Broke: Barbie’s many different careers are a way to sell dolls and accessories to little kids.
Woke: Barbie had every single one of those careers and is an immortal timeless being.
Bespoke: Barbie’s different careers are different versions of Barbie from across the multiverse who occasionally swap place with each other or combine into one Barbie.
I have often used Barbie to explain Greek mythology, and people laugh until I explain it, and then they get really serious and thoughtful.
I say, “The Greeks ascribed aspects to gods. Apollo had many aspects, but all were Apollo. He’s like Barbie that way. She’s an astronaut, a veterinarian, and a rollerskater, but no matter which of those things she is in the moment, she is always still Barbie. She is Barbie in her aspect as.”
Then people get not only the idea of “aspects” of godhood, but also, well, the changeable yet eternal nature of Barbie.
like this one dude just made a fake taxidermy and spread it around as a hoax for a good ass while and it lead to this really cool fantasy creature and i am genuinely dissapointed that it never gets used in anything
The lack of skvaders is particularly frustrating when you realize it forms the third point of a wonderful cryptid trifecta.
You got the jackalopes, which are rabbits with antlers.
And you got the wolpertingers, which are rabbits with antlers and wings.
And then… what? Do you escalate? That’s unbalanced, those two rabbit cryptids don’t have the same number of extra things, the wolpertinger is clearly the jackalope But More.
BUT with the skvader on the other side, balance is restored. Antler rabbit, winged rabbit, winged antler rabbit. It’s a classic Venn diagram of imaginary lapine beasts, and it’s only complete if you acknowledge the fucking skvader.
modern greek mythology stories i am tired of seeing: gritty, “the gods are dying because we don’t believe in them” stories where the greek gods mingle sadly with mortals and lament their lost power
modern greek mythology stories i would like to see: cerberus manages to escape from the underworld and hades has to find him before he can unleash his rage upon the mortal realm, only to find out that cerberus was found by a child who tamed him by sharing her after-school snack with him and giving him pets, and he now has to figure out a way to sneak into the suburbs and avoid getting the cops called on him while he steals his three-headed hell-hound back from a five year old girl
He was a big dog, but not crazy big. And he was so soft! Her hand sunk into his fur like it was a fuzzy pillow when she went to pet him.
The fact that he had three heads and three sets of sharp teeth didn’t bother her. It was silly. One head licked her face while the others nosed at her pockets for treats.
He was way better than the neighbor’s dog. That one was annoying and small and liked to bite little girls who lost their ball. No, this dog was perfect. This dog was hers.
“Come on, it’s time to go home,” she said. “You can sleep in my bed. But Mommy sneezes around dogs, so we’ll have to be careful.”
The dog yipped excitedly, bounding ahead of her. She noticed a splotch of lighter grey near his butt before he turned around to face her again.
“Spot! That’s a good doggy name. You’ll be my Spot.”
And so she took him home. She pushed him into the backyard so she could go say hi to her mommy like she did every day. The bus stop was at the end of the street, so her mommy said as long as she was really careful she could walk home with the boy next door. She was really, really careful. She was in kindergarten. She was a big kid now.
Spot was digging at the edge of the garden when she went back outside.
“No, Spot! Mommy’s flowers will break!” She hurried after him, ready to play with her new best friend.
—
There. At the edge of town, tucked in a nondescript neighborhood.
What was he doing there? Waiting, no doubt. He had to admit, it was a good location to begin his rampage. Women, children, families – he could create a lot of damage.
He should have been paying more attention. His duties to Olympus took up too much time lately. Persephone did what she could, but it wasn’t always enough. She wasn’t there the whole year, so the poor boy got lonely.
Hades was lord of the underworld; he should have sensed that something was amiss. But no.
No, now he was lurking in the mortal realm, trying to corral a three-headed hellhound and keep him from unleashing his excess energy by destroying a fifty-mile radius.
He blamed Zeus. He just liked to listen to himself speak, the old windbag.
So, he needed to figure out a way to get Cerberus back without alerting anyone. Shouldn’t be too difficult.
—
Why did this shit always seem to happen at the end of a double shift? She just wanted to go home and sleep, but they had one last call to respond to.
A neighbor called in that some asshole was trying to steal a dog. Who even did something like that?
So, Officer Marquez geared up, ready to take out her frustration on this douche (seriously, you don’t steal pets – that should get you thrown in the lowest circle of hell) only to find the weirdest thing she’d ever seen.
“What the fuck?” her partner muttered as they got out of the squad car.
A man stood near the road looking very uncomfortable now that they’d garnered an audience. He was tall, pale, and kind of gangly, but he didn’t look like a wackjob. In fact, he looked like a businessman – freshly pressed suit and everything. Just went to show you couldn’t judge a book by its cover.
An adult woman stood in the middle of the yard, clearly not sure what to do.
Then, there was the little girl who had her arms wrapped around a dog. She was about five, but she had the grip of a sumo wrestler on the poor dog. It was about the size of a Great Dane, maybe a little bigger, a deep charcoal grey, almost black.
But it had three heads. And rows upon rows of teeth. And three lolling tongues that occasionally licked the girl’s face.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Marquez murmured to her partner as they approached.
“Scooby Doo with three heads? Oh yeah.”
“Good. I was starting to wonder if they laced the coffee or something at the station.” She took a breath before approaching the man while her partner sidled up to the woman to calm her down. “Sir, may I ask what you’re doing here? From all accounts, this is not your residence.”
The man sighed, his shoulders sagging. He seemed kind of harmless, but she wasn’t about to let him off easy. She waited him out. “No, officer, you’re correct. I am only here for the day, but my dog escaped. I am simply trying to retrieve him.”
“No!” the girl yelled. “You can’t take him! I found him! He’s mine!”
Marquez tried to take a quick survey of the situation. The dog seemed perfectly content with the girl, but he kept his gaze trained on the guy. The girl was almost in tears, but, really, she’s five. That could be about anything.
The mother was the wild card.
“Sir, can I just have you wait here for one moment?”
“Of course.”
And he did actually stay there while she walked towards the mother. Amazing.
Her partner excused herself from talking to the mother. “She’s in the dark. She’s never seen the guy or the dog.”
Marquez rolled her eyes. “Got it. Kid finds dog, kid claims dog.” She raised her voice slightly as she turned back to the guy. “Sir, will he come if you call him?”
The man nodded. “Κέρβερος, άγέ.”
Suddenly, the dog was across the yard sitting in front of the man, tail wagging and three tongues lolling. Marquez would have sworn – only under oath and only if asked directly – the Great Dane sized dog was now the size of the house with glowing red eyes and smoke billowing around him. The girl broke out in piercing sobs breaking her concentration. She couldn’t be sure anyone else saw.
“Please don’t take my Spot!”
The guy paused in checking over the dog and looked at the girl. He smiled sweetly at her. His whole demeanor changed, he looked lighter, more sure of himself, and kind of… glowy.
“You named him Spot?”
She sniffled, “It’s a good puppy name. And he’s got the spot on his butt.”
“You are absolutely right,” he chuckled. “I named him Spot too. It’s just in a different language.”
“Really?” The girl’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. But she’d stopped crying.
“Really. Listen, would you maybe like it if he came to visit sometimes? I work a lot, as does my wife, so sometimes he gets really lonely.”
“Please! Mommy, can he visit? Please, please, please!!”
The poor woman just nodded, but it was clear she had no idea how to process what was going on.
The man smiled. “Perfect. He’ll be thrilled to have a new friend.”
Marquez left with her head spinning. Her and her partner sat in the squad car silently for a minute before driving back to the station.
“Let’s just skip the paperwork on this one.”
–
“And that is why we now have a wall covered in drawings of Cerberus from a five year old,” Hades explained to Persephone.
The main reason I ever wanted to write a Hungarian mythology-based urban fantasy is that I needed to see someone do Bread Magic in a mundane modern setting.
Bread Magic shows up in a variety in Hungarian fairytales. It works like this: when someone evil, usually the devil, sometimes a dragon, wants to come into your house and hurt you, usually by taking your children, what you do is put a loaf of bread on the windowsill. It will speak for you.
When evil demands admission, the bread will say: First, they buried me under the ground, and I survived. When I sprouted, they cruelly cut me down with sickles, and I survived. They threshed me with their flails and I survived. They ground me to flour with their millstones and I survived. They put me in a bowl and kneaded me, then they put me in a hot oven to bake me, and I survived. Have you done all these things? Until you do all these things and survive, you have no power here.
This is pretty powerful magic I think, and it makes sense in a country where wheat is the staple crop and bread is the staple food. If you have bread, you are alive, if you have no bread, you are dead, therefore bread is life. It was customary to refer to wheat as “life” well into the twentieth century, and not in high literary circles either: rural seasonal workers negotiated their wages in so and so many sacks of life.
And I totally want someone to do bread magic with a shitty store-bought muffin.
There was a similar Greek fairy tale where narrating the torments of the flax was used as a delay tactic. Like, the parents would be out working in the field and the ogre would come to take the child away, and the clever grandma would say “sure, BUT FIRST, you must let me tell you the passions of the flax”. (As in “the passions of Christ”, meaning the sufferings.) Making cloth out of flax is a hell of a job with many many stages, you dunk it in water for days, you dry it, you shred it, all sorts of things (I don’t actually know what things, I’m a city kid…), so grandma would start droning very slowly and very sadly “they taaaaaaaaake the flaaaaaaaaax, they drowwwwwwn it in waaaaaaaater” and the imagery was out of a medieval torture manual and it sounded like a funeral dirge and it went on for ages, until the ogre couldn’t stand it any more and went “fuck this, I’m out, keep your damn child”.
Folk tales have some Good Takes, such as “brains over brawn” (that’s why they’re so fundamentally roguish – once in a while you’ll get a mighty warrior bashing things, but mostly it’s common peasants tricking the powerful with nothing but wits and sheer nerve), “storytelling will get you a long way”, and “grandmas are awesome”. Which may be a little self-serving (I mean, grandmas tell the tales…), but still: they earned it.
For the torments of anthropomorphised plants see also: John Barleycorn.
There were three men came out of the west, their fortunes for to try And these three men made a solemn vow John Barleycorn must die
They’ve ploughed, they’ve sown, they’ve harrowed him in Threw clods upon his head And these three men made a solemn vow John Barleycorn was dead
They’ve let him lie for a very long time, ‘til the rains from heaven did fall And little Sir John sprung up his head and so amazed them all
They’ve let him stand ‘til Midsummer’s Day ‘til he looked both pale and wan And little Sir John’s grown a long long beard and so become a man
They’ve hired men with their scythes so sharp to cut him off at the knee They’ve rolled him and tied him by the waist serving him most barbarously
They’ve hired men with their sharp pitchforks who’ve pricked him to the heart And the loader he has served him worse than that For he’s bound him to the cart
They’ve wheeled him around and around a field ‘til they came unto a barn And there they made a solemn oath on poor John Barleycorn
They’ve hired men with their crabtree sticks to cut him skin from bone And the miller he has served him worse than that For he’s ground him between two stones
And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl and his brandy in the glass And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl proved the strongest man at last
The huntsman he can’t hunt the fox nor so loudly to blow his horn And the tinker he can’t mend kettle or pots without a little barleycorn
I HAVE NO IDEA, I remember vaguely the story from when I was a kid, but I can’t remember where I read it (or heard it?), and I didn’t find it online. ‘Cause I searched.
It’s also an expression in greek, though it’s a bit outdated, you can say “that poor man has gone through the passions of the flax”, meaning he’s had a very hard life. Or, if you’re a drama queen, you can say something like “fucking bureaucracy! I went through the torments of the flax to get that bloody permit!”. This makes searching for the fairy tale all the more difficult. I’m sorry. :(
In Swedish, two of the steps in working with flax are called “arguing with the flax” (bråka lin) and “heckling the flax” (häckla lin). That says something about how the fiber is treated…
I honestly think that I’d be doing you a great disservice if I didn’t tell you about the time Daedalus enabled rampant bestiality, so allow me to clear this gap in your knowledge.
Anyone who doesn’t want to read a poorly retold myth about a man who built a cow suit so realistic that it totally fooled a magic bull into laying down some absolutely quality homo-bovine dick and siring a minotaur should probably press J on their keyboard right now, but honestly if that synopsis doesn’t do it for you then you should probably just quit Greek mythology all together.
So, Minos is this guy who manages to achieve the dual feat of being both King of Crete and an incorrigible asshole. Also, the first achievement is a really tenuous one, because Minos has like a billion brothers and he’s basically Malcolm in the Middle and all his brothers are better looking than him and they have way better abs and it’s really awkward every year at Christmas because they’re all “could you pass the stuffing, Minos? Also you’re totally stuffed because I’m going to be king one day haha suck it, right on” and so Minos starts to get really worried that he’s going to lose the throne to one of his more lustrous-locked brothers and then he’ll be stuck with just the one achievement of being an incorrigible asshole and so he has a little brood and he comes up with a plan.
One day, he goes up to Poseidon, god of the sea and all things wet (or at least that’s what he tells girls at the Olympus nightclubs) and he’s like “hey, Poseidon, could you do me a solid?” and Poseidon is like “no bro but I can do you a liquid” and they have a little manly giggle and then Minos says “no but really, I need a favour” and Poseidon is like “well, you just gave me a golden opportunity to mock the states of matter, I’m 100% up for doing any favour you want” and Minos says “well, you know how I have loads of brothers” and Poseidon is like “you mean the better looking ones?” and Minos pouts and says “looks aren’t everything, but yes, those ones” and Poseidon is like “go on” and Minos says “well, I need them to stop trying to steal the throne because it’s getting really annoying and also I can’t sleep at night any more and it’s driving my hot wife insane, could you maybe show that you totally support me being King of Crete? That way, they’ll definitely stop being dicks at Christmas” and Poseidon just nods and says “I have a great idea for how I can do this”
and Minos is like “wow, are you going to send down an army of merpeople and slaughter all my brothers in a righteous and watery battle?” and Poseidon is like “no” and Minos says “are you going to conjure up a giant tidal wave and make it destroy all my brothers’ homes but leave my palace totally intact?” and Poseidon is like “no” and Minos says “well, are you going to turn all my brothers into mermen?” and Poseidon is like “look, I’m going to send you a bull”
and Minos just blinks and says “a bull” and Poseidon nods and grins and says “yes, a bull” and Minos says “THAT’S bull” and Poseidon points behind him and says “no, THAT’S a bull” and then he brings out this fucking phenomenal bull. Like, this bull puts all other bulls to shame. It’s glowing white and it’s as big as two ordinary bulls and probably twice as virile. It’s basically overcompensation in taurine form. Anyway, this bull is so bitchin’ that immediately, all of Minos’ brothers are like “wow, nope, you can keep that throne, we don’t want Poseidon to sic his sick bull on us” and basically Minos lives happily ever after with his incredible bull.
Until eventually Poseidon shows up at Minos’ palace and says “hey, Minos, you know that really awesome bull I lent you a while back?” and Minos is like “what bull” and Poseidon is like “the magical snow white bull which gleamed in the Cretan sun like limestone and Apollo’s cheekbones” and Minos is like “oh, THAT bull” and Poseidon is like “yes, that bull, now where is it because I’m having a bull party next week and I really want it back” and Minos says “well, here’s the thing, and it’s kind of a funny story really and I’m sure we’ll laugh about it later, maybe we could even laugh about it now, ha, but anyway all jokes aside I’m keeping the bull” and Poseidon is all “like fuck you’re keeping that bull, it’s my best bull, this is bullshit” and Minos is like “that’s one of the hazards of keeping a bull, maybe you’re not cut out for it” and Poseidon says “you haven’t heard the end of this, Minos, you have made a very powerful and watery enemy” and he leaves and Minos goes and, like, pets the bull or something, I don’t know what you do with bulls.
So, Poseidon goes back to his soggy lair and formulates a plan, and he eventually comes up with something straight out of Quentin Tarantino’s brie-induced nightmares. He goes to find Aphrodite, the goddess of love and afternoon delight, and says “hey Aphrodite, first of all you look delectable and secondly I need you to help me make a woman bang a bull” and Aphrodite is like “I honestly hate this job sometimes, but you’re right, I do look delectable, tell me more” and Poseidon is like “I had this really sweet bull and I lent it to Minos so he would think I liked him and now he won’t give it back and so I need you to make his wife fall in love with the bull, it’s a foolproof vengeance plan” and Aphrodite says “you are a god” and Poseidon says “yes” and Aphrodite says “why can’t you just, you know, take back the bull with your divine power?” and Poseidon is like “look, are you going to make this woman fall in love with the bull or not” and Aphrodite is like “fuck yes, that sounds hilarious, consider it done and I want front row seats” and Poseidon is like “you are my favourite niece and occasional lover, I owe you one”
Back to the palace at Crete, where Minos’ wife, Pasiphaë, is lounging about on a contemporary equivalent to a chaise-lounge when she suddenly gets this unmistakable urge to do the do with a bull – but not just any bull, her loins quiver only for the bull in her husband’s barnyard. Instead of doing what most people would do when they realise they have an insatiable urge to make tender love to a bull and immediately committing herself to months of therapy, she thinks “I know what I have to do” and she picks up the contemporary equivalent of a phone and calls Daedalus, inventor and architect extraordinaire.
She’s all “hey, Daedalus, we have patient confidentiality, right?” and Daedalus is like “I’m not your doctor, so no” and she’s like “well, I’m your Queen, so how about you say ‘yes’ instead and I tell you what I want?” and Daedalus is like “my lips are sealed, tell me what you need” and she’s all “well, there’s this really rad guy and I totally want to just lay him down and lick chocolate sauce off his body, but there’s a hitch in my plan” and Daedalus says “yeah, you’re married” and Pasiphaë says “yes, and also he’s a bull” and Daedalus is like “do you mean he’s well hung or” and Pasiphaë is like “look man you gotta help me on this, I need me some sweet bullocking and only you can help me” and Daedalus says “I’ll do what I can, but I hope you have a damn good shower at your palace because I may need to use it for about 6 weeks afterwards” and she’s like “done, now get over here and get me some”
So Daedalus turns up and helps her, and in the blink of an eye, he’s built her this monstrous wooden cow suit. Now, the myth is not exactly clear on the mechanics of this bovine sex toy, but it’s established that Pasiphaë gets into the cow suit and goes to find her bullock beau and they make sweet, sweet cattle love all day and all night. I do not know how she manoeuvres herself inside this wooden furry abomination and frankly I do not want to know, but whatever she does is 100% successful because 9 months later she gives birth to another furry abomination. The good news is that he’s a healthy, bouncing baby boy. The bad news is that he is half baby and half bull and also he has this really annoying habit that most newborns don’t have of eating people, which means that Minos is the definition of Not Impressed with his new stepson, so he does what any sane human would do in this situation, and he calls Daedalus.
Daedalus says “I’m in the shower, what do you want?” and Minos is like “look, my wife has committed a slight indiscretion and I need you to take care of the result” and Daedalus is like “she fucked a bull and she’s had a grotesque hybrid baby, hasn’t she” and Minos narrows his eyes and says “how do you know?” and Daedalus says “just a stab in the dark, mate, I had no hand in this at all, literally none, just let me wash my hands a minute and I’ll be right back” and Minos is like “just build something to trap that devil spawn, because it’s started to eat my servants and I never even wanted a stepson anyway, it’s just one more claim to the throne isn’t it” and Daedalus is like “dude, give me a week and it’ll be done”
and so Daedalus constructs this impenetrable labyrinth that’s so impregnable that Daedalus nearly gets lost on the way out, and they lob the minotaur tot right into the middle of it, and that’s that.
Except then the minotaur starts demanding the sacrifice of seven young men every year, who are tossed into the labyrinth and forced to play a fatal game of cat and mouse with a grotesque superpowered man-bull creature that will ultimately devour them, flesh from bone, at the heart of a labyrinth that only he can navigate, but that’s a story for another myth. Or The Maze, starring Dylan O’Brien, out in a multiplex near you.
#mythology #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #long post #so I looked at their blog and this person does mythology retellings on a regular basis #and I think I’m going to have to look into that
Brinens and Things 