#the invention of the printing press was a mistake | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

freesidexjunkie · 1 year ago

Text

Trouble

Small piece of durgetash drivel i wrote while a lil tipsy and feeling some kind of way about the Baldur's Mouth Gazette mission. Will upload to AO3 when i get better signal.

Gortash x f!Durge oc - AO3

Fluff, playing chicken with each other, manipulation, small threats. Pls enjoy 🥺

"Miss... Miss! You can't go–" That was all the guard got out before he found a dagger against his throat, silencing him to a whimper.

Gortash could, of course, hear this exchange going on outside of his office. He was debating how far he was going to let her go, to see how badly she wanted in. This was enough for now, he decided; he'd spare the poor guard. Flaming Fists weren't as replaceable with Orin prowling the streets.

"Let her in," he said, a hint of bemusement in his voice. After a moment, the door swung open violently. Maevris strolled leisurely to his desk, a measured smile on her face. Without the bloodstains and the shaking guard, one could almost mistake her for a person paying a pleasant social visit.

"Ah, my most efficient assassin! A pleasure. To what do I owe–" She dropped a stack of papers on his desk wordlessly, smiling at him with her blade still at her side.

A test print of the Baldur's Mouth Gazette lay on his desk, along with a letter in his hand. Not signed, of course, but recognizable to anyone who would care to notice. Warning! Dangerous Band of Adventurers Bring Absolutist Chaos to Our City! The paper cried out, with an unmistakably portrait of Mae and her band of misfits.

"I'm beginning to question the integrity of this alliance," she said coolly. "I wonder how this article could impact our... joint endeavor."

Gortash glanced over the newspaper and letter. "Tsk. Someone's been snooping. I didn't think the printing press was open to the public," he said with a half cocked smile.

"I'm remarkably tenacious," she said, "especially when threatened by men with feathered hats bigger than their sense. But, I suppose he's more useful to your plans than I am, if you're so ready to throw me to the wolves."

Her words dripped sweetly like honey, coating the malicious undertones as she twisted her dagger between her fingers. A subconscious habit that survived Orin's attack. He found the familiarity comforting, for a moment. "An insurance policy, my dear," he said, looking up at her, "until you were more certain where your allegiances lay."

"What an interesting way to win over my allegiance, then," she said as she perched herself on the corner of his desk.

Slander her name publicly, invent a reason for the Steel Watch to detain her. She would resist, of course, but they would be ordered to bring her in with non-lethal methods. Once she was declawed and separated from her traveling companions, Mae would certainly be much easier to talk to. She could be reasoned with, surely, without those do-gooders clinging to her. It wasn't a bad plan, if Ettvard had been more cautious.

"You know, you would have one advantage in this partnership, if you weren't so keen to throw it away," she said, looking down at him.

"Oh?" He said back with a lazy smile. He had missed their little sparring matches. "And what is that, dearest?"

"I don't have an opinion on you yet, one way or the other," she said, twirling her knife on its tip against the wooden desktop. "We might work well together, or we might not. I'm decidedly undecided, I suppose. But you do things like this, and it... tips the needle in the wrong direction." She lifted her blade up and brought it back down swiftly, stabbing the tip into the grain of the desk, all while keeping her face completely calm and measured.

He couldn't help but grin fully back up at her. A lovely display. "A thousand apologies, then," he said as he stood up and walked around the desk. "However, I do think I have at least one more advantage."

"And what's that?" She asked, feigning disinterest as she pulled her dagger from the desk and sheathed it at her side.

He came up behind her, barely a whisper away from her back. "I remember you better than you remember yourself," he whispered just above the skin of her neck before planting slow, delicate kisses trailing down the space just behind her ear.

She melted into the touch in spite of herself as an arm came to rest on her waist. Just as quickly as it came, the moment was over, as Gortash withdrew his touch and walked to a bookshelf. That momentary lapse of self control was all it took; the split second, involuntary movement of her body to his, and they both know where the balance of power was shifting in this battle. The smirk he had when he turned to face her, leaning against a shelf so cockily, said that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Two could play at that game. She hopped off of the desk corner and strolled over to him, stopping almost flush against his chest with her arms behind her back. Tilting her face up to his, with the most saccharine smile she could muster, she said, "so what is it that you want, then? Am I a partner, or a plaything?"

He grinned back down at her, eyes hooded, as he put a hand under her chin and brought her face inches from his. "I suppose that's up to you, dear," he said.

Mae stood on her tip toes and leaned in to whisper in his ear, hands on his shoulder for balance. "And how would I go about convincing you I'm more useful as your equal?" She purred.

He chuckled, and she felt it rumble through his chest under her hands. He put one arm lazily around her middle and leaned in to press a small kiss to the side of her head. "Not with such an obvious show of manipulation, pet." He teased before releasing his hold on her waist and walking back to his desk.

"As opposed to your very subtle manipulation?" She quipped back, disappointed but evidently not deterred. "You say you want to work together. Rule together. You string together all these pretty words to my face. I can't help but wonder if it's to distract me from the dagger you're planning to plunge into my back."

"Aren't daggers more your thing, Mae?" He replied as he sat at his desk again. She was already halfway across the room now.

"Give me one thing to trust. Anything. That's all I'm asking," she said as she approached his desk. "One reason to believe you're sincere."

He looked at her for a moment, amusement and admiration dancing across his face as she sat back on his desk, this time right in front of his seat. "Alright," he said, "give me your hand."

She looked at him quizzically as he reached towards her right arm, but acquiesced all the same. He took it in both hands and turned it over, holding her forearm with one hand while tracing a scar across her wrist with the other. "I was there when you got this scar. It was in Mephistopheles' vault. You were trying to disarm a trap, and it triggered on you instead," he said, looking her deeply in the eyes. "I was the one who cleaned and bandaged it for you out." He took her arm and pressed his lips to the scar, not looking away from her eyes, silently relishing in the fact that she didn't pull away from the contact.

"Anyone could make up a story about a scar," she said quietly, still looking down at him.

Her words said she wasn't convinced, but he knew her tells and mannerisms. He had her right where he wanted, if he could keep going. "I know you prefer to sleep on your left side," he said, curling an arm around her waist. "You preferred to sleep facing me. So you could listen to my heart beat under my chest, you said."

"That doesn't..." He could hear her breath hitch just the slightest bit. "That didn't stop you from betraying me last time though, did it?" She asked quietly. It wasn't a challenge; her eyes were wide and sincere. Almost hurt. That small, veiled vulnerability. Only ever reserved for him, even still.

He stood to meet her gaze, wrapping one arm around her middle fully and cupping her face with the other as he brought it to his. "It didn't stop me from losing you," he said, his breath ghosting over her lips, "a fate I'm very keen to avoid you facing again."

"Unless it's at your hand, apparently," she replied, leaning into the embrace all the same. Just as touchstarved as always, it seemed. Just as eager as he felt.

"My hands can be much more gentle, love," he said, leaning against her forehead, "if you'd let them."

She kept her eyes locked on his, barely a hair's breadth from his face, searching his demeanor. She gave him a small smirk, and his own heart was the one doing little flips this time. "We'll see," she said playfully, before extricating herself from his grip in one fluid movement and walking towards the door. "Do tell your other friends to play nicer, in the mean time," she called over her shoulder as she left.

He smiled after her, long after she had left the room. She might not remember him, no. But that was certainly still his same Mae.

#gortash x durge #dark urge x gortash #lord gortash #enver gortash #gortash x dark urge #lord enver gortash #bg3 gortash #durgetash #bg3 durge #durge #dark urge #fanfic #bg3 #maevris

47 notes · View notes

simplysedusa · 1 year ago

Text

How I imagine the Powerpuff Girls would dress

(credit to Pinterest for all the pictures)

Blossom Utonium

Blossom would be the kind of young lady who would have outfits for almost any occasion and sort them as such in her side of the closet and in her dressers (aside from maybe clubbing/partying). Clothes for interviews/press conferences tend to be a bit on the preppier side and a bit more modest (collared blouses with a monotone/neutral jumper, turtle necks, longer skirts, hair tied back with a pretty red or pink ribbon, ballet flats). Clothes she wears for casual wear would be a bit more colorful and fun (color striped skirt that may stop above the knee, jean jackets, high waisted jeans and shorts, more colorful sweaters, sneakers, doc martens, and knee/thigh/shin high boots). Longer skirts are ideal because they're easier to slip into in case of an emergency and she doesn't have to worry about being indecent while she's kicking ass and taking names. For my Pinterest board and this collage, I took inspiration from characters such as Betty Cooper from Riverdale, Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things, Abbi Singh from The Imperfects, and Lara Jean from To All The Boys I Loved Before with a dash of real life fashion icon Audrey Hepburn, who I could see being a huge role model for Blossom. Her clothes would be more toward the pale, subdued, pastel side in terms of coloring. She'd love floral prints ironically because of her name, but also unironically because she thinks they're pretty. If she does wear designs other than floral, they're simple stripes, or polka dots, or plaid. Favorite colors to wear other than pink would be red, orange, gray, black, white, and like a creamy off-white. I also weirdly low-key headcanon Blossom being the sister to accidentally steal her sisters' clothes because she's in a rush to get ready and grabs the first thing that looks like hers and tries to gaslight them into thinking they're hers once she realizes the mistake ("It's pink, Bubbles, of course it's mine", "Why would I wear your stupid collared shirts, Buttercup?").

Bubbles Utonium

Bubbles is a girl who LOVES clothes and fashion (she is the artsy one after all). Her style is fun, cute, youthful, flirty, childlike (affectionate), usually vibrant and eyesore causing catching. She'd definitely buy and wear something that's baby pink, baby blue, AND lime green all at the same time because it reminds her of the bond between her and her sisters or something. She loves oversized cardigans and jackets, especially if they're fuzzy, furry, and/or soft (but NO REAL FUR). One of Bubbles' favorite outerwear is a baby blue winter coat with hearts on the back that reminds her of the Powerpuff Signal that Townsville occasionally uses. She loves to make STATEMENTS with her outfits, causing quite a few of her peers/classmates/coworkers to (make fun of her behind her back) think she's immature and childish. The designs on her clothes are almost always over the top and never subtle (rainbow polka dotted crop top, dresses covered with faces of cats or butterflies, etc.). If Bubbles is under the weather or down in the dumps, her clothes are much more plain OR she goes out of her way to wear something with those corny "it'll get better" empowerment sayings on it. She also isn't above wearing any of the clothing merch since she knows it's going to a good cause. Bubbles loves all colors of the rainbow so long as they're bright; Blossom and Buttercup joke that she might have more pink and green clothes than they do. She has no qualms wearing outfits that remind her of her favorite video games, cartoons, or movies. Luckily for her, Professor Utonium invented a spray that keeps blood and other monster bodily fluids off of the clothes so they don't stain, that way Bubbles' clothes can stay pretty and clean, just how she likes it. Just like her clothes, Bubbles also has a variety of shoes from Mary Jane shoes similar to the ones she used to wear as a little girl, to sneakers, to sandals, to heels she managed to get at a discount, and anything in-between (she definitely wears those furry monster feet slippers out in public too if she felt it complimented her outfit). Her favorite pair are all white converses because "they go with everything". She'd also add matching little clips or flowers in her pigtails, space buns, or whatever other style Bubbles chooses to wear her hair.

Buttercup Utonium

Buttercup's style is either sporty, athletic, and a bit preppy (she loves most of the athletic sport brands such as Nikes or Adidas) or 90's grunge casual. She low-key shows the most skin between her and her sisters with all of the crop tops, ripped jeans (with fishnet stockings underneath) and shorts, and other mesh and transparent tops she has (a girl's gotta show off her toned muscle somehow, she's too proud of it). If she isn't getting dress-coded for that, she's getting dress-coded for the sayings on her shirt that might read "fuck off", "what you can do, I can do bleeding", "free the nipple", or other rather crass remarks that the school might deem "offensive". Buttercup might occasionally dawn a skirt (preferably a not too short jean or even leather one) or dress (usually a T-shirt dress, maxi, or boho, anything fancier than that she lets Blossom and Bubbles pick one out for her) if she felt like it, but only if she's 100% sure she'll look hot in it and she's comfortable. Oversized plaid, collared shirts over grunge, rock band shirts and shorts (with a beanie if it's cold enough) are her bread and butter go-to. Other articles of clothing like leather jackets, tube tops, or her designer variety letterman jackets are saved for her nights out on the town, living up to her fulfilled prophecy from Boogie Frights. Color wise, Buttercup tends to stick to earthier, darker tones than her sisters, but she does own quite a few vibrant colored clothing items such as lime green, orange, purple, and even yellow (even though I didn't feature those, sssh lmao). Buttercup was really into camo when she was younger, but after realizing most of her outfits consisted of "black and/or khaki with camo", she realized she needed to step her game up, so she tries not to wear it as much anymore. Buttercup is also the most obsessed with shoes out of all the Powerpuff Girls. She's a HUGE sneakerhead and she's not modest about it (nothing pisses her off more than stepping on chewed gum, she too is thankful for Professor's new invention). Buttercup's also the only sister who really loves jewelry and accessories, especially chains.

#ppg #the powerpuff girls #blossom utonium #bubbles utonium #buttercup utonium #zoom in if Tumblr ruined the quality #my edits

21 notes · View notes

dlaprobably · 2 years ago

Text

Servantember, Day 1: Johannes Gutenberg (Caster)

So, back in January, I decided I would take out two New Year's resolutions in one (doing stuff with all the concepts I had for Fate OCs and finally getting around to practicing drawing), and ultimately I decided to give myself a month-long challenge of drawing a character a day, chucking the list of names into a randomizer wheel and drawing whoever came up. I didn't quite manage to stick to the daily thing as I ended up busier than expected, some days having to double or triple up to play catch-up, and I didn't manage to stick to it for the whole month, but I made it 23 days in, which was pretty damn close, and I do intend to get back to the rest at some point. With all of that said, I'll be posting those here for the next while, each with a bit of lore/trivia/etc. to go with them under the cut.

First one to come up was Johannes Gutenberg, German inventor who revolutionized European publishing with his printing press! He's accompanied by Titivillus, a demon said to be responsible for causing mistakes in manuscripts on the devil's behalf, and considered to be a possible origin for the term "printer's devil", used to refer to a printer's apprentice.

Lore Notes:

-A dignified, serious sort, for the most part, befitting of his status as a master craftsman. He's constantly tinkering with something or other, and thrives on new ideas, however foolish they might seem in concept. He admires creativity in his Masters, and when he does manage to get a plan going, he can't help but have himself a good laugh. It'd be easy to underestimate him based on his lack of magical ability, but you would come to regret it quickly, as he can be a dastardly son of a gun when he wants to be.

-Gutenberg's magecraft is based on the spread of information. While his combat ability is practically nonexistent, he excels in his particular niche and is very much a force to be reckoned with.

-His main Noble Phantasm, Das Werk der Bücher, is the conceptual embodiment of his invention of the printing press, and the free spread of information it entails, granting his Master unlimited access to information on their opponents, as well as the ability to pass on that knowledge to others far and wide if they so wish. It can also be weaponized to bombard one's enemies with useless information, serve as a distraction, or even print money. As long as it's within the realm of distributing information or printing things, he can make it happen. The main drawback of this ability is that it takes extensive setup, as he must first rebuild his printing press from scratch with all of the trial and error that it took the first time.

-His passive Noble Phantasm, Aventur und Kunst, allows him to read through existing archives and written texts pretty much instantly as long as he can access them in some format, as well as allowing him free reign over physical printing of said information, since he claimed his initial period of research granted him the secret of printing.

-He's a frowned-upon choice by the Mage's Association and mage society at large, what with the importance of one's methods maintaining their secrecy. If there's a Holy Grail War banlist, he's certainly on there, however unofficially.

-Titivillus typically hangs around Gutenberg's rival, Johann Fust, but has unwittingly been dragged along with Gutenberg this time. As part of his responsibility as a demon is collecting stray chatter and misspoken words during church services, he carries his ERRATA sack with him. He's agreed to serve as a proper assistant to Gutenberg while he's around, peppering his enemies' works with typos, making them trip up their words at critical moments, and generally helping out with printer's devil duties. He may not seem like much, but it might be he's just holding back until he gets the raise he's been hoping for.

-While Gutenberg's workings mainly involve printing and information, he's also quite skilled in the making of mirrors. They have no magical effects whatsoever, and mostly just kind of look nice, but maybe you can pass them off as something special and make a quick buck?

Design Notes:

Went fairly straightforward with the depiction to start things off, using the few existing posthumous portraits of Gutenberg as a reference for his appearance. The coat was initially going to be designed to look like an open book, but I liked the idea of making it out of pieces of type more, so I went with that instead, keeping the book thing to the lapels. There are two easter eggs hidden on the coat, if you're interested in looking for them! Finally, Titivillus was the result of me going down a rabbit hole researching the term "printer's devil", and I thought the office worker getup made sense for a more bureaucratic, word-based type of demon.

#fate grand order #fgo #fanservant #dla arts #servantember

7 notes · View notes

iivocom · 3 months ago

Text

I Love to Write Day: Celebrating the Written Word

The Power of Language

One of the defining characteristics of humanity is our ability to communicate through complex language. While many animals possess their own forms of communication, the development of written language marked a significant leap in human evolution.

From the earliest pictographs etched onto cave walls to the intricate scripts of ancient civilizations, writing has been a cornerstone of human progress.

The Evolution of Writing

The invention of the printing press revolutionized the dissemination of information, making books and other written materials more accessible to the masses. In recent centuries, the digital age has further transformed the way we write and consume content. The rise of personal computers, smartphones, and the internet has connected writers and readers worldwide, fostering a global community of wordsmiths.

The Ever-Evolving Language

Language itself is a dynamic entity, constantly evolving to reflect changing societal norms and technological advancements. The emergence of emojis, for instance, has added a new dimension to written communication, enabling us to express emotions and ideas succinctly and visually.

Why Write?

Writing offers numerous benefits, both personal and professional. It can help to:

Clarify thoughts and ideas: Putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) can help you organize your thoughts and gain a deeper understanding of complex issues.

Improve memory and focus: The act of writing can enhance cognitive function and memory retention.

Reduce stress and anxiety: Writing about your feelings can be a therapeutic way to process emotions and alleviate stress.

Develop creativity and problem-solving skills: Writing can stimulate your imagination and help you think critically.

How to Write

The best way to write is the way that works best for you. Some people prefer the traditional pen-and-paper approach, while others may find digital tools more conducive to their writing process. The key is to find a method that allows you to express yourself freely and effectively.

Overcoming Writer's Block

If you're struggling with writer's block, don't despair. Even experienced writers face this challenge from time to time. Here are a few tips to help you overcome it:

Start small: Begin with a short writing exercise, such as journaling or freewriting.

Set realistic goals: Break down your writing tasks into smaller, manageable steps.

Find a quiet, distraction-free space: Create a dedicated writing environment where you can focus.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes: The first draft doesn't have to be perfect.

Just write: The most important thing is to keep writing, even if it's just a few words at a time.

I Love To Write Day (November 15th)

So, on this I Love to Write Day, let's celebrate the power of the written word. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, take some time to express yourself creatively. Happy writing!

#ILoveToWriteDay #Writing

0 notes

ainews · 7 months ago

Text

In the late 1380s, a new trend emerged in the world of letter writing: a tolerance for mistakes. This may come as a surprise to some, as we often associate the medieval era with strict rules and high standards for language and writing. However, this sudden change in attitude towards mistakes can be attributed to a combination of social, cultural, and technological factors.

First and foremost, the 1380s marked the end of a long period of war and famine in Europe. The Black Death, which ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century, had caused a significant decline in the population and disrupted social structures. As a result, there was a shift towards a more relaxed and lenient attitude in many aspects of life, including communication. With fewer people and resources available for formal education and training, the importance placed on perfection in writing began to diminish.

Furthermore, the growing popularity of vernacular literature in the 14th century contributed to this trend. As more people turned to reading and writing in their native language, rather than Latin, there was a natural increase in the variability of spelling and grammar. This led to a more accepting attitude towards mistakes, as long as the message was still effectively conveyed.

In addition, the rise of the printing press in the mid-15th century brought about a major change in the production and dissemination of writing. Before this invention, all texts were handwritten and therefore subject to human error. With the printing press, however, texts could be mass-produced with uniformity and accuracy. This shift in technology may have made people more forgiving of mistakes in handwritten letters, as the printing press could produce perfect copies.

It is also worth noting that the 1380s saw a rise in the use of paper as a writing material. Prior to this, vellum (a type of parchment) was the most commonly used material, and it was both expensive and labor-intensive to produce. With the introduction of paper, which was cheaper and more readily available, the pressure to make each letter perfect may have lessened.

Finally, it is important to consider the cultural context of the 1380s. This was a time of great social and political change, with the Hundred Years' War between England and France, the ongoing struggles of the papacy, and the rise of the merchant class. With such turmoil and upheaval, it is possible that people simply had more pressing concerns than perfecting their letter writing skills.

In conclusion, the 1380s marked a significant shift in the attitude towards mistakes in letter writing. This can be attributed to a combination of social, cultural, and technological factors, including the aftermath of the Black Death, the popularity of vernacular literature, the advent of the printing press, the rise of paper as a writing material, and the tumultuous political climate. This change in mindset towards mistakes paved the way for a more relaxed and informal style of letter writing, which has persisted to this day.

#ai generated #fake news

0 notes

1001albumsrated · 8 months ago

Text

#5: Fats Domino - This Is Fats Domino! (1956)

Wow, the 1001 Albums guys really made me work for this one. This thing is out of print on every format. It's not on streaming. I resorted to a poor quality rip of a bootleg-adjacent CD reissue on YouTube. I actually listened ahead a couple releases and sandbagged this one with the hopes of finding a better quality version of it somewhere. I normally wouldn't complain, but a core tenet (supposedly) of their selection criteria is physical accessibility, prioritizing albums that are in print or easily found and heard. And this isn't an issue with it just recently vanishing: at the time of the book's first publishing in 2005, the album had been out of print in the US since the 1969 "forced stereo" LP reissue (which itself got a few early reprints at unknown years, I'd estimate based on the labels that the most recent is from the early 70s). If you wanted to hear the original mono recording you better have been ready to track down an original. There had been a handful of European and Japanese reissues, but I can't imagine many folks wanting to pay import prices for this. And it never hit the CD til the aforementioned bootleg-adjacent 2008 Dutch reissue (notably with the wrong name, making the easy mistake of conflating it with his 5th album, This Is Fats), with the only other CD issue being a spendy Japanese version from 2016. None of the versions I looked at were particularly expensive today for what they are, but certainly inconvenient to acquire, requiring the listener to buy used off of eBay or Discogs and understand different pressings, Goldmine gradings, etc. If I ran the zoo I would have pivoted to one of his other 50's albums, most of which are at least readily available on streaming if not in print. Obviously streaming wasn't at the forefront of their minds in 2005, but the newer editions have no excuse.

Anyways, the album! Like it says on the tin, it's Fats Domino. He's a bit of a one trick pony, but he also invented rock n roll so let's cut the man some slack (ok, debatably invented, but about as good a starting point as any in my book). This is a fun listen. If you've heard early rock music you won't find any surprises here, but you won't complain about hearing it either. And you certainly can't understate his influence on music and culture. It may not seem like as much today, but swinging 12 bar blues and beating up the piano was an earth-shaking event at the time, and his contributions to music are invaluable. My only other note is that the recording quality seemed particularly poor on this one, even for the era, but it's hard to say when you're listening to a budget Dutch needledrop through YouTube audio compression on a 480p video.

All that being said, I really would have liked to see mention of Sister Rosetta Tharpe somewhere in here as we dig through the origins of rock. Obviously she predates the concept of the LP by a bit, but there are plenty of compilations out there of her early sides, and plenty of (comparatively) more modern live material to pull from. If you know you know, and if you don't know then I'm here to tell you that the godmother of rock n roll was a mighty black woman who shouted gospel and wielded a triple humbucker Gibson SG.

Ok, I've gotten far enough off topic enough times now that I feel like I'm being rude to the legendary Fat Man, so let's put a bow on this thing. MUST you hear This Is Fats Domino!? Yes, with the caveat that your head might hurt less if you just pull up one of his other albums on your streaming service of choice; they're all equally good in my book.

Next time: we keep court with one of the highest ranking members of jazz royalty, Duke Ellington, and his 1956 live album Ellington at Newport!

#1001 albums #1001 albums you must hear before you die #1001albumsrated #album review #now spinning #Fats Domino #This Is Fats Domino!#rock n roll

1 note · View note

mask131 · 1 year ago

Text

A quick answer to @amashelle about why I used "novel" in this post - and if anybody else wants to jump into the conversation I'll leave the original reblog tags below:

#but note that it is technically incorrct to refer to the text as a novel#novels are a specific type of text not invented until well after the establishment of the printing press#so cool how new romances can still be recovered through diligent research

And amashelle offered me to use "romance" instead.

It is true that English language seems to favor the term "medieval romance" or "Arthurian romance", but there's a reason why I used (mistakenly or rightfully, I do not know yet) "novel". And that's because I am French and the French term for this whole set of texts is "roman". That's how "novels" are translated today, as "romans" - and unlike the English word "novel", roman is a term that dates back to the Middle-Ages. Roman originally was invented for the texts of Chrétien de Troyes, who is supposed to have invented the very first "novels" (roman) of French literature - aka his tales of Lancelot, Yvain, the Grail, Erec and Enide, etc... If you ask a French person, it is the roman de Lancelot - the Lancelot's novel. But it is true that I noted a discrepancy between the English "novel" and the French "roman" and it always personally confused me, and gave me problems - which is often why I used the original "roman" without translating it. In turn, this confuses English-speakers, which is why to hook up people to the topic I thought of using "novel" to better lure in the everyday folk X)

But just a quick research online through various websites, while does proving me that in the English language the genre is known as "chivalric romance", and for example Chrétien's works are referred as "romance poems", I also see the term "novel" being frequently used for some of the texts forming this Romance genre... So I do not know if there is an exception of the use of "novel" for some medieval texts?

Anyway, thank you for reminding me of this little correction of terms, and to avoid further confusion I will make sure to use the original French "roman" instead of the English "novel". Like that ,there won't be any problem Xp

(Another trivia - in French "romance" is strongly connoted with the idea of love. A "romance" is a love story. As such, when in English one speaks of "medieval romance", they speak of a "roman médiéval" - but a French person can easily mistake/mistranlate it as "medieval love story". And that's because there's a whole etymology difference.

The French "roman" comes from the "Roman language", and originally means anything in the "langue romane" - the "langue romane" being all the languages born of vulgar/degraded Latin. So originally a "roman" basically meant anything written in French - as opposed to Latin text. And "roman" existed ever since the Old French - "romance" existed too, but as a secondary term, either being used as an alternate plural for roman (the usual one being "romans" and since all the letters were pronounced, the "s" sometimes became "ce"), either as an adjective. It was part of a whole set of terms that disappeared with the Old French, all derived from roman - like "romancier" which could either be the verb "writing a novel" or a name for an "author, a writer". Anyway all the great titles of famous medieval texts stayed "Roman" - le Roman de Renart, les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, etc etc...

However the modern French "romance" is actually a twin word (there is a whole set of "twin words" in French language, one word coming from a natural evolution out of vulgar Latin and Old French, and a more "scholarly" variation introduced during the Renaissance usually out of Greek or other Roman languages such as Italian or Spanish). The modern "romance" was introduced in 17th century France, out of the Spanish word "romance", which indeed originally was just a translation of the French "roman", full cycle. But since the new French word designated a specific set of Spanish literature, "romance" now meant "A Spanish verse-poem about historical subjects, epic stories or love stories" - and quickly derived into meaning either "A song about tenderness or lament", or "A love story, a romantic relationship" - of course extending into the literary genre of "love stories". Nothing to do with the medieval "roman", many of which did not include any love story at all (though there was always some sex somewhere).

The missing Arthurian knight - rediscovered in 2019

Well the title is a slight lie - the missing knight wasn't rediscovered in 2019, it was earlier than that, but he didn't became public until 2019.

So what's this "missing knight" about? Well as the title says. There was a knight part of the Arthurian myth, and he had been missing ever since the Middle-Ages, and he was only recently rediscovered.

Or rather, to be exact - there was an Arthurian novel centered around a knight that existed and was a famous and well-known part of the Arthurian literature in the Middle-Ages, but that completely disappeared, and was forgotten by culture (as much popular culture as the scholarly one). Until very recently.

This rediscovered novel has been a hot topic of all Arthuriana fans in Europe for a few years now - and yet I do not see much talk about this onto this website, despite Tumblr being a big place for Arthurian fans?

So I will correct this by doing a series of posts about the subject. And this post will be the first one, the introduction post presenting to you "Ségurant, le chevalier au dragon" ; "Segurant, the knight of the dragon". A French medieval novel part of the Arthurian literature (hence the "chevalier au X" title structure - like Lancelot, the knight of the cart or Yvain the knight of the lion from Chrétien de Troyes), the reason this story was forgotten by all medievalist and literary scholars is - long story short - because it never existed in any full manuscript (at least none that survived to this day). It was a complete story yes, with even variations apparently, but that was cut into pieces and fragments inserted into various other manuscripts and texts (most notably various "Merlin's Prophecies").

The novel and the Knight of the Dragon were rediscovered through the work of Emanuele Arioli, who rediscovered a fragment of the story while looking at an old manuscript of a Merlin Prophecies, and then went on the hunt for the other fragments and pieces scattered around Europe, until he finally could compile the full story, that he then published in 2019, at the Belles Lettres publishing house, in 2019.

Arioli reconstructed the text, and translated it in both modern Fench and Italian for scholarly and professional editions (aka Honoré Champion in Fance, a reference for universities)...

... But also for a more "all public, found in all libraries" edition - the famous 2019 edition at Les Belles Lettres.

And not only that, but he also participated to both a comic book adaptation with Emiliano Tanzillo...

... and an adaptation as an illustrated children novel!

Finally, just a few weeks, the Franco-German channel Arte released a documentary about the reconstitution and content of this missing novel called "Le Chevalier au dragon: Le roman disparu de la Table Ronde". (The Knight of the Dragon - The missing novel of the Round Table). The full documentary is on Youtube in French for those that speak the language, here. And in German here for those who speak German.

Unfortunately there is no English version of the documentary that I know of, nor any English publications of the actual text - just French and Italian. But hey, I'll try to palliate to that by doing some English-speaking posts about this whole business!

#switching from french to english is hard sometimes #self reblog #etymology #roman #romance #novel #medieval literature #french literature #evolution of words

336 notes · View notes

cxnsolatio · 2 years ago

Text

✚✚✚ nami — @chatcambrioleur

cont’d

An honest mistake, the swapping of the books. Law and Nami's tomes could be twins: clothbound in the same prussian blue were it not for the different patinas time and use had given them, embraced by a thick scent of primordial dust from whatever trove they had been freed, fraying fabric and golden ornamentation chipping away from their spines. They were not old — Law had compared their respective publication dates — but had been well-travelled, beloved.

Law's Introduction to Pharmacology guide had been acquired from a second-hand bookshop, just the type of business he always visited without a fault when reaching a new island; provided, of course, it were inhabited and acquainted both with an alphabet and the invention of the press. In certain parts of the ocean, cultures still thrived which relied solely on oral tradition, knowledge passed down from one generation to the other. To be privy to it was no lesser privilege than to read upon the printed word. Maybe one day he’d encounter a tribe to ethnograph.

Now, ‘acquired’ here means purchased, not purloined, for books were to him a basic commodity, no less substantial nourishment, and, as such, deserving of being paid for rather than elegantly nicked from a near-sighted vendor or otherwise slow of movement salesperson. Maybe one with old, aching joints to boot. He wondered whether Nami's book had come to her in the same manner, or if the robber in her had once decided to foray into shoplifting for a change, a transition from pickpocketing. Her moniker was, after all, the Cat Burglar, not the ‘Cat Thief’, an important jurisdictional difference if not socially ad rem. Robbers, burglars, and thieves, they all took that which was not theirs to take, so why bother fancying the right nomenclature for each and every criminal? Semantics was the last of the common man’s troubles.

Law nodded at Nami's words, that she may yet borrow Tony’s books, unable to refute her simple but impeccable logic. One did not weaken by knowing — information was fulfilment; ignorance was torment.

Unacquainted with her crew’s story and mythos, Law could not know how they had fared before appending a doctor to their midst, though he could be sure, as he was, the straw-hatted simpleton would not have bothered finding a medic as his first crewmember. Straw Hat wore his priorities upside down. Someone else must have filled the reindeer's shoes — metaphorical coverings fit real hoofs just fine — prior to him becoming the resident physician.

Perhaps Sanji, who should be able to bring some phytotherapic knowledge to his cooking and shop for medicinal herbs and spices when crossing out items off his grocery list in the markets. Or perhaps Nico, who, in spite of her specialisation in archaeology, had an air about her of one who knew the rudiments of every single topic, ethnic old remedies not to be discarded. Or maybe, and she really was Law's third option in this line of thought, unfair though the sequence may be, it had been Nami who had taken medical care of the crew, again, if Tony was nowhere under the black flag. She grew citrus fruits in the Sunny, did she not? Then, at least, no Straw Hat would have suffered from scurvy in her presence, that deficiency in ascorbic acid which was the sailor's constant affliction.

In that moment, Nami appeared to Law under a completely different light, riddle-loving mind assessing the puzzle laid out before him. Her dedicated shelf in the bookcase was well provided for. Her reading glasses spoke of a tired eyesight. She was showing a willingness to learn more about the art of healing beyond first-aid with no pressing need nor foreign coaxing. Could it be he had underestimated her? He had, and Law felt himself ashamed for it.

How it upset him so that others should underestimate Bepo's smarts because he was a non-human amongst humans, because he was a mink, because he was the possessor of adorable bear ears! Bepo’s obsessive need for apologising to others like a new pathology of his own invention did not help in making him more serious a figure. A complete dolt would never be able to navigate a toy boat out of his own bathwater, let alone across sea and ocean! Had Law not incurred in the same mistake? Judged a book titled Nami by its attractive cover, as though its contents came second place? Fortunately for him, Law was not so personable as not to be taken seriously and shared not of Bepo and Nami’s biased fate.

Orange-red spread over Law's cheeks, and he swallowed the saliva frothing up in his mouth; but he did not apologise. To follow an expression of regret with a much-needed explanation as to why it had been warranted in the first place would only aggravate the woman more. Not to mention that would be a public admittance to his failure in judgment, which Law simply could not have.

Amends made with none but himself, Law defaulted to his prideful demeanour. ❝ Of course I'm more advanced.❞ he asserted with truth. The volume previously in Nami’s hands had been his initiation into the branch of biomedical sciences known as pharmacology, but the doctor had trodden a long way since. The basics of any subject, however, were always worthy revisiting. One only truly knew something when they could break down the most complex of theses into the most elementary of clarifications. At least, he had had the decency not to embellish his phrase with a quantifier, keeping his vainglory to an acceptable extent.

The pursuit for knowledge was a noble endeavour. Nevertheless, he could not return Nami’s inclination. While Law meant not to underestimate neither navigator nor her expertise, truth was he did not care for studies in meteorology, climatology or such other atmospheric sciences. Other pursuits interested him more, either as a nice addition to his curriculum — as was the case with the aforementioned pharmacology, — or for pure leisure — such as the keeping of numismatics. Some other areas of knowledge, still, like botany, made for a good bridge between the two kinds of academic allure.

He could not part with his book, the sentimentality long seeped into its yellowed pages, but he would not oppose to letting Nami borrow his Introduction after all. She grew an orchard; she cared for things.

❝ You can keep my book for a while, if you’re so inclined. Do not mistake my favour for a donation to your library, however. When you are done reading it, I’d very much like it returned. ❞

And as if he could not resist teasing Nami a little, Law smugged, closed the still open gap between his body and hers, the desk behind the former and a blur of colourful spines and wooden shelves a background to the latter. ❝ Should you wish to keep it forevermore, thieving cat,❞ he enunciated the words as though they were her real cognomen, ❝ you will have to steal it from me. ❞ Law pursed his lips before grinning further than before. ❝ I do wonder... ❞

But he hoped she didn’t. It would be an easy task, to misappropriate a book, for someone dubbed the Cat Burglar.

#chatcambrioleur #✚ | ❝ though i am blessed with an inner strength / some they would call it a penance ❞ { ic }#✚ | ❝ i have seen many things in a lifetime alone / mother love is no more ; bring this savage back home ❞ { v / main }#long post for ts

1 note · View note

horsesarecreatures · 3 years ago

Photo

Book review - The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants by Anna Pavord  This book is well-researched and examines how the study of plants evolved before, during, and after the renaissance. Each chapter is usually devoted to a person of importance, and its more or less in chronological order. It starts with Theophrastus, who was the first to apply the principles of classification to plants. He didn’t assign any significance to flowers or how the parts of a plant change throughout its life, but he did divide plants into four classes: trees, shrubs, sub-shrubs, and herbs. He also created the first known written body of works on plants, and debated the best way to name them, so he was very important.  The next chapter described Pliny the Elder/ Pliny the Plagiarist. Theophrastus had been re-discovered 2,000 years later, with nothing particularly important happening in the time gap. Pliny was more of a complier than a thinker, and he described about 800 plants from second-hand sources, but didn’t add much to the debate about how to name or classify them. Then she moves on to the doctor Dioscorides, who produced a field guide about plants that strictly had medicinal importance called De materia medica in AD 77. This was considered to be the best authority on plants in the east and west for the next 1,500 years. It focused more on the way plants could be used than descriptions of them, and again did nothing to classify or name them differently. The Greek physician Galen is briefly mentioned in this chapter, and he was the first to arrange plants by alphabetical order.  The next chapter is about Juliana’s Book, which is among the earliest and best-illustrated Greek herbals. Then the one after that described how the Arabs of the 12th and 13th centuries corrected and added to Dioscorides’ text, but didn’t develop anything entirely from their own experiences.  Then there are a few not-as-important chapters before she gets to the topic of illustrations. The Carrara Herbal made by the Paduan monk Jacopo Filippino was the first to purposefully illustrate plants exactly as they would appear. The Arabs had not illustrated in this way due to Aniconism and the ban on life-like images. Many others followed with life-like illustrations, including Leonardo da Vinci. There were problems, though, as illustrations in books were handcopied and new mistakes were made, to the point where each copy was less accurate than the original. Otto Brunfels wrote Herbarum vivae eicones, which was illustrated by the brilliant Hans Weiditz, who solved the problem of one illustration not displaying a plant in its various stages by including miniature illustrations along with the main one. By then there was the printing press, so these improved illustrations became widely circulated and copied.  After this comes Leonhart Fuchs, who developed some simple latin words to describe plants that are still used today like hortensis, odoratum, rotunda, vulgaris, etc. This was after Brunfels had begun using a two-tag naming system in his book. Later, as new plants and new varieties were being discovered faster than people could keep up with them, the names of plants started becoming very long and impractical.  Next is a chapter that discuses Italy and the first botanical gardens, as well as the brilliant teacher Luca Ghini, who invented the herbarium by pressing dried plants in books to study. Andrea Cesalpino, who succeeded him as curator of Pisa’s botanical garden, began a new way of organizing plants - by seeds and fruit. It was the best system to date. He also noted that lichens and fungi never set seed at all. He wrote De plantis libri which was published in 1583 and grouped closely related plants together, rather than plants with similar medicinal uses. He arranged plants into 15 different categories, expanding on the previous tree, shrub, sub-shrub, and herb categories. Unfortunately, later writers like Hieronymus Bock reverted back to the previous system.  Then the book skips ahead to England, which had not produced anything significant until William Turner, who in the 1500s wrote Names and Herbal, which were the first original works written by an Englishman. Sadly he is not well-known and receives little credit, but he synthesized plants names in Greek, Latin, English, French, German, and Italian, eliminating a lot of confusion.  According to the author, John Ray then created the basis for taxonomy (she’s quite dismissive of Carolus Clasius) by proposing six rules remniscent of many of the things Ghini and Cesalpino came up with. And that’s pretty much it. In the prologue she mentions that the binomial naming system used by Linnaeus was not his invention, which is true, but he certainly popularized it. She more or less ends the book by saying that since 1867, the naming of plants has been regulated by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, which she gives no background about.  Nice things about this book: It contains a lot of very nice illustrations from the various books it talks about. The first few chapters about Theophrastus, Pliny, and Dioscorides were quite good and they’re definitely major players. Criticisms of this book: It’s well-researched but not well written or well organized. There’s definitely an English bias in dedicating chapters to Willaim Turner and John Ray but only mentioning Carolus Clasius in a couple of pages. Calling it The Naming of Names when 98% of the book is the history of the various botanical books that were published is misleading. It really doesn’t go into how the latin binomial naming system became the dominant one. I also thought it was odd how Catherine de Medici wasn’t mentioned at all because she commissioned a lot of botanical art and was largely responsible for the plant knowledge of the renaissance disseminating to France and then the rest of Europe.

#book #bookblr #book review #botany #taxonomy #history #the naming of names #anna pavord

34 notes · View notes

k00265221 · 2 years ago

Text

Introduction to the Possibilities of Relief Print Seminar (22/11/22)

I learned a lot about the history and importance of printmaking from this seminar.

Notes on the importance of printmaking :

Important for the commercial industry

It's on everything

It is great for mass printing

It encourages artists to collaborate and experiment

Notes on the history of printing :

Etching became popular for decorating Knights armour

Printing played an important role in ancient Asian art, specifically Japanese

Printing became more popular after the invention of the printing press

Print was often used during war times to express political views as it was easy to mass produce and its extreme contrasting colours and harsh look effectively conveyed the intended message

It was / is used as a tribute to war victims

Notes on print making :

Planning is key !

Often less is more

Minimalistic prints are hardest as it is impossible to hide mistakes

You need to understand composition, shape, complimentary colours, and structure

Images flip when doing lino printing

I will keep all of these notes in mind when doing any kind of printing in future. This seminar really made me appreciate the work of printers. There is a lot of thought process behind their important works

2 notes · View notes

ave-aria · 4 years ago

Text

Rewind

Ectober Week 2020 Day 3: Rewind Summary: Maddie can't believe what she's seeing on the security tape. In shock, she hits rewind. Tags: Reveal fic, Blood, Angst, Implications of character death, Tragedy, Trauma, Oneshot

Rewind.

Maddie keeps her eyes on the tv screen as the figures wind their way backwards to the start of the video. She won't look away. Can't. Doesn't dare.

If she looks away, she'll have to focus on something else. The quiet, dusty lab around her. The uncleaned ecto-weapons by the door. The green blood smattered on the blade.

The hollow, empty house looming over her head…

The video hiccups a bit as she hits the start of the feed. Old VHS tapes are odd like that, buzzing out with static where the film wore thin from too many pauses and restarts. It's a sign she's hit the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

It was an old security tape, filched from the lab. Onscreen, three teenagers, her son at the lead, slip into the camera's field of view. Maddie leans closer, enraptured by the movement, even though she's seen this moment enough times to have it seared into her brain.

Maybe, if she focuses hard enough, she can learn the secret - how to rewind her own mistakes, go back to a time when none of it has happened, just like in the video.

"Whoa, check it out! This thing's huge! I can't believe your parents built this!" A pause, while the kid adjusts his glasses. "Bummer that it doesn't work though, dude."

"Damn. Was it really supposed to open a portal to the underworld?"

"It's 'The Ghost Zone,' Sam. And yeah. My parents were pretty heartbroken when it didn't work. It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

The detached, clinical angle of the shot doesn't do the moment justice. Danny'd always been such a kind boy, thoughtful and empathetic to a fault. Maddie's throat closes up a little, leaving her struggling to breathe. They had been upset. Unbearably so. Their life's work - as Danny put it - fizzled out before their very eyes. It'd been a hard loss to take, one that she and Jack might never have recovered from, had the Portal not miraculously started working on its own, days later.

God. Now she almost wishes it hadn't.

A bright flash draws her from her reverie. Maddie blinks at the screen. A camera flash. In her distraction, she's missed part of the video; Tucker's casual "Lighten up, dude,", Sam's request for a photo op, Danny grabbing a hazmat suit to pose with while she dug the device from her backpack.

"—Got it," Sam waves the printed Polaroid to air out the negative.

"Okay. I showed you the portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute."

Where had they been that day, anyway? Maddie wonders. Grocery shopping? Visiting the park? Moping, as they tried anything to get their minds off of their most recent failure? If they'd been there —

If they'd been there—

"Come on, Danny," comes Sam's voice, treacherous in its fascination. "A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious?"

Danny looks into the Portal, clutching the custom white suit made specially for him. Sam smirks, knowing. "You gotta check it out."

Maddie hits pause.

Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Pause. Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Rewind.

"—gotta check it out."

The remote feels cold and heavy, like ice in her hand. In that moment, a selfishness grips her. She could blame Sam. For all if it. Everything that happened, it all started here, and it started because—

—But she can't blame Sam, because the next moment, Danny turns back, his eyes sparkling with an adventurous spirit. It's a spark of curiosity, brimming at the thought of the unknown; a look she's all too familiar with, one she's seen often on her daughter's face, her husband's - even her own, in the mirror.

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of that Portal?"

That curiosity, it's a Fenton trait, not one that needs to be stoked like a fire. That spark's been burning within him, since the cradle.

"Don't go in," she whispers, as if her advice could change the course of history. Even if he could hear her, though, it would be no use. He can no more resist the call than he can resist breathing.

He pulls on the hazmat suit. Skintight, white with black edging. It's like staring at a photo-negative. Watching her son, Maddie's stomach twists.

How couldn't she see it before?

"Alright. I'm going in." He says. His first footsteps echo, loud, in the hollow of the blacked out Portal…

Maddie's breath shudders in. She grips the remote and, before she can stop herself, hits the button.

Rewind.

She watches as her son walks backwards, double-time, out of the entrance to the Portal. The panic that gripped her fades.

"Mads?" From somewhere up above, echoing down the staircase, comes her husband's voice. Maddie is glued to the video screen, and almost doesn't hear him. Regardless, she definitely can't answer. What would she even say?

"Maddie?" His heavy footsteps echo in the stairwell, trudging closer. "Are you down there?"

A hitch in the tape. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Drawn by the sound, Jack trudges the rest of the way down the narrow staircase. She feels a slight reverberation in the floor when he reaches the landing behind her. She doesn't turn around.

"The police called back. Officer McNally said he'd file a missing persons report, and they promised to keep their eyes open. But—" she hears the way uncertainty causes his voice to die in his throat when she doesn't turn to greet him. After a long moment of silence, he draws up to her side. "What are you watching?" he asks at last.

"It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

Question. He'd asked a question. Maddie swallows and struggles to answer. "Security tapes," she chokes out.

Understanding, an incomplete kind, dawns on Jack, and vigor jumps back into his bones. "Mads, that's brilliant!" he booms. "Why didn't I think of it? He comes into the lab all the time! We can use the security tapes to see when he last—"

"I found this tape in Danny's room," she interrupts.

Again, his voice falters in confusion.

"Under the bed," she elaborates, as if that will help. And continues watching, detached.

"Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back any minute."

The flickering light of the tv fills the lab, ominous in its glow. Jack hesitates. Maybe he's picked up on the subtext by now. Maddie can picture his eyes drifting from the staticy screen to the items in front of it, scattered across the table. He reaches out fro the shoebox sitting beside the tv. Taped to its front, written in the cursive, unmistakable scrawl of their son's handwriting, is a note that reads:

'If I Never Come Home'

"Maddie, what is this." Jack's voice is uncharacteristically heavy. Looking to her for guidance. For answers.

For once, she has none to give.

"Watch," Maddie whispers, still trapped by the screen. Automatic, her fingers hit the button.

Rewind.

With no other options to grasp at, he does.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Watches as the kids approach the Portal.

"Aren't you curious?"

Watches as their son zips up the hazmat suit.

"Alright, I'm going in."

Watches as he disappears into the empty cavity of their greatest invention.

Click.

Watches as it thrums to life, with a scream.

"Da—Danny no!" Jack yells in tandem with the two remaining teens. He lurches forward, hand outstretched, to stop the agony onscreen. "He's not - when did he -"

"It's old, Jack," Maddie whispers. "From when the Portal started working."

Jack spins to stare at her. "You mean - Danny's the one who—" he's visibly struggling with the information, the same way she did, on her first viewing. "But—he never said—"

Right, Madie thinks. He never said anything. Jack's confusion is laughable, though. Why Danny never told them—that much is painfully clear.

"Guys?" Over the yelling and the panicking and the electric cackle from the Portal, their son's terrified voice cuts through the din. "G-guys help, what's happening?!"

Tucker and Sam are black silhouettes stumbling backwards from a swirling green glow, but they freeze and scramble to right themselves, lurching forward to catch someone as he stumbles through the gate.

Phantom - Danny - emerges from the portal, falling to his knees.

"…No," Jack says. Disbelief is thick in his voice. "That can't be… no."

Maddie lifts the remote.

Rewind.

A flash of light. A curdling scream. A shock of confusion, panic, scramble.

Danny Phantom stumbles from the portal.

Jack stares for a long time. Then he reaches out, snatching the lid of the shoebox for a second look at the evidence. The note, accusatory, stares back at them.

"This is how he tells us." Jack doesn't often whisper, but it seems like he can't do anything else. Her husband looks at the empty shoebox, the screen, the VCR. "Our son is Danny Phantom, and this is how he tells us. I…" he trails off.

Maddie almost can't believe it, how easily Jack arrives at the conclusion. It took her twelve viewings for her to wrap her mind around it, and it still hasn't really sunk in. But then, that's always been Jack's strong poing - those intuitive leaps of logic. Ones every scientist both loathed and envied.

"Did it kill him?" he moves seamlessly onto the next question that tripped her. Somehow, Jack's voice is even quieter this time.

Maddie shakes her head no. If they watch the video long enough, about ten minutes in, Danny manages to change his way back to human. If their invention did kill him, it wasn't permanent. Not that time, at least.

She's too close to thinking about it.

Rewind.

"But—" she can't stop Jack from thinking, though. He barrels on, heedless of breaking the fragile grasp Maddie has on her sanity. "But if all this time — Phantom—"

A hitch in the tape.

"We've been—"

Press play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

"—Don't tell me we've been trying to waste our own kid—"

If Maddie weren't so detached, she might laugh. Waste. God, he can't even say it.

"Trying?" she asks instead. Bitter, the word sticks to her tongue.

She's not looking at the tape now. She's looking at him. And Jack, oh, Jack, he just stares down at her, a dark horror growing in his eyes.

He whips around to look at the bloodied weapons sitting at the base of the stairs.

Exactly where they left them two days ago, after that nasty ghost fight. When they came home to find a broken house, their daughter crying at the kitchen table, and their son just - gone.

"No." Jack backs up a step. "No no no no no no no—"

A flash of light. A curdling scream—

In an instant, Jack is moving. He snatches up weapons, whatever he can find, and bolts for the staircase, vaulting his way up to ground floor. Distantly, Maddie hears the doors slam. The RV thrumming to life. The screech of tires as Jack peels out of the driveway.

In the cold wake of his departure, Maddie turns back to the tv. She should go after him, she knows. But she's not quite done watching. Jack's always been a man of action, after all, but she's the analytical one, who studies, who marvels, who gathers the facts she sees.

Phantom, onscreen, slumps against his friends while he drips ectoplasm to the floor. He stares down at his white-gloved hands, his glowing green eyes wide in shock. Maddie wonders if he knew, then, what would become of him. What his parents, who raised him, who swore to protect him, would do.

She can't face those questions. Not yet. Not yet. Instead, she lifts the remote.

And rewinds.

A good scientist, a rational scientist, never draws conclusions while she's still gathering evidence. So as long as she's still watching—

A hitch in the tape. She's at the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

As long as she keeps watching, she doesn't have to do anything with this information. All she has to do is watch.

So she watches. She rewinds. And she plays. She can't look away—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here—"

She doesn't dare.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down h—"

All she can do is rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let y—"

And rewind—and rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if—"

Until she finds evidence contrary to her theory…

"Mom and Dad would kill me—"

Or she finds Its inevitable End.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Rewind.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

[AO3] [FFN]

#Danny Phantom #Ectober #EctoberWeek2020 #Rewind #Reveal Fic #Identity Reveal #Maddie Fenton #Jack Fenton #Character Death #sorry for the length #oneshot

349 notes · View notes

dhwty-writes · 4 years ago

Note

Dialogue prompt: “you feel so deeply for everyone, let someone feel deeply for you.”

Thank you, lovely person, for this wonderful prompt! I’m sorry this took a while, it got very long. I also just realised as I was uploading this, that the prompt isn’t exactly what you asked for. I hope you like it regardless!

Warnings: None, except for utter dumbassery on these two idiots’ parts

Read on AO3

The room at their inn was infuriatingly quiet, the silence only broken by the scratch of Jaskier's quill. It drove Geralt mad. It drove him mad and yet he could do nothing but stare at the ceiling above the bed.

Not because of the obvious reasons. Not because it was annoying or too loud or anything.

No, it drove him mad, because he lacked the words to fill the silence. Two dozen times Geralt opened his mouth to say something, two dozen times he closed it again.

Then he sat up with a start. "What would you like to do this evening?" he blurted out.

The maddening scratching stopped for a moment, accompanied by a weary sigh. "Gee, Geralt, what kind of question is that?"

"Hmm." Yeah, what kind of question was that? A stupid one, that's what.

"I don't know, sleep?” The scratching started again. “I'm tired." Jaskier yawned to prove his point.

Geralt ground his teeth and turned onto his other side. He had just wanted to do something nice for his bard. But now the opportunity had passed, now he had to work up the courage again. He fell asleep, still ruminating how utterly stupid he had been.

The thing was, doing something nice for another person wasn't necessarily Geralt's forte. Melitele's tits, even being nice was not his forte! He was a witcher and witchers killed monsters. Niceties and manners had a very low priority in Kaer Morhen’s curriculum.

The other thing was, Jaskier deserved someone being nice to him. He couldn't quite say what it was, but the bard had grown on him over the years. First a slight annoyance and liability, then a reliable travel companion until he felt comfortable calling him his friend. Best friend, even. Which, given that he was his only friend, wasn’t very hard. And now—

Something had changed, something Geralt did not quite dare to name. All he knew was that whenever he looked at his bard, his cheeks and chest grew warm and his stomach and heart did funny things they weren't supposed to.

And that he wanted to do something nice for the bard.

A few weeks after the Question Incident, Geralt had finally worked up the courage to try once more. Given his previous experience, he had decided not to ask the bard again. That way at least, he didn’t run risk to ruin it with his incompetence with words again.

He did, however, hold the belief that words were the key to this tricky situation. Jaskier was a bard, a poet, a minstrel. He liked words. So, Geralt decided to by him a pretty book full of pretty words.

They had managed to arrive in town during market day, which was quite fortunate indeed. Books were pricey, and usually unattainable in the smaller towns. But here he was quick to succeed.

The book was almost comically tiny and abhorrently expensive, but the vendor assured him that it was all the rage in Cidaris at the moment. Even better than that, it was not written by hand, but rather by a very new invention called a ‘printing press’. Needless to say, Geralt was fascinated and excited to have found such a perfect gift for his bard. He slapped down a pouch of coins onto the counter and quickly returned to their inn.

The book was strategically placed onto the rickety desk in the corner and he forced himself to busy himself with his swords as he waited for his friend to return.

It did not take long until Jaskier burst into the room with the usual flurry of words and quickly discarded clothes. Normally, Geralt paid him no mind, but on that day, he was watching him like a hawk. That was how he was fortunate enough to witness the exact moment the bard spotted the book.

Jaskier froze mid-sentence and pointed at it: “What’s this?”

“’S for you,” Geralt mumbled. “I found it.”

He drew closer to the desk and flipped the cover open with two fingers, as far away from the folio as possible. And hissed. Jaskier actually hissed. “What is this?” he demanded again. “And what is it doing here, in our room?”

“A book,” he replied confused. “Poems, they said. ‘S good, they said.”

“Poems!” he exclaimed. “Those aren’t poems, Geralt, those are the uninspired rhymes by a talentless wastrel, who stole my verses! I hope you didn’t spend any money on it, I wouldn’t give a copper for any composition by Valdo Marx.”

Geralt looked at the sword in his lap. ‘Fuck.’

“I’m going to burn it,” Jaskier declared and Geralt leapt to his feet, shouting: “No!”

The rest of their stay in town was spent wrestling the book from his bard, so he couldn’t chuck it into the fireplace before Geralt had a chance to pawn it off again. Somehow, he felt even stupider than the last time.

~*~

Words were off the table, then, so he opted for a more direct-action approach. One of the many things he had learned about the bard in all those years, was that he enjoyed food. Good food, specifically.

They made camp, Geralt decided that Jaskier deserved a nice meal. He went off to hunt and forage, leaving the bard in charge of setting up the camp and caring for Roach. After his initial mistrust of his companion’s animal handling skills, Jaskier had quickly proven himself quite capable. At least more capable than looking for food in the wild.

When he returned an hour and a half later, he was quite proud with himself. He had managed to catch a fat rabbit and found a whole array of mushrooms and berries that would surely please the bard. They were brightly coloured, just as he was.

Smiling broadly and not-humming under his breath—they had talked about that, witchers didn't hum, definitely not—he set about preparing the meal while Jaskier went off to do the laundry in a nearby stream. Fair's fair, after all.

The sun had set and the stew was almost done, when he returned. "That smells—” He wrinkled his nose.

'Oh no,' Geralt thought, icy dread rushing through his veins. That wasn't good. One wasn't supposed to wrinkle their nose when smelling food. Besides, there was nothing to wrinkle one's nose about. The stew smelled delicious.

However, he appeared to have done a grievous mistake, for the displeased expression on Jaskier’s face did not fade. "Geralt," he said warily, "what are you doing?"

"Cooking," he replied, pointing at the pot simmering over the fire. This time, at least, it was Jaskier asking the stupid questions. "Mushrooms and rabbit."

"Mushrooms," Jaskier repeated and pointed at a few leftovers. "Those mushrooms?"

"Hmm." He did not like where this was going.

"Oh, Geralt," Jaskier's face fell, an absolutely revolting expression of compassion and bemusement. "Those are poisonous!"

Geralt stared at him. Stared back at the stew. Back at him. The stew. "Fuck."

~*~

Alright, so what Geralt needed was a fool-proof plan. A witcher-proof plan, rather. I plan he could absolutely not muck up, no matter how hard he tried. It took him a month and a half to come up with one.

Then, he decided it was best to put such delicate matters into someone else’s hands. Hooves, rather.

“Geralt,” Jaskier complained loudly as the heat bore down on them relentlessly. “Please, have some mercy on me. I can’t. I just can’t anymore.” This had been going on for hours. “How long’s it been, Geralt? How long’s it been since we had a rest? Since the sweat dripping from my brow wasn’t watering dried weeds on the road side? Since I had but a sip of water?”

He cast his eyes upwards. “About four hours since you took a morning bath in that stream,” he replied matter-of-factly. “And you’d have something to drink, had you not insisted on upending your water over your head.”

“You’re a cruel man, witcher,” the bard whined. Geralt could hear the pout in his voice. “The reason for my demise, even. My blisters have got blisters, I think my feet are about to fall off. And whose fault will it be? Yours, my friend yours alone—”

Geralt jerked on Roach’s reins; he had heard quite enough of those baseless accusations. The bard, however, didn’t even seem to notice. Instead, he just kept on babbling and walking—limping, really. He couldn’t help but smile. “Jaskier,” he said far too fondly as he hopped off the saddle.

He spun around, a confused look on his face. “What?”

“Come here.” He gestured at Roach. “Maybe this’ll give your feet some rest.” In the privacy of his mind, he added: ‘And my ears, as well.’

Eagerly, Jaskier hurried over to him. “Are you being serious?”

He rolled his eyes and laced his fingers together, offering to give him a boost. When Jaskier still didn’t move, he growled: “Come on, before I change my mind.”

“Alright, alright,” the bard mumbled. Shortly after, he was safely in the saddle, grinning from ear to ear, as he patted Roach’s neck. “Gotta admit it,” he said smugly, while Geralt adjusted the stirrups, “I kind of missed this. Thank you, Geralt.”

He mumbled something unintelligible and waved him to be on his way, as he got all of his friend’s useless weight situated on his back. It did not take much urging for the bard to ride ahead and leave Geralt trailing behind.

In all fairness, what happened next was only loosely his fault. Maybe he should have paid better attention to the road. Maybe he should have walked beside Roach, ready to grab her reins if anything went wrong. Maybe.

But he was, after all, only a man. Only a man who was not only confronted with the fact that his bard had a rather lovely bottom, but also that said lovely bottom was right in his line of sight, if he walked behind Roach just so. Information he’d certainly file away again for later, if his bard was dilly-dallying again.

Still, maybe he shouldn’t have let himself be distracted quite as much by the sight. And he probably should have seen the bandits waiting at the side of the road well in advance. He definitely should have realised sooner what exactly was happening and come to Jaskier’s rescue.

Alas, none of that had been the case.

A piercing scream had ripped him out of his silent contemplation and next thing he knew, Roach was gone, Jaskier was lying on the ground and he had four, admittedly not very skilled, crooks to contend with.

Once that was done, he crouched down next to his friend, fretting nervously. “Are you alright?” he asked anxiously, skimming his hands all over Jaskier’s body to check for injuries. “Did you break something? Any blood, any pain? How’s your head feeling?”

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” he insisted, batting the hands away. “Melitele’s tits, Geralt, please tell me I’m not that insufferable.”

He sat back on his haunches, unable to do anything but stare. This was nothing like he had planned.

Jaskier sighed heavily and waved his hand. “Just… go check on your horse.”

Bereft of any other options, that was exactly what he did.

~*~

Autumn was almost upon them and Geralt was running out of options. After the Question Incident, the Book Catastrophe, the Mushrooms and the Wannabe Robbers, a number of other disastrous mishaps had followed, the most prominent among those being the Tavern Brawl, the Brothel Failure, and the Library Ban.

What he had learned during all those horrifying events, was that the only way he could ever even hope to do something nice for his bard was with a town, meticulous planning, and the radical elimination of any and all possible liabilities.

The first two, he had excelled at, this time. There was a town, there was an inn, there was a room they rented for five days. The first three of them, Geralt had spent conspiring with the innkeeper and her wife, who found them and his efforts ‘absolutely adorable’ and who were more than willing to aid him in his ‘display of his undying love’. Both of those were rather weird notions, but Geralt was so close, so close, he had no time to bother with semantics.

It was the fourth day and everything was going perfect. The tub was prepared, the tavern was quiet, the bath salts and scented oils and soaps his bard loved so much bought. And the bard did not suspect a thing.

All that was left to do know was fetch Jaskier and finally, finally do something nice for him.

That last thing was easier than he had anticipated; they practically ran into each other on the way out of the tavern. “Jaskier!” Geralt said.

“Geralt!” Jaskier said.

“I’ve got something for you,” they both said.

Geralt blinked.

Jaskier blinked.

“You go first,” Geralt growled.

“Great!” The bard was bouncing on the balls of his feet. That was never a good sign. He didn’t know, however, how much of a not-good sign it was until Jaskier produced a sheet of paper from his sleeve. “Look! It’s a contract!”

‘Fuck,’ Geralt thought. ‘I should’ve gone first.’ “Shit,” he said. “I can’t take it.”

“What?!” he balked. “What are you talking about, you have to take it! That’s a hundred crowns, Geralt, that’ll last us weeks! I know you’ve been going all stir-crazy these past few days; you’re even more quiet and taciturn than usual.”

That wasn’t exactly untrue. Four days of conspiring had taken their toll. “What’s it about?”

“Oh, just a couple of drowners.”

Geralt growled and snatched the page out of his hand. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he promised and stormed off.

He wasn’t back in an hour. It wasn’t a couple of drowners, either.

Instead, he returned two hours past sundown, drenched in mud, every bone in his body hurting like fuck, the heads of a couple of drowners and a fucking water hag. He hated water hags. Not because they were specifically difficult to kill, but because they just kept lobbing mud at him and that was all he needed for a day to qualify as truly revolting.

He stomped to the house of the alderman, collected the payment and then dragged himself up to their inn room, where he was greeted by a far too cheery bard. “You’re back!” he exclaimed and almost lunged to embrace him, when he spotted the mud and guts all over him. “Eww,” he sneered. “You, my dear witcher, need a bath.”

On any other day, Geralt would have readily agreed. Maybe even on this day. But then, Jaskier declares: “Luckily, our gracious hosts have been so kind to already provide us with one.” He stepped out of the way and, to Geralt’s horror, presented a wooden bathtub with candles and rose petals and a nice embroidered linen sheet to avoid any annoying splinters. “Come here, friend, and take a bath.”

“No, you take a bath,” he blurted before he had even time to think about the words coming out of his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Jaskier wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I’m not the one smelling like he just got dunked into the swamp and then took a nap in the pigpen. You take a bath, Geralt, or you sleep with Roach tonight!”

Accepting his fat, his shoulders fell. “Fuck.”

~*~

It was almost winter, almost time to separate for months, and Geralt almost admitted defeat. Almost. But, of course, he didn’t even manage that.

Honestly, after nigh nine months of trial and error (mostly error) it shouldn’t come as a surprise to him, that even this final opportunity was a complete and utter failure in regards to his plans. How it still did was beyond him.

The door to their inn room shut behind them with a bang, Jaskier leaning against it to block any means of escape. "Geralt of Rivia," he declared boldly, probably as menacing as he could, "what are you playing at?"

"Hm?" he tried innocently.

"Oh, no,” he laughed throatily and raised an accusatory finger, drawing closer with each word. “Oh no, my friend, don't you 'hm' me. You,” the finger poked into his chest, “are acting weird."

"Hmm."

He huffed. "At least we can agree about that. So. What are you playing at? Because I tell you, this has been going on for months and I can't decide whether you are trying to mock me, insult me, or kill me!"

"None of that," Geralt was quick to assure.

"Well, then, what is it?"

His eyes darted back and forth, desperately searching for a way out of this. But Jaskier was directly in front of him, trapping him against the bed, and still blocking the way to the door. There was nowhere to run, so he decided to go for the truth: "I'm trying to do something nice for you!"

The bard gawked at him. Then, he blurted: "What on earth are you talking about?!"

He didn’t say a thing.

“Geralt!” Jaskier took another step forward and as Geralt’s calves hit the mattress, his knees buckled and he sat down involuntarily.

"I—” He threw up his hands in defeat. How on earth was he supposed to explain all of those confusing things going on inside of him. Before he could come up with a satisfying answer, his mouth started talking on his own: “You care so deeply for everyone, let someone care deeply for you."

Silence fell over the room, as Jaskier kept staring and Geralt kept avoiding his gaze. Then, the bard suddenly crouched down, with the exact same expression he had after The Mushrooms. “Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier said in that soft tone he just couldn't quite understand. 'Fond,' his mind supplied, 'adoring.'

"Please," he begged, hiding his face against the reassuring shoulder of his friend, "this has been hell. I tried everything I could think of, and it all failed. Just tell me. Tell me how I can do something nice for you. I'd do anything, anything at all."

"Anything, you say?" He laughed, a playful undertone sneaking into his voice. "Well then, heroic witcher, I would like a kiss,” he said, accompanied by a wink.

Geralt wasn't thinking. If he had been, he'd probably stopped himself. But since any cerebral activity had ceased to exist, he just leaned forward and pressed his lips to the bard's mouth in a chaste kiss.

It was over almost before it had begun, the bard spluttering with surprise: "I- You- I was joking!"

Oh. Fuck. Well, that certainly was a way to end a year of embarrassments. "I'm sorry," he blurted and backed away, frantically scooting back on the bed, only to be stopped by Jaskier's hands.

“I—umm—shit!” Jaskier cursed; now it was him who was avoiding Geralt’s gaze.

He snorted. No hunched shoulders or ducked head could hide the crimson cheeks of his bard. “You’re blushing.”

“Well, you’re an idiot!” he countered. And, well, Jaskier certainly was not prone to be a liar. “I didn't think you’d actually do it, you daft witcher,” he hissed, before his face grew soft and he smiled again, invitingly. “But I also didn't say you should stop.”

It was a terrible line. It was a terrible line and they both knew it. Evidently, they both didn’t care. As soon as the words had left Jaskier’s mouth, they surged forward. It was surreal, really, to finally be granted permission. To finally be able to taste Jaskier’s lips, to pull him in, close, closer, until he was straddling his thighs. To finally be able to dispose of his doublet, push his hands under his shirt and up his back and—

Breathlessly, Geralt pulled away. “I love you,” he blurted.

Jaskier sighed quietly and smiled. “I know,” he whispered and pecked him on his cheek. “You show it in a thousand little ways, every day.” He pecked him on the other cheek.

“I know,” Geralt replied and kissed him on the mouth. “You tell anyone who would listen.”

He chuckled and kissed him again. “I never dared to dream you’d love me like this,” he murmured against his lips.

“But I do.”

“You know,” Jaskier said, playing with the clasps of his armour, “that was awfully nice of you. But if you’d life to do another nice thing for me, to make up for lost time, so to speak, I’ve got a couple of ideas in my mind.”

Geralt groaned and pull away, flopping backwards onto the bed. “No,” he said stubbornly, shoving at the bard who tried to kiss him again. “Nope, not in a thousand years. That was it, you ruined it. Enough nice things for you.”

“Oh, come on,” Jaskier whined. “It wasn’t that terrible. Cheesy, yes, I’ll accept even tacky, but certainly not tasteless enough to warrant such a cruel punishment.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

Jaskier crossed his arms and pouted. “Alright, maybe it was,” he conceded.

Geralt huffed his agreement, stretching out his hands for his bard’s hips, already tired of this game.

“Regardless,” a smug grin spread on his face as he shimmied closer, “you love me too much to deny me for long.”

“Yeah.” Geralt smirked as well and put his arms around Jaskier’s neck to pull him in for another kiss. “Yeah, I do.”

#prompt fill #kimception98 #look i've got an ask #geraskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #my writing #julian alfred pankratz #geraskier fanfiction #the witcher fanfiction #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier

39 notes · View notes