Arielody

Arielody is the family ship between Ariel and Melody from the The Little Mermaid fandom.

Canon
When Melody was born, Ariel planned to raise her daughter between the world she originally came from as a mermaid and the world she became apart of as a human. This decision has Ariel wanting Melody to know the two sides to her heritage and believed that her father's magical locket gift to Melody would help her. Ariel's plans for Melody's childhood, however, were changed the moment Morgana tried to use Melody to force King Trident to give up his trident for the baby's life, but Ariel's quick actions allows her and Eric to save their daughter while Morgana got away. Because Morgana is Ursula's sister and her father wasn't able to find her, Ariel became worried that they wouldn't be so lucky the next time Morgana tries to harm Melody again. So Ariel decides to keep Melody away from the sea, until Morgana is found and caught.

To ensure that Melody is kept safe, Ariel has a large wall built that keeps the land separate from the sea. The only thing that Ariel didn't count for is that Melody would take after her. So just as Ariel was drawn to the surface world, Melody feels drawn of the sea. Melody inherited Ariel's fondness for collecting items that are from the world that her family want to keep her away from, so she sneaks under the wall to collect shells. Ariel's mermaid origins also gives Melody the ability to understand sea creatures and seagulls. Because Ariel has Melody believing that mermaids and the underwater kingdom of Atlantica are a myth, as she raises her to be a normal human girl, Melody has no idea where her ability to talk to crabs or her love for the sea comes from. And with her mother doing all that she can to keep Melody away from the sea, like King Triton had once done to Ariel, has made it hard for Melody to tell Ariel her secrets, in fear that her mother couldn't understand.

On the day of Melody's 12th birthday, as Ariel searches the whole castle for her, Melody goes on one of her secret drives, where she finds a shiny shell. Sebastian tries to get Melody to the party before her mother realizes that she is gone. Shortly after, Melody finds the shell. She shares her thought about possibly telling her mother about her love for the sea with Sebastian, until he reminds her about the party she needs to be at (Melody's reaction to the reminder is a bit similar to how Ariel acted when she remembered the concert). Even though Ariel cares a great deal about Melody's safety, apart of her missing the sea and the family she hasn't seen since Melody was a baby.

After Melody snuck back into the castle, she sees Ariel dipping her toes into the sea's water from her window. Before asking her mother what she is doing, Ariel is alerted by Melody's presence, which panics Melody when she informs her half-ready daughter that she is going to meet her. Melody does what she can to get herself ready before her mother enters her room, and while Melody was able to get dressed and hide her bag of her most recent sea treasures, she didn't have time to properly fix up her hair. Seeing this, Ariel offers to brush it for her, and as she does so, Melody tells her mother not to bother as she didn't want to attend the party. Due to how other people view her as someone who is weird, Ariel tells Melody that she is beautiful and that it is only right of her to attend her own birthday party. As they continued to talk, Ariel asks Melody a question. Melody feels that it was the right moment to tell her mother about her dreams involving the sea, but Eric walks into the room before Melody could say it.

During the party that Melody was nervous to be at, she turns to her mother for support when she was approached by someone who asked her to dance with him. Ariel encourages her to do so and was happy that Melody appeared to be having fun, until everyone saw her talking to a carb and started to laugh at her. Moments after Ariel saw her daughter run out of the room in tears, she goes to see how she was doing. Round this time, however, Melody was not in the mood to talk and just learned that the shiny shell she found has her name on it. Ariel was shocked that Melody had found the magic locket she gave back to the father and knew that her daughter has done over the wall. Knowing that lying would be pointless, Melody tells her mother that she has been going under it and that she takes that large wall. Angry that Melody had been going near the one place she wanted her daughter to be no where near, she started to scold Melody. Until Melody told Ariel how she can know how something she has never been in can be dangerous, before she grabbed the locket out of her mother's hands and ran out of the room. Realising that she has messed up, Ariel knew that Eric was right when he advised for the two of them to finally tell Melody the truth. While Ariel and her husband were searching for her, Melody decided to run away to the sea to gain answers on the locket. Sebastian informs Ariel of this and got the people of the sea to help them in their search for her.

Songs

 * For a Moment | Jodi Benson and Tara Strong

Fanon
Because fans love their mother and daughter bond, they feature Ariel and Melody in some of their mother's day fan artwork. The small number of fanfics on AO3, could be due to Melody being a sequel character and hasn't appeared in other Little Mermaid/Disney medias since the second film's release. Along with the fact that most retellings of the Little Mermaid mainly focuses on the first film, as sixteen mermaid Ariel has more attention and media presence than human mother Ariel does. Despite this fact, people still love Melody and how she takes after her mother.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Ariel/Melody on FanFiction.Net
 * Ariel/Melody on FanFiction.Net

WIKIS
 * on the
 * on the