Kitsune: Fox Shapeshifter (lesbian erotica)

The Mirra have dolphin-like tails and reproductive organs and constitute an oppressed minority. Unusually, neither species can transform, since humans appear to be extinct and the surface world doesn't figure into the story much at all. The Grindylow from the same novel are much less friendly mermen. In Kai Meyer's first installment of the Dark Reflections Trilogy , The Water Mirror , the mermaids who inhabit Venice appear to be normal-looking women with fish tails- until you notice that their mouths are larger, longer, and filled with very sharp teeth.

They are sentient but are considered bestial by the Venetians, who use them to pull their gondolas and occasionally eat them. They cannot assume human form through magical means, but one mermaid lives as a human thanks to surgically-created legs and a mask covering the lower half of her face. In Paul Jennings 's short story Nails , merfolk can interbreed with humans, but the offspring look perfectly human up until their teens.

Then their fingernails and toenails start to apparently multiply To be more exact, the mermen have legs but are covered in scales up to their necks while mermaids are just traditional merfolk, so only a female half-breed's legs would fuse. Abe's short story Ningyoden Mermaid Legend is about a man falling in love with a flesh-eating mermaid. There's also some cloning involved. Since his work was influenced by Franz Kafka it's also a Mind Screw. Three examples from the work of Jack Chalker: The Umiau from Chalker's Well World series are an alien species of aquatic mammals that just happen to look remarkably like traditional mermaids.

They're also Hermaphrodites , which sure solves the Mermaid Problem. Another aquatic race resembles sea lions. Mermaids in the River of Dancing Gods series are half human and half dolphin but their social organization resembles a pack of hyenas crossed with the mafia. They make their living extorting protection money from fishermen. Sprague de Camp features mermaids in several fantasy stories. In all of them even ones in different continuities the mermaids are part dolphin, rather than part fish.

They are also streamlined for swimming, so the females breasts are generally smaller than those typically portrayed in mermaid art. The mermaids are fairly friendly: In The Chronicles of Narnia series there are two varieties. There are merman and mermaids that attend the coronation at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and sing in honor of the newly crowned kings and queens. These could live in and out of water, though no further description of any kind is given. The artist for the early editions draws them as typical mermaids and merman as beautiful humans with bare chests, green tails, and blonde hair.

Their skin is the color of "old ivory"and they have dark purple hair. Lucy mistakes them to be just like those they met before, but Edmund points out that these Sea People seem unable to leave the water, even for a short time, otherwise the Sea People would have attacked the two of them. Therefore they presumably looked at least somewhat alike.

These Sea People rode giant Sea-Horses, wielded spears, and used hunting fish to hunt other fish for sport. The ones they saw had some sort of orange or emerald streamer from their shoulders, wore different kinds of coronets some with gold and some wore chains of pearls, but no other clothes. They had a large castle or city a top an underwater mountain, for, as C.

Lewis points out from the point of view of underwater people, mountains and valleys' characteristics are reversed — mountains are the warm civilised areas near the surface, valleys are the mysterious dark areas populated by monsters. The artist for the early editions draws them as beautiful and bipedal. Alastair Reynolds wrote about "Denizens" in his Revelation Space series; the Denizens were created by genetic engineering and are thorough fusions of human and fish DNA, along with sequences to secrete antifreeze and let them breathe hydrogen sulfide instead of oxygen.

They look thoroughly monstrous. In The Merman's Children by Poul Anderson merfolk are humanoid, with blue-green skin, webbed hands and feet, gills and attractive enough that one of them seduces a human woman and has children by her. In the Doctor Who tie-in spin off Genius Loci one of the characters tells Bernice Summerfield a gruesome mermaid story in which a fisherman, with a fine sense of the pragmatic, chops a mermaid in two and takes the fish half home as his catch of the day. The bifurcated mermaid turns out to have been the daughter of the queen of the mermaids and hilarity ensues.

In another Doctor Who novel, the "Missing Adventures" novel Evolution , the Doctor comes across a colony of artificially engineered mermaids, created by fusing abducted human children with a "gilled dolphin-creature". Both the mermaids and the "donor-animal" were created by a Mad Scientist who was lucky enough to witness the crash of a spaceship belonging to one of the amorphous shapeshifting Rutans and retrieved some Rutan healing gel, which has the ability to fuse genetic traits from different species together.

In Dan Abnett 's Warhammer 40, novel Brothers of the Snake , Aekon thinks he has been underwater too long because he is hallucinating a merman come to claim his life and carry off his soul. Then he realizes that it looks just like one of his squad-mates, and then he realizes it is the Space Marine in question, come to ensure that he survives. The main character is rescued by a mermaid before it is captured and almost sold to a zoo by the evil human antagonists.

In Andrei Belianin's Thief of Baghdad , the main character Fish out of Temporal Water with Laser-Guided Amnesia and his friend Nasreddin encounter a mermaid, who will only help them if one of them satisfies her. The main character, recognizing the Mermaid Problem promptly passes the "honor" to Nasreddin. After some time, Nasreddin returns with a smile. When asked, he is surprised that his companion doesn't know that mermaids briefly turn into humans when they want to "get it on".

Wright 's Fugitives of Chaos , Amelia speaks of sailors who brought back mermaid wives — whose tails transformed when their wedding bells rang. Kit Whitfield's Deepmen in In Great Waters are air breathing although they can stay under for up to 30 minutes mammals with tails, notably less intelligent than humans, although they have a language it's limited to purely practical matters, abstract concepts like religion being alien to them and can breed with humans.

In fact all the royal houses of Europe and possibly the world have some Deepman blood. Hines features a proud tribe of merfolk they prefer the term "Undine" who appear to be of the standard human-on-top, fish-on-bottom variety. Members of the nobility of this tribe differ however, in that they have two tails bypassing the Mermaid Problem quite nicely. Howard 's Conan the Barbarian story "The Pool of the Black Ones", the arrival of a man on the deck of a ship at sea raises the question whether he's a merman. He's just been swimming for a while.

That is, their upper half is vaguely humanoid and the lower half is a fish-like tail. They don't have hair, being scaly all over, and their "arms" are actually just lengthy fins, but the merfolk comparison is made.

Our Mermaids Are Different - TV Tropes

Lacking opposable digits, they used their telekinetic control of water to build an advanced civilization. They appear in the Star Trek: The Lost Era , Star Trek: Typhon Pact and elsewhere. In a fantasy book called Elsewhere , mermaids apparently swim in the ocean that's in between the world of the living and the dead It Makes Sense in Context. They briefly appear when the main character is trapped under the water, unable to move or breathe.

They are beautiful, but vain and meanspirited, making fun of how ugly she is before leaving her to drown. They seem more like the Fair Folk than evil though. Sarah Porter's Lost Voices Trilogy has a rather dark and unique take on mermaids. Certain young human girls have the potential to come back as mermaids, if they suffered severe abuse or neglect in their human lives. They are reborn as beautiful mermaids with fish tails and enchanting voices that can entrance or madden humans — though the talent is actually pretty rare considering. These mermaids are ageless, though not completely immortal, and all still traumatized from what they endured in life.

They also act a bit like water mammals — they do breath air, but they can hold it for a very long time underwater. They form tribes in the oceans this is for survival, as they can still be killed by humans, sharks, etc. Once transformed, they can't survive out of the water for long, and if trapped on dry land, they will revert to human form and then die a very painful process. It is implied that certain young men and boys have the same kind of potential if badly treated in life, but attempts to transform them are usually unsuccessful.

Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Regained , several mermaids play minor roles. We are told that one recovered Hector of Troy's sword, Duranadel, to be given to Roland. The Ustredi in The Chronicles of Magravandias. They are not dissimilar to The Fair Folk. Some are just straight-up Fish People and some are so beautiful it hurts to look at them.

The beautiful ones are the most dangerous. The Palindrake family has the ability to command the Ustredi through means of an ancient contract. They are the daughters of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea who has the octopus bottom but they all have fish tails. Josh notes that some are beautiful women while others resemble fish and crabs. They all have green skin and sharp teeth and claws hint: Virginia Dare is attacked by one and claims to have stolen her voice, leaving her mute and then implies Nereus will "dispose of her" since she is useless to him now.

In the Kathi Appelt novel Keeper , a young boy named Jacques is a merman; he changes to his form via the "Splash" method. Each siren has a noticeable injury or infliction. Marshall, partner to Santa Muerte , is pale green and has ice protruding from his back.

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Kaimana has unnatural grey hair and has the scar of a shark bite on her torso, and Pinwheel is sickly pale and trembles for an unknown reason. Anne Greenwood Brown 's young adult novel Lies Beneath and its sequel Deep Betrayal feature mermaids who can change into human form at will though depending on how long they've been out of water, immersion can trigger an immediate, instinctive change, and it is sometimes painful.

In mermaid form, a silver ring is visible around their neck. Other abilities include generating electricity which can be governed by emotions , telepathy with fish, and a telepathic bond with others in their family while in mermaid form, which can only be severed by the head of their family. Mermaids are instinctively drawn to others in the link, and it makes it very hard for a mermaid or merman to strike out on their own, though some with stronger wills are capable of doing so.

They age at a rate of one year for every three that go by. Mermaids are unable to break a promise once made, and react VERY badly to humans who do so. Feeding-wise, Lies Beneath mermaids can eat normal food, but are drawn to humans whose auras shine with positive emotions, absorbing them directly from the human, leaving them as dried-out husks and providing the mermaid with a brief reprieve from their natural bleakness. They are predators, and act like them. Reproduction is done in two ways: After the birth, the infant is left with the father until they learn to walk, at which point they are returned to the mother, and live as a mermaid full-time.

The other, less common way is known as "reinvigoration", in which a human drowns and has their heart restarted via the mermaid's electric shock. This method fully converts the human into a mermaid, and bonds them to their new family. It is a very rare event, but can be done, usually by a mermaid who had drowned a victim and had second thoughts. Especially the "luring to death" ones. In the short story National Geographic on Assignment: Mermaids of the Old West included in the anthology Somewhere Beneath Those Waves , different species of mermaids correspond to different species of fish, including shark and catfish.

Dream Girl by J. She uses "The Splash Method", but taking after the Nixie legend, her human form has a perpetually wet skirt or pant hem. In a planned audioplay by Greg Weisman , he plans to have a mermaid character that he claims is different from any other mermaid. How different remains to be seen. In Der Stechlin , Countess Melusine's name is commented on a lot. According to this legend the powerful Lusignan family was descended from her. The merrows in " The Stones Are Hatching " are monsters who steal human souls and imprison them in crab cages.

The Skelks in The Saga Of Larten Crepsley — their tails are hair , which they can grow out or suck back into their bodies at will. They communicate through their hair as well. The Merfolk in Underneath A Merfolk Tale are able to shift at will and have been hiding as humans for centuries, becoming some of the richest families where they live. The Masquerade goes down the drain when one of their own is found on a beach in Maine unconscious and injured. The merfolk in the Mermaid Magic trilogy come in two different varieties — normal merfolk with green tails, sea-blue or sea-green eyes and blonde hair and magical merfolk with orange tails, goldeny-brown eyes, red hair and the ability to perform magic.

Rani, the protagonist, is a magical mermaid who was adopted by normal merfolk when she was a baby. They are portrayed as capricious beings with a simple culture who usually distrust land-dwellers and have the features of a wide variety of marine life always of species found in their habitats from lionfish to seahorses to shrimp.

It's also noted that, like certain species of tropical fish, merpeople can change sex to explain why females are more common than males. The Saga of the Noble Dead has a young noble, who from time to time partly turns into a creature of the merfolk. It turns out that some of his ancestors had common descendants with the merfolk, and for this reason the nobles in this family are not entirely human.

And now and then some of them change, and swim into the sea. This noble man also turns completely into the plot, and finally escapes into the sea. The Heroes of Olympus also shows members of the merfolk. These are related to Poseidon, and even have some kind of training camp on the seabed.

They look like humans, but have a fish tail as a lower body. They teeth resemble those of sharks, and their skin color can be green, blue, red or black. They also have glowing yellow or green eyes. They are both male and female. Poseidon's son Triton also belongs to the merfolk, but has two fish tails instead of one. Their entire body is humanoid, but they can wrap their long hair around their lower half to form a fish-shaped tail similar to a selkie's skin.

They can control anyone who hears their song, similar to sirens. One thing that stands out is their ability to control rock , not something generally associated with mermaids. This is based on the stories of mermaids killing sailors, similar to how rocks and reefs wreck ships. In The Lost Years of Merlin , mermaids are mentioned occasionally, though only seen, briefly, in the last book. Apparently Merlin's paternal grandmother was one. How they got around The Mermaid Problem isn't mentioned, but then, his grandfather was a wizard The Secret of Platform 13 mentions mermaids living on the Island; apparently, one even applied to become the Prince's nurse, apparently believing that she could get around the palace in a big tub of water on wheels or something.

Some of the London mermaids also perform at the Midsummer's party for Raymond; one had cut her hair short and spiky for a beachfront rock concert, which kind of ruined the effect, though. Of course , it's important to mention that Melisande is not a mermaid, she's a water nymph; she has feet. The Australian series H2O: Just Add Water is about three girls who, after finding their way to a mysterious island, turn into mermaids following "The Splash Method" after swimming in a Magical Pool during a full moon. They also have powers over water: Congruent with their origin, the full moon can have weird effects on them if they see it what effects depends on planetary alignments , and in one case, permanently increase their powers.

They can swim quite fast. They cannot breathe underwater, but can comfortably hold their breath for inhumanly long periods. Its spinoff, Mako Mermaids: An H2O Adventure , reveals natural-born well, hatched mermaids who have all of the above powers a human girl-turned-mermaid also picks up all the powers after training with the natural ones, implying that the girls from the first show could have done more if trained , plus the ability to turn invisible temporarily. They can also focus their powers through "moon rings" which seem similar to a rock the main characters encounter in the first show to access a much wider and stronger power set.

Mermen also exist, but live among humans due to an ancient war across gender lines. The obvious reproductive questions go unaddressed, but given that the mermaids seen on the show were hatched long after the war, and they avoid humans like the plague, they clearly reproduce without male help.

The Man From Atlantis looks like a human but has webbed digits, can breathe underwater, and can withstand extreme depths and pressures. She's a reverse mermaid with the fish part on top. Somehow, I'd imagined she'd be a woman on the top and a fish on the bottom. No, that's the stupid way around! The Regina Spektor song "Mermaid" is a sideways adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen 's " The Little Mermaid " set in a modern day city, and mentions that the painful stabbing feeling in her feet causes her to bleed. She claims to have sold her voice for, among other things, a bottle of gin and a bump of cocaine before the narrative goes completely off the rails.

A song about an ocean-going vessel, in which the mermaid is a portent of doom: It was Friday night, when we set sail And we were not far from the land, When the captain spied a lovely mermaid With a comb and a brush in her hand, her hand, her hand, With a comb and a brush in her hand. In some variations, it is possible to take a mermaid captive by stealing an item of magic, thus keeping her captive. Because Abduction Is Love , she will often marry the man who did this and raise a loving family.

But, she will spend all her spare time trying to find it, and once found she will swim away. Those who are nice to stranded mermaids on the other hand receive kindness from them. One Scottish boatbuilder rescued a stranded mermaid and wished that no boat he built would ever sink. His family's boats are, according to one version, famous through large parts of Scotland. The Encantados from Brazilian Folklore are basically magical, shapeshifting river dolphins, who like to assume human form to enjoy our parties, alcohol, and women.

Unlike most examples here, they are nearly Always Male. Also from Brazil, there is the Iara , who is closer to European mermaids, being a woman with the lower body of a fish, dolphin or other aquatic creature, with a mesmerizing voice. The ipupiara is an older myth, about an aggressive humanoid monster that kills fishers and swimmers.

In Japanese myths, there are the Ningyo. These are mermaids, but their bodies look rather animal-like, only the faces are human. The Japanese myths also have the Sazaeoni, which have the lower body of a sea snail. And in contrast to the Ningyo, they are mostly evil. The Philippines' mermaid folklore was extremely grim before the Spanish arrived: While some Filipino merfolk are scary-looking Fish People , others are Apparently Human Merfolk , and still others are the standard "top-half-human, bottom-half-fish" variety, all of them are primarily known for eating people.

Or sacrificing them to the water-gods, which is no less unpleasant. The Syrian goddess Atargatis , often also known as Derceto, was often represented as the standard top-half-human, bottom-half-fish even if alternatives as her being entirely fish-like except for her arms and face also existed. The short-lived 's comic strip Norb by Tony Auth and Daniel Pinkwater visited Atlantis once, and that story arc ended with the implication that Jacobowitz was about to get romantic with a mermaid Fathom has sea nymphs with webbed fingers, prehensile serpentine tails, large dorsal fins, and a psychotic tendency to drown anyone they can get their hands on.

Williams Electronics ' Fish Tales has a beautiful mermaid on the side of the backbox and the far wall of the playfield. Barracora is remembered for its unabashedly unconventional, Giger-esque mermaids. One of the worlds the Sequinox team is sent to in the Gemini arc turns them into merfolk, with each resembling a different sea creature. Chell's a squid, Sid's a nurse shark, Hannah's a betta fish, and Yuki's a dolphin.

Gemini herself is a kraken. Rifts manages to pull off just about all Mer-types. The Merfolk are what one generally thinks about when one thinks mermaid: The Murdhuacha are merged with crustaceans, mollusks, and other seagoing invertebrates. When either kith takes to land, their lower halves automatically turn into legs — the Merfolk resemble Sidhe with their otherworldly beauty, while the Murdhuacha are disturbing enough they can momentarily freeze people in their tracks.

There's also a bit of horror, as the Merfolk and Murdhuacha are trying to fight off the game's constantly-oppressive force of Banality. Any changeling who succumbs to Banality loses all access to their fae abilities and forgets all about their second life. Imagine being one of them, and coming to in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean The French-language Le Monde des Tenebres: France has the Morganed kith, who are similar but not identical to the mer: They associate themselves with land-dwellers more than the isolationist Merfolk do, aligning themselves with the overland courts of the Sidhe rather than the undersea courts of the Merfolk.

Thanks to a Kickstarter stretch goal, they got included in the 20th anniversary corebook for Dreaming. The New World of Darkness variant, Changeling: The Lost , has the Swimmerskin type of Changeling. They can breathe underwater with a point of Glamour their "mana", powered by emotions , but cannot breathe air unless they spend another point of Glamour or let the first power expire.

There's also an Elemental version, but those aren't Merfolk. These include Mermaids and Sirens, and two of their Atavisms reflects abilities commonly associated with them. One of the New World of Darkness fan-supplements, Siren: The Drowning , stars their own take on this trope. Here, Sirens , also known as the Surfaced, are humans who were transformed by the Song, and are supposed to prevent The End Ofthe World As We Know It by using their abilities to stop all its potential causes.

In term of appearance and personalities, they are as varied as any human can be, and can be based on pretty much any aquatic life form, be monstrous or beautiful, aggressive or nice. They all have the ability to switch between two forms: They also have the ability to use Magic Music through their song to various effects, including but not limited to charming mortals. Its are unusual in that they can breed with humans solving the Mermaid Problem via shapechanging by one or the other.

The Queen of Aquas, half-sister of the heir to the Empire of Alphatia, is half-merrow on her mother's side. Also the sahuagin shark-men , locathath generically fishy humanoids , kuo-toa Lovecraftian Deep Ones , and about a dozen more. Essentially, all the above variants and then some.

A better rule is "If there is a race that walks on land, there's an aquatic variant. If there isn't, here's the template to make 'em. And now they're out to find Cthulhu. Selkie morphs in Eclipse Phase usually look like human-seal hybrids, but there's rumors that someone made a variant that looks like a drop-dead gorgeous mermaid. Dolls in the "Merwees" collection somewhat similar to Polly Pocket , except the dolls were about 3x the size would change from "human" to "mermaid" when in warm water.

They could be changed back to resemble a human woman wearing leggings by running them under cold water, or simply leaving them out. There's no limitations on Donald's easily reversible spell that allows Team Keyblade to go to Atlantica in the Kingdom Hearts games — but it does turn Sora, Donald and Goofy into different merfolk than Ariel and Triton. The Legend of Zelda has the Zoras. They have legs with flippers, sea resistant skin and can breathe underwater.

They have the tail of the aquatic animal they're based on instead of hair. They are able to live on land, but can dehydrate quickly. And it's implied that they can interbreed with Hylians. Or at least, relationships between the two races aren't unusual. Neither Ruto in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time nor the girl running the treasure box maze game in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are portrayed as out of the ordinary for their Zora affection.

The Wind Waker had a human ancestor. There must have been a marriage somewhere in the line, though it's unclear whether it happened before the Zora became Rito or afterwards. Less pleasant are the "River Zoras" as they are called in Oracle of Ages , also known as " Zolas " due to a difference in translation, which are green, fish-headed and pop out of the water to shoot fireballs at you.

Technically the River Zoras predate the friendlier Sea Zoras, but the latter became more popular. There's also Martha, a more traditional mermaid, in The Legend of Zelda: They have disturbingly beautiful faces, webbed claws for feet and hands, come in a multitude of rainbow colors, and can transform their body parts to mimic the appearance and abilities of any other sea creature — although usually on a bigger scale. She sings to call in a few waves of fish robots and uses a laser trident. Search for Eden , you are able to become a mermaid, albeit only temporarily, in the last age by stepping into the ocean off the southmost point of South America.

While you're first given a workable amphibian version of whatever you've evolved into, you now have the option to "evolve hands and feet"; doing so will turn you into a seal, then a dolphin, then It's not clear which gender you are, but you apparently attack with devastating effect by kissing your foes. Also, since you cannot evolve further, you cannot replenish HP by minor evolutions, making the boss fight a good deal more difficult.

Of course, since you're an evolutionary dead end, once you've defeated the local boss you're returned to the shore as the creature you entered with. Due to this they use males of other species in order to breed. This is why they have a little human boy around with them. In Harvest Moon DS , one of the special girlfriends is a mermaid.

Or at least she would be special if they didn't explain how to get her in the manual. She can't transform and if you want to marry her yes, you can marry her you have to build a pond on your farm first. Rune Factory 3 features Persia, who transforms by the splash method. In Chrono Cross , mermaids but no known mermen are considered ordinary, albeit aquatic, demi-humans. They do not transform on land but can still somehow transport themselves as though walking necessary for the playable character Irenes , and they can have children with humans in fact, two of the other playable characters are Irenes's nephew and niece.

The children appear perfectly human although the son is mentioned to be inhumanly beautiful. No explanation for any of this is even attempted. Bust A Move 4 has Marino, a merboy prince with a golden trident that he can use to summon waves. His hair appears to be made of ocean waves. It's also a walking Visual Pun in the sense that it's a feline-like creature with fish-like traits. In other words, either a "Catfish" or a "Sea Lion".

Warcraft has the Naga, the cursed elves so transformed at the Sundering. They don't have fish tails per se, but instead have serpentine lower bodies and can breathe underwater The multi-armed females are relatively cute as per normal, but males are far more draconian in appearance.

Yggdra Union has Undines. They're a One-Gender Race of women with fishtails that use tridents. One notable feature is that they can move on land like a snake. They also appear in its prequel Blaze Union and the mostly unrelated Gloria Union. Kingdom of Loathing has the Mer-kin, a race of nasty, xenophobic merfolk who worship Lovecraftian horrors. It should be noted that the word "merkin" has a real-world meaning. It's a pubic wig. Quest for Glory V has the Merfolk, but they are just the standard fishy bottom, human top variety. The King's Quest series has two mermaids: Both are voiceless and have minor roles in the game.

In Overlord II Mermaids appear as enemies. They're all rather fat compared to other examples, and their tails resemble a pufferfish. As expected, a main attack of theirs is to inflate. In Dungeon Crawl , Merfolk are one of the many playable races. Among other things, they're absolutely deadly with polearms and are the only race aside from octopodes without Super Drowning Skills ; their legs turn back into tails when they enter the water.

Hostile ones show up in the Shoals, toting the supposedly-forgotten water magic and hypnotic sirens. Tales of Monkey Island has the Vaycalians, a race of mer-people that live in Spinner's cay and left some ancient artifacts across some islands. They are said to have stopped their evolution years ago, and used their technology to give themselves human feet to live on land, but eventually reversed it and returned to the sea.

The Vaycalians also have no visible secondary nor Tertiary Sexual Characteristics , making it impossible to tell if they're male or female , which leads to some awkward moments between the flirty Vaycalians and the happily married Guybrush. Not to mention like Real-life Carribean-located water-dwellers, they are very colorful. Mermaids are the 'townsfolk' near the Kraken and water crystal in Final Fantasy I. Apparently, they ran out of People of Hair Color. SaGa Frontier has Mesarathim, a grey-skinned mermaid who, like Irenes in Chrono Cross , spends more time out of water than in, although she'd like to change this.

There are merpersons in Dwarf Fortress. Their bones used to be worth as much as dragon bone , though now mermaids as sentients are no longer butcherable and don't have valuable bones. For a while, players were bypassing the "no butchering sentients" rule to get valuable mer-bone anyway, by building "mermaid farm" machines that would trap merfolk until they bred, then beach the offspring so they died and their bones rotted clean. Even Toady thought this was too much , and tooled down the value of mer-bone. Final Fantasy uses typical girls-with-fishy-bottoms mermaids as NPCs in the first game , but somewhere along the way someone decided that they may have been a bit too much of a cliche fantasy element and they haven't appeared in a game since unless you count the totally-not- Gungans Hypello in Final Fantasy X.

In Wandering Hamster , there are mersheep. Yep, sheep with a fish tail. Mermen in Battle for Wesnoth , even if they're doomed to the supplementary in most campaigns, still are a major playable race. A good spectrum of units 3 branched advancement trees covering all main roles fast and powerful in their own environment, but weakened on the ground. She's also psychotically evil, but that's probably not a mermaid thing. She's not really a mermaid either. Her outfit has a distinct mermaid theme to it, but that's neither here nor there. She's actualy an unholy golem created from an infernal recipe called "The Cake Of The Damned", and why the ambulatory form of The Cake Of The Damned should be a psychotically evil, attractive young lady in a mermaid-themed outfit is for the writers to know and us to never find out.

At least, that appears to be the case until episode apparently, and somewhat confusingly, Retcons the above, making her actually a mermaid. She looks like a traditional mermaid, but she has the Dragonians' fin-ears. The Undines from Monster Rancher 2 have a transparent, Jell-like appearance and use both water and ice based attacks. The Drowned City has mermaids appear in the form of the Deep Ones. Nami the Tidecaller from League of Legends is a member of a mermaid race called the Marai.

As well as being rather more fish-like than the usual mermaid they have pale-skinned humanoid faces and arms, but at least their females have Absolute Cleavage coats of scales covering their Non-Mammal Mammaries they also live so deep in the ocean that the light of the sun and moon cannot reach them and they know nothing of the surface world. Nami, at least, can cross land by floating on a small personal vortex of water. After a lore Retcon , the Marai are now a subrace of Vastaya, half-breeds whose ancestors used to be human before magically adopting animal traits.

Touhou has Wakasagihime, the fresh water mermaid of Misty Lake. She's normally a gentle Youkai who spends her time singing songs and picking up rocks, but something caused her to become violent in Double Dealing Character , where she serves as the first boss. Risky's Revenge , mermaids appear as enemies in the aptly named Mermaid Cliffs. They look pretty standard save for the green skin, and they can shoot bubbles with their tridents and dive into puddles to avoid attacks.

However, when they die, they shrivel up and turn into a tiny fish before disappearing. The title character eventually gains the ability to turn into a mermaid, and can shoot bubbles underwater, but on land can only flop along there is even an achievement for crossing an entire land level while in mermaid form. In the sequel Half-Genie Hero , Shantae finds herself investigating Mermaid attacks in an area where several girls have disappeared.

She finds a factory where the missing girls are loaded onto a conveyor, and large fish glommed onto their hips to turn them into fake mermaids. It turns out that Techno Baron has been trying to turn Mermaids into food for other monsters, and making fake mermaids to fill out his orders. He's also captured the Mermaids' Queen, the whale-sized Giga Mermaid, who is not happy.

After freeing and calming down the Giga Mermaid, Mermaids cease to appear as enemies, even on return trips to the same stage.

LGBT themes in mythology

SuikodenIV packs a mermaid that deviates from the standard fish tail mermaid. While on an island that you shipwreck on, you can meet a mermaid that has legs instead of a tail, but still is called a mermaid in game by both game text and another character in your party. She can give items if you play nice with her, and also warns the party that the big boss of the island has attacked one of their own. One Merfolk Unique Character has flavor text in her entry about her being captured by fishermen, shifting her tail to legs at will to escape the net, then being told to put her tail back as she "is more valuable with the tail whole".

Mermaids in Genjuu Ryodan can use music to put units into sleep and have the same movement range as foot units without needing to transform their tails into legs at all. Mermaids replace the Dolphins in Something Else , but they only show up in the secret exit path for Mysterious Maze. A common type of citizen in Wadanohara.

Since they can't go to the surface due to not having legs, a few of them often ask Wadanohara for favors, like collecting apples.

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Atlantis Underwater Tycoon gives you the opportunity to attract traditional mermaids to your city distinct from the more Fish People -like Atlanteans. While in water, mermaids have fins, however on land they have scaly legs. They have unique Needs. They eat kelp and fish. Mermaids in Lunarosse can turn into humans if kept out of land too long and change back when submerged in water.

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And if they fall in love with a human, the heartbreak of their death turns them into seafoam. Oh, and their tears can be weaponized due to their magical content. Lost Sand City of Kefin has a river mermaid named Nedo, who may be based on the naiads of Greek mythology. In the Japanese island horror Playstation game Ningyo No Rakuin , when they're not sacrificing people, an evil cult is taking ordinary girls and turning them into mermaids through alchemy.

These ex-human mermaids have fin-like growths on the sides of their arms and heads. In the Japanese video game Shinkai Densetsu Meremanoid , which is based off the anime, the goddess Aphrodite created the world and the merpeople or Meremanoid. The Meremanoid are your standard mermaids physically, but socially they are a matriarchy in honor of Aphrodite. They also rule the world as there are no humans in this world, and they do so with fancy weapon tricks and powerful magic. Prophecy has it that one of these merpeople is the dreaded Destroyer who will usher in an apocalypse, unfortunately due to the lack of gender in their language they don't know who it is.

In Valkyrie Profile , Yumei is a half-human mermaid who is recruited to be an Einherjar. Her mother's a mermaid and her father was the Shogun of Yamato. This allows Yumei to take on human form to wander the surface world, but she'll revert to mermaid form when she casts magic. The Genie's Curse , the oasis near Zaratan is home to a pahari, who can turn from mermaid-like to human at will.

She provides you with a certain amount of help, and also turns out to be married to the sorcerer Farid Al-Mutan, who provides more assistance later on. Cuphead has a huge mermaid called Cala Maria. Once she takes enough damage, she becomes a gorgon after two of her eel minions shock her. She's also shown to be able to go on land in the good ending. Bravest Warriors introduces us to Plum and her species the Merewifs, grey-skinned amphibious humanoid aliens whose legs merge into mermaid tails when in water.

Plum is also depicted with webbed hands in the comics, in contrast with the web cartoon where she appears to have two fingers on each hand. In the second season, Plum reveals she can transform into a scarier, more monstrous form with glowing purple eyes and fangs, and her arms split into six tentacles , something which was foreshadowed in the episode Ultra Wankershim. Since she is the only Merewif to have appeared in the series to date, it's unknown if every member of her people possess this power. No Pizza After Midnight has a merboy named Dart, who is the secret friend and mutual crush of a girl named Sera Sophia.

He is the typical depiction of merfolk, though he has gills on his sides which need to keep wet. He can't turn his tail into legs, even though he'd like to. The series does frequently lampshade a lot of issues with mermaid biology. Zoophobia has two types of mermaids: Murms , which are joke creatures that are brightly-colored, generic mermaids that do nothing but flop about and look silly, yet are beautiful and harmless.

They hide the monstrosities that are They are known as "the true mermaids", and are extremely rare to spot. The Nereids of The Noordegraaf Files are the half - squid version. Most of the time they are friendly and amiable to humans, but the saltwater version will often kill humans on sight, and when they don't kill them immediately, they torture, drown, and eat the poor soul who happened to encounter them. Although it is kind of our fault - they're nearly extinct, and our pollution doesn't help their numbers. They are also one of the author's favorite kinds of creatures - the comic has an entire page on them , and it has the most text of any page on the site.

In the original version of Elf Life , extremely talented mermaid queen Leukothea gets banished to the surface after fairy queen Glynthial ruins her ability to breathe water. When Airek, a young half-ogre accompanying them, addresses the Mermaid Problem , Glynthial points out that mermaids do have functional legs inside their tails which will come out now that she's on land Turns out they're quite attractive, actually. Well not all, but Leviatha from The Beast Legion is bad to the bone. When the protagonists of Accidental Centaurs have to cross an ocean at one point, their helpful genie friend turns them into merfolk instead.

Humans cannot exist in otherspace, but mythological parallels are acceptable. Alex is at first enthused at the opportunity for hot mermaid sex, until his girlfriend cruelly points out that fish use a different method for reproduction. Also, the mermaid tails appear to have knees. Many artists commonly draw merfolk with tails that have knee and ankle joints instead of a spinal column. They'd probably swim much like a human using a monofin, a single large flipper to use both legs at once. If you watch swimming competitions you do notice that when they are underwater after kicking off the end they do keep their legs together and use an undulating motion.

A horizontal fluke just extends this motion. Rebecca Burg has released concept art which reveals that in Loonatic-land, merfolk are a type of aquatic vampire. When they're luring in prey, they're fairly cute, if slightly overfinned. When they're about to feed, their eyes take on a crazed look, and their mouth splits into a grin which reveals that all their teeth are razor-sharp. And unlike some vampires in this setting, where being turned isn't even a guarantee, when a mermaid feeds on you, you become one. The Dreamland Chronicles Mermaids to the rescue!

Homestuck 's Troll race is divided between a land-dwelling caste and a sea-dwelling caste, the latter of which have vastly different internal anatomy from the others as well as a pair of fins sticking out from their necks. At the end of the first volume of Tales Of Gnosis College , Li Anwei reveals that she is in the process of a slow transformation into something like a mermaid by showing expanded webbing growing between her fingers. She still looks pretty human when she takes to the sea, though. In Question Duck , tragically, love was not possible between a man and a mermaid.

In Beaches And Basilisks , two distinct varieties have been seen. Fish-like merfolk are seen early on. Later, Principal Tursiops represents a more human-like type of merfolk. In Charby the Vampirate they seem to have extremely bizarre sexual dimorphism. Only one mermaid family has been shown but it consists of a fairly typical beautiful humanoid mermaid wife, her gargantuan horned Fish People husband and their bipedal horned Fish People teen aged son who is about as tall as a human eight year old.

She can fit in her husband's hand no problem. Yer aware a' how often these things get mixed up with manatees, right? Either out of revenge or sympathy, the ocean created a new breed of fish that symbiotically joined bodies with the woman so they may survive underwater. In The Dragon Wars Saga , the merfolk can shift their tails into legs — albeit still covered in scales — for use on land. Many of them live in freshwater and it's been suggested they use this form for migrations if their home dries up. However they become ill if out of the water too long.

The Whitest Kids U' Know has a sketch on this very trope. DeviantArt member, Doodle Buggy , drew many [1] pages devoted to mermaids based on the myriad marine animals of the sea beyond simple nondescript fish. Also counts as Our Centaurs Are Different. Mermaid's Tail Galleries has galleries of mermaids based on specific fish mostly sharks, rays, and freshwater fish in addition to the usual generic mermaids. Played for laughs in Hardly Working when Dan falls in love with a maidmer.

That's right, human legs with a fish head on top. It only makes the usual Mermaid Problem even worse, with his coworkers being flat-out disgusted. Jake Long mermaids can't switch but they can live on land for long periods. Long enough for one to go undercover at Jake's school for several months as his principal, using a wheelchair. As an additional feature, they seem to have a natural talent for maths. It also features a mermaid who is afraid of water. The short lived series The Prince of Atlantis feature a legged human-dolphinish-hybrid and a half-human-half-ray creature.

Futurama has a episode with Merpeople dwelling in the lost city of Atlanta, who are accelerated-by-caffeine-evolved-humans who can't switch. Fry falls for one and intends to stay with them until he discovers the Mermaid Problem In an episode of Family Guy Lois is rescued by a reverse merman human legs, fish head and torso. Notably, the actual gag was a discussion of the Mermaid Problem. The animal spirits or fairies often choose same-sex partners, usually young men or boys. Chinese dragons "consistently enjoy[s] sexual relationships with older men", one example being in the tale of "Old Farmer and a Dragon", in which a sixty-year-old farmer is forcibly sodomised by a passing dragon, resulting in wounds from penetration and bites that require medical attention.

Despite the later literature of some Taoist schools disapproval of homosexuality, [54] [55] Tu Er Shen is a deity in Chinese folklore who manages the love and sex between homosexual men. His name literally means " rabbit deity". One day Hu Tianbao was caught peeping on the inspector, at which point he confessed his reluctant affections for the other man.

The imperial inspector had Hu Tianbao sentenced to death by beating. Since his crime was one of love, underworld officials decided to right the injustice by delegating Hu Tianbao as the god and safeguarder of homosexual affections. For thousands of years, male homosexuality was referred to in literature by alluding to two semi-legendary figures from the early Zhou Dynasty. The first was Mizi Xia and the half-eaten peach which he shared with his lover, the actual historical figure, Duke Ling of Wei.

The second was Lord Long Yang , who convinced an unnamed King of Wei to remain faithful to him by comparing himself to a small fish which the King might throw back if a larger fish came along. While both Mizi Xia and Lord Long Yang may have actually existed, nothing is known about them beyond their defining stories, and their presence in Chinese literature was very much that of legendary characters who served as archetypes of homosexual love. According to Japanese folklore and mythology , homosexuality was introduced into the world by Shinu No Hafuri and his lover Ama No Hafuri.

These were servants of a primordial goddess, possibly the sun goddess Amaterasu. Upon the death of Shinu, Ama committed suicide from grief, and the couple were buried together in the same grave. In another tale, Amaterasu retreats from conflict with her brother Susanoo into a cave , depriving the Earth of sunlight and life. In order to coax Amaterasu from the cave, the deity of humour and dance, Ame No Uzume , performs a bawdy sexual dance that involved exposing her breast and vulva, and inviting Amaterasu to admire them. On Amaterasu's stepping out of the cave, the transgender kami Ishi Kori Dome held up a magical mirror, and the combination of the dance and her reflection fascinate Amaterasu so much that she does not notice other spirits closing the cave entrance behind her.

Shinto gods are involved in all aspects of life, including the practice of shudo traditional pederasty. Other kami associated with same-sex love or gender variance include: Kitsune sometimes disguise themselves as women, independent of their true gender, in order to trick human men into sexual relations with them. Hindu mythology has many examples of deities changing gender, manifesting as different genders at different times, or combining to form androgynous or hermaphroditic beings. Gods change sex or manifest as an Avatar of the opposite sex in order to facilitate sexual congress.

Hindu mythology contains numerous incidents where sexual interactions serve a non-sexual, sacred purpose; in some cases, these are same-sex interactions. Sometimes the gods condemn these interactions but at other times they occur with their blessing. In addition to stories of gender and sexual variance that are generally accepted by mainstream Hinduism, modern scholars and queer activists have highlighted LGBT themes in lesser known texts, or inferred them from stories that traditionally are considered to have no homoerotic subtext.

Such analyses have caused disagreements about the true meaning of the ancient stories. In general, Buddhist scripture does not distinguish same-sex sexual activity from heterosexual activity, both being seen as non-conducive to spiritual growth. For example, the monastic rules that prohibit LGBT clergy in some sects come from interpretation of the epic Mahavagga. In the Pandakavathu section of this work, tales about "pandaka" sexually or gender variant people are related.

In one such story, a Pandaka first approaches a group of monks, then a group of novices, and finally elephant keepers asking those in each group to "defile" them. Although rejected each time and driven away, the encounters create an ethos of innuendo about the monks, leading the Buddha to bar pandakas from the clergy. In some tales they would even be reincarnated together as animal pairs "ruminating and cuddling together, very happy, head to head, muzzle to muzzle, horn to horn".

Harvey however, disagress and states that this is a reference to brotherly love and not a platonic relationship. In pre-colonial Philippines, particularly in the colonies and kingdoms, account of the Death god, Sidapa. Sidapa is depicted as robust and handsome and he fought the god of war, Macanduc, and the goddess of the tides to obtain the lover he pursued: The god of death pursued one of the comely lunar deity: Bulan the boy moon.

Their relationship is the perfect example of Pederasty. The myth tells how the god of death, who was lonely, saw the beauty of the moons and desired them, but he had competition. He battled and defeated the other gods and goddess. He romantically pursued the boy moon who resides in the heavens. The god of death ordered the mermaids and birds to sing praises for the boy moon.

He also asked the flowers to makes sweet perfumes and nectar for Bulan, and lastly, he gave light to the fireflies so the boy moon could descend to where they could meet. Stories say that Bulan was so fair that the vicious mermaids became gentle and that the fishes and birds forgot to fly and swim.

Sidapa took the boy moon to be his child bride and, as legends say and most natives still believe, they reside together sleeping in each other's arms in Mt. Majaas, in the province of Antique. The celestial creator deity of Dahomey mythology is Mawu-Lisa , formed by a merger of the twin brother and sister gods Lisa the moon and Mawa the sun.

In combined form, they presented as intersex or transgender with changing gender. The Akan people of Ghana have a pantheon of gods that includes personifications of celestial bodies. These personification manifest as androgynous or transgender deities, and include Abrao Jupiter , [92] Aku Mercury , [93] and Awo Moon. Possession by spirits is an integral part of Yoruba and other African spiritual traditions. The possessed are usually women, but can also be men, and both genders are regarded as the "bride" of the deity while possessed. The language used to describe possession has a sexual and violent connotation but unlike in Yoruba-derived American religions, there is no link assumed between possession and homosexual or gender variant activity in everyday life.

The mythology of the Shona people of Zimbabwe is ruled over by an androgynous creator god called Mwari , who occasionally splits into separate male and female aspects. Few records of homosexuality exist in Egyptian mythology , [97] and the written and pictorial works are reticent in representing sexualities. The most well-known example of this occurs in the power-struggle between the sky-god Horus , and his uncle Set , the destructive god of the desert.

Set's attempts to prove his superiority include schemes of seduction, in which he compliments Horus on his buttocks and tries to anally penetrate him. Unknowingly failing, Set ejaculates between Horus's thighs, allowing Horus to collect his semen to use against him. Horus then deliberately spreads his own semen on some lettuce, which was Set's favorite food the Egyptians thought that lettuce was phallic. After Set has eaten the lettuce, they go to the gods to try to settle the argument over the rule of Egypt. The gods first listen to Set's claim of dominance over Horus, and call his semen forth, but it answers from the river, invalidating his claim.

Then, the gods listen to Horus' claim of having dominated Set, and call his semen forth, and it answers from inside Set. At least some authors, however, have interpreted an at least more neutral message. In some versions, the act between Horus and Set was consensual, if improper, and Set's consumption of Horus' seed produced Thoth 's lunar disc, thus being somewhat positive in outcome.

Human fertility was a major aspect of Egyptian mythology, and was often entwined with the crop fertility provided by annual flooding of the river Nile. Many female pharaohs and goddesses were depicted with male genitalia and it is known a few took male descriptions. Isis and her sister Nephthys are considered to possibly be a couple, both having children with Osiris and Wadjet the scorpion goddess is also associated with her. Isis also appeared in the Greek myth of Iphis, allowing two women to marry.

The indigenous population of Australia have a shamanistic religion, which includes a pantheon of gods. The rainbow serpent god Ungud has been described as androgynous or transgender. Shaman identify their erect penises with Ungud, and his androgyny inspires some to undergo ceremonial subincision of the penis. Other Australian mythological beings include Labarindja , blue-skinned wild women or "demon women" with hair the colour of smoke. They are sometimes depicted as gynandrous or intersex, having both a penis and a vagina. This is represented in ritual by having their part played by men in women's clothes.

Polynesian religions feature a complex pantheon of deities. Many of these gods refer to their companions of either sex as "aikane", a term encompassing passionate friendship and sexual-love, often in bisexual contexts. Wahineomo , a goddess of Hawaiian mythology whose name means "thrush woman", is depicted in relationships with other goddesses Hi'iaka and Hopoe.

During his life Lohiau was the lover of both the female Pele and male Paoa. Third gender, or gender variant, spiritual intermediaries are found in many Pacific island cultures, including the bajasa of the Toradja Bare'e people of Celebes , the bantut of the Taosug people of the south Philippines , and the bayoguin of the pre-Christian Philippines. These shamans are typically biologically male but display feminine behaviours and appearance.

The Big Nambas of Vanuatu have the concept of divinely approved-of homoerotic relationships between men, with the older partner called the "dubut". This name is derived from the word for shark, referring to the patronage of the shark-human hydrid creator god Qat. Among their pantheon of deities, the Ngaju Dayak of Borneo worship Mahatala-Jata , an androgynous or transgender god. The male part of this god is Mahatala , who rules the Upperworld, and is depicted as a hornbill living above the clouds on a mountain-top; the female part is Jata , who rules the Underworld from under the sea in the form of a water-snake.

These two manifestations are linked via a jewel-encrusted bridge that is seen in the physical world as a rainbow. Mahatala-Jata is served by "balian", female hierodules, and "basir" transgender shamans metaphorically described as "water snakes which are at the same time hornbills". This prompted Menjara into becoming the world's first healer, allowing her to cure her sister-in-law , but this treatment also resulted in Menjara changing into a woman or androgynous being. The Mayan god Chin , reported from the sixteenth century, is said to have introduced homoeroticism into the Mayan culture and subsequently became associated with same-sex love.

His example inspired noble families to purchase young men as lovers for their sons, creating legal relationships akin to marriage. Xochipilli 'Flower Prince' was the god of art , games, beauty, dance , flowers , maize , and song in Aztec mythology , and also the patron of homosexuals and homosexual prostitutes [ dubious — discuss ].

In Inuit shamanism, the first two humans were Aakulujjuusi and Uumarnituq, both male. This same-sex couple desired company and decided to mate. This sexual encounter resulted in pregnancy for Uumarnituq. As he was physically not equipped to give birth, a spell was cast that changed his sex, giving him a vagina capable of passing the child. The now-female Uumarnituq was also responsible for introducing war into the world via magic, in order to curb overpopulation. She is depicted as gynandrous or hermaphroditic in some myths, and is served by two-spirit shamans.

Other myths show Sedna as a bisexual or lesbian, living with her female partner at the bottom of the ocean. Many stories of Native Americans include Coyote seducing apparently lesbian couples, usually much to his detriment in the end. Other great spirits will sometimes take over a female body if no other presents itself when they wish to seduce a beautiful young woman.

A large number of spirits or deities lwa exist in Haitian and Louisiana Voodoo. These lwa may be regarded as families of individuals or as a singular entity with distinct aspects, with links to particular areas of life. Some lwa have particular links with magic, ancestor worship or death such as the Ghedes and Barons. A number of these are further particularly associated with transgenderism or same-sex interactions. He is sometimes depicted as an effeminate drag queen and inspires those he inhabits to lascivious sexuality of all kinds, especially transgender or lesbian behaviour in women.

Samedi has a tendency toward "lascivious movements" that cross gender boundaries and also imply a lust for anal sex. Other barons displaying gay behaviour are Baron Lundy and Baron Limba, who are lovers and teach a type of homoerotic nude wrestling at their school, believed to increase magical potency.

Our Mermaids Are Different

Another lwa, Erzulie , is associated with love, sensuality and beauty. Erzulie can manifest aspects that are LGBT-related, including transgender or amazonian traits, in addition to traditionally feminine guises. When inhabiting men, these aspects can result in transgender or homoerotic behaviour, whereas they may result in lesbianism or anti-male sentiment in women.

Erzulie Freda is seen as the protector of gay men, and Erzulie Dantor is associated with lesbians. To hide her shame at this event, she banished her other two sons, Inle and Abbata , to live at the bottom of the ocean, additionally cutting out Inle's tongue and making Abbata deaf.

As a result of their isolation and loneliness, Inle and Abbata become passionate friends and then lovers, able to communicate empathically. This pataki is used to explain the origin of incest, muteness , and deafness in addition to homosexuality. The ancient regions of Mesopotamia and Canaan were inhabited by a succession of overlapping civilisations: Sumer , Phoenicia , Akkadia , Babylonia , Assyria.

The mythologies of these people were interlinked, often containing the same stories and mythological gods and heroes under different names. Enki , the supreme god, is accepting of these people and assigns them roles in society as "naditu" priestesses and "girsequ" servants to the king.

In ancient Mesopotamia, worship of the goddess Inanna included "soothing laments" sung by third gender priests called " gala ". The relationship between the semi-divine hero Gilgamesh and his "intimate companion" Enkidu in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh has been interpreted as a sexual one by some modern scholars. Enkidu was created as a companion to Gilgamesh by the goddess Aruru, and civilised by a harlot.