#Myth Reads The Naming

[feroluce]

On Sampo's name (ALL of his names!)

I feel like everyone who's a fan knows the meaning of Sampo's full name by now- the sampo was a legendary item that could magically make endless supplies of gold, flour, and salt, all priceless items at the time! So it works perfectly for a scammer businessman like Sampo. ☆

"Koski" is the Finnish word for "water rapids" which might seem kinda random but actually makes sense for him, since Aha and the Masked Fools are also referred to with water terms:

This kind of analogy isn't specific to only Aha and the Masked Fools, but it does still tie them together. So water rapids fits perfectly! Sampo wants to stir the pot! He likes to shake things around and spice things up! He's taking that stagnant pool and turning it into water rapids! It would actually explain his ridiculous hair color, too; a dark blue wave tipped with white foam haha

EDIT: an amazing contribution from @ricochetlovebombs, who heard it from hoyolab user Rattaboy. If you interpret his first and last name together, instead of separately like I did, you would get something like "money river."

In other words, Sampo's name literally means CASH FLOW SKXJMDMDMD

What I really wanted to talk about is his drag alias name, though, Brughel Poisson, because to me that's where it gets really interesting.

So like in the English version, Sampo goes by Brughel Poisson when he's in disguise. Searching for just "Brughel" itself doesn't seem to get you much at first: a Flemish and Dutch Renaissance painter named Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who was famous for his landscapes and peasant scenery, especially Hunters in the Snow and The Blue Cloak.

He's referred to as "the Elder" because he had a son also named Pieter Brueghel (the Younger), and he began a long line of painters, all named Brueghel. Some of them did original work, and many of them created reproductions of the Elder's art to sell. The Elder was also famous as a printmaker. All of this is hilarious when you remember that Sampo is an infamous counterfeiter and has sold a relic called the Parallel Universe Printer JSKZJSMD

There is also something called Brueghel's Syndrome, named after one of Brueghel's paintings called De Gaper, which pictured a man yawning widely. It's a condition that causes the mouth to open and gape uncontrollably, twisting a person's countenance into a distorted mask of their usual face.

Tumblr doesn't have a way of censoring pics like twitter, so for the sake of the medically squeamish, I'm just showing De Gaper here. But if you look up Brueghel's Syndrome, you can find pictures of actual patients, some of whom really do make faces resembling Aha's comedy and tragedy masks!

In the Chinese and Japanese versions, his alias last name is a lot more silly- In those, "Sampo" is phonetically written as "san-bo" and "san-po." And in disguise, his last names are phonetically written as... "Bo-san" and "Po-san." The Chinese version uses different tones, but still. This smug asshole seriously just decided to write his own name backwards and called it a day NDMKXMDMD

In the English version, Poisson itself is kind of a reused Hoyo asset- it's also the name of Navia's fishing village in Genshin Impact. Which is a really silly name for a village, because it literally just means "fish" in French smzjxkdkdk but!

Again, more water imagery. And in English, if something is suspicious, we say that it's "fishy," which is perhaps the most fitting association yet for someone as shady as Sampo ☆

And for a good while I thought that was the only connection. But then. My beloved @hydrachea, who is an actual native French speaker, dropped this on me right after April Fool's Day:

Poisson is literally the word you use to pull an April Fool's prank.

[chucktaylorupset]

haha annual touden sibling fight to decide who got to name the dogs. do you ever think about what a colossal failure of parenting it is to sit back and let your children duke it out when you have the power to implement the obvious solution of having them alternate turns.

"laios named more of the dogs" of course he did. pov youre falin and you want something and it doesnt matter because your brother who is three years older than you is holding you down. he is three years older and he's bigger, and he always will be

like i dont at all think that laios like, physically hurt his sister in these fights or that either sibling remember these as traumatic but like i do think this had to teach falin that her desires didnt matter because when she was small she had something she wanted and it wasnt fair that she never got it and nobody fucking cared

and laios didnt care cause he was a fucking child and, while a caring person, not naturally empathetic. he wanted to name the dog! Its not either of the siblings fault that their dad, like with the mythical significance of the dog names, just did shit and never fucking explained any of it to them

anyway i think if the touden siblings fought again falin would 100% kick laios ass. girl is slanging a lamp post like it has the weight of a pool noodle, and more importantly, both she and laios think laios is going to win so while he's doing older sibling bullshit like making sure he doesnt hurt her, she is haymakering him at a 100% strength and whatever happen happens she can piece together his jaw and heal it after the fact

[fumifooms]

Thinking about them…

[hogoflight]

Maybe Apollo still keeps his journals from when he initially started discovering medicine and (depending on the way you look at it) they are either very worrying or the FUNNIEST thing ever.

#1:

Oh boy Artemis and I are gonna try out this technique I saw in the future where you cut a body and take out all the bad stuff then sew it back up and then they’re good as new!

#2:

WARNING: THE GOO NEEDS TO STAY IN

(don’t worry they gave them anaesthetic beforehand and they’re completely fine afterwards they fix them up and now they have special rapid healing powers and also their own lil religion thing going on!)

[dramatic-dolphin]

genuinely hate modern "greek myth retellings" and stuff about greek mythology by people who are not greek 👍 not to go all "cultural appropriation" on this, it's obviously possible and allowed to write about greek myths if you're not greek, but i still think we should collectively stop until everyone understands that this is the cultural heritage of a people that Still Exist (!!!) and you can't just divorce them from the historical and cultural context that gave birth to them. like they are not just ideas formed from nothing. there's cultural context.

[gingermintpepper]

I saw it in your tag game post that you're also fond of the Apollo-Heracles conflict 👀 for a myth that appears in only a couple of sources, it sure has a lot of presence in the vase paintings (no seriously, everytime I think I've seen the last of it, I find ten more)

SO do you have any favorites among the paintings that represent this story??

OMG OMG THIS ASK IS A GIFT. IT IS A GIFT THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LETTING ME TALK ABOUT THIS

I also think it's extremely interesting that it's a story so popularly portrayed by vase paintings and in such a variety of ways!! It's certainly one of the stories that gets left out of written compilation of Heracles' legend a bit (which is a shame, I think it's a fantastic story) but Apollo had a very peculiar relationship with Heracles in general that I just kind of find amazing (and very, very funny).

Apollo is not a god with any legitimate grudge against Heracles, but he does argue with the mortal a bit like he argues with his favourite brothers 😂Part of why I love the story of Apollo and Heracles fighting over the tripod so much is that it is such a little brother thing for Heracles to be upset with the proclamation his elder brother has given him and so, he throws a great fit, taking up the chair and declaring that he'll just give himself a better prophecy! And Apollo, instead of being a marginally professional big brother, decides to fight him for it until their father has to break up their cat-fight. Like was that not just the plot of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes? Is this not exactly how Apollo treated Hermes when he was a child and now those two are inseparable? 💀

Because of this, my favourite vase paintings tend to be the ones that highlight the personal squabbling between Apollo and Heracles the most. There are some very elaborate ones that have the full host of them - Athena, Heracles, Apollo, Artemis, usually a dog and a doe, I've even seen a couple that had birds and plants etched on them, but the simplest ones that show Heracles about to bonk Apollo with his club out of frustration or depict Heracles nyooming away from Apollo while Apollo (presumably) yells curses about how he's going to fling Heracles head first into Tartarus for daring to take his things? Yeah, those are the premium big brother/little brother things I'm looking for.

(Photo. Marie-Lan Ngyuen)

(Photo. Museo Claudio Faina)

Also the one in the Theoi.com archives is a real classic - perfect energy.

[spiderbirdo]

me tearing my hair out about wangxian selkie aus cuz CRANE MAIDEN MYTH EXISTS IN CHINESE MYTHOLOGY!!!!!!!

celestial fairy comes down to earth and sheds her feather cloak and becomes a beautiful woman, she and her sisters bathe in a river and a man peeks at them, he steals one cloak and all the fairies scatter except for one. She is forced to marry him and they have babies. her child later tells her where the man is hiding her robe, she takes it and flies away, later she comes back with new cloaks for her children and they all leave. the end.

ITS BASICALLY THE SAME AS SELKIES BUT YKNOW ACTUALLY ACCURATE TO THE CULTURE

[sarafangirlart]

Flirting vs harassment

[pelideswhore]

Odysseus: This is such a bad idea.

Diomedes: Then why are you coming along?

Odysseus: One of us needs to be able to talk the cops out of arresting us when this inevitably goes wrong.

[veloursdor]

kiss prompt! "shut up" (affectionately) 🧡

i reblogged it for you, but thank you for sending me a kiss prompt. after ten days of not writing a word, this helped out a lot 🤍

set in padakin days, i don't think i made it as 'affectionately' as the prompt asked for, but i still hope you like it!

(850 words)

“Anakin, shut up,” Obi-Wan said for what felt like the thousandth time, his headache becoming more aggravating as Anakin continued to pout and frown in the corner of their room.

“But, Master…” Anakin said before a glare from Obi-Wan silenced him completely. Anakin crossed his arms above his chest as he slumped into his seat and Obi-Wan fought back the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. 

Negotiations weren’t happening as smoothly as he had hoped, because the longer he tried to charm and convince the Queen of Acteon to join the Republic once and for all, the longer her Majesty ignored him instead, choosing rather shallowly to preoccupy her time and attention with batting her eyelashes at his very young Padawan instead. 

Obi-Wan had had a headache for days, which had nothing to do with Anakin being perceived as beautiful and everything to do with the Queen being focused on everything but the meetings they had to get her to listen. He was growing tired of being away from the Temple for so long, missing the tranquillity of the Room of a Thousand Fountains and the peace it brought to his soul whenever he meditated alongside Anakin, everyone else far away from their reach.

“But, Master, I know how we can…”

“What part of ‘shut up’ is the one you don’t understand?” Obi-Wan asked, exasperated, Anakin’s callous attitude regarding Obi-Wan’s authority grating on his nerves. He knew Anakin was more powerful than him in the Force, something that kept him up at night in his moments of most doubt, but he was still the Master and Anakin was still the young Padawan who needed a Master to guide him.

And both Qui-Gon, and possibly the Force itself, had chosen Obi-Wan to be the guiding hand of Anakin Skywalker.

“Master, but I know…”

“I require at least five minutes of your silence, Padawan, something I’m sure you can give me,” Obi-Wan said in a fake saccharine tone, swallowing the desire to turn his voice mocking as he spoke to Anakin. “Or are you so, so desperate to speak and be heard that you care nothing for the headache I have?”

“I’m sorry, Master,” Anakin said, his cheeks covered by a red blush that blended with his golden skin, “I’ll keep quiet.”

But Anakin Skywalker knew nothing of patience or quietness, and Obi-Wan knew that better than most, for as soon as Anakin uttered those words, their bond began flooding with scattered thoughts of Anakin’s anger towards him.

“I know better… He never listens… I know what the Queen… if only she could… I bet I could get her to...”

Images of Anakin flirting back, albeit abysmally and with no finesse, flooded his mind, with the Queen blushing prettily as she twirled a curl of her hair in her index finger while one of her delicate hands placed itself atop of Anakin’s arms. Obi-Wan’s insides burned with a feeling he wasn’t willing to look closely, and before he knew it he had crossed the room in three strides and pushed his Padawan against the wall.

The Padawan braid hung loosely and fell onto Anakin’s shoulders, and while every other time he looked at Anakin his attention inevitably fell to it, at the present time, with Anakin pressed against the wall and his red lips trapped between his teeth, Obi-Wan tugged at the Padawan braid with force, closing the distance between them before capturing Anakin’s lips in a searing kiss.

He held Anakin’s chin between his thumb and index fingers as his tongue mapped the inside of Anakin’s mouth, licking at his teeth and tongue and swallowing the prettiest moan his Padawan let out. Obi-Wan pressed himself hard against Anakin, and continued kissing him with everything he had.

He separated himself from Anakin when he felt his Padawan clawing at his robes, asking through their bond for oxygen in his lungs. Obi-Wan pressed his forehead against Anakin’s, their breaths mixing together. 

As they regained their breathes, Obi-Wan was surprised to notice that, for the first time since they had become Master and Padawan, Anakin’s mind was peaceful, devoid of any thought, and while Obi-Wan adored Anakin and his brightful mind, he couldn’t help but appreciate how the quietness helped ease his pounding headache. But when his Padawan began making needy little noises, asking Obi-Wan for more kisses, he knew that he wasn’t strong enough to stop himself from pressing a small kiss to the corner of Anakin’s lips.

“I guess if you won’t shut up by yourself, I’ll have to find other ways to keep you quiet when I’m trying to think, my young Padawan.”

“Yes, Master,” Anakin said, looking down at the ground, his cheeks red with embarrassment, as if he truly was an obedient Padawan that listened and respected his Master.

“Oh, Anakin, what am I going to do with you?” he murmured before once again pressing a kiss to Anakin’s lips, an innocent little thing that became more passionate as all thoughts of Queens and treaty negotiations flew out of his mind.

He continued the kiss with the sole goal to quiet Anakin’s mind until his brain no longer had any more thoughts besides Obi-Wan’s name. 

[multi-bookworm]

Greek myths teach us more about the natural order of humans and the seven deadly sins than the bible does.

[soni-dragon]

HELLO???

[avelera]

As the weird mythology-obsessed kid growing up, I have countless times been disappointed by how little most people know about mythology, even in spaces where I thought people SHOULD know a bit more than the basics. (Namely, college level writing classes. Not just the students, but the teachers. At a top 20 liberal arts college. Literally just. Actual literature professors of mine not knowing relatively known stories like that Aphrodite cheated on Hephaestus with Ares. Reader, I was gobsmacked.)

The fact is, at least in the US, your average person on the street, NOT ON TUMBLR, but I mean like actually outside this bubble, doesn’t know much mythology. They might know Zeus, or Hercules, or “Mighty Aphrodite” based on recent TV shows or the Disney movies or the aforementioned song.

I’m reminded of this XKCD comic which really nails it:

This also applies to mythology. More people than you, the reader of this, probably don’t know who Orpheus and Eurydice are than you might think. Hadestown returned those names to the sort of mainstream and even THAT niche of musical theater is still, well, pretty damn niche.

Thor 3 has Zeus in it, and Hercules, and obviously Thor. But the Thor franchise is wildly inaccurate to actual Norse mythology is probably the biggest influx of mainstream knowledge of mythology where you MIGHT be able to talk to the average person about who, say, Loki is. But it’s doubtful they’d know a single historically accurate myth, unless MAYBE they’d also played God of War. But again, these are still very nerdy niches within the general mainstream culture.

I dunno. Maybe there’s no point to this. Just that sometimes I see people on here, especially in the Sandman fandom, kind of surprised by mythological knowledge not being more widespread. But in my personal experience, even in very nerdy circles, it very often really, REALLY isn’t.

[encrucijada]

hello white woman writer. i would like you to write a medusa retelling that does not include 1) her getting assaulted by poseidon, 2) athena cursing her for getting assaulted, 3) perseus as the villain. you may not use ovid's metamorphoses as a source. good luck

[messy-nyks]

The Fernweh Saga by @lacunafiction - Davor edition

I-I think Ms. Verner doesn't like him...😳

Davor "Dove" Kovač 🐝 RO: Becca Warrick

Personality: cautious // aloof // pessimistic // flirtatious (only towards Becca ...and Reese??) Traits: head // independent // resistance // believer Past affinity: math Primary ability: extrasensory awareness Past susceptibility: forward. 'it’s better to push forward. don’t look back on the past when you have new places to be and things to achieve.' <<< his motto

🕊️ Fernweh: Davor lived a happy life there and didn't think about leaving in the future. Maybe for some trips, but he knew it would always be his place, his safe place... 'It was a mistake to come back here.' - that was his first thought when he tried to fall asleep on the first night in Fernweh. The nightmares came back as he thought they would. He wants to leave as soon as possible because he feels that it is not safe for Becca to be here.

🕊️ Gramps Dan: That was his gramps who taught Davor how to play the guitar. As a young child, Davor always admired him and believed he was the most intelligent person in the world. After the death of his parents and how his grandfather treated him, he was devastated and angry. He wanted answers soo badly but didn't get any. He lived loathing his grandfather ever since. The news of his passing stirred up a lot of negative emotions that Davor had previously managed to suppress. At the beginning of the story he couldn't care less about his grandfather, but because of his journal he started to believe him. Things that his granfather lived through made Davor even more angry at this messy town …but he's willing to forgive his gramps…

🐝 Becca Warrick: It was a ...funny story that brought both of them together and they look after each other ever since. He considers Becca as his precious (not in a negative-possessive way) treasure, he literally can't let anything bad happen to her. That was also she who came up with the nickname 'Dove'... (and she's literally the only person who calls him that, others wouldn't dare...). He had feelings for her for quite some time but didn't act on it... until now. Although he didn't express it, he felt very nervous about Becca being in the town where he grew up. He was curious (but also scared) about what she could think of this town. He felt like he was revealing more of himself to her…. and he forgot about any worries pretty fast, because the town started being weird as fu--.

🕊️ Reese Verner: Back then Davor was quite cheerful and enjoyed competing with Reese regularly. They teased each other a lot. Davor always thought that Reese had a crush on him, was it true tho? donut know, but he certainly had. ...why does he appear in his nightmares? Maybe the crush stage never disappeared...? Seeing him again was a nice experience, sure... but ignoring the circumstances, he is still unsure if it was worth it and is struggling with his thoughts… Would it be worth it to return to Fernweh just to see him... again? welp, good thing he doesn't have to think about it much, am I right?

🕊️ Sofia Dorran: The two of them maybe did not have a strong relationship, but he knew Sofia is the ideal person for engaging in intelligent conversations. He enjoyed spending time with her, solving the puzzles that gramps created for them both. Davor wasn't a fan of fantasy books, but she managed to change his mind about them. Davor knows that Sofia did take good care of his grandfather, but he still doesn't quite know if he's grateful for that or wished she spent her time more... valuably... He was tempted to ask Sofia to borrow that book she found in his grandfather's bedroom, but he thought better of it. It's better to leave Fernweh… Even so, his curiosity wasn't properly fed.

🕊️ James Corvin: Maybe not brothers by blood, but definitely brothers by choice. Davor treated him as if he was the brother he always wanted to have. Back then Davor always placed a high value on his family… until now. At the time, Davor tended to be more impulsive and James was usually the one who kept him from getting into trouble (which often involved Reese). It was really hard, for both of them, to see each other after so long. Their first interaction was pretty awkward... I would even say that most of their interactions were . James noticed how Davor changed the question is: for the better or worse? I don't even know. Everyone can sense, that things around them are different now, and they aren't as close as before. Will it change?

🕊️ Alek Corvin: …To say that Alek wasn't a fan of Davor would be an understatement. Was it because James spent most of his time focusing only on Davor trying to get him out of trouble? Did Alek observe any possessiveness from Davor towards James? Or maybe simply because of the bond between those two, which was truly something that others would envy and desire? Davor never considered it, especially when he left Fernweh permanently. :)) As you can imagine, Alek doesn't seem very happy about Davor's return… But he took an interest in his new friend, Becca, which did not go unnoticed by Davor and he isn't really happy about it.

🕊️ The Waitress: Oh boy, it seems that Davor has taken up a new hobby, which is glaring harshly at the waitress. He finds her mistrustful and he smells trouble. Had they met when he was younger, there may have been a slim chance of them getting along.

🕊️ Waffles!: So um… Davor has a little issue with dogs and because of that his relationship with Waffles isn't as wonderful as I wish it would be... However, I believe that with time and help from Becca, they will eventually become friends.

[galindathegay]

OPI's naming of these bothers me, but I can't put my finger on why.

Is Fiyero's blue because of his diamond tattoos? and Munchkinland's yellow because of the Yellow Brick Road?

...then where are his diamond tattoos in the film? and wasn't the Yellow Brick Road torn up at some point after Nessa isolated Munchkinland? (Maybe I'm making up that last bit, but I'm 99% sure Munchkinland got annexed in Wicked lore, so there was a push in the Country to tear the Road up brick by brick.)

Okay, then maybe the colors were picked from this map.

...except Munchkinland (blue) is in the East. So this map is (infamously) inversed.

I'm not buying these because I don't wear nail polish so I'm not exactly complaining. I just have Questions for Marketing, is all.