#marine myths rambles

[assumedcryptid]

anyways new theme new url who dis

(marine-myths -> cryptidapprentice)

[mapsthewanderer]

Caleb speculations

Caleb and the MC —

Inspired by The story of Hou Yi and Chang’e?

Another reason why I believe Caleb’s upcoming memories and myths will be almost exclusively inspired by Chinese traditional folklore

(This is banter but also kinda serious)

Poetic Caleb, awwhh! I THINK NOT! Sir, you are speaking in riddles and I will crack ‘em like a walnut!

Lemme fill you in on some Chinese folklore

Chang’e and Hou Yi (嫦娥与后羿) – The Moon and the Earth

This is one of China’s most well-known tragic love stories, associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, Zhōngqiūjié).

Chang’e and Hou Yi are central figures in a tragic Chinese myth. In ancient times, there were ten suns in the sky, scorching the Earth. The hero Hou Yi, a great archer, shot down nine of the suns to save the world, leaving only one. As a reward, the Jade Emperor gave him a magical elixir of immortality. However, Hou Yi, not wanting to live forever without his wife Chang’e, kept the elixir for them both.

Not only is Caleb a ranged companion in battle, is also a friggin roboman. He’s basically immortal at this point (an overstatement but you get me, right?). And Caleb refers to the sun in the screen shots, like Hou Yi made it to be only one sun. LET ME also remind you on how every inch of his being is summer, sun and warmth.

Over time, Hou Yi’s power and ambition grew, and he became a king. His trusted apprentice, Peng Meng, tried to steal the elixir. To protect it, Chang’e drank it herself, inadvertently becoming immortal and ascending to the moon.

Sounds familiar right? Hello ambitious Colonel Caleb, where u at. The other part, tho. There isn’t a spec of me that doesn’t 100% acknowledge the MC as some kind of immortal being. But time will tell.

Hou Yi was heartbroken and spent every night gazing at the moon, longing for his beloved wife. In return, Chang’e looked down at Earth, forever separated but still in love.

Cough. See the screen shots I posted. I might be severely trippin’ but Caleb states how he and the MC should not end up chasing each other like the sun and the moon 🌕💔🌞

Their story symbolizes sacrifice, love, and the consequences of immortality, and it is celebrated during the Mid-Autumn Festival, where people honor Chang’e and admire the full moon. At the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is common to eat mooncakes, which symbolize the fullness and completeness of the moon, and by extension, the hope for family unity—a bittersweet reminder of Chang’e’s eternal longing and sacrifice.

That last part has me 💀 I’m calling it. We’ll get an event in Autumn that nods to this folklore. I bet ya we’ll be moon goddesses stuffing ourselfs with mooncakes LOL

The Apple Blossom and the Moon Goddess (Chang’e)

Just a lil something I also found while looking through all the tragic lovestories I could find in Chinese folklore:

One lesser-known folk tale links apple blossoms to Chang’e, the Moon Goddess. In some regional variations of her legend, after ascending to the moon, Chang’e was said to have created a celestial orchard where apple trees bloomed eternally. The blossoms in this version symbolize eternal beauty, love from afar, and the longing between separated lovers—similar to how Hou Yi and Chang’e are forever apart.

Guess who has apple blossoms as his flower? 👀 Ca-leb. The fuqin yearning losers are rooted in folklore imo

So to sum up my HUMBLE opinion:

I find it highly likely that we have already seen Infold’s inspiration from Chinese folklore. This doesn’t mean that every little detail has to be identical to the folklore, but the vibe, the inspiration and the morale will be deeply rooted in Chinese folklore/tradition and stories, imo.

Mind you, his trope is like the otome game trope, (aka the forbidden, yearning, soft yandere trope), but also a common trope in Chinese folklore (I should probably do a post on that at some point). Iow, I have kinda landed on the theory that:

CALEB IS INFOLD’S WAY TO PLEASE THE PLAYERS ASKING FOR MORE CHINESE INSPIRED THEMES RATHER THAN WESTERN

And people like me who is 100% addicted to Chinese folklore at this point. I swear to god.

Okey then, thank you for reading 💕

[whyoneartheven]

What head canons do you have for the LU boys? (Yes, this is a request for you to ramble about them)

aaaahhh hello! Thanks for asking, but wow, goodness me

this will take some thinking XD

umm

ok a lot of these are a lil generic or just other people’s ideas I kinda adopted but here goes!

also I didn’t expect it when I started but this got long…

for Legend, I really like the idea of him drinking tea and still having an apple orchard. And also having honey bees! (These aren’t mine originally lol) Also I feel like post LU (this ofc may change depending on the ending) he fell into depression a little bit before digging himself out with Ravio and Zelda’s help… he cut his hair during this time. idk I just feel like that would happen. I like the idea of him having a good singing voice. (merperson stuff but also even beforehand. He definitely sang lovely duets with Marin once she taught him how) Also I feel like he’s one of those people that’s always cold! So he secretly likes to cuddle :)

with Wild, I feel like… he definitely doesn’t use recipes! This is based off how I am in his game and irl, as I just throw things together and never go back to see how I made things before, but also I feel like it just fits his personality! I think it would be hilarious if he named his horses at first after anything that had an impact on him so like, one horse is named Zelda and another is Stir Fry. Or smth XDDD Also based on my experiences in game (to an extent), I feel like he doesn’t actually care about legitimately looking fashionable… it’s more that he likes wearing things that looks crazy XD

on to Hyrule! Ok this isn’t as much a headcanon as a ship but I really ship him and Aurora; I feel like they’d be absolutely adorable together but he’s really private about it! I like to think Hyrule can sew? And I think he’d love to run around barefoot on fresh grass! And just, be in love with nature in general! And maybe he doesn’t have an eye for color; he can’t tell if colors clash or actually match. Also is it just me or does he feel like out of the entire chain he could easily be a Studio Ghibli protagonist? Just me? Idk lol

Time! I like the idea of Time and Malon having a running joke that the other is color blind, and the chain eventually picks it up! And then Time keeps mistaking one color for another (on purpose or not? We’ll never know), and every time the others go wild XD (this may or may not be based on a joke my parents have irl hehe). When Time first met Malon he was very very lactose intolerant. And drank it anyway, of course! also I feel like Time really likes flowers? Idk why! And finally, if Time was in the modern world he’d be the guy who’d be eating food months to years past the expiration date…

Four, my beloved! Umm this is kinda a design idea more than anything but I like the idea of him growing his hair out and wearing it in a ponytail post LU! (provided he doesn’t die…) I don’t think of him as having voices in his head or being a system but I still like the idea of him talking to himself sometimes XD! Also this is just something canon I don’t see talked abt a lot but I love he and Twi’s relationship sm! Four totally has RBF and definitely stares at people accidentally when he’s thinking… also I saw a crack fic somewhere where Four was already married to Dot and had children and the chain were shocked; it was hilarious, and while I don’t think he would actually have kids yet, I think it’d be hilarious if he and his Zelda are already quite far along in their relationship (as I ship them lol)

the man, the myth, the legend, WIND, is next! This man has Opinions. I feel like he’s the kind of person so have opinions on things he’s only heard of two seconds before, like automatically deciding he will like a food or deciding the other way round. (And yeahhhh I’m basing him on my brother lol) I’m definitely not the one to come up with this but Wind is probably the one with the best (and most opinionated) fashion sense (most of the others are just hopeless in varying degrees so it isn’t hard)! Maybe older him bonded with young Wars in the War of Eras over this (bc I love the idea of older wind being there), Idk XD! Also he definitely braids Aryll’s hair and is generally very responsible (I mean he’s a big brother he’s gotta be XD); he starts off almost treating LU as a bit of a vacation! Nothing will go wrong, his family is safe, and he gets new friends :D

Warriors, the wonderful man, is next! I feel like he’s very nostalgic and a little sappy. Like, just in general. He likes to look back on his happy memories! Also (once again not my idea) but I like the idea of Warriors growing up either orphaned or really poor, and living in the less palatable portion of Castle Town. (Therefore he played pickup soccer as a kid; he just feels like he would lol) I definitely ship him and his Zelda (ok tbh I ship ALL the Links with their Zeldas lol). I feel like at the point of LU they’ve talked abt it but Warriors isn’t ready (thanks to Cia and maybe just all the barriers in his mind about being inferior to her or smth) Also, give this man the craziest accent you can find and I am here for it; whoever first came up with that is a genius. Ok yeah you can probably tell I love Warriors angst

XD Sky!!! My bestieeee!! If Sky was in modern times he’d be one of those people who gets sleepy when they drink coffee, fs! He is definitely the artistic one, and maybe during LU he discovers a bunch of mediums besides woodworking that he loves (and maybe he makes a bunch of art for Sun, who knows!) This next one is based off @margindoodles2407’s Forger from her loz AU but the idea that his parents died in a house fire and he lived with Gaepora and Zelda until he was older is so cool to me! And bc of this I feel like he’d really hate being around fire (to the point of panic attacks? Maybe, maybe not). Finally, hopeless bird lover Sky is a beautiful thing. As a bird watcher myself, I cannot blame him.

Last but not least is Twilight!! This guy totally holds conversations with animals all the time and it freaks people out (they can never tell if he actually understands them)! Twi definitely has a lot of respect for kids too and talks to them like they’re adults (by using the same vocabulary and tone, not by talking about things that aren’t good for kids to hear XD) and I feel like he would write painfully cheesy love poems? Twi definitely can’t cook but I feel l Ike he also cares the most about food? Idk? ALSO LET THIS MAN QUILT. IDK I THINK HE’D BE TERRIBLE AT IT BUT STILL TRY AND IT WOULD BE FUNNY

ok, and that’s it!!! Wow, that was a lot…

and I could definitely come up with more lol

[ghostofashina]

very LONG ramblings about godwyn and messmer because of the voices inside my head (they are everything to me)

godwyn didn't know a life without messmer. as in that known quote between electra and orestes "i was born knowing you", when he opened his eyes, messmer was one of the first things he saw. there isn't a perspective of him that messmer isn't present.

and how it must've been disturbing to know this was one sided. because messmer had a life before godwyn's existence. while he was born knowing messmer, godwyn is someone messmer got to met. how do you compete with that? how do you own a space in a life that, until then, didn't have you? how do you fit?

and this need. this obsession. this urge can be seen in what wasn't spoken. it never made much sense to me until messmer was here. and i no longer know how to look at godwyn, without seeing messmer. and vice versa.

godwyn had the necessary soft spot for dragons because of messmer. he had to. and this is not saying it wasn't genuine or erasing his capacity to diplomacy and kindness. it is all of those things that might have one single origin: the older brother. gods, a snake with wings is basically a dragon. there are inumerous ancient myths about snakes becoming dragons.

i could even talk about the whole references regarding vlad II and III, the order of the dragon and saint george devotees, but this is not the case here and i can get easily distracted with all the things surrounding these two.

and one of the most impressive to me, that never leaves my mind is death. the main theme haunting godwyn, also haunting messmer and where he lives. death has brought them together... or should i dare say that godwyn did?

once again the urge, the longing. not even after death. a death that found his way back to his older brother. that mimics his older brother.

i've spoken about it countless times, how godwyn as the prince of death assumes a mirror image to messmer. godwyn's thorns impales people. godwyn has his own flames. godwyn is half a sea creature. his body, as it grows like a parasite — like the abyssal serpent parasiting messmer — inherit similar features such as the crooked trunk, the decaying body, the longer limbs, even the thorns piercing the wounds on his chest, growing from inside out, are somewhat similar — especially when we know he was stabbed on the back — to the snakes piercing messmer's body as well.

and whatever lives inside him, it searched for messmer. it found a way back to messmer, across a veil, across a seal. and it wanted to be found by him.

i always wondered how those two corpses grew at the lands of shadows, considering it's a very similar case to what happens in stormveil castle. there's no deathroot around, but there's a pustule that godrick took from his face. a part from godwyn, that started growing independent of his original corpse. but we have no other parts of godwyn that was taken to the lands of shadow.

except that we have one. messmer.

and two of his divided corpses grew there. while everyone else struggles to access these lands, it ignores every obstacle, even a seal that was meant to keep these lands hidden. godwyn found a way back to messmer. because not even death was enough to keep him away.

and messmer found him. gods, not only he found his dead brother, he found comfort in his dead brother. he buried his brothers-in-arms inside the catacombs, knowing that they would find a guidance in death. his castle is flooded, to the point even a statue of his mother is dronwing inside a chapel. there are tibia mariners' boats as rite of passage to be guided in death for the dead was long left to wander and what they need is leadership of a prince.

he kept death close, so his brother was close. he kept it close enough, on his shoulder, something that it doesn't belong to the player when we receive his gear, a secret that he carried to his death. death that he was yearning. that, in the end, he sought. to embrace oblivion, as he should.

godwyn never knew a life without his older brother. he also made sure death would be no different.

[treepan0]

okay, okay here's the brain ramble.

believe it or not goldfish work for Baby, the twins and Hatchiyack really well. (warning very rambly)

goldfish were originally carp that the chinese selectively bred for their ponds and aquarium, this was found after years of looking into the common aquarium mainstay.

contrary to popular belief goldfish are impressively smart with an impressive memory, the learn quickly who their caretaker is and are known to be surprisingly affectionate.

if a goldfish is properly kept they can live for more than a decade, completely contrary to the usual belief of them not living long.

goldfish are a highly invasive species and many advice against releasing them in the wild, they compete too well for food, they ruin the fish food they can't eat, and they reproduce at a high rate.

they carry diseases and parasites other fish are weak to, they're small in tanks but get much bigger in lakes and ponds were they have very little limitation. it's often recommended that they're simply set up for adoption or given away, rather than releasing them into the wild were their species has never been.

goldfish have impressive smell and hearing, they have impressive sight seeing up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) and seeing up to four primary colors which is more than a human.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

moving onto merfolk and their history before I get into the idea invading my brain, because yeah.

depending on where it was it would change it entirely. sometimes they would represent the more violent nature of the sea, causing chaos and even drowning sailors at times.

on the other end there's many positive representations, often representing the life and fertility within the sea. (there are depictions that don't fit into either of those mind you, just an interesting detail.)

regardless they're often described as beautiful woman of the sea in myths, as mermen and other merfolk outside of the binary were a more recent creation.

funny enough however gender often was not the focus of these myths, thus why other identities are presented in modern interpretations without raising a brow, unlike the satyr with satyrettes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

now finally onto the idea:

you know how a lot of mermaid aus choose a marine life center as a starting point? well that's where we start, Cold and Bulma both run wildlife centers that are in competition with each other mostly friendly to improve their research, but it's the tuffles that forces Bulma to put the rivalry aside for once.

Hatchiyack is extremely aggressive to any saiyan that dares to get near him, quickly prompting violent behavior in the others as well forcing Bulma to move them to a seperate tank. but unfortunately the problems didn't stop there, because they keep bothering others from the separate tank.

so eventually Bulma gets so sick and tired of them antagonising all the saiyans who take rest there, she just transfers them over to Cold in hopes he will have better luck.

their kept in a connected but still separate tank to test their aggression again and see if it changes, thankfully they don't have any problems this time which Cold is thankful for. from listening to them and doing research on their aquatic half, he learns a lot about them.

mainly learning their history revealing why Bulma had problems with them, the fact the twins are still technically children even though they don't have the typical bronze like sheen of goldfish fry anymore.

how Dr. Lychee is an oldman, and Hatchiyack and Baby are in between the three in age. the fact Baby is more chatty than most of them, and Hatchiyack is the quietest.

but the biggest thing he learns is they quickly remember both of his sons, and can tell them apart with ease as they have memorised how all of them look. admittedly I see Baby making this the most clear, always popping up from the surface and using their proper name once he's heard it.

Baby teasing Frieza about Frost occasionally, occasionally conversing with anyone and everyone who willingly talk with him. (yes including other merfolk in the tank, he's really chatty and only the twins and Dr. Lychee would talk with him back in the day, so man probably appreciates others close to the same age to talk to.)

Cooler will just feed him like usual and this goof will just nuzzle his hand afterwards, leavinging him completely stunned and confused afterwards. (Goldfish are a highly affectionate species once they trust you, some will actually push into your hand if you put it in the tank, and it often confuses people who have never owned one, and I think it fits for him to get the more affectionate traits of goldfish)

imagine just chilling against the railing and this massive normally quite goldfish merman tired of his group mate's constant pining, and just straight up directly tells you that the smaller goldfish merman likes you, only to flip around and go back into the hiding place he likes to rest in. (Hatchiyack please I get it you're tired of Baby being a lovestruck goober, but you need to chill you are huge and kinda scare everyone when you approach them. Baby's torso is smaller than your hand, chill)

[ultrabananapudding]

Ramble of Merman!AU // Violence, Gore ‼️

Merman AU in which there is a myth that the tears of a merman transforms into pearls and Fisherman!Dar decides to test out this theory with the recent capture of an adult and child mermen.

It is easy enough to make the child cry, barely had to break skin for his eyes to well up - but there was nothing but sand falling down his puffy cheeks.

The adult on the other hand, seeing the younger thing in such distress, was enough to squeeze out the shiny beads Dar was anticipating.

Upon discovering that the myth is indeed real, Dar proceeds to mutilate Merman!Zains tail in order to elicit a strong enough reaction from Merman!Salim to have him cry a stream of pearls.

Salim gets his revenge by tearing off Dars ear with his own set of sharp teeth, which causes enough of a commotion for Zain to flee. Of course, now Salim is stuck in his own personal hell where the human will try any and all methods to make the older merman cry.

The damage Zains tail has sustained in the aftermath of Dars torture leaves him unable to properly navigate in the water or fight against the waves.

When morning comes, in one of Jason's routine jogs, he finds the body of a child laying on the beach - with a tail for legs of all things - but nonetheless injured and needing of help.

This entire thing is just my excuse to put Salim in the worst possible scenario ever, with Dar as the main perpetrator lmao

Salim gets to tear off Dars ear.... As a treat....

I just think the concept of "merman tears are actually pearls" is so cool !!!!

I feel bad for putting Zain in the crossfire here, but if there is one thing that would conceivably make Salim cry, it would be seeing his own son getting tortured.

Jason is once again here to save the day. He will nurse Zain back to health and in this AU, Eric (Marine biologist) and Nick (Vet) will be there to help out as well !!!

[mysticfoxdesigns]

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[mycological-mariner]

You mentioned a play you wrote about Hannah Snell in one of your ask game replies; would you be willing to share a little more about the play? This sounds so cool!

Sorry for only just getting to this! You and @clove-pinks both asked about the Hannah Snell play so I shall tell about the Hannah Snell play.

So, while she was still trying to get her pension for her 5 years of service, Snell would go around performing in her marine uniform, telling audiences all about her time in the army and eventually navy, how she had to hide her sex, the trials and tribulations, etc. Now there’s no surviving transcription of any of these performances (not that I could find at least rip) so I thought it might be a fun opportunity to a) do a solo show which I’d never done and b) get to imagine what she might’ve said and how those performances would’ve gone!

Originally it was an 8 minute solo piece that I ended up extending into, uh. Not 8 minutes. I think it came around to about 30–45 minutes? With the extra time I got to play around with how much of the truth was being stretched, exaggerated or left out. I thought it might be fun for an audience to know something was up but being unable to verify one way or the other (kind of like now and anyone trying to pull apart myth and fact). Might’ve gone over. But then I had trouble with the venue and finding tech and stage crews and etc. I wasn’t going to be able to cover costs so I shelved it. Which was quite sad. However I’m still wanting to do it!

I think that, if I save enough and if I get the time, I’d like to bring it back. Though I’ve been wanting to rewrite it to include two or three other cast members. The idea this time is a mix of talking directly to the audience and telling them the Story Of Hannah Snell, Lady Tar and then cutting in with what might’ve been more likely to happen or parts of her story we know more about now that she might’ve left out altogether. The flogging scenes, for example. So, a bit more creative wiggle room. Never just making things up or anything but being honest to this part of history and the record she left. The ending will always make me rather sad though. I’ll say this much that stayed between all 3 iterations: while Snell might have just left her story with her eventual leaving and calling for public support for her pension, in reality she remarried twice and I believe she lost two more children in infancy (she had already lost one before the military), and her mental condition (it’s never stated WHAT mental condition) worsened so much that she was committed to Bethlem — THE Bedlam — where she would die in 1792 at age 69.

In the play, she drops the performance and speaks openly and honestly about how her life ended. About her legacy or lack thereof, and how so much of her story will always remain unknown or at least unverifiable through all of the sensationalism surrounding her in her life.

I’ve always been interested in the legacy of people contrasted with their just humanness. Like, Snell’s story is so much more story than fact. I like to keep the fact that all these people were just being people. And it’s especially true when a button seller finds herself the subject of a Narrative, fully deserving of the capital letter.

Thanks for asking, both of you!! Sorry if I rambled on a bit, the Hannah Snell Play is near and dear to me. Now if I could just get other people near and dear as well, we might be able to perform this thing lol

[bexstevie]

stevie hums, thinking about it. "i think they're pretty strong. the little suction cups have their own weight limit-- and some octopi have like, hundreds on them. like...one suction pad on the giant pacific octopus can do like, thirty something pounds? and they have like, i think a thousand of them? i'm bad at math but that's gotta be like, thousands of pounds of strength in that thing." stevie whistles, shaking his head. "if you had them? i think you could definitely crawl on the walls! climb the biggest tree...could lift someone else up, too, probably!"

"who knows? we don't even know if like, they're real or just myths. sometmes there's truth behind that sort of stuff though. especially with how much is left unexplored." stevie rambles, rocking on his heels. "soooo many. we're still learning new ones. i think a new spider species got introduced? and marine ones get introduced i swear every year, maybe every few months? it's so insane it's stupid, man." stevie rakes a hand through his hair. it's so much to learn, so many cool things the world has to offer.

a bright laugh leaves him at ria's reaction. "i mean...they're a little ugly, but that's just how they look!" stevie shrugs. at the comment about her brother, stevie sputters out a laugh, hand shooting over his mouth to cover it. "aw, that wasn't very nice." he scolds, but the smile pulling at his mouth defeats any firmness in it.

"uh..." stevie blinks. "it's like...a nerve system? they're like, one of the earliest creatures to evolve or something. i'm not sure how like, all of it really works, but our brain connects to our nerves, right? but jellyfish just have the nerves in like...a big net or something, and it works fine with them. they don't really do much, honestly. they're passive." stevie shrugs.

bexstevie

"i wish i could like, get into their minds and see what goes on. wouldn't that be kind of cool?" it'd be waaay different than what goes on in his own head, for sure. animals and other creatures are bound to have something crazy going on in that head of theirs. blinking at the question, stevie thinks about it, letting out a long uuuuuhhhhh as he tries to think about himself in that position. "...i dunno. i feel like i wouldn't mind, but that's different than actually experiencing it, y'know?" stevie scratches his head. "though i don't think i could like more than one person at a time. there's only so much time in a day to devote to someone. i think i'd get jealous, probably, not that i'm thinking of it." stevie snorts. "maybe not for me then. i'll leave that to the octopi." he laughs. "i think having tentacles would be kind of cool. like the suction cups? you could pick up so many things at once!" "me too! though i'm not sure if they could be like...y'know. ariel mermaid kind of deal. they might be more...aquatic. monsterish? more fish than humanoid. whoa." that'd be scary. the more stevie thinks about it, maybe stevie doesn't want to meet a mermaid. "there could be anything. think about how big the earth is and how much water is there...there's probably a whole kingdom under there. a whole other atlantis." "mollusks? mollusks? they're like...snails and stuff. slugs. mussels? those guys." stevie hums, glancing around. he does have to agree-- stevie's been keeping them stuck here long enough. he can't help it though. octopi are so cool. "jellyfish it is! wow," stevie whistles, turning their attention to the wall with the invertebrates moving around. "now these guys? they have no brains."

“yeah, i’m curious what goes on in their minds” probably more than what goes on in ria’s mind, she doesn’t exactly have a lot of knowledge stored in there, nor many thoughts. ria turns to stevie as he answers her question “liking multiple people at once seems… inconvenient, i spend so much time thinking about people when i like them, liking multiple people at once would take up too much space in my mind” she shakes her head “i think i’ll just continue only liking one person at a time”. “how strong do you think tentacles are? if i had them, could i crawl on walls and such?”.

“oh yeah… you might be right about that” she scratches the top of their head “there’s the chance they aren’t nice and super beautiful but just… scary-looking and willing to eat humans or something…” perhaps ria doesn’t want to meet a mermaid then. “so many animals we haven’t found yet… it’s crazy, just how many different types of animals are there on this planet?”.

“snails, slug, mussels… so they’re ugly, i got it” she nods her head. “no brain? sounds like my brother” like she wasn’t the dumb one out of the two “but how the hell are they living without a brain, are they like… similar to plants or something”.

[anxiety-toga]

🌸 gogogogogo

I adore mythology and all concepts of it! When I was in 3rd through 5th grade, I was totally obsessed and grew an addiction to the stories of creation. By 6th grade, I was a little myth nerd, i still am

[assumedcryptid]

i personally have such an immense need to see a production of Lizard Boy The Musical live at some point in my life

[mapsthewanderer]

Maps rambles - Caleb’s myth - episode 1

My first two cents on the matter to the void aka “How I lost my mind over a fictional man’s myth card”

🎨 The color palette

Let me just start with this because I’m an unapologetic art freak—how orange and purple as a color combo is actually insane (in the best way)? From Itten’s color theory perspective, they’re both secondary colors, which means they don’t naturally “belong” together… and yet when you pair them? Instant drama. High contrast. Visual tension.

It’s literally the Caleb energy palette.

This part is important because it ties into something I go into more detail about later in the spoiler section.

Bonus: when you mix orange and purple, you get this lovely burnt sienna. You can literally see those warm, moody notes in the artwork for the event banner. All dramatic like a walking sunset with feelings. Peak aesthetic. Peak emotional damage. 10/10 color story.

I’m over here channeling my inner Raf, whispering “it’s so beautiful”. My high school days were good days

🚨MYTH SPOILERS AHEAD 🚨

🏃‍♂️‍➡️🏃‍♀️‍➡️The first escape

The first thing you see together? Summer.

And not just the season—the whole feeling of it. Sunlight you can almost taste.

Caleb means “faithful,” which, sure, fits now that you know Caleb. But that’s not really what you picked in that moment, you choose Xia Yizhou (夏以昼). Which means summer. You chose it because you felt warmth. Brightness. You felt his name.

(Also, he probably said summer in the actual Chinese version—and that’s why you ended up choosing it. But ahhh, I just love rambling about the impeccable attention to details that we have been served.)

And okay—this is a tiny nod to my own fanfics—but I’ve always imagined Caleb loves his name in this almost eerie way. It’s special to him. Sacred, even. That’s why I snuck those moments into chapters 4 and 8 of The Maze. He wants you to say it. Say his name. Say it again. And again and again and again. (Okay but I might have a BDSM fic marinating in my drafts where he makes you say his name like… a gazillion times. For reasons.)

🫰The pinky promise

Don’t even get me started—I need to go back and replay Borrowed Promise because those two dorks are pining me so hard.

🙉 The face cupping

You saw that, right? The way hands cradled his face? The same way we saw it happen in Hidden Waves. Don’t play with me.

👨‍🍳 The cooking/tasting

I’m not okay. The tasting. The way he makes you experience every flavor—sweet, salty, bitter. How Infold has woven this into his character in the current timeline? Eternal. Awe. He’s still making you feel, sense. Teaching you how to savor everything good.

Let me just remind us all of that one café interaction. Where he says he wants to try apple juice in his coffee. Like—what even is that? Who does that? And then we can actually answer him, dead serious, “try adding a squeeze of lemon.”

No wonder! Caleb has literally taught you everything you know about taste in this myth—and he just keeps doing it in the current timeline like it’s his full-time job. Caleb’s out here crafting a five-course sensation education in the name of love. Sir.

🪁 The paper folding

Caleb’s gift in the café—a paper plane. Like. Come on. We are out here folding origami for eternity at this point. That’s it. That’s the whole love language. Silent, delicate passion disguised as craft. I’m going to scream.

🏠The loneliness and home

Watching him through the mirror. Hearing him speak when he thinks no one’s listening. “Goodnight, my one and only,” he says. Every. Single. Night. I thought Infold would stop stabbing me in the heart after that. Nope.

Then there’s the loneliness vs being home thing. Being home together. Finding home together. Home being together with Caleb. Caleb being home together with you. He’s your home, and you are his.

Another nod to one of my own fics—Drenched Homecoming (yes, I’m referencing myself like the madwoman I am). But seriously, these two have their own definition of what “home” means, and it’s so gosh darn cute and freakish I might combust.

It. Does. Not. End. Why are they like this? They’re literally not meant to fit (like the color palette)—and yet they do. So perfectly it hurts.

🍎The gege trope

I don’t speak Chinese and my Japanese is a mess, but after obsessing over Caleb for the past 65ish days straight, I have to say this:

If they used “gege” in Chinese or “oniisan” in Japanese, then that one line—“What does the word friend mean to you?”—just hits different.

It’s not about the actual definitions of gege or oniisan. It’s about your own meaning of “friend/brother”. One word you’ve assigned to Caleb after he stated that he was your “friend/brother”. The word “friend/brother” becomes sacred—not because of language, but because of him. Aka the attributes you assign Caleb.

💥 The ending

I’m just gonna drop this here.

I analyzed one of Caleb’s tattoo’s from the Tomorrow’s Catch 22 banner. I found some interesting stuff about the B12 bomb (an apocalyptic event but with the potential for rebirth) and B12 in alchemical traditions (key to spiritual or physical transformation). Seer confirmed.

❓The big question

Is Caleb remembering all of this? And like Sylus (but in his own quiet way), is he trying to help you remember too? His name. The face-touching. The paper plane. The amusement park. Feeling your pain in another timeline. Never being apart.

Infold has gifted us the most delicious easter egg and you better believe I’m cracking that thing open before actual Easter.

On that note: Can we please please please get a Nightly Rendezvous rerun, but this time with Caleb added? I’m begging. I need a robe slightly slipping off his shoulder in low lighting, preferably on the surface of a moon.

Alright, time for a walk with my dog. What a day. If you feel like diving into the chaos that is Caleb’s myth broken down by yours truly, don’t be shy. I fully welcome any and all discussion. I’ll replay it tomorrow for sure, then finish the The Bear AU pilot yaay

I remain,

Maps 🫶🏻

[edenisme]

Love thinking about this, especially after reading the Flipper Flipper’s pages in the salmon run manual and seeing that “it seems to idolize an animal said to have flourished in ancient times, which may explain why it wears a mask to make itself look more like this creature.”

How does it know about dolphins. Mr. Grizz why do the salmonids know about dolphins??

Im not too sure if there's any lore reasons for this, but Im very interested to know how inkfish/the marine life on Earth in Splatoon know about certain mammals, especially what they looked like, like the dolphin (l-3 nozzlenose D, which stands for dolphin, also the flipper flopper), the manatee (as seen on the manatee swag sweat) and the orca (excluding our hero mode friend, as seen on the orca bolero).

like, I guess since we know they have plenty of fossils from humans, and other animals that died out, so they definitely know about mammals? and thus marine mammals would be of special interest I guess. like, "these guys were so unlike us but so similar by sharing our ancestral home with us"! that must be fun for them. though the bigger question for me is if there are any data left by humans that they have access to, in order to see what they looked like with such detail.

[cloudcountry]

moray eel rambles part 732564

there were some things i didn't talk about in my last post about morays like teeth differences, hunting team-ups, their predators, etc. i also included a new genus of moray eel (muraena) because they're so pretty!

the muraena argus is a beautiful eel!!

and so is the jewel moray eel!!

anyways, its tooth time.

some moray eels have blunt teeth for crustacean eating as opposed to sharper teeth for fish eating. it just depends on what they specialize in! you can usually tell by the differences in their snout length (short snouts for blunt teeth, long snouts for sharper teeth.)

it took me forever to find a picture of the snowflake moray opening its mouth, and while there definitely were pictures of the mouth opened wider, you can see the teeth better on the bottom jaw in this one.

see the difference between this...

and this?

this is a pattern that i've noticed over my months of researching morays which i thought was pretty interesting.

morays are mostly ambush hunters, hiding under rocks and lunging at prey. however, there are exceptions, like the giant moray eel which will team up with groupers to hunt. Since moray eels hunt in reefs and groupers hunt in the open water, the prey will be scared by one fish and eaten by the other. (for example, if the moray is hunting in the coral reefs and a fish swims away from the moray, it's likely that the grouper will get it and vise versa.) considering groupers eat pretty much the same things as morays (with a diet consisting of fish, shrimp, crustaceans, and octopus) it's no surprise that they do this.

most moray eels are nocturnal hunters, but the white mouth moray can be seen patrolling coral reefs in the daytime!! this wasn't something i'd seen until i watched a short documentary about morays in hawaii (link here!! the segment on the white mouth moray begins at 6:12 if you're interested C:)

their predators are sharks, barracudas, and sea snakes, which funnily enough is what floyd calls jamil so i don't know what he's implying but here we are! (and people talking about floyd wanting to eat us,,, does floyd think jamil wants to eat him? /j) but uh...when i was doing research on this i did find a video of a sea snake eating a moray whole so if you want to watch that it's here?

some morays can survive in freshwater, but they grow & survive better in brackish or marine conditions. the whole "freshwater" eel thing, according to the research i've done, is a myth and if you're going to keep an eel as a pet you should make sure you have the right tank conditions. the most commonly mischaracterized eel is the indian mud moray eel, or “freshwater” eel. it can survive in freshwater, but it does so much better in brackish conditions.

the larvae of the ribbon eel is transparent.

look at how tiny their face is!!

[dogtoling]

What do you think of inkling/octoling naming convention? We know Callie and Marie are a pun on calamari, Sheldon bc he's a horseshoe crab, Spyke with spikes and Murch...for selling merch? There's also Craig and Fred and Sean, Marina. It seems like inkfish like punny names. Fandom wise, I've rarely seen a normal human name, mainly foods or more marine life related names

I think Murch still comes from urchin (the "urch" being in there). I think for really lore-accurate answers on this you'd need to look at the japanese names for all the characters, but at face value it's pretty easy to tell that most names in the Splatoon world somehow relate to the sea or sea creatures. Fred Crumbs and Crusty Sean are, again, puns on fried crumbs (i think) and crustacean, so you can't really look at "Fred" and "Sean" (or Crusty?) as names on their own. They still have further context.

As for naming conventions in the Splatoon world in general, there's at least four types of names used:

Generic ocean- or water-themed names

Species-specific names referring to the species name or notable features (for example Spyke, Annie, Sheldon, Octavio)

Seafood-related names, which don't seem to have a negative connotation even when used for people. Typically you wouldn't name your child Sausage, but I think in splatoon, they might.

Stage names (Goggles, Rider, whatever you get the point: relates to the individual directly through their gear or whatever else). Typically nicknames, but sometimes become main names. Other types of names are a lot rarer, and might have a miscellaneous source, or just be literally made up.

So rather than just punny names, the Mollusc Era has great respect for the ocean and origins of names typically refer back to it. Then, when it comes to coming up with names in general, it makes sense that a society with different species and different features for those species would have name origins that refer to those features. There's probably more fish named Finley than you can count, but you wouldn't run into a lot of crabs named that (they don't have fins). Really, Pearl is kind of odd for being named Pearl considering she's not an oyster. But like, it happens.

But overall, I doubt they have many "normal" names around. I mean, our "normal" names all have their own origins, many of which are rooted in religion, or history, or words after which the names have morphed so much throughout time that we have no idea they're meant to MEAN something. So if we're being real here, you wouldn't even have people in the Mollusc Era named with "normal human names", because 80% of those names... they wouldn't have or know about. They have their own unique names originating from their own history and myths that have nothing to do with ours, even if there's some names that are shared. If you really look into it, you wouldn't have a guy named Larry in splatoon (i have a guy named larry in splatoon). That's just localization for the human brain saying "this guy is named whatever the splatoon world equivalent for this name would be", lol. (Which, if you really look into it, that's EVERY written thing about Splatoon... because we do not speak their language(s).)

Anyway, the marine theme carries over more naming conventions than just personal names. Cities and places of course, but also bands. Everyone's noticed the probably unspoken rule that songs need to include some kind of ocean or water theming in their titles... it's probably not done for the pun or funny factor, it's just one of those things that people Just Do.

idk what else to say about this topic right now but you maybe hopefully get the picture based on the rambling

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Treat Your S(h)elf: Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (1998)

At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.

Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history–one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale….

- Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire (1998)

This is one of my favourite books on war I’ve ever read. I took my dog-eared copy with me last year when I went with ex-military veterans friends to climb Olympus and hike around Greece. One of the places we stopped was Thermopylae - where you can still bathe in the hot springs as the ancient Spartans and Athenians did before their monumental battle with the Persians. The very recent death of the last king of Greece, King Constantine II of the Hellenes, made me think of my trip to Greece last year and of one of the books I read on that trip. I thought I might share some of my rambling thoughts I had written down at the time, and also since then, about the retelling of one historical turning point in our western civilisation that has now entered into myth.

In 1998 was the year Frank Miller’s iconic comic graphic novel 300 about the the Battle of Thermopylae – where a tiny Greek force led by 300 Spartans held out for three days against an immense Persian invasion in 480BC - was published to great critical acclaim. Zack Snyder highly stylised slick film version of Miller’s 300 defied audience and studio expectations when it stormed the box office with Spartan-like ferocity back in 2007. Its mix of ancient history, comic-book iconography and sound-bite dialogue immediately found its way into the verbal and visual lexicon of contemporary pop culture; but things could have been very different. In 1998 Miller’s publication overshadowed the publication of Steven Pressfield’s more conventional historical novel, Gates of Fire, took its name from the eponymous battlefield, Thermopylae (referred to in 300 as ‘the hot gates’).

Pressfield, an ex-Marine soldier, had worked as a screenwriter creating disposable action-movie scripts for the likes of Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren in the late 1980s and early 1990s before writing his first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, which was adapted into the Will Smith film of the same name. It too won critical acclaim and was a huge best seller. George Clooney’s film production company bought the rights and David Self (screenwriter of 13 Days and Road to Perdition) was brought in to adapt it. Bruce Willis was dying to be in it and iconic director Michael Mann signed on the direct it. Instead the film went into development hell before Snyder’s film stole a march on Mann’s version to come out first in 2007.

As a Classicist and ex-veteran I found Both Miller’s comic graphic novel and Snyder’s film a severe guilty pleasure. But I have to say I found reading Steven Pressfield’s brilliant novel deeply satisfying on many more levels.

The book I remember well as an American special forces chap I knew out in Afghanistan gave it to me to read because I was complaining I was fast running out of things to read between missions. I loved it.

Like a good officer I passed the book along to others in my corps - rank and file - and within a month or two it had been passed around a fair bit. It led to endless arguments about the Greeks and the Western way of war in and out of the cockpit with my brother/sister aviators and crew as well other officers and the men.

For the soldiers on the ground the book felt more visceral. As a fellow brother British infantry officer said the depictions of phalanx warfare raised his blood pressure at how well he and his men could relate. I never felt more Spartan than I did I sitting on my arse baking in the sun of Afghan red dust mornings. We all related to this story one way or another - the sand, sweat, blood, feelings of combat, and thoughts of mortality.

Most book reviewers loved the book. “Does for (Thermopylae) what Charles Frazier did for the Civil War in Cold Mountain’, enthused author Pat Conroy. The New York Times praised the book’s ‘feel of authenticity from beginning to end.’ Author Nelson DeMille  admired the ‘mastery, authority and psychological insight.’ Sarah Broadhurst, in The Bookseller, particularly wanted to recommend the book to women: “ Although it has a male feel to it, it will appeal to both sexes, as my two readers and I can testify. In fact, it is a great example of the rebirth of the historical novel, which I am sure is on its way.” Where people quibbled, it was usually about the violence of some of the descriptions, or on small errors of fact. The Times called it ‘a story of blood, biffing and bonking, thigh deep in blood, terror-piss and entrails’ but acknowledged that ‘their heroism still makes the hairs at the back of the neck bristle’. The Times Literary Supplement sniped at Pressfield for confusing two different Greek cities called Argos, and for what it called ‘phallocentric discourse’, but also called the book ‘a monument to the important twentieth-century art of pace.’

The novel stands out in the way it makes everything come alive from the soldiers' training, the scenes of actual battle, and most particularly the scenes after or between battles. The discussions of fear, and of how officers and soldiers should behave are particularly poignant and also felt very real to those of us who have experienced war first hand. What I found pleasantly surprising was how well written it was with its very strong portrayals of women as secondary characters. With nearly all military books women are often relegated to the background but here I found some of the strongest depictions of women in this genre. The women don't fight in the battles, yet are courageous and compassionate, intelligent and influential.

Many readers will be familiar with the broad strokes of the story of the battle. But it’s worth recapping here for those that don’t. In 480 BC, King Xerxes lead a Persian army of between one and two million into Greece. The Spartan King Leonidas lead 300 Knights and some 700 Thespaian allies to the narrow pass at Thermopylae, in order to hold the Persians back as long as possible. They proceeded to hold the pass for 7 days. These 300 Spartans died to a man defending the pass against a force of over a million and the epitaph provided to them by the poet Simonides, "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie", is perhaps the most famous in history. Their example rallied and inspired all of Greece and eventually the Persians were defeated in the naval battle at Salamis and on land at Plataea.

The story is told from the point of view of its narrator Xeones of Astakos, a helot, a slave of the Spartans, and has his own conflicted feelings about Spartan society. He is taken, wounded, before Xerxes, and asked to explain “who were these foemen, who had taken with them to the house of the dead ten or, as some reports said, as many as twenty for every one of their own fallen?” In Xeones’ own words, therefore, we get the story of his life; from when his own city is destroyed, to when he comes to Sparta as a slave, to the time when he finally comes to stand beside the Spartiate in the fateful battle. As the sole survivor among the Spartans, Xerxes wishes Xeones to tell his story to the Persian court historian Gobartes. Xeones starts with the tale of how he came to Sparta. As a youth, his village of Astakos is destroyed and his family slaughtered, but he and the cousin he loves, Diomache, escape. As they wander the countryside, Diomache is raped by soldiers and Xeones is crucified after stealing a chicken, although Diomache saves him from death. Thrown into despair, because his hands are so damaged that he can never wield a sword, Xeones heads off by himself to die. But he experiences a visitation from the Archer god Apollo Far Striker and realizes he can still wield a bow. When Diomache, who is also distraught after being violated by the soldiers, takes off, Xeones heads to Sparta where he hopes to join the army.

The middle section of the book, which is at a much slower pace, deals with his life in Sparta and the training techniques used by the Spartans to create what was one of the most formidable fighting forces the world has ever seen. Eventually he becomes the squire of one of the 300 knights who are chosen for Thermopylae.

The final section, on the battle itself, depicts wholesale slaughter accompanied by acts of ineffable courage. It also relates two of the great lines of all time. When Xerxes offers to spare the Spartans lives if they will surrender their arms, Leonidas is reputed to have snarled, "come and get them." And upon being told that the Persians have so many bowmen that the cloud of arrows would blot out the sun, one of the Spartans says, "good, then we'll have our battle in the shade."

Pressfield being an ex-Marine grunt himself gives a very convincing grunt’s-eye-view of the battle and of Spartan society to create a fantastically blood pumping engaging tale. Pressfield sets himself the task of explaining Spartan culture to us in all its glory, humour, brutality and philosophy. To do so, he draws on his personal experience as a US infantryman, as well being strongly versed in Classics. The result is a fascinating tale, on one level a war story written with great pace and excitement, on another a ruminative tale of man’s capacity for honour, heroism, and self-sacrifice.

As a Classicist (since confirmed by Pressfield in many interviews) he makes excellent use of the ancient historical sources (such as they are). The most useful sources seem to be Herodotus first, his pages about the battle.  Plutarch’s Lives of various Spartans — Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Lysander, etc - can be discerned strongly as the section of his Moralia called Sayings of the Spartans and Sayings of the Spartan Women.  Xenophon of course was the best contemporaneous eyewitness to real Spartan society. Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, the Cyropaedia and even the Anabasis greatly help Pressfield pepper history with authentic detail.  Diodorus’ version of the battle added the thought of the night raid (which The 300 Spartans also had) and Pressfield takes that from him.  Pressfield has said that he didn’t consult recent archaeology, other than going to Sparta myself and checking out the ruins of Artemis, Orthia and so forth.

But still huge gaps remained. This is where Pressfield the ex-Marine and the well educated novelist come together. There was much detail that he needed to consciously to make up and make it sound plausible and even true. For instance, the concept of phobologia, the Science of Fear. That’s completely invented, yet Pressfield, as a Marine veteran, absolutely felt certain the Spartans, like every other warrior race, must have had something like that, a religious-philosophical doctrine of warfare understanding the principles of their culture, probably a sort of cult-like initiatory situation.  

Pressfield in one interview admitted that the speech that Alexandros recites holding his shield —  “This is my shield, I bear it before me into battle, etc.” — was a fictional invention based upon his own experience in the US Marine Corps, where Marines recite, “This is my rifle. There are many other like it, but this one is mine, etc.” Another huge fictional detail that he made central to the story was the prominence of the squire in hoplite battle.  Again he based this on pure instinct and common sense.  He thought the relationship must be much like that of a professional golfer to his caddie.  Pressfield firms believes that the bonds formed between man and batman in the course of bloody warfare must have been intimate on a level second only to husband and wife, and maybe more intimate.  The ancient sources make nothing of this, because they just passed it over as obvious, but I fully agree with Pressman. It’s an inspired insight. The fact that squires and armour bearers voluntarily stayed to die at Thermopylae says volumes.  (Also a squire was the perfect fly-on-the-wall narrator, like Midshipman Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty.)  Further I could not imagine that squires would stand idly by, watching their men fight.  They must have served as auxiliaries, not only dashing in and out of the field evacuating the wounded, but getting in their blows as light infantrymen whenever they could.  I suspect that, as prominent as Pressfield made their roles in Gates, if we could beam ourselves back and witness actual ancient battle, the part of the squire/auxiliary was even bigger than one might imagine.

The book then is not merely about the immortal stand at Thermopylae but delves into the Spartan lifestyle, how they achieved such military cohesion, how they viewed themselves and the world, what made them willing to march off to a suicide mission — it’s one thing to find oneself in such a situation, it’s quite another to jockey to be chosen for it, to know days ahead of time that this is it, you’re heading to your death and to do it unflinchingly. It’s about what binds men together in a group — what makes them willing to die for others. I think Dienekes’ thoughtful analysis of fear and how the opposite of fear isn’t bravery but love, tells it all. Love of a messmate, a family, a city.

Indeed as Pressfield shows the spartans would carry their shields on the left side of their body which allowed them to cover the blind spot of the warrior fighting next to them. Commanders would arrange it so that family members and friends were placed next to each other within the formation. The belief was that warriors would be less likely to abandon their comrades if they were fighting next to someone they deeply cared about. Love conquers fear.

Now the story isn’t perfect, there are some pacing issues when the plot seems to go extra slow, and there are time jumps that can feel a bit awkward. Some periods of our main protagonist’s life, that would be interesting, are just skipped.

In my opinion, the book balances fiction and facts quite nicely, not making the Spartans some over the top super heroes, like the movie “300” did.

The thing that I liked the most is the whole theme of the book: honour, the duty to your city and people, and the strength of the mind. The Spartans didn’t see war as a fun way of killing people, it was an inevitable fact of life. They didn’t kill fear, they learned to embrace it, keep it locked until the very last moment.

Now it’s a bit harder to judge characters in a book like this because some of them are based on real people and some of them are fictional. But what I will say is that these people feel real, grounded to the situation they are in.

I was very taken by the portrayal of Leonidas, the Spartan king who commanded at Thermopylae. One of the most stirring speeches in the book is addressed to Xerxes, the King of Persia, and contrasts Xerxes with Leonidas: "I will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his back and the pains he endures for their sake….”

I also appreciated the inclusion of the women of Sparta — no shirkers themselves. They would be the first ones out shaming the men into doing their duty for their city (and that’s what it was all about for these people — the survival of the city first) if that was what was needed. I have to say I shed a tear when Leonidas confessed his criteria for selection of the 300. So much is said about Spartan men but the women kicked ass in a time and place where women were almost never seen and certainly never heard from. The first female Olympic champion was a Spartan princess called Kynisca, in 392 BC. She was also the first woman to become a champion horse trainer when her horses and chariot competed and won in the Ancient Olympic Games. Twice.

Arete is in some ways the most powerful character in the book. She is very well written.  She just popped forth, full-grown from the brow of Zeus.  I liked her a lot.  Whether or not Sparta was a “good” place for women I can’t say.  Certainly it would be fascinating as hell to beam back there and see, for real, how they lived and what they were like.  It seems likely Pressfield drew inspiration of Arete from Plutarch’s Sayings of the Spartan Women. These, if you’ve ever read them, are unbelievably hard-core.  For example, here’s one: A messenger returns from a battle to inform a Spartan mother (Plutarch gives her name but I’ve forgotten it) that all five of her sons have just perished honourably fighting the enemy.  She asks this only: “Were we victorious?” The courier replies yes.  “Then I am happy,” says the mother and turns for home. Here’s another: A messenger returns from another battle to tell another mother that one of her sons has been killed, facing the enemy.  “He is my son,” she says.  Her other son, the messenger continues, is still alive but ran from the enemy. “He is not my son,” she replies. Pressfield doesn’t see Arete quite that hard-core but certainly someone tough as nails who imbibed the Spartan mythos even more than the men and lived it.  Pressfield admits in one of his interviews that this was all instinct, he could be wrong, but itt just was what felt right to him.

Before I had gone through Sandhurst after university I didn’t really condone crude language or lewd humour but it’s one of the ways that my stint in the army and especially out on a battlefield deployment changed me a little. I confess that I loved the sometimes crude humour - they’re soldiers in a time of war and you do or say whatever will get you through. Battle (especially foxhole) humour has a dark gallows feel and it’s entirely acceptable and authentic - just ask any veteran of any war. The battle descriptions are graphic - very graphic but not much worse than what’s in the Iliad. And we are talking about a battle in which thousands died by sword, spear, arrow and other various messy methods.

I also enjoyed how the book has a pleasing prose aesthetic that imitates the style of Homer. For the non-Classicist it may take a little bit of getting used to and slow down their reading but it sounds melodious to the ear.

Overall Pressman gives us a pulsating story in which the characters are not either super evil villains that cartoonishly want to “take over the world” or superheroes that can’t make mistakes. The author doesn’t take a side in this story, war is war, and people are people. They make mistakes, get angry or jealous, they do bad things in the name of good and vice versa. The book is not about good and evil, it’s about how different people and cultures understand the order, stability, good and even our minds and dreams. The enemies here aren’t some sort of Oriental magic freaks from far away lands, they are just men made in flesh and blood. Sure wanting to control more land or have more people serving them, but that’s everyone I know in the history of rise and fall of civilisations.

Was the Spartan defence of the Hot Gates worth it?  

Clearly, yes. Cultures, if not civilisations, are nearly always rubbing up against each other and even clashing where they can’t bridge differences. I think Pressfield has it right when he said, “What the defence meant to me was this: its significance was metaphorical rather than literal.  We are all in a battle that will end with our deaths and, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, we know it.  The question is how do we deal with it.  They answered by being true to their calling, to their brothers and sisters, and to their ideals.  Early in the book there’s a passage where the Persian historian is narrating; he’s speaking of King Xerxes and his interest in the fallen Spartans.  Xerxes says of them: “He knew they feared death, as all men.  By what philosophy did their minds embrace it?”

In two of my favourite passages, Pressfield has his protagonist explain why sacrifice is so beautiful to the Greeks (or to anyone who has honour), "In one way only have the gods permitted mortals to surpass them. Man may give that which the gods cannot, all he possesses, his life”. This is a very profoundly moving insight.

Pressfield goes further and tries to answer a much deeper question as to why men fight and perhaps this is where it’s the ex-Marine and not the novelist in Pressfield who is talking, "Forget country. Forget king. Forget wife and children and freedom. Forget every concept, however noble, that you imagine you fight for here today. Act for this alone: for the man who stands at your shoulder."

Amen to that.

At the end of the book, I would have probably stranded there fighting side by side with them against the Persians. Because at that point, they were my friends, comrades, and heroes. It was when I put the book down that I realised that I already had the humble privilege of serving with my fellow brother and sister officers and soldiers of whom all were comrades, many were friends, and a few were unspoken heroes.

Does the battle of Thermopylae provide any lessons to us?

That is harder to discern because it depends on what values we already hold dear. Sparta was a small, compact, basically tribal society where every citizen (forgetting about the helots for the time being) was vitally needed and where warfare was hand-to-hand and absolutely communal, with your own brothers, uncles, father and friends fighting beside you, so if you acted the coward, there was no hiding it.  The modern world of anonymity, mass culture, commercialism, shamelessness, indulgence of sensual desires, worship of money couldn’t be farther.  The Spartan society is like a culture from the moon.

On an individual and interior basis, I think, can we take lessons that might help us.  Self-discipline, loyalty, grit, hard work, perseverance, honour, humility, respect, and compassion.  

On a societal level Spartans were not selfish and didn’t worship the cult of individualism as we do today. It was all about the group. In our age when civil strife, economic hardship, and effects of a unrelenting pandemic erode our trust in our political and civil institutions and set neighbour against neighbour because of the political or religious beliefs they might hold, the only thing we have left to fall back on is just our individual selves. It’s every man for himself. The Spartans would balk at such selfish individualism. The strength (and ultimately the effectiveness) of the Spartan phalanx was encapsulated in the “next man up” approach. If a warrior was injured or killed on the outer edge of the formation, the next man behind them would step up and take their place. The integrity of the group’s formation was protected at all costs, because without the strength of the phalanx to protect them, each man on had little chance of surviving the battle on his own. In a real sense, they had each other’s backs. They had the cohesion of a collective spirit. They were in it for each other together.

It’s not a bad thing in this day and age to be a little bit “spartan,” don’t you think?