and said, “Because he knows it’s important to you and just about any father
should be willing to support his daughter.”
She
practically convinced herself in those words. Flashes of her old life as Sean
Thomas went through her mind as she was reminded of the relationship she shared
as him with Brandy. She felt a tear escape from the corner of her right eye,
but it soon evaporated into the water around her.
“Now that
sounds like a true father,” said Bruce, who was deeply touched by Mindy’s words
to Ariel. “I never knew my father!”
He immediately broke into tears, earning him a couple of supportive hugs from
Anchor and Chum.
“You want
to know what a true father looks like? Take a look at this guy.” Mindy gestured
to Marlin, surprising him as the topic of the conversation centered on him.
“He’s looking for his son and has remained determined to find him.”
The first
moment she noticed Marlin, Ariel recognized him right away. “Hey, I know you.
You’re that strange fish I met today with the cute little one that looks like
you. He’s missing?”
“Yes.”
Marlin sadly confirmed. “And I really have no clue where he might be. He just
disappeared out of clear water.”
“We’ll help
you find him.” Ariel promised.
Her
courtesy surprised Marlin. “Y-You will?”
“Of course.”
Ariel said. “What’s your name?”
The
clownfish smiled at the mermaid; he started to see – just as his son did – how
beautiful she was. “Marlin.”
“I’m
Ariel.”
(Spoiler Note: Although this point in the tale is where we leave off on the Nemo/Mermaid characters, it is where Voyage, the spin-off crossover story between the two franchises, begins.)
As Mindy
watched with joy as the two became acquainted with each other, she suddenly
spotted something past them that no one else seem to: someone smiling and peeping through one of the portholes, particularly
peeping in her direction. It was another
young mermaid – this one a brunette – waving both as a greeting and for Mindy
to join her outside the ship. While everyone’s attention was on Marlin, Mindy
snuck out of the ship, swimming outside to meet with the mysterious mermaid.
“Who
are you?” She asked upon approaching her.
“I’m
Ellison. You don’t know me yet because you haven’t been me yet.”
Her
words were spoken so quickly and cryptically that Mindy was left even more
baffled. “Say what now?”
“Oh.
Sorry. I get a little excited when I meet another version of me.”
“Wait
a minute. You’re a reincarnation?”
“One
from the future, as Yen Sid’s said.”
“You’ve
seen Yen Sid?”
“Sure. He
and the other reincarnations are looking for the rest right now. They gave me
the task of finding you…well, actually, I encouraged
them to. I’ve always wanted to be a mermaid. See my little tail?” She brought
her glittering golden mermaid tail up between them, showing it off for Mindy.
“Isn’t it cute? I made it myself.”
(Biographical Note: Ellison's mermaid form is inspired by the real Jennifer Ellison's mermaid cosplay, which she has done a few shoots for in the past with different colored tails. Livingston stuck with the golden one, as he felt it best suited Ellison's "heart of gold" personality.)
There was
so much energy, childlike innocence, and beauty in this future reincarnation
that Mindy found her to be more like Ariel than Ariel herself. Meeting her,
Mindy was quickly reminded of two others she recently encountered. “Marla and
Shelly! I left them waiting at the shore.”
“Don’t
worry. They’re with us, too. Thanks to Yen Sid.”
Mindy
nodded in relief. “Well, then I guess I’d better join all of you myself, if
we’re all going to take care of things.” She glanced back at the shrunken ship,
seeing through one of the portholes how Marlin had been happily conversing with
Ariel and the others. An uplifted smirk emerged from her face. “Funny.”
“What is?”
“In spite
of the chaos that the rift has brought, it’s also brought new friendships. You
almost have to wonder, once the problem’s been solved, should we find a more logical
way to let nature take its course?”
(Authorial Note: This tale was originally intended to end on a bad note, with the ocean beginning to boil around Ellison and Mindy in reaction to the universe-wide rift getting worse. After choosing to continue the Nemo/Mermaid crossover with Voyage, Livingston decided against this ending, feeling it would ruin the continuity in the spin-off tale. It was also deemed "too dark" of a place to leave the characters in.)
(UP NEXT: A Scene Between Husband & Wife!)
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