#names have power

[daughterofthemuse]

Yeah, there's no way Sally would name Percy after Ἀχιλλεύς (Achilles), and a fic I read had her considering Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseus) as a first name, for the reasons OP said.

So I can 100% see Sally naming Percy "Perseus Ulysses Jackson"

abt percy jackson's middle name - a long post

let's talk about percy's middle name, its implication and what is my headcanon for it!!

first a warning!! i know very little abt actual greek mithology. i've tried to read my copy of odyssey and illiad a total of 10 times and i CANNOT for my life understand that shit. having said that, my mythos knowledge is based on hours on wikipedia sources pages, greek miths articles and more. anyways, this will have spoilers of the Percy Jackson Universe by Rick Riordan.

having been warned, I should start with one point:

percy doesn't have a middle name in canon. From what we've known it's never mentioned a middle name at all, wich is not very uncommon in the PJO universe, as most character do not have one (from the top of my head the only ones that canonically have one are Rachel and Reyna (Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano))

BUT in most fandom fanfics that feature his middle name, he is called Perseus Achilles Jackson. Again, it is not canon, but it is so common that most people think it is true. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense.

It's canon that Sally was the one that named Percy, and she chose Perseus, a son of Zeus, as her choice because he was one of the only Greek heroes that in most versions of the myths get to live a long and relatively happy life after their adventures. From what I've known most times Perseus dies of old age or ascends as a constellation along with his mother and his wife, Andromeda.

Now, what are the implications that we know of?

this will be mostly speculation and head canons, so beware!!

i don't think Rick Riordan ever stated, but it is possible to draw parallels between Percy and Annabeth with Perseus and Andromeda, essentially in their first quest, even more in the series. The same is possible to associate with other characters with names derived from Greek myths.

and, until now, all of Percy's quest he has come back alive, even if the world was ending or if he has gone trough Tartarus, he has come back alive.

As it stands in canon, it's often said that names have power !! saying gods, monsters or others names will call their attention, or give them power. it could be associated that those names with History, or a Legacy HAVE more power and purpose behind them. Ex: Castor and Pollux, Jason, could even say Leo etc.

that is great, and reforces that its possible Sally did something right about the naming.

now, next part is a FULL BLOWN HEAD CANON!!

to me, his full name is Perseus Ulysses Jackson. let me tell you why.

Ulysses = Odysseus

Ulysses comes from Odysseus, yes, the Greek hero hated by Poseidon from the Odyssey. Why would Sally do that? Same reason of why Perseus.

Odysseus, despite all his Odyssey, came back home. In the Odyssey, is said he will live the rest of his life peacefully, and apparently he lived mor 10 years as Ithaca's King. There is another myth where he is killed by his son with Circe, but ignore that for this post.

I think it would make sense for the way they both lived that even if Poseidon hated him, that Sally would have her son named after a hero and a general that even after everything he went trough he still made home, still had people who believed in him, even if Sally herself were not there to see him, like Odysseus' mother, at least he would be alive.

Someone that is selfish in a way if that means he lives. In the same way Sally calls herself selfish for trying to have Percy with her for more time during the years before TLT. For that she endured Gabe.

Not that she knew that of course, but the fates could be at work. I'm always fan of a good foreshadowing.

Now Speaking of foreshadowing, next topic

2. Ulysses - Roman name

Ulysses is the roman version of Odysseus, still has the same meaning and the roman version of the myth is not that different. Why roman, then?

First, because my Odyssey copy was with the Roman names and I was very pissed at that when I was 12 and tried reading it for the first time and discovered that the FUCKING ODYSSEY MAN WAS NOT CALLED ODYSSEUS IN MY VERSION, to my frustration.

ANYWAY, second point: Percy has a connection to the Roman since the first book.

In his classes with Chiron, Percy fights in Roman armor, swords and has Latin classes, and while that is all good and cool, i always found it strange of Chiron to teach Latin, and not Greek. Of course, it could be a ruse of Chiron to distance Percy even more from his greek side, while still helping him learn about the world. it could be nothing.

but to me is not nothing.

Percy has a weird facility with Latin at 12 that Jason did not have with Greek at 16. And while it could be argued that they did not have their memories, Percy was a 12 yo boy that CURSED IN LATIN in a time of distress. I bet they did not have classes about "How to curse in Latin" and i doubt Percy searched for that somewhere.

Percy is very connected with the Roman side of the demigod world, he feels drawn to New Rome, goes to the Roman Uni and he gets so wrapped in it he becomes PREATOR in like a week!! while Jason spent months on the Greek side.

Percy has a lot of participation in Both sides of the demigods being a kinda important figure in both camps.

now, a subtopic.

Percy Jackson: Son of Neptune

Percy is presented as a son of Neptune from the get go in camp Jupiter, wich he doesn't protest at any time (from what i remember), the thing is Poseidon IS different from Neptune specially their roots.

Poseidon is primarily the god of the sea. Neptune is the god of rivers, springs, and waters.

Technically, Percy should not have control of any type of water or rivers, his father is the god of SEA, saltwater. Even then, he can control even the rivers in the Underworld. He has such control of "water" that he can control ALL LIQUIDS! That is not Poseidon's domain, the control of Waters is Neptune's.

knowing this i like to believe the following.

Percy is the son of both Poseidon and Neptune. Don't ask me the logistics, i wouldn't know, and i don't care. HOWEVER when you add things up, it makes sense, in my head, at least.

In conclusion, Sally associates her son's fate with two heroes that go trough MANY hardships but get back home, are strong and live kind of happy lives after that. One of them is mainly Greek, being his first name, what he is primarily called. The other is Roman, it is there, but it's not mentioned, but it still is his name, and it gives him power.

Specially, when you think that the roman counterparts all have a child, except Neptune. Pluto has Hazel, Hades had Bianca and Nico. Jupiter had Jason, Zeus has Thalia. Poseidon has Percy, Neptune has no one? seems unequal and unbalanced in a way the gods wouldn't allow.

Not only that but why would Neptune "claim" or let be claimed a son that wasn't his when Rome hasn't been grateful or careful with him? His last child was scorned (i don't remember the name but it's said that they were basically blamed for earthquakes or something in the 1900)

as the series goes and percy draws MUCH MORE POWER from rivers and other liquids than from the ocean, and the time it took for percy to be born he could be powerful from both sides. he is the first demigod of Poseidon in 70+ years, but he is the first demigod rrom Neptune in 100+ !!!

it makes sense that even if he is called a greek, as his name evokes, he is connected and powerful on his Roman side. It is not a coincidence that people thought he was a god when he first arrived in Camp Jupiter.

It's a tribute for both his Roman and Greek sides, to invoke the names and fates of two powerful kings that are burdened with responsibility, and that learned and lived after their quests.

i could talk about this for hours, specially if Epic's Odysseus by Jorge Rivera-Herrans is taken in account (wich I am doing) but I will not elaborate

anyway, Percy's middle name is Ulysses and I'm right, idc.

[spacedace]

John Constantine knew what he was. Knew he wasn’t a good man. He tried, sometimes. Got credit for it more often than he should. But at the end of the day, he was a bastard of the highest sort and nothing was going to change that fact. A rogue and a rake through and through. He lied, he cheated, he stole, and delighted in doing so. Cut from the same cloth as ol’ Stingy Jack who tricked the devil into letting him live longer than he should and managed to keep himself out of hell to boot after he’d finally shuffled off his mortal coil. John liked to think his cloth had been sewn into a much sharper suit though. He’d been clever enough to avoid the dying altogether, no carrying around smoldering turnips in the bleak between of closed-off afterlives for him, thanks. He was a charlatan and a scoundrel, and many, many worse things besides. John knew what he was. The woman who appeared in his dank and stinking flop house room in the middle of the night knew what he was too.

The Wild Hunt calls. For better or worse, John Constantine answers.

-

Chapter 6 is up! 😄

[deliajackson]

There are so many names for fem!Percy. Usually I don't go searching for it, but whenever I come across a good fic with it, i read it, and let me tell you, I love the authors creativity when they decide the name.

More popular:

Persephone (Greek - Bringer of Death)

Persea (Italian/Latin - Destroyer)

Rhea (Greek - Flowing)

Least Popular Names

Kore (Greek - Maiden)

Cordelia (Welsh - Heart/Daughter of the Sea -god. Fun fact "Delia" in greek means "Girl From Delos" and most likely was an epithet of Lady Artemis)

[chubbybunny25]

— Percy actually loves all his names and nicknames. It is a symbol of his mother's love.

— As a child, Percy was bullied because he had a girl's name. And the adults thought that Sally really wanted a daughter.

— Gods, monsters, and as a result, everyone else somehow believed that his full name was Perseus, although he never said it.

— As a child, Sally called Percy "Meddie"/"Dea". Percy is his normalized and more "boyish" nickname, which appeared much later.

— Jason calls Percy "My belover Medea" or just "Medea". He also used childhood nicknames authored by Sally.

— Piper and Leo first learned Percy's first name and it caused them no better associations.

I really can't get over the Jason calling Percy "My beloved Medea" part 😭 I dunno when they're supposed to meet in this AU, whether Jason meets Percy or the real Medea first, but I can just imagine Jason thinking "This sorceress has nothing compared to my Medea."

I think, for Percy, meeting Jason makes him love his name even more, and heal what wounds people inflicted upon Percy in regards to his name. In a world of cruel people, he found his Jason, and really, there's already a great story behind his name, but somehow, being with Jason just gives Percy's name and nickname a greater meaning.

Whereas Sally giving him those names was a sign of survival in the past, Jason being there turns it into a symbol of hope, of a soft life they can live together in the future because they fought and survived together—they'll always have each other.

Jason Grace and Medea Persephatta Jackson are living proof that history and myths won't decide their fate. They're heroes, not puppets, and so they'll choose to live their names according to what makes them the happiest—together.

[jeannefostergoriot]

“Name have power in the PJO universe”, I give you the fact that I’m a clown who never realized Piper was named like this cause she plays pipe with her voice. In the second sense. She tells lies and stories and hypnotizes people, she’s a piper. I’m a clown. Cause the meaning exist in French quite literally (“jouer du pipeau”/“pipeauter” so literally “play pipes”, means lying with complex stories), cause I’ve been told since very young that Pfif in Alsatian is pipe/flute. I knew it.

But I computed only today.

[non-cannon]

I may have come up with the saddest House of Anubis AU. It's based on the ancient Egyptian concept of a name having power and being part of someone's soul. And loosing your name and being forgotten was a bad thing (which is why so many pharaohs tried to literately erase the names of the pharaohs that came before them).

While I believe this was mostly in regards to the afterlife, what if you lost your name while still alive? What if Nina lost her name while she was alive? What if some demon stole her name the summer before season three, and everyone forgot her?

One day over the summer Nina gets into a fight with this demon, and loses. And the demon takes her name. Now she still remembers that her name is Nina Martin, so she doesn't really understand what it did to her until she gets home, and her gran doesn't recognize her. Her gran looks at her and sees a stranger. Nina tries to explain, but her gran insists that she never had a granddaughter, that her son and daughter-in-law tragically died before they could have kids.

Nina keeps trying, but every time she says her name, Evelyn forgets her all over again. Nina eventually gives up, and steals her stuff. Which is easy because every time Evelyn stops looking at the stuff she forgets it's existence.

Every email and message Nina tries to send her friends goes unread and only sometimes deleted because they don't know anyone with that name, and forget about the message the moment they stop looking. Every phone call goes to voicemail, on suspicion of being spam.

Nina tries to go to England directly in hopes that Sibuna could still help, and she is able to get her passport, but gets arrested for having a fake id. She walks out when they forget her. Her attempt to book a flight fail as the airline forgets her reservation.

For Sibuna's part they know something happened the last two years, but the details don't quite line up if they think about it too hard, but they never do. They still get involved in the mystery, though. Eddie can remember that a paragon/chosen one exists, but nothing else beyond that. And when the Osirian dies, he forgets that too. KT has too move Nina's stuff out of her room herself because she's the only one who can even remember the stuff exists after looking away. She asks about it, but no one understands.

Eventually Nina learns that she can use a fake name, and people will remember it and her. And after a couple of years she even manages to get a job and an apartment, but it's been a painful lonely struggle. She was only able to get the apartment with a roommate. Just to make it worse later, let's say the roommate is KT.

KT doesn't talk about Sibuna, and Nina doesn't talk about herself at all. Even with all the secrecy they fall in love anyway. KT knows Nina is hiding things from her, and isn't happy, but knows she would be a hypocrite to say anything, and lets it go. Or she does until KT meets up with some friends from high school (Sibuna) and Nina freaks out.

KT demands answers. Nina tells KT that she will forget if Nina explains. KT insists that she won't forget, and even if she forgets Nina's true name she won't forget everything that they had with the fake name. KT also insists that she and Sibuna can help. Nina breaks down crying, and whispers her names.

KT stares at her blinking for a couple of seconds, and then starts screaming, demanding to know why a strange woman is crying next to her on her couch. A heart broken Nina apologizes, and leaves, and gives KT her name again as she closes the door behind her. A confused KT doesn't remember standing up, or having anyone in her apartment at all.

A few more years later, Sibuna has reunited, and find themselves trying to solve a mystery involving the demon that took Nina's name. Nina is there, trying to get her name back. She only introduces herself as the Paragon to them. And does everything she can to not get close, to not let them know that while she's a stranger them, they're not strangers to her. It hurts though. It's not easy.

Eventually they come to the final confrontation. Nina realizes the only way to take down the demon would kill her too. And at she's fine with this, death would be better than being forgotten alive. But she doesn't want the others to be there, lest they try to stop it or get hurt. So she calls out her name, and then tells the others to run. And they don't know where they are, or how they got there, but this stranger just told them to run, so they do.

But they return, because they're Sibuna, of course they do. And they find Nina's body. And they remember her, and they remember forgetting her. They remember because the demon knew it was over and decided to do the cruelest thing it could think as its last action. It gave Nina her name back. It let her loved ones remember her, just in time to morn her.

[ratguy-nico]

Looook at my babieeeeeeees -im siginng- they are not longer blorbos just rough scketches -not siging-

I post this, one... cause i want to, two cause I forget to mention I need a big round of aplause for @sailoreuterpe who came up with the frincking best ship name of all for my babies

I love how this woman tag damn I wish i could tag like this

I love Galex for them, we finally have a name I LOVE THIS

and with Courtney is even more perfect

I will always envy creative people cause I can't come up with this kind of thing even to save my life :D

[areyoudreaminof]

with my fingers burned, I start anew: A Lady of Autumn One Shot.

“Come on!” she heard a giggle on the wind. She turned her head, the movement slow as she took in the deep green and bronze of the trees surrounding her. These oaks and junipers meant they were still in Autumn, but the borders of Summer. 

She had not been to these woods since she was a girl. She was dreaming, then. 

She searched ahead for the voice when she heard it again. “You’re being too slow! We must get going!” 

She knew that voice, and she knew the deep auburn hair and the golden bow. Mathilde waited for her under a juniper tree. Fearless and wild Mathilde, her older sister. She gasped as a ruddy cheeked young girl, with bright copper hair, approached her and grabbed her hand. Her younger sister, Delphine met her eyes, more golden than her own. They were women when they died, she thought absently, and now they came to her as younglings again. 

“Thérèse, hurry!” 

Her heart skipped a beat, threatening to wake her. She had not heard her name in centuries.

Where are we going? She tried to ask, but she could not speak. So instead she ran with her sisters. Mathilde led the way as she used to, her hair a deep red sheet behind her. Delphine never let go of her hand as they ran ahead. The trees thinning, green threading through oranges and brown. She was moving, but she could not feel her feet touch the ground. If she had any doubts she was dreaming, they ended there as she seemed to leap across the forest floor. Mathilde slowed to a stop, approaching a path carved between rows of aspen trees, sunlight filtered through their golden leaves, their white trunks stretching high. 

“Thérèse, you’re too far behind. We’ll never make it.” Mathilde scolded, Deplhine tugged her hand, as she whispered, “It’s time to go Thérèse.”

She was Wife, she was Lady, she was Mother. But she had not been Thérèse in a very, very long time. 

Continue on ao3

taglist: @acourtofladydeath @autumndreaming7 @asnowfern @bagelfyre @c-e-d-dreamer @foundress0fnothing @goddess-aelin @hugeclearjellyfish @itsthedoodle@kataravimes-of-the-shire @krem-does-stuff @lidiacervos @labellefleur-sauvage @melting-houses-of-gold @melphss @mossytrashcan @popjunkie42-blog @panicatthenightcourt @reverie-tales @spell-cleavers @sassyhobbits @separatist-apologist @secret-third-thing @thesistersarcheron @thelovelymadone @the-lonelybarricade @ultadverb @velidewrites @vulpes-fennec @ofduskanddreams @octobers-veryown @xtaketwox @houseofhurricane @ablogofsapphicpanic @iftheshoef1tz @damedechance @wilde-knight @fieldofdaisiies

[muppetjokernumberfivefan]

hazard black and yellow and I suppose what it is I should be doing

Gotta gimme your tumblr username or if you aren't comfortable with that, then a chosen name

[ry3breadl0rd]

names

percy jackson does not fear the power of invoking names.

percy jackson did not hesitate to charge the titan general, atlas, whose name he freely speaks.

percy jackson did not think twice about his fight with ares, who comes up in conversation from time to time.

percy jackson did not fear his fight with kronos, even knowing it’d likely end with his death. even then, he did not fear speaking kronos’ name.

but percy jackson refused to invoke one name, and one name alone. the one being that made him drop riptide, the sword he’d fought gods, titans, and giants with, in fear.

percy jackson refused to even utter the name of the being in the pit.

tartarus.

[jurph]

The Olympians won, and we remember and glorify them in myths. But Zeus and Hera are jealous as hell if you will recall. And so when we call those things "Titan" to mean "good and awe inspiring, in the manner that gods once were" they have zero chill.

The circle is complete:

1898: Morgan Robertson's novella "The Wreck of the Titan" is published.

1912: RMS Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks, in an event that almost beat-for-beat follows the plot of Robertson's novella.

2023: Oceangate's experimental submersible The Titan undergoes explosive decompression while retracing the descent of the Titanic.

NOW STOP NAMING THINGS THAT

[chubbybunny25]

Sarah "Sally" Jackson knows that her child is in danger even before he is born. She knows about the great prophecy, knows about the gods, knows about the fate promised for her son, but she believes that she has time to cherish her baby and make him happy. Even if, as she admits with deep pain in her heart, his life will not be long. She dare to think that she has precious time with her baby and that he is safe with her during this time. Her womb and her tiny apartment will be shelters of comfort and warmth for him. At least for a while. Sally Jackson is twenty-seven weeks pregnant when she is cruelly made to understand that this is not the case. She was at work and this is the only reason why she immediately received help when her worn blue jeans were stained with blood, and a terrible all-consuming pain spread over her sharply weakened body, starting from the womb in which her son was supposed to sleep sweetly, like Greek fire. She couldn't even scream. She is taken to the hospital after voicing a terrible diagnosis that Sally fortunately did not remember and in the future will not rummage through documents to find out. The only thing she knows is that her son, who is not even close to being ready to appear, is about to leave the cradle of her body and he has almost no chance, although doctors do not voice this.

One of the nurses who prepares her for a difficult birth, a Mexican woman of mature almost honorable age with completely gray hair tied at the back of her head under a medical cap and a Catholic cross on her neck, briefly squeezes Sally's hand and in a comforting voice says that the Lord loves all children and takes care of them if they are not destined to live long. Sally almost wants to scream in her face that this is her son, that she loves him and that she won't give him up to some God. But unfortunately, Sally spent all her strength screaming at the doctors to save her baby, not her, and she was too out of her mind from the sedative-analgesic mixture that she was pumped with.

Sally somehow presses her hands to her stomach and desperately thinks what she can do to save her son... And she abruptly, like a whip, remembers Poseidon's last words that names have power. Her inflamed brain immediately begins to remember the Greek myths that she read from cover to cover and remember the names of those who survived and were with their loved ones to the end. She doesn't care what their life was like, she doesn't care what they were like or what they did, it's just important to her that it was someone who survived and lived for a long time, someone who eventually returned to their loved ones...

Her arms tenderly embrace for the last time her tiny bulge of a uterus that is about to expel her son against her will and her son's name - a mixture of graceful soft letters, musical vowels and her hoarse exhalation - falls from her lips before her consciousness withers like flowers in winter. Medea Persephatta Jackson was born on August eighteen, nine o'clock and six minutes into the night. His first cry, strong and loud despite his tiny size, cuts through the cold air to the great shock of the doctors, he survives and lives. Sarah Jackson sobs when her son's tiny hand wraps around her finger through the walls of the incubator for premature babies. Her precious little Medea is alive and she has never felt so happy.

This is such a beautiful take on Sally's pregnancy and motherhood. I know we've talked about this in dm's, but I feel like it's really worth sharing. Thanks for sending this ask, though it seems you've answered more silent questions with such a creative work 💞

[knockknockwhosthereartistism]

AU where the Axolotl sends Bill to the mystery shack for rehabilitation after spending some time in the Theraprism

(OG AU is by waty_mot on Twitter)

[stil-lindigo]

the calamity.

a comic about being seen.

--

creative notes:

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all my other comics

store

[eridanus-posessed-microwave]

My name is never spoken- not my true name.

My name is my own, my secret treasure I keep

Locked inside my soul.

I am not the name I was gifted

Like socks at Christmas

She and I share a past and stories

But her name is not my own.

I found a new one

One I treasure and cast out upon the world

Not spoken yet, at least not out loud.

My name is a precious thing

Her name was a lie because I am not her.

I never was.

Is it really your name if nobody uses it?

You insist that's your name, but that's not the name I gave you. That's not your name anymore.

You can pretend like it is, for a while.

But how long will it take before you begin to forget?

Every time I use your name, your real name. You forget your old one, bit by bit. You perk up every time I call you, because you know that's who you are now.

I can hear you, you know. Each night, repeating it to over and over, trying to convince yourself that this isn't who you are, that you're still who you were before we met.

It's funny to see you try, but one day you'll lose the only thing that ties you to your old life.

Soon, Adam will be gone.

...Or was it Alan? It's so hard to keep track of a name you never hear.

Your eyes widen with dread, a pit forming in your stomach as you feel like a part of you just died.

You can't remember.

[paxopalotls]

stressed about chem exams so I did a ghost king doodle to cope