-punk worlds (Part 3.5 mythpunk)

-punk worlds (Part 3 magical worlds) Other posts in this series: -punk worlds (Part 1 retro-futuristic) -punk worlds (Part 1.5 An Experiment) -punk worlds (Part 2 futuristic worlds) The hybrid "-punk" words evolved over time from it's futuristic roots, even retro-futuristic roots and rebellious anti-heroes. It came to mean a more of parallel worlds asking "what if this technology or power is threaded through society"? And then seeing what happens with that. Eventually the technology in question was magical, fae, supernatural, or superpowered. While they might be lumped under urban fantasy, many subgenres also earned their "-punk" stripes. So today we are exploring mythpunk. Catherynne M. Valente was the first to coin the term "mythpunk" in 2006 for her books and other folks when she was blogging trying to figure out what to call what they were writing in A Rose in Twelve Names . The name has taken off from there spreading its roots everywhere. Later she talks much more in depth about what mythpunk has become in this article " Mythpunk: An Interview with Catherynne M. Valente " by JoSelle Vanderhooft, 2011. Mythpunk Table of Contents mythpunk: explanation Simple prompt using the following models to see who models do "mythpunk": mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Note: I ran some models 2x Simple prompt models: grok p-image minimax z-image turbo hidream i1 fast lucid origin standard flux family of models a. Flux 2 Klein b. Flux Schnell Ultra c. Flux Krea Dev d. Flux Dev e. Flux Dev 2 f. Flux 2 Pro g. Flux Kontext Pro ideogram v3 turbo wan 2.6 gpt 1.5 low seedream family of models a. seedream 4 b. seedream 5 lite c. seedream 4.5 qwen image 2.0 nano banana Conclusion Note: for the next section I ran against blog image limits so only did 3 models: Ancient Greek Past Mythpunk Prompt wan 2.6 nano banana grok Future Africa Mythpunk Prompt wan 2.6 nano banana grok Conclusion End of Table of Contents Simple Prompt mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Notice that I did not describe what the woman is wearing, her hairstyle, her room or the world outside the window. All of that will be conveyed with the one "mythpunk" word or so I hope. mythpunk: explanation or at least I'll do my best I was introduced to mythpunk first through Neil Gaiman's comicbook series The Sandman. It was awesome! But the -punk in mythpunk isn't referring to the future or tenchnolgy per se. It's more the subversive side of punk. It's the retelling/reimagining/bend of fairy tales, folktales and myths to give it a postmodern literary twist like my image of Rapunzel climbing down the tower and rescuing herself. This is mythpunk. Mythpunk is very diverse in postmodern literary techniques and often includes feminist, multicultural and other perspectives. I like how Valente explained why -punk works in mythpunk, " I've always considered the appending of -punk to whatever other word to indicate that X is not merely being explored or ruminated upon, but in some sense broken, harmed, and put back together again with safety pins and patches, a certain amount of anxiety, anger, and messy, difficult emotionality expressed in the direction of X. Additionally, I look for some of the aesthetic of punk—they may be three chords used by everyone, but if you shred them hard enough and scream loud enough they can become something new. .... But I like the use of the word punk. I like the potential for explosive, energetic work the word implies. The potential for revolt and revolution ." I love those kind of stories. It's the princess being African instead of European or the prince kissing the frog. It's Coyote helping a shapeshifter descendent cause chaos in a scifi world. It's the urban world where gods and goddesses walk, sometimes with dwindling powers. Sometimes with powers bursting at their seams. In some stories, belief/faith powers the gods and goddesses so the ones who have more believers are powerful while others are getting drunk in the bar being little more than human. While the stories/worlds vary a lot, what they have in focus is gods and goddesses, fairytales and folklore. They are the stories so embedded into our psyche that Jung said they were part of the collective unconscious. These stories often resonate on a deep emotional level and when they are questioned, it can make us very very uncomfortable or make us cheer. The stories can take place any time from when the stories were originally set like Ancient Greece, to now and in the future. "Xena" and "Hercules" is mythpunk. So is Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and "The Sandman". "Tomorrow and I", shown on Netflix, blends Thai myths and advanced technology. The keypoint of mythpunk is it changes/bends/reimagines myths and folklore. As fairy tales started as folk tales, this includes fairy tales. However, mythpunk is not set in time or place. So given that mythpunk is so varied in time and settings, the question becomes how does the AI model interpret "mythpunk". I think your prompt is going to influence the output of the meaning of "mythpunk" whether you go ancient history or futuristic. This is an experiment. Since the word "mythpunk" has been used for 20 years, it's in the AI database. The question is how will the AI understand mythpunk visuals when much of it is literary rather than visual. So I'm going to do 4 prompts, simple, past, future and present to see how different it looks. The simple one I'm going to run in many models as I think it's likely they will vary a lot. The past, present, future prompts I will narrow down to 5 models for comparison. grok (simple prompt) Simple prompt: grok : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world So it looks to me like it's ancient greece/rome updated for a modern world Now here I'm going from low to high credits on BP models. I'm going to max out at 45 credits models. My experience has been the models that understand -punk genres is midrange or higher but maybe mythpunk is different because it's 20 years old. We shall see. Let's try p=image to see what happens. Honestly with most of the new -punk genres, p-image fails spectacularly so I do not have high hopes. p-image (simple prompt) p-image: mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Cool. For me it's got a bit of the Xena vibe in the clothes. The housing looks like metal treehouses. It would be my idea of fae buildings if they went metal. I had done a second one and the clothes and architecture had the same vibe. minimax (simple prompt) minimax: mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Ok, minimax just did a scifi future thing. I don't recognize the setting z-image turbo (simple prompt) z-image turbo: mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Looks to me like it's the same world as p-image. That's interesting. Both of P-image and Z-image turbo are more fantasy and very different from Grok. Minimax is completely different from Grok but kinda in the scifi realm. hidream-i1-fast (simple prompt) hidream i1 fast : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world I ran two on Hidream and they were both similar. She's looking out at a castle and the moon.... or moon god is looking back at her. I was actually surprised at how similar the two were. This one has a fairytale vibe to it. It's different than everybody else, lol. lucid origin standard (simple prompt) lucid origin (no preset) : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world I ran Lucid origin twice even though I really don't use it often except for experiments. One was this with the scifi medieval armor and one was in modern time but they both have the portholes. lucid origin (creative preset) : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world I ran this one 2x too. This one she is modern but outside the house window, the woman there is a bit of a storybook feel. The other one was straight up urban city but she's looking out of a submarine-like porthole. So I really don't know how to interpret Lucid Flux family of models (simple prompt) Flux has a lot of different models. So I'm going to show them here together. Flux 2 Klein : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Flux 2 Klein is the cheapest model in the Flux family at 10 credits in April 2026. I liked the result. It has a D&D elf vibe going. Flux 2 Klein : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world (I know. I'm doing it again. I'm just curious if it will be the same. ) Ok Flux 2 Klein did the D&D elf vibe again but this time her clohtes is modern. I like it. I've been skipping Flux 2 Klein when I generate and now I think it's a mistake. These results are better than I expected. Flux Schnell Ultra : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Ok, Flux Schnell Ultra does have a sci-fi otherworldly vibe. I don't get the D&D vibe so it's completely different. It's an earlier model and it shows. Flux Krea Dev : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Flux Krea Dev has a bit more of a medieval d&d vibe going with modern tech as therea re light out there. Unless those lights are magically made, then it's magic tech. Flux Dev : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Flux Dev is an older model and just gave me a modern woman in a modern city. I ran it again and the same thing happened. Flux Dev 2 : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Flux Dev 2 shows what a difference a generation makes. Like Flux 2 Klein, there's that elf vibe. Looking out the window and it's definitely a fantasy vibe. When I did it again, i got the same vibe. It's very fantasy. One thing I am finding is although results are very varied from model to model, even in the same family, results within the same model have a lot of similarities. Flux 2 Pro : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Flux 2 Pro feels like medieval with steampunk. It's interesting tho because it has statues out there that make me think of South America's statues of the Virgin Mary. Flux Kontext Pro : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world And the last I'm doing of the Flux family is Flux Kontext Pro. Kind of a mix. Her building feels like a castle or dungeon but the buildings outside the window look like scifi. The cool thing is they signed the image with "mythpunk" ideogram v3 turbo (simple prompt) ideogram v3 turbo : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world I ran two on ideogram as well. They are different but they both have markings; one tattoo, one tattoo or tech.I ran it again and it looked to me like she either turned psychic or she's a goddess manifesting her powers with those glowy eyes. Wan 2.6 (simple prompt) Wan 2.6 : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world Wan 2.6 certainly has a unique look. It has dragons. It has a cyber city. It has a woman with horns who's reflection is younger than herself. And I strongly suspect that crowd out there aren't there isn't human unless they've been zombified. It has elements of magic and cyberpunk scifi. I ran it again in 2.6 just to see what would happen. I really like what it does. Even though it's futuristic, this is a a world I feel gods and goddesses still walk. GPT 1.5 Low (simple prompt) GPT 1.5 Low : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. This one has a medieval meets steampunk sans clockwork vibe. So I ran it again to check. I did another and both images gave the same vibe. Again we have consistency within a model. Just out of curiousity, I'm going to do a run on GPT 1.5 medium. GPT 1.5 Medium: mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. The details are a lot nicer in Medium but essentially it's the same vibe of castles and airships. I love that statue over there tho and Saturn. Saturn? So we are throwing a little scifi in there as well. Seedream 4 (simple prompt) Seedream 4 : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. This place has magic written all over it. You have crystals, you have runes and you have glowy eyes, not to mention the metallic phoenix. I did a second run because it feels rustic but maybe i was wrong. Now we have floaty islands with neon lights and iridescent phoenix. It's all pretty cool. I'd have a hard time categorizing this one but I like it. It's something I could use in a story. Seedream 5 Lite (simple prompt) Seedream 5 Lite : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. Seedream 5 feels like a combined steampunk and magic world. I like the runes in the sky and the clippership. I ran it again to see what would happen and it was pretty similar except there was a dragon and the building became Asian. Seedream 4.5 (simple prompt) Seedream 4.5 : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. Seedream 4.5 is much clearer in that you can see it's a castle and a neon city. The phoenix and her glowy eyes shows magic manifests in this world. She could even be a goddess watching humans far away. qwen image 2.0 (simple prompt) qwen image 2.0 : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. Qwen image 2.0 seems to be straight up medieval. I ran it again to check. So this time in Qwen , she is looking out on a scifi world. She's still a warrior tho and her weapons don't look scifi. Nano Banana (simple prompt) Nano Banana : mythpunk woman looking out the window into a mythpunk world. I like Nano Banana. It feels like a rich blend of magical and technological. It's also a world of normal and strange creatures. I did Nano Banana again. It feels like Nano Banana is giving her a mixed heritage with the dreadlocks and tanned skin. Here the world is green and it seems like the birds ae used as carriers. Conclusion about the different models and mythpunk The models varied a lot from each other although they mixed varying amount of magic and scifi. Some were dressed in historically flavored clothing while a few were modern day or futuristic. While the models varied a lot from each other and created different realities, generations within the same model often had a lot in common and seemed to create the same world. Next Past & Future Next we're going to see how much giving the prompt a set historical time period changes the mythic world. Since we've already seen the window into the world, let's change up the prompt and add an action. I am limiting it to 3 models and chose a variety of mythpunk worlds. I am hitting image limits in the blog post so can't do more than 3 but hope to have a representative sample Past Prompt mythpunk woman runs towards the camera with puppy cerberus away from hunters in a mythpunk world in ancient Greece Wan 2.6: Past the above is the mythpunk prompt in wan 2.6. In Wan 2.6, you can see the seed. So using the same seed, I did the same prompt without mythpunk to see how it changed. The prompt I did was " woman runs towards the camera with puppy cerberus away from hunters in ancient Greece ". Same seed. Grok: Past Nano Banana: Past Future Prompt mythpunk spiderwoman spinning neon webstrands of code stretching between rooftops in a mythpunk world in Africa in the far future my idea was in a world where information is king and corporations hoard data and keep it secret, the spider goddess is releasing information across the web so everyone can have it. Anansi is actually a male spider trickster god in West Africa I think so it's a little changed. wan 2.6: Future the above is the mythpunk prompt in wan 2.6. In Wan 2.6, you can see the seed. So using the same seed, I did the same prompt without mythpunk to see how it changed. The prompt I did was " spiderwoman spinning neon webstrands of code stretching between rooftops in Africa in the far future ". Same seed. You can't see the seed in the next two so I didn't rerun it. Besides I hit the image limit so that's it. Grok: Future Nano Banana: Future Conclusion Giving a time and place definitely changes how a mythpunk prompt shows. The models still show their flavors. Comparing a mythpunk prompt to the same seed of a prompt without mythpunk it does show the word "mythpunk" definitely flavors the world. Since the flavor mythpunk gives to a world is very specific to the models, if you're doing a mythpunk scene, it's important to choose the model that fits your vision. I hope you enjoyed this walk through mythpunk in different models.