#Inlander VOLUME

[floridaboiler]

Things You Probably Never Knew About The Great Lakes.....

1. Lake Superior is actually not a lake at all, but an inland sea .

2. All of the four other Great Lakes, plus three more the size of Lake Erie, would  fit inside of Lake Superior.

3. Isle Royale is a massive island surrounded by Lake Superior. Within this island are several smaller lakes. Yes, that’s a lake on a lake.

4. Despite its massive size, Lake Superior is an  extremely young   formation by Earth’s standards (only 10,000 years old).

5. There is enough water in Lake Superior to  submerge all of North and South America in 1 foot of water.

6. Lake Superior contains 3 quadrillion gallons of water (3,000,000,000,000,000). All five of the Great Lakes combined contain 6 quadrillion gallons.

7. Contained within Lake Superior is a whopping 10% of the world’s fresh surface water.

8. It’s estimated there are about 100 million lake trout   in Lake Superior. That’s nearly one-fifth of the human population of North America!

9. There are small outlets through which water leaves Lake Superior. It takes two centuries for all the water in the lake to replace itself.

10. Lake Erie is the fourth-largest Great Lake in surface area, and the smallest in depth. It’s the 11th largest lake on the planet.

11. There is alleged to be a 30- to 40-foot-long “monster” in Lake Erie named Bessie. The earliest recorded sighting goes back as early as 1793.

12. Water in Lake Erie replaces itself   in only 2.6 years, which is notable considering the water in Lake Superior takes two centuries.

13. The original publication of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax contained the line, “I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie.”Fourteen years later, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss to make the case that conditions had improved. He removed the line.

14. Not only is lake Erie the smallest Great Lake when it comes to volume, but it’s surrounded by the most industry.Seventeen metropolitan areas, each with populations of more than 50,000, border the Lake Erie basin.

15. During the War of 1812, the U.S. beat the British in a naval battle calledthe Battle of Lake Erie, forcing them to abandon Detroit.

16. The shoreline of all the Great Lakes combined equals nearly 44% of the  circumference  of the planet.

17. If not for the the Straits of Mackinac, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron might be considered one lake.Hydrologically speaking, they have the same mean water level and are considered one lake.

18. The Keystone State  was one of the largest and most luxurious wooden steamships running during the Civil War.In 1861, it disappeared. In 2013, it was found 30 miles northeast of Harrisville under 175 feet of water.

19. Goderich Mine is the largest salt mine in the world. Part of it runs underneath Lake Huron, more than 500 meters underground.

20. Below Lake Huron, there are  9,000-year-old animal-herding structures   used by prehistoric people from when the water levels were significantly lower.

21. There are  massive sinkholes in Lake Huron that have high amounts of sulfur and low amounts of oxygen, almost replicating the conditions of Earth’s ancient oceans 3 million years ago. Unique ecosystems are contained within them.

22. Lake Huron is the second largest among the Great Lakes, and the  fifth largest in the world.

23.  In size, Lake Michigan ranks third among the Great Lakes, and sixth among all freshwater lakes in the world.

24. Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that is entirely within the borders of the United States.

25. The largest fresh water sand dunes in the world line the shores of Lake Michigan.

26. Because water enters and exits Lake Michigan through the same path, it takes 77 years longer for the water to replace itself   than in Huron, despite their similarity in size and depth. (Lake Michigan: 99 years, Lake Huron: 22 years)

27. When the temperature of Lake Michigan is below freezing, this happens.

28. Within Lake Michigan there is a “triangle” with a similar reputation to the Bermuda Triangle, where a large amount of “strange disappearances” have occurred. There have also been alleged UFO sightings.

29. Singapore, Mich., is a ghost town on the shores of Lake Michigan that was buried under sand in 1871. Because of severe weather conditions and a lack of resources due to the need to rebuild after the great Chicago fire, the town was lost completely.

30. In the mid-19th century, Lake Michigan had a pirate problem. Their booty: timber. In fact, the demise of Singapore is due in large part to the rapidly deforested area surrounding the town.

31. Jim Dreyer  swam across Lake Michigan in 1998 (65 miles), and then in 2003, he swam the length of Lake Michigan (422 miles).

32. Lake Michigan was the location of the first recorded “Big Great Lakes disaster,” in which a steamer carrying 600 people collided with a schooner delivering timber to Chicago. Four hundred and fifty people died.

33. Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes in surface area, and second smallest in depth. It’s the  14th largest lake   on the planet.

34. The province Ontario was  named after   the lake, and not vice versa.

35. In 1804, a Canadian warship, His Majesty’s Ship Speedy, sank in Lake Ontario. In 1990, wreck hunter Ed Burtt managed to find it.  Only, he isn’t allowed to recover any artifacts until a government-approved site to exhibit them is found. He’s still waiting.

36. Babe Ruth hit his  first major league home run   at Hanlan’s Point Stadium in Toronto. It landed in Lake Ontario and is believed to still be there.

37. A lake on Saturn’s moon Titan is named after Lake Ontario.

[alexanderwales]

I sometimes say that I live next to the largest lake in the world, Lake Superior, which is only true depending on your definitions.

The Caspian Sea has a salinity of 1.2%, which places it at one third the salinity of ocean water. It's much larger than Lake Superior, with about five times the surface area. But is this sea actually a lake? Legally, it's not really a lake, because there were some complicated negotiations on the matter. If it were a sea instead of a lake, that would have implications, as the law of the sea is its own distinct thing. Geologically, Wikipedia assures me that it's actually a small ocean. So I'm willing to concede that the Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water, but I don't agree that it's world's largest lake.

The other big problem for Lake Superior's claim to being the largest lake is Lake Michigan-Huron. Now you might read that and think to yourself "wait, aren't those two separate lakes?" and yes, you would think that, given that they're connected only by the Straits of Mackinac. But hydrologically speaking, their levels rise and fall with each other, and that's enough for them to sometimes be counted as one lake, depending on who you ask. Combined, they have a larger surface area than Lake Superior. I don't take this seriously, and I don't think that you should either.

(And of course the largest lakes by volume are Baikal and Tanganyika, and also the Caspian Sea if you really are determined to count that as a lake. But come on, who cares about volume?)

This is not a meditation on when definitions collide with a universe which does not actually work that way. I worry you might read me talking about the lake/sea binary and think that it's about something else. I really do care about whether Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world. I want to be able to not get in a fight with someone about it if I just make that claim. But by God, I will fight that fight if I have to. And you know what, I do enjoy saying "I live next to the largest lake in the world" rather than "I live next to the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area".

I acknowledge that this is a stupid thing to care about and that definitions are made up.

But you know what, even if I am stupid, at least I can take some solace in living next to the largest lake in the world.

[sporesgalaxy]

Pacific Rim isn't anti-nuclear in the same way Kaiju movies usually are. The resolution is facilitated by the detonation of a nuclear warhead and a nuclear reactor power core. So........what's up with that?

I mean, it's deeply American, obviously, but what else? Why does it not feel particularly pro-war in the same way, say, a typical MCU does? What does it mean that the Kaiju are prompted by human activity (carbon pollution "practically terraformed" Earth for the invading aliens), but are ultimately not a true manifestation of Nature's Wrath (not even from Earth)?

What arguments is Pacific Rim making in the place of the typical kaiju movie anti-nuclear-pollution, wrath-of-nature fare?

I stream-of-consciousness rambled about this for multiple paragraphs and don't feel like cleaning it up much. Basically: I think Pacific Rim is a commentary on the myriad problems with political responses to climate change over the years.

•••

So, in the Great American Kaiju Movie, two nuclear blasts save the day rather than creating all the problems. Despite the fact that at least one of those nuclear blasts still probably did a lot of collateral.... I do wish Pacific Rim had focused a bit more on collateral, and the environmental damage caused by both the Kaiju and, inevitably, the Jaeger project AND Wall of Peace. Food rations are mentioned once-- but surely metal and construction equiptment rationing must also be in place to allow for wall construction! I want my environmental messages shoved violently down the audience's throat, damnit! But I digress

I think an important detail to consider in the Kaiju/Nuclear discussion is how Mako and Raleigh's Jaeger's nuclear power generator is what really allowed them to save the world, multiple times.

The history of politics around nuclear power plants vs nuclear warhead production is interesting, especially in the typical kaiju movie thematic context of man carelessly abusing nature. The argument in defense of nuclear power plants is that, despite the need for extremely rigerous and long-term nuclear waste disposal considerations, there is a lower volume of waste created by nuclear power plants in relation to the energy provided by them, when compared to other modern methods of energy generation like coal power. So, in theory, nuclear energy could be a beneficial power source for minimizing environmental impact.

In the Kaiju movies I've seen, nuclear power is only ever addressed as an extension of the inherently unnatural and harmful abomination of the invention of.the nuclear warhead. It's understandable, the environmental devastation caused by radioactive pollution is massive, and its something a nuclear power plant is very capable of doing if enough goes wrong.

So, what do the Jaegers represent within this conversation? what does the Wall of Peace represent? Here's my thought: they represent (more) active versus passive solutions to the growing threat of climate change. Jaegers represent the way that active work against climate change is only funded as far as it is beneficial to the image of the government.

Yes, the Rift was found to be impossible to blow up with nukes, but it's pretty clear that the world governmemts were putting more money into the publically popular and flashy Jaeger program than they were putting into researching the increase in Kaiju frequency and a permanent solution to the issue. Because of the complicity the world fell into once Kaiju and Jaegers were Rock Stars, the root of the issue with Kaiju goes unadressed for an entire generation, in favor of defeating each Kaiju in impressive and propogand-izable ways.

Only once the problem becomes too big for the propoganda-friendly Jaegers to manage do the world governments start looking for alternate solutions, and the Wall is immediately shown to be too little too late. As soon as it stops being useful for propoganda, the government loses interest in truly solving the problem, and begins investing in moving itself inland and leaving poor coastal populations to die.

The kaiju are only able to be defeated in Pacific Rim because a group of people separate from the government comes together and searches for a solution to the root of the issue-- the Rift being open in the Pacific at all.

Nuclear power is therefore not posed as a solution to war against fellow humans, but is used as a solution to a collective human effort to fight the exponentially speeding destruction of the Earth. The Jaeger pilots and everyone else working in the resistance HAVE to be willing to do anything, willing to take drastic active measures, in order to stop the destruction of the Earth's climate. Yay :)

[whenmemorydies]

Season 4 is gonna say fuck a Michelin star

Its also going to say yes to sustainable food practices as has been foreshadowed throughout the show. At least I hope it does. The two books featured in this pic would indicate that's the case.

"Trout" by Ernest Schweibert is a two-volume series about fly-fishing in America. Schweibert was a Chicago-native (surprise lol) architect by trade, turned fly fisherman, who also championed the conservation and care of inland freshwater systems that are home to trout and salmon, founding Trout Unlimited.

"The Art of Simple Food" is by Alice Waters, who founded Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse pioneered the farm-to-table movement, buying locally grown produce and cooking with in-season ingredients. Apparently Chez Panisse held one Michelin star from 2006 to 2009 but lost it in 2010. When the restaurant lost its star, Chez Panisse put out the below statement:

When Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse almost 40 years ago, she intended to create a place where people could come together with friends and family to eat a delicious, thoughtfully prepared meal in beautiful surroundings. To this day, that is the restaurant's highest priority. Although Ms. Waters respects the traditions upon which the Michelin Guide bases its awards, she acknowledges that they aren't the same traditions upon which Chez Panisse has built its reputation and success over the years."

Hopefully this pic is an indication of where Carmy and Syd are going to be at by the end of season 4, because honestly, fuck a Michelin star and fuck business practices that drive the world closer to environmental collapse. We do not have time for this shit, especially now as the west fends off the threat of fascism and the death throes of late stage capitalism.

[germanpostwarmodern]

All those who have watched the TV series „Mad Men“ know how hard it was for women to persist in the corporate men’s world of the 1950s through 1970s. Accordingly the perseverance of those who made a career of their own during these times compels incredible respect. In the world of architecture one such example was Brigitte Peterhans (1928-2021) who not only studied under Mies van der Rohe at IIT but became partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. A Fulbright scholarship allowed her to spend a year at IIT after which she returned to Germany  to complete her studies at Stuttgart University. During her stay in Chicago she met former Bauhaus teacher Walter Peterhans whom she married in 1957. Moving between Germany and the US Peterhans already in 1958 was hired by SOM and she stayed with the firm until her retirement in 1990. Over the course of more than three decades she climbed up the ranks, becoming an associate in 1973 and associate partner in 1979.

For the first time this impressive biography has been written down and supplemented with projects, texts and diary entries in the present volume: „Not a Woman Architect - The Life and Work of Brigitte Peterhans“, edited by David L. Fleener and recently published by DOM Publishers. The book offers a differentiated view on Peterhans through personal recollections by the editor and John Vinci: they portray her as a demanding and sometimes difficult superior with a big heart whose robustness towards clients sometimes had to be made up for by Bruce Graham. Interpreting this with some kitchen sink psychology one might align her demeanor and her decided negation of being called a woman architect. And irrespective of gender the portfolio of buildings she worked on is impressive: among the projects are the Arab International Bank in Cairo, the Sears Tower and the Inland Steel Building, both in Chicago, to name just a few of those that are also covered in the book. The latter is rounded out by the complete reproduction of Peterhans’ master thesis at IIT that shows her as a clear disciple of the 2nd Chicago School of Architecture, a historic document that alone would make the book a great read!

[bestiarium]

The Ndamathia [Kenyan mythology; African mythology]

The Kikuyu are a somewhat lesser-known ethnic group located mainly in central Kenya. These people have (or had, I am uncertain whether this religion is still being practised) a religious ceremony that was held every few decades and was connected to a creature called the Ndamathia, a creature associated with rainbows. It was the Ndamathia which made rainbows appear in the sky.

This being was a giant aquatic snake-like reptile of incredible length (said to be as long as the rainbows it created). At the end of its enormous tail grew magical hairs that had potent medical properties.

A complicated procedure was required to harvest these hairs, however. First, the creature had to leave the deep rivers in which it lives. This was done by summoning it with a special ceremonial horn, and when the Ndamathia was on land, it was distracted by a beautiful girl. The monster was dangerous, however, and had to be drugged with powerful medicine, which was administered by splashing it on the ground before the girl (which was traditionally done by the same young girl). The reptilian creature would then proceed to lick up the water containing the drug.

In addition, the girl was covered in castor oil (which is made from beans of the castor plant) to make her slippery. The idea was that if the monster tried to grab the girl, she would be too slippery to hold and she would escape from its maw.

The Ndamathia then followed the maiden away from the water, but as it was an incredibly long creature, it took multiple hours of walking before its tail finally left the water. A group of warriors was waiting patiently for this moment and jumped at the tail as soon as it was on land.

Each warrior plucked as many hairs as possible. Even though the Ndamathia was under the influence of medicine, plucking its tail hairs caused it great pain and the creature would become furious. It immediately returned to the water at great speed, so the warriors had to hide after plucking the hairs. When the giant creature arrived, it would find nobody and decided to go back to the depths from which it came.

As the story goes, the girl who acted as bait to lure the creature away from the water would have an important position in Kikuyu society when the ceremony was over, as she was regarded as a heroine. The priests would then slaughter an ewe, a bull and a male goat. They would then proceed to cut the skins of the ewe and the goat into ribbons and dip them in a liquid consisting of the blood mixed with the stomach contents of the slaughtered animals. The hairs of the Ndamathia were tied to these ribbons to make bracelets, which were to be worn by the elders on the ankle and wrist. When this was all done, a giant celebration would be held.

When Christianity established a foothold in the region, the missionaries tried to convince the indigenous people that the Ndamathia was actually their version of the Christian devil, and the creature was villainised. This made an impact on the indigenous folktales that is still visible today: the Kikuyu’s translation of the Bible translates ‘devil’ as ‘Ndamathia’.

Sources: Hazel, R., 2019, Snakes, People and Spirits, Volume 1: Traditional Eastern Africa in its Broader Context, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 567 pp. Kenyatta, J., 1978, Facing Mount Kenya: the traditional life of the Gikuyu, African Books Collective, 260 pp. Karangi, M. M., 2013, The creation of Gikuyu image and identity, in: Revisiting the roots of an Africna shrine: the sacred Mugumo tree: an investigation of the religion and politics of the Gikuyu people in Kenya, p.24 ch.2., Karangi, M.M. (editor), Lambert. Karanja, J., 2009, The Missionary Movement in Colonial Kenya: the Foundation of Africa Inland Church, Cuvillier Verlag, 227 pp. (image source: Steven Belledin. The image is card artwork for Magic: the Gathering and depicts an unrelated seamonster, but I chose it because it fits with the description and I rather like the illustration).

[fatehbaz]

There is a direct connection between the expansion of [...] new [coffee] consumer culture in Europe [...] and the expansion of plantation slavery in the Caribbean. [...] [S]lave-based coffee was more important to the Dutch [Netherlands] economy than previously [acknowledged] [...]. [T]he phenomenal growth of [plantation slavery in] Saint Domingue [the French colony of Haiti] was partly made possible by the export market along the Rhine that was opened up by the Dutch Republic. [...] [E]arly in the eighteenth century, the Dutch and French began production in their respective West Indian colonies [...]. [C]offee was still a very exclusive product in Europe. [...] From the late 1720s, [...] in the Netherlands [...] coffee was especially widespread [...]. From the late 1750s the volume of Atlantic coffee production [...] increased significantly. It was at that time that the habit of drinking coffee spread further inland [...] [especially] in Rhineland Germany [...] [and] inland Germany [due to Dutch shipments via the river].

Although its consumption may not have been as widespread as the tea-sugar complex in Britain, there certainly was a similar ‘coffee-sugar complex’ in continental Europe [...] spread during the eighteenth century [...]. The total amount of coffee imported to Europe (excluding the Italian [...] trade) was less than 4 million pounds per year during 1723–7 and rose to almost 100 million pounds per year around 1788 [...]. In 1790 [...] almost half of the value of [Dutch] exports over the Rhine [to Germany] was coffee. [...]

---

The rising prices in the 1760s encouraged more investment in coffee in Dutch Guiana and the start of new plantations in Saint Domingue [Haiti]. Production in Saint Domingue skyrocketed and surpassed all the others, so that this colony provided 60% of all the coffee in the world by 1789. [Necessitating more slave labor. The Haitian revolution would manifest about a decade later.] [...]

In French historiography, the ‘Dutch problems’ are considered to be the slave revolts (the Boni-maroon wars) [at Dutch plantations]. [...] France made use of the Dutch ‘troubles’ to expand its market share and coffee production in Saint Domingue [Haiti], which accelerated at an exponential rate. [...]

---

[T]he Dutch Guianas [were] producing over a third of the coffee consumed in Europe [...] [by] 1767. [...] The Dutch flooded the Rhine region with coffee and sugar, creating a lasting demand for both commodities, as the two are typically consumed together. [...] [T]he history of the slave-based coffee production in Surinam and Saint Domingue [Haiti] was pivotal in starting the mass consumption of coffee in Europe. [...] Slave-based coffee production was also crucial [...] in Brazil during the 'second slavery', where slavery existed on an enormous scale and was reshaped in the world's biggest coffee producing country [later] during the nineteenth century. [...] The Dutch merchant-bankers organised coffee investment, enslavement, and planting and selling; [all] while not leaving the town of Amsterdam [...].

[This market] expansion ends in crisis [...] - a crisis caused by uprisings and revolutions, most notably, the Haitian one. Yet Germans still liked coffee. And the Dutch colonial merchant-banker[s] [...] learned something about [...] production, and perhaps also something about the role of the state in labour control: as soon as they could, they sent Johannes van der Bosch [Dutch governor-general of the East Indies] to Surinam and Java in order to solve the labour issues and expand the colonial production of coffee [by imposing in Java the notoriously brutal cultuurstelsel "enforced planting" regime, followed later by the "Coolie Ordinance" laws allowing plantation owners to discipline "disobedient" workers, with millions of workers on Java plantations, lasting into the twentieth century].

---

Text above by: Tamira Combrink. "Slave-based coffee in the eighteenth-century and the role of the Dutch in global commodity chains". Slavery & Abolition Volume 42 (2021), Issue 1: Europe and Slavery: Revisiting the Impact of Slave-Based Activities on European Economies, 1500-1850, Guest Editors: Tamira Combrik and Matthias van Rossum, pages 15-42. Published online 28 February 2021. DOI at: doi dot org slash 10.1080/0144039X . 2020 . 1860465 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. All of that italicized text within brackets was added by me for clarity and context; apologies to Combrink. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[typhlonectes]

The rise and fall of the world's largest lake

The ancient Paratethys Sea once held more water than all of today’s lakes combined.

When continental plates smashed together about 12 million years ago, they didn't just raise new mountains in central Europe—they created the largest lake the world has ever known. This vast body of water—the Paratethys Sea—came to host species found nowhere else, including the world's smallest whales. Two new studies reveal how the ancient body of water took shape and how surrounding changes helped give rise to elephants, giraffes, and other large mammals that wander the planet today. To build that timeline, paleo-oceanographer Dan Palcu of the University of São Paulo and his colleagues at the main campus assembled clues from geological and fossil records. At its largest, the body of water—which some scientists consider to have been an inland sea—stretched from the eastern Alps into what is now Kazakhstan, covering more than 2.8 million square kilometers. That's an area larger than today's Mediterranean Sea, they write this week in Scientific Reports. Their analyses further estimate the lake once contained more than 1.77 million cubic kilometers of water, more than 10 times the volume found in all of today's fresh- and saltwater lakes combined...

Read more: https://www.science.org/content/article/rise-and-fall-world-s-largest-lake

[quercus-queer]

Y’all don’t understand mousechuck is superb and it fits with the world building so well I’m in love with Ryoko Kui but let me make an arguement specifically for Long-Eared Jeroba and Fennec Fox-like halffoots from Khaka Brud

First, my argument that Khaka Brud is a desert climate:

Long lived races leave the less inhabitable land for others

It’s more inland, so the rain-shadow effect comes into play (ex: Nevada)

Burrowing animals are most successful so the Dwarves, a race known for building down, did well there hence the extensive dungeon system

Desert adaptations that transfer well to halffoot design:

Smaller bodies have a larger surface area to volume ratio which is better for desert living

Large ears aid in cooling

Pale but thick fur to reflect heat (can translate to appear like there’s no body hair which seems to be canon for halffoots)

My case for Fennec Fox inspo being added into Chilchuck designs:

Looks r deceiving shitck (shout out to Zootopia lmao)

He has big ass dark round eyes which is not universal for all halffoots

He’s bigger than most halffoots, it’d be cool if the taller halffoots are Fox inspired while the average-smaller halffoots are Jeroba inspired

This can lead to a concept that the bigger, Fox-like halffoots who left their communities gained a reputation of being sly, cunning, thieves… which is pretty on the nose

Regardless of what animal chosen, mousechuck enjoyers should still give him little claws.

Furthermore, the other large population of halffoots at the northern tip of the Western continent should be Arctic Fox and Lemming-like.

[crow-aeris]

Part 2 of Sapphire Eyes: Part 1 is linked!

The ao3 link is in part 1

After reaching the lake, Bruce tried to lift the mer pup off his shoulders, but it very quickly devolved into the pup wailing in his ear- the sheer volume enough to make Bruce's ears ring.

"Please let go," Bruce pleaded before stumbling into the lake. His boots squelched in the mud, and Bruce could only wince at the sound. He prays for whoever has to clean his clothes after this.

Bruce’s pants were sopping wet, and he was tired, "Buddy, I can't sleep in the water like you!"

In response, the little mer pup just wails again, his lips wobbling as he looks up at Bruce with wide, watery, sapphire eyes.

"Please..." Bruce tried again to pry the pup's claws out of his shirt, but he was helpless as the mer wailed, thrashing his tail and splashing icy water everywhere, "I have to get up early tomorrow!"

The pup dejectedly whimpered one last time before unhooking his claws, dropping unceremoniously into the water, and disappearing into the depths… But not before flicking his tail and drenching Bruce in cold, salty lake water.

Bruce sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face as shivers wrecked through his body. He trudged dejectedly into the castle, ignoring the few servants and guards still awake at this dreadful hour, navigating through the large castle to grab shovels from the Gardener's shed... Which was at the back of the castle… Which was on the side of the lake…

Bruce sighs internally and groans. He'd trudged through the entire castle for what? He did it for nothing...

…He blames it on fatigue.

Bruce heaves the shovel over his shoulder and heads back to the beach where he painstakingly- with more care than he'd ever had- dug a pair of graves farther inland, where the tides wouldn't be able to steal their bodies away.

The king took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from his brow and accidentally smearing dirt all over his face. Bruce contemplates tossing the shovel aside and passing out right then and there, but that would be a terrible disgrace toward the dead mers, and Bruce's parents and Alfred raised him better than that.

An aching sensation screamed at Bruce, tearing through every fiber of his being as he dropped the shovel haphazardly in the main hall before slowly shambling toward his room.

Right as he reached the castle’s family wing, Bruce was greeted by Alfred.

"I assume it went well, Master Bruce?" the butler said. A twitch of the man's mustache was the only thing that gave away his amusement.

Bruce groans, exhaustion tearing at his mind like a vicious creature, threatening to send the king to sleep right then and there, "I'll go wash, and then I'm going to sleep. Can you wake me up... an hour before the conference begins?"

"Of course, lad," Alfred's eyes take on a warm and fond light, "go get some rest."

And boy, does Bruce rest. He rests so hard that Alfred sprays freezing water onto the king's face to wake him up.

Bruce groaned petulantly, debating whether or not he should... not attend the conference and go back to sleep. Alas, all it took was a stern look from Alfred to force Bruce to his feet and get ready for the day.

-----

Bruce sat at the head of the wooden conference table as the barons and dukes of the provinces of Gotham gathered to report their annual crop yields, crime rates, population, and other jargon that Bruce- honestly- could care less of. Even so, Bruce cared about Gotham- this kingdom was his parents' pride and joy- and Bruce would be damned if he allowed this kingdom to fall into ruin.

"If I may be bold, Your Majesty," Duke Drake stood, his wife standing behind him with a calculating gaze, "I'd like to submit a request."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. Jack Drake was known to be a tyrannous duke who asked for too much and gave too little, ruling his province with an iron fist... but that was all he had going for him. His wife, a woman from the Far East who married into the Drake name, was the real threat between the two. She is as cunning as a snake and strikes deals like a spider weaving a web, luring victims into her trap without their realizing.

In short, Janet Drake was the one you should really look out for.

"Speak your mind, Duke Drake," Bruce waved his hand, tilting his head with a sickly-sweet, saccharine smile, "please, I'd love to hear your thoughts."

The duke faltered, but a look from Janet spurred him forward, "The province of Bristol has been growing steadily, and we have been producing knights and soldiers of the highest caliber!"

Bruce nodded slowly, "Your point, Drake?"

Duke Drake coughed awkwardly, and Bruce barely noticed Duchess Drake jabbing her nails into her husband's side, "I would like to request a higher amount of ration to be transported to Bristol."

The king raised a brow, noting how the dukes and duchesses of the other provinces had pinned the Drakes with incredulous glares.

"Why not purchase the rations instead?" Bruce tilted his head. He should really hire an advisor to help him settle these conferences. There was this up-and-coming son of a lesser noble, Lucius Fox, who seemed promising.

"Well," Jack faltered, and Bruce spotted Janet's eye twitch in irritation. But before the fumbling duke could continue his tiresome tirade, a faint yet familiar wailing curled through the air.

"What was that?" many of the dukes and duchesses straightened with alarmed expressions.

The king hummed noncommittally, "Don't worry about it."

"W-was that a mer?" the duke of a random seaside province stammered out, and the king could see anxiety rippling through the room of greater nobles.

Bruce flapped his hand, "Don't worry about it. Well, I think today's conference has been quite enlightening! I'll have the servants gather your belongings and see you out."

"Wait, Your Majesty!" the dukes shouted, shouting over one another with various levels of shock and disbelief. Those who've been dukes since Bruce's father was king were used to his antics, but the newer nobles have yet to adjust to Bruce's eccentric way of ruling.

"Sir!" a servant called, and Bruce barely managed to suppress a groan of irritation. A servant would interrupt a conference only if Alfred instructed them to. "Sir Pennyworth has instructed me to notify you-"

Very maturely, Bruce does not contemplate leaping out of the large window behind him to escape the conference and return to his mer pup's side.

Wisely, Bruce decides that he'd prefer to retain his life, and the king sits down to slog through the remainder of the two-hour conference.

Eventually, Bruce makes it through the painful endeavor and watches the nobles file out of the room into the hall where their servants are waiting patiently. Once the last noble leaves the room, Bruce drops his head against the wooden table with a thud.

"Bruce? What is this mer you've been keeping in the castle?"

The king groans, burying his face in his forearms before heaving himself upright and meeting his neighboring king's amused eyes, "What do you want, Clark?"

"That's no way to treat a childhood friend," the King of Metropolis smiled, his bright blue eyes dancing with amusement, "I'll tell Alfred you've been mistreating me. He likes me better, after all."

"Shut up," Bruce grumbled, shoving past Clark before waving down a servant, "Excuse me, does the kitchen have any fruits to spare?"

The servant nodded, "Some dukes arrived with a few baskets of fruits as gifts for the castle- but may I suggest something, sir?"

Bruce blinked and nodded, "Of course, speak your mind."

The teen nodded, and Bruce could see her being appointed to housemaid if she chose to remain in the castle, "I've heard rumors of a coup or potential uprising from servants within the visiting dukes' manor. There has been word of a rebellion among the nobles, and so the fruits may have been doused with either belladonna or henbane."

The king hummed before nodding, "Have the seeds harvested and the flesh of the fruits turned to compost to distribute among those who might need it. Does the kitchen have definitively safe fruits that we can eat?"

A thoughtful expression crossed the teen's face, "I think we have a few pomegranates and apples. Would you like the fruits peeled?"

"No, thank you," Bruce smiled, "I appreciate the offer, but I'm alright with peeling the fruits myself. I'll be with the Head of El by the lake. Thank you, Alyssa. If we have snacks prepared, could you bring some out, too? You may help yourself to however much you'd like as well."

Her eyes lit up with awe, and Bruce could tell the teen was doing her best to repress a bright smile, "Of course, Your High- Sir! I wish you a good day!"

"You as well," Bruce nodded with a slightly confused smile before heading toward the lake in the back, Clark hot on his heels.

"You still haven't told me about this mer pup you've adopted," Clark raised his brow pointedly.

Bruce shrugged, settling down on the shore of the lake... How was he going to call for the mer? The opposite end of the lake had a canal that flowed into the ocean, and nothing stopped the mer from... leaving.

His fellow king bumped his shoulder against Bruce, "Maybe you should call him?"

"I'm thinking," Bruce huffed, shoving him back.

Clark scoffed and nudged him back harder. Bruce narrowed his eyes, seeing the amused challenge in Clark's expression and accepting it wholeheartedly.

Bruce lunged forward, a smile on his lips as he tackled the other into the dirt.

"What! You never said go!" Clark shouted before kicking Bruce off of him.

"You should know this by now," Bruce snarked and dodged Clark's retaliatory lunge, "all is fair in love and war!"

"You're an asshole, B!" the king shouted before managing to finally connect with Bruce, sending the pair tumbling to the ground.

Bruce laughed, managing to wiggle out of Clark's grasp when suddenly the water erupted into a violent spray, and a snarling mer pup forced himself between the two. His dorsal fins were flared in a clear display of aggression, a rattling hiss-growl falling from the pup's throat as he reared up and displayed his fangs and claws. Even with the display, the pup was barely taller than Bruce's waist.

The two humans fell silent as the pup continued to hiss and growl, his cranial fins wiggling and flapping aggressively.

"Hey, buddy," Bruce kneeled and gently brushed his hand down the pup's back, smoothing his raised dorsal fins and flared caudal fins, "it's okay, he's a friend. This is Clark, and we were playing, okay? He wasn't actually trying to hurt me."

The pup relaxed slightly, chittering with an uncertain expression before leaning his wet self against Bruce's chest and legs. He grimaces but decides to indulge the mer, changing his position so he is sitting down rather than kneeling. Clark joined him, but the pup hissed whenever the fellow king got too close.

"Have you chosen a name for him yet?" Clark asked, watching the pup play with Bruce's left hand, leaving the other hand to card through the mer's oily hair.

"No," Bruce replies, "I want to choose something he'd like rather than choosing it for him."

Clark raised a questioning brow, "What are the chances of that happening? Sure, mers can mimic words and phrases, but there haven't been reports of ones speaking."

The king of Gotham glared at his friend with an expression of faux irritation, "You're such a dick, you know that?"

"Hey! Don't say that near the baby," Clark protested good-naturedly, "you'll teach him bad things!"

The two were so preoccupied with their conversation that they didn't notice the pup's thoughtful expression.

Clark nodded, "Yeah, so we've been trying to have the Groundskeeper plant some native flora to replenish the biodiversity of the kingdom-"

"Ick?"

The pair froze, their eyes snapping to the pup, who watched Bruce's mouth intently.

"Did he just say-"

"Dick!" the mer pup grinned toothily, pointing his webbed fingers at himself, "Dick!"

"I- buddy-" Bruce faltered, watching the pup helplessly as he pointed at himself and repeatedly chirped dick.

"I?" the pup echoed curiously, and the two kings exchanged matching expressions.

"Yes, "I,"" Bruce pointed to himself, "I am Bruce. Bruce. You are D-... You are Dick...?"

The pup narrowed his eyes before pointing at Bruce's face, "Moose."

"Uh... Bruce."

"Boose!" the pup exclaimed before giggling, and Bruce could feel himself melt with amused fondness.

"When we were younger, you said you wanted kids," Clarked grinned cheekily, "was this what you envisioned?"

"Shut up," Bruce doesn’t shove Clark because not only is he an adult, but he is still very tempted to do so. Also, since he has a very young and impressionable pup in his lap, he needs to be a good influence.

Clark, to Bruce's chagrin, does not shut up. Instead, he frustratingly continues, "You should tell Alfred he's a grandpa now, shouldn't you?"

"I will sic him on you," Bruce threatened even as his adorable little mer pup continued to gnaw gently at his fingers, "Don't test me- I will."

"Sure you will..." Clark drawled, his midwestern dialect slipping through.

Bruce scowls and smacks Clark with his free hand, “Why do I still put up with you?”

With a soft smile, Clark leaned forward with an earnest expression far too honest for this situation, "Because you're my friend, and no matter what happens, we will always stick with each other."

As his heart swells with a soft contentment, Bruce thinks he could stay like this forever.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

WhatMatters

Your guide to California policy and politics

By Lynn La

April 23, 2025

Presented by TURN - The Utility Reform Network, Californians for Energy Independence, Dairy Cares and Californians for a Connected Future, a Project of USTelecom

Good morning, California.

Californians continue to suffer toxic gas effects while officials ‘investigate’

A container of hazardous gas, likely methyl bromide, is seen at the outer berths at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on April 8, 2025. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters

A CalMatters investigation of facilities emitting methyl bromide in Los Angeles County has found that local air quality officials won’t be monitoring the air or taking any immediate steps to protect people in nearby homes and schools.

As Alejandra Reyes-Velarde explains, methyl bromide is a highly toxic gas used to kill pests on imported produce. California health officials have classified the chemical as a reproductive toxicant, which means it can harm developing babies in the womb. High levels of short-term exposure can cause headaches and nausea, while exposure lasting a year or more can lead to neurological effects such as learning and memory difficulties.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has reported that five fumigation facilities in Long Beach, Compton and the L.A. neighborhood of San Pedro may pose a health risk based on a preliminary review. 

In response to a public outcry in Long Beach, the county’s agricultural commissioner, which issues permits to the fumigation companies, required new permit conditions that aim to reduce emissions from the two Long Beach plants.

But permits obtained by CalMatters for three facilities in Compton and San Pedro show that they use much larger volumes of methyl bromide than the Long Beach facilities — yet their permit conditions remain unchanged.

In a letter to regulatory agencies, Democratic U.S. Reps. Nanette Barrag��n, Maxine Waters and Robert Garcia called for monitors to be installed near all L.A. County fumigation facilities, health assessments for affected communities and the public disclosure of inspection records.

But the South Coast air district does not plan to install air monitors or hold meetings with residents to notify them of potential risks. It is, however, screening facilities to determine whether a full analysis of their health risks is necessary. But even if that analysis is greenlit, the agency said companies would only be required to reduce their emissions if they emit the chemical at concentrations three times higher than the amount deemed a health risk by the state.

Sarah Rees, South Coast’s deputy executive office for planning, rule development and implementation: “We don't want to go out and unnecessarily concern folks if there isn’t (a health concern), but we are actively investigating this right now.”

Edvin Hernandez, a father whose son attends an elementary school near the Compton facility, told CalMatters there appears to be “no interest from the government to protect our health.”

“We’re surviving by the hand of God,” he said.

Read more here.

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Other Stories You Should Know

First-of-its-kind program struggles to survive

A man experiencing homelessness walks by tents in Skid Row in Los Angeles on July 5, 2024. Photo by Etienne Laurent, Reuters

As California struggles to find stable housing for its 187,000 homeless residents, it must also contend with training and employing the people it needs to provide front-line homelessness services, write CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall and Adam Echelman.

Jobs that require face-to-face interaction with unhoused people — such as doing outreach in encampments, working at homeless shelters and being case managers — struggle to recruit and retain staff.

To meet the demands of L.A. County’s homeless population, Santa Monica College began a program last year to train prospective homeless service workers. A state fund provided the program with about $750,000, but once the money runs out, it’s unclear what will happen to the program. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed state budget in January did not include any money for the fund.

Compounding the situation is the fact that the L.A. Homeless Services Authority — the agency that funds the college’s training program — is experiencing its own turmoil. After a scathing audit, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted earlier this month to pull its money out of the agency. The city is also considering doing the same.

Read more here.

On the topic of homelessness: Encampment sweeps in San Diego have become more frequent since the city reduced its warning notice from 72 hours to 24. Marisa and CalMatters video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on how these sweeps displace unhoused Californians as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.

 

CA launches education and workforce database

Students at Point Loma High School in San Diego on May 3, 2024. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

Though debuting months behind schedule, a new statewide education data system to track student progress officially launched Tuesday, reports CalMatters’ Adam Echelman.

Championed by Gov. Newsom, the Cradle to Career Data System gathers data from roughly 3.5 million California public high school graduates and discloses where students enrolled in college; what kinds of degrees they earned; and the wages they earned after receiving a college diploma or certificate. 

Similar tools have been developed by the state in years past, but the new database is more widely accessible to the public and collects data from more schools and state agencies. 

In its current form, the dashboards reveal just a small segment of the state’s education and workforce data. Officials say they will roll out updates to the database, though no specific timelines were given. 

For instance, information about students who attended private or out-of-state colleges will be integrated, as well as students who didn’t graduate high school. The state has also pledged to release other data as part of the Cradle to Career Data System, such as information about early childhood education and teachers’ training and retention.

Read more here.

 

And lastly: Fewer new CA students enrolled at UCs?

A student sits near the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library at UC Merced on March 27, 2025. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

At a hearing Tuesday, officials at the University of California gave the strongest indication yet that the budget cuts state lawmakers are proposing may limit the ability of new students to enter California’s public universities. Find out more from CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn.

 

California Voices

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: Given its record of overpromising on major projects, it’s not surprising that California’s goal to convert to carbon-neutral cars and trucks is already falling behind.

CalMatters contributor Loretta Lynch: The California Public Utilities Commission has been neglecting its responsibility to spend customer money wisely — repeatedly acquiescing to utility companies’ requests instead.

Other things worth your time:

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Newsom says Democrats need to stop looking for a savior on a ‘white horse’ // NBC News

CA state Sen. Alvarado-Gil pulls mountain lion hazing bill after charged hearing // The Sacramento Bee

Why is a new office building for CA lawmakers costing as much as an NFL stadium? // KCRA

CA businesses are feeling the burn from Trump’s tariffs and trade war with China // San Francisco Chronicle

DOGE layoffs of federal mediators leave Southern CA grocery chain labor talks in limbo // Los Angeles Times

Utilities are planning to bury power lines after the LA-area fires. Should they? // LAist

Southeast Asians in LA region are being detained, deported at routine ICE check-ins // Los Angeles Times

Orange County Judge Ferguson, who killed his wife, convicted of murder // The Orange County Register

Zuckerberg-backed primary school in Silicon Valley to close next year // The Mercury News

CA may be the world’s black bear capital, according to state’s new bear plan // San Francisco Chronicle

 

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[queenoffishingandcookies]

Rambling on Ikutoh. That’s literally it.

Just heard a song and it gave very specific Hachijo Tohya and Ikuko feelings, If you haven’t finished Twilight of the Golden Witch, don’t click the separator.

Full spoilers below, this is your warning.

This is going to get hideously long and I apologize in advance.

Ikutoh: A very short overlook.

We know so very little of what happened to Battler, after he escaped Rokkenjima with Sayo. There is the fact that she jumped into the ocean to commit suicide, unable to tell him the truth about her body, and that Battler jumped in after her as soon as he realized she was gone to try and save her life.

We know that Battler couldn’t save Sayo. That he was eventually forced to let go of her hand, and floated back to the surface of the ocean.

We don’t know what happens to him then, in the interim of floating back to the surface, or what happens when he did reach land.

However, we do know the eventual aftermath of getting to land. Battler made his way inland, to a road somewhere where he would be struck by a passing car.

Hachijo Ikuko, who was out driving that day, would find him laying in the rain there. Unable to move, unable to speak, injured and barely conscious.

He later wakes up, in her home, unable to remember anything except that he is eighteen years old. Ikuko, after introducing herself and speaking with him, then gives him the name Tohya, taken from alternative readings for the characters that make the number 18.

For several decades, the two lived together as writing partners - though they are not married - writing mystery novels, as well as forgeries revolving around the Rokkenjima incident that killed most of Tohya’s family, as well as leading to the ‘death’ of his previous self, the identity that was Battler.

Ikutoh: A Deeper Look At The Roots - Battler Gets Hit by A Car And Dies. Kind-of.

There’s a few things alarming about Ikutoh’s relationship, and I’ll start with the most glaring one.

Battler was hit by a car.

We don’t whose car it was. We don’t know how fast the car that hit him was going. We don’t know far how he was thrown back by the force, or the full extent of his injuries.

Other than the fact that the impact was enough to knock him near unconscious and left him unable to move, getting struck by that car - if it wasn’t also caused by the near drowning and all the after effects that would have had on him - had a large hand in causing his later amnesia.

Effectively, the impact was the moment of Battler’s ‘death’ by removing his memories, while also giving rise for Tohya to be ‘born’ in Battler’s place. The accident would result in the necessary development of a new self, as the old one had ‘died’ without the memories which had initially formulated it.

That’s just about all the information we get.

We don’t know anything l about how long he was unconscious, or anything more about his injuries, at least in the VN. There’s some implication of muscular atrophy, as he’s described by the doctor as ‘almost completely wasted away, but there’s nothing more to indicate the passage of time.

In the interlude of the manga where we first see Tohya’s point of view (Twilight, Volume 5), ‘Battler’ is depicted as laying flat on his stomach in the road. (I say ‘Battler’ because, at this point, he’s been struck by the car and is on the verge of losing consciousness. He’s not quite Tohya yet, but he has lost the memories which let him perceive himself as Battler).

As it wasn’t confirmed that Tohya had been Battler at that time, only implied, we can’t really get a good look at his head - it’s either covered by text boxes, out of frame, or depicted as very…dark, for lack of a better way. The outline of a head, but completely filled in with black ink.

His hands are scraped, and his shirt and pants stained with splotches of blood. Looking closely at where he lays on the asphalt, you can even see where his blood has smeared on the road, especially around the hip waist area.

When he tries to lift his head and speak to Ikuko, there are scrapes and blood all over Battler’s face (though, you can’t make out much other than his nose and mouth, most of it covered in shadow or hair - the goal, again, was to obscure who Tohya had been). His blood is also on the ground below his face.

At the very least, Tohya had a pretty bad case of road rash.

When he wakes up, his head was likely shaved so that his head could have been bandaged - his right cheek had the little square piece of gauze, while the majority of the left side of his face, with except to his eye, was wrapped up. The worst of the trauma was probably on the left of his skull, taking a guess.

On the next few pages or so, while he’s recovering at Ikuko’s home and in the wheelchair (the first time), we do see Tohya’s right leg all bandaged up. It looks like his pant-leg is rolled up to make way for them, meaning the bandages are bulky or on-top of something bulky.

So, it may actually be a cast of some sort - which implies his leg was either broken by the impact, or pretty badly sprained. He’s also later seen recovering with crutches and keeping his weight on one leg, so I’m inclined to think it was broken.

As far as I can tell, when she found Battler, covered in blood and laying nearly dead in the middle of the road, Ikuko didn’t bring him to a hospital. Or notify the police.

Which is actually the next concerning thing.

Ikuko picked this bloodcovered, unconscious young man up, put him in her car, and presumably drove him straight to her house.

This person, a young man who has at the very least suffered severe enough blunt trauma as to cause amnesia - and she brings him not to a hospital, but to her house.

Without context, the most likely assumption to make was that he was either hit while walking alongside the the road, or jumped or thrown out of a passing car. Either way, on a road with literally no one and nothing else, she’s passing by and finds this young man laying - for all purposes - dead in the street.

Ikuko, seemingly with no hesitation for however shady the situation seems, still brings him to her house instead of thinking that it seems strange to literally find a kid dying in the middle of the road, and that hey, he needs immediate treatment, maybe I should bring him to a hospital.

Now, this was 1986. Cell phones weren’t really a thing at the time. Its easy to assume he’d at least been brought to a clinic of some sort beforehand, or if one wasn’t nearby but her house was, she would have gone there so she could call and notify some sort of authority, and get him some help there while waiting.

Technically, Ikuko did do that - a doctor did come to examine Tohya’s injuries. The man even suggested bringing him to a larger hospital, which would have the equipment to better examine his head, and look into the possibility of brain damage and its severity.

However, Ikuko paid the doctor extra to keep his examination of Tohya secret - off the record. Why she would do that, when really he should have been brought to the hospital to maybe be identified, I have only one idea - and it’s not exactly a good one, but I’ll get to that.

Over the next few pages, there are panels where we watch Tohya slowly recuperate, but…we don’t see him get brought to a hospital. He might have been brought to one in those early days, but we do not see it, and it isn’t mentioned.

I find it more likely that Tohya would have been brought to a hospital once he was more recovered from his initial injuries at that time, if at all, back in 1986. A broken leg doesn’t allow for a person to have much easy maneuverability, especially if they’re already struggling to move their body.

The fact that the doctor suggests visiting a hospital, made a house call to check on Tohya, and that Ikuko paid for his silence implies that Tohya was brought immediately to her house from that road.

In other words, he wasn’t brought to whatever local clinic or hospital that was in the area.

Ikuko’s house - mansion, really - is located at the top of a hill. She owns that land, the hill that she lives on - and arguably, she doesn’t have any close neighbors because of that. Otherwise, unless she wasn’t interested in speaking with them, her cat Bernkastel wouldn’t have been her only companion. Ikuko would have had some other acquaintances.

We don’t know how far her home was, from where Ikuko found Tohya on the road. How long it would have taken to reach her home, while being Tohya there.

The road had to have been somewhat close to the ocean, for Battler to drag himself to it, but other than that, the location of the road - its distance from Ikuko’s house on the hill, or the fishing village/town nearby, and Ikuko’s distance from the town - is unknown. It’s surrounded by trees, hence why Ikuko first asks him if the area was his garden (rhetorically I think, but it’s hard for me to tell).

So we don’t know how long it took for Tohya to be put into Ikuko’s car, brought to her home, and treated for his injuries, three of which that can be inferred manga-wise, with varying levels of severity.

Firstly, the blunt trauma to the left side of his head could have lead to swelling of the brain (mentioned by the doctor). Considering how much blood his face was covered with, it wouldn’t be a far cry to say that it had started to bleed either.

Then, the large amount of scraping over the entirety of his body would be very painful, a potential root for nerve damage depending on how deep they were, and that’s not considering the potential blood loss. It’s likely they weren’t deep scrapes considering the doctor’s statements, but that’s still something to consider.

The third injury is his broken right leg. Likely, it was a closed fracture, as an open fracture would have needed surgery to have been corrected. Still, it’s something would would need to be correctly set and splinted, as wrong movements could lead to further damage - not to mention the risk of causing the bone to jut out his skin depending on the actual type of break in the bone.

Additionally, if Battler dragged himself through wooded area to reach the beach, assuming he walked up a slope from the beach area of whichever island he reached, there would probably be a myriad of other scratches and maybe bug bites or something else.

Now that I’m thinking on it, we don’t even know if Ikuko called the doctor immediately. She found Battler in the road while it was raining, so there’s no way of telling if it was nighttime or if another storm had rolled in - obscuring the actual time.

All I know is that it had to be some point after noon - as Sayo and Battler had been at sea, and Sayo had jumped off of the boat, sometime during either the early morning or afternoon of October 6th.

When Tohya wakes up in Ikuko’s house, it’s daytime, so at the very least - maybe a night has passed. Maybe more. If it was nighttime when she found him, maybe that was why he wasn’t brought to a clinic - it might have been closed.

The scene of Ikuko finding Battler in the road and him waking up without memories at her house are right next to each other, which the illusion that maybe it’s been only a day or two. However, the passage of time is never confirmed, so… we don’t actually know how much time has passed.

Ikuko, or her staff, could have bandaged him up that first night, and then called for the doctor the following morning or, depending on how you interpret her, even after that, the longer it took for him to wake up.

The doctor mentions before leaving that he wouldn’t have lasted long, if he’d been left out in the road and Ikuko just drove past (or right over) him. If not from his injuries, my best guess is that hypothermia could have done him it - it was early October, and raining after all.

Considering Battler’s injuries when Ikuko found him, she would have had to move very quickly to save his life -> and she didn’t seem very panicked at all, stooped over him and asking if he was still alive. She would have had to make a decision very closely, and he would have had to have been hit very recently - and yet, no other cars were nearby.

This probably sounds cruel, but I think Ikuko (unintentionally) hit him with her car.

Ikutoh: Ikuko’s Potential Hit & Kidnap

This is one of the reasons why I think Ikuko didn’t want Tohya’s examination to be on record.

If she hit Tohya with her car, there’d be damage which would need to be repaired (unless she chose to hide the car or replace it), and if it went on record that a physician paid a visit to an injured young man at her house, around the same time her car would be sent in for repairs or replaced - well, that’s shady, to say the least.

There tends to be a stigma on hitting people with your car.

Of course, her staff would be paid for their silence, as would whoever worked to repair the car…but things can slip.

In the VN, Tohya later remembers two bright lights coming at him, and being aware that he was in danger while being unable to move, despite someone honking their horn at him.

He heard a sound, and then a car door opened.

He doesn’t say that he heard the car door open. He says that he heard a sound, which makes it distinct from the squealing of the brakes, and then the car door opened. The phrases are separate.

If Ikuko really did hit him, I think the sound he heard was his own body getting struck by the car bumper. However, this can also just be liked to the head trauma of having already been struck, and struggling to comprehend his surroundings and stay conscious.

In the manga, her car doesn’t seem to be damaged. This can either throw the theory that she hit him out the window, or I can apply the same logic as above - that Tohya is incorrectly remembering the car as undamaged, as Ikuko would later show it to him as proof she didn’t hit him.

For one, it was dark and rainy when he was hit by the car. Then, he also had the headlights of the car directly on him, which would have made it difficult to see the front of the car properly from his perspective on the ground, if he could see it at all.

Tohya wasn’t likely to get a good look at the car, whether it was a different one that hit him and Ikuko had found him, or she had been the one to hit him.

Lastly, people’s memory is not infallible - it can be altered by things you learn after some sort of event, or manipulated by others to make you think something happened one way or another - and that’s what we call gaslighting, folks.

Either he had already been hit by a car when Ikuko had just managed to avoid running him over entirely - the reason he hadn’t been able to move maybe the exhaustion of near drowning and trying to move inland - or Tohya incorrectly recalls how the car stopped before hitting him due to the trauma, and the information he’s given later on.

Considering the head trauma he suffered as well, It makes sense to me that Tohya would misremember things, especially that event, and later interpret those memories differently. Especially so, when Ikuko - who saved his life, took care of him, whom he trusted, who gave him a new identity to live under - told him or implied something else had happened.

With head trauma like that, discounting his other injuries, Tohya would have needed immediate care. The closest person would probably be the person who hit him with the car. If they didn’t flee the scene of the crime.

In this case, I think that’s Ikuko.

The notion of Hit&Run Ikuko does already come up in Umineko, but only so far as to deny her culpability in the matter.

As I mentioned earlier, Tohya did think for a time that Ikuko had been the one to hit him. She later showed him her car - and it was undamaged. That implies it wasn’t her, and essentially exonerates her in causing Tohya’s injuries + amnesia.

However, Tohya was wheelchair-bound for some time while he was recovering. He relied on Ikuko, or the maids working for her, to move around.

We don’t know how long he was unconscious, or how long it was until he was recovered enough to sit in a wheelchair and move around. Then, there’s the question of what state he was in while recovering - how much he slept, how much he could move, and so on.

When did he move into the wheelchair, how long he was in a wheelchair afterwards, and then when had he graduated to crutches to walk around himself?

In that unknown span of time, Ikuko could have had her car repaired. She could have replaced it - gotten a new car - or already had another car of some sort stored away, choosing to show Tohya the undamaged one.

When Tohya was brought to the car would have been entirely reliant on when Ikuko wanted to show him the car, and what his health was at the time.

Besides that, considering how badly Tohya had been injured, the interior would have needed to be deep-cleaned. There would have been mud, if not Tohya’s blood, all over the inside of Ikuko’s car. Why not get the car repaired or just get rid of it at the same time, as well?

It’s never outright said that Ikuko didn’t hit Tohya with her car.

She never says she didn’t hit him either. Ikuko mentions that Tohya had originally thought she did. He mentions to Yukari decades down the line that he eventually came to believe she hadn’t, due to the evidence he’d been shown.

Ikuko's innocence is something that we infer from what we are shown.

I say she kidnapped him too, because again - Ikuko didn’t bring Tohya to a hospital.

She paid the doctor to keep his visit a secret, and Tohya’s examination off-record. She didn’t contact police about finding someone badly injured in the middle of the road, even after getting him help. Presumably not even after confirming he was 18, still a minor.

He could have had his teeth examined and they would be able to find his dental records, police or hospitals or someone, and then he could have been positively identified. That was how Maria’s jawbone was identified when recovered from Rokkenjima.

Through her dental records.

That’s not touching on the fact that, considering the close proximity whatever island she lives on to Rokkenjima, the incident would have been on the news for at least a little bit, on the Internet and television and newspapers -> including faces of the victims, their ages, but I’ll go into that a little bit later.

There were avenues Ikuko could have taken to get Tohya identified after she saved him - even if she was panicked in the moment she found him (and she didn’t seem like it) eventually the idea would have come to her - and for whatever reason, she didn’t.

Ikutoh: Ikuko’s character

Before continuing, I want to look at what we know of Ikuko’s character. All things speaking, we don’t…really know much in concrete fact.

Ikuko was older than eighteen when she found Tohya, but described as not to old to get married - even if he personally thought she’d given up on it.

So, in 1986, my personal belief is that Ikuko was somewhere in her mid-twenties (24-25). At the most, she’d probably be somewhere in her early thirties - maybe around Rosa’s age or a bit younger.

We know very little about her background.

Ikuko belongs to a rich family of landowners. She has several brothers, and out of all her siblings, she was considered a bit eccentric. Due to a series of choices she made, her family nearly disinherited her - pushing her out of the public eye, and telling her to live quietly in her mansion atop the hill.

She was effectively disowned, but….softly? A more accurate term would probably be exiled or excommunicated.

Ikuko still had access to quite a bit of money and so on, a large staff to care for her, but… otherwise, Ikuko was left completely alone. It didn’t seem to be something she minded, as Ikuko is described as not being very social, but still - her home is a very isolated area.

Though she lived in luxury, with a full staff to care for her, Ikuko reads to me as being a person who was very lonely. Ikuko really only had her cat, Bernkastel, as her companion up until finding Tohya.

She presumably told him this herself, which I find interesting considering that she does have people working for her, and around her.

Though Ikuko is in no way close to the Ushiromiya Family in regards to how her servants are treated, the fact that she was lonely does imply distance between them and her. They are there for work. She essentially takes the staff’s presence as her due, not as companionship.

Similarly to Tohya, who wasn’t introduced as a separate character until Twilight and whose’s name originated as Ikuko’s pseudonym while writing, what else is known of Ikuko’s characterization is only something inferred because she doesn’t appear that often (although more than Tohya).

In her case, much of Ikuko’s character ties in to the nature of the fantasy witch, Featherine Augustus Aurora. On a fantasy level, Featherine is a Creator witch who can effectively rewrite reality as she wishes - to name just one of her abilities. We see it in Twilight when she quarters Lamdadelta's body.

Looking from a reality perspective, Featherine is the meta-verse fusion of two people - Ikuko and Tohya - who wrote the most populr forgeries that perpetuated the occult mystery of Rokkenjima. Her abilities stem from the fact that they are writers, creating and erasing multiple realities on the pages of the forgeries they write - which, in turn, is what the meta-world is built atop of...it gets confusing.

When she’s introduced in Dawn, Ikuko and Featherine are very much implied to be one and the same -> linked, at the very least (I’m fairly certain that Featherine is actually composed of both Tohya and Ikuko?). At that point, it's assumed to be (roughly, not accounting for being separate entities and a person's perspective on the meta) 1:1, since I don't think anyone knew Tohya was separate from Ikuko until Twilight.

The same thing occurs in Twilight, during the ‘reveal’ of Eva’s diary -> Featherine essentially being a witch-persona of Ikuko’s to some degree. They are almost but not quite the same, slipping in and out of what's reality and what's meta.

Meta and it’s ties to reality are very fluid, as is how intertwined Featherine is with Ikuko.

If we read into her influences on Featherine, who predominantly seems to be in personality and appearance most like Ikuko over Tohya, as if his influence is swallowed up by her own - as well as the scenes in reality, she views most people as below her, their actions as something entertaining - it’s very reminiscent of viewing herself as above others, above human.

Ikuko has a bit of a god-complex. Although she has a way of speaking that makes people slow to irritation when she speaks with them, she’s generally condescending towards others.

One of her first lines when she is introduced in Dawb is to refer to the fans of her and Tohya’s written works as ‘trash’, because in her eyes they read the books for the prestige of it - to seem intelligent for indulging in mystery, especially mystery written by a renowned author.

Other people are…distant, from Ikuko. She can view them as children who argue with one another, things to watch for entertainment, but they are below her.

However, this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t get lonely, or that she is entirely divorced from being a person. When Tohya lives with her and begins reading her manuscripts, Ikuko eventually admits to him that once it was fun writing for herself, but she enjoyed when he read and discussed her manuscripts with her.

Just like anyone else, Ikuko needs someone or something around.

For example, We don’t see her act as expressively condescending with Tohya as with others, she greets him somewhat as an equal, but - then again, Ikuko essentially molded who Tohya was.

Put roughly, Ikuko holds all the power in their relationship. If there was anyone she’d treat as someone close to her, if not an equal than as something she cared for, it would be the young man who she saved, and named, and created a new identity for. The person she let stay in her home, because they had nowhere else to go.

Tohya is her caged bird, with clipped wings that do not allow him to fly. Her condescension manifests in different ways towards him.

They didn’t have any sort of connection when she first found him in the road, but they built one later - and it’s a somewhat one-sided dependency at that. Ikuko does depend on Tohya, but in an emotional manner (companionship), rather than the emotional-material dependency on Tohya’s end.

Additionally, she saved his life and was incredibly lonely by that point, and there’s that to consider when looking at the way she interacted with Tohya…

There’s just - so much to her character and their relationship that’s just barely touched on, but what we do get is something interesting to pick at.

This is me cutting her character into some of the roughest blocks possible at the moment, since I’m not really accustomed to it - or much of the answer arcs, really.

@batbeato’s depiction of Ikuko has greatly formed my own understanding of the character, and she’s made a few posts on Ikuko and Tohya’s relationship already - as well as fleshing it out in her fic, ‘A fate outside the catbox’. I recommend checking out both the post and the fic.

Ikutoh: Ikuko + Tohya’s identity + Why she kept him secret

So. Ikuko finds a young man (Battler) in the road. She sees he’s still alive, but grievously injured. Ikuko saves him, and maybe she thinks - oh, someone to keep her company. That would be nice.

Though she might not mind being alone, Ikuko is still a lonely person.

By saving the young man, he would likely stick around at least to thank her, and that would bridge the gap between a relationship and non-relationship.

We don’t have a canon answer for how she made the jump from finding this kid in the road to bringing him straight to her house, it’s never really touched on… There’s no way to know exactly what went on inside her head when she picked Battler up. That’s the roughest, sketchiest idea of her line of thought in my head.

Pretty sure most people would assume foul play after finding a person laying in the road like roadkill with no one else, not even a wrecked car, around - contact the police or the ambulance after getting said person to the nearest safe place to do so - but Ikuko just…doesn’t.

Or she doesn’t care. Ikuko brings him to her home.

Then. The young man wakes up.

This I find really interesting, because even before he speaks, you can see now in Ikuko’s lines her eagerness at having someone to talk to, as soon as he (Tohya, but not yet named) woke up.

She introduces herself, and she’s dropped the distant way of speaking from when she found him, that she uses speaks to others (Ange, the Witch Hunters, etc). Ikuko speaks like they are equals, wanting to get off on the right foot. She seems so eager too, especially in the manga (which really makes me feel like Tohya was knocked out for a while).

She asks for his name, and he can’t give her one. He doesn’t remember his name, and after watching him struggle with that for a moment, Ikuko asks what he does remember, which is only his age -> eighteen years old, or around there.

Ikuko gives him the name Tohya - an alternative reading to the numeral characters that make the number eighteen. She also immediately adds her own surname, Hachijo, a link between the two of them.

She asks him if that works, but directly afterwards states she’s chosen well - which, while cute (the manga panel has flowed floating behind her little chibi figure with a cat smile), also makes it seem that name is already concrete in her mind for him. Like a claim.

Ikuko looks at this amnesiac kid, and she has to have decided on the spot - hey, he can live with me. I’ll give him my last name for the time being, then.

Considering the initial plan with her relationship with Tohya which was scrapped, this makes me Feel a very certain way (I go into this a little further down).

Its reasonable to assume Tohya hadn’t woken up prior to this, so Ikuko wouldn’t have planned for this - she wouldn’t have known about his lack of memory, even if the doctor believed it likely.

It’s interesting to look at, because with his memory, Battler would have likely had a motive to leave the mansion, but without it…Tohya doesn’t.

Doesn’t have a name, or paperwork, a place to stay…

Ikuko would know that, even if she didn’t know who Tohya had originally been outside of being a teenager she found dying in the middle of the road. Because if Tohya himself doesn’t know…what does he have to look for other than his memories, and where would he stay while recovering?

Quite the issue.

Keep in mind, Ikuko seemed to have no thought of contacting the police about this teenager she found in the road, and no indication of bringing him to the hospital. Which could probably manage to pair his dental records with Battler’s and identify him.

Tohya stays with Ikuko, and she doesn’t seem to make a move to directly try and find out who he is. It could start with a simple offer to stay with her while he recovers, she’ll foot the medical expenses, but then staying for a while grows longer and longer…

Not exactly great.

While saving his life and letting him stay with her seems benevolent on papers, and she likely had benevolent intentions…there are issues with the ethics of Ikuko’s actions.

We know later on that Tohya did go to several hospitals for his migraines in his life, but not when. At the very least, when Ikuko had first found him…she didn’t bring him. As far as we know, she didn’t contact anyone but the doctor who she paid off to keep Tohya’s case secret.

She specifically didn’t want other people to know about Tohya, who she had saved and who was staying with her. Which makes it feel like she wanted Tohya isolated, wanted Tohya to herself.

Ikuko lives on an island somewhere in the area near Rokkenjima. Her house has a view of the sea, and there’s no other way for Battler to have ended up in the middle of the road that night otherwise.

News stations would be reporting the incident, and soon enough, pictures of the servants and the Ushiromiya family would also be televised.

Regardless of how long Tohya was unconscious, sooner or later, Ikuko should have known that Tohya had been Ushiromiya Battler.

In the manga, his face is completely bandaged up - but this can be a design choice, due to the fact that during the interlude it’s only meant to be implied that he was Battler who survived. However, Ikuko had already seen his face. Besides that, bandages need to be regularly changed - others would have seen his face eventually too.

When Tohya and Yukari meet decades later, she can identify him right away. Which implies that his facial structure wasn’t horribly altered by the accident.

Which makes the fact that Ikuko didn’t contact the police, or bring Tohya to the hospital right away, or even tell him who he had been, extremely strange. An eighteen year old, in the middle of nowhere? Even if she didn’t tie him to the Rokkenjima Incident, it’s still weird she didn’t contact anyone.

Tohya also had at least two family members left, which makes it worse if Ikuko did know who he was before Tohya remembered. Eva and Ange were alive.

Ikuko watched him grapple with struggling to remember who he was - and later, once he remembered, with trying to either accept or coexist with his memories as Battler. To the point that he ended up in a wheelchair.

It could have been out of concern for his safety that she didn’t contact anyone, considering the mysterious deaths of everyone else in his family -> but, only if she really only knew after he had remembered. It’s pointedly mentioned that Eva wasn’t seen by public as a culprit until a forgery was published declaring her, the sole survivor, as the culprit.

Banquet. Which Ikuko and Tohya had written.

Up until the message bottles were found and made public, I can’t even remember if it was treated as a mass murder or not. Rokkenjima wasn’t truly known about until the message bottles had been found and information about them released to the public.

Ikuko might not have had a television, preferring to read over watching shows or a movie, but she did leave her house. She wouldn’t have found Tohya that night, otherwise. There would be newspapers, magazines, something around the town depicting the incident for at least some time after the island exploded.

Ikuko should have seen Battler’s face in them at some point, known that it looked like Tohya’s and connected the dots, especially as forgery after forgery began coming out on the Internet and interest in the accident as an occult matter began to rise.

Maybe she did.

But it’s never brought up if she knew who he was, and if she did know beforehand, even before people starting pointing fingers at the family and servants for mass murder, especially at Eva who had survived…she didn’t tell Tohya.

She didn’t tell anyone.

I think that, had he been told that Ikuko thought she knew who he had been, it would have saved Tohya a lot of the pain and fear he later went through, in regards to his relationship to Ushiromiya Battler, and the clash of the original identity against his existence as Tohya.

On top of all this, as though the implications of Ikuko not looking into Tohya’s identity weren’t pretty bad, or already knowing who he was while he wanted to remember, Tohya literally can not leave Ikuko.

As I mentioned, He was physically incapable of doing so. He has no memory of where else he could go. As he has no idea who he is, he has no paperwork, no legal identity, no money, and so on.

If he’d been brought to a hospital or police at some point, they could have identified him via dental records - but Ikuko did not bring him, and considering how long he struggled to regain his memories, likely didn’t bring the option up to him if he didn’t take it.

Actually the fact that he did eventually go to hospitals for medication makes me wonder if she had paperwork forged for him. Otherwise he wouldn't have a medical record to hand in, which would be strange.

Essentially, in regards to material security, he’d be screwed. Additionally, Ikuko saved his life and gave him a name - let him stay with her at her house, maybe even encouraged it. He is indebted to her.

He cares for her.

In a way, Ikuko groomed Tohya for obedience to her. At least when she first saved him, he was literally dependent on her goodwill for everything, even when suspicious of if Ikuko had struck him with her car (which had to have been an uneasy feeling at the least).

We don’t have a lot in canon regarding their dynamics, unless it is stuff we can infer about their characters from Banquet through Twilight (which were confirmed, at least on a gameboard level outside of meta, to be written by the two) but there is something just very much Not Good about the way she found Tohya, and then kept him secret.

Ikuko is control of the information Tohya receives about the outside world, able to influence the decisions he made about his health to a great deal, and persuaded him to stay with her, somehow. Ikuko is the one who likely brings him to the hospital, gets the medication he takes, was the one to introduce Tohya to forgeries and likely urged him to start writing them -

This is the start of their relationship. This is the foundation for how they live together for decades, and originally, Ryukishi was going to have Tohya married to Ikuko. In canon, all we know is that they lived together, it remains unconfirmed whether it was romantic or not, but still.

Just -

There is Ikuko, somewhere in her twenties (24-25, maybe) at the youngest, finding an eighteen year old kid laying nearly dead in the middle of the street one night. An amnesiac kid who she takes in (possibly hit with her car), arguably tells no one about for some time, and gives the name Hachijo Tohya.

Despite his injuries, and a doctor's recommendation, there's no indication he was brought to a hospital for treatment. As a matter of fact, when she first found Tohya, her first instinct was to bring her to her house - and when she did call said doctor, she paid him to keep the visit unrecorded.

Ikuko lives on an island somewhere near Rokkenjima. An island belonging to the wealthy Ushiromiya Family which, coincidentally around the time she found Tohya in the road, had mysteriously exploded and killed nearly the entire family and staff on it - with exception to one Ushiromiya Eva.

It's initially written off as an accident, the island having once been an old military base back in the second world war. The television, the newspapers, publish pictures of the people who didn't make it off the island - and interestingly enough, one of them is a dead ringer for Tohya.

Ushiromiya Battler...would be just about the same age as him, too,

Eighteen years old.

Ikuko doesn't bring Tohya to the hospital...and she doesn't tell him about the papers, either.

Just….These two. I swear.

[girl4pay]

i'll never finish this but i love it so much

There had been a story, years ago, that Niall Lynch had delighted in telling. 

A warrior, drenched in blood, fatigued with a war that was not his own, dove into the ocean to cleanse himself. The salt of the blood on his skin mixed with the salt of the seawater, but so thick was the blood that the water around him remained clouded with it, and he realized that he would not be truly cleansed until he swam to where the waters ran clear. So swim he did, for days and nights, through caverns and whirlpools, past ghostly shipwrecks and the writhing behemoths that had drawn them down into the depths, but such was the volume of blood he had shed that always around him remained that cloud of violence. Finally, after countless nights, he looked up from his efforts and saw the moon so full and clear, and he realized that he had finally swam far enough, and that while he swam the currents had carried him to an unfamiliar shoreline.  

To dive into the sea the warrior had laid down his sword and left the battlefield. He could not swim back home, and so he walked from the shallows to the shoreline, and then from the shoreline walked inland. The air in this strange land was heavy and wet, and sea salt prickled on his skin. The warrior thought that he should walk until the air was clear, but the further he walked, the more the air pressed against him, curdling into grey skies and then angry storm clouds. 

And then the heavens broke.

A thick forest provided the warrior refuge as the storm raged, but still the rainwater drenched him. It was only a summer storm, furious and flashing. After the skies had finally purged themselves he stepped out into the damp sunlit valley that lay below the treeline and found that the air was light and his skin felt clean, and suddenly all his years of fighting and swimming and walking caught up with him, and he laid down on the dew-studded grass and began to sleep.

As he slept, he dreamed. 

When he woke, the valley groaned and shuddered underneath him, burdened with new life. The warrior had found, in his dreams, a lovely farmhouse, stone and sprawling, and now he was lying in the twisting path leading up to its threshold.

There, in the threshold, stood a woman.

[runforthestars]

High By the Beach

Pairing: Male alt!reader x Theodore Nott

Summary: Slytherin boys spend a day at the beach. Could be read as gender neutral if you squint really hard. Then keep squinting. And close your eyes.

A/N: This was just meant to be a drabble.

Whoops.

xoxo - Kallias

Want more of my works? Masterlist

꧁ ༺ 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 ༻ ꧂

The ominous twap twap of flip flops and a jangling from the metal chain attached to your wallet—not unlike the jingle of a cat’s bell collar, which Lorenzo had pointed out and incidentally been kicked—were the first to announce your arrival.

The group had all been invited to the Nott family’s picturesque countryside home in Italy for the summer. Secretly, Theodore suspected his father was simply relieved to be rid of him and his friends, safely back home in the UK, far from his son’s silently judgmental stare, a gaze far too reminiscent of the boy’s late mother.

Yet now, all gloomy thoughts were swept away by the brilliant sun, shining unblemished by clouds across the vast, azure sky. The sand was an immaculate white, so much so that you could have mistaken it for snow, if not for the clear, turquoise water lapping at the shore in lazy, rhythmic waves that glistened under the sunlight before receding into the vast ocean. The Nott residence perched majestically on a grassy hill above, offering an unparalleled sense of privacy that came with seemingly having their own private beach.

The warm, humid air was refreshed by a gentle breeze that swept inland from the water, carrying with it the briny scent of the ocean and the tropical aroma of sun tanning lotion mingling in the air. Breathing in deeply, you could almost detect hints of exotic cuisine wafting from the nearby town, accompanied by the smokey fragrance born from cooking said food.

Exhaling with a contented sigh, a bright grin spread across your face as you took a moment to soak it all in, only now realizing that your presence had already been noticed by the group. With a pack of drinks clutched under one arm and a bag slung over your shoulder, filled with all your beach essentials and snacks, you stood confidently in black swimming trunks and stylish shades to match. As you pushed your sunglasses up to tame your unruly hair, styled in your usual unconventional way, you proclaimed, “Are we ready to rock?”

Draco emitted a long-suffering sigh at the question, sinking back into his chair beneath the shade of the umbrella, casting a disdainful glance your way as you unfolded your own chair beside Blaise—who, for his part, had strategically chosen a spot just beyond the umbrella’s protective shadow.

“Is that why you took so long getting ready? To make your hair look worse than it did when you rolled out of bed?”

You shot him a sidelong look while popping open the cooler, playfully pointing at his meticulously slicked-back hair as you settled your drinks of choice into the ice. “You’re one to talk, bleach boy.” There was no bite to your tone, as a snicker escaped you at your own play on words.

His only response was an offended scoff and some grumbling, which made you shrug nonchalantly. You cracked open a drink and took a refreshing sip while reclining back in your chair, the sun warming your skin. Fishing out a portable speaker, you fiddled with it until a genre you thought the group would deem agreeable began to play, shifting the volume higher before unfolding the tanning mirror you had brought along for the occasion.

The sudden music was what finally drew Lorenzo’s attention, prompting him to pause mid-bucket-brigade and wave a cheerful greeting, accompanied with a compliment on your eyeliner. He had been diligently transporting bucket after bucket of wet sand to his ambitious sandcastle, which Theo had oh-so-kindly volunteered to refine, transforming the chaotic heaps into a presentable fortress that would hold off even the most daring of sand crabs from any attempts to seize and overthrow it. The Italian previously claimed that he “couldn’t stand to see that disaster in front of him anymore.” Mattheo had readily agreed that Lorenzo wasn’t very easy on the eyes and promptly gotten a bucket of wet sand dumped on his head.

Now, however, the three had finally reached a fragile consensus. Theodore crafted the castle into something formidable, refining the architecture with a careful touch, while Lorenzo tirelessly supplied the necessary sand. Casting your gaze out to the shimmering sea, you spotted Mattheo’s dark hair bobbing at the sandbar, where he was trying his hand at snorkeling, doing what was no doubt best for the sandcastle’s safety and keeping a wide berth.

Now that it was pointed out, Draco sat up slightly, lifting his sunglasses to scrutinize you critically.

“You told me that was natural, that you were just ‘born that way’.”

Shrugging with a lazy air, you rubbed one eye with the back of your hand, smudging the eyeliner just a little before letting out a drawn-out yawn. The dark lines traced around your eyes were artfully applied, designed to enhance their intensity without drawing overt attention.

“It is. At least, I think it is…” Your brows furrowed in mock contemplation as curiosity overtook the drowsiness brought on by the summer heat. You pulled the eyeliner pen from your bag, turning it over in your fingers while squinting to read the label. A bright smile broke across your face as you held the pen triumphantly aloft, waving it toward Draco. “Yup. All natural ingredients, baby! Would I lie to you?”

He muttered an incredulous “unbelievable” under his breath, choosing to interpret your question as rhetorical, and allowing himself to melt back into the comfort of his reclined chair. He deserved a relaxing vacation, after all—after a grueling school year spent cohabiting with this group of delightful morons, he was fully prepared to unwind and forget it all amidst the idyllic countryside of Italy. Though no one in the group deigned to call Draco out on the fact that he wouldn’t have agreed to spend the summer with them if he genuinely couldn’t stand them. The occasional curious glances shot his way from Lorenzo or Blaise, whenever Draco voiced his complaints, hinted they were well aware of that fact.

The warm rays of sunlight enveloped you like a comforting embrace, coaxing you into a gentle doze as the rhythmic sound of waves lapped against the shore. With a content sigh, you leaned back, your arms cradling your head as you reveled in the golden warmth against your skin. You drowsily appreciated the way the tanning mirror reflected the sun's effect on your face. You didn’t take notice of the soft padding of footsteps approaching nor the heavy sound of something being dragged through the sand until Theodore spoke up, a light touch tapping your shoulder with a question of your name.

Giving a inquiring hum, you blinked against the glare of the sun before really taking in the sight before you. The sun seemed to adore Theodore Nott in particular—Could you really blame it?—as he’d soaked it up like a sponge, now sporting a nice tan despite having just arrived not so long ago. How you hadn’t noticed before was beyond you, but now that you had it took some amount of willpower to look higher than his bare chest. When you finally did, he was already watching you, a flicker of amusement dancing in his gaze. You forced a nervous laugh, trying to play it cool.

“Yeah, what’s up bro?” you managed to ask, voice cracking lightly before you cleared your throat. Having been too distracted by a certain sunkissed Italian before you, it was only now that you took notice of the glaringly obvious paddle board in the sand behind him. You leaned to the side to see it better, a spark of intrigue lighting up your eyes.

Theodore, noticing your curiosity, lifted one side of the the board by one of its handles, gesturing toward the inviting waters with a nod. “Do you wanna go out with me?”

The words caught you off guard, snapping you from your former entrancement, your mind momentarily blanking as you stared up at him, lips parted in surprise, brows knit together in confusion. “Huh?”

Realizing how his words might have sounded, a warm flush crept across his cheeks, though it was mostly hidden by the newfound tan as his eyes flickered away from yours. “I mean, on the board,” he clarified, a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

You only looked more aghast at the openess of the request, shooting a glance to the rest of the group, who all seemed blissfully unaware of the exchange. You barley stopped yourself from joking that you “weren’t into exhibition,” or suggesting that he should at least take you on a proper date first. But just in time, logic kicked in, and you saved yourself from any potential humiliation.

Rising to your feet while setting your sunglasses back onto the chair, you nodded, perhaps a bit too quickly, a grin stretching across your face. “‘Course I will. You know how to drive that thing though, right?” The quick jab was punctuated with a nod towards the board and its double-sided paddle. A sense of pride washed over you when the dumb joke drew a genuine laugh from the other boy. He looked as surprised by his laughter as you were, his smile radiating warmth that quickly pulled you in.

“‘Course.” Theodore parroted softly, his accent lending a melodic quality to the words, so different from your own.

—- ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ —-

As the paddle board coasted over the water, the soft sounds of waves beneath it enveloped you, drawing a contented hum from your lips. Leaning back, you felt the breeze caressing your skin to drive away the sun’s warmth while Theodore stood confidently at the front, expertly guiding the board forward with measured strokes.

His initial struggles to maintain balance while standing hadn’t been without some trial and error, if his tousled hair and droplets of seawater still clinging to his skin had anything to say about it. Grinning, you couldn’t help but admire the view as a playful idea bubbled to the surface of your mind.

With a sudden lean, you tipped to one side, shifting your weight and causing the board to wobble precariously beneath Theodore's feet. He shot a glare in your direction, but it was the only warning he gave before he raised the paddle and sent a miniature wave splashing over you.

“Hey!—”

“You started it, I just finished it,” Theodore retorted, a smug grin spreading across his face.

You rolled your eyes, muttering under your breath, “That’s just stupid.”

Karma was a swift mistress when she came for you, and you barley had time to react when a hand shot out, grabbing your ankle and dragging you towards the water. A gasp escaped your lips as the cold sea enveloped you, instantly shocking your senses. You surfaced, shaking your head to clear the water from your ears just in time to hear the peal of nearly manic laughter echoing from the board.

Turning to face the paddle board, you saw Mattheo sprawled atop it, his laughter causing him to nearly roll off into the water. The sight of your water-soaked self, makeup running and hair a wet mess, sent him into another fit of giggles.

Mattheo yelped when you lunged at him, pulling yourself on board to kneel over him with a determination. He instinctively grabbed your arms, eyes widen in surprise as he thwarted your attempts to strangle him. Theodore had watched passively until now, swearing and struggling to keep his balance as the boat dipped wildly this way and that.

“Hey! Not on the board—” he protested, his attempts to urge you two to fight in the waist-deep water of the sand bar swiftly getting drowned out.

“You’re dead, Riddle!” you shouted, your threat lingering in the air with just a tinge of glee. Though wether that delight was drawn from a malicious intent or playful joy was anyones guess.

“It’s not my fault you fell in!”

“Fell?!?! Oh I’ll show you falling, you waterlogged little rat!” Your anger surged as you lunged for Mattheo, trying to lift him and toss him off the board, his hands gripping yours in a desperate attempt to resist.

“Hey, we can talk about this, yeah? We’re both reasonable adults—” His words were abruptly silenced by a loud, splashing cacophony as the board finally tilted too far under the weight of your struggle, flipping over and sending all three of you tumbling into the cool water.

𓂃 ོ𓂃

The way back to shore was steeped in a heavy silence, broken only by you or Mattheo occasionally trying to push the other off and frame it as an accident, only to be halted by a single, disapproving look from Theo.

As the sandy shore loomed closer, you both seemed to reach an unspoken truce, a common ground to meet on. Who did this Nott guy think he was? Acting like he owned the paddle board, or the house… or the section of beach and everything set up on it. It was downright absurd. Locking eyes with the shorter boy, a mischievous grin illuminated his face—a contagious spark that soon mirrored in your own expression. Just a few feet from the land, Theo felt two separate pairs of hands aggressively shove him, and before he could react, the board was gone from beneath him, and he was plunged into the water.

You and Mattheo bolted for the beach, nearly tripping over one another in your haste to escape before Theo got it in his head to retaliate. The sudden frantic splashing caught the group’s attention, drawing a judgmental look from Draco and a delighted laugh from Lorenzo.

With a dramatic sigh, you shook off the excess water somewhat dog-like, re-equipping your sunglasses and dropping back down in you chair, savoring the warmth of the sun as it began to drive away the lingering chill of the ocean. Just as you settled into a moment of peace, the vibrant music wafting from the speaker came to a sudden halt.

Lips pursing in disdain, you took a moment to enjoy the unexpected silence before slowly pushing your glasses down to perch on the bridge of your nose. Mattheo was crouched in front of the speaker, confusion clouding his features as he messed with your phone, getting precariously close to dripping water on both devices.

“Can I help you, officer?” you drawled sarcastically, face twisting in offense when Matt waved you off dismissively.

“Your music taste sucks.”

“What?! I wasn’t even playing my usual stuff. I turned on fucking Beach Boys for you all! Who doesn’t like The Beach Boys?”

Your protests were abruptly silenced as Mattheo let out a triumphant “yes!” under his breath, and the dreary tones of The Smiths flooded from the speaker, eliciting a collective groan from the group.

You dramatically clasped your hands over your ears. “Good god, I almost wish I’d let you drown me.”

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Bonus:

Much later, in the early morning hours, you found yourself in the kitchen, having slept fitfully after the long, sun-soaked day at the beach. Alas, you’d still awaken long before sunrise. The small lamp cast a warm, inviting glow in the dimly lit room, illuminating the faint outlines of the countertops. A thin window hung open in front of you, allowing the cool, salty breeze to drift in from the ocean below, carrying with it the distant sounds of nightlife and the gentle, rhythmic crash of waves upon the shore. The moon's full light shimmered across the water, painting the waves in glistening shades of silver.

You admired the tranquil view for a few moments before redirecting your attention to the array of ingredients spread out in front of you, the makings of a fine midnight snack, if you do say so yourself. Humming softly, you found yourself bobbing your head ever so slightly, swaying side to side to the damn catchy Beach Boys song lodged in your mind.

“Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don’t we go…” you mumbled softly before catching yourself. Cursing the 70s band internally, you flinched and spun around to confront the source of the noise when a playful hum picked up the same tune you’d left off on.

Heaving a sigh, you pointed sternly with the hand grasping the butter knife to where Theo stood in the doorway, mischievous grin crowning his lips.

“I swear, you need to start wearing a bell, Nott. It’s not natural to walk that quietly.”

Turning back to your food, your breath hitched when arms unexpectedly slid around your waist, a warm body pressing against your back. Heat flooded your cheeks and you blamed it on the additional body heat provided, the warmth turning to a full blaze when a face nestled into the crook of your neck. Suddenly feeling a little light headed, you focused diligently on functioning normally when a warm breath fanned out over you collarbone.

Your attempts at maintaining your composure were thrown out the window when Theo finally spoke, his voice a teasing whisper. “Sure, you gonna put it on for me?”

Choking on nothing but pure surprise, you wheezed out a cough. Turning to face him, you pointed a finger only for it to end up pressing against his chest with the close proximity.

“Freak!” you accused, incredulous.

He struggled to contain his laughter, raising his hands in surrender. “I was kidding! You should’ve seen your face though.”

꧁ ༺ 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 ༻ ꧂

[harmcityherald]

its a lovely night here in harm city. A light drizzle has been pattering about an hour and I just heard the beloved sound of thunder. I'm by the water so I'm talking to all my denisons of harm cities inland suburban enclaves that thunder and rain approaches.

I love the smell of new rain on concrete.

I came inside because my tablet doesn't like the rain as much as I do. I see that Hellboy has ended so I search thru tubi's movies and lookie what I found.

the 1981 heavy metal!! I hope the turtles enjoy it as I'm cranking the volume on this one. tell me in the notes what is your favourite song from this movie? mine is blue oyster cult's 'veteran of the psychic wars' I love that song it speaks to me lol. while I've got you trapped as a captive audience here's skeletor me with his Vulcan collar turned up.

as usual, too sexy for harm city. also, this is barabbas. he always sits to my port side. I had many memories that included ol' barabbas here. meathead and my lovely daughter smashed him to pieces.

didn't even give me the common courtesy of telling me. like the bathroom that the floor fell out due to constant flooding. I had to learn about it all when it became impossible to hide from me. then I got the attempted murder treatment, which I just recently told my daughter that meathead will never be welcome here again...... never ever. To which she says to me "well I wish you could put it aside and be an adult about it. and I'm sorry but I laughed right in that silly goose's face. "adult?.....really. should I apologize to him for not being understanding? sorry sweet pea, attempted murder is now and always will be an automatic deal breaker." anyway this is what's left of poor barabbas. he deserved better.

OK. I'm going to make a baked potato.

[ninthnocturne]

💍

For a laugh, jokey thread for Sora and Myde

Send 💍 for our muses to be placed in an arranged marriage together

@damagedh3art

The young blond fidgetted with his gloves while riding in the coach towards the castle that would be his new home. The ocean-side prince had never been this far inland before and he found the disconect from his element disconcerting. He breathed out and leaned so he could look out the window as they made it into town, only to be pulled back in by his attendant scolding him for not keeping up apperances. He sighed out a little. "Well at least this place is pretty, maybe there is at least a river or lake near by. I can only hope father chose someone kind...though knowing him. "

He blanched. Alexander was not known for his kindness towards his only son. The fact he was marrying him to another kingdom spoke volumes about how much he trusted him with matters of state. Which was to say not at all. He was sure his eldest cousin would do fine as the kings heir.

When the coach came to a stop he waited for his attendant to exit and come around opening the door and putting a hand up to help him out. Taking the hand he stepped down looking up at the imposing huge castle, nothing like the open design of his home lands palace. "Woah..."