Think of the mooks!
Given the scales up and down the body, plus the fins behind the ears (which I've seen before, and that never makes sense - fish don't have such structures by their auditory organs and such structures would inhibit their speed), I would default towards placing them in Fish People... in fact, I think scales in general are the dividing line between the two tropes to me.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Well, yeah, but the current pic makes it seem like typical Fish People have to be more or less "fish with humanoid body structure (two arms, two legs, vaguely humanoid-shaped head with forward-facing eyes and mouth)", instead of "humanoid creature that has many fish-like characteristics that easily invalidate any attempt at classifying as Apparently Human Merfolk".
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Who's Vergo-san.
I've always used One Piece to set the standard, which is
- More fish on bottom (i.e. has tail) - mermaid/man.
- More fish on top (i.e. has human legs) - fishman/woman.
Though, from what I can see from Apparently Human Merfolk, that trope covers more human looking people that are barely any fish at all - they just happen to live underwater and have access to land.
As far as I can tell, anyway.
I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior
From the Apparently Human Merfolk page:
"They look so human that they could wander unnoticed down a city street, but can breathe and live underwater." It's pretty clear. The picture you show clearly couldn't walk down a city street unnoticed, even if she had legs and clothes. It doesn't seem to really fit Fish People. On the other hand, it looks like a shoe-in for Our Mermaids Are Different.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Technically, mermaids don't count for Fish People, and thus neither the picture nor Our Mermaids Are Different can intersect with Fish People; I'm only using the pic for the almost-human-except-for-partially-scaly-skin appearance. The issue that's confounding is that Fish People's writeup makes it look like "a fish with a generally humanoid body structure", and thus seems to exclude cases of "looks like a human with scales over much of their body, and other somewhat-minor fish features like fins, gills, etc.", so I'm not sure if characters like Darkstalkers' Rikuo/Aulbath
◊ would fit the trope.
edited 1st Oct '11 5:30:31 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Courtesy Links.
Now, according to the definitions of each trope, which one do you believe would apply to an imaginary bipedal version of the mermaid in the attached picture here?