#coming up with a more 'canon' design for these two was very good exercise X]

[foureyedowl]

some blupani art i made for @foreteller-ava as part of a gift exchange on @ultimate-spm-blog's discord server !!

[willowser]

pleased to meet you—

dabi x reader

wc: 6.5k+

warnings: hurt/comfort, explicit language, implied/referenced drug abuse, implied/referenced suicide attempt(s), suicidal ideation, canon divergent, implied/referenced sexual abuse, heavy mentions of severe mental illness, touya needs a goddamn hug, and some therapy, eventual smut, post paranormal liberation war arc, AU

—hope you guess my name

CHAPTER 1/?

Please draw a picture to show how you feel about being here today:

Gotta be fucking kidding.

If the world were a perfect little cage, Touya might’ve been better at art. The new pack of unopened markers that are taunting him from the edge of the table: if only he had the talent to illustrate himself burning down to his bones, the ability to show a sack of meat rotting in a field, turning green and growing putrid with time. Enji without a face; an azure flame smothered; headless Shouto; Matsui, the smug fucking bastard, with his heart on a platter.

Bon appétit, fuckhead, Touya would say, it’s important to open up.

But, he’s not supposed to be like that anymore, not with all the medication he's on. And he's not that good at drawing, anyway, so he just stares at the smiley faces looking back at him. There are eight in total on the print-out, two in every corner, encouraging him to create more to join their little party. Touya thinks that in this moment, he would rather die than draw a stupid fucking smiley face, anything, really, that would somehow make him a willing participant to this crackpot evaluation.

(Touya thinks that in this moment he’s being awfully taxing, but he’s a Todoroki after all, and the men in his family tend to have a flair for the dramatic.)

Convenient, that blue is missing from the pack of primary colors. Red, too. In the back of his mind he thinks, what a goddamn psycho, can't even stand to look at the color of blood anymore after all the shedding of it he's done. At one point in time, he could have bathed in it, probably did after a decent night out, but now—now it just makes his scabs itch. Makes his wounds fester. What a joke.

Touya glances up from the page and at the fucking dolt, the absolute tool with the PhD sitting like a badge of honor on his wall. Congratulations, people probably say, you've come so far.

Touya says, "gotta be fucking kidding."

Matsui makes the face of an ugly fish, shrugging as if he can agree it's stupid as fuck to do this exercise, as if he isn't the one that pulled the paper packet from his drawer the minute Touya walked through the door. Fingers laced, ever the patient saint—he just wants to be friends, you know? Pals. That’s why Touya is in here, is at home and not in the goddamn nut house, because of his buddy Hayate.

"I think illustration could be very helpful for you."

Matsui Hayate—thirty-four, MA in psychology and social care, real proud of himself, has great parents, single, small guy. So far, he's the youngest person Touya's talked to, which is probably the whole point, to see if they can bond or whatever—and Touya is the oldest patient Matsui has ever counseled.

Because this program is designed for fucking kids.

The staples in his face pinch when he grins but he does it anyway, since it adds to his charm and all. The pages slap against each other as he waves the packet around, showing off all the negative space. “C’mon, it ain’t that hard to tell this is the inside of my cell, is it?” Matsui is a champ at not rising to any bait, which is what makes him the best, worthy in Enji’s eyes. “You wound me, really wound me.”

“Would you like to talk about Tartarus?”

In the movies, when triggering words are used, the subtitles do something like (%^#^$&%&); in a perfect little cage, Touya would just hear a bunch of static or beeping or noises that soften the blow a little, but Matsui thinks that shying away from these subjects will only “make his symptoms worse”. In a cage like this, which isn’t so much a cage as it is a hand around his throat, Touya doesn’t hear the echo of classical music or the twinkling of fairies or whatever the fuck; he hears the sound of rushing water, can picture it when it comes out of the hose, when it forces him into the corner of the room. Can feel it when it tears at his naked skin, the skin that’s still skin, the parts of Dabi that are still Touya.

(In this moment, he thinks he would rather die than be ripped open again. Probed. Assessed. In this moment, he thinks he would rather take his own heart out himself.)

People probably tell Matsui, you're doing so well for yourself. You're amazing at what you do.

"This event is causing me to feel," Touya squints down at the page; something else of Enji that is trapped within him: a shit eyesight, "very afraid, upset, and helpless."

"It's good that you're able to recognize that, Touya. Why don't you draw what that looks like to you, on that paper there?"

People probably say, I'm so proud of who you've become, Hayate.

They probably tell him, your parents must be so happy.

Touya takes the brown marker—because there isn't a black either—and draws a big X in the middle of the page.

—

3. Recreate Relationships

Positive social experiences are imperative for reintegration to be successful, and these can be provided by individuals that will offer support, advice, and the friendship you may need to move forward in life.

Touya isn't allowed to walk down the block without Fuyumi.

In the beginning, he thought this would be fine because he had no interest in going down the block, up the block, or even leaving the house, really. In ten years, when they finally came into the musty, forgotten sector that is his childhood bedroom, he wanted them to find him under the desk, a skeleton with a middle finger raised. A fuck you from the grave; it’s what they all deserve. All of them.

But it’s turning out to be not fine because Fuyumi likes to do things. Together.

"We used to eat dinner at a place just like this! Don't you remember? They had a waterfall in the corner, just like this one!"

No, he doesn't remember.

Touya tells her, "no, I don't remember," and she presses her pout into the rim of her glass so he doesn’t see—but he does, he always does. Natsuo doesn’t say anything, only copies her frown emphatically, swiveling his head around to show off the roll of his eyes.

Sometimes Natsuo tries too hard to be an asshole, as if Touya will appreciate it and slap him on the back and say, you get it, you get why this shit sucks! You, little brother, totally, for sure get why things went south and why I had to try and murder our dad. I am so relieved to be a captive in your presence.

It never works out that way, though, and Fuyumi doesn’t ever say anything because she knows he’s just trying too hard. Coping, or something, that’s what Matsui says.

Fuyumi has ordered some cherry-floral-espresso-thing, one she keeps trying to give Touya a drink of, probably because he looks like shit even though she won’t say that, but he wants to order a beer. Or any alcohol, really, since it’s on the menu and just within his reach. It churns the acid in his stomach, revives his addictions like a roach that can’t be killed, even when you cut the head off—and Touya thought he’d cut the head off, that (%#@&*#!*) had cut the head off, but the little beasts are still there.

Reminding him of all the things he could be, with just a sip. Reminding him of all the things he’s been.

Touya doesn't drink anymore, not with all the medication he's on—and because he's been locked up for three years. Sober by force, not by choice, but it doesn't matter because he's different now. Touya is better now.

Touya doesn't do that anymore.

(Natsuo says, "cut it out, Yumi, he doesn't want any of your espresso crap," and Fuyumi still doesn't say anything, only presses her lips down into a thin line and shrugs like she doesn't mind; Touya really, really wants a hard drink. Or to blow his brains out. Either would work.)

There's yogurt from a doughnut in the corner of Natsu's mouth and Touya tells him it looks like cum, which turns his little brother's face red, which makes Touya laugh for the first time in a few days. Not a real laugh, not the kind that lights him up from the inside or makes him feel like these strangers mean anything to him, but enough that it placates them—for now. His sister turns her nose up at the joke (a joke, goddamn), but she eyes him all the same, that way she always does, that little triangle.

Left eye, right eye, chin, left eye. Observing him. Searching through all the ugliness to find someone she recognizes, someone that’s not a stranger to her, either. Touya wants to say, he's dead, Yumi, let it fucking go. Release me.

But he doesn't, just tapers off his laugh and then plays with a loose string from his sweatshirt, the same one he’s been wearing all week.

They're not even supposed to be here, because he isn't allowed to be within 300 feet of alcohol but Natsuo says, “this ain’t a bar”, in that tone, that kind of voice that tells everyone he doesn't care because he's an asshole, too, just like his brother. The kind that tells Touya they aren’t strangers.

This ain't a bar, and you're here Fuyumi, so what do we have to be worried about?

The royal douchebags two tables down keep nudging each other and nodding their heads toward Touya, probably asking each other if he's the guy, you know, the one that…? And the school girls that left when he'd walked in, they're wondering it, too. And the waitress that looks at his face too long and the couple walking by the window. They're all wondering, can’t believe it, rethinking their faith in the justice system because isn’t he the guy that…?

But what does Touya have to be worried about anyway, with his sister-slash-guardian here beside him.

"You should order something, Touya," she says, crossing her arms on the front of the table and smiling at him. "My treat." As if that's supposed to persuade him and not make him fucking sick.

The staples pinch again, but it's okay, because of the charm. "Y'know, I used to scrape mold off the bread I found in the dumpster."

Natsuo puts his doughnut down and looks up and away, as if whatever sports thing on the television in the corner is suddenly interesting (maybe it is, maybe Natsu likes that kind of shit, Touya wouldn't fucking know), and his sister just stares because she doesn't get it. She doesn't hide her frown this time, either.

"s'good, you should try it, Yumi."

There's a wanted poster outside the door of this place, pasted onto the red brick walls, this portrait of a blonde girl and her two little buns. Touya noticed it the second he rounded the corner.

"Probably could find some out back, if you wanted."

Maybe that's why he's in such a bad mood.

Maybe it's that, and maybe it's because he's a prisoner in his own skin now. Always was, really, but now he and Dabi have been lumped into the same meat husk, forced to fight it out day-by-day just so Touya isn't in a straight jacket for the rest of his life.

"I know this area pretty well, actually, think I got the shit kicked out of me two streets that way."

"Touya."

Matsui says not to dwell on that stuff, or talk about it with his family. Families are triggers, he says, for people who have suffered from this kind of trauma. So close to home, robbed of a safe space.

Touya is the first to break eye contact. Natsuo doesn't say anything, just stares at the television and furrows his eyebrows, because he's still just a kid that doesn't fucking get it, or listen. And Fuyumi doesn't want this, want Touya, as bad as she thinks she does; she doesn't say anything, either.

Matsui says Touya has a problem accepting help, even with all the medication. Even though he's better now. Maybe he’s in a bad mood because that makes sense—because Touya never needed their fucking help anyway—and he’d rather color a little rainbow in his workbook than admit his psychiatrist is right. The air at the table settles and the urge to disturb it rushes like the blood in his ears, but he just lets Natsuo order him a doughnut, too.

The guys two tables down start squaring their shoulders and shaking their heads, saying something about if he fucking tries it, dude, I'll take him out, as if Dabi isn't a killer.

As if he hasn't turned people to goddamn ash in the alleyway and laughed about it, as if he hasn't ruined families and killed heroes and orphaned children and tried to burn his own brother alive. As if he hasn't loved every sick fucking second of it. As if he wouldn't melt their eyeballs into some kind of jelly to put on Natsu's doughnut.

Yes ma'am, I would love a to-go bag, thank you.

Touya isn't like that anymore, though, because he's on medication. Because he's better now. So he's able to tuck his chin back into his arms and ignore them—for now, at least—and count the wood grain on the table. Fuyumi notices the conversation happening and tenses her fingers around her cup in the most minute way, in the way a criminal would around a knife they were getting ready to slash, or in the way a mother would around a boiling teapot she was getting ready to pour.

Matsui says it's important Touya learns how to "chill out". Chilling out, checking in, that's what he calls it and all the details are on page 23 of his workbook. Whenever he's experiencing intense emotions, he's supposed to ground himself.

That's how you chill out, you ground yourself.

Touya can see five things: the guys looking at him, the yogurt clinging to Natsuo's bottom lip, the letterbox menu behind the counter, the beer they offer on the letterbox menu, and the waitress behind the counter, trying to pretend like she's not freaked out by him.

Touya can feel four things: the heat from the cherry-floral-thing Fuyumi is drinking, the crinkly paper under Natsuo's doughnut, the woodgrain on the table, and the illicit vibration of the phone in his pocket.

Touya can hear three things: the shitty radio station with today's greatest hits, the guys saying they'll end Dabi if he tries anything, and his sister telling Natsu to wipe his mouth.

Touya can smell two things: sugar on the pastries and his brother’s overpriced cologne.

Touya can taste one thing: ash, like always.

Chilling out, checking in. This is how you ground yourself. This is what stops Dabi from winning the fight this time and coming out of the meat husk. This is what stops Dabi from flipping the table and ruining Fuyumi's game of pretend just so he can burn all the patrons down to their bones. To their own husks, just so he can set himself free.

That, and all the medication.

—

Initially, 0.5 mg to 2 mg by mouth 2 to 3 times per day in patients with moderate symptomatology or in debilitated patients. For severe, chronic, or refractory target symptoms, initiate with 3 to 5 mg by mouth given 2 to 3 times per day.

The home security system is supposed to chime every time activity happens outside the front door, and it does. It fucking sings every fucking time and sends a live feed to Enji's phone, to Fuyumi's phone, and that little shit Shouto.

(Look at this beautiful home, it says, look at this wonderful haven you are keeping safe. Nothing can get in to hurt the ones you love, and nothing can get out either.)

Except when it's raining. Except when a car drives by.

The downpour has to be heavy, real heavy, like sheets-of-rain heavy in order to throw off the camera. In that kind of darkness, at 2:35 am, you can't see shit out there on the lawn, can only see anything at all when headlights go by, and headlights don't trigger the security system. It's a tricky little pickle: can only make a break for it in the rain, in the dark so the cameras can't pick up your shadow, and you have to move as the headlights flash without getting caught in them, or else it fucking chimes.

And Dabi ain't been caught yet.

Not that he's been doing this all that long, heading back out into the streets, two or three times maybe. Touya is lucky enough to have both negative and positive symptoms of his "condition", and that means withdrawal and flattening, means he doesn't want to do shit, like ever. All day long; he's lucky if he has the will to drag himself down the hall and into the kitchen just to eat some rice in order sustain his human body.

Sometimes the medication works and sometimes it makes him so anxious he has to rip out of his skin at 2:36 in the morning, in the dark, in the rain, just so he can breathe.

That's why he's texting Giran again.

Fuyumi, bless her little heart, thinks that Touya should have some privacy. Enji vehemently disagrees, however, but no one is really surprised about that, so that's why he's not actually texting Giran himself, but some asshat-offshoot kid, one that has a friend of a friend of a friend that can find shit for Dabi to do. Ways for Dabi to earn his own money.

Dabi.

Not Touya: Dabi.

Even though he's as good as some born-quirkless loser now: Dabi.

Yeah, he hates the suppressants because they don't get rid of the fire, they just hinder it, leave it with no place to go but up into his nose and throat—but there is something about being stripped of this stupid fucking thing that has ruled his life for so long. Nobody wants him anymore because he doesn't have what they want anymore, this fucking shit he's been cursed with. The makings of his very design.

And if they do want him, they're getting Dabi, without the wildfire. They're getting Touya. And if they want Touya, well—

—here he is, in all his rain drenched, mud and grass covered glory, trying to keep a cigarette lit under a shallow overhang outside a konbini. The lighter in his hand hurts the tips of his fingers every time he strikes it, but he can’t really help that he needs it, can he? And the son of a bitch he’s meant to be meeting is late.

(Or, Touya is just early, considering he only has a limited window to escape.)

(Either way, it’s miserable.)

At least twenty minutes go by before the friend of a friend of a friend shows up, looking surprisingly dry even though the rain is coming down hard, like the concrete when the fuzz has you backed into a corner and you’ve got nowhere else to go but down to the ground, and the first thing he says to Dabi is,

“Fuck, you’re ugly.”

It’s not like he has feelings to be hurt, but it takes him off guard, is all, so he just stares for a minute before flicking the damp cigarette at him.

“You’re late,” Dabi says.

“It’s pissing rain, fuck off,” as the kid says it, little things start coming out of his face like whiskers or worms. It’s not until he picks one out that Dabi realizes they’re quills, and he flicks one at Dabi in return before gesturing to the konbini like he’s waiting for this show to get on the road. “Well?”

Dabi doesn’t have anything, especially not a weapon, not allowed to these days. Every store clerk and their grandma knows what his ugly mug looks like, and he isn’t allowed to hold even a metal fucking chopstick. “Take it away, Needles, I’m followin’ you.”

The porcupine mutters something like gotta be fucking kidding, and it fills him with enough hot anger—embarrassment—that he wishes, just for a second, that he could sear the kid into the concrete, a bloody stain under a fucking streetlight. Yeah, that would feel better than any amount of money he’s set to make for the night.

“If you’re taking this,”

Something heavy, weighted and steel, is shoved into Dabi’s hands. Something that feels like something with a trigger, with a barrel. Something that Dabi has never even held before.

“then you’re leading, so go, before you fuck this up for us.”

The konbini chimes when they step through. Even with all the rain. Even with the street lamps and headlights, it still dings! Touya wonders if a live feed is going straight to Enji’s phone, of his fuck ugly face, holding a gun and pointing it at a man that hasn’t even looked up from the book in his lap.

Dabi hopes so.

Congratulations dad, he thinks, look where all that training got me.

(Matsui once asked Touya if he thought he really was a psychopath, after hearing him use the word over and over again, and Touya said yes. Yes he thought so, because he looks like one, he can tell; the fear living deep within him has become violent, become an ulcer of anger and grief. It’s left him a tragedy, marked, ever present like the staples holding him together.)

The porcupine starts shouting loud enough that the cashier looks up from his book—something in a foreign language, with desserts across the cover—and it crashes to the floor when he sees the gun. A bag is tossed across the glass counter, for the money. A fucking cliche.

Touya thinks about the frosted cookies on the page facing the floor.

“Put your hands down! Get the fucking money, now!”

About the pink rice cakes and the sweet fish pastry.

“He’ll blow your head off, do it!”

About the poached pears, about the kind of delights he’s never known, never had the chance to. That's why Touya can't kill the cashier, who is talking rapidly in a language he doesn't know, because he can’t stop thinking about the kind of things he’s never had. Because he can’t stop looking at the picture on the counter, of the cashier and a little girl in a pink dress.

The bag isn't full yet, but the man is just crying and babbling and raising his hands above his head.

Touya thinks about a birthday cake and a lonely child. About a lonely child. About a fatherless child.

Touya doesn't know Korean, but fear transcends all languages. Can always tell when someone is pleading for their life. He’s seen them do it enough times before their skin melts off their bones and their muscles turn to soot under his boots, smoke on the wind. The worst thing about being sober is having to remember it all.

The quills sticking out of Needles’ face are what protect him from the gun when Touya spins around and launches it at his head, but the surprise of it all gives him enough time to shove the kid over and make a break for the door. It chimes, and he wonders if Fuyumi can see him sprinting through the rain on her phone, if the headlights are bringing attention to the catastrophe that is her older brother. If she’s watching him run from the ghost he’s been.

That restaurant he doesn’t remember is only two blocks down and Touya thinks it’s all Fuyumi’s fault that he dives into the cover of darkness in the alleyway behind it. There’s another wanted poster that he ignores, because he doesn’t have time to unpack all that (Matsui says something about “found family”), and there is one single light shining through the window of the back door.

It’s dim, just enough that Touya can see an idle kitchen through three thick plastic flaps at the end of the short hall. There’s enough blood pumping through his veins and ears that his eyes must be wild, a little savage, a little frenzied, and when he tugs on the door handle, it comes open.

By some rotten luck, the fucking thing comes open, and it doesn’t ding or chime.

There’s enough silence in the place that he can count the beats of his heart, every rapid one, and something like vomit builds up in his throat as he sees dirty plates in the sink, wrinkled paper wrappers, empty espresso cups. The ulcer that sours him burns, like alcohol going down, like alcohol coming back up, and his phone won’t stop vibrating in his pocket.

The worst thing about making an awful mistake is when you realize you’ve made it, when you realize it’s too late to go back and undo it. In the movies, you can rewind, you can stop the tape before it gets to the part when the love interest leaves or when the gun fires, but not in this life. Not in this little cage.

That’s what reminds Touya that he’s crazy, psycho, bat-shit: the guilt. Fuyumi’ll be upset, he thinks. She’ll be disappointed, she won’t think he deserves any more privacy because he’s fucked it all up, just like always.

Congratulations dad, Touya thinks. Fuyumi’ll be so upset.

But he doesn’t have a lot of time to dwell, for his face to puff up like a fish or for the staples in his cheeks to pinch with his smile, with his frown—because plates drop and someone gasps and Dabi has to tackle the waitress, the one who looks too long, near the bar into the dining area.

“Get off me!” She screams, frantic, even though she should be crying, even though she shouldn’t be here in the first place. “Getthefuckoffame!” Stinging, her little hands are stinging as she slaps at his face and his arms; it hurts, just like it always does when someone puts their hands on him.

“Shut up!” Dabi shouts, “Shut up! Pipe down or I’ll fucking kill you!”

One shrill scream nearly breaks all the goddamn windows in the place as she forces all her energy into her throat, to make as much noise as possible in hopes that someone will hear, some fuck in a cape that will save her stupid life, and Dabi has to take his hands from her arms and wrap them around her throat.

That’s what reminds Touya that he’s a psychopath.

It only takes one gag and then she's silent, hands flying to claw at his as her eyes go wide. Teary. Huge, like the plates she dropped when she saw him. It would only take a little more pressure, and then she’d be fucking quiet.

That’s what makes Touya realize he’s making a big mistake: the guilt.

What if he fucking kills her. Fuyumi’ll be so upset.

What if he fucking kills her and gets sent back to (&%@^#*%!) because he fucked up again, choking this waitress that looked too long at his ugly face. Wrong place, wrong time—shouldn’t have been here at 3 am, shouldn’t have been washing dishes or putting up plates—and now he’s going to ruin two lives before this is all over.

There’s a slam in the kitchen, like a door banging against the wall because someone has kicked it open so hard, and then that son of a bitch kid yells, “Where the fuck are you, you ugly bastard?”

The minute the waitress is able to breathe, she does it all heavy and ragged and Dabi—no, Touya—Touya has to clamp his hands over her mouth. Immediately, she tries to scream again and he has to get all up in her face and say, shut up, he’ll kill us, you idiot, seriously, and then she starts crying finally. There’s some more chaos in the kitchen, like that kid is pulling open cupboards and knocking over silverware looking for him, so Touya drags himself and the waitress behind a decorative wall. The one with the waterfall, which isn’t flowing because it’s 3 am.

Fuyumi’ll be so upset, he thinks, if his blood gets in the reservoir for this thing when the porcupine kills him.

"I know you're in here!"

Yeah, no shit, where else would he have gone? Touya has the urge to text Giran—or whoever is supposed to be relaying his messages to Giran—and say, wow, a real winner, Needles is.

The waitress beside him wrenches her arm out of his grasp, but doesn’t make any moves to get up, only leans away and claps her own hands over her mouth. Disgusted by him, with all the touching—he doesn't blame her.

Tables get knocked over and chairs roll; she flinches so hard that her entire body starts shaking, like a little leaf, and the thing that really, finally draws the line is that she cries without making a sound. Just staring dead-eyed at the floor, tears pouring down her face, hard, like the concrete that doesn’t kill you when you jump off the third story building. Like the binds on your hands when they throw you in an institution.

Touya knows that look, feels it.

When he stands, the staples pinch and tug, pull on a mask of falsified surprise up around his eyes and mouth. The girl still doesn't look, because she's past the point of fear, because she's envisioning her death. Trying to swallow the realization that there isn't a scenario here in which she makes it out alive; she sours, already reeking, already rotting.

"There you are," Dabi says, "Been looking for you."

"You cheap fuck!" Three quills come out of the pores on Needles' face, but they don't leave his skin yet. "I knew the minute Renzo mentioned you it would end like this, because you're worthless now."

Yeah, probably.

Dabi says, "yeah, probably," and, "your fault then, for expecting otherwise."

The waitress flinches when he takes a step forward, so he grits his teeth and stills.

"My therapist tells me it's important to take responsibility for your fuck-ups—I'm paraphrasing—so it'll be better for your mental health if you start there."

"You fucking—!" The porcupine starts to dole out another insult, about him being ugly or weak or something, but he can't make it that far before rage is shooting those quills, and a few more, out of his face.

Dabi takes five in the shoulder before he manages to dive behind an overturned table and he knows that if he waits, the kid'll advance, so he flips himself over the top and straight into the son of a bitch.

Not a great idea, in retrospect, considering the guy is made up of pins and needles, but it knocks him off guard enough that Dabi can get a few hits in. The skin of his knuckles gets ruined and the staples on his left hand become loose enough that he loses four.

How will he explain that to Fuyumi?

There’s no time to figure it out; the kid sends a wave of quills his way, getting stuck in his hair and all his gaps.

There's some instinctive side of him that laughs when he's in pain, maybe because it was all he had at one point, and he does it again, here, beneath this fuck that will probably kill him because he's worthless now. Underneath his skin, between his bones, his whole body is heating up in the way that it's meant to, the way Enji wanted, but it just builds and builds and builds. As if the edge of the cliff keeps extending, never quite letting him meet the end he’s always chasing.

Fuyumi’ll be so upset, he thinks, when they find his body at the bottom of the river in three months. If they ever find it. If they can identify him.

And then there is the sound of plates crashing and another gasp, a wet one, and another curse and the beating stops. When Touya opens his eyes—which are already swelling—the porcupine is still, looking at the decorative wall before easily dodging flying ceramic.

A ramen bowl.

A bunch of wooden spoons.

A sushi tray.

Six quills come out of his forehead as he leaps off Touya, the sound of them getting stuck in the plaster is barely audible underneath the shriek that echoes across the empty dining room.

“Hey,” Touya croaks. Another plate sails. The kid advances, fast. “I said, hey!”

The wall comes apart with a terrible snap and crunch, one that sounds too loud for this time of night, and the waitress scrambles back so fast that all her little weapons spill out of her hands. There’s a mess of black makeup across her face, like she’d tried to wipe away all the tears before facing her own doom, and Touya might have thought it was funny if she wasn’t about to die.

“You little bitch!”

Crawling across the floor and grabbing him by the leg earns Touya a kick to the face and it's—nice, almost. How comfortable the floor becomes, how much heavier his eyes get. Finally, Touya thinks. Finally. It’ll end, every last crack in his being will split open and his organs will be soot under a boot, smoke on the wind. His skin will unravel and whatever still lives, whatever it is that keeps his bones moving, will finally get the ending it should have received years ago.

Finally, Touya thinks.

The sound of screaming is most often the background noise in his dreams. Sometimes it's from a crowd of people watching on as he burns a hole through Enji's skull, sometimes it's his own while he's getting dragged away in quirk suppressing handcuffs, fighting so hard that the muscles in his arms are tearing.

Sometimes it's his mother, when she sees him for the first time in years. How putrid, how fuck ugly.

Very rarely is it from some random woman that's made herself his next victim; Dabi never sought out little girls on the street to grab, to abuse or torture. Matsui says, "the women in your family mean more to you than you might realize," and he must be right, that stupid fuck, because Touya opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling, thinking,

Fuyumi'll be so upset, if she finds out he's come back here. To this life that doesn't want him anymore, to this life he's clinging to, the shadow that has ruined him. To Dabi.

The screaming is all from the waitress, loud, bloody fucking murder, and Touya is thinking of his sister, of his mother, of how the women in his life mean more to him than he realizes, and that's why he's up and falling over the her as quills fly.

They don't hurt bad enough to kill him, but he's already bleeding and he must be getting it all over her. There’s a stabbing pain above his right eyebrow and in his top lip that has him flinching, which only makes it worse. Touya is thinking, we're going to fucking die here, me and you.

They'll think his body laying over hers is because he killed her. They'll paint him as the villain one final time.

"C'mon motherfucker," Touya leans his back against her chest and yanks one of the quills from his lip, just so it doesn't get in the way of his charm. When she gasps, he feels it, the hot breath of her panic right at his ear, and if he had any skin on the back of his neck, it might have given him goosebumps. “Fucking do it already.”

“Whatever you want, if it’s money, just take it!” The waitress sits up a little, bringing Touya with her, and her arms shoot out over his shoulders. “Please, just take it and f-fuck off!”

The porcupine steps closer and the waitress, she, her, crosses her arms just a little, resting them right under his neck. Against his skin, her skin, in the way that always hurts, and her fingers dig into the fabric of his sweatshirt, the one he’s been wearing all week.

“Renzo is gonna put your head on a fucking pike and that’s the only reason I’ll keep you alive, just so I can see it.” The kid kicks Dabi in the knee once for good measure before letting out a pathetic little huff, waving a hand through the air and turning like neither of them are worth his time. The girl doesn’t breathe until the backdoor swings shut.

Even when she scrambles back, she doesn’t say anything, just hyperventilates as his head falls back against the floor. Then she starts all the crying again, though it isn’t the scary silent kind, but the kind where she can’t catch enough of her breath to make the wailing sound that must be building in her stomach.

The women in his family must mean more to him than he realizes, because Touya just stares at the ceiling, thinking, Fuyumi’ll never know. Because he didn’t kill the cashier or the waitress, and Needles didn’t off him like he wanted to. Like Touya wanted him to.

“Y’r fine.” He mumbles, then repeats himself when she wipes her snot and glares at him. “s’fine.”

“It is not fine, asshole!” Her hand swipes through his hair, which has just started to stand out now that it’s drying, but she never actually hits him. There’s a quill stuck in his ear and she tugs it free from his skin without remorse. “We almost died!”

“We didn’t.”

“You were going to kill me!”

“No, I wasn’t.”

It feels like a secret, like an unholy confession he shouldn’t be sharing, and it shuts her up. Her, the waitress, she. There’s the sound of her pants sliding across the tile as she gets closer, and she tugs out the three quills on his neck a little easier. Gentle, almost, if Touya knew what that felt like.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he says, “I’m better now.”

The view of the ceiling is obstructed because she leans forward, sniffs and puts her face above his so that she is all he sees. Her. The waitress. The tears tracking down her face look like they’re going to drip on him, but they don’t, just slide over the edge of her jaw and make a dark trek down her neck. One that he follows with his eyes. It’s hard to see her face, what her eyes are saying, but the dim light from the kitchen gives a hint to the slow blink of her lashes, the scrunch of her nose when she sniffs, the pout dragging her lips down. Touya hasn’t been this close to a girl in years.

“Are you?” She asks. Her. The waitress. Touya doesn’t reply, because he doesn’t know what to say, and she just stares, like she’s waiting. Like she wants to hear the answer.

She.

Her.

The waitress.

You.

[ravenadottir]

I think you have done this before but can you profile the girls from Casa Amour? The ones we didn't get to see? Names, age, maybe how they look like? Love your blog and your headcanons! At this point, they're canon to me 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

oh? i love this so much! the fuck!

first of all, thank you anon! you’re really sweet.

now, about the girls. i only named them a while ago, and i can’t draw for shit, but i can do some designs for them and profile their data, just like the game (name, age, hometown and key phrase), then add some headcanons.

i have a new app and i’mms use it to give you looks and features, because you know what? it’s really fun!

‘emily’

23, new castle, fashion designer, “wants to find a pin for her pin cushion”

the funny girl the boys wanted to have a chance to come back. she had sex with jakub on the first night. 

cat person (her underwear had two pussies in it)

had a hard time connecting with anyone else but played cool about jakub not wanting to crack on with her anymore

couldn’t bear when jakub had to kiss siobhan on the villa x villa challenge

‘elladine thicc’

‘i’m here to make friends and maybe find someone special’

bright eyes and very much into the idea of soulmates

public liked her but thought she made a mistake with jakub. not because of the sex, because of jakub

found out later he had no intentions of cracking on with her for real

.

‘laura’

21, liverpool, keytarist in a band, “i know when to drop the beat’

she shared the bed with gary

gary was made fun for sharing a bed with someone who reminded everyone of hannah, looks wise

she got mad at that, saying she had nothing to do with hannah and her hair is not even a natural red “you guys need new repertoire”

it made gary give her the loudest high five ever

they had fun since both were goofy and she had a crush on noah, but gave up after he said he wasn’t interested

she talked to him about going back but didn’t push it to happen

became close with siobhan almost right away since they were both into the thickest boys in the house. that sparked more conversations

the type that the public wants her to be taken back ‘cause she had the banter with every boy and the girls would’ve liked her

.

‘siobhan’

23, from cork, med student, ‘has heard all types of ‘playing doctor’ pick up lines

the girl that reminded noah of hope

shared the bed with lurik on the first night, then jakub for the remaining days

she cracked on with jakub for the rest of the casa amor days and was into him since he came in the main villa and she was watching back home

she’s a sweet girl once you get to know her

she was shy at first, but gary and bobby made all the girls feel comfortable, playing truth or dare to break the ice

‘bobby and gary are like younger brothers, i don’t care about their age’’

they were the ones to make it happen with jakub without knowing he had spent the night before with emily

the public went insane when jakub decided to stick with hope because siobhan and him clicked really fast

.

‘erica’

22, from cardiff, business major, ‘known to run away from a date that asked her ‘why not just printing more money?’

she shared the bed with noah but wasn’t interested in him

she had tons of fun with the boys like gary and bobby making fun of jakub

cleverest jokes but ther worst deliverance

learned how to shove five bread rolls in her mouth thanks to bobby

that facial expression is the one she gives to every bobby joke, just to make him uncomfortable and laugh it out later

practical but still believes in small lovey-dovey things, like soulmates

loves math pick up lines/jokes

connected to laura really fast and wanted to take rahim to the hideaway but he was smitten

didn’t 

.

‘shannon’

24, from dublin, professional poker player, ‘that girl who loves true crime podcasts’

originally interested in lucas, but he wasn’t into her

went for ibrahim for his looks and because he was charmingly dorky

she saw and opportunity and took it

started liking him more, but wasn’t all in with him

the girls weren’t so keen on her, she seemed too competitive

blake liked her since day one and they became an item

.

‘blake’

22, from kensington, her occupation and phrase depend on mc’s choice at the beginning:

human rights campaigner, “does good, looks better”

graduate student, “i’ve got the brains, i’ve got the looks…”

singer-songwriter, ‘not just here to promote her new album’

beauty blogger, ‘claims she invented ‘on fleek’’

went for the li you like but settled for your actual partner (noah, lucas or henrik)

‘headcanons’

felt like the leader of the group of girls, sort of exercising leadership like graham, except here the girls weren’t having it 

part of the reason she warmed up to shannon was her competitivity

gary and bobby didn’t like her but didn’t say anything

i hope this is what you were looking for anon. i had fun making these up. thanks for the ask!!

[threeeyesslitthroat]

So I watched Chaos Walking(2021)

Yeah, lucky for me, my local theater was open and showing(side note, I love my local theater so much. Like, not to brag but seven dollars for a movie and a snack is so great)

Anyhow, I watched Chaos walking. This is sort of my review. 

First off, I read The Knife of Never Letting Go and one third of The Ask and Answer, almost two years ago. When they finally dropped the release date and the trailer, i made the choice not to go reread the first book because i wanted to give the movie a chance and make an exercise of managing my expectations(in preparation for Disney’s Percy Jackson adaptation). Which means not only do I not have a complete understanding of the source material, but I also have a shit memory, so I don’t have a great shot at analyzing this films in adaptation terms, but i’m gonna try anyhow.

So first off, The Noise.

I found it a bit sketchy that they decided to make the make Noise have visual elements alongside audio but I decided it was fine, since it be pretty hard to bring this to life with only just audio and not make general audiences confused.

But they did try and do a solid job. Minus not letting us hear the Noise of animals, which sucks. we do see the Noise of a Spackle, but briefly.

The part that really pisses me off is the final confrontation, when the Noise is treated like a Super Power. we see this when Todd scares Davy’s horse by conjuring up an image of big snake, when Mayor Prentiss tricks Viola into a false trap, when  Ben tricks everyone by pretending to give Viola up when in fact he’s buying Todd and the real Viola time to get away, and in the final, Todd distracts Prentiss by conjuring up the image of his mother(complete with bloody wounds) and the various women that died when he was a baby, which caused Prentiss to fall to his death.

I don’t know how the Noise is depicted in the later books, if it was anywhere remotely like this, but i know for sure it doesn’t happen in the first book, which the film is based on.

(Also, how the fuck does Todd know what his mum looks like, or any of the other women and how is he able to bring up their images so perfectly how is ANYONE ABLE REMEMBER SOMEONE WITH THAT MUCH DETAIL That goes beyond photographic memory)

Second bit, the Spackle.

 The design is boring. Its clearly an alien, buts its dark grey, tall, holds its own when Todd attacks it in the film, has zero impact on the film as a whole and pretty boring. I do recall reading the book and imagining them to have faces similar to real world lemurs or Sloths, with big expressive eyes and such, but the CGI monster doesn’t emote for shit in this film. Todd comes at with a knife with every intention of killing it and it shrugs him off and walks away like it wasn’t fucking attacked my gods.

But in short, they only brought up the Spackle because they’re a thing in the world and it teased the bigger concepts of the next books with like, one measly exchange between Todd and Viola. (it went something like this)

Viola:We’re the aliens, though. They’re the natives.

Todd: huh.

Third bit, New World itself. Not a big deal, It looked like how i originally imagined it, no mention of swamp apples, though we see Todd Hewitt use a knife to stab a big ass bug thing for food. i hear some critics consider it lame that the planet isn’t actually alien but eh, whatever, Didn’t really feel an alien vibe reading the book so it doesn’t matter. 

Now there’s one bit i have to acknowledge in passing. At one point Todd decides to go get lunch by going into the water with his knife and wrestles with some big ass thing with tentacles. Which is fine, just have a couple of questions.

A: is this in reference to the books? Where there big ass tentacle creatures in the novel that are hunted for lunch?

B:if not, was this the film makers deciding to remind the viewers that yes, they are not on planet earth and to make Todd look cooler and justify why he’s useful for the quest and show how much Viola doesn’t know?

I kinda have to acknowledge the thing.  In that scene, Todd and Viola take a break, and Todd removes his clothes (all of them) and decides to go hunting in the water naked as the day he was born. You may have noticed that the Tom Holland stans are all over this scene because One) the camera focuses on Tom Hollands muscles when he takes his top off and Two) one can see his bare ass in the distance. 

Not a big fan off this, just find it interesting because its the most recent example of a Male being objectified by the camera when this never happens once to any of the female characters in the film, including Viola. Also, a touch of weird character detailing because haha, get it? Boy’s never seen a girl before in his life and doesn’t know what modesty means.

Also, very weird because Todd Hewitt in the book was so fucking self conscious that he would never have done that. 

Now I gotta talk about the characters.

( i understand why they aged them up, i truly do, better to get established actors instead of child actors that could more easily break to movie than sell it. its easier to make movies with legal adults instead of working with child labor laws. but damn it you lose so much of the fucking nuance of the novel when you age them up. There’s so much shit that makes an impact because of how young they are. Around the ages of eleven and twelve is when ones understanding of good and evil has its foundation, to me it was like the story was grappling with Todd Hewitt’s very soul and you lose so much of that when you change it to them being older because instead of being just kids in fucked up situations its younger adults in messed up situations. Like ugh. and aging them up leads to even more problems but we’ll fucking get to that)

Tom Holland’s Todd Hewitt is not the Todd Hewitt of the novel. He just ain’t. There is nothing there that reminds of the boy. The acting is solid, don’t get me wrong, but it just ain’t the Todd Hewitt i remember. Neither is Daisy Ridley’s Viola Eade.

(excuse me while i get Percy Jackson flashbacks)

Now, I have to acknowledge the fact that neither actor(actually none of the actors in this film) slouch on the job. They bring solid and at times very good acting.(If Tom Holland is in the film, its not going to be complete waste of time. He brings quality.)

Honestly, respect to Mr Holland because he was basically the main character, not only acting but also doing voice  and various stunts(also huge credit to the stunt coordinators and stuntmen) and I heard that filming wasn’t that great and bloody broke his nose how many times like damn boy, hats off to you.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want to say that Holland was playing himself or just a version of peter Parker, because i really don’t think he wasn’t but it just. Didn’t feel like a legit character? Especially when compared to the novel. Like Todd Hewitt in the novel is such a raw force of emotion and such a smartass and i was so looking forward for Holland to own this role but in the movie he just? Awkward dude going through some stuff?

but yeah, Holland works his ass off and there are some scenes and moments in the movie that work just because this fellow is just that charming, so (shrug emoji) like i said, He doesn’t waste your time at least.

Ridley....sigh. i know this woman can act. But next to the character who’s thoughts are heard constantly she’s very boring. And it hurts so much because Viola has an actual personality in the novel like; I’m ninety percent sure that Viola hits Todd with a big stick and I do remember that there were multiple moments where she lets Todd know when he’s being a dumbass.(seriously, i may have a shit memory of the book, but i do remember that they play off each other well and hugely entertaining seeing two twelve-year-olds handle the shit getting thrown at them)

Like, Viola in the film doesn’t really have much going on. We see the crash, we hear about the graves she dug herself, we see her be sad, we see her look at Todd like weirdo, we see her look horrified or shocked. (its so sad that I only remember the facial expressions more clearly than the actual dialogue) We really have no idea what the hell is going on with Viola Eade. I don’t think we can blame Ridley, only the film makers, because how can you see Viola Eade in the novel and then turn her into that????

i do have to talk about the relationship between Tom Holland’s Todd Hewitt and Daisy Ridley’s Viola Eade, even though its painful. In the novel, them is just two kids on a really tough adventure.  Because they aged them up, its not two kids old enough to run for the playground when recess starts. Its Teenagers. 

First question, HOW OLD ARE THEY??? Is Todd sixteen? Eighteen? Seventeen? He sure as hell ain’t Thirteen in this. What about Viola? I mean, big shout out to the hair and makeup team for making 28-year-old Daisy Ridley look so much younger but how. OLD. IS.SHE? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-one? Pretty sure she’s older than him in this? I ask because it MATTERS.

The way they play off each other has a vastly different energy to the novel because they are aged up. Its pretty obvious pretty fast that Todd’s feelings are basically a big crush, though not all of it is superficial as the film progresses. And Viola is clearly not receptive to that in the film. (honestly i cringed so hard at the “daydream kiss’ and whatever the hell that was in the Farbranch mayor’s house)

The relationship in the film just doesn’t have the nuance or the energy that the novel had in depicting their relationship which is depressing for all the Todd x Viola fans i’m sure. There’s some adorable bits though, like Viola seeing Todd’s dream of her playing with Manchee, and not so adorable canon bits like when Viola read the diary to Todd.

I’m just grateful that the film at least ended with them being friends instead of trying to force the romantic relationship. That right there is why I like the movie. It’s a crush, its used for a couple laughs, they’re friends, its fine. Even if you didn’t read the novel that’s really great for a movie in this day and age to not end with forcing two opposite sex characters into a relationship. To be honest, I like the idea that the film leaves us thinking that yeah, maybe these two could be real friends one day.

I just want to touch on Manchee real quick.

Manchee’s Noise is not seen or heard in the film. It is briefly acknowledged by Todd ins their first scene but other than that? Nada. Which is a low blow in comparison to the novel because Manchee was a character in his own right, which is why the death hit so hard. 

Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?” “Manchee!” I scream. Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog. “MANCHEE!” “Todd?” And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever. And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.”

in the film, it takes place in white rapids, So its chaotic, its awful, the veiwer’s all stressed out because Viola can’t swim, everyone's getting separated and Aaron’s there and he is seen drowning Manchee. 

Dude, its brief, but not pretty. Because you can see Manchee’s legs trashing above the water, struggling to get free. Aaron is drowning a dog, letting its lungs fill with water. For the folks that don’t like watching dogs die in graphic detail on screen, this isn’t great. 

Personally, I love this scene in the novel. Its the first time i had to put the book down and take a moment. It hit really close to home for me, because i watched my own dog die in real life. It was emotional and horrifying and had such a fucking impact because we could hear his thoughts. Todd had to make the choice to leave him behind to keep Viola safe. To be honest, i think the death is better in the novel, since Manchee basically dies instantly instead of drowning, which takes time(I’ve always assumed that his neck was snapped but I’ve heard others say it was the psine but whatever) it would have been easy and necessary for them to not show that on screen. I personally just think that in terms of depicting a violent death, the novel did a lot better.

Anyway, on to the other characters

(I had to choose the one with the big orange fluffy coat, and i couldn’t find a good pic og Ben and Cillian on google images.)

As for Mayor Prentiss, he’s played by Mads Mikkelsen, and he delivers. But for the most part, we don’t really know why he’s the bad guy, he just wants to get Viola because “she’s the key” which isn’t really explained, and at the end he tries his hardest to kill Todd. 

Because i only read the first book, I don’t know what exactly his character arc is. And since its been a really long while, I don’t remember what he’s like in the novel regardless, other than the cliffhanger ending.

I did take a quick crashcourse  through the wiki and it turns out that Todd and Prentiss have a relationship in the later books, which the film sort of touches on, because Todd looks up to Prentiss in the film from the get go. 

To be honest, I knew that the trilogy was a lot more complex, and even though I didn’t read the whole thing I knew it would be really disappointing for the fans to see the mayor be hollowed out to almost unrecognizable and not getting to see the whole picture on screen.

As for Davy Prentiss Jr., he was an asshole and stayed an asshole. I know he improves and gets killed off in the novels, so yeah, exhibit B of character foundations not being laid down because there isn’t gonna be a movie after this. Also, why is he played by Nick Jonas? Did they actually have more in mind for him when they decided to go with a Jonas brother or was it just star power? 

As for Aaron...don’t have much to say about him, other than just being pretty weird fit to the film. I think he’s after Viola because he’s just that full of delusions but other than that, his character is just flat and useless. (I wish to the gods that writers would actually think instead of going with “religious delusion” to explain insanity) He only brought tension in a few scenes for the most part. I’m pretty sure that in the novel Todd and Aaron have a confrontation, like the final fight of the novel, and I’m 90% sure that its where the Novel gets the Knife of never Letting Go as its title, because the knife is big deal at that point. But I guess they wanted Viola to have a quick boss battle for the ending and set him on fire. 

Ben and Cillian were fine. They did a good job, the actors were pretty great, I liked Cillian, and i like how they acknowledged that these dudes were family(i know that they’re gay and a couple but the film doesn’t say it outloud beyond letting them sleep in the same bed, be Todd’s parents, and having Ben hold Cillian in his arms) I get a kick out of the fact that the official reviews by Movie Critics are openly curious about why the film doesn’t make it more obvious that they’re gay, but whatever.

As for the overall plot, this is a fine example of mashing three books into one film and not having good results. Instead of going to Haven, the movie decided to shortcut the ending and go to the original ship that somehow has working tech but whatever, Viola needs to communicate to her ship. So not only do we not get the great relationship between Todd and Viola, not only do we not get the Spackle, Not only do we not get to see the noise of Manchee, not only do we have poor character adaptation, we also don’t get to have a plot that matches THE ONE BOOK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO ADAPT. THEY HAD ONE FUCKING JOB AND THEY COULDN'T ADAPT THE ONE BOOK-

Its only so sad that they decided that this was going to be a one-shot deal because they didn’t have faith in the film and chose to have all the threads tied up. I mean, its so sad for the fans because the movie makes it very clear that we are not going to have anymore movies. sigh. 

slight respect towards the film makers for tying up all the story threads instead of leaving them hanging. they did a neat job, even if it wasn’t a great one.

Anyway, maybe later on when google images has more than the promotional material I’ll do a review of only the good stuff this movie did, even if its a sad pathetic failure of an adaptation. Anyway this review is a bit of a mess and already so long so i’ll stop now. 

May the gods give us strength against all the Tom Holland stans that will inevitably clog up the Chaos Walking tag with their Todd Hewitt x reader fanfics.

[rpmemesbyarat]

As someone in the Marvel RPC, I see a lot of “my character was kidnapped/created in a lab and turned into the perfect weapon” or “my character was captured by scientists because she was an alien/supernatural creature/etc and they wanted to study her” and inevitably, both involve a lot of gratutitous torture. The key word being “gratuitous”. Either due to wanting drama or being misinformed by popular media depictions of such things (Bucky Barnes, Laura Kinney, etc) the general assumption of fandom seems to be that scientists are basically sadists and that “experiments” are little more than exercises in how to cause their character the most pain possible. The thing is though, a lot of the reasoning for all this is. . . bad. And while canon ---be it Marvel or something else-- may do that, I would also like to discuss more realistic options and point out a few general mistaken assumptions or things people don’t tend to think of. - If a bunch of scientists are trying to create an augmented supersoldier, “perfect life form”, or whatever, that’s not an experiment, that’s a PROJECT. There is a big difference between the two. - Who/what is your character being created or augmented to fight? No one is gonna spend the time/money/effort to make a supersoldier just to have one around for fun. The enemy they are supposed to face or job they are supposed to do is going to influence EVERYTHING about the abilities they’re given and how they are “designed” not to mention how much independent thinking it’s practical to give them. For instance, for some jobs, being able to think and make decisions on their own will be a must, and that’s a risk. For others, there’s really no need to leave their free will intact if you can avoid it. Someone being “built” for espionage will be much different than someone being designed as a living tank. Likewise if someone is going to be sent into a desert environment versus expected to go for long periods underwater, and so on. Knowing what they’re designed to be going up against is CRUCIAL. - Why are living weapons the best option to fight this thing? Because generally speaking, there can be a lot more disadvantages to those than to guns and guided missiles and androids and shit. What about this enemy required a lving sentient supersoldier instead? - If a specimen is rare or valuable, it’s unlikely that it’s going to be dissected or otherwise treated in a way that will deliberately damage it. Your characters might FEAR that if they’re found the men in white coats might “cut them up” but this is actually unlikely. If scientists are trying to learn about something and it’s not a thing they can easily replace, they’re going to try to do so WITHOUT destroying or damaging it. The reason that real-life lab animals are treated so callously is because there’s lots of them, and we already know a lot about how they all work. When a scientist dissects a lab mouse, they’re not losing anything when it dies. If the first alien on Earth dies, or some super-soldier they worked really hard to create dies, they’re losing either a lot of potential information that can’t be gained anywhere else, or something they worked really hard to create and won’t be able to do again without a lot of time or effort. They are going to want to avoid that, and in this age of ultrasounds, X-Rays, and other non-invasive technology, that’s very easily done, especially in a setting where they probably have higher level tech than the real world if they’re creating super-soldiers and such in the first place. And they definitely have NO REASON to want to cut a specimen up ALIVE. - If their goal is to study a person or creature, such as the aforementioned alien, or a mermaid, or whatever else, they actually will probably want to avoid causing it stress. Stress causes behavioral changes as well as physiological ones, and if this is a never-before-seen or rarely-examined species/person, scientists will want to examine them in their default state first. Once they’ve learned everything they can about them in their “normal” state, then, yes, they may begin to deliberately induce stress to study what changes. However, they’re still likely to try to avoid damaging the specimen or inducing ill-health in it (which prolonged and/or serious stress can do) Again, the reason that regular lab animals get treated like their lives don’t matter is because THEY DON’T. Lab mice, dogs, etc., are just models for which to study humans most of the time and have well-documented behavior and physiology, they’re not rare or unknown creatures. So the approach is completely different. A literal or figurative unicorn would not be treated like that. - Likewise, if this specimen is something that was created (or augmented from an existing animal/person) it’s unlikely that the scientists are going to torture them, either for fun or through painful “tests”. Again, they don’t want to damage their hard work, either through physically wrecking them or through reducing them to a useless traumatized heap. It doesn’t matter if the scientists are mean cruel people without a bit of kindness or empathy, it’s impractical. If this being was created for a purpose, fucking it up (or turning it against you) defeats that purpose. And whoever is funding them isn’t going to be happy about that. And if whoever is funding them is the one who wanted to torture this creature/person. . . why do they need it to be specially modified or whatever? That really doesn’t make much sense, especially considering it’s virtually guaranteeing that this thing you have GIVEN SUPER POWERS TO is going to want to murder you. - Sure, it’s possible that one person on the staff might just personally be a sadistic bully or have a grudge against the character/creation even when none of the others do, like Kimura with Laura Kinney, but in all likelihood they’d be found out and fired. “But they take pains to hide it and erase security footage and--” Okay, if you really really want that, you can find a way to do it. Just know it’s not at all going to be acceptable procedure even in the most illegal of operations, not because it’s morally wrong but because it fucks with the product. And I would also ask yourself---if your character is already a lab rat, do they need to be tortured as well? Why? What does that add? Does it not feel “traumatic” or “dark” enough that they, a presumably sentient being, is already owned and imprisoned and kept from anything approaching a normal life? Why is that not “bad enough” to you that their story needs over-the-top torture as well? I’m not saying you can’t do it. I’m saying to think about why you’re doing it. Because a lot of times, in my experience, it basically comes down to cheap angst and sympathy points, often at the expense of, as discussed, logic. - “But they want to make them loyal out of fear!” Okay. That works only up until they get an opportunity to escape. Because if they’re afraid, they’ll take that chance. It’s true they might be too afraid to even try---that’s the case for many abuse victims---but I’m not sure that an organization wants to gamble that will be the case and risk losing their valuable asset the moment send asset is put in the field. And, again, risk the damage to them. This one is doable, you just have to be logical about it and think from the perspective of the people running things, not from the perspective of “what’s the most dramatic?” - “But it’s to brainwash them!” Brainwashing does not mean constant egregious torture that just somehow magically produces sudden loyalty one day. I know that tons of movies and comics have showed you this, but torture does NOT brainwash people. It actually makes people MORE resistant and hateful towards the people and group doing it. People under torture may confess to anything to make it stop, but that’s a short-term compliance and far from actually altering their minds in any way. It most certainly does not render them into obedient loyal sheep; typically the reverse, in fact. If you want to read more about this misconception and what the reality is, I’d check out these posts HERE and HERE and HERE which go much more in-depth and cite real-life sources. If you would like to read more about actual brainwashing, HERE and HERE . - “The torture is necessary for their training!” Again, this works to a point, but most people take it absurdly far in their depictions. Training is to build a person up; if it grievously injures or mentally traumatizes them, that’s counter-productive, as it decreases their usefulness. Being pointlessly cruel to your “living weapon” is just counter-productive. Training can certainly still be intense, and even un-ethically or dangerously so, but if it crosses into just coming up with ridiculously over-the-top ways to make the character suffer, it’s too OTT and clearly for angst-fuel, and most readers will probably roll their eyes because it’s just ridiculous after a certain point. Here are some good articles from SPRINGHOLE.NET relevant to this topic: Things To Know If Your Character Will Be Augmented Or Experimented Upon Things About Training & Teaching Writers Need To Know Tips For Writing Dark Stories, Settings, & Characters Pointlessly Edgy Tropes To Reconsider Using Basic Tips To Create Better Characters With Tragic & Traumatic Backstories Note that this is not to say that your lab rat character cannot have been mistreated, abused, or otherwise traumatized by their situation. Indeed, it would be unrealistic if they were NOT, since treating a sentient being as a tool under the control of others and having them commit violence, even if they do so “willingly” because they don’t know any better, is an inherently traumatic thing. But because it’s inherently traumatic, the unrealistic torture porn is just that much more unnecessary and frankly kind of silly. It’s also lazy, and the ways that many writers go about make no actual sense, as has been discussed. Going back to examples from Marvel, a favorite little-known X-Men character of mine is Darkstar, aka Laynia Petrovna. Laynia and her twin brother Nicolai were mutants born in the USSR. They were taken away by the state at birth, and raised by government scientist Professor Phobos in a “school” (read: facility) for super-soldiers. They were trained in combat and taught to be loyal to the USSR above all else. They were also told that their parents had abandoned them (when in fact their mother died in childbirth, and their father was told they had died too) and were NOT told that they were siblings, instead being given different surnames so that their familial loyalty would not supersede their loyalty to the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until they were adults and discovered their bio-father during a mission that they ever found out they were related. Yet, despite this, and despite occasionally joining superhero teams in the USA (Champions) or aiding the X-Men (X-Corps), Laynia has remained loyal to her country first, though she has often turned her back on its government (though she has returned to serving it now that the USSR is no more) What I really like about Laynia’s backstory is how different it is from most “I was raised as a weapon” stories in that it lacks overt abuse or trauma. She seems to have been treated just fine, she was never tortured, there was never shown to be any needlessly brutal training or treatment of her and the others, etc. She was raised to be a loyal servant to the state, and she was treated in a way that would actually facilitate that, and IT WORKED. So many scientists/trainers/etc in fiction seem to think it’s a great idea to treat your living weapon in ridiculously over-the-top violent, abusive ways for no real reason (except, of course, THE DRAMAZ) and will often be portrayed as insanely sadistic towards their pet projects…even though that’s obviously the LAST thing you would want to do with a valuable asset that you wanted to be loyal to you and have no desire to escape or turn sides. And as I said, it WORKS with Laynia. One of her biggest and most constant struggles FROM THE START is her loyalty to her country, versus her own conscience when she’s asked to do things she finds questionable. She also finds out again and again that she’s been lied to or manipulated by the people in charge of her, and sometimes she’ll defect, but she always ends up back again. And while she’s angry at the things that government asks her to do to others, or has done to others, she never really questions what was done to her. We never see her actually being like “holy shit, I was kidnapped and brainwashed and exploited and I’m really fucking angry about this!” like so many characters in similar situations realize (and often very quickly despite supposed brainwashing; even when still “loyal” they’re usually portrayed as hating their captors) And you know why? Because, again, what was done to her WORKED. Like she has a MOMENT in the issue where she finds out her real history and vows she won’t blindly follow a government ever again, but…she still sticks with the USSR, then Russian, government. She may not be “blindly” following, but she doesn’t seem ever able to leave them for long either. And her brother Nicolai/Vanguard strays even less than she does. And the writers never focus much on this. There’s never been a story that focuses on Laynia’s mindset or giving her a journey that helps her grow in any way or even just examines all this. Partly I think that’s because she’s so minor and has never had a story IN GENERAL that focuses on her. Partly I think it’s because writers just aren’t INTERESTED in a story like hers UNLESS it involves all the dramatic grimdark “tortured test subject” cliches, and they assume readers aren’t either. But I think this does a disservice to readers. One of my pet peeves, perhaps my MAJOR and BIGGEST one, about abuse in fiction is that it is ALWAYS portrayed as BLATANT and EXTREME, committed by people who are OBVIOUSLY monsters and who act like said monsters 24/7. They might get a shallow charming veneer to fool people, but the victim and audience both know that under that they’re un-nuanced, two-dimensional demons. And some abusers are like that. Some abuse is super extreme. But lots of abusers are much more nuanced, and lots of abuse is far for subtle. If only the most extreme types of abuse and abuser are portrayed, that’s all people learn to recognize “real abuse” as being. And real-life victims of abuse already have enough problems feeling that they weren’t “really abused” or “abused enough” to qualify. So I think stories like Laynia’s are important, and they’re worth exploring. They don’t treat abuse as torture porn, something to lingeringly emphasize to the audience in every gory detail for sheer shock value even when it makes NO SENSE for what the abuser is trying to accomplish. Instead, her story makes sense for what the government and its scientists employees were trying to do, and it has an accordingly realistic effect on her that manifests in a far less subtle but no less meaningful way than dramatic “media portrayals of PTSD” cliches. And it’s a story I’d be interested in seeing more of and finally unpacking fully, if any writer ever steps up to the plate ready to treat it with the sensitivity it deserves. Not every story of this sort needs to be like Laynia’s. But not every story of this type needs to be like Logan’s either. Figure out what works best for your character, question why you want it and what purpose it serves, and just make it make sense.

[heuristicallyinclined]

Nobody Knows

Hey, so this is my first public fanfic. I have been a Homestuck fan since the early 2010′s but Hiveswap slammed me back into it hard enough to write. Cringe is dead and it is going to be angsty and indulgent with canon treated as a suggestion. I’ve been spamming some of my favorite writers in the fandom with ideas in their inbox and decided to actually do something about some of them. Most of this comes from some future angst with Mallek I sent @clusband a few weeks ago during sad Mallek hours. Constructive advice welcome.

Get some hurt, comfort, fluff, a lot of angst. A lot of background characters.

Summary: MSPA Reader reflects on their current situation and unhappiness at not being able to see their old friends again. They accept that they past they once knew them in no longer exists, but what about the present? 

Chapter 1: Self-reflection and other cool ways to spend the day

Part 1/?

(Word count: 3,085 | Rated T | Past MSPA Reader x Mallek Adalov,  MSPA Reader x Mallek Adalov, Past MSPA Reader x Polypa Goezee, Background DaveKat)

AO3 Links: Part One (This) | Part Two  | Part Three

Being back in your hive after however long it has been brings up memories. Memories that you had spent so long aching for whenever the discomfort of that void inside of you passed. Focusing on that hollowness for too long always made you uncomfortable, but you sometimes would try to understand why that was. You tried, you really did, to the point of feeling that static so hard that your vision would go white and you couldn’t hear anything over the sound of it in your mind, feeling like you were going to pass out. You think one time you did, but it was hard to tell. Fuck.

You thought that getting them back would help, make you more content, fill it even, make you feel whole again? But you just feel even emptier and like an even more monumentally bigger fuck up. You drink your shitty, expired coffee made in the coffee machine Tagora bought you a long time ago in the mug Skyyla made you, thumbing over the Ladyy design on the handle. You smile at the idea of her making such a comparatively small mug for you. Imagining the struggle of her larger hands trying to make something usable for your much smaller ones. You feel the warmth from your drink and your memory. At least your makeshift home was too out of the way to be ransacked, that or too much of a death risk for anyone other than alien refugees to try to make their way into.

You look around you at all of the trinkets your friends had given you. Remembering how at the time, you felt so rewarded, accepted even. Trolls being, well, trolls, had a hard time opening up to others given how much of a hellscape the whole planet was. So every time you made some progress, you felt like you got the neighborhood cat to approach you without getting too clawed up.

You look over in the corner and notice the plastic bag you got when grabbing some oblong meat products for Dieman at Grub-Mart. You had some extra caegars and figured he might be exhausted after doing whatever drug that was at Ardata’s party. You figured that some sweet meat might help with the hangover. You definitely needed it.

Your teal highlighter had been covered in dust, having not been used since you decided to be a good friend and smuggle some snacks into the bookhive to support your favorite legislacerators-in-training late night, er morning, study session. You stayed as moral support, given you know fuck all about the laws of any given planet and also enjoy having your flesh remain unscorched. You feel like you learned a lot. Probably. You mostly shared meaningful eye contact and words of encouragement.

Drawings from clown children and sketches from Amisia cover your walls. So do ticket stubs from Marvus’ and Chixie’s shows. You felt an odd sense of pride in being one of the most normal people there, extraterrestrial status not withstanding. A set of indigo sweatbands from exercising with Nikhee that you would also use with Stelsa during scaerobics classes are hung on hooks. There was a rom-com with a title too long to read in your lifetime that you watched with Polypa and books borrowed from Galekh that you never returned.

You smile, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You care about all of your new friends, of course you do! It is just that… you feel more like the universe’s least qualified guidance counselor instead of their friend sometimes. You’re older than them, so it is maybe more like a sibling or a sketchy babysitter kind of relationship. They all have kinda weird, hard lives, even the ones on Earth, so you don’t mind being an interdimensional taxi service, or a postman who delivers kids to other kids, but they tend to relate more with each other than with you. Which makes sense, and you're definitely happy they finally get to be with other people their own age, but seeing them hanging out with each other really makes you long for the people you once had the same kinds of relationships with.

You had Karkat ask about your hoodie before you got your memories back and Sollux mentioned Mallek, but you got a little occupied by drones. It had been a bit since then. After taking Karkat back to his hive after a movie night with Dave, you noticed him eyeing your hoodie again.

“HEY. SO YOU NEVER ACTUALLY TOLD ME.”

Told you what?

“DON’T BE OBTUSE, I GET ENOUGH OF THAT FROM ALL OF THE OTHER BULGELICKERS THAT HAVE TRAMPLED THEIR WAY INTO MY EXISTENCE. DID YOU KNOW SOMEONE NAMED ADALOV?”

Oh, yeah the hoodie. After remembering, you were not looking forward to this conversation. You look off and let him know, yeah, you did. You trying not to make a big deal of it has clearly had the opposite impact on him.

“YOU TELEPORTED YOUR HORNLESS ASS INTO MY HIVE. IS THIS WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE COY ABOUT? YOU DUMPED ME ON AN ALIEN PLANET AND HAVE THE INEXPLICABLE HOBBY OF TRYING TO GET YOUR FROND STUMPS IN EVERYONE’S PERSONAL LIFE AND I ACTUALLY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOU AND FIGURE OUT HOW YOU OF ALL PEOPLE MANAGED TO GET A HIGHBLOOD MOIRAIL AND-”

Matesprit. He pauses and actually looks taken aback. It is odd to see him momentarily speechless.

“WHAT?” Well that didn’t last.

He was my matesprit.

“AGAIN, WHAT? SO YOU HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE AND ARE WEARING A SIGN THAT HASN’T BEEN USED IN FUCK KNOWS HOW LONG? BEING MUTATED CULLBAIT NOT KILLED BY DRONES AND YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU FILLED A QUAD?”

Quads.

This information seems to break him. You see a familiar crease being to form between his brows. You then pause, trying not to get offended.

Wait, hold on, he has totally accepted you being able to travel time and space, but you filling a quad is too much?

“YOU ARE STILL PUSHING IT WITH TIME. BUT EXCUSE ME IF THROUGH THE PANBOGGLING TALES OF YOUR FUCKING ESCAPADES THROUGH SPACE THAT THEY DON’T EXACTLY FUCKING TRACK ON BEING CONDUSIVE TO FILLING YOUR QUADRANTS.”

Fair. You sigh and tell him the story before he can take a breath because as much as you care about him, this boy has one setting and it is very loud.

You tell him about taking a walk, getting abducted. Saying you were a robot and then revealing you were not in fact a robot. You hesitate during the underground river part as you walk the line between Mallek’s privacy and sating Karkat’s curiosity. You smile recounting getting pushed in the river, saved, and how he called you cute and started blushing and trying to backpeddle. How the two of you hung out later and how he made an account just to talk to you. Karkat seems to soften by a modicum at this.

You laughed at how he showed up to tattoo a stranger just because you asked. You wistfully go through the memories that led to an eventual confession and how beforehand how your moirail Polypa was coaching you and Galekh provided you with literature on quadrants. A true bro move, especially since you don’t know how a conversation on them would have gone. You guessed it was since you helped him with his pitch quad and the tattoo. Maybe he felt like there was already something going on when we were both at his hive in matching hoodies, oh yeah he was the guy who got tattooed. His kismesis was your law partner. Karkat’s brow twitched, incredulous. Yeah you don’t know how Gorgor managed that either. Maybe having an alien alive and working for him on Alternia added to his court cred. You also think that that wasn’t the only part Karkat took issue with, but by some miracle, he lets you keep talking.

You kept expecting him to cut you off but he seemed somewhat enraptured by the tales of your romantic antics, despite his efforts to seem more interested in the you part, you were getting a feeling he was more interested in alien dynamics. You knew he was interested in romcoms so maybe this was just some new material for him, especially since quads were a new thing for you and maybe he has strong thoughts regarding the differences in alien ro-

Oh.

Oh you see why now.

Karkat seemed to pick up on the shift in your storytelling going from your personal life to human romantic customs.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT LOOK FOR?”

What look? There are no looks occurring.

“TRY THAT SHIT ON A MORON WHO JUST HATCHED. THEY MIGHT JUST BE MORE INCLINED TO GLEEFULLY SHOVEL THAT EXCUSE DOWN THEIR CHUTES.” He crossed his arms and squints at you. You knew how sharp his claws were from experience, not that you thought he was going to hurt you. There was just something very endearing about him trying to intimidate you while not subtly trying to glean more information about humans without seeming interested in humans. Or a human. Yeah, this is totally about Dave. You just have to find a way to gracefully skedaddle around that little detail.

I just had a bit of learning curve when dating an alien. So it is totally cool if you don’t know much about human stuff. I know quads can b-

“AND WHY DO YOU THINK I WOULD WANT TO KNOW THAT?” He says this clearly knowing what he thinks you think. You think it would be better if he didn’t think you thinked that, considering how the tips of his ears are turning red. You think.

You have romcom stuff everywhere and seem to really like them? Learning about human stuff might make it easier for you watch human romcoms and see how good or bad they are based on social norms. Kinda like romantic xenoanthropology.

Fucking nailed it. He huffs and rolls his eyes. Or at least enough that your answer plus the sheer amount of not fucking wanting to talk about that got you onto romcoms in general. He seemed to echo Polypa’s taste and you smiled at how animated he was becoming. A few of what you watched were now classics. Others that you didn’t like are prime pitch fodder. It had gotten late (early?) and that led you back to your hive. Just sitting alone and thinking. God you hate self-reflection.

You think of your time with Aradia. How she said you were a little broken. How she said you wouldn’t remember not being able to get to your friends again and being held by whatever the fuck that was. But you did remember, as much as you wish you didn’t. Guess you were more broken than she thought. It would be easier to just think you couldn’t get back because you didn’t try hard enough. But you did, you really did, and no matter what you do you just can’t. You are a shitty meta traveler and an even shittier friend. You thought about trying again but you get the feeling that you can’t access something that longer exists. You’d probably just get stuck in some corner of the universe and be alone all over again until you suffocate.

Can you even really die or be killed in anyway that matters anymore? At least in a way that doesn’t bring up the dull pang of a “bad end” followed by getting slammed dunked back in the past, before your fuck up, by an alarmingly cheerful time goddess?

Yeah, you didn’t think so. That would just add to the conga line of your dead selves letting you know how much of a dumbass you are.

But those people, those times. They don’t exist anymore. You keep thinking back to the way things were and who they were and how you can’t travel to those points anymore. All you have is the relative now and the people who exist now. Mostly.

You finish your terrible, bitter coffee, the cup no longer keeping your hands warm. You deserve this. In some shitty cosmic way, maybe you deserve this for not being better as a friend or partner. You can’t go back to the way things were to only to the people of now. And who even know who or what that even is.

Wait.

Maybe you couldn’t go back to the people they used to be because those were no longer who they were now. That thought sends a pang of hurt through you, imagining what little hope they had crushed. God dammit. But you have to try. Otherwise it is just you babysitting some 13 year olds who are trying to discover themselves and work through their issues with some interdimensional asshole looking over their shoulders. That asshole hopefully just being you.

You put your mug down and stand, closing your eyes, you try to repeat what you did with Aradia again, the memory of them doesn’t work. You know that. But with your new friends, it hasn’t completely been the memory? Maybe more accurate to say it’s them, some part memory sure, but more the idea of the present them, what they look like, who they are. You open your eyes and glance down at the sign on your hood. A sign you have mindlessly traced so many times. A sign that when you forgot it, gave you a dull sense of grief, now that you do remember though, it has sharpened and you are reminded of it whenever you are alone for too long or even slow down. Like the rest of you from other timelines will catch up to you in the current one and you get to experience your failures all over again.

You hold yourself tightly to ground yourself. Self-flagellation won’t get you anywhere, you’ve tried, you know this. So again, you close your eyes. You focus on your hood, the sign on it, the person it belonged to. The Mallek he was when he gave it to you vs. the Mallek he knew he didn’t want to be. The one he would have to be to survive. Your throat tightened at the thought of not being able to find him because he couldn’t do it and what if they got him an-

You slap yourself to stop catastrophizing.

Focus!

Adult trolls get bigger and their horns and claws grow with them. Their skin hardens and darkens as it does. You can’t tell if them molting was a joke someone told you or if they were serious so you don’t think about that part. Their blood color shows more through their eyes as they age. They wear black with their sign incorporated on it when they get spaced. You think back to the cerulean pirate you saw with Konyyl. Something like that. Okay you were getting somewhere. You could tell by how afraid you were to get there. You begin to get a headache, like your mind is a rubber band that you are trying to stretch to fit around something it shouldn’t.

Mallek said he would be a soldier or a spy and would be stuck ordering around lowbloods. No longer able to use his hacker skills how he wanted to. You imagine him, larger, older, more tired. Probably has more piercings and tattoos. You smile a little, despite yourself and the tension you feel continuing to build. He would likely play along, do what he had to do to do what he wanted to do. But at that point what would that even be? You imagine he would never truly stop messing with the system or hacking. His natural curiosity wouldn’t let him so he would be trying… something quietly on the side. He was sympathetic but you didn’t know how deep he would or if he would go down the rebel route, maybe just try to deal with his own corner of the universe.

Going along with what is expected seems to be the easiest way to keep under the radar. He has always been partial to not getting culled. Even when it was just the two of you, you knew it was a conscious effort to let his guard down around you, often requiring a change of scenery with you jokingly asking about if you would be needing goggles. Jokes often broke the tension of being afraid to be known with him.  

Despite his projected cool, you knew he was an anxious person and preferred to be alone. You could see that being warped to fit the expectations of being a cerulean. You remember from  conversations you had early in the morning, with ordeals approaching, you had some rare moments of verbalized vulnerability, of him exasperatedly going over what ceruleans are supposed to be with the unspoken and mutual understanding of what he was actually like. The coolness that he projected could morph into coldness, him wrapping it around himself tighter than any armor the empire would give him. Put some distance between himself and his team. You couldn’t see him being casually cruel, but definitely keeping people away through attitude and fear of his caste. The band tightens. So does your throat.

He hates having people over him and likely would at that start. Probably would be trying to do well so that he could use his performance and caste to be given his own ship and team so he could get some breathing room away from his superiors. Just be another team that does their job without question or issue in order to keep the space around himself. You realize that at some point during this, you started hyperventilating. You consider doing the breathing exercises Konyyl taught you, but at this point, you were tired of trying to be okay about it. You wanted to let it out in some way or another. You wanted to feel.

You thought of you, your disappearance. How that would have impacted him probably trying to find you, keeping himself up more than usual, blaming himself and then being taken off world. The not knowing would upset him the most you think. Would he even want to see you? What if he mattered to you way more than you mattered to him and you just showing up makes things worse? Another pang of guilt hits you for making things harder for another person again and you taste metal. You grit your teeth and refocus. The whole picture might never actually be known to you, but this is likely as close as it gets. You see this in your minds’ eye, the assumed idea of a person who may or may not exist, based off of who they used to be. Was this accurate, would this even do anything? Your hands clench around the hem of your hood and you drop to your knees and your leggings scrape the wood on the floor of your hive, eyes still screwed shut with tears pricking at the corners, breathing quick and heavy, jaw locked.

You try again.

The bands snaps.

And your head hits a cold, metal floor.

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

Only a day or two ago I was notified that I was in contact with some people tested for and found positive for Covid-19, this came as nothing un expected, I was in contact with hundreds of people many from Europe recently.  Then, as you know we are experiencing, most Universities, Libraries and Book Shows have been indefinitely closed, and because of this; many of us find or try lively-hood’s challenged. In a situation where it seems that there is little to do that will improve the current situation any faster than time will take its course, I have turned to reading and writing.  I have been researching, as best as I can from home, fifteen books which are new to my stock.  There are many more stuck in Europe and this gives me hope. It is the first day of spring and I awoke to a beautiful snow squall… In like a Lion..

And here are the fruits…

1).      355J Bible Saint Jerome,  Gabriello Bruno (active 1480-1514.)

Biblia cum summariis concordantiis : diuisionibus: quattuor repertoriis p[ro]positis: numeriq[ue] foliorum distinctione: terse et fidelit[er] imp[re]ssa. { With table of Gabriel Brunus }

[Lyons]: Jean Pivard, 29 Jan. 1500 & 1.        $ 15,000.

Impresserunt aute[m] solertes viri Franciscus Fradin et Ioha[n]nes Piuard socij impressores. …,]

Folio   inches,  &8  ç8 , a8 b6, c-z8 A-Z8 Aa8 Bb8; aa-cc8 dd10. Bound in original full calf over wooden boards with 10 brass bosses.

This edition corresponds with the edition printed by Fradin and Pivard in 1497. There are the same tables, summaries, &c.; and the arrangement of the books and the readings are alike. At the end of the subscription we read: “Impressit autem solers ori Johänes Pivard impressor. Deo sint sempiterne gratie.”

Pivard,who was working alone from  7 March 1498 to 1501, Started printing with François Fradin  in 1497 (Goff B602)  ISTC lists15 titles solely printed by Privard.

              Goff B604; HC 3128; GfT 1883, 1884; Pell 2341; CIBN B-426; Arnoult 288; Girard 108; Parguez 213; Polain(B) 4210; IBE 1040; SI 764; Martín Abad B-134; Sallander 2098; Bod-inc B-312; Sheppard 6736; Pr 8670; GW 4281. (Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1965 p140-3)

Copinger, Incunabula Biblica, 120; Darlow–Moule 6090; Sheppard 6736.

  U.S. copies:  Boston Public Library, General Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Library of Congress, Rare Book Division,  Southern Methodist Univ., Bridwell Library (418 ff)

  https://data.cerl.org/istc/ib00604000

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2)     353J Alberto da Castello (ca. 1460-1522)

  Rosario della gloriosa Vergine Maria :  con lle sttattiionii & iindullgenttiie delllle chiiese di Roma perr tutto L’’anno. 

In Venetia : Presso la compagnia de gli Vniti,1585.          $7,800

Octavo. 6 x 3 3/4.    A-Z, Aa-Ii8. A later edition of the first ‘Rosary Book” in Italian.

This book has a wonderful contemporary binding, recently expertly rebacked. It is of red Morocco with gilt center images and borders gilt, with angels. Certainly these books were

very popular, that said, very few copies have survived. This edition is represented on OCLC by only two copies worldwide. 1 US copy Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University. (SJU Alcuin Arca Artium Rare BookBX2163 .C37 1585). [The authorship of the work and the woodcuts are attributable to the Dominican Friar Alberto da Castello, identified as author or editor at the authorizations of the Venecian Inquisition, given 5 April 1521. (Francesco Pisano)]

Over 150  woodcuts (including  repeats) comprising  almost full-page cuts (1 on t.p.) within borders.  All had previously appeared in earlier editions. Ornamental and pictorial border pieces on almost every leaf. ( The wood cut on leaf 173v is upside down in the border!) Each wood cuts represent the “Mysteries of the Rosary”

“From the beginning, publications on the Rosary came accompanied by lavish xilographic illustrations. The most striking of these can be found in the edition of the Rosario della gloriosa Vergine Maria by Alberto da Castello from 1521 [Fig. 14.1], which contains a wealth of illustrations. This clearly shows that the Rosary was not just an oral recitation, but was also a contemplative prayer engaging the imagination, a combination later mirrored by the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

Alberto da Castello, born in the middle of the fifteenth century in Venice, joined the Dominican order around 1470 and  wrote several devotional, liturgical, historical and canonical texts. In the Epistola prohemiale of his Rosario della gloriosa Vergine Maria he says that he wrote the meditations and organised the images ‘acciò che gli idioti che non sanno legere habbino el modo de contemplare gli divini beneficii et de questa contemplatione ne habbino qualche frutto spirituale’.( fol. 6r. ‘So that even the illiterate have a means to contemplate gifts of the divine and to receive spiritual fruits from such contemplation’ (translations are mine).He states that he writes especially for the ‘ignoranti, illetterati, idioti’, and that a good Christian must hold the mysteries of the Rosary deep in his heart. (Literary and Visual Forms of a Domestic Devotion: The Rosary in Renaissance Italy. Erminia Ardissino)

The mysteries of the rosary were introduced by Dominic of Prussia sometime between 1410 and 1439. This gave each decade of the rosary a unique quality. Each mystery leads us to ponder very specific events in the lives of Jesus and Mary and the lessons they hold for our own lives today.

The Rosary has a ritual aspect that individual prayers lack, and it is highly structured. It entails the recitation of 150 Ave Marias, clustered in groups of ten, preceded by a Pater noster and the proposition of a ‘mystery’ upon which to meditate. This number of 150

Ave Marias seems to be designed to correspond to the 150 psalms in the Davidic psalter, which is why the Rosary is also known as the ‘Virgin’s psalter’. It does not consist only of repetitive prayers, however, but also entails meditations. Indeed, the Rosary created by Dominic of Prussia was a kind of meditation on the life of Christ and Mary. In his Liber experientiarum he ‘explicitly claimed to be the first to have composed a series of fifty points on the life of Christ that were to be meditated on while reciting the Ave Marias’.

Sander 6572-6573. See: Essling 2124

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100 full page plates and a volvelle!

3)    382J  Jan David. 1545?-1613.

Veridicus christianus: auctore P. Joanne David … Editio altera, auctior.

Antverpiæ ex officina Plantiniana, M. DCVI.      $6,500

Quarto 8 1/2 X 6 inches ‡4, ‡‡4, A-Z4, a-z4, Aa-Ee4.+ 100 Numbered Plates. Withspecial engraved t.p. with allegorical depiction of Christ carrying the cross, surrounded by ten artists at easels painting scenes from his life (as well as a few questionable profane subjects).

 The text is divided into 100 chapters, each with an allegorical engraving incorporating letters keyed to the explanatory text and with marginal references. Each of the 100 numbered plates has a single line of Latin at the head giving the subject, with two-line explanatory verses below the allegorical engraving in Latin (roman letter), Dutch (civilité) and French (italic) First plate (following [2 daggers]4) is added title leaf for the ill., which were also published separately; see Bibliotheca Belgica. The added title reads: Icones ad Veridicvm Christianvm P. Ioannis David e Societate Iesv At the end is  Device with compasses and the motto “constantia et labore” on Ee4r . This book is notoriously found defective in one way or another, this copy is perfect and complete.

This copy is bound in full contemporary  blind stamped calf  over wooden boards with two working clasps.

The Veridicus christianus: is followed by the “Orbita probitatis ad Christi imitationem veridico Christano subserviens”: p. 351-374;  which preceds a volvelle plate for use in locating specific passages.

This text contains a series of images with accessible (sometimes to a fault) moral or religious messages. These illustration swarns against opening the senses to temptation lest death and moral decay take up residence in one’s soul.

The Veridicus Christianus emphasizes the Society of Jesus’ investment in thinking in, though, and about visual images that exemplify the supreme mystery of God. Published as a tool of devotion and meditations, it features one hundred chapters that encompass a wide range of topics for reflection. Each chapter incorporates an extensive commentary that interprets the emblematic image David too follows the order in which we apprehend things with our senses, beginning with a visual representation at the head of each chapter. Then comes the explication. The symboli explicatio was considered necessary because cultivated readers would be more susceptible to a reasoned argument than a picture.

Here are images of the vovell. The centers of the engraving and the volvelle (through which a string passes) are reinforced with small paper roundels printed with the monograms of Christ. The numbers are keyed to an “Indiculus orbitae” that follows (Bb1r-Bb2r). There a number, having been selected, is provided with a phrase from various Latin authors (listed on Bb2v), and a reference to one of the hundred sections that comprise the main text. It is suggested in Bibliotheca Belgica that this game may have been intended as a pious alternative to such superstitious books as Thuys der fortvnen.                                                                                                                                                           

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4)       312J. Domenico Cavalca. (1270?-1342)

Pungi lingua

[Baptista de Tortis]: Venexia, Adi .viiii. de Octubrio. 1494            $12,000

Quarto (200 x 145 mm); [80] pages. a-k8. Large woodcut depicting the crucifixion on the frontispiece, First Venetian edition with the beautiful woodblock published here for the first time. This copy has a beautiful initial “A” in gold, blue, red and green, a colorful coat of arms. This copy is bound in modern carta rustic with a gold title on an orange label

This is a treatise on the dangers of the misuse of the language it was, as you might expect quite popular . Written by the Dominican monk who was a contemporary of Dante and among the first to write in the vernacular, and one of the most successful translators of holy texts.

Aside from Biblical illustrations, the Pungilingua has many exempla drawn from many other sources including some not includes in the Alphabetum narratinum. Most of the stories are told in one to three lines, and many contain commerce with the Devil, one time disguised as a horse. In the prologue Cavalca mentions that he gathered his exempla from many sources “alcune poche cose” . One of the major sources is the Summa Vitiorum by Peraldus. but he also quite a few profane authors , Seneca, Socrates, Cicero, Valerius Maximus. That said, quite often Cavalca attributes the wrong author. Cavalca writes as though he was speaking to the reader in person useing phrases like “Io per me credo” and “Oimé “ Introducing unique stories and words, He refers to someone as double-tongued as a “tecomeco” (bilingue) . He refers to a sleight of hand trick ,called “gherminella” a word which was used later by Boccaccio. This is an important book in Italian literary history, and the Italian vocabulary leaving many contemporary proverbs and descriptions of medieval life. Goff C342; H(Add)C 4776a; R 116; Pell 3448; CIBN C-195; IGI 2637; Essling 750; Sander 1853; Pr 4649; BMC V 328; GW 6413

One copy in Goff. Huntington Library.

Queried Location: New York NY, Manhattan College: sold Christie’s (NY) 1 June 1991 lot 41 (current whereabouts unknown)

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5) 350J. Richard FitzRalph (Ricardus Radulphus Armacanus pseudonym) (circa 1300-1360)

Summa Domini Armacani in Questionibus Armenorum noviter impressa et Correcta a magistro nostro Johanne Sudoris. Cum aliquibus Sermonibus eiusdem de Christi dominio.

Paris: Jehan Petit et ponset le Preux, (Venales habentur in vico divi Jacobi sub Lilio aureo) 1512. [Privilège octroyé à Jean Petit et Poncet Le Preux daté du 12 mars 1511 (1512 n. st.) et prenant effet le 15 juillet 1512.].                                 $24,000

  Small Folio 275 x 201 mm. A6 a-z6 &6 A-E6 F4. [6], 177 [i. e., 178] leaves. This copy is bound in a Remboîtage of later limp vellum; contents toned and brittle, lightly damp wrinkled with marginal damp staining at beginning and end, contemporary inscriptions on title and scattered underscoring and marginalia, wormhole through blank outer margin of approximately the first 30 leaves, paper crack in o1 not affecting text, last leaf reinforced in outer margin on verso. A Mexican Augustinian branded ownership mark on bottom edge. This is the only printed edition of the Summa in Questionibus Armenorum which is an examination of alleged Armenian doctrinal errors, the chief dogmatic work by an Irish theologian and prelate involved in negotiations between the papal court at Avignon and Armenian representatives over the reconciliation of the Roman and Armenian churches. FitzRalph, whose Defensorium curatorum was first published circa 1483, was one of the earliest Irish authors to appear in print. Renouard-Moreau II, 314; Shaaber M119; not in RBH or ABPC. Moreau, B. Inventaire 1512- 314; Index des livres interdits, t. IX, p. 86 (n° 50/499; Page de titre en rouge et noir dans un encadrement de plaques gravées sur métal, marque de Jean Petit (Renouard, 890) Adams, F-550

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  6)      358J Jacobus de Gruytrode  1400-1475

          Speculum animae peccatricis

[Memmingen : Albrecht Kunne, about 1490]            $6,500

Quarto , [28] ff, 33 lines, the first initial (5 lines) is painted in white and blue on a golden background, upper and left margin richly decorated in red, purple, blue and gold and with two red beasts. 19th c. binding in half leather, title gilt on spine, all edges gilt. Sometimes falsely attributed to Dionysius Carthusiensis, the Speculum is now attributed either to Jacobus de Gruytrode (cf. Bloomfield) or to Jacobus de Clusa (cf. L. Meier, Die Werke des Erfurter Karthäusers Jakob von Jüterbog, Münster, 1955).

  Speculum animae peccatricis is a work of spiritual edification which consists of seven sections: on human misery, sin (especially lechery), penance, rejection of the world, the vanity of human wishes, death and hell and heaven.

Firste of the filthenes and miserie of man. Below are the chapter in English

Secounde of the synnes ingeneralle and of their effectis.

Thyrde howe they ought hastely with all diligence to do penaunce.

 Fourth howe they ought to fle the world.

Fyfthe of the false Riches and vayne ho∣noures of the worlde.

Sixt howe they ought to drede deth.

Seuenth of the Ioyes of paradyse and of the paynes of hell.

There is no modern critical edition of the text.  Among the devotional books by the Flemish mystical writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, none was more popular on the Continent and in England during the early Renaissance than the Speculum aureum animae peccatricis or The mirroure of golde for the synfull soule, which Lady Margaret Beaufort translated into English. Since the sixteenth century, bibliographers have listed the Speculum as the work of the Carthusian monk Jacobus de Gruytroede, prior of the Liége Charterhouse from 1440 to 1475, yet the English version is always attributed to his friend Denis de Leuwis or Dionysius the Carthusian, as he is better known. The question of authorship may be satisfactorily settled as the result of recent research by an English Carthusian scholar in the library of the Certosa in Farneta. He noted that the editors of Dionysius’s Opera omnia (Tournai, 1913) explain how the error in authorship began. In volume xlii they point out that, owing to the Carthusian tradition of anonymity during a monk’s lifetime, the Speculum was printed anonymously until 1495, in which year the Nuremberg printer Paul Wagner first issued it as a work by Dionysius. He found the manuscript of the Speculum in the library at Ruremond, where Dionysius was prior until his death in 1471, and supposed it was written by him, as were the other works he intended to print. The two priors were close friends, and dedicated several of their works to each other. Nugent E.M. (1969) Jacobus de Gruytroede. In: Nugent E.M. (eds) The Thought & Culture of the English Renaissance. Springer, Dordrecht

  Goff S644; HC 14899*; Pell 4313; CIBN S-333; IGI 5001; IDL 2532; Schlechter-Ries 1003; Voull(B) 1617,5; Schmitt I 1614,2; Hubay(Augsburg) 1141; Hubay(Eichstätt) 538; Sack(Freiburg) 1951; Walsh 988; Bod-inc S-258; Sheppard 2032; Pr 2804; BMC II 608; BSB-Ink I-23; GW M10734

  U.S. copies;Harvard ,Emory, Columbia ,Huntington Library

Southern Methodist Univ, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

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Nam digiti scripto laetantur, lumina visu Mens volvet sensu mystica verba Dei

“The fingers rejoice in writing, the eyes in seeing, and the mind at examining the meaning of God’s mystical words.”

The first printed facsimile of a manuscript.

7) 351J. Hrabanus Maurus. 784-856?

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaq[ue] mirificum.

Phorçheim. [Pforzheim] : In ædibus Thom[ae] Anshelmi., 1503.       $10,700

Folio Aa6, Bb4, a-k6, A-B6, C4 (last leaf blank).

THIS COPY LACKING [four leaves] A5 & 6, Bb1 and a1. [two woodcuts of Alcuin interceding on behalf of Rabanus before Pope Gregory iv, and of Rabanus presenting his poems to the Pope; and two figured dedicatory poems the first  to Louis the Pious  the next christ crucified]   It is bound in a full vellum modern binding.   First Edition (for a second edition see below) Types 3:109R, 4:180G; 40 lines of transcribed verse + headline, 40 lines of commentary + headline, red and black printing throughout, calligraphic woodcut initial (Proctor, fig. 24) M on title page, woodcut initials printed in red, and a figured prefatory poem, 28 carmina figurata, the first entirely xylographic, the remaining poems combining printed and xylographic letters with the versus intexti printed in red (except fig. xvi), enclosed by either woodcut figures (of the emperor, Christ, the Evangelists, Cherubim, etc.) printed in black or by Christian symbols and characters, most defined by metal rules in red.

This is a remarkable typographical achievement, probably the earliest attempt to reproduce a medieval manuscript. The greater portion of the work comprises a preface in verse and twenty-eight poems. “Hrabanus Maurus, the abbot of Fulda, wrote in the midst of the ‘new monasticism,’ a period associated with a revival of literacy and learning. In religious and secular spheres. This ‘script culture,’ as Rosamond McKitterick has it, used the written word not only as a mode of communication but as ‘a resource, a guide, a key, and an inspiration,’ especially in the devotional practice of Christianity.

Each of the twenty-eight picture poems that form In honorem sanctae crucis explores a different theme relating to the Cross through a complex interplay of word and image. The poems each have an equal number of letters per line, written continuously like a grid. By following the letters in the usual direction for a Latin text—from left to right, top to bottom—each grid reads as one long poem. But within each grid, certain letters are also marked out with colour and drawings to form pictures. The letters that make up these pictures read as separate short poems embedded within the larger poem. As such, each page of In honorem sanctae crucis presents not just  a puzzle of words and pictures, full of hidden and interrelated messages for the reader to decode bout a meditation exercise.

“Hrabanus created the various shapes and figures by highlighting individual letters in underlying poens in colour (in the printed editions red), and theses individual letters together make up meaningful text , ranging from simple declarations to very elaborate ones. For example, Carmina 2 contains a simple cross inside a square (Hrabanus calls it a “tetragonum”)whose sides form a border for the poem as a whole. The textfrom the underlying poen that makes up the figure consists of six hexameters, each one an address to the cross beginning with the words ‘O crux…’ When we follow Hrabanus’s instruction in the accompanying prose text for reading these hexameters, we find the following: even though the verse that forms the top of the square is also the opening of the underlying poem, he insists that we begin reading with the stem of the cross, from top to bottom.” (Schipper)

Sunt quoque uersus duo in ipsa ccruceconscripti, quorum prior est: O CRVX QVAE SVMMI ES NOTO DEDICATA TROPAEO

a summo in ima descendens. Alter uero: O CRVX QVAE CHRISTI ES CARO BENEDICTA TRIVMPHO a dextra in sinistram crucis tendens ‡

‡“there are also two verses inscribed in the cross, the first of which is : “ O cross , thou who art at the height of fame, a dedicated moment” ‘running from the top down. And a second’ “O Cross thou who through the body of Christ art the blessed triumph” ‘running from the right to the left.’

Further more Hrabanus flips left and right the texts point of view alternates , Hrabanus tells us the cross is looking out at the reader, not the other way around. “ Only after we have read the hexameters in the cross are we free to read the verses in the four sides of the tetragon, and even then Hrabanus constrains the order in which they are to be read: first the top, then the bottom, then the right side then finally the left side.”

More complex figures present further challenges in reading. The figure in Carmen 25, for example, consists of eight letters of the word ‘ALLEVIA’ arranged around a small cross. It does not take much effort to notice that we need to start with the A, read down to the E, continue on the left, and end on the right of the figure; and that each time we trace out those letters we make the sign of the cross. It becomes more difficult when we also try and read the text that is enclosed in the figures.

The letters of ALLEVIA are made of the following letters from the underlying poem. A crux[a L eter    L na[de             E i]es[lave[v                                                                                                                                       L ivis    V in]arc I e]po    A lorvm

                                    CRUX AETERNA DEI ES LAVS VIVIS IN ARCE POLORUM

‡ Eternal cross, thou art the praise of God, thou livest in the arc of the skies.

  Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 249. A. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-eleventh Century Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1974), 113-30.

William Schipper, ‘Hrabanus Maurus in Anglo-Saxon England: In Honorem Sanctae Crucis’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, David Pelteret (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate 2009), 283-98.

  Proctor, R. Index to the early printed books in the British Museum,; 11747; Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries,; R3; Catalogue of a collection of early German books in the library of C. Fairfax Murray,; 350; Panzer, G.W.F. Annales typographici,; VIII 227, 2; Pollard, A.W. Catalogue of books mostly from the presses of the first printers … collected by Rush C. Hawkins,; 189 Panzer, VIII, 227, no. 2. Proctor 11747. Fairfax Murray 350./ Last leaf blank./ Edited by Jakob Wimpheling.–cf. title page verso./ Illustrations: 2 woodcuts of the author presenting his book to the pope, and many woodcut figures (Christ, cherubs, crosses, symbols, etc.) printed on 28 pages of text. Some of the text within and near the outline figures is xylographic, the rest printed. The letters within the outlines are printed in red and may be read separately in a different sense. Printed in red and black, initials (except on t.p.) in red./ With label of Sinclair Hamilton. Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 249. A. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-eleventh Century Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1974), 113-30. William Schipper, ‘Hrabanus Maurus in Anglo-Saxon England: In Honorem Sanctae Crucis’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, David Pelteret (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate,

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The second edition One-Hundred and three years later.

8).  354J Hrabanus Maurus. 784-856?

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaq[ue] mirificum. Cum antiqviate avctoris <annis abhinc prope octingentis abbatis primum fuldensis, archiepiscopi postea moguntini. tum noitate scriptionis memorabile. Qvo figvris sive imaginibvs XXVIII. multi fedei christianae mysteria, multi mystici numeri; angelorum, virtutum, VII. donorum Spiritus Sancti, VIII. Beatitudinum, IV. elementorum, IV. temorum anni, VI euangelistarum & agni, mensium, ventorum, V librorum Moysis, nominis Adam, alleluia, & amen, aliarumq[ue] rerum vis & dignitas in formam crvis reedacta, subtiliter et ingeniose explicantur.

Augustæ Vindelicorvm e typographeo Praetoriano. , 1605.                    $9,000

Folio Aa6, Bb4, a-k6, a6, B4, c4. (complete).  Printers mark on title page, woodcut initials printed in red, two woodcuts of Alcuin interceding on behalf of Rabanus before Pope Gregory iv, and of Rabanus presenting his poems to the Pope; a figured dedicatory poem to Louis the Pious and a figured prefatory poem, 28 carmina figurata, the first entirely xylographic, the remaining poems combining printed and xylographic letters with the versus intexti printed in red (except fig. xvi), enclosed by either woodcut figures (of the emperor, Christ, the Evangelists, Cherubim, etc.) printed in black or by Christian symbols and characters, most defined by metal rules in red. Bound in contemporary deer skin.

This aside from the prologue this edition is a re-set reproduction of the first printed edition (see above)

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  9)       383J Johannes de Anania

Commentaria super prima et secunda parte libri quinti Decretalium. Add: Repertorium

Bologna : Henricus de Colonia, 7 Dec. 1479, 5 Jan. 1480. $17,000

Large folio 422 x 285mm Pars III (bound first) a8,b6,c10,d6,e8,f4,g8.(lacking a1Blank) Pars I (bound second) a10,b8,i8,k6,l8,m8,n6,o6,p8,q8,r10s 10. Pars II (bound third) A8,-F8,G6,H8,-L8,M6,N8,O8P6,Q8,R8,S6,T8,U10,X8-Z8, &8, ¶8,€8,¡8. In three parts, dated: 7 Dec. 1479 (Commentaria, partes I-II); 5 Jan. 1480 (Repertorium)

No copy of parts II & III in the US. The margin of a2 of the Repertorium cut off with no text loss (see image) This is a very very wide margined copy, with strong and crisp paper. The first leaf is stroked in red and blue. Throughout the rest of the books capital spaces are left blank. This copy is bound in 19th century vellum.

ANANI’A, JOHANNES DE : his family name, Anagni. implies that he was of the family of the Catani, and that his father’s name was Leonardo. He taught canon law in Bologna, and had the reputation of a conscientious man. He studied under Floriano di San Pietro. Alexander Tartagni and Andreas Barbati were his scholars; the former became his step-son, and the latter inherited his library. According to Orlandi, Anania was sent ambassador from the city of Bologna to Pope Martin V. in 1425, and he was also employed to conduct negotiations with other princes. Johannes de Anania at the time of his death, in 1455 or 1458, was archdeacon at Bologna. Spangenberg enumerates four of his works, three of which were published at Lyon between 1521 and 1555 : — 1. A Commentary on the fifth book of the Decretals, published in folio at Lyon in 1521, and reprinted there in 1553. 2. Consilia, discovered and edited by Ludovico Bolognini, in folio, at Lyon in 1555, reprinted at Venice in 1570. 3. “De Revocatione Feudi alienati,” in octavo, at Lyon, in 1546, reprinted at Basle in 1564. 4. A Collection of the Decisions of the Roman Rota, at Venice, in folio, in 1496. Mazzuchelli mentions a treatise on the law as to salaries, “Allegatio de Salario et Stipendio ac de Obligatione et Promissione Domini,” which is preserved in MS. at Bologna in the library of the Collegio di Spagna. In addition to these Lipenius ascribes to Johannes de Anania a legal tract on church patronage, “De Jure Patronatus Ecclesiastico,” published at Amsterdam in 1640; and a collection of cases (” Quaestiones”) at Cologne in 1570. To the folio edition of Baldus, “In Usus Feudorum Commentaria,”

published at Lyon in 1550, there is appended a thesis on the law regarding the alienation of fiefs, maintained by Johannes de Anania at a public disputation in Bologna. The date is not given, but he is styled “Doctor et Canonicus,” and his opponent is said to have been Secundinus de Natis; and the publisher intimates that the MS. had been preserved in the library of Johannes Nevizanus at Asti. No. 446. of the Arundel MSS. in the library of the British Museum contains a treatise “De Usuris” by Johannes de Anania. The volume is of a large folio form, and the ” De Usuris,” written in a small character with numerous contractions, occupies the folios 93. to 164. inclusive, each folio containing four columns. These treatises are the only compositions of the author we have seen, and they leave a favourable impression of his skill in selecting authorities to support and elucidate his positions, and of his talent for lucid arrangement. (Mazzuchelli, Scrittori d’ Italia; Spangenberg, in Ersch und Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopadie; Alidosi, Appendice alli Dottori Bolognesi de Legge Canonica e Civile; Orlandi, Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi; Baldus Perusinus, in Usus Feudorum Commentaria doctissima, quibus accesserunt Andr. Siculi Adnotationes una cum Joan. de Anania eleganti Disputatione in tres secta Quastiones, Lugduni, 1550, fol.; Arundel MSS. in the British Museum, No. 446.) W. W

Not in Goff: ISTC ij00250150; H 938*; Torchet 521; IGI 5245; IBE 3188; Kotvan 702; Sajó-Soltész 1881; Martín Abad J-44; Voull(B) 2735,20; Walsh 3188; BSB-Ink I-365; GW M12841

Holdings:       United States  Harvard University, Law School Library (I) only.

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  10)        381J Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680

Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, Qua Summa Argumentorum Multitudine & Varietate Naturalium rerum scientia per experimenta Physica, Mathematica, Medica, Chymica, Musica, Magnetica, Mechanica comprobatur atque stabilitur. Quam Ex Vastis Operibus Adm. Revdi. P. Athanasii Kircheri extraxit, & in hunc ordinem per classes redegit Romæ, Anno M. DC. LXXV. Joannes Stephanus Kestlerus Alsata, Authoris discipulus, & in re litterariâ assecla, & coadjutor.

Amsterdam: Ex Officinâ Janssonio-Waesbergiana. Anno 1680 $9,500

Folio. 15 x 9 3/4 inches. *4, A-Z4, Aa-Ii4. First edition.mmThis copy is quite clean and crisp throughout, never having been washed or pressed. There is some occasional spotting and browning. but none is too extensive. The binding is twentyth century full vellum with title on spine. an impressive and large copy!

“Thus in the must varied branches of science Kircher played the role of pioneer. Even medicine received his attention, as is shown for example by his treatise, ‘Scrutinium phyisco-medicum contagiosæ luis, quæ pestis dicitur’ (Rome, 1663). His scientific activities brought him into scientific correspondence with scholars laboring in the most different fields, as the numerous volumes of his extant letters show. It is to his inventive mind that we owe one of the earliest of our counting machines: the speaking-tube and æolian harp were perfected by him. He was also the inventor of the magic lantern which has since been brought to such perfection and is and is today almost indispensable. [All of these devices are illustrated in the present work, compiled in the year of the author’s death by Kircher and his student Johann Stephan Kestler, including three large and striking engravings of magic lanterns.]” May I ask the reader to take the following quote with a measure of indulgence for its closed minded author [circa 1913] with the hope that modern folk of the last decade of the second millennium have a bit more tolerance for the many sciences that we have yet to master. “That the most varied judgments should be formed and expressed on a man of such encyclopædic knowledge was only to be expected. He tried to find a grain of truth even in the false sciences of alchemy, astrology, and horoscopy, which were still in his time much in vogue, nor is it surprising that in the province of astronomy he did not at this early date defend the Copernican System.” (the above two quoted taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii, page 662) Kircher was an accomplished and versatile scholar who applied his intellectual abilities to a myriad of scientific problems. This work is a fascinating compendium of scientific experiments and principles which documents the accomplishments of early modern thinkers of the west.

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  11)                               380J Francis Molloy. fl 1660

Lucerna fidelium, seu, Fasciculus decerptus ab authoribus magis versatis, qui tractarunt de doctrina Christiana : divisus in tres partes.

Romæ : Typis Sacræ Congreg. de Propaganda Fide, M DC LXXVI [1676] $4,500 Octavo 6 X 4 inches : A-2B8 2C2. complet, signature ) is mis-signed . This copy is bound in early 20th century sheep.

MOLLOY or O’MAOLMHUAIDH, FRANCIS (Jl. 1660), theologian and grammarian, was a native of the county of Meath, Ireland. The family of which he was a member had extensive landed possessions in the district known as O’Molloys’ Country, and some of them engaged actively in the Irish movements from 1641 to 1652.

Francis Molloy entered the order of St. Francis, became a priest, was appointed professor of theology at St. Isidore’s College, Rome, and acted as agent for the Irish catholics at the papal court in the reign of Charles II. His first published work was entitled ‘Tractatus de Incarnatione ad mentern Scoti,’ 1645. This was followed in 1658 by ‘ Jubilatia genethliaca

in honorem Prosperi Balthasaris Philippi, Hispani principis, carmine,’ and by a Latin treatise on theology in 1666.

A catechism of the doctrines of the catholic church in the Irish language was published by Molloy in 1676 with the title: ‘Lucerna tidelium, seu fasciculus decerptus ab authoribus magis versatis qui tractarunt de doctrina Christiana.’ It was printed at Rome at the press of the Congregation ‘de propaganda fide,’ ( This book is the first book they printed in Irish Type) from which, in 1677, issued another book by Molloy, entitled ‘Grammatica Latino-Hibernica,’ 12mo, the first printed grammar of the Irish language. Edward Lhuyd [q. v.], in his’ Archaeologia Britannica,’published at Oxford in 1707, mentioned that he had seen a manuscript grammar of the Irish language copied at Louvain in 1669 which partially corresponded with that of Molloy. He added that Molloy’s grammar, although the most complete exta’nt in his time, was deficient as to syntax and the variation of the nouns and verbs. The date of Molloy’s death has not been ascertained. In 1626 Propaganda Fide had installed a printing press for the foreign missions and not much later another one was brought to Louvain where books and catechisms were printed for both the local college and the Irish mission.* The problem with the Propaganda printing press was that only books in Latin and Italian were allowed to be printed so it took until 1674 when Francis Molloy asked for permission to print a catechism there in Irish with the explanation “che altra malamente capisce e vacilla assai per mancanza d’intruttore e d’intruttion sana.”**.

[“Irish priests at Rome had a new Irish type cut about 1675 … [this was] their first book.”- -H. Reichner, Catalogue 34, Jan. 1968]

Wing O291C, English short title catalogue,; R41480; Clancy, T.H. English Catholic books, 1641-1700 (rev. ed.),; entry 743; Catalogue of seventeenth century Italian books in the British Library,; page 628 *& ** ;Egan, Bartholomew (ed.): Notes on Propaganda Fide Printing Press and Correspondence concerning Francis Molloy O.F.M., in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 2 (1959), pp. 115-124.

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  With a reference to the invention of printing on the verso of Folio 64.

12) 359J Werner Rolewinck 1425-1502

Fasciculus temporu[m] omnes antiquo[rum] chronicas strictim complectens felici numine incipit. Prologus.

Venice : Erhard Ratdolt, 8 Sept. 1485  $16,000

Folio (275 x 195 mm). [A]8 [a-g]8 [h]10 75 leaves without signatures or page numbers (9 leaves, 1-66 foliated ), 3 columns in table, 59 lines and foliation, gothic letter, 2 large ornamental initials, 59 woodcuts, one full-page, woodcut diagram. Fifth and last Venetian edition, and fourth Ratdolt edition being the most complete edition of Rolewinck s chronological history of the world. The chronology follows a double time-line, measuring time from both the Creation and the birth of Christ to the death of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror in the year 1481, demanding a

remarkably complex typographical layout. The Fasciculus Temporum (Little bundles of time) was the first book printed on history of the world, it is also one of the earliest and greatest of illustrated incunabula. The illustrations show Noah s Ark, the tower of Babel and contain many town views including Jerusalem, Syracuse, Rome and the Doge s Palace in Venice.

Rolewinck (1425-1502) was a Carthusian monk and prolific author. This book was both the most popular of his numerous writings and the most popular concise world chronicle of its time, being printed 32 times in the 15th century, including translations into French, German and Dutch . Rolewinck’s Fasciculus Temporum was an enormously popular world chronicle, appearing in over 30 incunabular editions in Latin, German, French, and Dutch. A very handsome and typographically-sophisticated volume, with varying columns, circular devices with inset type, and woodcuts throughout.

This work aspires to trace the history of the world from the beginning of time until the year of pulication. The thirty-three woodcuts are crisp and rather charming, and, like those in many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chronicles, are occasionally reused to illustrate different events and locations. The work is fascinating for the comprehensiveness of its content as well as the beauty of its execution. Of particular interest is a reference to the invention of printing (in 1454) on the verso of Folio 64.

Goff R271; GW M38738; ; BMC V 290; H 6935*; Redgr 52; Essling 280; Sander 6530; Schr 5116C; Pell Ms 10192 (9969); CIBN R-177; Arnoult 1276; Neveu 528; Nice 269; Torchet 821; Polain(B) 4691; IDL 3943; IBE 4955; IGI 8420; CCIR R-40; Kotvan 1024; Sajó-Soltész 2972; Gspan-Badalić 590; IBPort 1576; Mendes 1124, 1125, 1126; Madsen 3526; Martín Abad R-48; Voull(B) 3801; Hubay(Augsburg) 1811; Hubay(Eichstätt) 898; Walsh 1830; Rhodes(Oxford Colleges) 1525; Bod-inc R-121; Sheppard 3688; Pr 4404; BSB-Ink R-247

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    13) 367J Petrus de Rosenheim. (1380-1432). Nom probable : Petrus Wiechs

[Roseum memoriale divinorum eloquiorum]

[Köln] : [Southern Germany : n.pr., about 1480-90?] or [Cologne? : n.pr., about 1483] or [Ludwig von Renchen?], 1483. $12,000

Quarto (190 x 155 mm). Collation: a-f8 [1-68]. [48] leaves. First Edition. Text in one column, 32 lines. Type: 80G. Initials painted in red, and blue ink throughout. Simple vellum binding from a 15th century vellum leaf. Gothic script. . A very good copy, old repair to the first blank leaf, a few spots, pale stain at the lower blank corner of the first quires. It is not known where and by which press this edition was printed. ISTC gives Southern Germany and a date of c.1480-1490, GW tentatively suggests Oberrhein, 1483, and Proctor attributes it to Ludwig Von Renchen in Cologne. The hexameters of each section of the summary form an acrostic of the letters of the alphabet. (alphabetarium) as to insure memorization in the proper sequence, the first word of each verse falls neatly into alphabetical order. [1,194 short mnemonic verses] It uses characteristic couplets (distiches) to express the main content of all chapters of the Old and New Testament. This introduction makes it possible to easily find every quote in the Bible.

A significant record of the essential role of memory in late-medieval piety, One of the earliest printed books on the ars memorativa or mnemotechnic was composed by the German Benedictine monk Petrus of Rosenhaym (Upper Bavaria), written between 1423 and 1426 for Cardinal Giulio Branda di Castiglione. Petrus of Rosenhaym composed numerous treatises, sermons, and verses: the Roseum memoriale is surely his most famous work, enjoying wide popularity during the fifteenth century and first half of the sixteenth century. The mnemotechnic method here employed is extremely complex: the hexameters of each section of the summary form an acrostic of the letters of the alphabet. in. A highly popular and broadly used manual, its copies could be found in almost every European church after the invention of the printing press it was printed in several different locations. This early medieval incunable has not been clearly dated| researchers attribute it to the Upper Rhine region sometime between 1480 and 1483. After studying at the University of Vienna, Petrus de Rosenhaym, along with his friend Nikolaus Seyringer, moved to Subiaco, where he entered the Benedectine order. In 1413, he was appointed prior to the cloister of Rocca di Mondragone near Capua. In 1416, he took part in the Council of Konstanz, and later he was prior in Melk (Lower Austria). After 1423, he was appointed ‘cursor biblicus’ and ‘magister studentium’. Goff R336; BMC I 312; ; GW M32724; ISTC; ir00336000; Polain(B) 3128; IBE 4559; IGI 7668; IBP 4380; Sajó-Soltész 2676; Madsen 3549; Borm 2134; Hubay(Würzburg) 1704; AmBCat 199; Walsh 492; Oates 867; Pr 1517;; BSB P-362; Van der Haegen II,2:16,4?; Young 278;.

Copies in the United States of America: Brown, Harvard, Library of Congress, Huntington, The Newberry Library, Yale

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  14) 384J Raymundus de Sabunde -1436

Theologia naturalis, sive, Liber creaturarum : specialiter de homine et de natura eius inquantum homo, et de his que sunt ei necessaria ad cognoscendum seipsum [et] deum et omne debitu[m] ad quod homo tenetur et obligat[ur] tam deo quam p[ro]ximo.

Straßburg: Martin Flach, 21 January 1496. $17,000

Imp[re]ssus Argentine per Martinum Flach inibi co[n]ciuem anno incarnat[i]o[n]is d[omi]nice Millesimoq[ua]dringentesimononagesimosexto men[sis] v[er]o Ianuarij die vicesimop[ri]mo

Folio (280 x 200mm.) π6 a8 b-y6 z8 [et]6 [con]8 (the last leaf supplied from another copy, printed on recto only), The second leaf (π2) has a beautiful a green painted initial A [Amor] on a gold ground with pink and blue edges, extending into the margins with green-stemmed pink and gold flowers on opposite side. The first leaf of the text proper (a1) Has a large blue painted initial A on a gold ground with pink and green edges, large pink and purple flowers, strawberries thistles and a Tromp l’oeil of a Dead fly,( quite charming) fill uppermargin; 3-line initials in alternating red and blue, rubricated throughout. This is the first dated edition.

It is bound in Contemporary deerskin over wooden boards, covers panelled and tooled in blind with repeated small rosette tool, remains of paper labels on spine (lacking metal furniture and clasps, some wear and small areas of loss). This copy has some contemporary manuscript notes, including a two-line note on f. b2recto, and on f.a2verso is a marginal drawing of the scala naturae with the four gradus marked. Provenance: Contemporary inscription of Johannes Pengl (Penngl) from Weißenburg in Bavaria, who was active in Eichstätt & Vienna, with a note of cost of binding on final paste down. Later notes and shelf-mark on front paste-down and loose sheet.

Colophon: Finit liber creatura[rum] seu nature siue nature siue de ho[m]i[n]e p[ro]pt[er] que[m] alie creature facte su[n]t ex cui[us] cognit[i]one illu[m]inat[ur] ho[mo] i[n] [co]gnit[i]o[n]e dei [et] creaturarum.

This text marks the dawn of a knowledge based on Scripture and REASON.

The Catholic Encyclopedia sees this as “It represents a phase of decadent Scholasticism, and is a defense of a point of view which is subversive of the fundamental principle of the Scholastic method. The Schoolmen of the thirteenth century, while holding that there can be no contradiction between theology and philosophy, maintain that the two sciences are distinct. Raymond breaks down the distinction by teaching a kind of theosophy, the doctrine, namely that, as man is a connecting link between the natural and the supernatural, it is possible by a study of human nature to arrive at a knowledge even of the most profound mysteries of Faith. The tendency of his thought is similar to that of the rationalistic theosophy of Raymond Lully….Moreover, in Spain scholastics, in combating Islam, borrowed the weapons of their erudite antagonists. Close internal resemblance indicates that Raimund de Sabunde was preceded in method and object by Raymund Lully.” CE

What is new and epoch-making is not the material but the method; not of circumscribing religion within the limits of reason, but, by logical collation, of elevating the same upon the basis of natural truth to a science accessible and convincing to all. He recognizes two sources of (1)knowledge, the book of nature and (2) the Bible. The first is universal and direct, the other serves partly to instruct man the better to understand nature, and partly to reveal new truths, not accessible to the natural understanding, but once revealed by God made apprehensible by natural reason. The book of nature, the contents of which are manifested through sense experience and self-consciousness, can no more be falsified than the Bible and may serve as an exhaustive source of knowledge; but through the fall of man it was rendered obscure, so that it became incapable of guiding to the real wisdom of salvation. However, the Bible as well as illumination from above, not in conflict with nature, enables one to reach the correct explanation and application of natural things and self. Hence, his book of nature as a human supplement to the divine Word is to be the basic knowledge of man, because it subtends the doctrines of Scripture with the immovable foundations of self-knowledge, and therefore plants the revealed truths upon the rational ground of universal human perception, internal and external.

The first part presents analytically the facts of nature in ascending scale to man, the

climax; the second, the harmonization of these with Christian doctrine and their fulfillment in the same. Nature in its. four stages of mere being, mere life, sensible consciousness, and self-consciousness, is crowned by man, who is not only the microcosm but the image of God. Nature points toward a supernatural creator possessing in himself in perfection all properties of the things created out of nothing (the cornerstone of natural theology ever after). Foremost is the ontological argument of Ansehn, followed by the physico-theological, psychological, and moral. He demonstrates the Trinity by analogy from rational grounds, and finally ascribes to man in view of his conscious elevation over things a spontaneous gratitude to God. Love is transformed into the object of its affection; and love to God brings man, and with him the universe estranged by sin, into harmony and unity with him. In this he betrays his mystical antecedents. Proceeding in the second part from this general postulation to its results for positive Christianity, he finds justified by reason all the historic facts of revealed religion, such as the person and works of Christ, as well as the infallibility of the Church and the Scriptures; and the necessity by rational proof of all the sacraments and practices of the Church and of the pope. It should be added that Raimund’s analysis of nature and self-knowledge is not thoroughgoing and his application is far from consistent. He does not transplant himself to the standpoint of the unbeliever, but rather executes an apology on the part of a consciousness already Christian, thus assuming conclusions in advance that should grow only out of his premises. Yet his is a long step from the barren speculation of scholasticism, and marks the dawn of a knowledge based on Scripture and reason.

In its day, and for a long time later, it was a celebrated text. The title translates ‘Natural Theology or the book of [living] creatures, in particular about man and his nature inso far as he is man, and about those things necessary for him to know both himself and God, and about every duty by which man is held and obligated both in respect of God and his neighbour.’ The scope is therefore pretty wide. The main point of Sebond’s work is that that faith can be taught, attained, understood by natural reason and not simply on the basis of blind faith and literal adherence to Scripture, although this last is given full weight as is the teaching of ‘sacrosancta romana ecclesia who is the mother of all faithful christians, mistress of grace and faith and rule of truth…’ (preface on a2ra). The work is divided into 330 ‘tituli’ or chapters beginning with the origins of natural theology and ending with the last judgement, the subjects treated at greatest length being ‘God’ and ‘Man’.

Theologia Naturalis, which circulated widely in manuscript and is known particularly in a manuscript in Toulouse (747) corrected after the author’s own copy, was first published in what is called the ‘third family’ in Deventer in 1484-85 (possibly through the offices of the Brothers of the Common Life; the Bodleian copy is from their house at Doesburg, Holland), and then Lyon ca. 1488 from the printer Balsarin. This Flach printing circulated widely (a copy was at Winchcomb abbey in Gloucestershire within a few years (now in Glasgow) and early in the 16the century Archbishop Warham (Abp. 1503-32 ) gave a copy to All Souls College, Oxford) and is the first dated edition. There were a number of later editions (including another Flach edition of 1501) right up into the 17th century. Indeed the well-known 17th-century philosopher Kenelm Digby ( 1603-1664) had a copy of this edition (now at Durham University Library at Bamburgh Castle). Part of the Theologia (Dialogos de la naturaleza delhombre) was translated into Spanish and printed in Madrid in 1610 and 1616, and a resumé by the Carthusian Petrus Dorlandus (Viola anime per modum dyalogi) was published in Cologne in 1499 (ISTC id00360000 ) and in Toulouse in 1500 I(ISTC id003610000).. The Theologia because of the importance it accorded human reason did not escape the notice of the holy Office and was placed on the Index in the middle of the 16th century. Montaigne indeed discovered this during his visit to Rome.

Goff R33.; BMC I, 154.; HC 14069*; GW M36911; Bod-inc R-018. ISTC ir00033000. Palau 283900

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  15) 369J Publius Terentius Afer. 185-

Terentius Comico Carmine

Impressum in nobili Helvecior[um] urbe Arge[n]tina : Per Ioanne[m] Grüninger mira etium arte ac diligentia. 1503         $7,500

Folio A6 B8 C-Z6 AA6 Bb4 Cc6. There are numerous handwritten annotations in ink (marginal and interlinear, ff. IX-XIX). The binding of half-calf with corners of the XIXth, back with 4 sewing support with pieces of title of red and green leather, boards covered with stony marbled paper. { A typical Kloss binding} (there is a tear sig. B1, with loss; first signature cut shorter at the lower margin; restorations of paper with the last sheets in the upper margin; Yet this copy remains a beautiful illustrated edition of the comedies of Terence with comments by Aelius Donatus and Calphurnius. From the presses of the famous and prolific Strasbourg printer-publisher Johann Reinhard, known as Grüninger, it is remarkably illustrated with 7 large full-page woods (including the famous representation of a theater on the title),

woodcuts depicting the dramatis personae in a land- or cityscape, one at the beginning of each play, and 142 woods in the text 19 of the cuts appear here for the first time; the others are from the 1496 ed. «Grüninger’s illustrations, intended to clarify the complexities of Terence’s plots for the reader, act as visual mnemonic devices for the book’s anticipated student audience. This is demonstrated especially in the full-page woodcut that begins each play, where all of the characters are displayed with connecting lines to indicate their interrelationships. covered with stony marbled paper. { A typical Kloss binding} (there is a tear sig. B1, with loss; first signature cut shorter at the lower margin; restorations of paper with the last sheets in the upper margin; Yet this copy remains a beautiful illustrated edition of the comedies of Terence with comments by Aelius Donatus and Calphurnius. From the presses of the famous and prolific Strasbourg printer-publisher Johann Reinhard, known as Grüninger, it is remarkably illustrated with 7 large full-page woods (including the famous representation of a theater on the title), woodcuts depicting the dramatis personae in a land- or cityscape, one at the beginning of each play, and 142 woods in the text 19 of the cuts appear here for the first time; the others are from the 1496 ed.

«Grüninger’s illustrations, intended to clarify the complexities of Terence’s plots for the reader, act as visual mnemonic devices for the book’s anticipated student audience. This is demonstrated especially in the full-page woodcut that begins each play, where all of the characters are displayed with connecting lines to indicate their interrelationships. A verbal explanation and plot summary accompanies each of these illustrations. The most remarkable feature of Grüninger’s Terence is his use of small interchangeable woodcuts that were combined to create the individual scene illustrations for each play. Individual blocks were cut for most of the characters of the six plays, who are identified by name in overhead banners. The blocks were cleverly combined repeatedly in groups of two to five, sometimes together with cuts of trees and buildings, to create the illustrations. Grüninger was attempting to use the woodcuts as repeatable and combinable objects, much in the same manner as movable type» (Christine Ruggere, in Vision of a Collector: The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Library of Congress)

Terence writes in a simple conversational Latin, pleasant and direct. Due to his clear and entertaining language, Terence’s works were heavily used by monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages and The Renaissance. Scribes often learned Latin through the meticulous copying of Terence’s texts. Priests and nuns often learned to speak Latin through reenactment of Terence’s plays, thereby learning both Latin and Gregorian chants. Although Terence’s plays often dealt with pagan material, the quality of his language promoted the copying and preserving of his text by the church. The preservation of Terence through the church enabled his work to influence much of later Western drama. [Holloway, Julia Bolton (1993). Sweet New Style: Brunetto Latino, Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, Essays, 1981-2005.] This copy has the book plate and a binding typical for Kloss. It is NOT Melanchthon’s copy, or his notes!

Georg Franz Burkhard Kloss (31 July 1787 Frankfurt am Main – 10 February 1854 Frankfurt). Kloss was the son of a physician and studied medicine at Heidelberg and Göttingen, where he became one of the cofounders of the Corps Hannovera Göttingen. He practiced medicine in Frankfurt. He became a book collector, and gathered a fine collection of old manuscripts,. On February 21, 1838, New York book auction house Cooley & Bangs began a three day sale during which they offered more than 313 incunabula distributed among 1,302 lots. Many incunables came from the collection of George Kloss and had appeared in the London sale of his books three years before. It is entirely possible that the 1838 sale was the first time in America that so many incunables were offered all at once in a single auction..

The bulk of the Kloss books were sold by Sotheby in 1835. Most of the books containing notes were attributed as owned and annotated by Melanchthon .

Catalogue of the library of Dr. Kloss of Franckfort a. M. including many original and unpublished manuscripts, and printed books with ms. annotations, by Philip Melancthon …Which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Sotheby and son … May 7th, and nineteen following days (Sundays excepted) .

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044055066971&view=1up&seq=9

Adams D 304. Proctor 9889. Ritter 2284.

        Fascicule XXI. Media Plaga 3-4/2020 Only a day or two ago I was notified that I was in contact with some people tested for and found positive for Covid-19, this came as nothing un expected, I was in contact with hundreds of people many from Europe recently.  

[preux-chevalier]

Been A Fool For Lesser Things

Well, it’s been a while since the last update, hasn’t it? Canon happenings kind of destroyed several basic foundations of this fic, but on the other hand these dumb idiots are ACTUALLY CANON NOW. So I made it work. Just pretend the fifth Koenig brother is a magical healing fairy so nothing happened to Coulson or Fitz. [Which is canon, right? Silly me.]

If you’d like to refresh yourself on what’s already happened, you can find the whole thing on AO3 here, or on tumblr in part one here and part two here. In this chapter: breakfast, Mack, and utter betrayal.

III. I Forgot How Nice Romance Is

Phil is not a morning person. In his years at S.H.I.E.L.D. he’s had to get used to some ridiculous sleep schedules (including one particularly hellish op in 2003 during which he didn’t get more than three consecutive hours of sleep for two weeks straight) but on his own he tends toward late nights and leisurely mornings. Unfortunately, he is still an active agent, even if he’s not the director anymore, and as such he’s showered, dressed, and staring blearily into the pantry at seven.

It’s honestly pretty bleak. No bread for toast, someone’s eaten the last of the good cereal - almost certainly Daisy - and as much as Jemma loves her oatmeal, he’s never been able to stomach the stuff. There’s plenty of coffee, though. A quick check of the fridge reveals some assorted fruits and vegetables and most of a carton of eggs, so at least he won’t be reduced to mainlining coffee until lunch.

The back of his neck prickles as he starts filling the coffee machine, though there hasn’t been any sound. In the field, this is where he’d start mentally reviewing sightlines, potential cover, and the available options for improvising a weapon. But it’s not an unknown assailant behind him this time. “Good morning,” he says, already knowing what he’ll see when he turns around.

Knowing, however, does not prepare him in the slightest for the sight of Melinda clearly fresh from a post-workout shower, because she’s one of those terrifying people who actually enjoys exercising first thing in the morning. Her ponytail is still faintly damp at the ends. It’s like a tease, the hint of where she’s been - he’s seen her totally soaked before (albeit clothed) more than once, and he knows exactly what it looks like when she pushes wet hair out of her eyes, and water is trailing down her throat, and her clothes don’t cover so much as cling to her-

What was he doing? Oh, breakfast. Right. Fuel for the day. Phil’s good at breakfast.

“Pancakes?” he asks, internally congratulating himself on how normal his voice sounds.

She makes a face. “Not after training. Omelettes instead?”

“Sounds good.”

They move around the kitchen with practiced ease. The whole song and dance is so familiar from safehouses and shared missions over the years that the only noise is the coffee machine dripping away and Melinda’s knife hitting the cutting board. It’s no accident that a plate appears at his side right when the first omelette is ready, and the clink of glasses and cutlery behind him as she sets the table for two has him smiling down at the skillet where she can’t see.

He takes a sip of his waiting coffee as he sits down across from Melinda. It’s perfect, of course. Phil used to wonder how she manages to add exactly the right amount of milk every single time when he’s literally never once seen her make coffee itself correctly, but then he realized he knows how to make her tea despite never drinking it, so maybe it’s just one of those things. If it means he can practically inhale glorious caffeine while he waits for his food to cool off in the morning, he’s not going to complain.

“This is nice,” Melinda says, already halfway through her plate.

Phil pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. “I sure hope so,” he says slowly. “I’ve made you omelettes hundreds of times. You’d think I’d know how you like them by now.”

“No, I meant…. this. Us. Breakfast together.” Her foot nudges against his under the table. “It’s nice.”

Phil can’t think of a single thing to say. Well, he can, he’s practically the king of the snappy one-liner, but “It’s even better in bed” is way too sleazy, and it’s really not the right time for “I love you” even if it is the loudest thought in his head right now. How does she do this? Thirty years they’ve known each other and he’s still falling over himself at a simple comment from Melinda May like nothing has changed at all since the Academy.

“It is,” he says finally. “We should do it more often.”

“Does that mean you’re finally going to let me do something more complicated than making cereal?”

Phil shudders. “I’m pretty sure that qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment,” he points out, laughing when she flicks a piece of egg at him.

They make normal morning small talk - or at least the closest two people who have spent their lives working for S.H.I.E.L.D. can get to normal small talk - over the rest of breakfast. By the time both plates are clean and Phil’s finished his coffee, their feet have ended up tangled together under the table.

It feels, he realizes with a jolt, like a date.

“Coulson?”

They both look up to see Mack coming through the door.

“Fitz wants to see you today. Hand recalibration time.”

“But Yoyo and I just did that a month ago,” Phil protests. It’s not like he minds, exactly, since keeping the giant hunk of metal and electronics attached to his arm working properly is sort of a priority of his. Even so, it’s usually much longer between sessions.

Mack shrugs, grabbing a mug to pour his own coffee. “Don’t ask me,” he says. “I stick to engines and I’m happy that way. Maybe there’s some fancy new gadget he wants to install or something.”

Phil and Melinda exchange a look. Fitz has a habit of tinkering with prosthetic designs as a distraction when he’s frustrated with other projects. Phil really should be worried about spending his time in the lab instead of getting things done, but he can’t help the rush of childish glee. This kind of thing is how he got x-ray hands. It’s like being a real actual superhero.

Melinda’s expression says very clearly that he’s not hiding it well enough and she’s laughing at him on the inside.

“Don’t know what’s wrong with a hand just being a hand,” Mack grumbles, oblivious.

“It was just a hand before you chopped it off,” Phil points out, laughing at the look on his former partner’s face. “Besides, I don’t remember you complaining too much about my gadgets when we got ambushed that time in Denver-”

“Shut up and get your hand fixed, Coulson.”

Melinda bats her eyelashes at him. “Director’s orders, Phil,” she says, all fawning solicitousness. Mack salutes her with his coffee and heads back out to the hallway with his nose already buried in his tablet.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side,” Phil says, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

“Maybe I just like giving you orders for a change,” she says. Their eyes meet in silent recognition of what happened the last time she had, and for an long moment there is nothing in the world but the two of them and the memory of a kiss. But then her phone buzzes, startling them both, and she sighs in annoyance. “I have to meet with Piper in ten minutes. You should go find Fitz.”

“Maybe by this afternoon I’ll be able to play the piano,” he jokes. “I’ll see you later?”

“I don’t think you’ll want to,” she says. Phil frowns; he always wants to see her. Does she really- “Yoyo’s having a Scream marathon.”

Phil does not flinch. He’s a seasoned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with decades of experience under his belt; a reaction like that would be deeply unprofessional. Besides, he’s faced real life horrors and lived to tell the tale. A few jumpscares are nothing. Really. He just… prefers other forms of entertainment.

(He thanks his lucky stars every day that Daisy hasn’t caught on yet.)

“A girls’ night it is. Got it.”

She’s been teasing him about this for so long that it’s become completely nonverbal; though the only sound in the room is the clatter of dishes as they clean up after themselves, Phil knows from long experience exactly what she’d say, and it only takes a single glance at her smug expression to confirm that she’s thinking exactly the same thing. Sticking his tongue out would be childish, of course, so he does the mature thing instead and reaches out to tug at the end of her ponytail.

But... he’s promised himself that he won’t touch. Admittedly this hadn’t really been what he’d had in mind at the time, but the principle is the same. Just because he can’t remember the last time he enjoyed breakfast so much doesn’t mean Melinda feels the same way. He never would have dared to pull her ponytail before, so he can’t in good conscience do so now, right?

Man, he feels like a twelve-year-old.

Still, Phil doesn’t like going back on his word, so he turns the movement into pretending to brush something off his shirt and beats a quick exit. Crisis averted.

He doesn’t notice Melinda’s frown as she watches him leave in the reflection of the microwave.

[sunlit-capybara]

Haven’t had time to write anything soooo....

Have some random Voltron head canons, heavy on the Garrison trio:

Shiro

Shiro's gallows humor extends to his taste in movies. One Friday he and Matt watched "Fargo" and Shiro thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen and laughed even during the scenes that are sort-of funny but mostly disturbing. He laughed really hard at the woodchipper reveal and it actually kind of scared Matt.

Shiro does everything very intensely. Including watching TV shows. Over spring break once he marathoned The Sopranos. For the next two weeks whenever one of his friends complained about a classmate or an instructor at the Garrison he would casually suggest having them whacked as a solution.

He continued this until Matt took him aside for a conversation about how it was inappropriate and freaking his friends out.

(more below the cut)

Hunk

(I hate how season 2 has Hunk mention food at least twice per episode and how in season 1 there's a fair number of big guy/fat gags and these head canons are how I make that feel less icky to myself).

The original Yellow Paladin was tiny. Like, smaller than Pidge. Her bayard was still a shoulder cannon, but with a much slimmer design -- but she wouldn't have been able to lift it if she weren't ridiculously strong for her size. I just love the idea of the second-biggest, most heavily armored lion having this tiny little paladin who still managed to be the team's big gun.

(And that's why the zip lines wouldn't hold Hunk in season 1 -- they were calibrated for this tiny tiny little person and were unprepared for our wonderful sunshine boy's bulk.

Hunk def. has an anxiety disorder and cooking/thinking about cooking techniques is one of his coping mechanisms. Hence the "What's everyone thinking about?" "Zarkon" "Calzones" interaction in s2e11. He's trying to think of ways to make his calzones better so that he doesn't have to think about Zarkon and the fight coming up. (He thinks he found some sort of Olkari dough that he can put around the space goo to make a pretty decent calzone and would like to try that before they blast off and potentially die.)

Hunk's family ate dinner together every night. It didn't matter how busy they were, or if it meant they had to wait until 8 or 9 sometimes to eat, they always waited until the whole family was home before having dinner. Hunk took over cooking dinner three times a week when he was twelve. His first meals were...not great. But his parents made such a big deal of how he was doing such a good job, and how it was a huge help to them, and how one of the best ways you can show your love is making sure your family is fed, that he stuck with it. By the time he left for the Garrison he was doing almost all the cooking.

(The reason he was thinking of sushi during the bonding exercise? Whenever there was something to celebrate in his family, his parents took all the kids out for sushi. Birthdays, good report cards, when Hunk got accepted to the Garrison -- sushi dinner. Those dinners are some of his favorite family memories because everyone was happy and having fun and enjoying themselves. And he can't help thinking of the fantastic dinner he's going to have with his family when he gets back to Earth and is reunited with his family.)

Hunk is the reason all the paladins (and Coran and Allura) eat at least one meal together every day/quintant. At first it was hard to round everyone up, and Keith and Shiro kept wandering off or skipping meals. Finally Hunk got fed up with it and tracked Shiro down and they Had A Conversation. (The conversation boiled down to Hunk telling Shiro "We are going to eat together because that is what families do and we're a family now." Shiro was touched enough that he even convinced Keith to actually sit and eat with the rest of them.)

After the Garrison trio had their disastrous simulator experience in s1e1, the whole class turned on that kid who called out Hunk for throwing up. "Dude, you can say whatever you want about Lance and Pidge, but do not come for Hunk like that." "But he threw up in the --" "Don't care, Hunk can do no wrong." Because everyone loves Hunk and three-fourths of the class have drunkenly admitted they would happily take a bullet for him. The other fourth is lying because they would too.

Pidge

Pidge might admire and respect Alan Turing, but Ada Lovelace. Is. Her. Idol. Pidge occasionally has imagined conversations with Ada when she's working through a particularly difficult problem. She will gush about Ada Lovelace endlessly if you bring the woman up. Coran has heard about Ada Lovelace multiple times.

(Because she loves Ada so much, Pidge has a fiery hatred of Lord Byron. She's never even read anything he wrote, she just despises him for running off to Greece and dying and leaving Ada and her mom all alone).

(Also because of her love of Ada Lovelace, Pidge knows a weird amount about how Regency and early Victorian England society functioned. She will never admit that she actually really likes the dress styles and would kill for Ada’s hairpiece in that one famous portrait).

(Another favorite? Rosalind Franklin. Hunk credited Watson and Crick with discovering DNA in front of Pidge e x a c t l y. o n c e. Never again.)

During one of their conversations Coran asked Pidge to explain how rain worked. When Pidge asked why, Coran said Lance had mentioned missing it. So Pidge programmed a white noise generator to mimic a thunderstorm for Lance.

Lance

Lance refuses to disclose whether he's a cat or dog person because he's convinced if he chose dogs cats would know (and vice versa) and he doesn't want to make any pets sad by saying they're not his favorite.

As a kid, Lance loved heroic stories about knights and chivalry and all that. He knows all the stories -- King Arthur, Charlemagne, El Cid. He totally nicknamed himself Lance after Sir Lancelot.

One of the reasons he flirts so much is because he remembers overhearing his older sisters talk about how they felt unattractive and insecure about their looks and casually putting themselves down. He hated knowing people he cared about felt so bad about themselves even if they projected confidence all the time. So he started randomly telling them how beautiful they were -- and even though they laughed it off they still smiled. He started telling the girls in his classes how they were pretty and smart, and gradually that led to flirting with every girl he knew.

Keith

Keith did not know about ChapStick. During that night in the shack in s1e1 Lance asked if Keith had any ChapStick he could use and Keith just looked at him blankly.

Lance: "Wait, you don't use ChapStick? You live in the desert! What do you do when your lips feel dry?" Keith: *shrug* "Lick 'em." Lance: "LICK EM? You LICK EM?? You know that makes it worse right??" Luckily Pidge had some in her backpack and passed it to Lance, who used it before shoving it in Keith's hand. "I can't believe my nemesis doesn't even use ChapStick," he muttered before wandering to the other side of the room and going to sleep.

Keith is now addicted to ChapStick. The stuff he borrowed/stole from Pidge is cherry-flavored and he loved it. Space ChapStick just doesn’t compare

[whoinwhoville]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler Additional Tags: Bikini - Freeform, Swimming, jaaaaaaack, embarassed ten Series: Part 3 of Whoville's Follower Milestone Celebration Summary:

The Doctor promises Rose a visit to the best beach in the universe. But then he sees her in a brilliant bikini.

Written for  @goingtothetardis who won my follower milestone celebration ficlet for Ten x Rose canon ficlet. Prompt: Ten sees Rose in a bathing suit for the first time since he regenerated.

Rose bit her thumb. Trying to decide was proving harder than it ever should be.

“That’s what I get for owning twenty swimsuits. Who even has twenty swimsuits? This is ridiculous.”

She pawed through the pile of mismatched tops, bottoms, and one-piece water-wear.

She picked up a one-piece red suit and then tossed it aside remembering that the wrap-style top part was too big and gaped open.

Then the two-piece green tankini - an unfortunate neon phase when she was seventeen.

She picked up a very flattering white bikini - Shireen had convinced her to buy it. The minute she’d jumped into the public pool, she’d heard catcalls. It had gone see-thru. She hadn’t spoken to Shireen for a week. “I didn’t pack this? Why’s this one here?” She heard the TARDIS giggle.

The one-piece black halter had strings that went around her neck. But it had bad habit of coming untied, usually after diving into the pool. Great for tanning, terrible for having fun in the water.

Another black one — a bikini. The bottoms were a wee bit too close to thong territory.

And yet another black one - for exercise. And it felt like a compression suit.

A red bikini. She smiled wickedly and put it in the maybe pile. “Gotta love Miracle Bra.”

A metallic gold bikini — Mickey had bought it after marathoning Star Wars for the umpteenth time. (She crinkled her nose) and tossed it aside.

Pink bikini with a ruffled skirt. “What was I thinking? Am I eight?”

Pink one-piece with teeny white dots — cute pattern, but the leg holes were too low and made her feel like a granny.

White. Not see-thru. Strange smashed mono-boob thing.

She held up a navy blue one-piece. Too small.

She glanced at a sky-blue bikini. “Too much side-boob.”

“And this one is just ugly. Oh yeah, it was on the 85% discount rack at Henrik’s. Does it even fit anymore?” She held it up. “Yeah, it fits. Ugh. I hate throwing out stuff that fits.”

She picked up the red maybe suit and examined it again. “He does seem to like red. He’s always staring at my mouth when I wear that red lipstick. And the red jacket on Satellite Five — I got some good looks up and down in that outfit. But that was then. What about now? I don’t even know what his favorite color is now! Although I could guess it’s brown. I like the brown. I really like the brown. Do I have a brown one? No, I don’t look good in brown. Why would I ever wear a brown bathing suit?” Rose groaned, and fell face-forward into her fluffy comforter.

She lifted her head, and then she saw a suit that she didn’t recognize. It was hanging on the doorknob.

Rose crinkled her forehead as she pulled it off of the shiny silver handle. She held up the top by the bra straps.

“Ooh La La. Never heard of that brand. Cute name. Right size, too.”

There was nothing special about the design of the suit. No embellishments. Just a classic bikini. The color was nice and cheerful. She quickly stripped off her clothing and put it on, and then went into the bathroom to take a look.

She tugged the top, adjusting it so that it covered the parts that needed covering, but showed off the parts that she wanted to show off.

The bottoms fit well and didn’t need to any adjustment.

Rose turned this way and that, looking at her reflection. She smiled. “This makes my bum look good.” With a bite of the lip she tugged the straps, enhancing the push-up effect just slightly. Not too skimpy, not too plain. Just the right bit of oomph.

“And… we have a winner.” She let out a little hooray and quickly gathered the rest of her things and headed out to the console room.

oOo

“Time’s a ticking, Rose Tyler. Chop chop. I promise, you don’t want to miss— the… uh…”

“I’m ready. Let’s go. I can hardly wait to jump into the water.”

The Doctor stood statue-still, feet glued to the grating.

“Something wrong? Do I have spinach in my teeth?”

He tugged his ear. He clasped his hands behind his back. He shoved one hand into a coat pocket, and then the other into the pocket of his trousers, striking an awkward, uneven pose.

“Something must be wrong to got you so tongue-tied. So go on, spit it out.”

“That’s the swimsuit you’re wearing?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, it’s my ballgown. My bikini’s in my bag.”

He blew air through is lips. “Right. Of course. Ha! Your bathing costume. Cossie. Your swim togs. Togs. Toggies. Cozzy. Bathing suit. Definitely not a ballgown. Definitely. Nope. You are a very funny human, Rose Tyler. Very, very funny. And I’ve met some humans who, and I promise you, are very very veeeery funny.” The Doctor gritted a smile. “You know who’s funny? Lucille Ball. Lovely woman. And ginger.” He sighed.

“What are you nattering on about?” she laughed, looping her arm through the acrylic hoops of her pink mesh beach bag.

“Well,” he tugged on his ear, “it’s, you know…” He waved his finger around. “Flattering.”

She smiled slyly. “That’s sorta the point, isn’t it?”

“I think you should change. Might be too… flattering for where we’re going.”

“You said this place was uninhabited. Do the birds have hangups about skin?” she joked.

He cringed.

“I’m not changing, Doctor.”

“The Victorians wore black bathing costumes over big ol’ billowing black bloomers. Ha! Awfully awesome alliteration. Ha HA! I did it again! You’da thought the undertow would have claimed more lives. I never knew how—“

“We aren’t going swimming with Queen Victoria, are we?”

“No! No. Definitely not. She’d would’ve had our heads. Or drawn and quartered. Very unpleasant. Or will take our heads. Or could. She thought you were naked before…” he trailed off.

“So then, what’s the problem, Doctor. You’re turning all red.”

Rose took a step forward.

The Doctor took a step back.

“Oh come off it. You’ve seen me in a million bikinis. What’s wrong with this one? Don’t you like yellow?”

“Yellow is absolutely brilliant. Completely and absolutely outstandingly perfect.”

“I’m going out there. You coming? Or are you just gonna stand there with your gob going nonstop?”

Rose brushed passed the Doctor and pushed the door open, illuminating the TARDIS with cheerful sunlight and the smell of salt air.

The Doctor put on his sunglasses, and slowly dragged his coat from its standard storage spot.

“Maybe it’s not the one. I did throw it away.”

He could swear he heard the TARDIS laugh.

oOo

Rose looked out towards the horizon. Small islands dotted the azure water. The beach was deserted, save the occasional sea bird flying overhead.

“So no people on this planet?”

“Nope.”

“Any dangerous animals?”

“Nope.”

“You coming? I want to get in.”

“Nope.”

“Isn’t it safe? Giant sharks with poisonous fangs? Enormous stinging jellyfish?”

“Nope.”

“Why’d we come then? You told me this was the most beautiful beach in the universe.”

The Doctor swallowed hard.

“Doctor…?” Rose crossed her arms. “What’s going on?”

“Uh… Rose, where’d you get that uh… garment you’re wearing?”

“Garment?” She snorted. “It’s a bikini. Since when did you become such a prude?”

He dragged his hands down his face. “Just answer the question.”

“It was hanging on my doorknob. I don’t know where it came from. The TARDIS must’ve put it there.” She frowned. “Why? Is it poisoned or something? Alien tech that shoots darts out of the bikini top?”

The Doctor blushed fiercely.

“You are so easy to wind up! Come on, tell me! What’s the problem?”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times.

A slow, lopsided grin appeared. “You know what, Doctor? I think you like it. You’ve been looking.” She bit her lower lip. “New New Doctor.” Rose swung her hips as she approached him.

He squeaked.

She was now a hair-breadths away.

“You did say it was flattering.”

“Yes. Very.” He nodded, eyes closed.

Rose laughed and shook her head. “Whatever. Race you to the water!”

She took off, sprinting over the sand.

“Rose!” he bellowed. “Stop! Don’t go in the water!”

“No way!” she called over her shoulder. “You brought me swimming, so I’m gonna swim.”

The Doctor dropped onto his bum, and buried his face in his hands.

He heard her squeal as she dove into the cool, but refreshing surf.

But then she screamed.

And she screamed again. Louder.

“I’m so sorry!” he yelled hiding his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she screeched. “You put this thing in my room, didn’t you? Thought you’d play a joke?”

The Doctor pulled his lanky frame off of the sand and slowly walked backwards to the edge of the water.

“It wasn’t me, Rose. I promise. I thought the thing was gone.”

But then he heard laughing.

And then he heard sloshing.

Louder and louder. Closer and closer.

He ran up the beach, and again walked backwards, this time carrying his long, brown, full-coverage coat.

“Here. Put this on.” He held it out to her behind his back.

“Nope.” Splash, splash.

“It wasn’t my fault. Do you believe me?”

“Nope.” Splash, splash, splash, splash.

“It was Jack!” he exclaimed. “He bought it! Thought it’d be funny. You know his sense of humour. I put it in the rubbish bin. Thought the TARDIS incinerated it.”

“Apparently not,” she purred.

“Come on Rose, take the coat,” he begged.

“Nope.”

She was right behind him now. He could feel her breath on his neck. And he could feel her skin on his back. Her wet, uncovered, soft, and very bare skin.

And then Rose took the coat and slipped it on.

“You can turn around now,” she purred.

“You know what I think?”

“Nope.”

“I think you wanted me to wear the bikini. You didn’t tell me about it, because you knew what was gonna happen and wanted it to happen.”

“Nope.”

“But you did know what would happen?”

He was quiet. “Yep.”

“I am a bit disappointed, though.”

The Doctor turned around.

“Why?”

“Best bikini I’ve ever had. And now it’s gone. Dissolved straight away.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, did Jack buy you a pair of swim trunks?”

[watchilove]

“Look ma’, no hands…” – There are only a few brands that disrupt the classic horological canons of displaying the time. Urwerk is one of them. No wonder that the brand’s pieces get to be featured as wrist companion for Marvel heroes – URWERK with the Avengers in the end game. Their pieces are out of this world. With an imagination well grown in the Sci-Fi domain, Urwerk amazes us with original and unusual pieces. One of them, the Urwerk UR-111C. This is a presentation of the three pieces collection, as seen at SIHH 2019 and Baselworld 2019. There are variations of the collection, like the Urwerk UR-111C “Pistol”, but are not featured or reminded in the article. Large gallery.

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UR-111C Iron

UR-111C Gunmetal

UR-111C Black

Urwerk UR-111C hands-on

The Urwerk UR-111C was launched in September 2018. The independent brand takes another approach from its well-known wandering-hour indication. The pieces can be seen as an evolution of the linear time display of 2009 launched UR-CC1 “King Cobra”. The Urwerk UR-111C Iron and UR-111C Gunmetal were seen and photographed during SIHH2019. The UR-111C Black was seen during Baselworld 2019. I considered a good idea to have all the pieces in one article for a more complete impression and better comparison.

Wristroll with Urwerk UR-111C

Urwerk UR-111C Iron manufactured in 316SL stainless steel:

Urwerk UR-111C Gunmetal is cased in grade 5 titanium:

Urwerk UR-111C Black received a black PVD coating:

Ghost in a shell

Urwerk UR-111C comes in a very interesting case. It can be considered a three parts construction. But not in the sandwich typical construction of a classic timepiece: a complexed machined case is closed on the sides with two covers.

UR-111C case construction

To ensure the water resistance, the brand uses a specially shaped gasket held in a machined channel. Such a complex shape requires experienced engineers and special tooling. The case is held together by several screws. Some are visible on the front and back, the rest are hidden.

The complex case of the UR-111C. Note the rubber gasket – it looks like a Formula 1 race track

The closed, finalised case of the Urwerk UR-111C is rather spectacular. The complex-shaped components end up in a slightly curved design that follows the wrist lines. Have a look at the wrist rolls above for a better understanding.

Urwerk UR-111C Gunmetal

The case finishes are slightly different from one model to another. The Iron version presents a case body with satin and polished surfaces and covers with a fine vertical brush. The Gunmetal and Black versions have a predominant satin finish.

Urwerk UR-111C Black

The case is very dynamic. Every surface is complexly machined adding not only robustness to the design but also a daring, astounding appearance.

Urwerk UR-111C Gunmetal

To note the design of the original and complex lugs. These add wrist comfort for the 46 mm long case.

The back of the Urwerk UR-111C Iron

A better understanding of the lugs can be obtained looking at the back of the case. Note the screwed plate bearing the watch number from the limited series of 25.

The setting lever

Another originality of the Urwerk UR-111C is the setting and winding method. A top-placed roller is used for winding. Swinging out the side lever will put the movement in the set mode. The roller can be turned in both directions for the time set.

The winding/setting roller and the view to the running seconds

The Time Machine

And I am not referring to the 1960 Sci-Fi cinema masterpiece. The Urwerk UR-111C has the brand’s authentic way of displaying the passage of time. The watch indicates hours with a jumping system, dual minutes in a linear retrograde and digital manner and “small seconds” by an original digital display.

Digital small seconds indication on Urwerk UR-111C Iron

The digital seconds are displayed using two discs of only 0.025 grams each. The Arabic numbers are split between the disks as follows: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 on one wheel, and 5, 15, 25, 35, 45 and 55 on the other.

The end of a minute on the Urwerk UR-111C Gunmetal

The small seconds “sub-dial” is placed on the top of the case. An aperture with a complex shape crystal is fixed with four screws. The excellent legibility is assured by a special lens. A dense cluster of precisely aligned optical fibres serves a light guide and magnifier for the digital seconds.

The fibre optic lens as seen on the Urwerk UR-111C Black

Urwerk UR-111c uses two different approaches for the minutes’ display. The watch displays central retrograde linear minutes and a second, digital display on the right side.

The linear view on the Iron version

The complex mechanism is a beautiful implementation of two interesting complications. It also is a technical achievement to have two different, non-classical indications.

The digital minutes as seen on the Black UR-111C

The jumping hours is placed on the left side, symmetrical to the digital minutes.

The Iron displays 5:40

The Edge of Tomorrow

Urwerk UR-111C is a piece with roots more likely in the future. Powered by a self-winding movement, the watch is an exercise of mechanical creativity. Starting from a classic round base movement, the calibre evolves on display part, exploding in shape complexity.

The exploded view of the Urwerk UR-111C

On top of the complexity comes the exceptional finishes. The movement is hidden from the viewer but still presents circular graining, sanding, côtes de Genève, polished screw heads.

On the technical side, the UR-111C has a 48 hours of power reserve depleted by a Swiss lever system with 4Hz balance spring. The movement is so complex it needs 37 jewels (instead of a classic with only 17 jewels).

On the wrist with UR-111C Iron

Back into the future

Urwerk UR-111C could be used in a dictionary as visual display of the word “original”. Nothing is traditional on this piece’s time display. Only the finishes are respecting the rigours of the haute horlogerie.

In the wrist with UR-111C Gunmetal

A lever is used to change between setting and winding, a roller is used for the actual set and winding – so no crown involved. The minutes are displayed two times in two different way. The jumping hours’ display is intuitive and original implemented. The small seconds’ indication is unusual: in position but also in implementation.

Urwerk UR-111C Black

As a fan of the brand, I enjoy their pieces. I find the UR-111C not only original but also beautiful. From the aesthetics point of view, some of the Urwerk timepieces are strictly technical, industrial looking. But the UR-111C is cute, lovable. It is more than gears and numbers in a visible show of.

This is not a piece for someone who just has 130k laying arround. This watch needs to be understood. One needs to love mechanical art and to have an understanding of what it represents – a step further into the future.

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Urwerk UR-111C Technical Specifications

UR-111C Iron, Gunmetal, Black – limited production of 25 watches each version

Retail price: CHF 130’000.00 (excl. tax)

MOVEMENT

Calibre: Selfwinding calibre with stop seconds

Jewels: 37

Escapement: Swiss lever

Frequency: 4 Hz

Power reserve: 48 hours

Materials: Anodized aluminium cylinder; LIGA-processed seconds wheels.

Surface finishes Circular graining, sanding, côtes de Genève, polished screw heads.

INDICATIONS

Jumping hours

Retrograde linear minutes

Digital minutes

Digital seconds relayed by optical fibres

CASE

Materials: 316SL steel and grade 5 titanium, PVD coated in black

Dimensions: Width 42mm x length 46mm x thickness 15mm

Glass: Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating

Water resistance: Pressure tested to 3ATM / 100’ / 30m

Surface finishes: Sanding; satin finish

Urwerk UR-111C Gallery

The back of the Urwerk UR-111C Iron

UR-111C Iron

UR-111C Gunmetal

UR-111C Black

On the wrist with UR-111C Iron

UR-111C Black

In the wrist with UR-111C Gunmetal

UR-111C Gunmetal

The setting lever

UR-111C Black

UR-111C Gunmetal

The linear view on the Iron version

The digital minutes as seen on the Black UR-111C

The Iron displays 5:40

The winding/setting roller and the view to the running seconds

Digital small seconds indication on Urwerk UR-111C Iron

The end of a minute on the Urwerk UR-111C Gunmetal

The fibre optic lens as seen on the Urwerk UR-111C Black

Review in pictures: Urwerk UR-111C – Iron, Gunmetal, Black "Look ma', no hands..." - There are only a few brands that disrupt the classic horological canons of displaying the time.

[techabrelcom]

Best Vlogging Camera Under 100 (Our 2018 Choices)

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Over the last few months, I have been watching a few of the main popular vloggers on Youtube and it got me thinking about doing it myself. But, I am on a bit of a budget and only wanted to spend a maximum of $100.

Because of this, I decided that researching the best vlogging camera under 100 would be a fun thing to write about here as well. Just in the last week, I have looked up a ton of these camera optioons in this price range and came up with this list of seven that I feel are your best bang for the buck.

Our Recommendations:

Nikon Coolpix L32

Learn More About The Nikon COOLPIX L32

The essential feature of this video camera is its 5x zoom NIKKOR lens. This flexible lens helps you get every detail of broad angle shots such as a household image to more close up shots. It uses the electronic vibration decrease innovation that assists you take constant videos even without using a tripod. Its 20.1 megapixels sensing unit works for taking clear and crisp images. The video quality is likewise quite high. The film button takes you to video shooting mode where you can start recording your minutes in 720P hd video quality.

The clever picture system is an in developed mode that assists you get a little creative with your pictures. It concentrates on the face of the subject, applying a skin smoothing mask and has a smile shutter trigger. It has an easy to use menu that makes ids an excellent video camera for beginners. Another Key feature is that it operates on regular AA batteries. This minimizes required charging time. It likewise features an external storage space. You can for that reason utilize memory cards with different storage capabilities according to your requirements.

Pros

Light and easy to carry

Takes quality images and videos and works specifically well for outside experiences

Easy to use

Durable (Can manage a couple of falls).

No charging time required. Just plug in a new set of AA batteries and you are good to go.

Budget-friendly.

Cons

Experiences problems in checking out the sd card.

Limited settings which might be a point of frustration for someone hoping to do more than simply point and shoot photography.

Performs poorly in low light conditions.

This electronic camera has its benefits and brief comings as does any other. Regarding whether you enjoy your user experience will considerably depend upon your expectations. While it might be best for novices in photography, some of the constraints may opt to be an offer breaker for amateur and professional photographers alike.

Sony Cyber-Shot DSCW800

Learn More About The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W800

This Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W800 review has actually established that the compactness and simple interface are the two main points that make the video camera an inconspicuous compact. The image quality, while not the best, is good when shooting in bright environments. In addition, the Smart Auto mode ensures that your images are well focused and well exposed. On the disadvantage, you do not get a viewfinder and the panorama mode is rather disappointing. There is also the issue of the limited viewing angles that make it difficult to shoot low or high angle shots. Overall, it is a skilled cam for beginners who don’t have a lot to spend. And while it will not win any quality awards, the images are passable as long as you do not inspect them at full size.

Pros

Ability to tape-record 1280 x 720 footage at 30 fps

Integrated mono microphone and mono speaker

Geared up with contrast auto-focusing system

Face detection AF for discovering faces in the frame

Good performance in intense light conditions

Smooth styling and black/grey surfaces

Some manual control

Compact and lightweight construction

Affordable rate

Good value for the cash

Panorama shooting

Cons

Maximum light level of sensitivity is poor by today’s standards

Does not have viewfinder

LCD screen has really low resolution

Slow constant shooting rate of 1 frame per second

Sensing unit is somewhat smaller than average

Slow shutter speed

Lower real resolution

Screen is truly little

Restricted zoom range

Minimal LCD seeing angles

Does not support RAW files

No cordless connection

No handbook focus and exposure choices

Canon PowerShot A2500

Learn More About The Canon PowerShot A2500

At this price, Canon PowerShot A2500 proves to be a good deal for mid-income consumers. Compared to other electronic cameras in same price sector, A2500 deals best image quality and is rather enjoyable to use with different result filters. However similar to ire predecessor, the camera lacks optical image stabilization; it comes with digital image stabilization.

Readily available with the dimensions of 97.7 x 56.0 x 20.9 mm, the camera felt quite sleek and comfortable to hold. With its 125 gram weight, Canon PowerShot A2500 is amongst the lightest snapper around. Style smart, it looks more like Canon.

The current electronic camera from Canon includes capability to deliver finest close-ups and macro shots. Its UI looks quite easy and you will discover no difficulty navigating through the Menu. Further, the electronic camera uses 720p HD video, which is rather vibrant and exceptionally realistic. It shoots videos at 30 fps with 640 x 480 pixel resolution.

Other features consist of:

It provides 220 shots on complete recharged battery

Automobile Smart function let the electronic camera pick the very best readily available shooting mode depending on the surroundings

The big shutter helps with in blurring the moving subjects

Offered with New ECO Mode

Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS 16MP Digital Camera’

Learn More About The Canon Power Shot ELPH 340 HS

This Canon Point and Shoot Electronic camera have a number excellent elements of the Point and Shoot Cameras, such as; product, features, and design. It’s a truly one of the Best Buy Product that most Point and Shoot Video cameras searcher wish to select. This Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS 16MP Digital Video Camera (Silver) aspects probably accordance with exactly what you are want to select. The Canon Power Shot ELPH 340 HS digital cam is an imaginative force to be reckoned with. Its effective 12x optical zoom puts you into the action from anywhere, all set to catch with the quality only Canon optics can deliver. Built-in Wi-Fi means you’re constantly connected to your world, transferring images and video directly to popular social networking sites, mobile phones and your computer. You can likewise shoot remotely with a compatible mobile phone or tablet to easily record group photos, and connect wirelessly to a compatible Android device with a simple touch using integrated NFC (Near Field Communication). The high-resolution CMOS sensing unit integrates with the DIGIC 4+ image processor giving you outstanding image quality in all circumstances, consisting of low light. With innovative functions like 1080p full HD, Hybrid Auto and Smart AUTO, the Power Shot ELPH 340 HS catches the excitement of your everyday life with style.

At the time of publishing this Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS 16MP Digital Camera (Silver) Evaluation, We found more than 519 client examines about this Finest Buy Point and Shoot Electronic Cameras and they had actually offered around 4.2 usually from a possible 5 stars, there are obviously a slight small shortcoming about this Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS 16MP Digital Camera (Silver), however the consumer reviews are positively typically– read on this website– it’s actually useful for anybody in deciding to purchase Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS 16MP Digital Cam (Silver).

Choosing A Good Budget Vlogging Camera

As you go deeper into vlogging, you will find that an excellent digital video camera can considerably affect the quality and professionalism of your videos on YouTube. To obtain a top quality camera, you have to consider aspects. Exactly what do you try to find in a video camera?

Quality of the Image

The most vital part of the cam for vlogging is picture quality. You ought to search for a cam that records no less than 1080p or Full HD. An electronic camera below that is the standard quality of vlogs and can block the advancement of your vlogs.

Weight

The camera does not weigh in particular but rather can end up being shockingly considerable when you hold one with your arm outstretched for more than a couple of minutes. Vlogging cameras ought to be light so you can use them throughout the day and you won’t get drained pipes while you’re vlogging.

Optical Image Stabilization

This is very standard for vlog while strolling or carrying out various exercises that include a good deal of activity. Despite the fact that Youtube and video changing programming can assist settle the recording, it will not approach the nature of the video memory electronic camera with worked in optical image change. This component averts lightweight video material and enhances the quality of your logs.

Noise

Your watchers will not adhere to all your vlog on the off possibility that they can’t hear the word that you are stating. In this way, prior to getting it is necessary to focus on the receiver of the video camera. Every camera has actually a worked in amplifier with tolerable quality, nevertheless, can raise undesirable foundation clamor. A few video cameras have a receiver jack, so you can utilize an external microphone to improve the sound of your logs.

Lens

Considered that a significant portion of your recordings is taped from a separation of the hand, it is essential to search for a camera with a lens that provides excellent video quality when shooting in short proximity. Nothing is more irritating than not in focus for most of your vlog.

Your Requirements

Obviously, the best video camera for taking images is an electronic camera that is best has the tendency to your requirements. If you record in low light conditions, you must search for electronic cameras that work for this errand. If you vlog in a hurry and capture enterprise, the activity webcam is better for you. Perhaps you require a clean noise, so you anticipate a computer game camera with the capability to interface outside amplifiers. You should consider the sort of vlogs you have to make, and choose the enlistment cam that best suits your requirements. A flip screen is routinely viewed as an excellent match for basic vloggers.

Conclusion

Video blogs do not need much. You do not need expensive equipment. This needs just required abilities and some hardware and software that will contribute to the charming quality of the video. You do not need to buy the most costly camcorder or cam to get top quality video. Even a simple video camera will do due to the fact that there are a great deal of great economical cameras. In many cases, people today have an extremely sophisticated video camera right in their pocket with their smartphone. This is rather adequate.

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The post Best Vlogging Camera Under 100 (Our 2018 Choices) appeared first on TechAbrel.

[joannemaly]

Review: The Handevision Iberit 35mm F2.4 is a budget option for Leica users

Handevision Iberit 35mm F2.4 (Leica M-mount) $640 (~$600 in Fujifilm X / Sony E-mount) www.handevision.com

I've been curious about Handevision's small range of Iberit primes since Dan and I saw them in person at last year's CP+ show in Yokohama. Street prices for the lenses range between $640-800 for 24mm, 35mm, 75mm, and 90mm primes in Leica M-mount, and a little less for Fujifilm X and Sony E-mount versions, making them relatively affordable by the standards of all three systems.

Designed in Germany and made in China ('Handevision' is a portmanteau term - ‘Han’ signifies 'China' in Mandarin, while the following two letters ‘De’ represent the first two letters of 'Deutschland') the Iberit line is intended to be a low-cost alternative to 'own-brand' lenses and established third-party primes, for photographers dipping their toes into manual focus photography.

Key specifications:

Focal length: 35mm

Format: Full-frame (Leica M, Fujifilm X, Sony E-mount)

Manual focus

Aperture range: F2.4-16 (In 1/2 stops)

Filter thread: 49mm

Close focus: 0.7m (0.35m for E/X-mount versions)

Hood: Included, bayonet

Length / Diameter: 35 / 58mm (1.4 / 2.3in)

Weight: 220g (7.7oz)

Optical construction: 6 elements in 6 groups

Since I tend to shoot mostly at 35mm, I was most interested in the Iberit 35mm F2.4. So when I found a used copy in Leica M mount in my local camera store recently I decided to take a chance and buy it, mostly out of curiosity. If it turned out to be really good, maybe it would find a place in my permanent camera kit. If it ended up being a dud, I had 30 days to return it for a refund.

Design and handling

Of course, when it comes to lenses, things aren't that simple. Most lenses shine in some situations and fail in others. Few are stunning at every aperture at every focal distance, and even fewer can shine in every environment in which they could possibly be used – lens design, after all, is an exercise in compromise. And while I was very curious about the Iberit 35mm F2.4 after handling the roughly-machined prototypes at CP+ last year, I will admit that my expectations were modest.

The Iberit 35mm F2.4 can be 6-bit coded to be read as whatever lens you like, with the addition of some dabs of black and white paint into the pre-engraved spaces on the lens mount.

It's up to you how (or if) you choose to code the Iberit but the Leica Summarit 35mm F2.5 is closest in terms of specification. The 6-bit code is 101011 (1 = black, 0 = white) when the code is positioned at 12 o'clock.

Here I've filled in the black spots with craft paint, as an example. The chrome of the lens mount stands in for white because I'm lazy.

Cosmetically, the Iberit 35mm F2.4 (or my copy, at least) is a lot better than those early prototypes. The focus helicoid operates with an impressive smoothness – not quite up there with a new Leica or Zeiss prime but nicely-damped and with no wobble. An integrated focus tab is a welcome addition to the M-mount version of the lens.

The Iberit's aperture dial is a little dry and could use stiffer detents at its 1/2 stop settings, but it moves between apertures positively enough that I can tell what I'm doing when operating it with my eye to the viewfinder. The lens coatings are bright and even, and nothing rattles when the lens is shaken.

This image shows the view through the Leica M10's finder with the Iberit at its close focus position. As you can see, it intrudes considerably on the lower-right of the scene, even without a hood.

As you can also see, Carey is a man who enjoys his lunch.

Considering its relatively modest maximum aperture this is a big lens though, (especially by the standards of M-mount primes) and while nicely balanced on an M10, it does block a portion of the camera's viewfinder – even without the hood attached. Obviously this won't be a problem with the mirrorless versions.

I didn't experience any problems with focus accuracy or focus shift - at least none that I can blame on the lens

Despite its low cost and fairly light (220g) weight, there is some brass inside the 35mm. This is most visually obvious in the focusing cam, which communicates focus distance mechanically to the camera's rangefinder. My sample of the Iberit is perfectly calibrated on our M10 (ie., the camera's rangefinder and lens's markings agree at infinity). Throughout my shooting with this lens, I didn't experience any problems with focus accuracy or focus shift – at least none that I can blame on the lens.

The mirrorless versions doesn't need the complicated and precisely-calibrated mechanical focus cam mechanism, which probably explains their slightly lower cost.

Image quality

Optically, the Iberit 35mm F2.4 pleasantly surprised me. At F5.6 and F8, this lens is at least as sharp as anything else I regularly shoot with on the M10. There is some very modest vignetting at F2.4-2.8 but it's barely noticeable in normal photography, even with no lens profile assigned. Barrel distortion can be found if you go looking for it, but it's unlikely to trouble you except in close-up images of flat planes (i.e., test charts).

The M10's built-in 35mm F2 (pre-ASPH) profile applies little or no noticeable distortion correction, so this image (shot at F4) is essentially 'uncorrected'. As you can see, with a medium-distance subject, there's virtually no distortion to correct.

For the sake of convenience, I manually assigned a 35mm F2 pre-aspherical profile in-camera (the v4 'bokeh king' to be specific), so I could organize my files more easily in Lightroom, but if you want to, you can paint in whatever 6-bit code you like (see the table above for how to do that).

Barrel distortion is trivial to correct manually in Photoshop or Lightroom

The closest lens to the Iberit's specification in Leica's current lineup is the Summarit 35mm F2.5 and painting in this 6-bit code leads to effective correction of the Iberit's close-range barrel distortion when the M10's lens profiling setting is left on 'Auto'. If you don't want to go that route (and I would probably recommend you don't, given the lack of distortion at normal subject distances), the barreling is trivial to correct manually in Photoshop or Lightroom.

Handevision Iberit 35mm F2.4: Sample Images

Central sharpness at infinity is decent at F2.4, and good by F2.8, becoming more even at F4, before reaching its full potential at F5.6, with good consistency across the frame and more than enough resolving power to create moiré in fine textures. Wide open though, there's a significant dip in sharpness about two-thirds of the way across the frame, which suggests either complex field curvature or significant astigmatism in that region. At close focusing distances of less than ~1m the Iberit is still capable of resolving plenty of detail wide open, but contrast drops. If you've ever shot arm's length portraits on a Fujifilm X100-series camera you'll be familiar with the effect.

Shot almost straight into the sun without a hood at F5.6, this image demonstrates the Iberit's impressive resistance to flare. The lens's simple 6-bladed aperture creates pretty boring specular highlights (take a look at the sunlight sparkling on the water in the foreground) but CA and fringing are practically non-existent.

Flare is well-controlled, and bokeh wide open is reasonably smooth in the center, although things can get pretty busy and distracting depending on what's in the background, especially towards the edges of the frame. The Iberit's simple 6-bladed aperture is more or less circular until around F3.5 before becoming more angular when stopped down. Sunstars are (unsurprisingly given there are only six aperture blades) not among the lens' strengths.

Conclusion

In summary, the Handevision Iberit 35mm F2.4 is a good lens, which offers solid performance on the Leica M10. It's relatively sharp in the middle and at the edges of the frame wide open, but not to the point you'd expect from even cheap modern lenses with even faster apertures like the Nikon full-frame 35mm F1.8G. Modern lens design has moved optics forward, naturally. But the Iberit is still a pleasant surprise for non bokeh-fanatics.

It's very sharp across the frame by F5.6. Vignetting is negligible, distortion is simple and easy to deal with, and I can't see lateral CA anywhere in my test shots, even with all profiling turned off. There's a tiny bit of longitudinal CA that shows up as green and purple fringing wide open, but it's never distracting. Flare was a non-issue in my shooting, which made me happy, because I don't much like the Iberit's bulky bayonet-mount hood.

By the standards of lenses made natively for the Leica M mount, the Iberit is something of a bargain

In terms of performance, by the standards of lenses made natively for the Leica M mount, the Iberit is something of a bargain, provided you can live with its size. This is my only serious complaint. For a rangefinder lens, the Iberit is big, with a large 49mm threaded filter ring. In fact while markedly lighter, it's not that much smaller than Leica's 35mm F1.4 Summilux ASPH FLE and only about a filter's height shorter than the 28mm F2 ASPH. Considering it can be picked up new for a fraction of those lens' MSRP though, I can live with it.

Shot from about 1m away, wide-open, this image demonstrates the Iberit's rather busy bokeh. Specular highlights get progressively less circular, further away from the center of the image.

The value proposition on mirrorless is rather different. $600 is a lot to pay for a manual focus lens from a fairly obscure third-party manufacturer, when so many other options for X-mount and E-mount exist. Canon's 35mm F2 IS, for example, is easily adaptable to Sony E-mount without significant penalty, and actually costs a little less than the Iberit (not including the cost of a smart adapter, of course...). Sony also makes an FE 35mm F2.8 that will set you back $599 and an E 35mm F1.8 OSS for $450, while Fujifilm's 35mm F2 is available for under $400. Alternatives from more established M-mount manufacturers like Vöigtlander-Cosina and Zeiss can be found for comparable prices new, but often their optical designs are older, and their values higher on the used market.

Ultimately, for photographers putting together an M-mount lens collection on a film or digital rangefinder body, the Iberit 35mm F2.4 is worth a serious look. I found mine used and in good condition for less than $300. It's hard to find any (functional) M-mount glass for that price, even second-hand. For mirrorless ILC photographers though, better value options exist.

What we like:

Good standard of construction

Pre-milled 6-bit coding template

Decent central sharpness wide open (becoming excellent across the frame at F5.6-8)

Practically no vignetting and CA, minimal distortion at normal subject distances

Resistant to flare

What we don't

Large (for an M-mount 35mm lens): partially blocks M10's viewfinder

Soft off-axis wide open (before sharpening up again towards the edges)

Busy bokeh at wide apertures (especially towards the edges of the frame)

Distortion at close distances

Slight softness at close distances

[Read More ...] Review: The Handevision Iberit 35mm F2.4 is a budget option for Leica users was originally posted by proton T2a

[anarchomoop]

So in today’s pointless writing thought exercises: I started scripting in my head and writing dialogue for key storybeats for a Superman reboot while I was at work.  I wound up incorporating a lot of... tumblr-popular Superman meta I guess you could say into the ideas for the overall story.  The story features:

An inversion of the Lex Luthor/Superman dynamic, while it appears that Superman is “gifted,” he actually struggles to live up to his own ideals, in his own words “some days, I look in the mirror and I see superman.  Other days, I look in the mirror and just see me.  On the best days, I see both.”  Likewise, while Lex appears to be a self-made man, he definitely had a lot of invisible advantages over others, and while he rhetorically claims to have gotten where he was from hard work, he actually believes everything he has is a result of being fundamentally better than everyone else.  In his own words (in this reboot, Lex is the head of “Luthorcom” a company that started as a google-like internet based tech firm but expanded further into “horizontal” tech markets to the point where it’s now doing a little bit of everything STEM related, including weapons manufacture) “I kept looking at the world and seeing these basic things, these things where something was missing or could be better and I’d just go and I’d do it.  We had the internet and it was huge, full of information and products and people but with nothing to link them, no way to find them, like a library with n directory.  So I made LuthorLibrarian.com, later Luthorcom.  And it was simple.  Anyone could’ve done it.  And every time I took a step forward that’s what I said to myself.  ‘it was so easy, anyone could have done it.  I’m nothing special.’  Until one day, I looked out the window from the top of Luthorcom tower and I realized.  Nobody else did it.  Not a single person.  What I do, it’s not easy.  It’s not something ‘anyone can do.’  I can do it.  I do it.  Only me.”

The Daily Planet is now “Planet Media,” no longer a newspaper, it’s now a news website with both articles and videos.  Clark and Lois work both as article writers as well as personalities in front of the camera for video reports.  Jimmy takes both photo and video.

Superman’s costume is originally designed by Ma Kent to use to hide his identity and incorporates the red S, blue background, and a mask.  The costume is later redisigned by Jerome Green, an aids-positive black man who was selling knock-off superman goods to help himself and his grandma afford rent in their rapidly gentrifying Metropolis neighborhood, who makes the iconic red and yellow s-shield on a solid blue spandex outfit look. Jimmy Olsen and Lucy Lane’s role is somewhat reprised as Jimmy (a sophomore at Metropolis U in their photo journalism program and interning at the Planet Media.com as a photographer and sometimes cameraman) trying to impress Lucy Lane (Senior at Met U just about to finish their commercial aviation program to be a pilot) who he met through working with Lois at the Planet  This leads to Jimmy’s older sister Emily (recently finished undergraduate studies in Gotham U’s film studies program, now enrolled in Met U’s graduate program for film to learn how to direct and operate a camera, hoping to direct, write, and film her own micro-budgeted movies) meeting Lucy and sticking up for her younger brother, saying it’s wrong of Lucy to lead him along getting him to buy her things.  Lucy, by way of apology, tries to include Jimmy and Emily in her life, eventually leading to Emily and Lucy dating after Jimmy notices the two’s conspicuous and obvious crushes and pushes them to act on it.  This is... this is like the major B plot of the entire first arc but, like, super-abridged.

One of Lex Luthor’s telecom sats becomes damaged after colliding with some space debris -- an escape pod containing a human-looking girl in her late teens/early 20s (in this, Superman joins the planet after going through a journalism grad school program).  After she quickly develops the same powers Superman displays (she gets them on a faster time-table as a result of absorbing solar rays form space without the interference of earth’s atmosphere), Luthor uses her to his own ends by creating a SuperGirl loyal to Luthorcom.

Lois investigate’s Luthorcom’s weapons dealings, finding evidence that, in order to spur demand for domestic use of the product by police/military, Luthor orchestrated leaks/break-ins to get “criminal elements” access to Luthor weapons tech, creating the appearance of an arms race that the government must turn to Luthor to stop (this is the reason Clark becomes Superman, and part of why Luthor comes to hate him, because Superman is foiling his plans without even knowing it).  She eventually reveals this evidence with the help of staff intern Jimmy Olsen and new reporter Clark Kent, but Luthor manages to avoid implication  This is what puts Lois/Clark/Jimmmy on his radar.

Clark does not actually have access to his escape pod, knowledge about Krypton, Jor-El, or Kryptonite.  This is all discovered by Lex Luthor.  He learns about Krypton from Supergirl’s escape pod, then scours the areas near Metropolis for something similar that might relate to Superman (eventually finding a pod just outside Smallville where the Kents abandoned it).

Clark’s past and Kryptonian name are revealed to him when Lex “unmasks” him as “Kal El of Krypton” in front of a live TV audience that just watched Lex use Kryptonite to beat both Superman and Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), revealing “Kal El’s plot” to make “humanity weak and dependent” by saving them all from their problems instead of letting humanity sort them out themselves, that way a “Kryptonian fleet” can invade earth with no resistance.  Lois, there in attendance, calls bullshit, pointing out that A: if Kryptonians are as powerful as Superman and Supergirl they don’t *need* to weaken humanity and B: Superman wanted people to aspire to be better, that Superman “saw Superman in the people around him more frequently than in himself” and backs it up using a secret recording she took on her smartphone during a “date” with Superman which she was actually using to grill him for info (during the date she hides a tape recorder in her purse, which Superman finds with his X-Ray vision and asks her to take out and turn off, then later after he’s gone she takes out her phone and checks to make sure that the recording she got on it was clear, commenting that Superman was ‘clever, but still a sap’).

During the climax of the arc, Jimmy, Emily and Lucy save Superman by rushing forward to “get a good shot up close,” an excuse for Jimmy to shove his flashbulb right in Lex’s face and take a picture so that Emily and Lucy can get the Kryptonite away from him.  This leads to a fight where Superman is trying to protect Lex from a furious Supergirl and the crowd from both Supergirl (whose opinion of humanity is understandably pretty low at that moment) and Lex’s guards.  During the fight a stray “Krypton-alloy” bullet hits Kara in the shoulder, causing her to lose her powers and start falling from the top of Luthor tower.  She’s saved by Jimmy, who earlier noticed a window-cleaning trolley, so he jumps off the tower to grab her and just barely manages to grasp it and a barely-conscious Kara.  Emily and Lucy work together to pull the two fully to safety, initially alone but eventually with the help of the gathered crowd.  Important notes -- Superman attempts to save her but can’t, as approaching her causes his powers to weaken from the “krypton-alloy”.  This is important to the themes of the first arc, Superman is ultimately not the hero.  Lois, Jimmy and Clark (distinguishing Clark from Superman somewhat is also important -- Clark Kent is the real person, Superman is a mask he wears, and someone Clark aspires to be) are ultimately responsible for bringing down Lexcorp’s criminal activities and Emily, Lucy, and Jimmy wind up saving both Superman and Supergirl from Lex.

Kara and Kal-El are given official US citizenship and paperwork (Clark Kent also has official paperwork, although it is forged by someone Ma Kent knows who didn’t really ask any questions about this miracle baby who needed documents).  Kara’s life winds up being a lot more public than Kal-El’s as a result of her not being raised normally on earth or having any kind of secret identity.  She’s placed under investigation and put on trial, but eventually found not guilty as a result of A: not actually hurting anyone B: her attempts to harm the crowd and her threats against humanity as a whole during the fight with Superman were successfully justified under the “temporary insanity” defense (she was brought to a state of high emotion to the point that she could not be considered fully responsible for her actions, essentially the “yeah, you did kind of break some laws but honestly if I were in your shoes I’dve done the same thing” defense) and C: honestly they are not sure they could do much to prosecute her anyway.  After her trial and while she’s still recovering from her gunshot wound (fast healing is not a Kryptonian power in this canon -- when they get actually hurt they stay hurt for a while) Kara meets with Jimmy and thanks him, commenting that “Kal-El is right, about humanity.  About people like you.”  And then.. leaving it at that because restoration of a similar but different status quo at the end of the arc is important and Jimmy having a crush on a girl who he’s certain is totally out of his league is *very important to the status quo* Yeah, so that’s just... kind of the major story beats?  Most of them?  There’s flashbacks to Clark’s childhood, him realizing he has powers, how the Kents react.  Ma Kent and Pa Kent also act somewhat mysteriously.  Ma comes up with the costume idea for Clark suspiciously quickly and occasionally when trying to explain how or why they did/do something to Clark they just say “it’s what has to be/had to be done.”  This is a set up to a potential later arc involving time travel, the idea that Clark’s parents know he will become Superman before it actually happen is kind of important to the story as I imagine it.  The Kent parents meet Superman, and they realize being Superman is important to their son, and as a result they work to help their son become Superman. Edit: oh, also about the Kents, forgot to add: in this canon they’d be Jewish.  That’s actually kind of very important to some of the theming/parallels that the broader narrative is meant to make.