There’s a book out there that’s either one of the last great unsolved cyphers or a massive medieval hoax. Welcome to the weird world of the Voynich Manuscript. And no, it isn’t solved yet.
I did this comic for The Niblast year (The Nib is an amazingly great place for comics on Medium if you don’t know that already). You can follow all my work on Medium here.
In case anyone would like an update on the ‘translation’ by Nicholas Gibbs: “The weirdly-illustrated 15th century book has been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories since its discovery in 1912. In his article, Gibbs claimed that he’d figured out the Voynich Manuscript was a women’s health manual whose odd script was actually just a bunch of Latin abbreviations. He provided two lines of translation from the text to “prove” his point.
However, this isn’t sitting well with people who actually read medieval Latin. Medieval Academy of America director Lisa Fagin Davis told The Atlantic’s Sarah Zhang, “They’re not grammatically correct. It doesn’t result in Latin that makes sense.” She added, “Frankly I’m a little surprised the TLS published it…If they had simply sent to it to the Beinecke Library, they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat.” The Beinecke Library at Yale is where the Voynich Manuscript is currently kept. Davis noted that a big part of Gibbs’ claim rests on the idea that the Voynich Manuscript once had an index that would provide a key to the abbreviations. Unfortunately, he has no evidence for such an index, other than the fact that the book does have a few missing pages.
The idea that the book is a medical treatise on women’s health, however, might turn out to be correct. But that wasn’t Gibbs’ discovery. Many scholars and amateur sleuths had already reached that conclusion, using the same evidence that Gibbs did. Essentially, Gibbs rolled together a bunch of already-existing scholarship and did a highly speculative translation, without even consulting the librarians at the institute where the book resides.“
Imagine lil toddler bby glimmer who can barely walk starting to teleport all over the place, she just disapears and her parents are like FUCK! NO! WHERE IS SHE!? NOT AGAIN!
idk but i rlly hope bow’s dads are tailors/cobblers because?? idk that could possibly explain his love for creating things. imagine little bow running around a tailor shop, grabbing scissors and pins and needles, and watching as his fathers created something beautiful out of strips of nothing. gorgeous gowns that are treasured forever by the people who wear them. shoes that bow sees his neighbors fawning over, wearing everyday. coats gifted to lovers. now imagine bow growing up and realizing the condition of his world, the war. he looks at his parents and tells them that he’s going to stop the horde. his fathers ruffle his hair: “you have tailor’s hands” (one of them runs his fingers along the lines of bow’s palm) “i – we – have the utmost faith that you will be able to stop them.” bow uses skills learned in his youth to mend glimmer’s wounds, whittle arrows, and innovate. bow using his skills to create weapons. bow fighting for the land his dad’s raised him in. bow never failing to see the beauty of the world. man, i sure hope bow’s dads are tailors.
They are proud of him, but his devotion to crop tops hurts their souls.
his crop tops are beautiful how dare you insinuate otherwise
Of course they are! I don’t deny that!
Its his refusal to wear anything besides crop tops that roubles them.
You’re a wealthy land-owner in feudal Japan and pay for the services of the legendary courtesan Yugiri. You walk in to meet her and she’s lying in a seductive pose wearing a chicken suit.
Monsters and Stuff 