#needs more research

[brain-rot-hour]

Sketch dump!

Some modern AU InuKag, a couple human!InuYasha, and a...........floating Kagome? Idk

[rahiwatching]

My attempt at solving the various paradoxes caused by the way the Kanohi Mohtrek is stated to work, specifically the issues caused by the statement of:

“if a past self is killed, then the user will vanish, and an alternate timeline where they did not exist will be created”

The above seems to lead to a grandfather paradox style issue, here I'm trying to fix that, as superposition has been used before as a possible solution to that type of paradox.

[lafcadiosadventures]

saw {this post} and went hunting after the Ivanhoe quote that inspired Nerval’s Desdichado:

His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold, and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited. He was mounted on a gallant black horse, and as he passed through the lists he gracefully saluted the Prince and the ladies by lowering his lance. The dexterity with which he managed his steed, and something of youthful grace which he displayed in his manner, won him the favour of the multitude, which some of the lower classes expressed by calling out, “Touch Ralph de Vipont’s shield—touch the Hospitallers shield; he has the least sure seat, he is your cheapest bargain.”

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, chapter VIII

What’s interesting here is that Scott is mistaken, and apparently Nerval didn’t know that, which is strange since the actual meaning of desdichado: “the unhappy/joyless/unfortunate one” fits the poem perfectly well, even better than the “disinherited one”

More on El desdichado, Scott (and Heine) here

[sovinly]

e/R red string of fate au? thank you very much!

(You are welcome!  Thank you for the prompt! Sorry for the delay, this one took me a while to figure out!

This is sort of a modern magical realism AU where I am taking for granted that this isn’t unprecedented. (We’re going a little Silence Is the Speech of Love in terms of religion/cosmology/divine presence here, which is never a bad way to go!) I apologize if it’s not quite what you were looking for, but I didn’t really feel comfortable getting too much more into this without a lot more research into the folklore proper, so this ended up being much more of a “oh shit, what does this MEAN” take on things. Hopefully you still enjoy it!)

“… And, so, the point of the whole thing, is that a god maytake a shackle, spin it from metal into thread, and dye it red, and the verypeople who protest bondage of nearly every other sort will swallow it down withdelighted sighs. The human race is fucking stupidin matters of the heart, and divine blessings can suck my dick,” Grantairetells them vehemently, breaks into coughs, and then hides in his doctoredcoffee because the whole situation is fucking absurd.

Joly and Bossuet, to their credit, share a look and don’tlaugh at him.

“So, you and Enjolras, then?” Bossuet ventures, raising hisbrows. “That’s a thing.”

“Ankle to ankle,” Grantaire confirms, and reaches for thecream because his stomach is a tumult of bitterness without another cup of black coffee. “What the fuck.”

“At least you didn’t say all this to him,” Joly tells himwith a soothing pat to the shoulder. “You’d have been mortified after, though Ithink he’d agree with the parts about pre-ordination being bullshit.”

Grantaire snorts. “There is no way to make me feel anybetter about this. He tolerates me.Like, oooh, boy, what an endorsement, neither of us threw a rock at the other,just ran away in horror. Destiny.”

“Maybe you’ll help one another out, or did help one another out,” Bossuet points out. “Or it could havebeen a shared hallucination.”

“You’re thinking too small.” Joly sips his tea, trying andfailing to fight a smile. “You guys could get married for all sorts of reasons. Infiltration! Dramaticattempts to avoid familial judgment and-or expectations! Politics! Accidentallygetting married when it was meant to be a ruse! To fulfill the letter of fatewhile neatly ducking the implications! Elaborate wedding gift heist to fund the society!”

Weirdly enough, that makes Grantaire feel better. Sort of. “Thanksever so, Joly. That’s so helpful. Then I can pine about him while we’re marriedfor politics. What’s your point?”

“Romance novels have been based on less,” Joly points out. “Anyway,what I mean to say is that a red string only means what you want it to mean –you can do what you’d have done if you hadn’t known it was there. Why havethousands of years of philosophical debate about free will if you’re not goingto argue with this too? Okay, sure, Yue Lao invented the red string of marriage. Humans invented scissors.”

That finally shuts Grantaire up, and he sighs. “If either ofyou tell me to talk to him, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Have a bun,” Joly replies,sanguine and magnanimous.

“It would be nice if the gods didn’t stick their noses inhuman affairs,” Enjolras says, into the thoughtful silence following hisexplanation of the whole mess that was yesterday. A moment later: “I didn’t askfor this.”

Courfeyrac hums and loops an amiable arm around Enjolras’shoulder. “He didn’t either, for what it’s worth? But yeah, that’s… a lot.”

“Do you actually feel an obligation, having seen it?”Combeferre asks, settling into the couch with what must be a remarkable amountof restraint. He’s brimming with questions.

Enjolras frowns and considers that for a long minute. “No, Isuppose I don’t. There’s no compulsion to go along with it, and I don’t have apersonal or religious or philosophical drive to pursue anything on that account. But…I think it does change something, to know that we both saw it.”

“You don’t want to be a dick about it,” Courfeyrac says, succinct,and nods understandingly. “I’ll fight anyone who tells you it means you oweanything to Grantaire or anyone else.”

“Unnecessary, but appreciated,” Enjolras tells him, andsmiles despite himself. “I don’t believe in destiny and I’ll continue notbelieving in it, but this is… messy.”

Combeferre is clearly building up to a thought, steeplinghis fingers together. “From what you’ve told us, it doesn’t necessarily mean marriage, even if that’s the most commoninterpretation. It sounds like it could be a question of both being entangledin a certain situation or offering some sort of assistance. It might be worth askingwhy you’re not assuming it’s either of those?”

“That’s… true. It could be.” Enjolras twists his fingerstogether, considering that. “I don’t know. I need to think about it more. Maybedo some research. It’s… I care a lot about all of my friends, so why is it Grantaire?”

“Why is it any of this?” Courfeyrac agrees, and kissesEnjolras’ cheek. “It could mean a lot of things or it could mean nothing morethan something that’s already happened. You could talk to Grantaire, and figureout what you both want it to mean.”

Enjolras wrinkles his nose a little, because thatconversation will be exhausting for somany reasons, but concedes that Courfeyrac has a very fair point. “It’sgoing to be a disaster, but I’ll try. That’s only fair, anyway. Not today,though. Today I’d rather submit to all of Combeferre’s detailed questions onthe experience in general, provided he buys us all dinner.”

“Done,” Combeferre agrees with asmile.

“So, I guess we should talk?” Grantaire says, though he’sstill not particularly keen on it. And asking probably makes him look tooeager, or too much like he cares when he’d really rather not, but he’s beenconvinced to try to be, if not the bigger person here, at least not the smallerone.

Enjolras, gratifyingly and a little startlingly, seems tohave misplaced some of his composure. What little that means, when it’s just ananxious glance back at the others, and his fingers tightening decisively on thestrap of his bag. “We should talk.”

They stroll, by silent mutual agreement and the fact thatneither of them mind walking about,off toward the riverbank.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” Grantaire tells him,jittery at the way Enjolras is taking so long to collect his thoughts. It’strue, and it was true before this, and just because Grantaire is a well oflonging and admiration and want doesn’t mean he expects any sort of reciprocation. Except that he doesn’t want it,if it’s a condition of divine intervention or magic or even self-coercion. Somaybe Grantaire isn’t as pathetic as he sometimes feels.

“Likewise neither,” Enjolras assures him, and it’scomforting and disappointing all at once. Enjolras doesn’t expect much ofGrantaire in general, Grantaire supposes. “But I’m glad we’re friends, and I’dhate for this to change that.”

He hadn’t realized they were friends, not just friends-in-common.Grantaire feels far more elated by that than any suggestion of weirdmetaphysical connections. Besides, Enjolras isn’t given to lying.

“Me too,” Grantaire replies, and shoves his hands in hispockets, lest he feel compelled to rant. “I… yeah. Friends is good.”

There’s a lot of second-guessing, now. Everything feelsladen with a weird implication that wasn’t there, a few days ago. If Grantairesuggested they talk this out over crepes, would it seem like a date? He’d spentan actual five minutes considering his clothes this morning, not because he’dwanted to impress, but because wearing red might have made things seem weird.

“We’ll figure this out.” Enjolras says it with his usualunderlying surety. But there’s something a little awkward in his smile, and hisroots are starting to show in his customarily bleached hair, and he’s wearingsome of Combeferre’s bracelets and one of Courfeyrac’s jackets like armor. He’sjust a person, even if a very good one, and it strikes Grantaire in a way ithadn’t really, last week.

“Okay,” Grantaire says, not eloquently. But he believes him,and he’s willing to try to make it happen. “Yeah, okay.”

[didanawisgi]

What follows is a letter from the Master Mason, ( Master of the work ), Robert of Beverley, written to his brother Gilbert, Scrivener and Notary to the Bishop of Aix-en-Provence.

My Dear Gilbert,

My heart is warm within me this summer evening.  I have finished my task of building the Choir, the Crossing and the Transepts of this Cathedral Priory or Minister (Monasterium), at Edgeley in the Archdiocese of York. Tomorrow I leave for London to join the household of one of the King’s Master Masons.

I have come far since I left the Abbey school at Citeaux to so plague the quarrymen with my questions and importunities, that he found me a place among his stones. You who should have become a Knight-at-Arms never recovered from your accident, and found your life work among books and documents, deeds and chronicles.

I who was always in love with stones, with what they could do to man, and what man could do to them, remained five years with the quarryman, asking questions and dreaming dreams. He was a good Master and taught me well. Thirty years ago I found myself in England, and made my way to the Cathedral at Litchfield where the south transept was being repaired.  From a rough mason I was soon passed to finer work – for I know my craft.  I was made free of a band of English freemasons and received into their fellowship; I was made privy to their secrets.  Soon I was no longer Robert of Burgundy, but Robert of Beverley.

I was still a questioner, still reaching out beyond the present task.  And so at last to Westminster  where Henry III was rebuilding the Abbey.  The Master Mason was an Englishman, Robert de Freyns, his assistant was John of Gloucester.  When John of Gloucester succeeded Robert de Freyns, he chose me as his assistant, and at the close of the work I was myself the Master Mason.

From there the King sent me to Edgeley  to build a Cathedral priory dedicated to St. Wilfred who had been the Patron Saint of the old Saxon Diocese, vacant since the conquest. But the manors, lands, endowments and other revenues of the See were maintained by the King’s officers.  The King himself, whoever he may have been down the years, applied the revenues to his own uses.  It has been quite customary for the Kings of England to allow Sees  - particularly if  they be rich - to stay vacant, and themselves to enjoy the revenues.  The Saxon church at Edgeley was fallen into ruins, the Saxon monks scattered, and the Abbey buildings rebuilt and occupied by a Cistercian foundation from Fountain Abbey.

There would have been no change had not the King’s sacrilege put him under an obligation to the Pope.  And so I was to build a Cathedral for them both with the Cistercian Abbot of Edgeley as my superior.  The Abbot was full of friendship to me, as he was humble in himself, and did not complain that he should have been deprived of his natural birthright to the bishopric.

The Abbey is deep in the countryside, and the common people have been moved, or have moved themselves, towards the coast, where a new harbour for wool ships is to be made.    My building is close to the people and some miles from the Abbey.  The country is rich and fertile, with many sheep and cattle and with well tended crops.  The Abbey lands are a picture of good husbandry.

My first task was to choose a site, with room for buildings, with water, clay, wood and stone ready to hand.  Anxious days followed for me and for my assistants, Geoffrey and Ralph.  There were days of bargaining with land owners and their tenants for rights of way back to the Abbey, to the quarry, and to the nearest high road.  At last all this was settled.  The King’s forester granted us leave to cut down so many oaks, and his verderer allowed us to take so many deer each quarter, for we had to have timber and we had to have food.  Had we not had the King’s own writ in our hands things would have gone much less smoothly.

The matter of the timber was the most difficult for us - no one had needed to be reminded of Bishop Wakelyn of Winchester, to whom the King had granted as much timber “as his men could cut down in four days and four nights.” Wakelyn summoned ‘an innumerable troop of carpenters”who  in the time allowed cleared the whole forest.  The King’s anger was hardly to be appeased.

In all these matters the Abbot was behind me with help and with advice.  He had in hand a generous amount of money from the King - a token of the King’s contrition.  The revenues of the Diocese were to be paid to the Abbot so we had money to spend.  The Abbot also sent me twenty Lay Brothers.  The Cistercian lay brothers are untonsured, they take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  They do all the outside work of the abbey and possess many skills.  They are excused the stricter usages and customs of the Order.  I put these twenty to work in making shelter for myself and my assistants, and for our gear.

Two of them I put in charge of the pack train which brought our food each day from the Abbey. The other eighteen lay brothers I talked with one by one, drawing from each his particular skills and experiences.  I had carpenters, smiths, and masons and also an infirmarer, I found one lay brother whose hobby had been carving wood.  Him I put carefully aside and saw that his hands remained protected.

And now came my master quarryman, Simon of Norwich, my master smith, Hugh of York, and my master carpenter, Alexander who had been with me at Westminster. Simon approved of the quarry, and of the red sandstone.  He immediately clamored for a wooden lodge at the quarry and I set the carpenters and lay brothers to fell the chosen trees and to prepare the beams and planks. The Abbot had engaged charcoal burners  and lime burners from the forest and the smith had ways and means of getting coals and iron from York.

Freemasons and rough masons, smiths and carpenters came looking for work, many of them with their own tools.  They guarded these tools jealously  and there were many arguments.  In a few weeks the whole force was settled in.  The stone was being cleared of overburden, the smith had set up his smithy and anvil under shelter; the carpenters and their assistants were busy with the timber and with buildings; the gardeners were planting a garden.

And then I called together my assistants and my master workmen and we walked over to where the church was to be built. The Abbot was with us, and together we dedicated ourselves, and the building we were to make, to God and St. Wilfrid.  As we stood in the spring sunshine I unfolded for the first time my plans for the church. Here was to be the High Altar, here the square end (after our Cistercian style),  of the Apse or Choir;  here the crossing and there the transepts; and away to the west the great nave yet to be built.  As I walked and talked, dug my heels into the turf, pointed with my finger or held out my arms as if in wide embrace, I lost myself in visions of wall and window, arch and pillar, almost feeling the hand of the Great Architect upon my shoulder. When I ceased the silent company broke into a gale of  talk, the Abbot came to me, took me by the hand and led me away, leaving the others to their high argument. And so the cathedral was born.

There was plenty to be done.  I had marked out the High Altar, and as the Saint’s day was coming near we prepared to set the axis of the church. Accordingly on the morning of St. Wilfrid’s Day I stood with a pole at the centre point of the High Altar, Ralph and Geoffrey stood before and behind me - and as the sun rose we set our poles so that each year when the sun rose on the Saint’s Day it’s rays should shine directly down the line of the church.

Simon, the quarryman, and Hugh, the smith worked well together; it needed to be so, for each depended on the other. They soon sorted out the craftsmen, or fellows, from the rough smiths and rough masons.

Freemasons already had some loose countrywide organisation.  They moved freely about the country; and when word of a new building was in the air they collected their tools and singly, or in bands, made their way to the site.  Freemasons, fellows, craftsmen, they were called; they had means of identifying themselves as fully trained, to myself and my assistants, to the quarrymen and to one another.  They brought learners with them, younger brothers, sons, friends, who in due course would qualify as fellow freemasons.  Other helpers came to us from nearby farms, some looking to learn a trade - mistery - they called it, from our French mestier, a trade or calling.  Some sought a by-occupation only for the sake of the wages, being allowed to go to their plots of land at tilling, planting and harvest.

I remembered my own career, and I was determined that we should be a company of teachers and taught. Those who wanted to learn, those who asked questions should be drawn out; those who had higher skills should be ready to teach. The motto of the Cistercian Order is Laborare est Orare’: “To labour is to pray.”  I worked them all hard, lay brothers and workmen.

Simon, Hugh, and Alexander, quarryman, smith and carpenter were of a like mind. Not so all the workmen, but in these six years we did fashion some master tradesmen and even some future masters of the work.  My assistants, Ralph and Geoffrey will very soon be masters in their own right.

Not everything went smoothly; there were spring floods and fallen stacks of timber; iron and stone took their toll of skin, muscle, and sometimes bone.  Not everyone was sweet tempered all the time, there were many fights, especially when food was short.  We kept few feast or holy days, but when we did the Abbot or Monk came to us and as many as wished gathered to have read to them he stories from the Book, of Adam and the Garden, of Noah and his Ark, of the Tower of Babble, of Solomon and his Temple, of the child Jesus and his Mother, and many others.

Winter was coming and we feared for the road to the quarry.  All work stopped while we strengthened  the soft places. From early morning until it was too dark to see we brought brushwood and fallen branches to make fascines , and pounded broken stone into the ruts made by the Ox-wagons .   By weekend we had a reasonably all-weather road.   The quarrymen saw that stone was stored in his lodge to keep the freemasons working during the winter.  Sleeping quarters were strengthened  and enlarged.  Later, when building had got under way, straw was to be brought to cover the unfinished work or materials, channels were to be dug to turn aside surface water.

In the meantime the site had been cleared and leveled and the lines pegged out;  there were poles and markers everywhere.  Some workmen went home each winter to take their wages to their families, to cultivate their plots of land, and sow and plant for the coming year.

The first winter passed and when the spring came we started to work on the foundations.  I was determined that these foundations should be firm and deep.  I had seen more than enough walls and roofs collapse because of faulty foundations.  In one church I used to hear this prayer  “And, dear Lord, support our roof this night, that it may in no wyse  fall upon us and styfle us.  Amen.”

Year succeeded year, and we built in the New English Style ( how far off the Norman churches seemed, and how little of them remained ); we spoke and wrote English.  Saxon, Norman, Frenchmen of whatever descent, all rejoiced in their Englishry.  Our King,  Henry III, carried in his veins the blood of two Henry’s, The Conqueror, Athelstan and Alfred.

We lost some workmen, we gained others, always we kept the best.  As the timber for the interior work was seasoned, I set my carver lay brother to make and ornament the choir stall and to build and carve the Bishop’s stall.  The High Altar was fashioned, and the shrine of St. Wilfrid.  The Abbot, dear soul that he was, gave us what Saintly relics he possessed and so let us make a place for pilgrimages.

The freemasons were my special care, for I was a fellow and brother to them all.  They had adopted a learned lay brother and drew from not him only the principles of Arithmetic and Geometry, but stories of Euclid and of the Egyptians, of Athelstan and his love for the mason craft.  These and more of the history  and legends of the craft he wrote down for then, also usages and customs, articles and points for the government of their fellowship.  The freemasons who could write copied for themselves and for the others, so that over the five years  they had a good store of charges.

In the third year we overspent our money and the King had gone to Aquitane.  So our good Abbot and his secretary ambled on their pads up and down the cathedral parish seeking revenue.  Some Lords and Knights gave out of thanksgiving, some out of penitence, some out of fear for their souls hereafter.  One wealthy Baron endowed the Lady chapel, for which I had made space in one of the bays of the choir.  Several paid for a chantry, a mass recited at an altar for the well-being of the founder during his lifetime  and for the repose of his soul  after his death.  The endowment of a perpetual chantry usually took the form of lands, tenements, rents and other possessions. And so the work went on.

Nearly four years passed before the walls of the quire were as high as a man could work.  The designs were drawn for the windows, ( in the New English Lancet pattern ), and for the vaulting. Now we needed the carpenters, and much timber for the scaffolding, for false-work between the  pillars to support the arches, and for form-work to support the vaulting, so that all should be ready for a burst of building the next spring.  We had laid in a store of Alder and Poplar trees.

That fifth year was our hardest year, with no rest for the masons, smiths or carpenters. The lay brothers said their offices and prayers as they worked.  My assistants Geoffrey and Ralph, and I sat far into the night, drawing on our tracing boards.  Geoffrey worked with the freestone carvers, planning, designing, giving each that for which his hand was most cunning.  Ralph did the same for the carvers of wood. These carvers had set up a lodge close by the work, and worked through the winter.  All exposed work was thatched against the frosts by trusses of straw.  A regular watch was set up because the country people would steal stones, mortar, wood or tools, as they did at York Minster, to the disgrace of the master mason and the Chapter.

And now we were ready to marry the vaulting with the stone roof ;  to clear the floor; to set in place the shrine of St. Wilfrid and the High Altar. Geoffrey rode away to bring back the painters and glaziers.  Ralph set our best wood carver to make the Bishop’s chair.  He saw that the rows of choir stalls were put in place, and closed off the choir with the rood screen.  The transept towers were finished, and strengthened against the day when the Nave should be built. The gap between the ends of the West walls of the transepts was filled in and a great wooden door made through which the new Bishop should enter upon his See.

My dear brother, you must be tired of all this gossip, and gossip it is, written partly to tell you  what sort of a life I have lived, partly to go over and set firmly in my mind memories of these past six years. I can truly say that I have worked well, by the help of God, and the support of a loyal band of artificers and craftsmen.

On Corpus Christi Day when the last of the clearing up was being done, but the workmen had not gone away, the freemasons made a pageant at the high end of a meadow against a wood. There they played their own mistery play.  I had never heard of this play in the south of England.  I was told that a squire  had brought back the story from the Holy Land.  The story spoke of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, so the squire said.

The workmen, the lay brothers, the country people, gathered before the pageant. King Solomon came on to the pageant, dressed in all his glory, paint, fur feathers, coloured cloths. He called for his master mason. This player had been made so like me that for a moment my breath stopped. The same clothes, the same crooked gait, (three times that leg had been broken ),  the same restless hands. There was a howl of recognition from the crowd, then a tempest of laughter and cheering. Solomon handed a scroll to his master mason and left the stage.  Three outlaws  from the wood came on to the stage, demanded the scroll, were refused, and after much mummery and violence, they laid the master dead – struck by one of his own instruments.  As you may imagine, the crowd jeered, hissed, and booed.  The body was immediately discovered by the craftsmen, Solomon summoned, and a hue and cry ordered.  Noise and shouting from the crowd  followed the freemasons as they rushed into the wood.  Presently they returned with the three ruffians whom the King ordered to be thrust into Hell, which had opened on one side of the pageant, complete with demons and pitch forks. The dead master mason was carried reverently away and the play was over.  The play was over, but not quite, for I found myself taken up onto the pageant,  and presented to the throng, which was  cheering and weeping at the same time.  King Solomon presented me with the scroll, the Abbot appeared, and we all knelt to receive his benediction.

The scroll was a letter of gratitude and affection, signed by the dear Abbot, the lay brothers, the master craftsmen, and all on the fabric roll.  It is beside me as I write and my eyes fill with an old man’s ready tears of pride and satisfaction.

Robert of Beverley Master Mason & Master of the work Cathedral Priory of St. Wilfrid, Edgeley. Vigil of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist Anno Domini 1272

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-42212

[before-and-during-parenthood]

"Unstructured playtime is more valuable for a young child's developing brain than is electronic media. Children younger than age 2 are more likely to learn when they interact and play with parents, siblings, and other children and adults."

Tips for setting screen time limits as a parent

Managing your child's screen time takes effort. Find out how to ensure quality screen time and set limits.

[crowleyhasfeels]

After a flat tire leaves a group of friends stranded on a desolate country road, they find themselves mercilessly picked off by an unseen sniper. (7/10)

So, I have so many mixed feelings about this movie. People have too much information that makes no sense. There is no reason for what is happening. Everything you expect to happen, happens. (I paused this movie constantly to talk and say "see what I thought would happen" only to unpause and have that happen. Does that mean it was a 'choose your own adventure' and I actually wrote this movie? No. If I wrote it, it would not have so many dumb actions.

Sounds like I hated it. Wrong. I loved this movie. I found it fantastic. Just don't look into sniper movies and feel you are going to be satisfied when you end up with a no-name cast, B-rated, did a little research and went with it horror (more thriller) film.

[ltwilliammowett]

A naval hand cannon, which were used off the Barbary Coast during the Age of Sail (i assume the Barbary Pirates), late 18th Century

Measures approximately 9 - 5/8" - 24.45 cm