#Battle of Crete

[theworldatwar]

German paratroopers pose for a last photograph as they get ready to embark on Operation Mercury 20 May 1941 Credit : @justforbooks

[carbone14]

Embarquement des parachutistes allemands de la 7e Division aérienne (1ère division parachutiste en 1943) pour l'Opération Mercury - Bataille de Crète - Campagne de la Méditerranée - 20 mai 1941

[captain-price-unofficially]

Greek anti-fascist partisans, Crete. 1941

[secondworldwarremembrancedays]

Remember the Battle of Crete: May 1941.

One of the most audacious operations in the German conquest of Europe was the air assault on the Greek island of Crete, the first action in which paratroopers were dropped in large numbers. Crete was defended by British and Greek forces who had some success against the lightly armed German soldiers jumping out of the sky.

However, delays and communication failures between Allies allowed the Germans to capture the vital airfield at Maleme and fly in reinforcements. Once the Nazis gained air superiority, landings by sea followed.

The Allies surrendered after two weeks of fighting.

[Read Up: Why the Tuskegee Airmen Were So Badass]

[dilfaeneas]

Scar and jewels practice with Helenus inspired somewhat by this line in Dictys of Crete:

>> Helenus was rewarded with the sons of Hector, whom Neoptolemus gave him, and with all the gold and silver which the rest of our leaders felt they should give him.

Sounds like someone is feeling guilty and just giving the poor man another jewel whenever they feel an emotion.

The clay necklace he is touching is also based off the cylindrical clay seals that function as signatures for both the men and women of Troy. Helenus is collecting what is left of his brothers.

[yoihino]

Auuaghh undertale fandom video essays my beloathed. Is it really so much to ask for just one (1) of these to be made by an actual fan who was in the fandom? Like it is so clear they are talking about it from an outside perspective or that they got into it just fpr the video and uggh. Where is the love? The appreciation for the aus and their creators? For the history for the fandom? Honestly I just want like a text post of someone saying 'hey remember those times? They were wild and they may not have been perfect but we sure had a lot of fun'.

[boricuacherry-blog]

rebels were lead by Toussaint L'Ouverture, a self-freed Haitian general. It impacted the island on a large

[room-surprise]

PSA: There are no Dungeons in Dungeon Meshi! They're labyrinths!

(WARNING FOR MANGA SPOILERS)

When the characters in the manga talk about dungeons, in Japanese they are actually using the word 迷宮 (meikyū) which means labyrinth. The connotation based on the kanji used is a palace or castle with many confusing rooms. The word “dungeon” (ダンジョン, danjon) is only every used in the manga’s title, when the narrator of the manga is referring to the title ("ahh Dungeon Meshi!"), or when Kui discusses dungoniums (ダンジョニウム/Danjoniumu) which she describes in the world guide as miniature dungeons, built to emulate a labyrinth.

The English loan word “dungeon” is most likely intended to catch Japanese reader’s eyes because it is foreign and exotic, and lead them into a false sense of security because of the Japanese pop culture perception of “dungeon” as a relatively harmless place where characters have formulaic adventures and gather resources as part of a game, or a game-like story.

“Dungeons” in Japanese pop culture can be sinister, but they have come to mean something as innocuous as “level” or “environment.” The early story of Dungeon Meshi is lighthearted and full of comedy, which reinforces this idea and leads readers to believe that the labyrinth in the story is just a generic backdrop with little inherent importance, like it is in many fantasy stories. However, Kui repeatedly suggests the labyrinth is not benign, that it is itself a monster and that anyone foolish enough to go into it is at risk of becoming food, and being devoured.

Before the word dungeon came to generically mean “place to exploit for resources” in fantasy fiction and gaming, its primary meaning was prison. So then the title “Dungeon Meshi” actually means “prison meal.” But who or what does the prison in Dungeon Meshi contain? Of all the people in the dungeon, who are the prisoners? And what does a “prison meal” really mean? A meal eaten by prisoners? A meal cooked by prisoners? A meal cooked using prisoners as ingredients? All of these meanings are implied and hinted at in the manga.

The characters in the story call the dungeon a labyrinth, which is a word that means a maze-like prison, specifically one that traps innocent young people and a man-eating monster inside. Both the monster and its food, the people, are prisoners… But which of them will die and be eaten? Who will escape the labyrinth in the end, and what will it cost them?

You’ll have to read Dungeon Meshi to find out!

======================

But so, you may ask, Mushroom, aside from all that stuff you just said, why does the dungeon/labyrinth distinction matter?

ARIADNE SPIDERS

(Using the cute version here to protect anyone with arachnophobia)

These are giant spiders that the elves use to produce silk, which they use to make the armor the Canaries wear. Though we don’t know for sure, it’s likely the spiders are domesticated in order to make farming their silk easier.

Ariadne is the name of an Ancient Greek mythological character, and may be derived from the Ancient Cretan dialectical elements ari (ἀρι-) "most" (which is an intensive prefix) and adnós (ἀδνός) "holy", but the exact origins of the name are unknown. It may be pre-Greek and not from the Indo-European language family at all.

Ariadne was a princess of Crete that helped the hero Thesus escape from the maze/dungeon that contained the minotaur by giving Theseus a ball of magic thread. 

The spiders in the manga have a pattern on their backs that looks like a maze, and their silk thread is the thing that protects the Canaries while they’re in the dungeon, and allows them to make it back out alive. The elves may consider the spiders “most holy” because they provide the means for them to protect themselves in battle.

Having the elves use a giant spider as a type of livestock might also be a playful reference to the drow (dark elves) of Dungeons & Dragons, since they worship a spider goddess, and Kui’s elves probably don’t worship the spiders if they’re using them as livestock… Though it’s also possible that they have a reverence for the spiders similar to the way cows are worshiped in parts of India, since some of elven culture appears to be based on South Asia!

THE CANARIES ARE BEING SACRIFICED TO THE DUNGEONS

Minos, Ariadne’s father, prayed to the God Poseidon to help him defeat his brothers and become king. He was sent a snow-white bull as a sign of the God’s favor. Minos was supposed to sacrifice the bull to Posiedon to show his gratitude, but because it was so beautiful Minos kept it, and sacrificed a different, inferior bull instead. 

To punish Minos, Poseidon made Mino’s wife fall in love with the bull, which resulted in her mating with it and giving birth to a half-man, half-bull monster, a minotaur that could only survive by eating human flesh. King Minos constructed a labyrinth to hide the proof of his family’s shame and keep the minotaur trapped inside it.

In order to avoid war with King Minos, the people of Athens made a bargain, and every few years they sent 14 youths from their noble families to Minos as a sacrifice. These young men and women were sent into the labyrinth, where they became lost and trapped, and were eventually eaten by the minotaur. This continued until Ariadne fell in love with one of the Athenian youths, Theseus, and gave him a ball of magic thread which allowed him to kill the minotaur and escape the labyrinth.

There’s many ways this tale parallels the story of Dungeon Meshi. The ancients used the demon to accomplish their goals, and eventually their use of the demon’s power and their failure to control it led to them having to imprison the demon in a maze, and conceal its existence from the rest of the world. Now the elves, the descendants of the ancients, regularly “sacrifice” some of the children of their noble families to the dungeon, in an attempt to keep the demon from breaking free and destroying the world…

(This is an excerpt from my Dungeon Meshi essay.)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

some characters from Greek mythology

Welchanos - a young god of vegetation and fertility in Crete. Welchanos was associated with agrarian magic, with the vegetation cycle and seasonal death, and with the rebirth of nature.

Xanthus - an immortal horse. Achilles' charioteer Automedon once chided Xanthus and Balius for leaving Patroclus behind on the battle field and would that they did not leave behind Achilles as well. Xanthus, given the ability of speech by Hera, turned its head reproachfully and told Achilles that this time they would save him but that his day of doom was nigh, by the decree of inexorable destiny, which also caused Patroclus' death.

Xenodice - "Fair to Strangers." Heracles killed her along with her father. She fell in love with Heracles, but died of grief because she could not be his. When Heracles came to her funeral he had to be restrained from throwing himself on her funeral pyre.

Zacynthus - the first man to sail across to the island to establish a colony.

Zetes - along with his brother, Calais, are called the Boreades, and are generally described as winged beings, though some say that they had wings at their heads and feet, and others that they had them only at their feet, or at their shoulders.

[vazelisk]

Of course, we already have an established image of Pyrrha in Ever after, but I wanted to make my own version of the armor for her. And yes, I took Malenia's helmet, but the armor itself was inspired by Ornstein from Dark souls. And since she no longer has a Spartan motif, she is now a Bronze Guardian, which is a reference to Talos - a bronze automaton that guarded the island of Crete, which had a weakness in the form of a nail in the ankle. And as for the story of this Pyrrha, during the battle on the Bacon tower, Jaune flew in on a locker there and managed to detain Cinder long enough for Ruby to arrive, but unfortunately Jaune himself did not survive. After Pyrrha goes through her journey with NPR and RWBY, but in the Atlas Pyrrha manages to detain Cinder and Neo on the bridge and transfer the relics to the Vacuum, and she falls into Everafter and plucks the clock fruit, after which she meets Jaune from the original timeline.

The idea of time lines that fit on top of each other in Everafter was taken from the same Dark souls, where, as in Everafter, time twists into a spiral, which is why the same events can intertwine into a knot, and people from different eras are able to meet.

[theworldatwar]

German soldiers make their advance - The Battle of Crete 20 May - 1 June 1941

Credit : @justforbooks

[city-of-ladies]

"The prominence of female divinity in Minoan culture might well have reflected the prominence of Minoan women in daily life. In Shang dynasty China, the authority of goddesses such as the Eastern and Western Mothers was echoed to some degree by the authority of women in elite society and even the army. Fu Jing and Fu Hao, wives of King Wu Ding, led men into battle before being honoured in death with monumental tombs containing the victims of human sacrifice, battle axes, knives and arrowheads. In Egypt, many of the images of Hatshepsut were destroyed or defaced after her death when her name was removed from the official list of rulers by her male successors, who sought to claim direct descent from her husband. It is possible that images of powerful Minoan women were subject to similar mistreatment.

While there is no evidence that Minoan women ruled in the same manner as Hatshepsut, or joined battle like the women of Shang China, the sheer number of artworks depicting them centrally placed and on a larger scale than men has prompted some historians to speculate that Minoan society was matriarchal or matrilineal. ‘Neopalatial Crete,’ writes one scholar, ‘presents the best candidate for a matriarchy – if one ever existed.’ There is nothing to say that the position of Minoan women was in any way secondary to that of men. 

Minoan women were certainly not confined to the weaving room. Sculptures show them playing lyres, flutes and zithers, sashaying in flounced chevron-patterned skirts and raising their arms in the air in ecstasy. In the ‘Grandstand Fresco’ from Knossos the women are more carefully delineated in paint than the men. Each woman has her own identity, her own style. The women appear to occupy the main rooms of the palace while the men congregate as an anonymous mass beyond. Women depicted seated – a sign of divinity or authority – are often being approached by men or animals. A highly enigmatic fresco at Thera (Santorini), for example, features a woman wearing large hoop earrings, a snake in her hair, and a neck-chain of ducks, sitting on a dais with a griffin beside her while a blue monkey pays her court.

 On a gold ring, a female deity, we may presume, is seated beneath a tree, where she receives flowers from two women. A smaller figure of a man with a double-headed axe over his head hovers between them.  By depicting the man beneath the axe, and on a smaller scale than the women, the engraver of the ring perhaps hoped to convey that he was a divine vision, almost a thought-bubble, originating in one of the female worshipper’s heads. Trees, as Arthur Evans recognised, were sacred in Minoan culture, and were perhaps believed to be capable of inspiring divine visions in those who honoured them. Such artworks contribute to the picture of Minoan women exerting considerable religious authority in the palace complexes and society more widely. 

Minoan women also played a crucial role in ritual. The early Minoans sometimes interred their dead twice by exhuming the bones of their family members and resettling them later in jars. The more usual custom, however, was to bury the dead in chamber tombs or stone beehive-shaped ‘tholos’ tombs, clay sarcophagi or, in the case of infants, under the floorboards of the home. The colourful paintings on a rare limestone sarcophagus from Hagia Triada, circa 1400 bc, show three men carrying young animals and a model boat to the deceased, who stands in front of his tomb, ready to receive his provisions for the afterlife. There are also three women present, the first of whom pours a libation into a cauldron placed between two upright axes mounted by birds; the second carries further vessels; the third – darker skinned like the men and thus possibly of lower social status – has a lyre. On the other side of the sarcophagus the women assist in the sacrifice of a bull on an altar. Other wall paintings show women involved in rituals of their own involving blood.  A fresco from Akrotiri features a group of women, one of whom sits beside a sunken room or ‘lustral basin’ with a bleeding foot. A tree also bleeds. It is possible that lustral basins were used for purification by women during or after menstruation."

The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World, Daisy Dunn

[captain-price-unofficially]

A dead German paratrooper during the Battle of Crete, May 1941

[mars-and-the-theoi]

Low energy Devotional Acts for when you don’t have a lot of energy (or time, or money, etc.) pt. 1

⚡️Zeus⚡️

-listen to storm or rain soundscapes

-watch the weather or check the weather on your phone or in the newspaper

-watch storm chasing videos

-watch documentaries or videos about various monarchies and/or kings

-watch videos about Crete! His mother hid Him there in a cave to keep Him safe from his father! And there’s all sorts of travel videos and such about it! If military history is your thing you could also learn about the Battle of Crete which took place in ww2!

-listen to devotional playlists for Him I have one up on Spotify but I know there’s some others there as well!

-cloud gaze

-watch nature docs about any of His sacred animals! The eagle, bulls, etc.

⚔️Ares⚔️

-watch war movies or war related shows (my favorite is Band of Brothers which I have on dvd)

-watch war related documentaries

-watch combat sports like boxing, wrestling, etc.

-do a Wikipedia rabbit hole search about various weapons and/or combat styles from any era or a YouTube deep dive whichever works for you

-if able find and attend a reenactment my town does a little civil war thing a few times a year that I occasionally go to you learn about what life as a soldier was like and what training was like and all that it’s very interesting

-watch a video about Thebes! Ares is said to have played a role in its founding!

-learn about birds of prey!

-listen to a devotional playlist for Him

-adding to this with: listening to video game soundtracks from fighting/combat games, or listening to war soundscapes

[tylermileslockett]

All right folks, Argonautica is a go! woohoo! 

I wanted to start with a map just so i could wrap my head around the journey and get familiar with the major locations and events in chronological order. I'll do another image showing the major heroes, and then we can dive into individual scene/event illustrations. Ill probably do around 12 -14 images for this myth, so I'll have to be picky about which scenes i illustrate.

Argonautica 1: Overview and Map Route

I.) Iolcis; The crew departs from Jason’s hometown. II.) Lemnos; the island tribe of women who murdered their husbands. III.) Doliones battle: a mistaken battle results in the death of King Cyzicus IV.)  Chios: Hylas abducted by water nymph, Heracles left behind V.) Phineus, a blind seer, is rescued by the Argonauts from Harpies. VI.) The Symplegades (Clashing rocks) a treacherous passage. VII.)  Stymphalian birds: the heroes drive away the man -eating birds VIII.) Colchis; Jason overcomes three trials of King Aeetes to obtain Golden Fleece with the assistance of the sorceress Medea. IX.) Brygean Islands: Medea and Jason trick and murder her brother Apsyrtus to escape Colchian pursuit. X.) Circes Island; The goddess purifies Jason and Medea of blood-guilt. XI.)  The Sirens; Orpheus drowns out the sirens calls with his own song. XII.)   Scylla and Charybdis; Thetis and Nereids guide Argo through XIII.) Drepane Island: escaping 2nd Colchian fleet, Jason and Medea wed. XIV.) Syrtes:  three Nymphs instruct crew to carry Argo on their backs for 12 days XV.)  Garden of the Hesperides; XVI.) Lake Triton: Triton, Son of Poseidon, instructs crew on passage to sea XVII.) Crete: Medea uses her magic to defeat Talos, a giant bronze warrior XVIII.) Aegina Island: the journey ove r, they perform rites for Apollo

Do you like this art? would you like to own a book jam packed with over 130 illustrations like this? Then please support my kickstarter for my book "lockett Illustrated: Greek Gods and Heroes" coming in OCTOBER.

click on my LINKTREE for the Kickstarter link to "notify me when the project goes live." In my linktree is also a link to join my free email newsletter for book updates in the coming months, with free Hi res art and a 25% etsy print shop discount! 

[anotheroceanid]

hi! okay this is insanely long but i had a lot of thoughts so bear with me pls.

i was scrolling through the jercy tag bc i'm starved and saw ur posts abt rhea/kronos & percy/jason and have to say i love them sm!! it's such an interesting concept and i've got a lot of cool thoughts abt them now thanks to you, buttt,, may i also offer metis/zeus & percy/jason parallels? it's a little stretch but hey idc it's fun

metis is the daughter of oceanus, percy is the son of poseidon (at both times, they're a child of the ruler of the seas) zeus is the son of kronos, jason is the son of zeus (at both times, they're a child of the ruler of the universe) metis & zeus met and fought a war to end kronos together...percy & jason unknowingly fought together during the titan war to end kronos and they do meet and work together during the giant war! and they make a great team, like in the twin giants fight

metis was a goddess of wisdom i'm pretty sure? and was zeus' advisor. i am a firm hater of the "percy is stupid" train because honestly it's percy who makes most of the battle strategies in pjo.

in fact here's some unwarranted examples: realizing what the lotus casino was, tricking crusty, figuring out the whole lightning thief debacle, giving clarisse the fleece, clearing chiron's name, figuring out he needs to take the sky, finding the nemean lion's weak spot, figuring out rachel is their guide for the labyrinth, all of his actions in the battle of manhattan tbh like he was crazy for doing all that at age 16!!, scaring chrysaor’s crew, making the combination of demigods to get nike, etc etc- i could go on and on!

so, i feel he can be related to metis in that he would be a pretty great advisor and obviously he'd be a fantastic leader. athena herself says the requests (read: demands) percy makes at the end of the second titan war are wise!

also think it could be interesting if poseidon delibrately chose to have percy look like metis. they'd probably look similar anyway but if poseidon wanted zeus to have some hesitation in killing percy, creating him to look like someone zeus greatly wronged in the style of kronos (aka eating someone) could do it?

anyway, moving onto jason! who, like zeus, is the youngest son and has a lunatic father that treats him like shit,, and at first zeus served kronos! just as jason did, but hey, if jason hadn't died when he did,, how long would he have continued to serve zeus?

rhea took zeus from kronos to be raised in crete by nymphs, like hera took jason from zeus to be raised in camp jupiter by wolves. and like rhea, hera is always on jason's side and honestly based on her toa reaction to his death, likely loved him like a son. and we know hera fucking hates zeus like rhea hated kronos.

jason is also strong as fuck, and ik rick knocked him out in every book because he didn't actually want his forced-percy-rival to actually showcase his powers but from what we know and seen he's like insane as well. PLUS he's been training since he was like 3 ik he's strong asf and zeus is sweating.

parallels😁!! uh let's hope jason doesn't eat percy though /j

i know zeus would've recognized these parallels and got insanely paranoid bc yk him. ik zeus was exhaling in relief when jason died, and there's a reason he was always trying to kill percy. he saw his sins in him! everytime he looks at percy he sees the woman he tricked and treated like shit and more-or-less killed. but he also knows metis was smart and very capable, n that's scary to him. everytime he looks at jason he sees his younger self, and that's a horrible thing to see if you're zeus lmao

of course jason is much better than zeus and percy is fairly different from metis, but it's the small parallels and zeus' paranoia that makes everything bigger.

the act we know metis most for is supplying the poison for kronos to regurgitate his kids,, and percy has a pretty close connection to poison now after his fight with akhlys :)

but yeah!! fun parallels :') sorry if this was a lot to read/hard to read

bonus: metis & zeus r cousins just like percy & jason /j

Now!!! Hear me out!!! I loooove the Metis X Percy parallels, I never talked about it here because some things I keep for the fics 🗣️🗣️🗣️ but I totally GET YOU!!!

The thing about Rhea is that they prob look a loooot alike, so people (mostly the big six and, maybe, Kronos) attribute her whole persona to Percy’s even tho many things make zero sense. Because they want him to impersonate their mother somehow to feel their void. Others might think of him more of a Perseis kinda of person, just for the destruction thing. But Metis? She was gone before most Olympians were alive, so it’s not like they have a truthful idea of what she was like, and those who remember might not have been as close to her as Zeus.

Metis was the Titaness of good counsel, planning, cunning and wisdom. Which makes us think that Athena would be a lot like her, but I personally think Athena is more a Zeus mini me. Metis being an ocean’s kid and a titaness made me believe she was a lot wilder and not exactly the usual embodiment of these concepts. Which would make her much more of a wild card, so Zeus got rid of her when the prophecy about their son showed up. So like, I can see Percy embodying Metis’ aspect of these domains (while Annabeth would be more Athena-like), and Zeus being like…

In terms of looks, she and Percy might’ve not looked the most similar, but hey, Metis would question Zeus’ authority in front of the whole council and would call out his shit whenever she felt like it.

Jason, however, is a much tamed version of his father. In a good sense. He’s not cruel, and when he’s forced to make a choice that he feels bad about it haunts him. He’s not overly confident and proud. Beyond all, he was taught loyalty to Rome and the gods from a young age, contrary to Zeus who was taught rebellion and how he was supposed to be this great saviour. For a while, this probably made Zeus more comfortable about him than he probably was about Thalia, for example, or even Percy.

But romans and Greeks learn about each other and now Jason and Percy meet and turns out Jason is SMITTEN with his cousin? Yeah, that’s a problem. Zeus would seethe, and Hera would be 100% smug about it.

Suddenly, there is something that Jason cares more than Rome or the gods. That is dangerous.

Also, something about Percy being somehow paralleled with TWO titan queens is just…