#recall fragment

[tgrailwar-zero]

"Goodnight, Masters! Rest well!"

As you said goodnight to KUKULKAN, you drifted into unconsciousness.

Darkness. Nothingness.

Quiet... before the sound of footsteps.

Distant, yet near.

Not a dream, but a memory. Faded, but clearer.

Followed by a smell.

...The smell of blood permeated the air.

Corpses, slowly decaying away into data lay strewn across the streets, as bloodstained footsteps wandered forward. The source of the carnage came from one Servant.

An ASSASSIN, his blade drenched red.

He stepped in front of a glowing form.

The LAIR SERVANT.

The gaze of the LAIR SERVANT was intense. His voice tried to keep calm, but wavered ever so slightly.

LAIR SERVANT: "So, that's why you ended all of those lives? To draw me out?"

The ASSASSIN chuckled, the red glow from his eyes piercing the LAIR SERVANT.

ASSASSIN: "…'Lives'? These are a bunch of ones and zeroes that you're playin' dolls with. Killin' them was nothin' like killin' a person- twice as boring and nowhere near as hard. C'mon, you brought them back before-- do it again. I'll do it as many times as it takes, before you burn out your mana on that punk-ass Noble Phantasm of yours."

You could feel the hatred burn from the LAIR SERVANT as he raised a hand, a divine light shimmering from it.

His anger had reached its peak, and now the wrath of a Divine Spirit was imminent.

LAIR SERVANT: "This paradise… this Solar Cell… you Interlopers have come to selfishly destroy it. Destroy this paradise where nobody has to die! A place where I can forever develop the heights of my medicine, and create a true elixir of immortality!"

The LAIR SERVANT continued to burn, a divine flame sourced from a cursed bloodline beginning to leak out from his body. This was desperation. He had wasted his energy throwing wave after wave of Shadow Servants, and then reluctantly the undead corpses of the villagers that had been killed in a ploy to force the LAIR SERVANT's hand. It was an intense brutal strategy that resulted in plenty of wanton 'death', however- it was effective. And now the LAIR SERVANT, either too weak or too sentimental to conjure up the decaying data around them into more undead, was on his last legs.

However, it would be hard to tell with just a look.

ASSASSIN: "What a shame. I figured you'd have noticed by now. Thanks to my Masters, the more blood you throw at me, the more revitalized I become. Sorry."

The ASSASSIN took a step forward, fully unsheathing his blade. The mana around him distorted, burning with an otherworldly intensity. A faint form shimmer behind him, the intensity of two, burning Spirit Origins intertwining and fighting for the same cause, allowing his shine to match up against the divine light of the LAIR SERVANT.

This whole time, while the LAIR SERVANT had been trying to wear down ASSASSIN, the opposite had happened. ASSASSIN was growing stronger and healthier, staying in peak physical shape after each kill. …You're recalling something about ASSASSIN's condition…!

[ This is T-SUMMONING ] [ T-Summoning is a trait inherent to your Master status, due to the protocol you went through to reach the Solar Cell. Fusing two Spirit Origins together to create a more powerful Servant. The resulting Servant possesses the highest statistics of both fused Servants, however this power comes at an intense mana cost. This can either be ended once the Servant triggers their Noble Phantasm, runs out of mana to supply the boost, or can be stopped manually. However, either a contract needs to be made with both Servants, or a Servant's Spirit Core is captured before it's destroyed. Additionally, the maximum HP and MP is raised by 2! ] [ ASSASSIN is currently equipped with the 'PHANTOM COUNTESS' Spirit Core! ]

This was it.

The LAIR SERVANT was in your way, but once he was killed, that would be one more key- and one more path opened to the Solar Cell Core.

ASSASSIN: "Alright, Masters. Time to end this!"

( '5-option polls' function similarly to 4-option polls, with the fifth option usually involving triggering or cancelling a specific skill. If the 5th option doesn't win out, the voting percentage for that option will be evenly dispersed among the first 4, and then the success results will be calculated like if the poll had only 4 options. )

SERVANT: SLAYING ASSASSIN

T-SUMMONED: [PHANTOM COUNTESS]

Strength: C Endurance: D Agility: A (Raised from B) Mana: C (Raised from E) Luck: D (Raised from E) NP: B (Raised from C)

HP: 7/5

MP: 9/7

Maximum Damage (Strength): 7 (Increased due to the amount of blood present!) Maximum Damage (Mana): 7 (Increased due to the amount of blood present!)

Skills:

Man-Slayer (A) - A sword skill specialized in cutting down humans.

Mind's Eye (Fake) (C) - The skill to avoid danger through pure intuition.

Swordplay as Swift and Powerful as a Falcon (A) - The renowned, unmatched, unique swordsman style of ASSASSIN.

Torture Technique (A) - The deep understanding and precise execution regarding methods of torture, when using torture tools, the efficacy is increased.

Bloodsucking (C) - The act of absorbing another's blood to restore one's own vitality.

Bath of Fresh Blood (A) - This Servant becomes even more effective when drenched in blood.

[mournfulroses]

Miguel Hernández, from Twenty Poems; "Do You Recall That Throat,"

[starmocha]

Fragmented Dreams ▪︎ Partner Go Go

[cent-scratchnsniff]

face

[shatterthefragments]

Drove around for a couple hours (attended a movie in between bc it was with a collective I’m part of and while I’m surely not contagious anymore and it’s probably just lingering stuff, this theatre allegedly still has air filters and I of course wear an N95 ESPECIALLY when potentially still sick and since I’ve been feeling good except for when I lay down to sleep pretty much I felt like it would probably be okay. And fuck. I mean. Other patrons were coughing and I was fine.) which is good bc it’s been about a month since the car was driven into the city or uh. More than just moved to the driveway 😬

I NEEDED to get out of the house so that was good. (I could NOT sing along as I had hoped I’d be able to which was not good - I still don’t have much of a voice)

If I felt bad/unwell I would’ve just plopped myself down at a park with a gazebo or something instead to sit somewhere other than my bedroom.

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[fragmentedblade]

"That move was a token of my appreciation", Jingliu says to Jing Yuan's apprentice.

[franstastic-ideas]

I have a feeling that maybe something other than his wares were swiped…

[dg-fragments]

Its been a while how have you been random stranger :0

Not sure how long it has been, and well I've been alright, here and there, a bit all over the place too, but that's how it goes at times.

How about you? And who might you be?

[six-demon-bag]

ive started so many random fuckin fic fragments on top of all the other wip i have that i cant even remember where certain stories are

[warlordfelwinter]

"i didn't get to play your past like a vr game like fiver did but"

[tgrailwar-zero]

ASSASSIN ran.

This is what ASSASSIN-class Servants were good at. Running. Hiding. Striking from the shadows.

Your adversary, however, seemed unfazed and unsurprised.

'BOWMAN': "So it's death then."

The BOWMAN fired one arrow.

The sounds of the heavens themselves ruptured, bright light filled the area like the sun itself had burst to life between the two Servants as ASSASSIN narrowly dove out of the way. Despite his fast movement, the arrow landed heavily against his shoulder as he dove into an alleyway and continued to sprint away, his breath heavy and panicked.

[ Damage reduced to 3 thanks to a Great Success with Agility A! 4 HP remaining! ]

This.

This is why this Servant's face is burned within your mind.

Why you remember his expression so clearly as he stated his True Name. Disappointed. Somber. Determined.

KARNA: "My True Name is Karna. My bow, Vijaya, is the absolute pinnacle of its kind. Crafted for and wielded by Shiva, it ensures absolute victory. You were given a chance to live. That chance is gone."

The bowman's words rung as clear as church bells, even as you drew further and further away.

An announcement of an incredibly powerful Servant, and perhaps an even more incredible Noble Phantasm.

ASSASSIN: "Dammit… dammit!"

Eventually he found a homestead, slipping and ducking inside. The home was filled with the dissipating data of a small family. Digital corpses. Ones and zeroes, and yet the macabre sight began to feel a bit nauseating.

ASSASSIN found himself shaking, which frustrated him more. Even with the arrow skimming off his body, his shoulder was bleeding profusely. A direct hit from that was certain death. Of all the Lair Servants- of all the people to fight- it had to be this one? Caster was easy, his head rolled cleanly off his shoulders. But that was after extensive fighting and wearing him down. Near perfect strategy- this was their ambush- they weren't supposed to be the ones in this situation.

He felt the strength of the T-Summon waning, which didn't do anything to calm his nerves.

ASSASSIN: "I'll be damned if I die here. Caster-- can you hear me, Caster--!"

No response. Was the signal being jammed? The code cast you were using to communicate was top of the line. They'd need to have an ally incredibly versed in magecraft or curses in order to effectively jam them in a situation like this.

This was only the first Lair Servant. This was supposed to be easy. An assassination- an ambush- and now ASSASSIN found himself on the back foot.

You could hear the sound of his footsteps as he walked around. His lack of urgency made the hopeless reality of the situation even more palpable. He spoke, with the same even, dry tone.

KARNA: "I promise to make your death swift... or perhaps that isn't a convincing reason to come out. Hm. It would be easier if you revealed yourself on your own. Trying to communicate isn't my forte."

SERVANT: SLAYING ASSASSIN

T-SUMMONED: [PHANTOM COUNTESS]

Strength: C

Endurance: D

Agility: A (Raised from B)

Mana: C (Raised from E)

Luck: D (Raised from E)

NP: B (Raised from C)

HP: 4/5

MP: 3/7

Maximum Damage (Strength): 7 (Increased due to the amount of blood present!) Maximum Damage (Mana): 7 (Increased due to the amount of blood present!)

[xivu-arath]

even infinity

The Worms have risen from the Fundament’s depths, and just the sight of them bulking above the waves is enough to scatter their army. Auryx allows this. It is right for only the three of them to be able to approach their gods.

They roil and loop around each other, breaking the surface like monuments infested with uncountable, seething life. Out of their element and in the weak dawn light they are even more vast, and seeing them in Kaharn’s familiar waters aches like a lost limb. His eyes want to find an easier horizon, but he does not look away.

Above them, the wound peels back the sky, laying bare stars and the closest moons. Somewhere beyond them Taox hides, planning their demise as they pin down hers. That their vengeance has led them all here feels right. Of course they would reach the moons that were arrayed against them, whose doom had driven the King mad with fear.

He will lead his people out of the Fundament, and in surviving the God-Wave prove to be greater than every truth they had been taught. They are not meant to burrow and cling to the skin of a world that doesn’t want them. They will not be swept away and forgotten.

The stars are waiting for them, and an infinite horizon.

EVEN INFINITY HAS AN END, Yul says. YOU MIGHT REACH IT, OH NAVIGATOR OURS.

They ready the cutters at Xivu Arath’s order, a thousand ships armed and armoured by every secret Savathûn could dredge up. Then they sail through the wound and rise into orbit, the Worms coiling around and ahead of them to secure the ascent.

They devour the horizon, and Auryx does not look back.

[ava-of-shenanigans]

I’m more than halfway through my Middle Egyptian textbook, which means I know know more than one and a half languages, and now I can understand one of clauses in the Kahun fragment completely (unless I learn about constructions later that would look like exactly like the constructions I think these are and also work, in which case egg on my face for getting too confident).

(This isn’t one of the parts where Set says horny things. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the parts where Isis gives Horus advice. Sorry. I am aware that figuring out if Set is a bisexual icon or not is the only we’re all here /joke.)

Anyway so there’s this part, right here in the fragment:

And (nerd words incoming, you don’t really need to care about this part, the point is that I can explain how all the pieces of it fit together without being confused about anything and I’m very proud of that): nn (those shrugging arms and the jagged line beneath them) and rdit (the mouth, the arm, and that semicircle) are a negated infinite verb construction (“without [verb]ing”), and mA (the sickle, the eye, and the vulture) is probably a prospective form that’s acting as the direct object of rdit, since there’s only one vulture it in instead of two and the word after it, st (that folded linen glyph and that other semicircle) doesn’t make sense as the next word if it’s an infinitive and Ra (other mouth above arm, as well as the sun, the vertical stroke, and that bird perched on a stick) is also part of the sentence.

ANYWAY it should mean “without causing that Ra should see it,” or in a way that makes more sense to say in English “without letting Ra see it.” (The Latin translation just uses the word “sun” instead of Ra’s name, but capitalized, which makes sense because “Ra” and “sun” are literally the same word in Egyptian. I’m not sure which word is better here. Maybe the English connotations of just “sun” are better, the Contendings version of this myth makes a big deal about whether there’s daylight out or not when everything happens.)

Anyway, I feel pretty confident about this one part now, hoorayyyyyy progress! and hopefully I’ll be clearer on the rest of it soon.

[cosmicraelum]

Alexander, a mage with no memories

(I ramble about them in the tags.

[jacksintention]

I really can't stand Gil