#joras

[ikkaku-of-heart]

During her youth on Joras, Ikkaku was basically ignored or tolerated at best and outright shunned and hated by the majority of the human population. For some it was because they wanted to be liked by her brother, others it was because of her connection to the lighthouse and Tomasu, some because they held onto the old superstitions and considered her “cursed,” and others still simply because everyone else did.

But the dogs of the island? They loved Ikkaku.

She was never without Neptune if she went into any town, the lighthouse dog dutifully protecting her from any danger. Every dog in town would happily let her pet them if she approached. From the Newfies at the docks to the Borzois that belonged to the high class families to the mayor of Dunwich’s corgi, all of them would wag their tails and never so much as growled at her.

This drove the superstitious sorts crazy, because it implied that Ikkaku wasn’t some omen of ill luck, and they needed to believe that so they could blame their problems on something. So even though it should have been a sign by their standards that she was good, they refused to acknowledge it most of the time.

The dogs are absolutely one of the few things she misses about Joras, and even off-island dogs generally like her, and she’s always happy to spoil them with pets and treats.

[tatouchantilly]

Lyanna (Badass) Mormont !!!

(who make this animation ? I need to buy them a coffee !)

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Old One’s Bride Headcanon

Ikkaku is very lucky that she wasn’t born during the days of Old Innsmouth, and that Arashi and Tomasu protected her against the superstations surrounding the circumstances of her birth that still lingered. Because she would have been doomed to a terrible fate had Joras still held fully to the Old Ways.

Opposite-sex twins were immediately seen as an ill omen. In fact, they weren’t even seen as twins. It was believed that only the male twin was actually human/merman, while the female was actually the spawn of an Old One who impregnated the mother to carry its child alongside her own. So, upon birth, the male twin was often welcomed into the community, at worst regarded with pity that he’d shared his mother’s womb with a parasite.

The female twin was not raised by the community. She wouldn’t be killed outright, as the people dared not risk the wrath of her Old One father. But she would be raised away from the others. There was a temple on Shutter Island where the Sect of the Kraken resided where the girl would be raised to adulthood (16) basically in seclusion so she could not cause harm to the mainlanders. Very few know exactly what the girl’s upbringing entailed, but there is much unsavory speculation, given the girl’s ultimate fate. When she came of age, this female twin was put in a boat and pushed out to sea, where she was delivered to the Great Dreamer to become one of his brides/concubines. It was believed that the Old Ones deigned to impregnate the mother in the first place for this exact purpose - to appease the Great Dreamer, as he was considered one of the most terrible among them.

So, if Ikkaku had been born a hundred years ago, she likely would have met this fate; raised in seclusion, then offered as a sacrifice to a God. There were still some who believe it’s what should have been done when she was born, but Arashi and the Mayor of Dunwich ensured it didn’t happen - Arashi to protect her granddaughter, and the Mayor because he didn’t wish to see people return to the Old Ways. Tomasu took up this mantel of protection when he took Ikkaku in, to ensure that the fanatics who scapegoated her as the cause of the island’s misfortune couldn’t kidnap her and turn her into a sacrifice.

[ikkaku-of-heart]

@miskatonicfolly​ asked: 🎥

Send 🎥 for a random scene of my muse’s life (No longer accepting)

Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, a seven-year-old Ikkaku plodded down the creaking wooden steps from the second floor of the cottage into the kitchen. She’d only woken up once last night, which was a record for her. She’d thought she’d heard shouting and a loud bang, but when she’d gotten up to peer outside her bedroom window, all she’d seen was darkness and fog. Well, it was still better than her usual nightmares about the woods and spiders and rats in the walls. Maybe the cat Gramps had got for the lighthouse was doing his job warding away evil, even if he was a grumpy thing.

There was commotion in the kitchen, and Ikkaku tentatively poked her head around the doorway to find her grandfather whistling a jaunty tune as he fussed over whatever he was cooking on the stove. He must have heard her footsteps because he quickly looked over his shoulder and gave her a smile. “Mornin’ lass! Sleep well?”

“Uh, yeah, good enough,” she said shyly, taking a seat at the old wooden table. Ikkaku still wasn’t used to cheerful greetings in the morning. Wasn’t used to anyone being happy to see her, really. Yes, Gramps had always been the exception to everyone else on the island, but even he hadn’t been kind and welcoming for the past year. He’d been too deep in mourning over Arashi’s death. But he was…happier now, she supposed. Ikkaku wondered what had changed.

Tomasu nodded before scowling at the smoke that had begun rising out of the frying pan. Damn it, third blueberry pancake he’d burned so far. He’d fended for himself for twenty years – surely cooking breakfast for his precious granddaughter shouldn’t be so hard! “Good, good. Nothin’ woke ya during the night, did it?”

“Well…I thought I heard a bang, but I guess it was just my imagination,” she confessed, nose wrinkling a bit at the smell of burnt batter.

Giving up on the pancake, Tomasu set aside the mangled pastry for Neptune to chow down on later. The giant dog was busy patrolling the coastline, making sure the bodies they’d dumped over the cliffs last night didn’t wash in with the tides. The old sailor planned on taking Ikkaku beach combing later and the last thing she needed to see were limbs only half-eaten by the sharks. “Ah, that was just me. There was uh…a bear got close to the lighthouse. Fired a shot to scare it off.”

“Bears come up here?” she asked, surprised. She thought the black bears lived closer to the orchards around Bangor Crater near the opposite side of the island.

Giving up on cooking and instead throwing together a bowl of blueberries and cream for Ikkaku’s breakfast, Tomasu quickly replied, “There’s one bear that still haunts me, lass. A demon polar bear lookin’ for revenge!” A blatant lie – that beast had died decades ago and had been no real demon. Just a bear who’d eaten a fruit that had cursed him with the ability to hate. But it was still better than the truth.

Those damn fanatics had tried to sneak in and kidnap Ikkaku again. Third time since she’d come to live with him. Tomasu couldn’t believe the Joras had undergone such an overwhelming industrial revolution with leaps and bounds in technology, but still clung to the backwards belief that killing an innocent child would solve all their problems.

Dark eyes went wide as Ikkaku gasped. “There’s a demon polar bear after you?” she asked, voice fearful.

“Aye, but don’t ya worry, sweetheart,” Tomasu reassured her, placing the bowl in front of her and dropping a kiss to her forehead. “This ol’ sea dog too ‘em down once, and I’ll do it again t’ keep ya safe.”

“Keep…me safe?” she asked tentatively, eyeing her grandfather with disbelief. No one wanted to keep her safe. She was a cursed child. Spawn of the Old Ones. She should have died in the womb, not her brother. Everyone said so. Everyone knew so.

Everyone but Gramps, apparently.

A large, warm, calloused hand ruffled her curls, and Ikkaku looked up to find her grandfather smiling down at her reassuringly. “Yeah. Don’t listen t’ what the crackpots back in town tell ya, lass; I’ve sailed the Grand Line and most of the North Blue and ya know what? Yer the most precious treasure I’ve laid my eyes on.”

“I am?”

His smile widened behind his bushy beard, and Ikkaku found her heart swelling with an emotion she hadn’t felt since her grandmother’s death. “More precious than a mountain full o’ silver! Now, eat yer breakfast – I’m gonna need yer help settin’ up some bear traps later.”

[ikkaku-of-heart]

“Mad Cultists” Headcanon

For the entire time that Ikkaku lived with him, Tomasu told Ikkaku that the people he killed in the middle of the night were mad cultists. That they were citizens of Joras who still held to the darker aspects of the Old Ways and wished to extinguish the lighthouse’s guiding Light and awaken the Great Dreamer.

This was not entirely true.

Yes, there were some who attempted to do that. Some madmen who believed that the island was better off destroyed by the Old Ones. But there were some who were foolish and curious and simply wanted to see if the legend was real, regardless of the possibility that people could die even if it wasn’t - after all, the waters around Joras are full of jagged rocks hidden beneath the waves, and the lighthouse guides the fishermen and trade ships to safe harbor. And there were even a few who felt any remnant of the Old Ways, Light Keeper included, needed to be erased from Joras’ present for the sake of erasing the history and reputation of Old Innsmouth and being accepted by the World Government.

However, the majority of the people he killed on the job, especially when he first took Ikkaku in, weren’t after the Light; they were after her. There were still too many who held to the superstitions about opposite-sex twins and especially one being stillborn. Ikkaku’s birth was seen as an ill omen and a potential determent to their future Marine hero, Ushi’s, career. The boy himself never dispelled this belief, even subtly encouraging his admirers and sycophants to hate her further and take matters into their own hands. Which many did, resulting in several deaths at Tomasu’s hands as fools attempted to break into the lighthouse to kidnap or murder the little girl. When Dunwich’s mayor, who was a childhood friend of Tomasu’s, discovered the killings, he agreed to keep it quiet; technically, a Light Keeper could kill anyone he felt was a threat to the Light, but outside of that, it would still be considered murder. However, as he was also technically preventing an equally heinous crime, he was willing to look the other way so long as the matter was kept quiet. 

Tomasu never told Ikkaku about this, even once she was old enough to help him dispose of the bodies in the morning. In his mind, he wasn’t lying; those people were mad cultists, only it was Ushi they worshipped, not an Old One. And he had no desire to let her believe that her mere existence was a sin or put her loved ones in danger. That if he got hurt, she’d blame herself and consider handing herself over to be killed or sacrificed. So he told her a white lie to protect her, and while he misses her dearly now that she’s out being a pirate, he can rest easy knowing that she’s not only no longer targeted by hidden enemies, but that even if she were, she has a whole crew ready to protect her now.

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Just a moodboard for Joras’ upper class aesthetic. Very Victorian/Edwardian-inspired fashion (with a heaping helping of Dishonored-esque whalepunk thrown in). The rich own Borzois for both hunting and as a status symbol (and they are considered protectors against the Old Ones). Most of the upper class live in mansions near Bangor Crater or in the city of Arkham. They also generally have automobiles that they enjoy driving around the countryside in, as Joras is one of the few places that build and export cars (Tesoro is definitely a major customer of theirs).

[ikkaku-of-heart]

Light Keeper Verse Lore

Derry Forest is both home and prison to the Nameless Fear-Eater. It could once roam the island and the world unhindered, but It was shackled there with the Creator Turtle’s last breath when the eldritch spider murdered Him.

Thus It roams the woods, leeching off the fear and devouring the flesh of those foolish enough to wander into it. In the old days people (mostly children) would be led to the forest as sacrifices, but that has dwindled since Innsmouth renounced the Old Ways and rebranded itself as Joras. So the Nameless Fear-Eater has grown hungrier and hungrier, barely sustaining Itself on outsiders stupid enough to ignore the locals’ warnings and the occasional drunken fool.

But one day, a new sacrifice was finally brought. A little girl, led into the woods by her oldest brother and abandoned to the giant spider in hopes of erasing the curse her birth had brought on the family. For two days It watched her, following her lost wanderings and savoring her potent fear. It weaved subtle webs to make her even more afraid, marinating her flesh in terror so Its meal would be a true feast when It finally devoured her.

Except Its sadistic game was in fact Its downfall, as the Light Keeper had heard of his granddaughter’s disappearance and had shaken himself free of the despair-induced drunken stupor he’d been in for the past year. He charged into the forest, and just as the Nameless Fear-Eater had chosen to at last dine on its terrified prey, impaled a silver axe directly into Its clownlike face. The blessed metal caused It excruciating agony and crippled It, leaving It blind and too weak to feed anymore. Its spider legs twitched as black ichor trickled onto the forest floor, unable to even scream in pain as Tomasu carried Ikkaku out of Derry Forest and to the safety of the lighthouse.

That axe is still buried deep within the Nameless Fear-Eater’s twisted face. Every year, on the anniversary of their fight, Tomasu visits the forest to ensure the axe is still there, and if not, to put a new one in its place. It cannot die, cannot feed, cannot escape. The Light Keeper ensures that. Not for the safety of the island, but because no Old One fucks with Buranku Tomasu’s granddaughter. It will suffer until the old smuggler dies, and even then, Tomasu has put contingencies in place to ensure Its punishment continues long after.

[ikkaku-of-heart]

I know I’ve talked about how Joras has its own special breed of Newfies but there is one other kind of dog regularly found on the island, though it’s owned most prominently by the upper class and thus only seen in Arkham or the mansions by Bangor Crater.

Borzois.

They generally come in black, white, or shades of grey and are mostly used for hunting and as companions/status symbols. They too are known to protect against the Old Ones, though while Newfies are more focused on protecting their homes and loved ones, Borzois are more proactive and quick to give chase should an eldritch threat appear. Generally doctors, successful businessmen, old money families, and important society figures own one.