[anthonycolonthree]

(guy who's not getting anything done voice) I need to learn every skill and all information

[alnitaks]

starry.eyed.stitcher

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

today I found out my mother doesn’t know what dandelions are and now I’m wondering what other strange secrets she’s been quietly harboring

[krystal-prisms]

Where do you live that you don’t have dandelions?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

we have dandelions EVERYWHERE, they are basically our State Weed, it is absolutely impossible that my mom has never interacted with a dandelion before, this requires further investigation

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

So after extensive interrogation I have an update:

my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.

the truth is actually weirder

she’s aware dandelions look like this

she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions

she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?

she answered, with complete confidence: Daffodils.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

gosh I enjoy this website

[authoratmidnight]

For comparison, this is a daffodil

[quietlygrousing]

See, folks in the southern US will tell you up and down those are buttercups, actually.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i don’t think so? i’m southern and buttercups are what we call these things (much tinier)

[maejacrezz007]

Wait I thought those bigger cup ones were Easter Lillies???

[fractiousrvt]

This is an Easter Lily. It is an actual lily and therefore deadly to cats.

[blood-trip-god2]

They’re marigolds and I know a bitch when I see one!

[delphinidin4]

This is a marigold:

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

….we need to start taking the phrase “go touch grass” more literally. go outside and examine a flower i beg u

[jmtorres]

“buttercups” is a name applied to MANY flowers. in my part of the south it was this one:

imo there’s correct identifications of dandelions, daffodils, easter lilies and marigolds in this thread, but buttercups are simply impossible to agree on and the only solution is for everyone to post pictures of their local buttercups

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

*squints* is that a motherfucking EVENING PRIMROSE?!??

[demon-and-human]

Hello I would like to add to the confusion:

That purple fella is a Morning Glory as told by my mothers (texan)

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

⬆️ morning glory

[huehueiamabaguette]

wait so if thats morning glory what is this?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

[delphinidin4]

*Puts hand over gaud’s mouth* It’s a butterfly pea. Please ignore the Latin name.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

*licks ur palm* i won’t be silenced THE PEOPLE HAVE TO KNOW

[nigelgraz]

Looking at my Alucard drawings and realizing oh i really am in love with this guy

[fiery-kitty]

Der Flösser Tod / The raftsman Death – Franz Lippisch (1897)

[pmamtraveller]

Youran Tang

[biomarinning]

★! today’s post is about spotted garden eels! i never heard of them before and honestly… they look a bit goofy… they’re all “neck” and eyes 👁️👁️

[septima-severa]

The final sketch for the triptych painting - approx. 44 species from the cold Arctic waters around Greenland

Instagram | ko-fi

[luneillusoire]

Melina & Lord Of Frenzied Flame

“Lord of the Frenzied Flame... I will seek you, as surely as night follows day. And I will deliver to you what is yours. The certain death of Destined Death.”

[neptunecity]

𝒅𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕 🦁| also posted on Instagram & Twitter

[pmamtraveller]

Symphony of the Sixth Blast Furnace (1979) by Evgeny Sedukhin

[oneheadtoanother]

[charnel-grounds]

Julia Soboleva, “Naked Sun,” 2026

[pmamtraveller]

by Hazel McNab

[king-incarnadine]

The Leafy Seadragon

(not to be confused with his cousin, the seahorse)

[pmamtraveller]

The Forerunner, 1894, by Eugène Trigoulet

[wordsmithic]

PSA for non-Greek Hellenic Polytheists:

Pssst! You know you can use the Greek names of the Greek gods, right? I'm not talking about ancient Greek. I'm talking about contemporary, spoken Greek. You know the names still exist in Greek. Right....?

Not only the ancient names for figures and terms have remained exactly the same for the most part, but also they're not worse, disrespectful, or "less formal". They are literally the Greek names of the gods/heroes/creatures/terminology today.

You don't have to address these figures the way our people did more than two thousand years ago. Millions of living Greeks today still speak the names of the Greek gods. In the Greek language.

I understand that the versions you use can depend on the resources available to you. And it's fine if you only know the ancient ones, or you only want to use those. But I'd like to make you aware that you don't have to be stuck in 300 BCE linguistically.

Not even the Greek language itself is stuck in 300 BCE! In fact, by 299 BCE, our language had already slightly changed from the year prior, and it continues to do so every year for... well, for a few thousand years at this point.

Ancient names make sense when one uses them in academic contexts, in the study of ancient Greek society and religion. But this religion and culture don't exist in a vacuum inside your history books. This linguistic stagnation in everyday life, though, is part of the centuries-long Western European / American obsession with seeing the Greek culture and language like something divorced from the real world.

There's no particular justification that demands you use the ancient versions in modern informal settings. On the contrary, why not address the Greek gods in the current form of the Greek language?

So if you want to use contemporary Greek, go wild. Use -ες ending instead of -αι. Go full iotacism. Use Έριδα not Έρις, Μοίρες not Μοίραι, Χάρη not Χάρις, Κάθαρση not Κάθαρσις. The differences are minuscule. And - let's be honest - you were not using ancient and modern Greek grammar (like the Greek cases, which depend on the sentence meaning) properly anyway.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I should add that using ancient Greek terms while there are contemporary ones, looks weird to a Greek. It’s somewhat like choosing to use only horses for transportation because you have not heard about cars. And, in this analogy, the Greek mind goes: but... have you not... heard of... cars... Why horses....

But, like OP said, foreigners using the ancient versions is not considered an offense. Sometimes this is what's most accessible. And of course, one can have other words for the names of the Greek gods in their language. It would be ridiculous to hold such a thing against them.

At the same time, it's good for people to know that Greek language with its names and tems is still around and happy to be of use!

[bodhi-devotee]

“This linguistic stagnation in everyday life, though, is part of the centuries-long Western European / American obsession with seeing the Greek culture and language like something divorced from the real world.”

this statement and bias is something non-greek hellenic polytheists (like myself) must always keep in mind. we are far, far from interacting with a “dead” culture. it is vibrant and deserving of our attention and respect.

this webpage i found goes through a lot of the god’s modern spellings and pronunciations. anyone can let me know if there’s a more accurate resource!

[wordsmithic]

Hi @bodhi-devotee ! This is a fairly good source, a good start, but I have some minor objections. I'll list them for everyone who's curious:

The first one is how the article neglects to mention that αί/αι is not an AY sound but an EH sound. Which is pretty odd because this has been in effect for more than two thousand years now.

Examples: Aristaios - (Aristaeus; Gr. Ἀρισταῖος, ΑΡΙΣΤΑΙΟΣ) is not pronounced ah-rees-TAY-ohs, but as ah-rees-TEH-ohs.

&

Daimôn is not pronounced DAY-mohn, but DEH-mon. (Same logic as the English word "Demon" which came from Greek)

Demeter is not Δημήτηρ today but Δήμητρα (THEE-meet-rah) , and it's not uncommon to find Greek people with that name, either feminine or masculine.

Moerae should not be this, but Mοίρες (MEE-rehs). Mousai should be Mouses and pronounced MOO-sehs, and Nýmphai (NEEM-fay) should be Νύμφες - NEEM-fehs. No feminine word in plural ends in -αι nowadays.

Also no one says Orphéfs for the last few centuries. It should be Oρφέας - or-FEH-ahs

Phýsis should be actually Phýsi (FEE-see)

Poseidóhn/Poseidôn is not wrong but it still has that archaic vibe. If you want to go full contemporary, try Poseidóhnas/Poseidônas (Ποσειδώνας - poh-see-DOHN-ahs)

Lastly, I would not suggest the ee-HEE-ah pronunciation for Hygeia/Yyeia/Υγεία. I would suggest ee-YEE-ah, since English has this specific γ sound (same as in "yeeeet!").

On a final note, I saw this blogger uses the word "Hellenismos" to describe the Greek ancient religion (like many other non-Greeks). That's not advisable, as Greeks have been using it for centuries to describe our nation/ethnicity. "Hellenismos" in Greek describes our people, in our land and abroad. Anyone who wants to learn more can read this comprehensive post about it.

Now, as the Greek saying goes, "opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one". So I'm going to briefly give mine.

The site says: Julian (332-364 CE) was the last Roman emperor who loved the Gods. He endeavored to rule as a philosopher-king and attempted to revive philosophy and the worship of the Gods. It was Julian who used the word Hellenismos to identify the ancient Greek religion in contrast to the new religion, Christianity. This use of the word eventually became commonplace.

My commentary: No Greek for the last thousand years or so would ever use "Hellenismos" for our ancient religion, because our reference point is the will of our people, and not the action of an emperor and a brief popularization of the term. We choose wether to give it importance or not in naming our people's ancient religion. I cannot emphasize enough how absurd is for an outsider to come and claim the name of our nation as the name of their religion because one emperor more than a thousand years ago popularized that name for a while. If we wanted to, we Greeks would have used the term for the religion.

(Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the specific Hellenismos as practiced in the days of Julian was not what the ancient Greek religion was at its height, and not what today's polytheists are practicing. But people can look this up.)

Anyway, thanks for your time, dear readers! Maybe I'll try to find or make a more comprehensive source myself someday! For now, I hope this post had been proven useful.