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Peter Pan from a new perspective
“Come on, Marissa! Don’t be such a prat!” I yelled at the dim-witted mermaid sitting on the rock next to me.
“Just because I won’t let you borrow my coral necklace does NOT mean I’m a prat!” The green-finned fish said.
“Uh, yeah it does!” I shouted back at her.
“Shush! Your bickering is interrupting my beauty sleep!”
I looked over at Cara lying in the sun, dangling her rich pink tail in the clear azure water of the Mermaid Lagoon.
“Fine.” I said, because beauty sleep is SO important. “I’ll just use your green shells!”
“When are you just going to use your own accessories, Aleena?”
“Whe- hey.” I picked up a bright pink starfish stick to the side of the speckled grey rock I was perched on. “This color is so much better than green!” Marissa smirked as she ran a sea shell comb though her black hair and I just rolled my eyes in return.
You see, Marissa is one of those “work hard and it will pay off” kind of mer-people, so of course she finds it “unfair” when I “borrow” her things. I mean, for some reason she actually likes the green color in her eyes. Anyway, back to me. I have beautiful blonde hair that glints in the sun, and I just put in that sparkly pink starfish that went perfectly with my glimmering royal blue tail. My eyes are a clear sapphire blue. Boy I really do love talking about myself! I heard a crazy splashing sound and looked over at Kayleen, the new girl who was sitting underneath the gentle waterfall to my left.
“Aleena?” said a whiny voice.
“What?” I said in the same whiny voice.
“Can you make the water a little warmer?”
“For the last time Kayleen, I have no way to control the temperature of the water.” I answered in a slightly stern voice. I did agree with Peter to help her fit in with us here in Mermaid Lagoon, but it’s just so hard to be nice to anybody with a voice like that, even if she did have a pretty mauve tail. I dove into the ever-changing mirror of blue and was refreshed by it’s coolness. When I surfaced, I saw two silhouettes in the sky.
“Girls, Peter’s back!” I trilled.
“Where!” Kayleen whined.
“Over there!” Marissa pointed to her right.
“Peter! Peter!” We all shouted and waved to the figures flying towards us. Now, before you get the wrong idea, we love Peter! He is so charming and funny and handsome! Peter played his flute as he flew over to land on one of the rocks.
“Hello girls!” He chirped happily. Peter wears forest green tights that match his hat. A single red feather protrudes at the point of his hat. His shirt was the color of a meadow on a bright spring day, and the hem looks like crocodile teeth. Ugh, at least the color looks semi-good on Peter.
“Hello Peter!” We all shouted. Well, except Kayleen. She just whined.
“Peter! Peter, wait for me!” A voice shouted from the distance. Great. An unexpected visitor taking away our time with Peter. I have to do something about this.
“Girls, meet Wendy!” Peter introduced us to the girl with the blue eyes.
“Um, like, why are you wearing your PJ’s?”
“Well, I--” She pulled out both sides of her dress like she was showing off the ugly blue nightdress.
“You’re so ugly! Peter, don’t worry, we’ll get rid of her!”
“What, but I-” And the rest passed in a blur of splashing, pushing and pulling the blue ribbon adorned Wendy into the water. Peter was laughing and playing his flute the whole time so, I figured he was fine with it, until he flew over and pulled the klutz out of the way. Of course he only flew over when she threatened to throw a conch shell at us!
“Now girls.” Peter said with a stern tone.
“Now Peter, we were just having some fun!” I said with the pouty lip.
““Yeah, we were only trying to drown her!”” Marissa said. What a red-haired bimbo.
“Oh, well since it was just fun.” And just when Wendy was about to go off on a temper-tantrum, the normally bright and glittering lagoon was shadowed with darkness. Peter put his hand over Wendy’s big mouth and said,
“It’s Hook!”
“Hook!”
“Hook!”
“Oh no it’s Hook!” I dove under the now murky water in the lagoon and our brief meeting with Peter was over.
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This article has 14 comments.
I'm sorry, it was pretty harsh. And the first part of the comment before- just forget about it. I read over it, and the past tense/ present tense thing is perfectly fine.
But I think my point was that because the point of view is from an airhead, we don't really see much of a thought process going on (except for things like "What a red-haired bimbo"...), so if the reader has read Peter Pan, they already know what's going to happen(Wendy visits, the mermaids try to drown her, Peter steps in, Hook arrives, ties Tigerlily to a rock...) and doesn't get any insights or new developments. But if there was some sort of hidden parallel plotline in the story that involves the mermaids and is separate from the Lost Boys', this could make for a good read.
But I loved the idea of writing from a mermaid's point of view; I know I was really harsh before, but it would be great if you extended this into a whole different story from Peter Pan... it would be kind of hard, though, given that the mermaids' primary concern is beauty, so they wouldn't really seem committed to any sort of adventure ("Oh no! I have been kidnapped by Captain Hook!...oohh, look! I found a pretty shell!")
The switches between the present tense in the description of the main character's appearance and the past tense in the rest of the story was a bit disconcerting, but the rest of it is pretty okay...
...but there's not much of a story. In my opinion, fan fiction not only tells the story from a different light, but it presents new material, stuff we didn't know before. There's nothing exciting or new that catches our interest here... We know the story, and the only difference form the original Pan is that it's told from the point of view of an airhead mermaid.
In other words, it doesn't seem... fresh.