#titivillus the typo demon

[quoththemaiden]

I don't know what to do with the existence of Titivillus the Typo Demon, but this 20-minute podcast about him was fantastic.

(I'm not going to tag this with #good omens fanfiction because it isn't Good Omens fanfiction, but it also isn't not potentially related to Good Omens fanfiction...)

[bloomfish]

i am just a leetle guy... just a poor humble innoncent guy and each day i wake up and i must collect ur cringefail neglygences from the youtube comments and brynge them to my master

[dlaprobably]

Servantember, Day 1: Johannes Gutenberg (Caster)

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

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

Lore Notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Design Notes:

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

[hollow-head]

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1008896223/the-apocrypha

I relisted the book! I also have a few more keychains. Since i had this printing before the S2 announcement and the fandom was a little slow, I really had no idea whether I’d sell 20 or 200. I’m sooo happy that people are liking it <3

[skepwith]

[Image description: Tweet from KJ Charles: “Today I learned that there is a patron demon of typos and text errors. When you write a solider in an army, you are being plagued by Titivillus, shown here being heavily side eyed by a really hacked off scribe.” Followed by medieval illustration. end ID]

[thoughtportal]

Here are some of my favorite Thought Portal posts of September.

I wonder if I can make this sandwich.

Titivillus, the typo demon.

An Ode to Speckle.

Lord Byron, Ultimate Fuckboi of Literature.

An essay on how much “work” is meaningless nonsense that adds no value to the world.

The Secret Power of Menopause.

Everything is not going to be okay.

US has spent 6 trillion on wars.

Has English gotten less complex?

Lawns are an ecological disaster.

A trick of the light on the ethics of holograms.

You could be wrong, you’re not, but you could be.

[septembersung]

“This poem’s concern with wasteful words is part of a wider conversation in medieval society about the misuse of speech. Many medieval writers condemn what they call ‘janglers’ – an expressive descriptor for people who use words in a wasteful or destructive way, by idle chatter, spreading gossip and slander, or hurting other people. This concern was personified by the story of the devil Titivillus, a demon whose speciality was keeping track of sinful words. He was said to go around the world collecting idle words (and even scribal errors, the medieval equivalent of careless typos) and gathering them up in a sack, so that their speakers could be held accountable for them at Judgement Day. This, too, feels disconcertingly timely: what would Titivillus collect today but hasty, intemperate, or ill-considered tweets?“

“From a glance at the Middle English Dictionary's entries for jangler and janglen, you can see that this concern about harmful words was a very wide-ranging one. It covers all classes of people, from bishops to schoolboys, and all kinds of destructive speech: snide carping, drunken boasts, unnecessary arguments, ignorant gossip, and many forms of excessive, wasteful words. Since the onslaught of email and social media in the past few years, it has sometimes felt as if our culture is drowning in words - billions of words, most of them of no lasting good to anyone, and many of them actively doing harm. (Appropriately, you can see in the MED entry that one of the uses of jangle was to refer to birds' chatter, to which noisy human speech, then as now, was often compared, and so 'to twitter' is in fact one of the definitions of the word.) But perhaps it felt the same in the Middle Ages. Of course the problem is not the words, but the fallible human beings who use them; with 'jangling' as with 'tales' - they often go together for medieval writers - new technology only presents us with old problems in new forms. “One of the most memorable medieval depictions of the devil Titivillus, expert in sinful words, appears in the 15th-century English play Mankind. In this play, the character of Mankind is caught between an array of worldly temptations on the one hand, and on the other hand the figure of Mercy, who is trying to strengthen him to resist. That makes it sound incredibly worthy, but in fact it's a very clever and witty play, in which language and the right use of words is explored with great subtlety and humour. Mercy speaks with dignified authority, and gives Mankind lots of good advice in stately, poetic, Latinate speech; like Holy Church in Piers Plowman, he preaches on self-restraint, not wasting time, and the benefits of moderation ('Mesure ys tresure', he says). But a crowd of raucous, riotous temptations, the demon Titivillus among them, drowns out Mercy's speeches with their cacophony of words, as they tease and taunt and tempt Mankind into joining their wicked ways. Their quick, funny, irreverent byplay would delight any audience, and they don't just seduce Mankind, but the viewer as well; at one point they get the whole audience to sing along with a song which rapidly turns very rude indeed. Because Titivillus talks directly to the audience, we are drawn into his schemes to distract Mankind away from his prayers, and are even induced to give him money. It's the wicked characters who have all the the energy and all the best lines, and they even have modern fashion on their side; two of them are 'New Guise' and 'Nowadays', presumably because people are always inclined to think that the temptations of their own day are the worst there have ever been... You can read the whole play online here, with an introduction to its context - do read it, it's really quite something. It has been suggested that it was intended to be performed at Shrovetide (i.e. today): the carnival spirit of the play is fitting for the eve of Lent, and so too is its concern with temptation, penance, and reform. The audience watching this play, laughing along with the vices and demons, would recognise from observing their own reaction just how seductive sinful speech can be - how it looks like cleverness, or wit, or a bit of harmless fun, right up until the moment when somebody really gets hurt. Medieval moralists often say that the best remedy for sinful jangling is another, holier kind of speech, 'shrift of mouth', the confession or shriving from which Shrovetide takes its name. Whether or not you'll be going to confession this Shrove Tuesday, a better use of words is something we can all aim for.”

[snackugaki]

creatuANARY no. 3 - Titivillus, contemporarily  known as the typo demon 

... yes, that’s a potoo I chose for its face

[lesbianau]

Apparently there's a mythical demon called Titivillus whose purpose is to make typos 😂😂

titivillus literally haunts me wtf 

[tyrograph]

GUYS.

Guysguysguys.

There is a demon responsible for copying errors, typos, and gossip! Like, historically.

His name is Titivillus.

I cannot stop thinking about if this was one of Crowley's guises, or a minion, or a colleague/competitor ...

He was blamed for the Wicked Bible ("Thou shalt commit adultery") which is real and not made up by Sir Terry! There are little rhymey prayers to ward him off!

Worst yet he collects all your errors as you make them and then they are all waiting for you in Hell!

Fan Art pleeeeeeeez! And maybe Fics too!