#well like sky sailor cause it's set on floating islands

[timesnewfishcat]

starry sailor :3

[bonktime]

Weather the Storm

Prologue: Lay of the Land

Ezra (Prospect) x f!reader (no y/n) 1861 Lighthouse au 

Masterlist //  Chapter One: Taken Aback

Rated: Explicit (bit of a slow burn but we’ll get there)

Warnings: Language for now (smut will come later)

Summary: Ezra travelled with the tides, let the sea carry him where it willed and never stayed long. The lighthouse keeper was the opposite. Where he moved she stood firm, defying the waves and the tide as if carved from the cliff herself. They’re drawn together, but opposing forces so strong are always destined to cause a storm.

A note: I kinda apologise for historical inaccuracies but 1861 was a proper shite time to be a woman so we’re mostly glossing over that. Also the lighthouses mentioned hadn’t even been built yet. Another thank you to @danniburgh​ who I threw ideas at to see what stuck. As of right now this is shaping up to be 7 chapters and an epilogue of sea puns, yearning, angst and definitely smut. I intend to update weekly but that may vary depending on work! I’ve put glossary at the end so you know what I’m talking about. Written in the third person.

Let me know if you wanna be tagged!

Wordcount: 851

~~~~~~~~~~

Everything Ezra could see was grey. Heavy clouds loomed above, threatening rain but not ready to give it up, their reflections transforming the sea into mercury. Even the huts in the bay appeared drab, colour sucked out by the beating of the weather. He wondered if the people would be the same, colourless and cold like the land that surrounded them. He had often found that humans adapted to their environment so well they almost became a part of it, blending slowly together until inseparable and indistinguishable. In a way he was envious of them, to go where the work was had never allowed him to stay too long and get too comfortable. It made him stand out, always a newcomer, an outsider unable to make real acquaintances. He liked it though, the freedom, the adventure of it. He was certain that he always left an impression when he’d gone: a bruising kiss, a couple missing teeth, a scar. He marked the places he'd been, like carving his name into a tree.

The North Sea was an apt name, he decided. He’d read that it had once borne many others, Morimaru, Oceanum, Mare Germanicum, but only North had stuck. There appeared to be no other words that could correctly depict it. North as in north of everything, north as in cold, north as in nothing else is important except it's northernness. It seemed curious that it had managed to shuck the title the Dead Sea, where floating freshwater stilled the waves and becalmed boats, where hidden reefs wrecked ships making it one of the deadliest coasts in the country. He supposed with the new technology, those aboard had ample warning to avoid getting dashed upon the rocks, only needing to keep a weather eye and ear out.

Finding work had been easy, the fishing season was starting, and with his experience the trawler ‘Mistress’ was all too eager to have an extra set of hands, willing and able to pay the devil. It was dangerous work that paid adequately and offered some compensation, money to a family he didn’t have if he died, a stipend should he be crocked into retirement. Enough that, if he scrimped a bit, he should have no trouble travelling wherever he wanted to go next.

"Four days at sea, three on land. You're lucky, we used to run six and one but tired men make mistakes that cannot be afforded." Ezra nodded in response, dead sea indeed. The man in front of him was writing the ledger and had barely glanced at him the whole time, giving Ezra ample opportunity to stare. He was probably in his sixties and had clearly known the sea well before taking to the books when his bones could no longer bear it. His face showed every year of hard work, of the wind and the salt but as much as he appeared like the jagged cliffs of the bay, his ruddy cheeks surprised Ezra and there was a twinkle of good humour in his eye. Not all cold and salt after all.

"Do you know of any pleasant lodgings in the local area? I'll need somewhere to find respite when on land." At this the old fisherman sat up and for the first time properly looked at Ezra. Sharp eyes scanning his face, focusing on the scar on his cheek and then his eyes, so intensely he could feel the man making his judgement. There was a moment's hesitation.

"3 miles up the coast there's a lighthouse, the keeper rents out a room in the cottage. You'll have to get there quick though, else you won't beat the tides" he stood creakily and stuck his roughened hand out for Ezra to shake "See you Monday, 3 hours before dawn. If you're late, you get left behind." Ezra shook it and, with a nod, left him to begin his walk up the coast.

The wind bit his face as he looked up at the looming tower across the causeway, from here the island seemed lonely, a last stand against the beating of the waves. The lighthouse itself had once been painted white but Ocean spray had dirtied it, turning it the same grey as the sky. The Old Salt had been right about the tide, it had begun its approach. Slowly covering the rough path to the island where the lighthouse and its cottages sat, cutting it off. Crossing it wet his feet and numbed his toes but guaranteed a room for at least the night. He would be stuck there until the water receded. 

As if warding him away the water rose around him, appearing to speed its ascent and forcing him to lift him bag high as he waded, knee deep through the icy water. Reaching the island, a solitary figure appeared out on the rocks, it turned and headed towards him, sure footed despite the terrain. 

Ezra hadn't known what he was expecting from a lighthouse keeper. Probably an old man with a large beard, weather beaten and bad tempered.

Whatever he was expecting, she certainly hadn't been it.

⧫⧫⧫

Morimaru: Celtic for dead sea

Oceanum: latin, literally means ocean ,you probably got this one

Mare Germanicum: latin for germanic ocean

Becalmed: stuck without wind or currant

Trawler: sailing fishing boat invented in Brixham 19th century

Pay the devil: tarring a part of the ship called the devil, known as one of the worst jobs

Crocked: injured, I dunno how rare this one is but I’m never entirely sure if I’m using geordie words or not

Old Salt: means old sailor, endearing

If I missed anything let me know. If you read all this I hope you enjoyed my love of research and homesickness coming together!

[turtlepated]

The Ghost and the She-Wolf

Part 4

------

Brace yourselves, buckos. There’s drama ahead.

Zhuk, pirate or otherwise, belongs as ever to @monsterlovinghours

Tag list: @beetlejuicebeadoll, @insomni-snacc, @do-ya-hear-that-sound, @young-erstill, @dilfyjuice, @nikkivfx

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You sat on the filthy floor of your cell, leaning back against cold, rough iron, and you thought. You thought of your days in the academy, studying, drilling, pushing yourself to the brink and beyond just to achieve recognition. The nay-sayers and the doubters, those who had snickered on the sidelines just waiting for the chance to watch you fail, you had proven them wrong. You had fought hard for your place in the ranks, and your effort had been rewarded with your own ship and crew and purpose. And now…. all were gone. Despite your best efforts, you could not forget the words Zhuk had spoken to you in his cabin: “It was you who elected to change the tone of our relationship.” With a sigh you drew your legs to your chest, folding your arms over your knees to bury your face. All your work, the risk and the danger, the lives of your men, all just to end up here; imprisoned, defeated. Warmth and pressure were building behind your eyes but you refused to cry. You had to get ahold of yourself, find some way out of this. After your sneak attack, you’d figured that Zhuk would make an example of you; keel haul you, lash you to the mast to bake in the sun. But so far, nothing. You’d been stowed down here like cargo and forgotten. There was a bucket of freshwater, at least, but you’d seen more than one rat sate it’s thirst from the water inside. You’d had no food since your last meal aboard the Invictus, and your stomach pinched painfully to remind you. Remorsefully you thought of the spread at the captain’s table, wishing you’d partaken after all.  

You could tell that the ship was underway, just as Zhuk had said. Repairs had been completed and the Perperuna had been cruising steadily for at least two days since your ill-conceived assassination attempt, but you had seen not a soul since. Maybe they were heading to some remote sandbar to maroon you. For the first time in days you heard the sound of heavy booted feet on the stairs just beyond your barred door. You hurriedly stood, swaying unsteadily both from the constant motion of the ship and your own malnourishment. The bosun appeared at the bottom of the stairs, rounding the corner and fixing you with an unreadable expression. “Captain wants to see you,” he said shortly, withdrawing a ring of iron keys from his belt and striding over to the door. It creaked shrilly when he opened it and stepped back, offering you no assistance as you padded from the cell, reaching out for the wall to steady yourself as you made your way up the steep stairwell. 

The bright daylight blinded you after so long in the near total darkness below deck and tears welled at once as you raised a hand to shield your eyes, blinking against the discomfort. As your vision adjusted you took a deep lungful of salty air, a welcome reprieve from the dank scent of mildew at the bottom of the ship. The bosun came up behind you, uttered a gruff, “This way”, and led you toward the bow. Even at a distance you could recognize the imposing figure of Captain Zhuk, standing on the forecastle deck facing away from you. Somehow you managed to follow the bosun up the short set of steps without stumbling, coming to stand just behind the pirate commander. Zhuk stood with a spyglass raised to his eye, scanning the horizon. He turned to you but said nothing, his piercing eyes drifting up and down your person. You must look a sight, but he did not comment on the state of you. Instead he extended the spyglass. “Have a look, volchitsa.” Confused, you took it from him and stepped up to the rail, peering through the glass at you didn’t know what. “What am I looking for?” you asked. He pointed at the expanse of open sea beyond the bow. “Just look and tell me what you see,” he replied. Shooting him a mistrustful glance, you did as he asked nonetheless. 

You could make out the faint outline of a large landmass to the port side, and directly ahead were small black dots that looked to be islands. “Where are we?” you asked, more thinking out loud than seeking answer. Zhuk answered you anyway. “Heading for the Java Sea.” You hummed absently, getting your bearings. The Java Sea lay between Borneo and Sumatra. Several hundred miles lay between them except for one point, where a series of small islands narrowed the passage. You swept the spyglass slowly along the lateral line where sea met sky, at last discerning a shape of hard straight lines that stood out from the natural curves and crags of the silhouetted islands. You squinted, adjusting the focus to try and see clearer. “Is that… a ship?” you murmured. Zhuk hummed by way of answer. “So it would seem,” he said. “Perhaps your naval comrades have come to rescue you?” He chuckled, either at the thought or because the chance of a sea battle thrilled him. You frowned disapprovingly at his enthusiasm, but part of you was intrigued by this development: it could be your chance to get off this ship. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” you said, still examining the distant vessel through the spyglass. “It almost looks like it’s made of metal.” 

The peculiar metal ship did not move from its position just off one of the smaller islands in the strait, it appeared to be waiting for the Perperuna. As the distance between the two craft lessened, Zhuk called for the sails to be shortened and the anchor to be dropped, keeping a shrewd eye on the strange new arrival off the bow. It was close enough now that you could count the men bustling about on deck, and by the familiar uniforms they all wore you could see that Zhuk had supposed correctly. Standing by the helm was another figure you recognized and you groaned in preemptive exasperation when you made the connection. “Something the matter, volchitsa?” Zhuk asked, turning to tower over you. His tone of genuine concern caught you off guard for a moment, but you did not dwell on it. “There could be,” you replied. “It’s Renard, I’m sure of it.” A former pirate himself, captured by the navy who had made a deal that allowed him to continue operating as a privateer, Hénri Renard, as he now styled himself, was perhaps your least favorite and most unsavory colleague. His methods were every bit as brutal now as they were when he was still reaving and pillaging, only now he did it on behalf of the Navy. If he was here, the Royal Navy must be aware of the Invictus’s fate and they had dispatched him to respond with his usual ruthlessness. 

Zhuk swept the spyglass from your hands and held it to his own eye, confirming your assessment. Your head turned, watching him in silence as your mind churned. Renard famously gave no quarter, not as a pirate or a privateer. As much as you had hated him, as much as you had yearned to personally clap him in irons and delivered him to the Navy, the idea of Renard getting his hands on the pirate captain beside you was deeply unsettling. For all the trouble you had caused one another all this time, Zhuk had saved your life; you, his sworn enemy. He had treated you as, perhaps not as a guest, but far better than you would have treated him had your roles been reversed. You had repaid his gesture with vitriol and violence, and yet he had not punished you unduly for your behavior. “Let me talk to him,” you heard yourself saying aloud even as the plan was forming in your mind. “Run up a white flag, send me to him in the longboat. I can parley a truce, I’m sure releasing me would persuade him to at least give you a head start.” Zhuk lowered the spyglass and dipped his chin to look you full in the face, his expression as stoic as ever while his eyes burned into yours. It felt like he was examining your very soul and you felt heat in your face. Even though you were fully clothed, the way he was looking at you made you feel utterly exposed.

 After a painfully long moment of consideration, Zhuk smiled and nodded. “As you will, volchitsa.” He turned to call over his shoulder, “Bosun, prepare the longboat. Raise the white flag!” A short while later you were seated in the small boat, lowered down the side of the Perperuna and rowing your way towards the anchored metal ship. You found yourself in its shadow, your head tilting back as you gazed up the cold iron plating. Several crewmen stood at the side, watching your progress. “State your name and business!” one shouted down to you. You called back your name, your rank, and informed him that you were a prisoner of the Perperuna come to parley with Captain Renard. The sailor left to relay your message, leaving you floating in the longboat. Not much later a ladder and rope were lowered to you. You secured the longboat and ascended to the deck. You followed a crewman to the navigation room, where Renard himself was seated with a cup of tea. His brow rose and a broad grin lit his features when you entered the room. “Ah, Captain! Welcome aboard the Colossus!” he called by way of greeting. “Rumors of your horrific demise were unfounded, I see!” You forced yourself to smile back, seating yourself in the chair opposite him. “I wish I could say the same for my ship,” you admitted. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Renard hummed into his teacup, setting it back in the saucer on an end table next to him. “Terrible business, couldn’t believe it when I heard. Explosion in the powder magazine, was it?” So he knew that but he didn’t know about the sea monster, or if he did he kept it to himself. Looking grim, you nodded once. “And then to be taken prisoner by the self-same criminal you’ve been pursuing…” He affected a sympathetic tone, but there was a gleeful light to his eyes as he said it and you bristled. Smoothing your ruffled feathers you tried to push the conversation forward. “I’m here to negotiate, Renard,” you said. “I’m unharmed, as you can see. Zhuk even saved my life, surely that can be taken into consideration by the Navy and the judiciary?” Renard gave a thoughtful hum, leaning back in his seat and steepling his fingers as he mulled over your question. “It’s quite possible,” he admitted at length. “Though piracy is piracy in the end, it is a detail that could be used in his favor in court.” You silently exhaled in relief. “But it hardly matters, does it?” 

There was a coldness, a maliciousness to Renard’s simple statement and when you met his gaze the look on his face chilled your blood. He was grinning pleasantly, but the mirth did not reach his eyes. “I have been tasked with exterminating the scourge of piracy, a task that you yourself apparently were not capable of seeing through.” Your hands bunched into tight fists on the arms of your seat and you sat forward, opening your mouth to argue, but he continued, speaking over you. “It is not the business of the Royal Navy to extend pardons to criminals based on one random act of charity. You could, of course, contact the judiciary, explain the situation and bid them to issue your pirate friend a letter of marque. But that’s a lengthy process, isn’t it? So much quicker to do things my way.” Panic spiked in your stomach as you scrambled for a way to reason with him. “What about the conglomerate!” you exclaimed. “You know the reports say that there is almost certainly a coalition of pirates working together! He’s sure to be part of it, and if he is he’ll know the names of the others! He has information that the Navy needs!” Renard made a face and a show of thinking it over. “Hmm, I don’t much see the point. Even if the conglomerate is real, any names will be irrelevant once they’re all at the bottom of the sea.”

Your jaw clenched and Renard’s grin only grew wider, enjoying the way you quietly boiled with fury. Unable to stop yourself, you snapped, “Pardoning criminals? You mean like yourself? If not for the mercy of the Navy and the judiciary, you’d be swinging in a gibbet, feeding the crows even now.” Renard laughed at that, a frigid and brittle sound like cracking ice (and nothing like the warm, deep belly-laughter of the Russian captain). “Oh, you think it was mercy, my dear? No, no, allow me to elucidate: it was enterprise that saved my neck. This ship,” he paused to gesture grandly at the room around you. “This machine, rather; my design. I offered them a device purpose-built for conquest on the sea, but I played my cards carefully and made myself indispensable. And just look at how far I’ve come.” Renard rose from his seat then, looking down his nose at you with that same reptilian grin. “So to summarize, Captain,” he said, putting sardonic emphasis on the word, “There will be no leniency today. You have conveniently seen to your own release, which leaves no need for quarter. Though, to be frank, since no one knew you were alive at all this is an unforeseen turn of events. But it changes nothing.” He strode past you towards the French doors, pausing in the doorway to have one last word. “Do make yourself comfortable. This won’t take long.”

You sat, paralyzed with shock and rage and, if you weren’t mistaken, fear. Zhuk may have sea monsters or whatever tricks up his sleeves but you knew Renard. He was many things, none of them good, but he was a man of his word. And this ship, you had no idea what it could do. It had been common knowledge that part of Renard’s plea deal had involved some sort of building plans, but in your wildest dreams you could never have imagined this iron monstrosity. You stood, certain of one thing above all others: you had to get back to the Perperuna. Zhuk had spared your life, not once but twice. You had to warn him. No one stopped you when you left the navigation room, or ordered you back from the rails when you cast down the ladder once again. You hadn’t really expected them to. You rowed hard back to Zhuk’s ship, wondering all the while what Renard was waiting for when he was already set on attacking. Bitterly you thought, Why does a cat play with a mouse? The bosun looked surprised when you hauled yourself back over the railing after the crew had raised the longboat back into its davits. “Where’s Zhuk?” you asked without preamble, and the man pointed toward the door that led below decks. You thundered down the narrow corridor to the captain’s door, shoving it open without knocking. Zhuk spun around at your loud entrance, standing at his desk. “Volchitsa,” he began, sounding genuinely surprised. “What are you doing here?” “He’s going to attack,” you gasped, desperate to impart this crucial information. “Even if I hadn’t come at all, he was always going to attack. He means to sink the ship.” Zhuk hummed grimly, crossing the room in a few long strides to stand beside you. For a long moment neither of you moved or spoke, though you did tense when he lifted a hand to carefully tuck a strand of your windswept hair behind your ear. “You have my gratitude, dorogoy,” he rumbled softly. You weren’t sure if the heat in your cheeks was a result of the display of tenderness or gentle words or your exertion in the rowboat, but you gave your head a little shake, feeling that he did not fully appreciate the urgency. “Didn’t you hear me?” you practically shouted. “Renard is going to kill you!” Zhuk chuckled warmly, but there was steel in his eyes as he replied, “He may try.” Rapid footfalls pounded up the passage behind you and you both turned to see the bosun. “Captain! The enemy ship is moving, sir! Looks like we’re in for a fight.” Zhuk laid a heavy hand on your shoulder and turned you back around to face him. “Stay here,” he said, indicating his cabin. “I will come for you when it’s over.” Without waiting for your protestations, he bustled past you and closed the door after himself. You stood alone in the cabin, feeling panic bubbling up from your innards as Zhuk’s booming bellow drifted to you from the deck, telling the crew to man their stations and prepare for battle. 

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 [Translation: dorogoy, “my dear”]

Historical accuracy? Nope, don’t know her. I’m just here to have fun with pirates.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[ravioverse]

Ravioverse

“Before time began, before spirits and life existed… Three golden goddesses descended upon the chaos that was Lorule...

Mun, the Goddess of Beauty… Klino, the Goddess of Will… Pavhalla, the Goddess of Reason…

Mun… With her delicate flowing hands, she sculpted the land and painted the grey earth.

Klino… Imposed her will onto the earth and bound the world with the spirit of law.

Pavhalla… With her virtuous soul, produced all life forms who would judge the law.

Their labors complete, they left the world... But not before creating a symbol of their strength... A golden emblem known as the Triforce.”

Nyello folks, Ravioverse is an AU of an AU, somewhat within the @linkeduniverse, but here we don’t focus on Hyrule and the Links; rather, we focus on Lorule and the heroes through its passage of time. As opposite sides of the same coin, Lorule’s history influences and is influenced by that of Hyrule, sometimes directly, sometimes not. The heroes of Hyrule and the heroes if Lorule do not always meet - or do not always know that they meet - but they exist nevertheless.

That said, here’s an introduction to our heroes!

The Origin of the Hero

Nicknames: Origin

Counterpart: The First Hero

“Hilda”: The Goddess Lorelle

Personality: A loner to the core, Origin prefers to stay away from the main group whenever he is traveling with companions. He feels safest when he is unnoticeable, and remaining so makes his arrows all the more deadly. He’s the group’s sniper and often communicates with his companions through messages tied to his arrows, which can be easily identified by their roc’s feather fletching. He has a tendency to draw first and ask questions at arrow-point, which is a remnant from his time as a guiding force in the Lorulean opposition to the Demon King and his army of monsters.

Fivefold Flame

Nicknames: Empyrean, Chosen

Counterpart: Sky

Hilda: Comet

Personality: Hailing from the land in the sky, where people live alongside their wyvern partners, Empyrean is accustomed to speaking in a raised voice in order to be heard over roaring winds. Unfortunately, this means that his usual means of venting frustration - flying with his loftwing and shouting his heart out - often is overheard by people still on the floating island. However, his habit of holding in his frustration and setting it aside until an appropriate time to vent has landed him in the positions of both reluctant leader and group dad. He is better suited to planning solo missions than group ones, particularly when it comes to improvising traps and taking an enemy by surprise.

Four Swords

Nicknames: Shadow, Vex

Counterpart: Four

Hilda: Ray

Personality: If you’ve read the Four Swords manga, you know exactly who this is. When he was young, he was found by a Ganon who was banished to the Dark World and shown the Dark Mirror, which managed to convince him that he was Link’s shadow - or Shadow Link. After his sacrifice at the Tower of Winds, he has abandoned Ganon’s cause - especially since Four defeated him - and done what he can to escape from the Dark World. He’s trying to get over his identity issues and will still do just about anything for attention, but his antics are more chaotically mischievous than chaotically destructive. He’s never used the Sovereign Rod - doesn’t even know it exists - but he still knows many of the tricks that Ganon taught him, so his magic is still the main weapon in his arsenal.

Viola of Space

Nicknames (Collectively): The Twins, The Triplets

Successful Hero: Viola, Frost, Rime

Failed Hero: Space, Blaze, Flare, Firefly (only by Romani)

Missing Hero: Flow, Gust, Zephyr

Counterpart: Time

Hilda: Oracle

Personality (Viola): As the hero from the universe in which the Triforce was saved, Viola was the first Ravio of this era to meet one from another. He quickly became the strategist of the group, thanks to his history of working alongside Space and Flow to save Lorule and not exclusively on his own. Despite this, however, he often makes hasty decisions and can be stubborn to a fault. He harbors some guilt over the well-being of his companions, whom he was never able to ensure the survival of after his quest; because of this guilt, he hates not knowing the whereabouts of his new companions. Though all three of the Ravios of this era were able to use the Sovereign Rod, Viola was the one who mastered it - wielding ice magic to its fullest extent.

Personality (Space): As the hero from the universe in which the Triforce was destroyed, Space blames himself for the fate of Lorule. After it became clear that he would not be able to save the kingdom, he fled, unwilling to watch the land decay after his failure. He is slow to make decisions and even slower to commit to action, but his decision to flee to Termina was the quickest he’d ever made. He is reluctant to count himself amongst the heroes of Lorule, but once in the group he makes himself as useful as he can be by being their cook anytime Sketch isn’t available, and - if necessary - an archery specialist. Though he once used the Sovereign Rod and its fire magic, he refuses to touch it again.

Personality (Flow): Prior to his disappearance from Lorule, Flow was the primary strategist and decision-maker for the three Ravios from this era. He would take input from both Viola and Space, then use that information to find the best possible solution for whatever problem they faced. Once recruited by the group, however, he appears to be extremely skittish and confused, speaking only in broken sentences to Viola and Space. When he was fighting alongside those two, he specialized in swordplay and used the Sovereign Rod’s wind magic - but the location of his Sovereign Rod is unknown.

The Storm Chaser

Nicknames: Compass, Kraken, Scourge of the Seas (self-proclaimed)

Counterpart: Wind

Hilda: Siren

Personality: A pirate on the high seas, Compass and his sister Rose sailed in waters that few others would dare to travel. He’s an expert sailor and named himself captain of his ship, but he’s mostly big talk and not much bite. He’s brave (or stupid) enough to sail directly into storms, but when faced with a monster bigger than a bokoblin, he prefers to let Rose do the fighting. Although he can use a sword, his fighting style is closer to Origin’s than any Link’s, prioritizing sneak attacks and stabbing enemies from behind; he loves to rifle through the pockets of his victims first before running them through though. He’s got sticky fingers and a silver tongue, and he can help the Ravios get information from all over the ocean in his Lorule.

Ravio’s Awakening and A Link Between Worlds

Nicknames: Sketch

Counterpart: Legend

Hilda: Muse

Personality: He’s the same Ravio as the one from A Link Between Worlds, so naturally he’s a big scaredy-cat with a penchant for talking people out of their money. He’s good at keeping attention away from himself without openly hiding since he was able to escape to Hyrule and run an entire weapon’s shop without Yuga and Hilda noticing him - though Legend was his best (and possibly only) customer beyond Osfala. Sketch is the best of the group at haggling (though some might call it swindling), and quickly becomes the group’s accountant once he sees one too many bad deals. He’s the group’s main cook, but once upon a time had to be told that an ingredient he was planning to use in that night’s dinner was poisonous - it was just a spice in his Lorule, where almost everything became toxic after the Triforce had been destroyed.

The Adventure of Ravio

Nickname: Atlas

Counterpart: Hyrule

Hilda: Historia

Personality: Just a really good boy. An absolute angel of a kid. He’s the descendant of Muse, Sketch’s Hilda, and is traveling the kingdom as it repairs itself now that it has a Triforce once again. He loves making new maps of the kingdom as he goes, and often offers to help anyone he comes across any way he can during his travels. He can’t save money to save his life, since he wants to support local businesses, and often believes obvious lies that he’s told in order to scam him out of money as well. He has basic combat training with a rapier-style sword, but it isn’t used often since Lorule is no longer crawling with monsters. Like Muse, however, he has some magical talent and can temporarily immobilize threats. He’s not forced to fight too often, but he’s often seen as a sign of hope for the future in the failed timeline.

Twilight Princess

Nickname: Shade

Counterpart: Twilight

Hilda: Eclipse

Personality: Easily the most level-headed of the Ravios. He was an advisor in the Palace of Twilight prior to Zant’s usurpation of the throne, and once Midna was cast down, he and Hilda – Midna’s sister – evacuated the palace as quickly as possible and protected the Twili citizens to the best of their ability. He is able to use Twili magic (though not to the extent that Midna and Hilda are able to) and is the most responsible of the Ravios. If he truly wanted to, he could take a leadership role in the group, but he prefers to remain second-in-command for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to his inexperience with adventuring, and simply not wanting the responsibility.

Hyrule Warriors

Nickname: Battler

Counterpart: Warriors

Hilda: Charm

Personality: He’s the heavy-hitter of the team thanks to his experiences fighting in the war alongside Link and others. He’s arguably the most confident going into a full-on assault against monsters, and primarily uses his hammer when fighting - though he’s plenty skilled at swapping his hammer for another of his weapons and using them in combination with each other. On that same note, his preference for his hammer has easily made him the most physically well-built of the team, though he hides it beneath a couple layers of baggy clothing. Despite his ability and confidence, Battler will often pretend to be meek in order to get out of a formal challenge, contrary to how timid he’d been at the start of the war.

Call of the Arcane

Nicknames: Warp, Tech, Architect

Counterpart: Wild

Hilda: Circuit

Personality: As an engineer, Warp works with technology that is similar to the ancient Sheikah tech that exists in Hyrule, but has strong ties to the Twili. He can quickly enter existing codes to control Lorulean technology - a malfunctioning guardian, for example - but has been learning from Circuit how to write programs of his own. In learning from her, he has built two things: a small mechanical bird, which he calls Sheerow; and a miniature guardian lovingly called J3 (or Jonathon Janette Jameson 3rd). He has a set of superstitions surrounding their continued function, some of which include making little clothes for the machines to make them happy. Sheerow wears a tiny scarf and J3 has leg-warmers so it doesn’t get jealous.

[elven-oracle]

the siren, act i: serenity |p.p. / part 2|

[part 1]  [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6]

moodboard credit to @candycornparker

special thanks to @rainbow-marvel for always being willing to edit my thinGS!!!

to listen to the sea shanty i have drawn minimal inspiration from, click here

SUMMARY: When merchant ships start mysteriously going missing, Tony Stark enlists the help of Peter Parker to discover what could possibly be causing them to vanish from thin air. Unbeknownst to them, some mysteries go deeper than the sea itself.

PAIRING: Peter Parker x Siren!OC

WORD COUNT: 1.5k

a/n at the end.

Sister… where are you going?

I am going to the surface to retrieve sunlight for my bones.

Come back soon…

She had always preferred the surface.

All of her purebred sisters spent their days lounging on the depths of the ocean, remaining out of sight until unsuspecting humans intruded their home. A single finger over the perimeter of their territory and death became their fate. The farther she could get from her sisters in all of their evil glory, the better she felt. Even if the sunlight made her eyes hurt and her skin dry, it was the closest she could get to solace.

Existing was absolutely dreadful, and there was no delicate way of putting it. From the moment she was conceived, she was doomed to have a miserable life. Her mother had taken a risk by bringing her into this world, little did she know that the daughter paid the price for the mistakes of the mother. To be blunt, she hated her parents. She hated both of them. Their recklessness and stupidity had turned her into the shell of a seiren she had become. The only reason she was alive was because she did not have the means to change that.

...

Once upon a time, over half a century ago, her mother had fallen in love with a human male. The concept was an ancient one; every seiren from the beginning of eternity had a peirasmós. One human would tempt them to reject the ways of their sisters. If you were worthy, you would kill them as you would any other human. If you were not, you would be murdered along with them. Never once had there been one to reject their kin, until her mother discovered the shipwrecked man barely skimming the perimeter of seiren waters.

The seiren did not like to kill. Creating life was always more miraculous than taking it. Their secrecy was sacred. No one from land should ever have the precious knowledge of their existence. When men took to the sea, there was no doubt to their ancestors the path they would take. The melodic trance became a powerful weapon against the weak human mind, and eventually, the seiren became a whisper of a rumor. A legend. A fairytale.

She did not know why her mother failed the test, or how she spotted him before his presence was made known to her sisters. From what her own sisters had told her, she dragged his mutilated body to an island that night and laid with him, having no qualms regarding the ancient practice that had been brutally violated. Her terrible soul kept him well, nursed him back to health. She allowed him to know her from the inside out, rather than trick him to falling for her. She put the love of a man before the love of her sisters. Worst of all, she carried his child for 273 days, until she birthed in the spring. That was when she was finally discovered.

They showed her endless mercy by sparing the life of her child. For it was not the child who had sinned, it was her mother.

There was not a day that went by where she was not reminded that she was never supposed to have been born. It was drilled into her head that she would never follow the footsteps of her wretched parents. With thin rope they acquired from a ship they took down, they bound the base of her tail and the center, so that even when she dried and her form switched to limbs, walking would be quite impossible. It was so tight that the only way it stayed was a curse of some sort. Only an outside source could remove it.  She would be punished if there was ever an attempt to walk.

Every evening, around the time that the sun was on the brink of going down, she breached the surface and stared at the sky. Her sisters never understood why she was so detached from them; To her, it was blatant their cutting comments would never put a dent in their emotionless shells. To them, they spoke the truth. Their intent was never malicious. Unfortunately, the human half of her was filled with intense emotions that a pure seiren only had to feel in the face of her peirasmós. She endured these human feelings at every hour of every day. She wondered if this was how being fully human was. Did they have a similar weight beat them down?

...

When she breached the surface of the water, the atmosphere was different. She looked into the eyes of a metal bird that she had seen before, but they never had been this close. The menacing birds had always minded their own business, keeping their distance and passing by. The longer she stared at it, however, the sooner she felt the presence of humans: two female, two male. If she were on the bottom of the ocean amongst her sisters, these humans would have gone completely undetected. Maybe that was their prerogative.

One human, dressed in strange red clothing, crawled along the side of the metal bird. Was this normal human behavior? She had never seen any move in that manner. She shut her eyes, hoping he did not see her and continued to float. If he touched the water, her sisters would be notified, but for now, she let them mind their business. Too many lives had already been lost, too many necks torn to shreds by her canine fangs. If she could preserve these four, she would.

Something was different about these humans. One specifically. A wave of intense feelings, one she had never felt before, crashed into her. She stared at the red one, the pulse in her chest growing quicker with every second. An image of her mother and father appeared, her eyes snapping shut. Somehow, she viewed them from an outside perspective, but the harder she tried to see the intricate details of her mother’s face, the more she was only able to see herself.

When her eyes opened again, the red human was dangerously close to her and the surface of the water, suspended upside-down. She opened her mouth, almost instinctively, and sang a sea shanty, willing it to do as she instructed. She was almost certain that she was the first seiren to use her trance to keep someone from entering the sea, but the feeling sitting in her chest forced her to frantically keep it from putting itself in danger.

My heart is pierced by Cupid.

I disdain all glitter and gold.

For nothing can console me,

but my jolly sailor bold.

She stopped singing, and an idea sparked in her brain.

Do not touch the water unless you seek to be greeted with death.

She used a similar channel that her sisters communicated with, except it was a closed line between her and this strange looking human. It was in her native language, but somehow she knew he had understood. She continued the sea shanty, one that was hardly ever used. Generally, the melodies they sang were vowels, and the tune improvised. Centuries of listening to pirates and sailors had given them an archive of songs, but it was deemed insensible to use them. There was no need to use the human formed words that they had no way of understanding. Even though she did not know what she was saying, she liked the way they felt in her mouth and she progressed on.

 It reached out its hand, trying to touch her face. It was under her spell, but she stayed at a distance, not wanting his hand on her. She pulled down the clothing item covering its face, knowing that it was the least of its concerns. By the way his jaw was set, she knew he was male. Lips, nose, eyes, then-

Love.

An insurmountable force felt like a boulder had been dropped on her, a connection so deep that now, all that mattered was him. It touched every nerve in her body, from the tips of her delicate fingers to the end of her tail. She pictured the endless possibilities, their great escape, their eternal life together. With one kiss, they could hold a bond unlike any other. The kiss of a seiren was the equivalent to eternal life.

But then, despair.

Her face convulsed, and she was unable to stop the tear from rolling down her face. There was no possible way that any of that could ever happen.

For the first time in her dreadful 63 years of life, she finally forgave her mother. The intense amounts of hatred she let carry her dissipated, and another tear just about rolled down her cheek.

Just about, if it weren’t for the electric shock, and the plunge into complete darkness.

AN: Feedback, good or bad, always appreciated. Send me an ask or reply to this post!

M A S T E R L IS T

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[letstalkambrolleigns]

Dean Men Tell No Tales

I saw this Ambrollins AU aesthetic post for a pirate!Dean and siren!Seth from @incorrectambrollins and just couldn’t help myself from writing a fic… 

I hope it’s okay that I used all of your images in this! I just thought it would make the story better. I can totally take it out if you don’t like it! All the images belong to @incorrectambrollins

Pairing: Ambrollins (Dean Ambrose x Seth Rollins)

Warnings: well mostly anything you would expect from pirates? So drinking, violence, theft… There’s attempted murder, but it’s pirates and sirens so it kinda comes with the territory?

Word count: 1,713

(Cross-posted on AO3)

Captain Dean Ambrose is a ruthless and relentless pirate. His crew, however, is beginning to suspect that the man is losing his edge. But the truth is that Dean has just lost interest. The hunt no longer provides the thrill it once did, the pursuit no longer excites, and killing… don’t even get him started on that. The Captain has to stay on his toes though to keep crew complacent. He recently caught wind of a hidden treasure trove in one of the grottos tucked away on the island coastlines in the area. He just needs to figure out which one and if his sources are correct this raid should help them along the way.

He rifles through pages and chests in the captain’s quarters while the crew pillage the rest of the ship and shanghai what’s left of the brigantine’s crew. A salacious grin splits Dean’s face when he finds what he’s looking for and quickly slides it in a vest pocket before whistling for the crew to come loot the chamber.

His precious ship gets tossed in a viscous storm as they get closer to the grotto and their treasure. Captain Ambrose has a white knuckled grip on the helm as he guides the ship in towards the island. Half the crew is below deck to avoid the storm but the fierce captain refuses to let the rain deter him from his quest. Dean is soaked through and dripping when the weather quiets down and he orders the dinghies into the water.

He and the crew row into the grotto in the dead of night. They find their promised bounty in an inner room that has been half flooded by the tide. The pirates start loading the chests and taking them back to the ship. Dean discovers an alcove a little further in that hides a plethora of precious jewels. There’s a splash in the waist deep water and the pirate is instantly mesmerized by the man shrouded in shadows. The necklace draping from his hands has glowing emeralds that illuminate a gloriously bare torso. Dean can’t make out anything else in the darkness other than a swath of dark hair that falls in front of the man’s face.

“Cap’n!” One of his crewmen shouts and snaps him from the trance. He looks back at the gruff man that called him to explain that he’d found some more things in here. When he turn back around, the man is gone. He shrugs off the thrill that races down his spine and moves to help his crew clean the place out.

After everything is settled back on the ship and a course is set for a distant port, a fog has settled around the ship. Most of the crew has settled in for the night. It’s still and quiet. Eerie. Dean leans on the starboard railing and gazes out into the fog. For a moment he swears he could see a figure breaching the surface of the water, tangled in mesmerizing images. He feels drawn to the apparition, almost reaching out to touch.

The ship lurches and Dean snaps his attention back to the ship and steadying his footing. He shakes his head and retreats to his quarters.

Port cities are… “raucous” is a nice word for it. Especially pirate friendly ports. The crew disembarks in order to sell their cuts of the haul or spend what they already have. Dean cashes in a few things and heads to the tavern with a heavier coin purse to get a well deserved drink. The full moon is high in the black night sky when the captain emerges from the smoky building and heads back to the ship.

There’s a man wandering around the docks that looks slightly out of place. He’s wearing a tattered pair of pants, a rumpled top open down to his navel, and barefoot. His strong hand pushes a patch of blonde hair from his otherwise dark locks away from his face and meets Dean’s gaze with a sultry look.

The Captain is drawn to the other man by some unknown force. “Are you looking for something?” He grumbles as he reaches out to grab the strange man’s shoulder.

The dark haired man slips closer and wraps his hands in the lapels of Dean’s dark coat. “Yeah. You.” He whispers out in a deep, almost melodic tone.

Dean places his free hand on the man’s bearded cheek and rubs a thumb over his bottom lip. A warm, wet tongue darts out to lick the digit. Dean could try and claim that it’s the alcohol that has his head swimming, but regardless of the cause, he whisks the strange man up to his bed without any further exchange.

The sunlight trickles in and wakes the Captain the next morning. He rolls over in hopes of finding his bedmate from the night before but only meets cold and messy sheets. All Dean has to remember the encounter are sweet memories of the gorgeous man by lantern light. He strikes it up to drunken fantasies until he almost trips over the clothes the man was wearing before Dean had pulled them off and tossed them to the floor.

Either way, he carefully tucks the garments into one of his chests and crosses the room to his desk. Maps and charts are scattered around him but Dean ignores them and kicks his feet up on his desk to gaze out the port window at the bright morning. There are many more adventures to come and maybe he’ll even be able to locate the strange man when they drop anchor in this port again.

Seth is inexplicably smitten with the rough pirate captain. He follows the ship like a love struck puppy in hopes of drawing the beautiful man out again. He floats at the surface of the water and watches the ship as the sun sets, a heavy fog rolling in. That excites the siren because it might give him another opportunity to pull the man out of his quarters where he gaze at him without fear of being spotted. He knows it’s against his nature to not want to kill the sailor, but he had led him to the grotto with enchanted jewelry and let him take the emeralds. They gave him the ability to walk on land on the full moon. Seth had only meant to thank the Captain the best way he knew how that night, but he ended up falling for the unusual man instead.

The siren’s blood chills when he sees the black flag hoisted up the mast. It’s tattered and ripped beyond mere wind damage. Seth looks around frantically. Had he missed another ship approaching? There’s no way they were close to land…

His attention is drawn back to the ship when there’s a large commotion. The crew is yelling. There’s fire. They light the Captain’s flag and release it out into the sea as it burns. Seth knows he shouldn’t but he has to get a closer look. The object of the siren’s affection is being pushed and shoved. His coat ripped away and thrown overboard before the man himself goes tumbling into the unforgiving waves.

Seth rushes to gather the man in his arms. He managed to get tangled up in his coat and the siren just wraps his arms around the unconscious bundle. He frantically swims away from the ship. Seth tries his best to keep his head above water when they are out of sight of the ship. He has to get him to land and make sure he’s alright. He manages to get him to a beach on a remote island. Seth drags him to shore as best he can with a tail and no legs. He presses his lips to the man’s and tries to breath life back into him.

He starts coughing up water and Seth does his best to help him get it all out. When the former captain collapses back on the sand, the siren happily settles beside him. Seth, resting on his elbow, leans over to smile down at the other man. He brushes wild blonde hair out of the man’s face as he watches recognition flood his features. He grins before pulling Seth down into a kiss. It doesn’t last all that long before he passes out again.

Seth slides back into the ocean and keeps a close eye on the other man.

When Dean wakes, his entire body aches. He manages to pull himself into a sitting position in the sand. He remembers what happened vividly until his body hit the water, but he does have vague recollections of kissing that gloriously attractive man again. None of that really explains how he got here…

Dean stands up and looks out at the ocean, hoping that would explain something. It doesn’t. The sun beats down on him and he decides to head inland to see if he managed to wash up on an inhabited island.

Dean discovers an empty house by a rickety dock. It was probably an abandoned fishing spot. He looks out over the clear water and there isn’t a creature in sight. He sets his boots and most of his clothes out to dry and takes a seat on the dock in just his pants. There’s a splash and a flick of water behind him. He snaps his head around to catch a glimpse of a beautifully colored fin. A rather large fin.

The next thing he knows, there’s two hands gripping the edge of the dock and the man he thought only existed in his dreams pops his head over the edge to rest on his arms. Dean scramble to get a closer look, to touch the man. His hair is entirely dark now, no blonde patch, and the most notable change is the fact that he has a fish tail.

“Hi.” The siren speaks, pulling Dean from his thoughts.

Dean hoists him out of the water and lays him back on the dock. He drapes his own body over him and grins. “I think it’s about time I get your name and you stop disappearing on me.”

Seth whispers his name in his ear before surging forward for heated kiss.

[trinuviel]

When the Land is Cursed -  Catastrophe and Magical Pollution in “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Part 1: Valyria

One of the really pleasureable aspects of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is the rich world-building that infuses his story. GRRM’s story is typical of what Tolkien called a secondary world fantasy, which refers to a consistent, fictionary world that is in contrast to reality (x). His books contain a myriad of “historical” details that give the story an immersive depth. The recent companion book The World of Ice and Fire elaborates on this fictional world and is a must for any fan of the series. The companion book allowed for an elaboration of his fictional world as there are many aspects that he hasn’t found room for in the novels.

However, there is one piece of history that often is mentioned in the novels but that isn’t really elaborated on - yet. I am speaking of the Valyrian Freehold, or more specifically its Doom. Martin has promised that the exact cause of the Doom will be revealed in future novels but the companion book offers a number of interesting details. 

The Doom of Valyria plays upon a popular trope: that of a fabled (often advanced) civilization that is destroyed through a cataclysm, often brought on by human decadence or hubris. 

A story setting or legendary place doesn't necessarily have to be Atlantis per se to tap into the myth fabric, but it can be any sort of lost civilization that had great achievements and then were mysteriously lost. (TVTropes)

It has its roots in the myth of Atlantis but there are countless variations, such as Mu, Lemuria and Númenor, which is Tolkien’s version of the Atlantis myth. The Doom of Valyria is, in many respects, Martin’s version of this pervasive myth - one that may turn out to have a narrative importance for the his main story.

There’s one aspect that I find particularly fascinating about the Doom. While the exact cause of the Doom is unknown, the sad remains of the Valyrian peninsula appears to have become a place that is haunted, a dangerous place where travellers are lost and where the land is permanently blighted. 

It seems as though the land itself is cursed. Therefore, I think it could be interesting to frame the Doom of Valyria and its effects in terms of a magical pollution of the land itself.

THE VALYRIAN FREEHOLD

One of the things that is so interesting about the Valyrian Freehold is that it was the home of the dragonlords; a people of almost inhuman beauty that had managed to tame and weaponize dragons. According to the companion book, Valyria rose to prominence after the Long Night and its origins is somewhat mysterious - as is the origins of the dragons. The Valyrians used their dragons to conquer much of Essos but the centre of their culture was the city of Valyria that was situated on the Valyrian peninsula among the volcanoes called the Fourteen Flames.

At its apex Valyria was the greatest city in the known world, the center of civilization. Within its shining walls, twoscore rival houses vied for power and glory in court and council, rising and falling in an endless, subtle, oft savage struggle for dominance. (AWoIaF, The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest)

Like all the lost civilizations of the Atlantis Trope, Valyria was not only a great power but also an incredible city of beautiful architecture as well as a centre of learning - especially when it came to the magical arts.

(Valyrian Freehold. Art by HBO)

(Valyria. Art by tommyscottart)

(Valyria. The Fourteen Flames. Art by Ted Nasmith)

However, the might and wealth of Valyria was built upon slavery and conquest. The dragonlords of the Freehold laid waste to the Old Empire of Ghis and it brought destruction to the city states of the Rhoynar. 

None can say how many perished, toiling in the Valyrian mines, but the number was so large as to surely defy comprehension. As Valyria grew, its need for ore increased, which led to ever more conquests to keep the mines stocked with slaves. The Valyrians expanded in all directions, stretching out east beyond the Ghiscari cities and west to the very shores of Essos, where even the Ghiscari had not made inroads. It was this first bursting forth of the new empire that was of paramount importance to Westeros and the future Seven Kingdoms. As Valyria sought to conquer more and more lands and peoples, some fled for safety, retreating before the Valyrian tide. (AWoIaF, Ancient History: Valyria’s Children)

(The Fall of Old Ghis. Art by Marc Simonetti)

The Valyrians used slaves cruelly in the mines of the Fourteen Flames, digging for precious ore:

"Burnt and blackened corpses were oft found in shafts where the rocks were cracked or full of holes. Yet still the mines drove deeper. Slaves perished by the score, but their masters did not care. Red gold and yellow gold and silver were reckoned to be more precious than the lives of slaves, for slaves were cheap in the old Freehold. During war, the Valyrians took them by the thousands. In times of peace they bred them, though only the worst were sent down to die in the red darkness." (AFfC, Arya II)

In the colony of Gogossos they even performed magical experiments on slaves, breeding women with animals to create strange creatures:

By any name, it was an evil place. The dragonlords sent their worst criminals to the Isle of Tears to live out their lives in hard labor. In the dungeons of Gogossos, torturers devised new torments. In the flesh pits, blood sorcery of the darkest sort was practiced, as beasts were mated to slave women to bring forth twisted half-human children. The infamy of Gogossos outlived even the Doom. (TWoIaF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Basilisk Isles)

The reach of the Valyrian Freehold encompassed most of Essos and extended even to distant colonies on the Basilisk Isles and the sountern continent of Sothorys. One of the effects of this empire built on the might of dragons and the blood of slaves was the migrations of the Andals and the Ten Thousand Ships of Nymeria of the Rhoynar to Westeros. The city state of Braavos was founded by escaped slaves and remained secret for centuries.

THE DOOM

Old Valyria existed for millenia - until it was destroyed in a catalysm of immense proportions. An empire was destroyed in a day by fire and by water.

Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted. An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown. (ADwD, Tyrion VIII)

The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, the fabled empire vanished in a day. (TWoIaF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

On the day the Doom came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout stone tower on the island's highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea. Fair Velos with its palaces of cedar and pink marble had vanished in a heartbeat. On the north end of the island, the ancient brick walls and stepped pyramids of the slaver port Ghozai had suffered the same fate. (ADwD, The Iron Suitor)

This description of the Doom shares some similarities with the stories of the destruction of Atlantis. Like Atlantis, Valyria was devastated by earth quakes and partially drowned by the sea - and this extraordinary civilization disapperared in a single day. However, Martin has added the the element of fire through volcanic eruption.

To this day, no one knows what caused the Doom. Most say that it was a natural cataclysm—a catastrophic explosion caused by the eruption of all Fourteen Flames together. (AWoIaF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

Like Atlantis, the Doom of Valyria is framed by the text as a result of hubris: “An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown.“ (ADwD, Tyrion VIII) - but I’ll return to that later.

CURSED LANDS = MAGICAL POLLUTION?

The Doom devastated the Valyrian Peninsula, which was rent asunder into a smattering of islands surrounded by a new sea. This body of water is called the Smoking Sea - named so because of the existence of volcanoes and smoking stacks of rock. It is even said that the waters boil in places.

“...north of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon-haunted.” (Jorah Mormont to Daenerys Targaryen -  ASoS, Daenerys I)

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. It was said that any sailor who so much as glimpsed the fiery mountains of Valyria rising above the waves would soon die a dreadful death... (AFfC, The Reaver)  

The Smoking Sea is a dangerous place to sail and the landscape takes on a foreboding, even unnatural appearance:

Only the brightest stars were visible, all to the west. A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. "What hour is this?" he asked Moqorro. "That cannot be sunrise unless the east has moved. Why is the sky red?" "The sky is always red above Valyria, Hugor Hill. "A cold chill went down his back. "Are we close?" (ADwD, Tyrion VIII) 

(The Doom of Valyria. Art by HBO)

"Storms," Ralf the Limper had muttered when he came crawling to Victarion. "Three big storms, and foul winds between. Red winds out of Valyria that smelled of ash and brimstone, and black winds that drove us toward that blighted shore. This voyage was cursed from the first. The Crow's Eye fears you, my lord, why else send you so far away? He does not mean for us to return." (ADwD, The Iron Suitor)

A red sky and red winds, accompanied by the smell of brimstone - it sounds like something of a hellscape.

There are strange stories about demons haunting the Smoking Sea. In the show, those “demons” are stone men, people afflicted with greyscale. However, that part seems to have been lifted from Tyrion’s journey on the Rhoyne in A Dance with Dragons where he encounters such stone men in the Sorrows near the ruined city of Chroyane. In fact, the show’s visualization of the ruins of Old Valyria is strangely similar to artwork depicting the Sorrows.

(In the Sorrows. Art by Marc Simonetti)

More interesting is the indication that the blight that plagues Valyria’s shores of seems to affect the few inhabited cities that are closest to the heart of Old Valyria, specifically the city of Mantarys, which lie at northern tip of the Sea of Sighs with its red waters. Though Mantarys is the closest inhabited city to Old Valyria, it is still situated quite a way away from the heart of the shattered peninsula so the blight has spread rather far.

The Freehold of Valyria and its empire were destroyed by the Doom, but the shattered peninsula remains. Strange tales are told of it today, and of the demons that haunt the Smoking Sea where the Fourteen Flames once stood. In fact, the road that joins Volantis to Slaver's Bay has become known as the "demon road," and is best avoided by all sensible travelers. And men who have dared the Smoking Sea do not return, as Volantis learned during the Century of Blood when a fleet it sent to claim the peninsula vanished. There are queer rumors of men living still among the ruins of Valyria and its neighboring cities of Oros and Tyria. Yet others dispute this, saying that the Doom still holds Valyria in its grip. A few of the cities away from the heart of Valyria remain inhabited, however—places founded by the Freehold or subject to it. The most sinister of these is Mantarys, a place where the men are said to be born twisted and monstrous; some attribute this to the city's presence on the demon road. (AWoIaF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

The stories of twisted and monstrous children sound strange but they seem to be legit as Tyrion sees a two-headed girl out of Mantarys on his travels in Essos (ADwD, Tyrion X). It sounds like Mantarys is a place where children are born deformed on a scale much larger than what is normal. It sounds eerily like the occurrence of birth defects in children born from parents that have been exposed to nuclear radiation. Interestingly enough, the Doom left the Lands of the Long Summer sterile:

The Lands of the Long Summer—once the most fertile in all the world—were scorched and drowned and blighted, and the toll in blood would not be fully realized for a century to come. (TWoIaF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

One of the most fertile parts of the world was left permanently blighted. Thus, more than 400 years after the Doom of Valyria, the Lands of the Long Summer still suffer the effects of that cataclysm - a cataclysm that has left the land permanently sterile and which leaves even distant inhabitants with severe fertility problems.

If the Doom of Valyria was just an entirely natural catastrophe then why do its effects have such serious repercussions on the health of the land and its remaining population? Volcanic eruptions do present a health hazard because of noxious gases and volcanic ash but those effects are nowhere nearly as severe as what we see in the Lands of the Long Summer in Essos - or as long-lasting. If this was an entirely natural catastrophe then why is the sky above Valyria permanently red and why are the inhabitants of nearby Mantarys effected in a way that is eerily reminiscent of nuclear fallout, even centuries later?

The effects of the Doom of Valyria are not natural and that is why I’d like to propose a theory that the Doom left the land magically polluted to a very severe degree.

THE CAUSE OF THE DOOM?

If the Doom of Valyria left the Lands of the Long Summer magically polluted, then we should ask what caused the Doom itself and if magic played a part in it.

To this day, no one knows what caused the Doom. Most say that it was a natural cataclysm—a catastrophic explosion caused by the eruption of all Fourteen Flames together. Some septons, less wise, claim that the Valyrians brought the disaster on themselves for their promiscuous belief in a hundred gods and more, and in their godlessness they delved too deep and unleashed the fires of the Seven hells on the Freehold. A handful of maesters, influenced by fragments of the work of Septon Barth, hold that Valyria had used spells to tame the Fourteen Flames for thousands of years, that their ceaseless hunger for slaves and wealth was as much to sustain these spells as to expand their power, and that when at last those spells faltered, the cataclysm became inevitable. [...] Some, wedding the fanciful notion of Valyrian magic to the reality of the ambitious great houses of Valyria, have argued that it was the constant whirl of conflict and deception amongst the great houses that might have led to the assassinations of too many of the reputed mages who renewed and maintained the rituals that banked the fires of the Fourteen Flames. (AWoIaF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria)

I have argued elsewhere that there are Doylist reasons for thinking that Septon Barth was correct in many of his theories about magical interference in the natural world. Furthermore, the fact that Sam Tarly has in his possession a copy of Barth’s work is a Chekov’s Gun that is just waiting to go off.

Is it possible that magic was involved in the Doom? I’d say that there’s a distinct possibility that this was indeed the case. The Valyrians had a tendency to mess with nature as we have seen with their experiments in magical cross-breeding in Gogossos. They also worked stone with magic: 

Davos had often heard it said that the wizards of Valyria did not cut and chisel as common masons did, but worked stone with fire and magic as a potter might work clay. But now he wondered. (ASoS, Davos V) 

This lends a certain credence to the theory that the Valyrians used magic to work the volcanoes that eventually erupted. 

"Most mines are dank and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too." (AFfC, Arya II)

How do you work a mine in an active volcano? That doesn’t really sound like a feasible project - unless you can use magic to control flame and stone, and if you’re ruthless and heartless enough to spend human lives indiscriminately, which is exactly what the Valyrians did.

I’ve mentioned earlier that the text frames the Doom as a result of hubris. Greed and magical meddling with nature did the Valyrians in. They were arrogant in their overconfidence because you mess with nature at your own peril.

(GIFs and edits not mine)

[bangkokjacknews]

Sunday Mysteries: The Bermuda Triangle

Try to See It from My Angle: The Bermuda Triangle - What is it about this infamous stretch of ocean (and sky) that causes ships and planes to vanish without a trace? At ten past two in the afternoon of 5 December 1945, five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from the naval air station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The commander of Flight 19, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, had been assigned a routine two-hour training flight of fifteen men on a course that would take them out to sea sixty-six miles due east of the airbase, to the Hen and Chicken Shoals. There the squadron would carry out practice bombing runs, then fly due north for seventy miles before turning for a second time and heading back to base, 120 miles away. Their plotted flight plan formed a simple triangle, straightforward to execute, and Lieutenant Taylor and his four trainee pilots headed out into the clear blue sky over a calm Sargasso Sea. Even though everything seemed set fair, some of the crew were showing signs of anxiety. This was not unusual during a training flight over open water. Less usual was the fact that one of the fifteen crewmen had failed to show up for duty, claiming he had had a premonition that something strange would happen on that day and that he was too scared to fly. And, within a few minutes after take-off, something strange did happen. First, Lieutenant Taylor reported how the sea appeared white and ‘not looking as it should’. Then, shortly afterwards, his compasses began spinning out of control, as did those of the other four pilots, and at 3.45 p.m., about ninety minutes after take-off, the normally cool and collected Taylor contacted Lieutenant Robert Cox at Flight Control with the worried message: ‘Flight Control, this is an emergency. We seem to be off course. We can’t make out where we are.’ Cox instructed the pilot to head due west, but Taylor reported that none of the crew knew which way west actually was. And that too was highly unusual as, even without compasses and other navigational equipment, at that time of day and with the sun only a few hours from setting, any one of them could have used the tried and tested method of looking out of the window and following the setting sun, which will always lie to the west of wherever you find yourself. Just over half an hour later, Taylor radioed Flight Control again, this time informing them he thought they were 225 miles north-east of base. His agitated radio message ended with him saying, ‘It looks like we are …’ and then the radio cut out. By then they would have been desperately low on fuel, but the five Avengers had been designed to make emergency sea landings and remain afloat for long enough to give the crew the chance to evacuate into life rafts and await rescue. A Martin Mariner boat plane was immediately sent out to assist Flight 19 and bring the men back; but as it approached the area in which the stricken crew were thought to have been lost, it too broke contact with Flight Control. None of the aircraft and none of the crew were ever found and the official navy report apparently concluded that the men had simply vanished, ‘as if they had flown off to planet Mars’. To this day, the American military has a standing order to keep a watch for Flight 19, as if they believed it had been caught up in some bizarre time warp and might return at any time. At least, that is how the story goes. And it would have had a familiar ring for some, as it wasn’t the first time a mysterious disappearance had been reported in the area. On 9 March 1918, the USS Cyclops left Barbados with a cargo of 10,800 tons of manganese (a hard metal essential for iron and steel production) bound for Baltimore on the east coast of America. The following day, Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley, a man with a habit of walking around the quarterdeck clad in nothing but his underwear and a hat and carrying a cane, reported how an attempted mutiny by a small number of the 306-man crew had been suppressed and that the offenders were below decks in irons. And that was the last anybody ever heard from Captain Worley or any of his crew. The 20,000-ton Cyclops simply vanished from the surface of the sea, into thin air. The conclusion at the time was the ship had been a victim of German U-boat activity, but when investigations in Germany after the end of the First World War revealed that no U-boats had been located in the area, that theory was ruled out. Instead, speculation ranged from the suggestion – proffered quite seriously – by a popular magazine that a giant sea monster had surfaced, wrapped its tentacles around the entire ship, dragged it to the ocean bed and eaten it, to the rumour, UFO hysteria in full swing (see ‘The Famous Aurora Spaceship Mystery’), that the vessel had been lifted, via giant intergalactic magnets, into outer space. And then, in 1963, eighteen years after the disappearance of Flight 19, it happened again. The SS Marine Sulphur Queen was on a voyage from Norfolk, Virginia, to Belmont in Texas. On 3 February, the ship radioed a routine report to the local coastguard to give her position: she was, at the time, sailing close to Key West in the Straits of Florida. Shortly afterwards she vanished. Three days later the coastguard, searching for any sign of the missing vessel, found a single life jacket floating in the sea. Since then, no other evidence of the Marine Sulphur Queen, its cargo or the 39-man crew has ever been found. Back in 1950, connections had already been made between the disappearance of Flight 19 and of the USS Cyclops: reporter E. V. W. Jones was the first to suggest mysterious happenings in the sea between the Florida coast and Bermuda. Two years later, Fate Magazine published an article by George X. Sand in which he suggested that the mysterious events – thousands of them, by his calculation – had taken place within an area that extended down the coast from Florida to Puerto Rico and in a line from each of these to Bermuda, creating what he called a ‘watery triangle’. His views were shared by one Frank Edwards, who published a book in 1955 called The Flying Saucer Conspiracy in which he claimed that aliens from outer space were also operating in the same area; hence the sky was incorporated into the ‘watery triangle’, which became known as the ‘Devil’s Triangle’. In 1963, following the disappearance of the Marine Sulphur Queen, journalist Vincent Gaddis wrote an article for Argosy magazine in which he drew together the many mysterious events that had taken place within the triangular area of sea and sky. This proved so popular that he expanded the article into a book, which he called The Deadly Bermuda Triangle, thereby coining the famous expression that was to become synonymous with unexplained disappearances the world over. Eleven years later, a book by former army intelligence officer Charles Berlitz, simply entitled The Bermuda Triangle, sold over 20 million copies and was translated into thirty different languages. In 1976 the book won the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize for non-fiction and the world became gripped by Bermuda Triangle fever – and has been ever since. But it is worth noting that even as recently as 1964 the Bermuda Triangle, as we now know it, simply did not exist. Geographically, the Bermuda Triangle covers an area in the western Atlantic marked by, at its three points, Bermuda, San Juan in Puerto Rico and Miami in Florida – although, on closer study of the locations of some ocean disasters attributed to the myth, it would be easy to extend that area halfway round the world. The Mary Celeste, for example, has even been connected to the Bermuda Triangle, which would extend its boundaries closer to Portugal! But could there be any truth in the myth – some more prosaic explanation to account for the seemingly paranormal events? Is there anything about the actual geography of the area that might cause so many ships and aircraft to vanish apparently without a trace? To start with, the sea currents in the area are heavily affected by the warm Gulf Stream that flows in a north-easterly direction from the tip of Florida to Great Britain and northern Europe. The warm current divides the balmy water of the Sargasso Sea and the colder north Atlantic and is why the climate in northern Europe is much more moderate than might be expected, considering that Canada and Moscow are as far north as England. Once leaving the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Stream current reaches five or six knots in speed and this affects the heavy shipping in the area in many ways, including navigation. Inexperienced sailors, especially in the days before radar and satellite navigation, could very easily find themselves many miles off course after failing to measure the ship’s speed with sufficient accuracy, especially in the days when this was calculated by throwing from the bow of the ship a log attached to a rope and timing the appearance of each of a series of knots in the rope as it passed the stern. Failing to do this often enough while sailing in the fast-moving Gulf Stream could quite speedily lead to the crew of a ship becoming hopelessly lost in the vast Atlantic Ocean. Another effect of the fast-moving current would be to scatter the wreckage of lost ships and aircraft over a vast area, many miles from the site of an accident, making it well nigh impossible for rescue teams to locate survivors. Then there is the North American continental shelf which is responsible for the clear blue water of the Caribbean Islands. After only a few miles, the shelf gives way to the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, an area known as the Puerto Rico Trench. And at over 30,000 feet deep, nobody has ever been down there to clear up any mysterious disappearances. And furthermore, the continental shelf is home to large areas of methane hydrates (methane gases that bubble up through the water after being emitted from the seabed). Eruptions from any of these in the relatively shallow waters cause the sea to bubble and froth, affecting the density of the water and hence the buoyancy of vessels travelling on its surface. Scientific tests have shown that scale models of ships will sink when the density of the water is sufficiently reduced, which could account for the sudden disappearance of various craft within the area. Added to which, any wreckage might be carried away by the Gulf Stream and scattered across the Atlantic in no time at all. The Bermuda Triangle is also known to be an area of magnetic anomalies, or unusual variations in the earth’s magnetic field. Indeed this area of ocean is one of the two places on earth where a magnetic compass points to true north (determined by the North Star) rather than magnetic north (located near Prince of Wales Island in Canada). The only other place where true north lines up with magnetic north is directly on the other side of the planet, just off the east coast of Japan, an area known by Japanese and Filipino seamen as the ‘Devil’s Sea’. In both these areas, navigators not allowing for the usual compass variation between true and magnetic north will become hopelessly lost, and mysterious disappearances are equally common in the Devil’s Sea. But locals there do not blame UFOs or sea monsters; they blame human error. Christopher Columbus, the famous fifteenth-century navigator credited with ‘discovering’ the Americas, was one of the first people to recognize the difference between true and magnetic north; and he wasn’t at all fazed by the odd compass readings he seemed to be getting as he sailed between Bermuda and Florida over five hundred years ago. Magnetic anomalies are also thought to be responsible for the fog that appears to cling to aircraft and boats in the Bermuda Triangle and Devil’s Sea. In such cases, the fog gives the strange illusion that it is travelling along with the craft rather than that the vessel is travelling through it, creating a ‘tunnelling’ effect for the passengers on board. Many reports have been made of the disorientating effect of this curious fog. In one of the most celebrated instances, the captain of a tug towing a large barge reported that the sea was ‘coming in from all directions’ (due to methane hydrates, no doubt) and that the rope attached to the barge plus the barge itself, only a few yards behind the tug, appeared to have completely vanished, presumably shrouded in magnetic fog. Another natural phenomenon that might be held responsible for the strange disappearances in the region are hurricanes, notorious in the area of ocean between Bermuda and the Gulf of Mexico, in the middle of which lies the Bermuda Triangle. These must take their fair share of the blame in bringing down small aircraft and swallowing boats, sending the wreckage to the floor of the Atlantic in minutes and leaving no trace of the craft on the surface. So what really happened in the case of Flight 19, the USS Cyclops and the Marine Sulphur Queen? Let’s examine the first of these disappearances in a bit more detail. Squadron Leader Lieutentant Charles Taylor, although an experienced pilot, had recently been transferred to the air station at Fort Lauderdale and was new to the area. Added to which, he was a known party animal and had been out drinking the evening before the fateful day. A very hungover Taylor then tried to find someone else to take over as leader of the training flight – the only point of which was to increase the flying hours of the four apparent novices – but no other pilot would agree to stand in at such short notice. Shortly into the flight, Taylor’s compass malfunctioned and, unfamiliar with the area, he had to rely on landmarks alone. After nothing but open sea, the aircraft eventually flew over a small group of islands Taylor thought he recognised as his home – Florida Keys. Flight 19 was in constant touch with Flight Control and was told to head directly north which, Taylor thought, would take him straight back to base. But Flight 19 was not over Florida Keys in fact; it was over the Bermudan Islands – exactly where it should have been. Heading north simply sent the stricken aircraft out into the open Atlantic. Crew members were heard to suggest to each other they should immediately head west, as their compasses were actually working, but none of the trainees dared to contradict their leader. With a storm gathering and the sun not visible through the cloud, Taylor refused to listen to his subordinates, accepting the instruction from Flight Control instead. But when told to switch to the emergency radio channel, Taylor declined, stating that one his pilots could not tune in to that particular channel and that he did not want to lose contact with him. As a result of this, contact between Flight 19 and Fort Lauderdale became increasingly intermittent. After an hour of flying due north, and with no land in sight, Taylor reasoned he must be over the Gulf of Mexico, and with that made the right-hand turn, due east, he thought would bring his team back to the west coast of Florida. But instead, an hour north of Bermuda and flying over the Atlantic with Flight Control believing them to be close to the Gulf, this manoeuvre only served to take them further out to sea. Flight 19, miles away from where anybody believed them to be, would then have run out of fuel, ditched into the sea beyond the continental shelf, and been broken within minutes by the storm. The Mariner sent to look for them was, in fact, one of two that were sent to assist. The first arrived back at base safely but the second exploded shortly after take-off. (The Mariners, notorious for fuel leaks, were nicknamed ‘flying gas tanks’.) Radio contact had been lost twenty-five minutes into the flight and debris floating in a slick of spilt oil was found in the exact location the plane was though to have come down. In short, there was nothing mysterious about the accident after all. The official report at first stated that flight leader error was to blame for the loss of Flight 19, but this was then changed to ‘cause unknown’, giving rise to the mystery. Contrary to the fictitious version of events, nobody has ever stated, in an official capacity, that the aircraft simply vanished ‘as if they had flown off to planet Mars’. The disappearance of the USS Cyclops does remain a mystery, however, although heavy seas and hurricanes were reported in the area at the time. It is now thought that a sudden shift in its eleven-thousand-ton metal cargo was to blame, causing the ship to capsize with all hands on deck and sink to bottom of the ocean. In the case of the SS Marine Sulphur Queen, something Triangle enthusiasts rarely mention is that the cargo was made up of 15,000 tons of molten sulphur sealed in four giant tanks and kept at a heat of 275 degrees Fahrenheit by two vast boilers connected to the tanks via a complex network of coils and wiring. They also do not tell us that the T-2 tankers such as the Marine Sulphur Queen had a terrible record for safety during the Second World War and that within the space of just a few years three of them had previously broken in half and sunk. Indeed, a similar sulphur-carrying ship had vanished in 1954 under less mysterious circumstances, having spontaneously exploded before any distress call could be made. But what clinches it for me is one particular detail: the fact that officers on a banana boat fifteen miles off the coast of San Antonia near Cuba reported a strong acrid odour in the vicinity. The conclusion at the time, but overlooked later by Triangle enthusiasts, was either that leaking sulphur must have quickly overcome the entire crew and a spark then ignited the sulphur cloud, causing a fire that the unconscious crew were unable to put out, or that an explosion had torn through the boat, depositing the crew in the shark- and barracuda-infested waters. Either way, investigators decided the ship must have gone down just over the horizon from the banana boat whose crew had detected the sulphurous odour. In addition to natural phenomena, there are man-made ones to consider too when it comes to the Bermuda Triangle. Indeed, the Caribbean and southern Florida have long been a favourite haunt for pirates and it’s not exactly in their interests to report the ships they’ve sunk after looting their cargo or crew they’ve murdered in the process. Many unexplained disappearances would be far better explained by pirate activity than by extraterrestrial abduction or sea monsters lurking in the deep. The pirates of the Caribbean were not heroes but vicious murderers who took no prisoners and left no evidence of their piracy, and don’t let Johnny Depp or Keira Knightly seduce you into thinking otherwise. The main explanation for the mysterious events of the Bermuda Triangle is sheer invention. Indeed there are many examples of writers bending facts to suit their stories (notably in the case of the Loch Ness Monster and the Mary Celeste) or indeed pretty much every story I’ve covered in this book), which is hardly surprising since mysterious and ghostly goings-on can be very profitable (as I hope to find out), as everyone loves a good mystery. One of my favourite examples of this is the story of the incident in 1972 of the appropriately named tanker V. A. Fogg that was said to have been found drifting in the Triangle without a single crew member aboard. Everybody had vanished apart from the captain whose body was found sitting at his desk with a steaming mug of tea in front of him and a haunted look upon his face. Read the full article

[vacationsoup]

New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/11-reasons-to-love-living-by-the-beach/

11 Reasons to Love Living by the Beach

1. Turtle Patrols

It’s no secret that, in the Golden Isles, we love our sea turtles. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island offers dozens of ways to get up close and personal with the lovable reptiles. One way is by taking part in one of the nonprofit’s Turtle Walks or Nest Walks. During nighttime or morning trips, naturalists walk participants down beaches in search of nesting mother turtles. The evening turtle walks, held throughout July, are open to those 18 and over.

2. Movie Nights

There’s magic in movies, but have you ever seen a movie while floating in an inner tube? You might just get the chance this summer when Summer Waves, the waterpark on Jekyll Island, stays open late for swim-in movie showings of family fun films relating to water. “The Little Mermaid” is set for July 1 at 8:30 p.m. If dry land is more your thing, that’s ok, too. Movies on the Green, hosted by the Jekyll Island Authority, plays free movies on the grassy space in the center of the Beach Village, with a showing of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” slated for 8:30 p.m. on July 28 and “Frozen” at 8 p.m. on August 25.

And while the Glynn Place Mall in Brunswick boasts a fancy new GTX theater, there are other unique ways to take in some old school flicks, too. For instance, the historic Ritz Theatre, operated by Golden Isles Arts and Humanities, offers Cinema Gourmet showing classics paired with a discussion and dinner from local favorite Indigo Coastal Shanty. It runs from the fall to spring. But the Ritz is not the only spot to find oldies but goodies — the Georgia Theater Co. offers Flashback Cinema, featuring the likes of “Gone with the Wind” for a modern-day crowd. The program runs from spring to summer.

3. Cruising By

Living on the coast means finding fun ways to get on the water. While there are plenty of options, few can beat a good ol’ wine cruise. Waterfront Wine and Gourmet in Darien offers both onshore tastings as well as trips around the picturesque rivers and tributaries around the area. Ticket prices include different wines and hors d’oeuvres.

Other vendors offer cruises to other locations. Undoubtedly, the most recognizable boat in the area is a biggie — the Emerald Princess II. The multi-story casino ship shoves off daily from Gisco Point, under the Sidney Lanier Bridge in Brunswick. It takes passengers out to international waters, where players have a chance to try their luck at a variety of games. For those who just want to enjoy the ride, a bar and a sun-drenched top deck can offer an uber-relaxing option.

4. Time Travelers

The Golden Isles are rich in history — from Jekyll to Brunswick and St. Simons Island — and every acre is sprinkled with fingerprints of the past. Three of the area’s most iconic landmarks stand as silent witnesses of days gone by, and all have been touched by conflicts that have defined our country.

Fort King George in Darien, for instance, was first established in 1721, serving as the southern outpost of the British Empire in the New World. Soldiers there weathered harsh conditions, fending off threats from the Spanish and Native Americans. Today, a reconstruction of the barracks can be found on the historic site, which showcases what life was like for these early settlers.

On St. Simons Island, one finds a similar site. Fort Frederica, located on the north end of the island, once served as a home for British soldiers also serving General James Oglethorpe in the 1700s. Some ruins of that 1736 encampment can still be seen today with archaeological digs still underway.

Over on the south end of the island, another local icon — the St. Simons lighthouse — stands tall next to the Keeper’s Dwelling, both maintained by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society. First erected in 1810, the lighthouse has guided countless sailors safely to shore. Of course, it also withstood tribulations, such as being burned by the fleeing Confederate Army as Union soldiers approached in 1861. Today, visitors can scale all 172 stairs of the rebuilt structure to get a breathtaking panoramic view of the Isles.

5. Shark Tooth Hunts

Go on the search for fossilized sharks teeth, which can be found in a few low-key places around the Golden Isles. Cumberland Island is known for being a spot to find sharks teeth along its shores. Teeth can also be found near the Sidney Lanier Bridge and on some Jekyll Island beaches.

6. Holiday Celebrations

Whether you are ready to celebrate July Fourth or it’s time to plan your Labor Day weekend, there will be plenty of ways to enjoy the holidays here along the coast.

A special treat for vacationers and residents each year is the over-the-top firework displays during Independence Day celebrations. If you are in downtown Brunswick, head over to Mary Ross Waterfront Park for the festivities that include a display that lights up the night sky. On St. Simons, the place to be is on the south end of the island, where the Pier Village will be taken over by gazers for the evening spectacle that shoots off from the pier. If you find a spot on the beach, you can turn around to catch Sea Island’s display, too. And new this year, Jekyll Island will be lighting off their firework display a day early on July 3.

Celebrate the end of summer during Labor Day weekend with a variety of activities. Sea Island’s Southern Grown festival returns for the fourth year with concert headliner NEEDTOBREATHE ready to sway the night away at Rainbow Island for the Saturday evening concert during the multi-day festival. The Little Light Music Series will also conclude that weekend with a performance by the Sensational Sounds of Motown on Sunday. And for those on the hunt for a good find, swing by the Pier Village for the St. Simons Island Antique Show that will feature vendors and sellers with their wares on Saturday and Sunday.

7. Paddle & Stretch

There are lots of ways to get in your exercise outdoors this summer. With each lunar cycle, Omcore Yoga and Body hosts a full moon beach yoga session at Coast Guard Station. All levels are invited and donations to local causes are accepted rather than payment for these dusky excursions.

Wanting a more full-body experience while taking in the sites? Try your hand at paddleboarding or kayaking. Kingfisher Paddleventures’ owner Norm Leonard often includes ecological and historical tidbits in his tours. Turtle Tides Paddleboard and Kayaks, in the Pier Village, also offers tours and rentals, as does South-East Adventure Outfitters, in its Pier Village spot.

8. Beach Bliss

Tourists and residents can find solace in the simplicity of a summer beach day. Pack a bag, grab a chair, and drive out to one of the area’s many beautiful beaches.

On St. Simons, beach accesses are located at Massengale Park, the Coast Guard Station, and Gould’s Inlet. Just remember that the tides can affect how much beach there is, especially if you prefer the south end beaches near Myrtle Street.

On Jekyll Island, beach goers can head out to Great Dunes Park, located in the middle of the island and Jekyll’s biggest beach, or they can sit among the famously picturesque gnarled branches on Driftwood Beach on the north end.

On the southern side of the island, St. Andrews Beach and Glory Beach both offer relaxing spots to park a chair and enjoy the sound of the waves.

9. Fresh Catch

There are quite a few places to turn to when you are ready to cook up some of the Isles’ freshest catches.

Frank Owens with City Market not only supplies local restaurants, but also the public with his downtown Brunswick store on Gloucester Street. Owens can be found hoisting in fish, shrimp, and oysters as he carries on the family business that was first started by his great-grandfather in 1948.

Poteet Seafood Company in Brunswick also has been packing Wild Georgia Shrimp for more than three decades. The operation, owned by shrimp boat captain John Wallace, includes a packing facility as well as a public market that carries various seafood including scallops, crab, clams, spices, and more.

10. Festival Time

Venture outdoors this summer to enjoy some sweet sounds of music by the sea. The Little Light Music Concerts series has returned this summer to St. Simons Island. The concerts take place once a month on Sunday evenings on the oceanfront lawn beneath the St. Simons Lighthouse. Participants are encouraged to bring picnics and lawn chairs.

There’s also Sounds by the Sea, run by Golden Isles Arts and Humanities. These summer concerts are held at Neptune Park from May to September, and attendees are invited to bring picnic blankets and chairs. The season includes Annie Akins on July 22, Maggie and Jackson on August 26, and Gwen Hughes and the Kats on September 23.

The annual Sunshine Festival will also take place on St. Simons from July 4 to July 7 at the St. Simons pier. The multi-day festival provides an Independence Day celebration that will include an arts & crafts show, a 5K race, and fireworks.

11. Sweet Stroll

Cater to that sweet tooth this summer when you take an afternoon stroll by the St. Simons pier or the Jekyll Beach Village.

Frozen yogurt flavors, Italian gelato, and sorbets are just a few scoops away at the pier location of Fuse, which also has locations mid-island and on Jekyll. Tasty pairings such as cherry pie, early grey tea, and more dazzle the taste buds at Moo Cow Ice Cream, just a hop and skip from the pier village, too.

If you are wanting something more than ice cream, the iconic St. Simons Sweets, also located in the Pier Village, sells a variety of delicacies, from cookies to chocolate and more. Across the street, Sunset Slush will be serving up Italian Ice all summer.

Just across the St. Simons Sound, Island Sweets Shoppe in Jekyll Island’s historic district offers old-fashioned candies along with ice cream, fudge, pralines, and more.

  Source:  Golden Isles:  The Magazine for Brunswick, St Simons Island. Jekyll, & Sea Island.  By: Bethany Leggett, Lindsey Adkison, Lauren McDonald.