#marine myths rambles

[cryptidapprentice]

anyways new theme new url who dis

(marine-myths -> cryptidapprentice)

[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.

[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.

[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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[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)

[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?

[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

[cryptidapprentice]

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

[fardell24b]

An Aquatic Second Contact - Part 1

Lower Decks - An Aquatic Second Contact

USS Cerritos NCC 75567

“Captain’s Log Stardate 59063.3. The Cerritos has completed repairs after the Battle against Buenamigo’s Folly. We’re now on route to the Theta Aquarii System, home to a recently first contacted species, close to Klingon Space. We hope to get back into a routine of professionalism.”

 Captain Carol Freeman reflected that she and her crew were lucky to have got out of the situation with the Aledo with the Cerritos more or less intact. She emerged onto the Bridge. “Time to system?” she asked.

 “Two hours, 47 minutes,” Commander Ransom reported.

  T’Lyn entered the conference room and saw that she was the first there. That was good. It meant that she had time to look over her notes again, and ensure that they were clear and concise. “Personal Log. Cerritos has entered the Theta Aquarii System, containing an M-Class Planet that may be considered the opposite of Vulcan as it’s surface is almost entirely covered in Ocean. The humanoids are…” She was interrupted as the door opened, admitting her colleague, D’Vana Tendi.

 “T’Lyn!” Tendi called out. “This is exciting!” she added while throwing her hands about.

 “That isn’t a word I would use,” T’Lyn retorted. “’Intriguing’ would be more appropriate.”

 “I suppose you could say that. But I would say interesting and another Vulcan would say ‘fascinating’…”

 T’Lyn rolled her eyes. Tendi’s rambling was, distracting, at the best of times. “You interrupted my log entry.”

 “Oh, sorry. You can continue.”

 She pressed resume on the PADD. “The humanoids are aquatic, resembling the Merfolk of ancient Human myths and legends. They live mostly in the water, with the various islands given over to what industry cannot be conducted under the waves. Upon arrival Cerritos will conduct the usual Second Contact procedures, while Ensign Tendi and I will assist with the addition of their biological knowledge of their planet, along with their astronomical knowledge of their system, to that of the Federation, as a basis point for future dual surveys.” She paused.

“Log complete.”

 “That’s not all we’ll be doing,” Tendi said.

 “Certainly not.”

D’Vana Tendi looked out of the window of the conference room and saw that Cerritos had dropped out of warp and was approaching Theta Aquarii II. She supposed that she needed to find out the most common local name for it, before anything else. She was certain she would learn it before too long.

  “We’re being hailed by at least three different stations, Captain,” Lieutenant Shax reported.

 “Find the one the Rhea contacted,” Captain Freeman ordered.

 “Yes, sir,” Shax said. “Wait, there’s a Klingon Bird of Prey entering the system!”

 “What!”

 “They’re hailing,” Shax said.

 “On Screen!” the captain ordered.

 “This is Captain Ma’ah of the Klingon Ship Che’Ta, to the Federation Starship in this system. I request permission to come alongside.”

 “This is Captain Carol Freeman, of the USS Cerritos, Permission granted.”

 “Acknowledged, Che’Ta out.”

 “Something’s certainly happening,” Commander Jack Ransom commented.

 “I agree.” Freeman said.

 “I have found the station, Captain,” Shax said.

 “Good,” the Captain said. “Ensign Boimler! Prepare for docking.”

 “Aye, Captain,” Ensign Bradward Boimler said.

  IKS Che’Ta

Captain Ma’ah brought up the information on the planet on his PADD. It was certainly interesting that there was an almost entirely aquatic civilisation.

 “The Cerritos has docked,” his first officer reported.

 “Request docking clearance at the same station.”

 “Yes, Captain.”

  USS Cerritos

“The Che’ta has also docked,” Ensign Barnes reported.

 “Inform Captain Ma’ah that I’ll meet him on the station.”

  Ensign Beckett Mariner looked over the information on the PADD. The planet was certainly interesting, its history especially, but she was more concerned with the current situation, as she usually was during a second contact mission. Suddenly, as she turned a corner, she ran into someone. “Oh! Sorry,” she said.

 “You!” It was Jennifer sh’Rayan, her ex-girlfriend.  She was looking at her with hatred.

 “Um, It was an accident,” Beckett dissembled.

 “That’s not my point.”

 “I know that. Now’s not the time,” she didn’t want to be late!

 “It’s never the time is it?”

 Beckett wasn’t sure what she was talking about. But she had to go, so she ran off.

  Jennifer turned away after Beckett ran off. She didn’t know why she had got involved with her. She stopped the line of thought before it went further. She had already spent a lot of time and mental energy on it.

  Captain Freeman and Commander Ransom approached the airlock, where Cerritos was docked to the station. Ransom checked his PADD again. “It says nothing about needing environmental suits on the station.”

 “Well, they do have lungs as well as gills, so there is free air on the station.”

 “I guess that on a world where everything swims, I would have thought that nothing would have lungs.”

 “A quirk I guess,” the Captain said as the airlock door opened.

  They stepped through and saw that there was a raft next to the airlock. In the water were two assistants. “Welcome to Eali Toromi Station. Please follow us,” they said in unison.

 “Thank you,” Captain Freeman responded as she and her first officer boarded the raft.

  Eali Toromi Station

Captain Ma’ah emerged from Che’ta onto the station. He saw an assistant waiting next to a raft. “Welcome to Eali Toromi Station. Please follow me.”

 “In the raft?” he asked.

 “You can swim if you want, but otherwise you’d have to use the raft,” the assistant said nervously.

 Ma’ah sighed inwardly. Most other races were intimidated by Klingons. These ‘Acquarii’, as the Starfleet crew had dubbed them, were no exception.

 “I can use the raft,” he said.

 “Thank you,” the assistant said with a bowing motion and a splash with her tail fluke.

[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

[psychewritesbs]

Hi!! Hope you're doing okay. I haven't seen too many theories (not surprised) on the angel (jjk), so I was wondering if you had any theories or thoughts on what type of character she'll be like or what you think she may contribute to the narrative?

HOLA!  

Oh my. Kurusu Hana (来栖 華) crack theory time! 

Prepare yourself to go down a million rabbit holes, from her physical appearance to her name and even her Cursed Technique, Hana is loaded with symbolism ripe for exploration.

Ok but honestly... let me just say that I have zero idea. But, given you came to me (mental gymnastics extraordinaire) with this question, I am taking the opportunity to explore her character.

The problem with her character is that there’s... what? a total of 2 or 3 panels showing her actual character in the whole manga? She’s also only mentioned 2 or 3 times outside of that.

So it’s really hard to say anything about her. 

Kind of like with Sukuna, when trying to figure her out, we’re basically throwing darts in the dark. Except, at least with Sukuna we know that he is a daddy that he’s based on an actual Japanese myth.

That said, I shall do my best to give you my most ludicrous and completely not-based-on-canon speculative ideas about The Angel for you to marinate on.

Assistant Pu-kyu and I are on it.

After all, if there’s one thing I love, it is doing symbol analyses. If only I would have thought to write about symbology in anime/manga through grad school...

Anyways... Just a heads up that this essay got long. I’ve heard from others that my essay on Megumi’s character symbolism crashed a couple of phones (whoops, my bad guys!), so I hope this one doesn’t do the same 😅.

Actually, if you are not feeling like reading the entire ramble, I created a section near the very end titled TLDR; to summarize my thoughts on Hana. Feel free to skip ahead.

Finally, just like the essays about Sukuna and Megumi I’ve written before, this is not meant to make any concrete declarations about what is going to happen, but is rather an exploration of myth and symbology to try to maybe hopefully perhaps not really predict what her character might be about.

My best guess is that the place to start is with her cursed technique before I get into all of the details of her possible symbolism.

Cursed Technique, personality and physical appearance

Now, since in JJK the body = the soul = the mind, considering her physical appearance literally resembling that of an Angel, I kind of have to wonder about how her cursed technique fits into this.

I feel like this could be relevant because Cursed Technique seems to be intimately tied to the sorcerer’s personality and/or body.

Remi is a great example of this. To me Remi’s Cursed Technique or abilities are reflected in her hair’s shape (body) and how her personality is such that she will sting/back stab Megumi even when he’s protecting her (mind).

Not sure of her birthdate but I wouldn’t be surprised to find she’s a Scorpio.

So how does this relate to Hana? I have to wonder about her physical appearance since she very much literalizes the idea of an Angelic being (body).

But what about her personality (ego/mind)?

One of the characters that I can think of that has a similar ability to hers is Dazai from Bungou Stray Dogs. 

Noa (my source of BSD knowledge) mentioned that Foydor (I probably misspelled his name) may be a better example since Hana’s Cursed Technique looks like it messes with the psyche, but I am going to stick to Dazai because his ability, literally, nullifies/extinguishes other abilities.

Unfortunately, I only got as far as chapter 40 and cannot comment on Dazai other than what I’ve read from other moots--his outward expression of a clownish personality is a mask for his existential despair... or something like that.

I’m not sure that Hana’s personality will be the same as Dazai... But perhaps, rather than looking at personality from such a narrow perspective, why not consider how Hana’s Cursed Technique is a metaphor for her sense of self? 

Ego is, after all, not a one-dimensional concept limited to how a character thinks and behaves, but also includes the character’s meta-perspective of their sense of self in the JJK-scheme of things.

Now, the trope behind Dazai and Hana’s ability is called “power nullifier”, so we’re going to be diving deeper into the trope to try to understand Hana a little bit.

For one, consider the idea of binding vows. Binding vows in JJK can get a little complicated, so the way I understand JJK binding vows is by thinking of xxxHolic’s Ichihara Yuuko’s role as the Space Time Witch, or Alchemy in Full Metal Alchemist.

In both examples, anything we want comes at a price. 

It is impossible to create something out of nothing. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange; the basis of all alchemy.

This idea makes me wonder whether Hana's ability comes at a price--i.e. she’s limited in other areas (raw physical strength perhaps) because all of her energy is focused on being able to extinguish Cursed Techniques.

An ability like this one is also one that affects other characters and their respective character arcs. As an example, consider how Hana extinguishing Megumi’s Cursed Technique temporarily can cause Megumi to have to find a new way to fight.

Second, Hana and Dazai’s ability is a meta-power. Meaning it is the power above all powers. Almost God-like if you want to think of it that way. 

When you start talking about meta powers however, it opens a new can of worms--the origin of power. 

I won’t get into it here, but I am really curious to explore the idea of Heian being the Golden Age of Cursed Techniques, and how that relates to the historical reality that Heian was truly a cultural Golden Age in Japan.

So how does Hana figure into the origin of Cursed Techniques?

Regardless of whether Hana had any role in it, I think it’s safe to say that Gege will explore the origins of Cursed Techniques in the story at one point or another and I’ll be looking forward to it.

Finally, from a narrative perspective, typically an ability like Hana’s can also be plot armor because it allows the author to make scenes unfold in a specific way. 

While I wouldn’t be surprised to find examples of plot armor during a jjk re-read, I feel like Gege does a pretty good job executing on the plot in a way that feels exciting and refreshing for the most part. So here’s to hoping that he has a plan for Hana’s Cursed Technique that doesn’t feel forced and contrived.

Hana and the Prison Realm

Funny enough, when I looked into the “power nullifier” trope, this trope actually comes hand in hand with the “tailor made prison” trope. 

The “tailor made prison” trope is commonly used to lock up a villainous character, although in JJK’s case, it was used to take out the one op character in the story who could potentially solve any problem that arises in the plot. 

Such a prison will often even feature skeletons to imply that leaving this prison is impossible.

Not Gege using the trope almost at face value.

But why is Hana’s Cursed Technique the only one that can open the back of the prison realm?

I might need to go re-read mentions about the prison realm, but the way I see it, the prison realm nullifies Gojo’s abilities. So to claim that Hana can nullify the prison realm puts her character on a meta ability, God-like level--an idea I will explore later.

I have to say I am curious about Hana’s relationship to the prison realm.

Why can she open the back? Does it have anything to do with her own ability to extinguish Cursed Techniques? How is it that she can open the back of the prison realm?

I feel like the prison realm needs its own meta symbolical and mythological analysis and I feel like I’ve seen something about it on Twitter. But, to be honest, I feel like that’s a rabbit hole for another day.

Ok. So that’s that for her Cursed Technique. 

Onto her symbolism starting with her name!

Kurusu Hana’s name

It goes without saying that Gege uses the “power of names trope”. 

Not sure if this is what Gege is trying to say, but it looks to me like the way he names his characters is a call back to 90′s anime names like Dragon Ball Z’s Vegeta (vegetable) and Kakarot (carrot), or Sailor Moon’s Tsukino Usagi (Moon’s rabbit).

But I feel like Gege takes it a step further with his character names. Gege understands language semantics and he uses kanji characters to tell micro-stories about his characters and the context of the situation they find themselves in.

For example, when I looked into the symbolism of the white rose, lo and behold, it is a symbol used in the Tarot’s Death major arcana to announce death. Nobara anybody?

So, whether it is the meaning of the plant trio’s name, the play on words for “unwavering human”, or the choice of kanji when Sukuna says “fascinate/enchant me Fushiguro Megumi”, Gege is very purposeful in how he uses kanji characters when he writes.

When it comes to The Angel, whom I’m going to call Hana, her full name is made up of the following characters:

Her last name: Kurusu (来栖)

来 - kuru. To come. This is a character that you would see in a word like mirai which means “future” in English.

栖 - su. Used for the concepts: nest, rookery, hive, cobweb, and/or den.

Let me start by saying that there is always the possibility that this could be a perfectly common last name. As you will see in a bit, it’s actually the last name for a major character in Japanese history.

But it’s just as likely that the possibility exists that the last name holds some sort of symbolic meaning.

For one, I find it interesting that the kanji for the verb, to come (the kanji for the verb is used in words like future), is part of her name considering she’s a sorcerer from the past. 

If we take the characters’ literal meaning into consideration, we also get an interesting play on words about a nest/den that is in the future or “to come”. 

What could this mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Again, maybe it means absolutely nothing because...

After doing a quick search for the combination of both kanji characters together, turns out that the last name Kurusu is associated with Kurusu Saburu, a diplomat known for negotiating peaceful relations between Japan and the U.S. while Japan was secretly planning their attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Historical technicalities about whether the US brought the attack upon themselves aside, Mr. Saburu’s behavior is still shady af if you ask me! To go around pretending to forge peaceful relations while fully knowing Japan had less than benign intentions... idk, it takes some serious guts to do something like that.

Again, could this mean anything? Did Gege intend to create a parallel to Mr. Saburu? Can’t know for sure. But I like this idea that Hana is not someone to be trusted.

She comes down from the sky with her cute little angel wings and her cute little halo and... no. 

I don’t trust her.

There’s something that feels very sinister about her.

Her first name: Hana (華)

Next we have her first name. 

I didn’t know this, but you can use two different kanji for the word flower, hana. The kanji you are most likely to see for the word “flower” is 花, but Hana’s name uses 華.

華 - hana. The literal meaning is splendor, flower, petal, shine, luster, ostentatious, showy, gay, gorgeous. 

The kanji is used in different contextual uses. One of them is typically used when you want to say something is beautiful like a flower.

But there’s also something to be said about the kanji being used in words like Kegon Buddhism 華厳宗, avatamsa (flower adornment, as a metaphor for becoming a buddha) 華厳, or even North China 華北.

I’ll come back to these ideas related to Buddhism later. For now, let’s focus on the symbolism of the flower.

To me, the first thing that stands out about her first name is the idea that she is beautiful like a flower.

I’ve written about it before in the Megumi symbolism ramble, but, considering the plant trio is named after plants/flowers, what if Hana’s name is meant to represent the trumpet flower, otherwise known as the angel’s flower.

This flower comes with a warning and a very nasty reputation. For example, in South America, the angel’s flower is used for initiation, divination, and black magic rituals and is often used by “malevolent sorcerers.”

If you do a Google search for the angel’s flower, you will also quickly learn that this flower grows and is most fragrant in the night and in the shade. That’s already kind of interesting given Megumi’s symbolism and the shadow, and how Hana seems to be targeting Megumi.

We still don’t know why she switched colonies, but it’s kind of shady to me how she showed up at the right place, at the right time--Megumi collapsing from exhaustion in Tokyo Colony No. 1.

I wonder if it goes without saying that Hana could be familiar with the nature of Megumi’s Cursed Technique. After all, she is a sorcerer from the past and we don’t know how long the Zenin have been around as a clan. 

My best guess is that the Zenin have been around for a while  since long family lineages of spiritual warriors that extend into the distant past is a common trope in anime and manga.

But to continue with the exploration of the symbolism of the angel’s flower, these little flowers can be highly poisonous and some can even make you hallucinate--and, according to what I read, we’re not talking about pleasant hallucinations, but rather bad trips.

I don’t remember where but I read a take about how maybe Hana’s cursed technique causes hallucinations and that’s how she cancels cursed techniques. If Gege is using the symbolism of the angel’s flower, then this makes sense.

What is cool about this idea is that it is that it positions the Cursed Technique as more or less psychic or at least having the ability to control someone else’s mind.

This is what my moot noa was saying about her Cursed Technique resembling BSD’s Fyodor’s ability since it’s very psychological in nature. If this is the case, the implications are juicy af. 

Imagine a character that can peer into your mind and use your deep subconscious against you. 

Seriously. Hana is shady shady shady (pun fully intended).

We don’t know how much of all of this symbolism Gege will use, but what if Hana is meant to symbolize a girl who is very beautiful, she’s got Moon energy (all that shade she’s throwing) and she’s really dangerous despite her innocent looks (this facade of a Guardian Angel isn’t fooling me). 

It’s almost like her beauty is the lure just the way the flower’s role is to attract pollinators.

So, according to the symbolism in her name, she’s bad news all around. 

Actually... I am putting my money on a shady morally gray character.

Shady af. More about this idea in a bit.

Watch her turn out to be super friendly and super righteous, rip to my symbol analysis.

A Guardian Angel or a Fallen Angel?

The Guardian Angel

Right.

Here we go down the Angel rabbit hole.

When I saw Hana in this panel...

My good girl Catholic upbringing reminded me of this...

I just can’t get over the similarities between the panel and the painting above. Everything from the idea of a winged being coming down from the sky to protect the vulnerable from harm, to the way the body is positioned and how the arms are extended outwards screamed “Guardian Angel”.

It’s uncanny.

Now, a Guardian Angel is typically thought of as a benevolent protector. From an Alchemical perspective, I have also read that a Guardian Angel’s role is to help it’s protege to achieve their greatest potential.

But more importantly, symbolically-speaking, Angels are thought to be closer to God (however you define and relate to the supreme intelligence that underscores existence). Meaning, their consciousness is superior to human consciousness.

Perhaps Hana is on the same level as Sukuna and Gojo--a being with an overwhelming sense of self that has transcended their human ego. If that is the case, then we have to ask ourselves, is she a compassionate Bodhisattva like Gojo, or a being devoid of humanity like Sukuna?

My money is on her being inhuman as a result of her transcending ego/human attachments.

Angels as executors of God’s will

In addition, Angels can also symbolize messengers of God who carry out God’s will.

In my symbol analysis on Megumi I touch upon the possibility of Megumi facing some sort realization of a higher power which he did not acknowledge before. And while I still sort of stand behind this idea, I wonder whether, given the symbolism I just touched upon, Hana’s role could involve using Megumi to execute fate’s machinations, or God’s will.

The question is: who is God? Or whose will is she bidding?

I do have to admit that I am biased. 

Perhaps my interpretation of the symbols has more to do with how this is something I would like to see in the narrative because of what it might mean for Megumi’s character arc and his growth. 

So, as I always like to say, take what I write with a grain of salt and exercise that sexy brain of yours!

Back to the symbolism of the Angel, another angle to explore Hana’s role in the narrative is that of Judeo-Christian angels as the ones that announce the apocalypse. 

And what is the apocalypse if not final judgment day for humanity?

Considering Hana carries a little trumpet and that we can hypothetically associate the trumpet/angel’s flower to her, I still have to wonder whether her role isn’t to bring and execute judgment.

Not sure what that will look like, but I do have to wonder about this idea considering Regiestar’s last words to Megumi:

Good vs. Evil

To tie in other approaches to the Angel as a symbol, Japanese Buddhism also uses the proverbial image of god-like beings that sit on your shoulder and record every good and evil deed you have committed. 

According to what I read, the purpose of these angels is to keep record of your behavior in order to present it to the judges as your soul makes its way through the underworld. So again, Hana could be tied into this idea of a judgment-day.

Now, in Japanese Buddhism, these two god-like beings are known as Kushōjin. The deity standing on the left shoulder is male and he records our good actions, while on the right shoulder, stands a female who records our bad actions.

Could this be Hana?

In the West, this idea of angelic beings sitting on your shoulder is more along the lines of a battle of good vs. evil. In this perspective, each angel wants to persuade you to commit acts of good or evil depending on the angel.

After all, what is a devil (like Lucifer--the light bringer) if not a fallen angel who defied the Judeo-Christian God’s will? 

You can think of God as a supreme intelligence beyond our human mind’s comprehension, but I also like the idea of God symbolizing the status quo in JJK--after all, in Judeo-Chrisianity, God is a dude/patriarchal figure and one of the themes underscoring JJK is tearing down the status quo.

You can also think of God as “the order of things” or a fate that needs to be overcome to achieve one’s destiny.

I go into more detail about fate and destiny in my Megumi symbol analysis if you’re interested in reading more into that. 

To me, the idea of overcoming fate feels relevant to Hana and Megumi, but we won’t know what that looks like until Gege executes this idea. 

I have also written before about how when I say “Dark Megumi,” I also want to make sure that people keep in mind that dark ≠ evil and that the idea that darkness = evil is Judeo-Christian at the core. 

When it comes to Hana’s angelic status, however, I do have to say that light ≠ good.

Now. You may or may not have noticed that I mention Megumi and Hana together quite a bit. This is not only because Hana coming down from the sky over Megumi when he collapsed is sus, but also because I wonder if there was a connection between the a Ten Shadows user from the past and The Angel.

Kegon Buddhism--the Hana + Megumi connection

Ok this is strictly crack theory madness but I just couldn’t help but notice this little detail. Really it comes back to this idea that Hana seems to be targeting Megumi. 

I mentioned earlier that the kanji for Hana’s first name (華) is also used in Kegon Buddhism (華厳宗) and avatamsa (華厳), which is a flower adornment that serves as a metaphor for becoming a buddha.

There’s meta about Buddhism lore in JJK that you can find around this hellsite or the other hellsite that I avoid like the plague, Reddit. So I won’t go too much into Buddhism because that’s a deep rabbit hole. 

What I will say is that Kegon Buddhism is the Japanese transmission of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, and that the name of the guy who popularized this school of Buddhism is a Japanese monk named Myōe (明惠).

Did you see that little kanji in his name? Does it look familiar? 

惠? 

Hint: One of the kanji’s phonetic spellings is, literally, Megumi.

Again, just wild speculation on my behalf. 

But we already know that Gojo and Yuta have a common ancestor during the Heian era and even Uro might have been entangled in some sort of relationship with this ancestor as a Fujiwara clan assassin.

All that to say, what if there is a connection between one of Megumi’s ancestors and Hana?

Again, I may be biased here but, outside of the obvious “Hana can help get Gojo out of the prison realm,” I feel like Hana and Megumi are going to be inevitably entangled somehow.

Actually, come to think of it, I feel like my symbol analysis on Megumi was incomplete without also looking at Hana.

In the symbol analysis for Megumi, one of the things I touch upon is how the Ten Treasures that form the basis for the Ten Shadows Cursed Technique were historically-speaking a gift to the Imperial Family from the celestial maiden herself, Amaterasu.

Is Hana that celestial maiden? Again, given her cursed technique’s meta power, does she have anything to do with the origin of Cursed Technique?

Now, to go deeper down this crack theory rabbit hole, one of the chapters in the Avatamsaka Sutra, known to have been influential for Kegon Buddhism’s philosophical views of the cosmos, addresses the Ten Stages sutra. 

Not sure if this sutra is related to the Ten Shadows Cursed Technique, but this sutra explores the ten stages of development a bodhisattva must undergo to attain supreme enlightenment.

I’ve already speculated that Megumi may be a character that joins the enlightenment ranks of Sukuna and Gojo. He’s certainly upleveling like a boss and is op without knowing it.

Who is Hana’s vessel?

Ok, to wrap this madness up... let’s address the pink elephant in the room.

Is Tsumiki Hana’s vessel?

To answer that I have to go on a little tangent.

Ancient sorcerers and their vessels

I could be wrong but I get this sense that the people chosen to become vessels for ancient sorcerers might be their descendants. After all, Kenny did confirm he carefully chose the people who became vessels for these sorcerers.

I just feel like there’s some sort of genetic lineage happening in order for the vessel to receive the cursed energy of another individual. Otherwise their bodies would not be able to withstand the cursed energy.

Given this detail, I thought it was interesting that the OG Ryu looks very similar to the one who Yuta fought. 

It’s a bit of a stretch to make this assumption. But the likelihood of a distant relative looking similar is still plausible. So if you’re willing to suspend judgment for a moment...

Consider that either the cursed energy in the cursed object changes the shape of the vessel’s body through idle transfiguration, or these characters are descendants of the original sorcerer and that’s why they look similar.

Again, it comes back to the idea that ordinary humans would not be able to withstand a cursed object’s cursed energy. 

So that brings us to the sequence of events in chapter 173. 

Is this Tsumiki’s body?

I don’t know and I’m not convinced. The sequence of the events makes it look like it might be Tsumiki. She’s got the curled ends, the turtle neck sweater, and we even see that vision of Tsumiki. 

But in the end, Tsumiki and Hana’s character design is different. Unlike with the Ryu example above, there is no physical resemblance between the two characters.

The logic is kind of flimsy and I’m not sure I’m explaining myself properly but... Gege is one of those mangaka who likes to mislead his audience. So for this reason alone I feel like Tsumiki is not Hana’s vessel.

The other major theory I’ve seen thrown around is that Yuko from chapter 64 is Hana’s vessel. I think the reason this is a theory is because Yuko’s physical appearance is similar to Hana’s (although Hana seems to be drawn with much thicker eyelashes and her hair style seems slightly different). 

After all, the purpose of chapter 64 within the overall narrative is a bit of a mystery. 

What other purpose does chapter 64 serve within the narrative other than showing Yuji’s depth of character? Is it to introduce Yuko into the story to foreshadow her re-appearance as Hana?

I guess we’ll find out.

TLDR;

Here are some of the theories and questions I came up with based on the symbolism:

In order to be able to extinguish Cursed Techniques, Hana has to pay a price. What is that price?

As a “power nullifier”, what is Hana’s relationship to the Prison Realm?

Was Hana involved with the origin of Cursed Techniques?

Hana could be a character who pretends to have benign intentions but is not to be trusted

Hana might be a sorcerer like Sukuna, someone who has transcended her ego and human attachments. Therefore, she could be someone who has no regard for others

Hana may be familiar with Megumi’s Cursed Technique because Hana may have met one of Megumi’s ancestors in the past

Hana’s cursed technique may involve causing hallucinations as a form of mind control in order to extinguish other’s cursed techniques—the implications of this are that she can use someone else’s subconscious mind against them

Hana may use Megumi to execute God’s will or fate’s machinations

Who is “God” in JJK?

Hana is a harbinger of judgment day, whatever that means

Depending on whether Hana is meant to symbolize a Guardian Angel or a Fallen Angel, Hana may be interested in either upholding the status quo for her own benefit (think of “God” and the JJK-scheme of things as the status quo), or challenging God like Lucifer did

Phew. That’s quite a lot.

Literal picture of me any time I write a character symbol analysis:

Now, the thing to keep in mind is that I mentioned a bunch of tropes and symbols, but Gege has a tendency to subvert expectations. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t use the symbol’s meaning, but rather, that he has his own unique way of exploring the symbol’s expression.

Tropes and symbols are everywhere if we care to stop and look.

I like to think of symbols and tropes as coloring books. You have an outline defining a structure, but the way you color what’s inside the line is always unique to you.

The idea behind my symbol analyses is that symbols are universal and interpreting them can give us clues about the content of a character, a character arc, or a story in general.

Anyways, thanks for the ask, anon! I really enjoyed researching this and I am curious about how Gege is going to flesh out the symbols and how the story is going to unfold.

Thanks for your patience while I answered your ask, but the Kurusu Hana rabbit hole just kept on getting deeper and deeper and I have been super busy with work lately.

Happy JJK-Sunday!

[cockatrice-writers-guild]

There’s Always Bigger Fish

Warnings: swearing, animal death, blood, an injury that’s somewhat detailed

Everything had been so great before it all went wrong.

He could still remember the scene vividly. It had been a wonderful day and he was out near the surface, a rare delight, swimming with his family. The sun shone through the water, creating patterns of light that danced over them all as they swam. He remembered finding the scene beautiful; his family members calling to one another playfully, some even jumping out of the water to show off to others. He had been tempted to join them but then he was content with just watching too.

It had been perfect.

And then he saw it. In the distance, a vessel. He heard the humans call it a ‘boat’ once. He wasn’t alarmed by this. He knew that humans sometimes liked coming out on the ocean to watch his family for awhile before moving on. He also knew the effect he happened to have on humans so he figured it would be best to stay out of their way until they left. He warned his family of the boat before moving just out of sight.

The boat approached as usual and stopped near his family as usual. But something was off. He didn’t know what at first but then it hit him. Usually, when the human’s boat was so close to them, he could hear their voices, joyous and excited and loud, travelling easily through the water. Voices that weren’t present now. Just a few low tones speaking solemnly to each other.

But then, almost as if to make up for the lack of noise, a bang sounded. Loud. Much louder than the usual excited voices of the humans.

And he caught a glimpse of something. Something that caught the rays of the sun as it flew. Shiny. Fast and true. Toward his family. And then

Red.

-

Eito Ichikawa loved his daughter. Really he did. She was smart and had done reasonably well in school considering how much time she spent who knows where doing who knows what. She was independent and could handle herself in most situations. She never went through much of a rebellious phase as a teenager, though she did eventually dye her hair. She did her chores without him asking her to most of the time and she never even got swept up in the dating craze he’d been dreading since the day she’d been born.

Or at least that’s what he thought. Now though, he had to reconsider. A few weeks ago, Machiko had been fired from her job as a marine biologist for constantly destroying equipment. And when he’d asked her about this, she’d said it had not been her fault at all, but that of ‘those damn fairies’.

Fairies.

Which brought up the other thing about his daughter. Though he loved her and she was the best kid a single father like him could ask for, even he had to admit that she was a bit…eccentric.

From a very young age, Machiko was stubbornly insistent about one thing and one thing only; that mythical creatures not only existed, but she saw them on a regular basis, a belief that she’d unfortunately carried well into her adulthood.

He had never really been sure how to deal with it. He tried humouring her at first, but it only seemed to frustrate her whenever a piece of evidence she wanted to show him ‘magically’ disappeared. Later, he tried correcting her, telling her that myths were just that. Myths. But that only seemed to strengthen her resolve. Eventually, he just grew indifferent to it, hoping one day she’d just grow out of it. That had evidently backfired, as Machiko was now 23 and still had a habit of rambling about creatures in longwinded conversations Eito could barely keep up with.

Sometimes he wondered if he had made the right choice. Machiko never seemed to have any friends, perfectly content with going out on her own for hours on end. Was he a bad father? He wasn’t sure. Machiko seemed to still like and respect him so surely he was doing something right. Right?

Returning to the point though, ever since Machiko had been fired from her job, she’d been spending way more time out of the house than usual, and that was disregarding the hours she already put into her new job. Sometimes, she even came back home smelling like she’d just stepped out the wrong end of a fish market.

Now, for better or worse, Machiko had always been, in her own way, painfully honest with him. But he couldn’t help but think she was hiding something from him. And naturally, his mind immediately went to the worst possibility: she was dating someone in secret.

Did she not trust him? Or was the person she was dating some no good punk that would drag his precious baby down the path of evil?

He had to find out for himself. Which was why when he was typing up an email to a client and heard footsteps make their way down the stairs, he couldn’t help but tense up.

“Dad? I’m going out,” a voice called from behind him. Machiko. No doubt on her way to go visit that no good-

“Going out? But it’s Saturday,” Eito replied nonchalantly. “I thought you get the weekends off?”

She regarded him passively. “I do, dad. I’m going to go hang out with Taro for the day. I’ll be back before dinner.” He swore she was testing him.

Eito tapped his fingers on the desk before turning his chair around to face her. “Remind me, please. Who is Taro again?” He asked tentatively.

Machiko put a hand on her hip, the other one already occupied with a tote bag. Her expression turned tired. “He’s a mermaid…merman? Well, I personally think he’s really more of an extremely rare subspecies of mer. I’ve never seen anything like him before and yadda yadda yadda.” She said all this in a surprisingly monotone voice, having already repeated more or less the same thing to him every time he asked. She made her way to the kitchen, pulling out a container of leftovers from the fridge. “Dad, we’ve already been over this. Several times. Can I please just go now?”

Don’t you even get tired of this? Eito wrung his hands nervously. “It’s just that…look, you know you don’t have to hide anything from me right? That I’ll always love you no matter what?”

“Oookay.” She stuffed the container into her tote bag along with some cutlery. “I’ll keep that in mind in case I murder someone, I guess.” Then she caught herself with a sigh. “…I appreciate the sentiment, though.”

Eito knew it was probably a bad idea to push any further. And yet…. “…it’s just that if, say hypothetically you’ve been hiding something from me this whole time, like say for example…dating someone without my knowledge or permission, I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t get m-”

He stopped at the face Machiko pulled. ”You seriously think I’m dating Taro? Dad, I already told you I’m not into that kinda stuff. Plus, he’s a mer…folk? I’m not sure he even knows what dating is. …do mer…people date? I guess I could ask him later….” She mumbled that last part more to herself than to him as she made her way over to the door and slipped on some shoes. “I understand your concern, Dad, really I do. But thanks to your refusal to ‘encourage my delusions’ or whatever, you’re just going to have to trust me on this, okay? Have I ever lied to you?”

“That’s debatable,” Eito couldn’t help but mutter.

Machiko let out a dry laugh before opening the door. “I’ll see you at dinner, then.”

“Mm.”

And the door closed behind her.

Eito sighed, a small pang of guilt in his chest in anticipation of what he was about to do. He waited until her heard Machiko’s bike leave before pulling out his phone. If she wasn’t going to be honest with him, then he was going to have to uncover the truth for himself.

-

To his surprise, Machiko had seemed to stop at a beach. He thought for sure she’d go to someone’s house or even, God forbid, the red light district. He parked his car a little ways off from the area, to not alert her of his presence, before quietly making his way over by foot.

He supposed it made sense when he thought about it. A nice quiet lunch on the beach sounded like a perfect dating idea, if not a bit stereotypical. He just didn’t know why she chose this beach in particular. From what he’d seen on the drive over, it wasn’t a very pretty location. It was small and it’s dirty sand was covered in all manner of sharp rocks and other debris. It was also sandwiched between two mountains so he could only imagine what the lighting of such a place was like. From the pictures he’d seen, not that great.

But finally, after just a few minutes, Eito found the edge of his daughters destination. The pictures really hadn’t lied about the state of the place. If anything, they barely did justice to the true squalor of it. It was lined with a myriad of dead plants, which he quickly hid himself behind as he surveyed the dump. The sand near him was almost grey and littered with assorted driftwood, rocks and slimy old kelp. It was unsightly. It smelled of dead fish. The place just radiated non-life. Far from the ideal place to have a picnic, which was what Machiko appeared to be setting up, seemingly as close to the water as she could get. She appeared to be completely alone, which ruled out the possibility of gangs…hopefully.

It was almost a sorry sight to see and Eito felt a pang watching his daughter spread a blanket over a small patch of greyish sand that had appeared to have been cleared out only moments before. She was whistling an almost painfully happy tune as she worked, the song echoing loudly off the sheer cliffs on either side of her in the relative silence of the place. Her pink coat, an almost jarring splash of colour in the otherwise bleak landscape, blew gently in the breeze and when she turned, he caught a glimpse of a wide smile on her face.

He almost felt like intervening right there and then, leaving his hiding spot among the dead brambles and proclaiming how horrible a father he must have been, leaving his only daughter on her own for so long and asking if he could join her on the blanket.

But that would have to wait. What mattered right now was his daughter’s safety. Though, if someone did turn up and it did turn out to be one of those good for nothing types, Eito was going to kick their ass.

Ten minutes passed and Eito was starting to get a bit restless. Machiko had just about finished setting up the picnic and still not a single other person had shown up. Eito was conflicted on whether to feel rage, relief or sorrow. No one had shown up. Which could only mean one of two things; either the person was a no show and Eito would have no choice but to rain hellfire upon them if they ever got the opportunity to meet or Machiko had never been dating anyone to begin with. He didn’t really know which one he preferred, honestly. His heart felt heavy in his chest but before he could convince himself to reveal himself to her and pull her into the bearhug of the century, something happened.

Machiko, after getting back up and dusting some sand off her shorts, examined her picnic. She gave it a nod before turning her attention to the vast ocean that lay just a few feet from her blanket. She watched it in silence for a few seconds before cupping her hands over her mouth, taking a deep breath and then proceeding to yell at the top of her lungs, “TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” Seemingly satisfied with that, his daughter took a seat on the blanket and started digging into her food.

Eito must have been a horrible father. Terrible. Maybe Chouko should have won custody of their daughter. Not him. Maybe then Machiko would have been happy. And not eating alone on a filthy beach and doing whatever strange ritual this was. He had failed his precious daughter.

He watched, now beyond heartbroken as Machiko continued eating, stopping every few minutes to yell that name into the dead, silent, unforgiving depths of the sea. He was nearly in tears now. He just wanted his little girl to be happy. Where had he gone wrong?

Wallowing as he was, Eito tried to tune out his daughter’s vain cries as he started to come up with a plan to get her life back on track. Chouko had already long since cut contact with him, so the rest of his daughter’s life rested solely in his incapable hands, after all. Eventually though, Eito was exposed to a single flaw in his plan. See, his daughter had been calling into the abyss for minutes on end now. But he hadn’t anticipated the slight chance that maybe, just maybe, the ocean might call back.

And so as he was going into the financial details of a fishing trip he could take Machiko on, since she seemed to like the ocean so much, and Machiko herself had just released yet another pointless scream into the water, Eito felt no less than his heart skipping a beat when, out of nowhere, a cry was returned.

Eito felt his skin pale. The cry had been loud. It had carried effortlessly over the quiet waves and over to Machiko, bouncing off the walls of the mountains just as his daughter’s song had only a few minutes prior. It had been high pitched and was far from human. It almost sounded like something resembling whale song in a way. But with an almost unearthly tone to it. And as the last of it finished echoing off the walls, Eito found himself too scared to even move.

Evidently, the call did not have the same effect on his daughter. She had been beaming before she stood up and turned towards the ocean. She even began waving both her arms at it. “TARO!” She sounded excited now. And that blood freezing call sounded again. Like it was responding to her.

And to make matters worse, Eito saw movement from the ocean. Far from the shore, though he couldn’t gauge how far, something surfaced. If he didn’t know any better, Eito would have almost mistaken the shape for a human head.

And then, almost as if to prove some kind of cosmic point to him, as the head shaped thing started approaching, Eito started to realize just how far away it must have been when it first surfaced.

Because that thing was massive.

It wasn’t even halfway to the beach yet and, as it revealed more of itself from the water, it was already starting to tower over Machiko. And the closer it got, the more of it he could see. What appeared to be a very human, if not gigantic, torso. Dark purple skin. Slimy black hair. Strange fin-like ears. Fangs so long they were sticking out of its mouth. But its eyes were by far the worst. An almost electric blue with slit black pupils. The whites of its eyes weren't even white. They were black. And both were fixed solely on his baby as it approached. His daughter. It was approaching his daughter. That realization alone was more than enough to override his fear. He could start making up for being a shitty father now. By saving her from the cold hands of this monster she’d somehow managed to attract the attention of. If he could just manage that then…maybe he wasn’t such a bad father after all.  

Not even taking a moment to dwell on what he was about to do, Eito charged through the dead branches and sprinted for his daughter. The beast hadn’t reached the shore yet and hopefully it couldn’t follow them onto the land. His feet caught on branches as he ran. Tripped over rocks. His heart pounding and his legs beating into the dirt. The monster getting closer with each and every step. His gaze focused on his daughter and his daughter alone.

And he’d rather die than let her fall into the clutches of that monstrosity.

His approach evidently hadn’t been subtle because when he was just a few steps away, Machiko suddenly turned to him.

And a smile dropped from her face. “Wha- Dad?”

Eito figured she was probably in shock so he grabbed her by the hand and pulled, only to be met with resistance.

“Dad, what are you doing here?” She sounded confused, almost exasperated as she stood her ground. As the massive beast drew nearer and nearer.

He pulled a little harder but his daughter wouldn’t budge, stubborn as always. “Machiko, please. We have to get out of here! That…that thing is going to be here soon and-”

“Dad,” she interrupted, her voice even. “Calm down, okay? Look, I know what this looks like but please just trust me. Please.” She studied his face before pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand and letting out a huff. “Annnnnnnnd you’re terrified! Uh, why’d you have to pick today of all days to spy on me? I could have eased you into all of this but…” she dropped her hand with a sigh, “I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

Having said that, she turned back to the monster that was now looming over them both. Or at least, she tried to with Eito’s death grip still on her hand. A sharp panic started to overwhelm him as his eyes travelled up and up and up the wall of deep purple to see the monster’s eyes now fixed on him.

Eito found he was having a hard time breathing.

Machiko wasn’t safe. Not here.

“Okay.” Machiko began speaking nonchalantly, as if they weren’t seconds away from death. “So, Dad…this i-”

Not willing to take for granted the time the monster had wasted simply watching them, Eito cut Machiko off, pulling her away from the beast with a terrified new burst of strength and breaking into a run. Mercifully, he felt her tow along with him this time and ignored all her protests. He could get an earful of it later, when they were both safe.

But the sense of victory that had risen within him when he saw how close they were to the edge of the beach quickly diminished when, with a jolt, he heard Machiko cry out in pain. A cry that, just a few seconds later was easily drowned out by a new cry, one that was most definitely a roar; a hissing screech that was so loud Eito felt his bones rattle. Turning, he saw his daughter sprawled out on the ground. Tears in her eyes. And a chunk of rock now embedded in her leg. Blood was already starting to pool around the gash, trickling down the side of her calf and into the sand below.

Behind her, the monster had lowered its head to the ground, baring its fangs, its eyes looking furious. The scent of blood seemed to have excited the sick creature and the sight of it was beyond terrifying. As he watched, the monster reared up and slammed one of its clawed hands into the ground, shaking the earth and almost knocking him over before letting out another ear piercing shriek. Everything inside him was screaming to run. That they needed to get out of there now.

Machiko, having already wiped the tears out of her eyes, was simply watching the beast. “This isn’t going well,” was all she could say, her voice just as level as it had been before. Eito was now fully convinced that she probably couldn’t even begin to process what was happening. Which left it to him to save them both. Eito stepped forward and pulled her to her feet before she could do anything drastic. He slipped her arm over his shoulder and tried to walk forward only to be met with resistance yet again.

Thinking that maybe Machiko’s legs got caught on more debris, he turned and saw, to his absolute horror, that she was instead fully suspended in the air. Somehow, somehow, the beast had managed to grab hold of one of her legs. It was trying to take her from him.

Eito pulled with all his might, hands slick with sweat already starting to lose their grip on her. He dug his feet into the ground, tightened his grip and pulled even harder. Desperately. “LET GO OF HER!” was all he could think to yell at the creature in his hysteria. But he might as well have been yelling at a brick wall because, with a quick jerk of its hand, Machiko was cleanly pulled from his grasp, leaving her hanging upside down in the air, dangling like a ragdoll between two of the monsters fingers. This gave him the opportunity to get a good look at her face, which was somehow more perplexed than anything else, before the monster carried her upwards.

Eito watched, tears starting to well in his eyes, as the beast carried his baby up to its eyes and looked her over, probably examining its new prize. Eito found he was running out of options far too fast. Still, there was one thing he hadn’t tried yet. There was no guarantee it would work but…he sucked in a breath.

“Please,” he begged, all ferocity in his voice gone, hoping against hope that deep down the beast would have some shred of sympathy, “please, she’s my daughter. My daughter, do you hear me? She’s all I have. She…” An idea came to him and he balled his hands into fists. “T-take me instead. If it’s a human you want, then take me instead of her. Just please, please let her go.”

For a moment, the beast simply glared at him in silence as if conflicted and for a second, Eito felt just the faintest flicker of hope.

He slowly held out a hand, almost as if beckoning it. “Please.”

But as luck would have it, the monster simply let out another noise, this one long and low and guttural, almost like a warning, before turning sharply and diving back into the ocean. He could just make out his daughter’s voice as she quickly plummeted towards the water.

“WAITWAITWAIT! TA-”

And then the beast was gone, dragging his daughter down with it.

-

-

-

The boat had long since left after the display he’d put on, leaving him and his family alone yet again. But it was far too late by then. He had pulled out the shiny thing that had pierced one of his sisters but that had only served to increase the flow of red. He didn’t know what to do.

The rest of his family, now quiet, crowded around his…he wasn’t sure what the appendages were called. In them lay his sister. And though just a few minutes ago, she’d been alive and well, playing and chattering on and on just like the rest of them

She wasn’t moving anymore.

-

Machiko found herself pinned to the chest of a giant mer…just mer as he rocketed through the ocean so fast she had to wonder if it was possible to get underwater windburn. Her eyes were stinging. Her leg was screaming. Her lungs were crying. The previously mentioned mer’s heart was hammering against her, fast and hard in her ears. Overall, it was just kinda loud. And painful, of course.

…still by far not the worst experience she’d ever had.

Taro had been terrified back there on the beach. It had been easy enough for her to tell. The wide eyes. The way his pupils had narrowed to slits. The ears pressed against his head.

The tears.

Add to that the roaring and the stamping and the making himself look big and you had yourself a textbook threat display right there. Being on the receiving end of his aggression when he was usually so passive had been an…interesting experience to say the least. But while even she had to admit it had been impressive, she simply refused to be scared by someone she’d once witnessed follow a stray beach ball around for nearly two hours before accidentally inhaling it, effectively spooking him so bad she didn’t see him anywhere near the surface for the rest of the week.

Plus, the man was a sweetheart through and through. Even when he’d grabbed her, he’d been careful not to touch her injured leg. Which was why his behavior back there confused her. She’d never seen him get so worked up before. What had he been so afraid of?

And back to her current dilemma, she’d been hoping that once Taro had calmed down enough, he would remember that his passenger didn’t have gills and take them both up but as her head started to ache, she realized that unfortunately wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. She pounded on his chest, the only thing she could think to do to gain Taro’s attention in his panicked state. Luckily, he came to a stop a few seconds later and, upon seeing her pointing frantically to her nose, changed his course. They broke the surface and Machiko collapsed into his palm, taking in huge gulps of air and coughing.

Once she’d managed to compose herself just a bit more, she flipped onto her back and tried to assess her current situation. Good news first, obviously. First of all, somehow, even after all of that, her glasses were still on her face. And her jacket, which she’d left on the blanket back at the beach still had her phone tucked away safely, so that was fine too.

Next, neutral stuff. Well, by the looks of it, they were probably somewhere in the dead middle of the ocean. She had also been completely drenched. Had. She found that the constant blasts of hot air hitting her point blank were more than enough to almost completely dry her off in seconds.

Finally, bad news. For starters, that stupid rock was still in her leg. Her dad probably thought she’d just been kidnapped which…honestly fair on his part. And to add to all that, the source of the blasts of air hitting her at a near constant rate turned out to be Taro who, now that she was looking at him, appeared to be hyperventilating.

It was a sorry sight. His eyes, wide and swimming in tears and starting to glaze over, were locked on her. His mouth was partially hanging open. His ears were noticeably much droopier than they had been before. And every once in a while his breath hitched, causing his arm, and consequentially her, to jolt with the movement. Machiko felt a pang of sympathy just looking at him.

She had no idea what had upset him so much but she knew she had to do something. And while she wasn’t the best at comfort, she at least knew a thing or two about hyperventilating. She was pretty sure he needed to introduce more carbon dioxide into his system. Unfortunately, until they started making paper bags his size, she was going to have to improvise. Something big enough to cover both the nose and the mouth like…maybe a hand?

Except, he was carrying her which meant he only had one hand available. She put a hand over her own face and took a few experimental breaths. It would have to do.

“Taro!” she called up to him. Sure, he was already looking at her but he was also panicking and if this was going to work, she needed his full attention. A few calls and some frantic waving later, the mer’s brows creased just slightly. It was enough for her. “Taro! Do this!” She showed him what to do, demonstrating a few more times for good measure. Eventually, he got the message and brought a free hand up to his face as well before breathing into it as Machiko instructed him, timing his breaths with her calls until finally, his breathing returned to a relatively normal speed.

“You feelin’ any better?”

Taro closed his mouth and blinked. Then he nodded.

Machiko heaved a sigh of relief. Taro still looked like a wreak and a half but hopefully the worst of it was over. More than anything, the big guy just kinda looked like he needed a hug or something.

She managed to pull herself up and onto her feet, hissing in pain when she put weight on her injured leg. She was about to start walking towards him to attempt to give him said hug or something but stopped when out of nowhere, Taro let out a whine, leaned forward and gently pushed her over again with his nose.

“Taro.” She exclaimed, exasperated. She tried to get up again but quickly met with the same end. She shook her head at him. “Really man, what’s gotten into you lately? What’s wrong?”

The mer just watched her in silence. Machiko almost thought he wasn’t going to respond when his eyes flicked down just a bit. Surprised, Machiko followed his gaze.

Her leg. He was looking at her leg.

She pointed at the offending appendage questionably and Taro nodded before his breath hitched again.

“Oh,” was all she could think to say. All this over such a small injur…well now that she was looking at it, she could see that it wasn’t really all that small. The rock had cut quite a large gash into her calf. She figured it would be wise not to remove it for now. It was the only thing holding back the flow after all and she didn’t think bleeding out into Taro’s hand was the best move for either of them at the moment.

“…so,” she looked up to meet Taro’s eyes again, connecting the dots. “You tried to scare my dad off because…you thought he was hurting me?”

This time he cocked his head to the side and emitted song that ended on a high note, like he was asking a question.

“Which part confused you?”

Taro held up his free hand, his fingers folded so only the thumb and pinky were sticking up. Machiko counted the words of her previous sentence on her own fingers until she got to the sixth one.

“Dad?”

Taro nodded and Machiko made an educated guess.

“Yeah, that was my dad. He…I don’t know. I guess he followed me to the beach. He was rambling about dating or some-,” she paused, “…wait do you know what dating is?”

Taro blinked and shook his head.

Suck it, Dad. “Oooooh boy. Um…so…it’s kinda like…when…see, when people fall…fall in lo-” she frowned. “…actually I’ll get back to you on that. What were we talking about again…? Oh right, so anyway, he followed me to the beach and I guess when you showed up he freaked out or something. Tried to drag me away but, well you know what the place looks like. I could barely keep up with him and I wasn’t really looking where I was going and…yeah. Cracked my leg open like a damn watermelon.” She cringed a bit at the analogy. “And then you started freaking out and you scared the tits off my dad and you…,” she frowned, “…you really did all that because you thought I was in danger?”

Taro nodded.

Machiko was a bit conflicted. On one hand, the fact that Taro had gone apeshit just to get her out of what he thought was a life or death situation was downright heartwarming, honestly. He really cared about her. But on the other hand, she could only imagine what kind of hoops she’d have to jump through when they got back to convince her dad to let her keep seeing him. Or really just let her leave the house ever again.

Still, she smiled at him. “Thank you, Taro. I really really appreciate what you did back there but…it wasn’t my dad’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. It was just an accident, you know? He hadn’t meant to hurt me. It’s liiiiike…oh! Like that time you accidently destroyed my submarine! You hadn’t meant to do that either. Stuff just happens sometimes.” She paused. “…thanks for bringing me back to the shore that day, by the way.”

Taro let out a long, low song.

“Ah, don’t feel bad about that. That was on the fairies. But you get what I’m trying to say?”

He nodded but didn’t seem any less tense than before.

“The leg?”

He looked away.

Machiko sighed. Standing clearly wasn’t an option here but neither was not closing the distance between her and Taro. After some thought, she began dragging herself towards his looming face using her non injured leg and hands. This caught Taro’s attention and he watched her curiously until she reached the edge of his palm and dangled both legs over the side. Then, she beckoned for him.

He hesitated but, seeing that her injury was out of the way, eventually brought himself closer. As soon as his face was within reach, Machiko reached out and started stroking the bridge of his nose.

“Taro, I’ll be fine,” she murmured softly. “You don’t have to worry about me.” Then she smiled. “I mean come on! It’ll take more than some unwanted leg piercing to put Machiko Ichikawa out of commission!” She flexed one of her arms for effect. “A stupid rock is not going to do me in. I’m wayyyy tougher than that! ...so don’t worry about me, okay?”

Taro bumped into her affectionately and let out a short burst of high pitched song.

“Yeah see, that’s the spirit!” She wrapped both her arms around his nose and rubbed her cheek against it.

And as they stayed there, Taro eventually starting to purr from the physical contact, the actual severity of the situation slowly started to dawn on Machiko.

“…shit, what if he calls the cops or something?” she muttered, face still pressed to the now vibrating colossus. “And when he finds out this whole thing was just a huge misunderstanding…oooooh Dad’s gonna kill me.”

Taro let out another whine and pressed into her.

“It’s a figure of speech!”

-

Eito was a little overwhelmed, to say the least. Having just gone through the grief of losing his one and only daughter to forces far beyond his control or even his understanding, getting ridiculed by the very authorities he’d tried to ask for help, and then getting hit by the stark realization that he was now truly alone in this world, the scene that had unfolded before him was just too much.

For as he’d stood, frozen, the very monster that had heartlessly stolen his baby had returned from the depths, deposited his still alive and well daughter back onto the picnic blanket, emitted a long string of off-whale noises and was currently face down on the beach in front of him.

Machiko, alive and well, watched the scene calmly from her spot on the blanket. “Taro says he’s sorry for scaring the shit out of you,” she stated nonchalantly, digging into her half finished meal. “He’s being a little dramatic about it though.”

Eito Ichikawa, master of none, respected businessman and father of one, fainted.