#Nineteen Otters

[aellyne]

So please, leave. When I see you, I feel even more miserable.

DRAMA SPECIAL SEASON 13: NINETEEN OTTERS (2022)

[noorfanartkd]

[onceuponastarryeye]

"I think you were right. Sea otters weren't scared. Since they were always together."

kbs drama special, season 13, episode 4:nineteen otters, 2022.

[kimchislaphearts]

Like Otters (2022)

Genre: Youth, Drama, Romance 

Plot: 

The story of a precarious and affectionate first love between two nineteen year olds who carried each other's dropout letters and sold banned items together.

Cast & Crew:

Shin Eun Soo as Kim Jae Young

Kim Jae Won as Seo Woo Kyu

Supporting cast - Lee Chan Hyung, Jang Ha Eun, Kim Ji Woo

Director - Kim Soo Jin

Screen Writer - Go Woo Jin

Music:  

The chosen music fit the mood of the drama special. The one OST track My Sea by Nine9 was quite moving. 

Overall: 

This drama special tells the story of two teens on the verge of graduating highschool who become like otters to one another. It’s not a light and fluffy story, but not completely dark either. The story begins as both teens run to the police station to find the waste of oxygen who has impregnated both Woo Kyu’s mother and Jae Young’s sister in custody for the “theft of condoms”. Jae Young threatens Woo Kyu to keep quiet. 

It’s hard to believe that we can move forward from this to develop a friendship but the writer wrote characters that are able to communicate well with and understand each other. 

The posters make this look like it will be a warm and sweet romance between two teens but it is a story about teens facing reality and surviving in the best way they can. Although there are sweet moments it is very clear that the writer wrote it to console those going through a tough time and feel less alone. 

I quite like Shin Eun Soo, I’ve seen her in a few things now. At first I couldn’t disconnect her from her character Bom in Summer Strike which I’ve been watching lately but eventually the differences appeared. I thought both of the young leads did a good job in their roles. 

This drama also made me laugh, there was some serious condom PPL going on. I did appreciate the jokes about the teenager who didn’t know teens could legally buy condoms pointing out the flaws in the sex education of teens.  

Overall, it was a decent watch with a meaningful story and some nice imagery. Also if you are watching for the otters alone you won't be disappointed (unless you were expecting 19 of them). 

Rating: 8/10 Watch it:  KOCOWA & Viki in selected regions

[ottern0t]

nine carrying rose? piggy-back or wrapped around him or bridal style idc I just can't stop thinking about him catching her out of the train in the monsters inside and I think it'd be soo cute

I know what the people want ✨

Apologies I had to switch to traditional bc it hurts my wrist less

[sapybara]

OTTER: Hey Sapnap, what's ten plus nine?

SAPNAP: Nineteen. OH WAIT THATS A MEM—

OTTER: [kills him]

[lifesliced]

name: salem laurent (named salem after the town he was born in — salem, oregon)

age: 26-29+ (a year younger than romeo baker)

dob: january 07

sign: capricorn

height: 5'11 (180cm)

weight: 190lb (86kg)

gender: cis-male

orientation: hetero-leaning, currently questioning / is curious

hair: naturally dirty blonde (almost brown), dyes it various colors, currently doing a silver with blue tints

eyes: blue-grey

complexion: naturally pale, burns easily, many moles on his body

ethnicity: primarily french-dutch mix

tattoos: tba

piercings: tba

season: winter

tarot: the tower

animal: tba

career: currently job searching / between jobs. always trying to bring money in. occasionally peddles drugs. he primarily works retail (sears, macy's) but has always wanted to be a tattoo artist.

personality: outgoing and forward, salem can be outwardly irresponsible and lazy, but when motivated properly, he is quite helpful. with low self-esteem comes a projection of perceived self-worth. sometimes salem acts out apathetically, trying to create distance between himself and whatever he "doesn't care" about. this often conflicts with his familial obligations. prideful and possessive, salem can have a bit of a jealous streak, initially not liking change, though he learns to adapt to it as time progresses. with possessiveness comes protectiveness, always there for his family and friends at the end of the day. while not always "the reliable sort", you can always rely on salem to be there. he will show up.

salem relies heavily on the dichotomy his friendships provide him, often feeling lonely without them. this is ironic, considering he actually has a large family.

salem is connected to romeo baker, the primary original character of this slice-of-life story. he acts as one of romeo's best friends, alongside joonie (as written by otter).

he has six brothers and sisters from a family of seven siblings (including him). romeo often helps out around their house, as salem's parents are mostly absent.

SIBLING COUNT:

emmy - three years salem's senior, somewhat "head of house", has two young children of her own named sailor and elora also living in the home. the father of her children occasionally lives with them.

salem

kit (two years salem's junior)

blaze (five years salem's junior)

imogen and beatrix (bea for short - fraternal twins - eleven years salem's juniors)

trixie (youngest, nineteen years salem's junior - when salem is 26, she is seven)

this makes for a total of nine that live there regularly. busiest days can have up to almost twelve people.

more tba! this will expand more as salem develops.

[69constellationsinatrenchcoat]

Welcome to 69 Otters in a Trenchcoat.. better known as the Constellation Collective

Alter Intros

Ash (they/them):🌿

Amber (she/they): 🔥

Kyle (he/him): 💜

Lillia (she/her):🪻

Kaden (he/they): 🐚

Wild (they/he/she):🗡️

Our system is studying to become a psychologist. We're formally diagnosed with ADHD, ASD, PSTD and DID, along with endometriosis (very likely adenomyosis) chronic pain, chronic fatigue, hEDS and POTS

What to expect

A lot of dissociative experiences posting; fun things and not, trigger warnings will be used where applicable

Writing and musings

Philosophy

Bookish things (including fan fiction), fandoms below

Half polished thoughts (and sometimes not even that)

Disabilities

Psychology content

Enneagram & MBTI

Poetry

A unhinged amount of s3x jokes, dunno, depends on who's posting. **nsfw content will be tagged mature.

Art

Disney & cartoons

If that sounds like a piece of you, feel free to hang around <3

Notes (DNI)

"Endogenic systems" aren't supported here, however we are open to questioning systems :) Psychologically, systems cannot be formed without trauma. If you are experiencing amnesia, identity confusion etc, it is best to speak with a psychologist or another mental health professional.

Systems under 15, unless diagnosed, please don't interact... Look, this is an odd one, but your personality doesn't finish developing until you're in your mid 20s. I don't want to be the reason some preteen gets dragged into labelling what's perfectly normal development as DID/OSDD.

Homophobia, transphobia, hate speech etc, on our blog will be cause for an instant block.

"Transautistics" (autistic trans people are welcome, I am referring to the b-llshit that is transitioning from allistic to autistic; I am not wasting my breath explaining why that is impossible).

For our piece of mind: under 16s, please do not follow.

Fandoms

'Fandom' is being used as a very loose term, some of these don't have active fan bases.

Shows and Movies (including some book adaptations)

Anne with an E

Arcane: League of Legends

Blues Clues

Bluey

Disney & Pixar

Divergent

Heartstopper

Inside Out

Monsters Inc

Narnia

Percy Jackson

Spongebob

The Hunger Games

The Owl House

Veggietales

Books (an incredibly small selection of our favs)

Alice Oseman: Heartstopper series & surrounding universe

Ana Huang: Twisted series

CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Series

Erin Hunter: Warrior Cats Series

Francesca Zappia: Eliza and her Monsters

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Jacqueline Wilson: Baby Love & Love Frankie

Jasper Fforde: Shades of Grey series (Shades of Grey & Red Side Story)

Laura Greenwood: Apprentice of Anubis series

Lucy Maud Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables series

Michael Morpurgo: Kaspar the Prince of Cats/Kaspar the Titanic Cat

Rick Riordan: Kane Chronicles Series & Percy Jackson

Roald Dahl: everything he has ever written

She-who-must-not-be-named: Harry Potter (we do not support J. K. Rowling's views on transgender rights)

Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games series

Veronica Roth: Divergent Series

Yasmin Rahman: All The Things We Never Said

Video Games

The Legend of Zelda (botw & totk mostly)

Minecraft

Pokémon

Cattails & Cattails; Wildwood Story

Disney Dreamlight Valley

MCTY: HermitCraft

Musios

AViVA

Beth Crowley

Chxlortte

Icon for Hire

Nathan Wagner

Taylor Swift

UNSECRET

[ivelovedhimthroughworse]

Welcome to 2023! I hope this year brings you all the best!

Thanks for the tags today, @facewithoutheart, @nightimedreamersworld, @johnwgrey and @captain-aralias. Thanks also to everyone who kept tagging me through December.

After finishing up my long fic, I was flooded with new WIP ideas. I picked one and plotted it out and I'm ready to share a few sentences. It's still untitled and looking to be 27-30K, which is short.. by my standards. I'm going to call it my high-fantasy AU for now.

The problem was that Prince Simon Snow was always doing something remarkable: saving a village from ravaging beasts or rescuing a lady from a dark fate. Even his existence was remarkable. An orphan boy, abandoned and penniless, living in a refuse pit on the edge of society, was adopted by the king and determined to be the purest heart and bravest fighter in the kingdom. He was gifted also with the heredity magic of the aristocracy, in such abundance, that no one had ever seen anything like it. It wasn’t surprising then, that this impossible man was a favourite topic for bards and mummers alike. And not surprising too, that Basil, at nineteen, noted the many descriptions of Simon’s good looks, his broad shoulders and square jaw.

So, that's the sneak peek!

I'm going to tag in all of my friends and mutuals. But it's cool if you are on pause after the holidays or just enjoying a day off. This is just a hello!

@angelsfalling16 @aristocratic-otter @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @artsyunderstudy @bazzybelle @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer @cutestkilla @dragoneggos @diningpagentry @excalisbury @fatalfangirl @fight-surrender @foolofabookwyrm-activated @frjsti @gekkoinapeartree @ileadacharmedlife @ionlydrinkhotwater @ic3-que3n @jbrrring @kherub @letraspal @martsonmars @moodandmist @onepintobean @otherworldsivelivedin @palimpsessed @prettylightsbigcity @raenestee @shemakesmeforget @sillyunicorn @starwarned @takitalks @tea-brigade @technetiumai @thehoneyedhufflepuff @urban-sith @wellbelesbian @whatevertheweather @whogaveyoupermission @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @hushed-chorus @larkral @yeonjunenby @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @sailorblossoms @shrekgogurt

[what-breaks-my-heart]

Watched in 2022

Korean Drama

Please Don't Date Him (MBC miniseries, 2020 - 2021)

A Good Supper (MBC daily drama, 2021)

The Second Husband (MBC daily drama, 2021 - 2022)

The Secret House (MBC daily drama, 2022)

The Witch's Game (MBC daily drama, 2022 - ongoing)

Red Shoes (KBS daily drama, 2021)

It's Beautiful Now (KBS weekend drama, 2022)

Three Bold Siblings (KBS weekend drama, 2022 - ongoing)

Crazy Love (KBS miniseries / Disney+, 2022)

Soundtrack #1 (Disney+, 2022)

Kiss Sixth Sense (Disney+ miniseries, 2022)

Poong the Joseon Psychiatrist (tvN miniseries, 2022)

A Gentleman’s Dignity (SBS miniseries, 2012)

No, Thank You (short drama, 2020)

Korean Movie

Girl on a Bulldozer (2021)

Kingmaker (2022)

Midnight (2021)

On Your Wedding Day (2018)

Tunnel (2016)

KBS Drama Special 2022

Stain

End of Broadcast / Self-Indulgence

Prism

Nineteen Otters

Let’s Meet in an Unfamiliar Season / The Stranger

Chinese Drama

Love between Fairy and Devil (2022)

Moonlight (2021)

She and Her Perfect Husband (2022)

Her Royal Highness / Zhang Gong Zhu Zai Shang (short drama, 2022)

Chinese Movie

Almost Love (2022)

Japanese Super Sentai series

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers (2022 - ongoing)

[fictionophile]

"Life and Otter Miracles" by Hazel Prior - Book Review @PenguinUKBooks #LifeandOtterMiracles #NetGalley #BookReview @TransworldBooks @HazelPriorBooks @PenguinRandomUK

“You make your choices, and in turn they make you.” Phoebe Featherstone is nineteen years old and the youngest of three children. Her Mum died when she was just eleven. Now with her older siblings at university, she and her Dad, Al, have just moved from urban Birmingham to rural Devon. Al has found a job delivering parcels for people who order things online. It is a great way for him to earn…

[aellyne]

Hey. Are you going on the field trip? Why? If you’re going, I’ll go for you. If you’re not, I won’t go either.

DRAMA SPECIAL SEASON 13: NINETEEN OTTERS (2022)

[writer59january13]

The most pregnant event that occurred...

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

recorded July sixth nineteen sixty upon birth of she who doggedly

pursued me to the ends of the earth and what not take no as an answer.

Unbeknownst to yours truly

a baby girl got born

sixty three years from aforementioned date;

she automatically triggered

excited buzzfeeding murmurs

heard amidst the madding crowd

patiently awaiting to secure their eats

at none other than Horn & Hardart

offering their house special,

albeit free of charge;

the grandfather of present day

food service industry company Grubhub acknowledged storied birth

with roster of special guests such as:

Connie Francis, Eddie Cochran

(the latter came all the way over from the United Kingdom), and even then president

Dwight David Eisenhower

made guest appearance.

Meanwhile, about sixty plus miles away

a little boy, (who lived

in Levittown, Pennsylvania)

experienced a fleeting warm gentle caress

identical to soft summer breeze

linkedin to sugar and spice and everything nice;

he smiled and unknowingly blushed

unaware his destined lifemate

secured courtesy good housekeeping

seal of approval,

which may seem

like an otter outrageous claim,

but mark my words approximately

thirty orbitz around the sun later

would witness his heartthrob

(currently snoozing away on the bed)

pledging to accept first one contra dance

after another until... death due him part.

I ofttimes sat alone

on the concrete steps

at Summit Presbyterian Church

6757 Greene Street, Philadelphia, PA 19119

perusing contents of reading material unable to focus on the words,

cuz excitement prevailed

to exalt in an evening of pure ecstasy. The third Thursday each month

at eight o'clock post meridiem

held special significance

at above named facility,

which constituted kibitizing,

fraternizing, but especially flirting

while contra dancing

usually with no ulterior motive.

Our fate got sealed upon occasion, when I willingly shared Neptune Salad

(a discontinued product sold at Wawa)

with lass who stood

all of four feet and eleven inches

and sported trademark long thick hair,

whose locks (I dreadfully report

long since got lopped off),

then rivalled those of Rapunzel.

As an introverted generic

long haired pencil necked geeky lad

always awkward in the company of people

(even making small talk),

an eventual comfort to converse arose

with longitudinally challenged referenced gal,

whose buzzfeeding dialogue

indeed jump/kick started

us to exchange tidbits about ourselves,

such as address, age, birthday...

and other general information,

hence bringing to my awareness

regarding special occasion

she made debut appearance

within webbed, wide world.

Said lass subsequently

became dance partner for life after she found herself with child we became husband and wife.

[kucmap]

Orlando Wetlands Park -- 4/10/2023

Orlando Wetlands Park (OWP) is a man-mad wetland designed to treat reclaimed water and provide a wildlife habitat. The park is in Christmas FL. OWP has nineteen miles of berm built to create eighteen wetland cells. The wetland system provides habitat for over two hundred bird species, otters, foxes, deer, turtles, snakes, and alligators.

[facewithoutheart]

Omg! Do I get to start this today? What a rare pleasure 🤩.

Finally got my prompt-fest fic almost done. I’ve been floundering in this google doc for awhile. Then yesterday I got a hankering to write friends to lovers and thought, “Oh! That accidentally-married-in-Vegas fic is like friends to lovers, even though they’re already dating at the time!” It’s WS-era. You know how it goes.

Not explaining the plot further but I will leave you with this tag “the inherent challenges of yes anding your way to marriage before you have a proper conversation about childhood trauma” and the following snippet:

“I don’t want to be like this.” I’m staring at the puddle of water I failed to mop up. “I don’t.”

Baz stands. Like a man approaching a wild animal, he walks to my side. Slowly, he curls onto the floor beside me.

We lay there, him and I. His body position mirrors mine. His hand rests between us, reaching.

He’s always reaching toward me and I’m always failing to meet him halfway.

“What do you want to be like, then?” he asks. “What do you want to be?”

Yours, I think, instantly and wholly. I want to be yours, forever, and ever. But I’m nineteen. I’m on the bathroom floor of a hotel room we’ve paid for with magic. Stolen, essentially. I haven’t found the NowNext. I haven’t saved Agatha; I haven’t saved anyone.

Not even myself.

Who am I to ask forever of Baz? Who am I to permanently burden him with the never ending failure of every decision I’ve ever made?

So I ask him for what any nineteen-year-old man, lost in America, shacked up in Vegas with no bright future, would want.

“I want to be drunk.”

And because I can’t help myself with new WIPs, here’s a short clip from a piece I thought up awhile ago and finished last night because of a random burst of energy:

I’m five seconds from rolling up my sleeves and taking on the monster myself when Simon shouts, “Moon Prism Power!”

Non-pressure tags and hugs (with consent if you want them) to: @sillyunicorn @martsonmars @urban-sith @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @fatalfangirl @whatevertheweather @stardustasincocaine @captain-aralias @forabeatofadrum @aristocratic-otter @moodandmist @johnwgrey @takitalks @jbrrring @excalisbury @confused-bi-queer @palimpsessed @tea-brigade @cutestkilla @creepyspice @ivelovedhimthroughworse @bookish-bogwitch @bazzybelle @dragoneggo @letraspal @artsyunderstudy @orange-peony @nightimedreamersworld @messofthejess @ionlydrinkhotwater @basiltonbutliketheherb @ileadacharmedlife @stitchyqueer @castawaypitch @whogaveyoupermission my two speedo-serving loves @erzbethluna & @ic3-que3n thank you for your service 😘 & new peeps @hushed-chorus @bucketfishy @katmiscellanious hi hello!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Fish

For @whump-advent-calendar‘s day 4-6, Burn/Candles

CW: Referenced medical whump and dehumanization, light burn (accidental), captivity, muzzling, drugging reference, reluctant whumper turned caretaker

Introduction | Siren Song | Cries | Here | Not Sure | Draw Blood | Fish | Signs

---

BAHRAM’S NOTES NOTE TO SELF - SAVE IN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. DO NOT LET DR. L SEE.

October 22nd, 20XX 3:45 am Mer in Residence: 19 Days

It’s time to admit I’m more or less keeping a diary at this point as I get to understanding him. So far I’ve written separate notes to myself… for ten or so straight days of the nineteen we’ve had him here, and it’s getting harder to write the official transcriptions the way Dr. L wants me to.

Dr. Lachlan insists I call the mer ‘it’, that it’s to help me distance myself emotionally since it’s such a good mimic of humanity, but I don’t think it’s a damn mimic, I think it’s just… human.

I mean, obviously it’s not HUMAN, but… Miah spelled it out for me, we had an argument about this when he first got here. She gets so angry that he’s getting hurt and you know, I guess I believed Dr. L - mer aren’t my specialty field, I’m a snake man really, I don’t know the first bloody thing about fucking cetaceans. 

Anyway, I said to her at the time, “It’s not human.”

She told me, “Maybe not H-U-M-A-N, but P-E-R-S-O-N,” just like jabbing me in the chest afterward. Also, Miah can fingerspell in a way that really makes you feel like a six year old getting yelled at by your mother, for the record. I can’t describe it any other way. I was ready to just melt away from personal embarrassment before she even finished signing “person.”

That’s not the point of this. 

I didn’t start a diary just to tell myself how right Miah is about all of this, but hey, here we are.

I need some days off so badly.

Miah wasn’t around today, it’s really just been me and the mer - I’m off for four days coming up here, after 20 days of work, and she’s going to come in and do 24-hour watch until I’m back. It’s not so bad - I don’t really know anyone here, and the bed’s comfortable enough. Dr. L’s paying rent on my apartment so I won’t lose it while I’m working, anyway.

I still feel like some low-level henchman, though. Like any moment some asshole in a tank top is going to show up with guns and I’ll just be a faceless evil stepping stone before the boss fight with Dr. L. 

I mean, we all know that Dr. L’s going to be the boss fight, right? Anders would just like lay down or throw Miah in front of himself or something.

No, that’s not fair, he really does love her.

Bahram this is all hypotheticals about a video game. Get back on track, man.

So Miah must have gone shopping or something. She came back with a bag full of these candles from this bookstore she really likes. I mean she came back with an insane amount of books, too, but she had this candle she pulled out and put down on my desk.

She set down the candle - it’s this really nice deep blue and has some kind of like ocean scene painted on the label, like, isn’t that thematic - and smiled at me. “This one reminded me of what we’re doing,” She told me, and her signs were… softer. Her expressions were softer alongside them.

Does that mean… anything? I don’t know. She just put it on my desk and then wandered off. I thanked her but I had to take her shoulder and get her to look at me, first. Maybe her face was a little red.

Maybe not. 

We keep the tank room pretty warm, I’m sort of cold-natured and the mer seems more active when we keep the lights really warm, so… 

I don’t get why she bought me a candle and why she looked away before I could thank her for it. I don’t get it, and I feel like I should, but I don’t. Is she not looking because it wasn’t a big deal, or because it was a big deal, or… what?

I really WOULD sink into the floor if Dr. L or Miah ever saw that I wrote this. Get it together, Bahram. You are not writing a diary about Miah fucking Kirsse. 

It’s been just me and the mer, all day. Dr. L was gone, too, meeting with whoever’s funding this whole thing. She’ll be gone until next week, so there’s no real work getting done, for now. Just blood draws.

She’s showing them its claws she took off. I don’t know why. Honestly, I have such a bad feeling about this, but I needed the cash and nowhere else was hiring for a job that would give me room and board and still time to work on my own research. Not that I’ve done a bit of THAT in a week.

I get too distracted by the mer.

He swims in circles. He stares at nothing, or pokes the plastic coral and ferns we got him, or hides in his cave. I can switch the screens over to watch the camera feed from inside the cave, but he doesn’t do much in there, either. I caught him picking at his scales, and I need to ask Dr. L about that. She took three scales off his tail, which for the record I had nothing to do with (whose record? I’m writing this to myself, and what the fuck does it matter about scales when I’m the one sticking the damn needle in his elbow twice a week), and I caught him sort of whistling sadly and picking at the empty spaces. 

They’ll grow back, Dr. L says. She’s not worried.

I am.

A little.

I’m starting to think Dr. L is lying about a lot of things, and I’m not sure what to do about that. If anything. This is a job, and I get paid better than I’ve ever been paid in my life. So… what do I do?

I could call the hotline and report him. It’s anonymous. 

She’d know I did it.

I don’t know why, but… I don’t want her to know it was me. Cowardice, I guess. Pure bloody cowardice.

But Miah hasn’t emailed the hotline, either. We can’t both be cowards, right?

Anyway.

Tonight was tank cleaning, which is a bloody fucking chore. Anders was around long enough to help me get the mer tranq’d and into the lift and then the rolling tank where he can just sit until I get my work done. Poor thing just lolls around when he’s tranq’d up. Barely blinks. 

Doesn’t stop its fucking crying, though.

We took a lot of blood from him today, too, so he was very weak. Barely moved, just curled himself up small so he was totally in the water and watched me work after Anders left. We’ve got a scrubber machine that does the hard work, I just have to hose some things down and then make sure its filter is still operating correctly. Watch the scrubber. Whole process takes about three hours from start to tank totally refilled, as long as I do it weekly. It’ll take much longer if I let it slide.

Double-checked the camera in the cave, and when I walked out of it I saw the mer’s head was up, watching everything I was doing. He dropped right back down under the water when he saw me looking at him. The muzzle looks so monstrous on him, but more than that, it makes him look like a monster.

Maybe Dr. L doesn’t muzzle him to keep us safe, but to keep me from seeing his expressions while I’m here with him all day.

No, that’s stupid. She doesn’t even think he’s sentient, right?

I finished up, and when I came to roll him back to the lift, I saw he’d popped his head up out of the rolling tank and was looking around the room itself. He hasn’t really looked around at all before this, and he was still tranq’d but maybe I fucked up the dosage? Because he was pretty alert, kind of whistling to himself and giving little chirps and clicks. He sounds like some weird mix of killer whale and fucking otters or something. When he saw me, he flinched back down under the water, but I had this idea.

Dr. L took his claws, and he’s still muzzled except when he’s on the table or when he eats, so like, it’s not like he can hurt me, right?

His eyes had gone to my desk, looking at… I guess all my books and papers and my laptop and everything. Maybe the candle. I waved my hand around until I saw that he was watching me again. With those big eyes it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s looking at, but when I clapped my hands he blinked at me, so I know he can hear it, can see me.

Then - and I swear I’m not lying - he moved himself up out of the water, and put his palms together. His earfins twitched out and back against his scalp, and his white hair dripped water all down his shoulders. 

He cocked his head at me. Then he put his hands together, harder this time. He clapped, and then… he clicked.

I KNEW it. I KNEW clicks were questions. Dr. L said their brains don’t work that way, but I bet they do. Who’s even considered how their brains work? Maybe they’re just like us. All the studying I’ve been doing shows that the scans we’ve done of dead ones are pretty similar in overall size and placement of their center of language. They’ve shown that mer populations have their own dialects if they don’t interact with each other, like the Atlantic transients sound totally different than the Pacific transients, which sound different than the residents that stick close to the coastlines up by Alaska...

Making my own head hurt. I don’t even care about fucking mammals, but I guess I do now. 

“That’s right,” I said when he clapped, not like he can understand but still. I said it, and I clapped again, and he clapped back. “Can you give me your head? I’ll take your muzzle off, yeah? If you don’t bite.”

Dumbest fucking idea ever, but hey. 

I think maybe he knows the word muzzle, because he whistled and shrunk down again, lowering his hands. His ear flaps flattened again. I saw the deep red marks around his neck, from how we have to use the catch-pole to get him out, and I just. I just felt like shit, you know?

I’m shit, that’s what I am, we’re torturing a child, more or less, who hasn’t done a thing to anyone but be by himself because he lost his bloody fucking family. I can’t keep telling myself I’m not the bad guy, you know? 

I’m going to jail if I report him, aren’t I? I helped bring him in, after all. There’s my whole career down the drain.

Is this how it felt when everyone was being shit to monkeys in the 70′s and calling it psychology? Did some of them just go along with it because they thought they had to?

This is not helpful, Bahram.

I sat down at my desk and tried to figure it out. His eyes were on me the whole time. I looked over at Miah’s candle, and looked at the label. Like I said, ocean scene. Fronds and ferns and…

I turned the label to face the mer, and tapped on the image with my finger. “Fish,” I said, feeling dumb as hell. I told myself, it’s a bloody animal, Dr. L would roll around laughing at you for this.

But he came back up out of the water. There was a long moment, and I heard him click, and then a soft, “Sssshhhhhh,” sound came from behind his muzzle. They have lips like ours, although their way of communicating is basically whalesong and relies heavily on underwater acoustics. He’s louder in the tank than out of it, although I guess fear might make him quiet, too.

The recordings I found on youtube they get in the ocean are deafening loud. Their voices travel so well underwater, it’s amazing. People sell fucking CDs with mersong over piano to fall asleep to. 

I poked at the ocean scene on the label again. “Fish,” I said firmly. “Do you want fish?”

He knows fish. 

I KNOW he knows fish because he sat up, held out his right arm, and tapped his elbow with a blunt-edged, broken-off claw before he looked back at me, trembling with fear. He clicked again, twice.

I can’t even tell you how shit I feel, realizing he was asking if I was going to take his blood first. That’s what he meant, it has to be. He poked at the exact spot where he’s bruised up from the needle. 

But it makes sense, right? 

He’s been here twenty days, more or less. Every couple of days, when he’s hungry enough, we bribe him with fish to get the pole on him, take blood or whatever else, and then he eats. 

No, WE don’t take his blood. I take his blood.

He thinks - and he’s fucking thinking, I know he is - that he only eats if we stick a needle in him.

I’m hurting a child.

I’m teaching a child to be hurt.

I’m not religious but this feels like the sort of thing you ask for forgiveness for, doesn’t it? I should call Maman and ask her who I could talk to. I’m going to call Maman or Baba tomorrow.

No I’m not.

What would I tell them I need to speak to someone about?

What if whoever I speak to calls and reports him, and Dr. L knows it was because of me?

I need to stop thinking about this. 

“No, NOT draw blood,” I said, and he whimpered again, held out his arm further, closer to me, tapped his elbow again. I knew he could still hurt me - their strength is prodigious, the first time we got him out of the tank he nearly pulled Dr. L down into the water with him - but I decided it was worth the risk. 

I kept thinking, he’s more scared of me than I am of him, but you know, of course he is. He’s the one with bruises.

I stretched my own arm out and showed it to him. He flinched back a little, and then leaned forward again, sitting in the little rolling tank that’s barely big enough to hold him. His blunt claws touched my arm, delicate as a feather, clicking as he poked at the sleeve of my sweater. 

“No draw blood,” I said. “Just fish. Eat.” I mimed chewing.

He looked at me and clicked twice, cocking his head, then looked at my candle from Miah, pointing at the ocean scene. “Ffff-sshhhh,” he said, muffled. 

“No, that’s a candle, it just has fish painted on it. Candle. Fire. Yes?”

Blank stare. 

Then, repeated, “Ffff-sssshhh.”

I sighed and pulled out my little lighter. I don’t smoke or anything, but I hate the way matches smell, so I have a lighter on me basically all the time. Plus, having lighters was a pretty good way to make friends back in undergrad when I gave a fuck about that. 

I flicked on the lighter, and the mer chirped, curiously. 

Has it never seen fire before?

Why would it, it lives in the ocean. Don’t be a dumbshit, Bahram.

“Fire,” I said, and held it out a little for a closer look. “Fire.” I tilted it and lit the candle, and the mer leaned forward, rapt, as the wick sparked up to flame and I blew the smaller flame on the lighter out. 

“FFfffff,” The mer said, barely audible. It clicked and held out its hand, and I wasn’t fast enough.

“No, wait stop-”

The mer’s fingertips touched the flame and it let out a deafening loud cry of pain and jerked its hand back down into the water, whimpering at the new kind of hurt, looking at me like it was MY fault, and maybe it was. Eyebrows furrowed, little crease in its forehead, big sad eyes. 

The big sad eyes are wrecking me.

“Well, don’t touch fire and you won’t burn,” I said, shaking my head. “No touch fire. Fire bad. Fire burn.”

He held out his hand to show me. “Ffff-rrrrr.” It was a plaintive little breath of air, not quite a real sound. 

The ends of two fingers were a little dark, that’s all. I could explain that by saying he’d hurt himself in the tank, maybe. I shook my head and pointed at the water, and it put its hand back in there, huffing a little breath of relief, I think. The water probably helped with the sting. 

“Right. Fire bad. No fire.”

“Ffff-rrr... buh-ddd.” 

“Right. Fire bad.” I stood up and walked over behind him, and he tried to turn and watch me but I shook my head and pointed back at the candle and he sort of huffed again and looked away. I felt him tense when my fingers touched the back of his head, but he sat still.

Probably because if he struggles when she goes to take the muzzle off or gets her fingers near his mouth, Dr. L has this electricity stick thing… 

I’m not supposed to mention that in the transcripts.

I’m not supposed to mention how he screams, and he doesn’t sound like a whale or an otter, then. He doesn’t sound like an animal.

He sounds like a child.

He IS a child

He’s just

I’m a fucking

No. I need to focus. This is stuff I can’t tell Dr. L, I need to write it down here where it’s safe.

The muzzle is easy to get off, you just need to be looking right at it, and I unbuckled and pulled it free, feeling a little resistance from how well it stuck to his face. Without it on, there are deep red lines along his cheeks and jaw, not open or bleeding, just irritated. 

He didn't grab at me, or bite. Just watched me with his big eyes as I laid it down on my desk. For a second we were both just quiet, looking at each other. 

Then he pointed at the candle again. “Ffff-sssshh.”

“No,” I said. “Candle. Fire.”

The mer’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head, echoing what I did earlier. His hair slapped around. His teeth look like shark’s teeth up close, only there’s a lot less of them. “Nnnn-nnnuh,” He tried, shaking his head again.” Nnn-uh. Ffff-sssshhh.” Then he pointed at his mouth, opening wide, showing me the tongue behind his teeth. “Fffff-sssshhh. Ffff-ssshhh.”

I laughed, covering my mouth - he seems to be scared when we show too much teeth, probably in the ocean it’s a threat and they don’t smile like we do. Which, why would they? 

But, see, I realized that he wasn’t pointing at the candle at all, but at the fish painted on it. Then he moved to look at the bucket of fish he gets as a reward for obedience, and pointed at that, then looked back at me to see if I was paying attention.

Of course I was. I was barely fucking breathing. This is signs of abstract thought process, recognizing that the image of a thing isn’t the thing itself. That he can point at it to represent what he wants. “You want fish? Is that it? You’re hungry? Want to eat some fish?”

The mer blinked and made a sound like a chirp, clapped his hands together. “Rrrrr. Fff-sssshhh.” He pointed at his mouth again. “Ffff-ssshhh. Buh-rrrrmm. Ffffsshh.”

“What did you say?” I whispered. My heart went cold. I can’t describe it any other way.

“Buh-rrrrmmmm. Ffff-sssshh, Buh-rrrmm.”

The bloody thing knows my fucking name. 

He knows we have names and he knows mine and that means-... that means he has one, doesn’t it? If he has a name, if he has

I’m his fucking nightmare aren’t I 

I’m the worst fucking thing that could happen to him, me and Miah and Dr. L and Anders and this is a job but it’s the worst thing that’s happened to him and it’s only

It’s going to get worse for him.

He’s going to die here and he’ll know all our names when he does.

Anyway, so... you know... I brought him a bucket of fish.

What else was I supposed to do? 

He knows my name!

He let me put the muzzle on him again without fighting after he finished, and I got him back in the tank once the water was refreshed, and he’s sleeping off his meal now. I can see him on the feed, curled up inside the cave.

But I’m wide awake, so I thought I’d write this, because…

Because what the hell do I do now?

I can’t tell Miah.

Can I?

 ---

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