#mernymph

Mernymph: An aquatic being with a humanoid shape but fish features. A mix of a merperson and a water nymph. They may have tails, webbed ears and hands, appendage fins, gills, scales and other fish like features. The mix part comes from the fact they have the ability to switch between legs and a tail. Like having a mer form and a nymphic form. They are bound to water, they can walk on land but cannot stay there permanently. Like a nymph, their source of water (lake, river, spring, beach etc) determines their condition. Clean water and a thriving ecosystem means the they are healthy. Polluted water, drying up or the ecosystem failing makes them fall sick and risks their life. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve coined the term mernymph, I’ve not seen anyone else use it. But if there is use before me, then I give credit to them and consider this post information and a flag design in that case. At its core, a mernymph is a being that has features of a merperson and a nymph.

In short, the features of a mernymph are:

Fins/webbing on body.

Gills.

Mix of scales and human skin.

Humanoid bodily shape (arms, legs, head, torso).

The ability to gain a mer-tail in place of legs.

Connection to water. Needs water to survive, typically tied to a particular water source.

Ability to breathe on land and underwater.

Truthfully I don’t really know what the conclusion of this post is, but I feel like with plurality already being under researched, under represented, stigmatised and misunderstood, people explaining their experiences in detail will only do good. It’ll further discussion, interest in research and understanding. So this is my rather odd but interesting experience as a system host that was once human but slowly turned into a mermymph.

First off, some definitions and clarifications:

Mernymph: an aquatic being with a humanoid shape but fish features. A mix of a merperson and a water nymph. They may have tails, webbed ears and hands, appendage fins, gills, scales and other fish like features. The mix part comes from the fact they have the ability to switch between legs and a tail. Like having a mer form and a nymphic form. They are bound to water, they can walk on land but cannot stay there permanently. Like a nymph, their source of water (lake, river, spring, beach etc) determines their condition. Clean water and a thriving ecosystem means the they are healthy. Polluted water, drying up or the ecosystem failing makes them fall sick and risks their life. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve coined the term mernymph, I’ve not seen anyone else use it. But if there is use before me, then I give credit to them. At its core, a mernymph is a being that has features of a merperson and a nymph.

My plurality: we consider ourselves mixed origins, although the initial formation is disordered in nature. We have been recognised by medical professionals as having OSDD. Although not every alters split was a result of trauma, some have been the result of hyperfixation or the need to fill a role. We also consider ourselves semi-functional. We have good communication, can live a relatively normal life with the right accommodations and generally aren’t in any major distress. But there are symptoms completely uncontrollable that impact ability to live normally. Huge memory gaps, inability to control switches and dissociation.

The background:

Being autistic, merfolk and adjacent creatures were my first and longest running special interest. As early age 5ish when it began. It started with the usual kid friendly 2000s media like Aquamarine and H2o, the mermaid Barbie movies, mermaid YouTube series etc. I devoured that shit. I made and swam in my first swimmable mermaid tail at age 9. Also being Australian-Italian, I was very much exposed to Greco Roman mythology and the original mythology behind merfolk and nymphs. As I got a bit older, the more siren like depictions got added into the mix too. And eventually any fish like creature in media like LOZs Zora, were lumped into it. When I say I was in deep, I mean DEEP. I was trying every damn ‘mermaid spell 100% real and works’ spell I could find on YouTube, some teenagers blog website and forum. One of my earliest known alters who amazingly is still around today, is a siren. And we do have a fictive of a mythical figure who is half naiad. So much of my life comes back to merfolk and adjacent creatures and their mythology. The groundwork was always there.

I first became aware of the term OSDD in 2019, and wow huh… my ‘Imaginary friends’ I’ve always had are actually alters. Oh, those memory gaps and days when things felt like I wasn’t in my body is a symptom? Well damn. That explains a lot.

I don’t actually know when the ‘transformation’ so to speak started. I was very much still human when I first became aware plurality. If I had to guess, I’d say between 2023-2025 is when the changes slowly started coming in. As the host and ‘core’ so to speak, I always looked like the body internally. Within the headspace, I matched the body. At least, I was my ideal version of it. The haircut and colour would differ, the clothes would differ. But my base appearance was a match to the body. But at some point, I started gaining more aquatic features. I didn’t notice it at all until one day an alter pointed it out. Seems like none of them really noticed it either until we all suddenly just… became aware I’d changed. I have no idea why this happened, but it’s like I fell into a h2o moonpool. One day I was human and matched the body closely, the next I wasn’t. And somehow none of us noticed until the brain decided to just make us aware one day. I gained webbed ears, gills, black scleras, arm and leg fins and if I want to go swimming in the headspace, which has a beach, I grow a tail. It’s all very koi fish like (hence my decision to get a koi tail to swim in while fronting lol). Why exactly a koi? Don’t know. It just sorta happened. Maybe because a place a frequented as a kid had a koi pond? My base bodily appearance still resembles the body. Same skin, same hair colour, same iris colour, same general build. Just add the fish features.

Given the origins of the system, it’d put my money on some kind of complex psychological thing to do with self image, identity, sense of self etc. and the fact I’ve been swimming in tails for over 10 years now probably has something to do with it. But I’ve simply never heard of anyone going through something like this. I’m sure it has happened, just doesn’t get talked about. I know fusions can affect alters appearances, as well as things that happen inside a headspace. But this just didn’t seem to have any trigger at all. It just happened. There was no fusion, no odd headspace happenings. I came to the conclusion of ‘I’m a mernymph now’ rather than just a merperson or a nymph because of the mix of features and abilities considered more of a merfolk thing and more of a nymph thing.

Since I’m the host and spend 90% of my time in and around the front, I’m stuck in this fuckass human (and chronically fucking ill) body a lot. I’ve lived as a human so long anyway, I mean I was one for years. So it’s kind of just a mild inconvenience that I have to see a human in the mirror. Where are my fins this is bullshit. Why do I have to hold my breath when I swim in the front? Gross. I should be able to breathe and just vibe on the seabed.

So, that’s my odd, unique and probably very psychologically complex experience with being a system host that was human one day and a fish the next.