totally-not-an-awkward-okapi

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Have you seen this post?

You probably have. It currently has over 120,000 notes, largely because of this addition.

Of course it's going to get reblogged, this kind of unsourced factoid does numbers on here. But something about it wasn't quite right.

A bit of searching turned up the origin of the "fact".

Alright, so it's someone who posted this on reddit 4 years ago and somehow ended up in the search hits. And the post confuses the electric eel (from South America) with the electric catfish (from the Nile, which the Egyptians would have known about).

Reminder: this is an electric eel (Electrophorus electricus). It is from South America. (image from Wikipedia)

And this is an electric catfish (Malapterurus electricus). It is from the Nile and would have been familiar to the ancient Egyptians. (image from Wikipedia)

And then of course people were speculating in the notes to that post about trade routes between South America and Egypt. Excellent scholarship everyone.

At this point I was ready to call it another made-up internet fact that gets reified by people repeating it. But something was still bothering me.

An ancient Egyptian slab from 3100 BC. What could that be...

Oh.

The Narmer palette. It's the goddamn Narmer palette. (image, once again, from Wikipedia)

So where is this "angry catfish"?

It's not the Egyptian name for the electric catfish.

It's... Narmer. It's Narmer himself.

Narmer's name is written as above (detail of top middle of the palette), using the catfish (n`r) and the chisel (mr), giving N'r-mr. The chisel is associated with pain, so this reads as "painful catfish", "striking catfish", or, yes, "angry catfish" or other similar variants, although some authors have suggested that it means "Beloved of [the catfish god] Nar".

So.

Where does this leave us?

It would appear that this redditor not only confused electric eels with electric catfish, but also confused a Pharaoh's name with the name of a fish. And then it got pushed to the top search hits by a crappy search engine and shared uncritically on tumblr.

In short, "the electric eel is called angry catfish" factoid actually literacy error. Angry Catfish, who ruled upper Egypt and smote his enemies, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

Also the Arabic name for the electric catfish is raad (thunder) or raada (thunderer).

References

Afsaruddin, A., & Zahniser, A. H. M. (1997). Humanism, culture, and language in the Near East: studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff. Eisenbrauns.

Clayton, P. A. (2001). Chronicle of the Pharaohs. Thames & Hudson.

Godron, G. (1949). A propos du nom royal. Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Egypte, 49, 217-221.

Sperveslage, G., & Heagy, T. C. (2023). A tail's tale: Narmer, the catfish, and bovine symbolism. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 109(1), 3-319.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

I initially wasn’t going to do a Chamber design because I was worried he’d step on Cyclops’ toes in terms of BLASTIN’ but a friend pitched him being a strategist ala Invisible Woman and. Look I couldn’t resist my favorite boy being my favorite class.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Ah, my old friend, the bizarre photo shoots of the X-Files.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Doug getting mentioned in one on Luna’s skin descriptions made me start brainstorming horrible strategist Doug and Warlock.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Grand return of the Outlaws becasue I started thinking about these kids again. I would not advise this.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

I’ve been thinking a lot about Eros in Hesiod’s Theogony.

Eros isn’t Aphrodite’s son in the Theogony. He’s called a “companion” to Aphrodite, because according to Hesiod, Eros is much, much older than her. Older than the gods, older than the titans, older than the darkness and the night. Eros is depicted as one of the first primordial concepts born from Chaos along with the earth and underworld, “loveliest of all the Immortals, who makes their bodies (and men's bodies) go limp, mastering their minds and subduing their wills.” All the gods, even Zeus — especially Zeus — must answer to the whims of Eros.

And this isn’t the “correct” interpretation of Eros, this wasn’t even the only interpretation of Eros in Hesiod’s time, but like. My god what a concept. How did we drop this

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

So! A bit before this time last year, I was suddenly struck by a Power Rangers moment.

I wouldn’t consider myself a power rangers fan, my schedule meant I never got to watch it on tv as a kid, but I always wanted to watch it. So when the Power Rangers moment struck, I obviously started googling. What I got was a bunch of listicles going through every ranger color and trying to come up with traits that applied to all of them.

These traits were all fairly broad and heroic, so it made me wonder: could I make a team of Rangers based on them going against as many of those tropes as possible while still being heroes?

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

God I love Jayce being a blacksmith… frankly in a different life I could absolutely see that man as a farrier. He’s got that “works with large animals and suffers head trauma” swag.

crazy post. true. reblog

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

I’ve been collecting anatomical references so you know I gotta have a certified Jono-Moment.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

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I’ve mostly given up on answering my asks and instead reblog campaigns boosted by accounts I trust, but I gotta post this one just because it’s always beautiful to see spam bots mess up what account they’re using.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Oh I am so sorry about flooding you with questions so quickly exclusively about Harpies, I'm just very curious about them, they're so cool😅

Another question... Do you accept fanart?

no problem i like to talk and talk and talk

fanart is fine!! if you go back in the isok tag i think you'll find some cool stuff there drawn by other people

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Gotham City was host to one of the first radio game shows, if not in the world, then certainly in the country. “The Riddle” was a staple part of many household schedules. But its beloved host, Madeline “Maddi” Wagner has been… missing for months now.

Some citizens of Gotham report that “The Riddle” still sometimes broadcasts at its usual time. Those who claim to hear it consistently describe: being given strange riddles about the history of various places, mostly in Gotham City. They also report that the host calls himself “Edward Nigma” and sounds something like “Maddi.” These reports have never been substantiated due to the often… unreliable nature of these witnesses. Gotham Police have deemed all known listeners either delusional or have lost contact with them all together.

Dig too deep or get profoundly unlucky.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

If I had a nickel for every time a series ended like that I’d have 1 nickel, because only Jon and Martin where brave enough to actually explicitly be boyfriends and kiss at the end.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Finally got my old Orianna VGU concept finished! With Arcane season 2 coming out now I had to get her finished before it finishes dropping just in case she makes a surprise appearance.

Reference sheet + reference photo! Also apologies to Ball. I had no ideas for Ball.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Someone suggested to me when I expressed that Blitzcrank’s absence in Viktor’s story bothers me that Viktor making him never made sense in the first place and that if he shows up Arcane will retcon to him being the creation of someone that “makes more sense” like Heimerdinger.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Here's to all the burnouts.

I'm not sure what to name this one but it is working well! Another oil lamp. It's a figure about twice the size of the mythology series figures.