History Main / BathtubMermaid

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* Sheba from ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' is a Blade who seems themed around this trope, despite not being a typical mermaid. She constantly lounges about in a levitating bathtub, even incorporating it into her attacks.

* The ''Mili'' song of the same name somewhat deconstructs it with a metaphorical mermaid, who needs to lose parts of herself to make the human let her stay in the tub and becoming trapped once he loses interest in her.

* ''She Creature'': A mermaid is caught and held in a tank on land. Later she's put in a tank on a ship and taken on a sea voyage.

This may or may not be a good idea, depending on the tone of the work. More precise logistics (such as the necessary salinity or chemicals present in the water) will usually be glossed over. While this can be played for comedy, more dramatic works' use of this trope will emphasize that the creatures are essentially captive in such a small space, especially if said creature was placed there unwillingly.

%% Image selected via crowner in the Image Suggestion thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions76

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheShapeOfWater https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/01shapeofwaterprint_videolarge_v3.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[DeconstructedTrope Seems cute, but just wait 'til that water bill comes in.]]]]

* In ''Webcomic/BailinAndLiYun'', when Arctic researcher Li Yun returns home, leaving Bailin behind, the latter crosses the globe to find him again, and insists on staying with him. When Li Yun reaches out to one of his scientist friends to see if there are any large aquatic tanks for him to rent and he comes up dry, that's when he decides to hold Bailin in his apartment. While Bailin's happy to both be back in cold water ''and'' reunite with his dearest, [[DeconstructedTrope Li Yun recognizes that this gives him a whole host of new problems, such as inevitable water damage in his bathroom, it being far too small to keep Bailin in, and his landlord's coming over in a couple of weeks.]] Additionally, Bailin doesn't seem to suffer out of being in freshwater instead of saltwater.

* Inverted in ''{{Literature/Aquamarine}}'', where the mermaid can easily turn into a human if her legs are dry (not so much in the book it's adapted from). But she does end up in the bathtub when the love interest comes calling...and her human friend is hiding under the water, passing off her legs as Aqua's.

* The children's book ''The Call of the Swamp'' by Davide Cali and Marco Soma depicts [[InterspeciesAdoption an anthropomorphic axolotl adopted by humans]]. While he can do all sorts of dry-land human activities without trouble, he sleeps in a bathtub at night instead of a bed.

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness'' when a mermaid dies after being put in a bathtub [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome due to it not being saltwater.]]

* ''Film/{{Miranda}}'' puts its titular mermaid heroine in a bathtub when she comes up to London.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': Bubbles brings a baby whale home, so they flood the basement and hide her there from the Professor, who had warned Bubbles about bringing animals into the house.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ByTheSea'', the premise is that Obi-Wan Kenobi finds an injured merman named Cody washed up on the beach he lives near, and he chooses to nurse Cody back to health by placing him in his copper bathtub and laboriously filling it with seawater, bucket by bucket, with near-daily water changes. He doesn't want to risk Cody getting further injured resting in the tide pools near the shore and potentially getting trapped at low tide, or attacked and unable to get away. The bathtub also isn't great because merfolk are really supposed to be submerged as much as possible, and Cody's tail makes him way too long to fit in the tub- he can either submerge his gills (which are on his back) or his tail, but not both. But as much as he loves being able to stretch out in open water, he misses the bathtub while he's away because it meant he was with Obi-Wan.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ByTheSea'', the premise is that Obi-Wan Kenobi finds an injured merman washed up on the beach he lives near, and he chooses to nurse Cody back to health by placing him in his copper bathtub and laboriously filling it with seawater, bucket by bucket, with near-daily water changes. He doesn't want to risk Cody getting further injured resting in the tide pools near the shore and potentially getting trapped at low tide, or attacked and unable to get away. The bathtub also isn't great because merfolk are really supposed to be submerged as much as possible, and Cody's tail makes him way too long to fit in the tub- he can either submerge his gills (which are on his back) or his tail, but not both. But as much as he loves being able to stretch out in open water, he misses the bathtub while he's away because it meant he was with Obi-Wan.