Comme une Plume au Vent

HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")

In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.

A good boss (liege lord) is:

Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.

Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.

Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.

Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.

Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).

Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"

Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.

Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.

Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.

Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.

Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.

Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.

The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.

TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"

for any address to twitter you can replace the “x.com” with “nitter.net” and you will be able to browse as if you have an account. Lifesaver.

HMMM! (and thank you for sending me these anons!)

I suspect it depends on what tradition we’re drawing from. Werewolves as a whole are mostly a European thing, although people changing into or communing with animals is pretty much a worldwide myth. 

Some things to think about: If you’re not fully conscious (or not conscious in the same way) when you’re a wolf, are you accountable for any destruction you cause? Does transformation count as work? (Also, if you can’t stop yourself from doing work, you probably aren’t breaking Shabbat..) Can you attend synagogue as a wolf?

In the former case, a lot of the issues around Shabbat and holiday observance would be simplified using the principle of mitzvot aseh she’ha’zman grama, which means “positive commandments that must occur at a specific time.” The rabbis exempted women from prayer because it occurs at a specific hour of the day, and that is not compatible with the demands of childcare. However, they are obligated for weekly and monthly commandments like Shabbat and holidays, since that’s flexible enough for them to participate. A rabbinic court could use this precedent to create a similar exemption for werewolves, exempting them from all positive commandments that must occur at a specific monthly (rather than daily) time.

Managing on one’s own, the first priority must be human life - including one’s own. If trying to participate in the holiday would possibly endanger themselves or others, the werewolf would be actively forbidden to do so. In fact, I would argue that the werewolf would be positively obligated to take the necessary measures to prevent harm. If they take all possible precautions, and they still harm someone (or even do damage to property), then they are only responsible as an ones - someone to whom an unforeseeable accident has happened. If they took shoddy or irresponsible precautions, then they’d be responsible as a shogeg - someone who errs through carelessness or poor judgment. Finally, if they knew they would inevitably turn into a werewolf but took no precautions to mitigate harm, then they would be responsible as amezid - someone who is deliberately and fully responsible for the wrong they do. I won’t recap the entirety of Jewish civil and criminal law, but in almost all cases the penalties increase as you move up through the three categories.

(One could also argue that the werewolf is a tinok she’nishba, a child without proper knowledge, when in their wolf form. Such a person is not responsible for their actions, not even to the level of an ones. However, the principle of psik reisha lo yamut - that you are responsible for the illegal consequences of legal acts - would suggest that the ones-shogeg-mezid framework is more appropriate. At the time when you were still human, you had the chance to take actions that affected what would happen when you became a wolf.)

Fortunately, the werewolf does escape some problems with mitzvot just by being a wolf. For example, the thirty-nine categories of melacha, work, that are forbidden on Shabbat are precisely and deliberately categories of human work. A wolf doesn’t weave, for example, or light a fire. Even if they, say, did an action that is isomorphic to melacha, like ripping a piece of cloth, they are not capable of intending the action as work.

On the other hand, there are rabbis who would argue that animals are inherently muktza, inappropriate for use on Shabbat. That stricture would apply not to the werewolf themselves, but rather to other Jews who would not be allowed to touch, move, or benefit from the wolf. This is a minority opinion, though, which is a relief to those of us who own pets! It’s not something that would affect werejews in most communities.

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.

Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.

These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.

With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.

Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.

Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.

Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: With wrong side facing, take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.

This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.

Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.

The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.

First, my apologies; Doctor Fiction has spent the last few weeks wrapping up some developmental copyediting coursework and revising the prologue and epilogue of my latest novel. I have a backlog of excellent questions that I will work through as quickly as possible.

An injury of this type is called a Traumatic Pneumothorax.

Pneumothorax has many fiction applications and is a great device to incapacitate, or if the plot warrants, terminate a character. The medical sequelae (outcome) can be mild and develop over hours to days or catastrophic and occur in less than a minute or anything in-between.  

As usual, we begin with a little anatomy and physiology, progress to pathology, and finish with a few fiction applications.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

Anatomy and Physiology: (The Good)

Lungs: Paired organs used to exchange carbon dioxide, the bodies waste gas, carbon dioxide, for oxygen (oxygen makes up approximately 21% of what passes for “fresh air” in our current environment.)

Thoracic Cavity: The lungs are contained within the Thoracic or Chest cavity. This cavity is lined with a slippery membrane called the pleura.

Pleura: This membrane lines the thoracic cavity. It secretes a serous fluid that keeps the lung in direct contact with the inner wall of the chest cavity but allows it to slide freely while breathing.

Pleural Space: This is a potential space between the lung surface and the cavity wall. Any injury or disease process that converts this potential space into an actual space is called a Pneumothorax.

Pericardial Sac: This is a double-walled sac containing the heart. It is located in roughly the center of the chest cavity and contains a pericardial membrane that functions like the pleural membrane for the heart.

Trachea and Bronchi: This is the “breathing tube.” Think of it as an inverted “Y” with one bronchus branching off the trachea to each lung and the trachea or root of the Y accessing the outside air via the mouth and nose.

Alveoli: There are over six hundred million of these tiny air sacs in the lung. Each one communicates with the circulatory system via its own venule and arteriole which are connected by a capillary bed wrapped around the alveoli.

The venules carry oxygen-depleted blood and carbon dioxide to the Capillary Bed where the inspired oxygen is extracted and the carbon dioxide discarded. The arterioles then carry the oxygen-rich blood back to the heart where it is distributed to the body and the whole process repeats itself.

 Pneumothorax: (The Bad)

A pneumothorax is the creation of air space between the chest wall and the lungs for ANY reason. Pneumothoraxes (sounds like a character from Dr. Seuss) can be categorized two ways:

By their etiology, that is their cause, which can be spontaneous or traumatic.

Spontaneous Pneumothorax

·      Medical condition: asthma, lung cancer, or chronic pulmonary disease

·      Genetics: Cystic Fibrosis, Marfan’s Syndrome, or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

·      Physical Attributes: Thin males between the ages of 15-34 have a five-fold risk

·      Lifestyle:  Smokers have a twenty-two-fold risk increase over non-smokers

 Traumatic Pneumothorax

·      Penetrating Chest Wound: gunshot, stabbing, foreign bodies (open to outside)

·      Blunt Trauma: fractured rib (closed to outside)

·      Barotrauma: sudden pressure change: SCUBA and blast injuries (closed)

The second and more germane classification is by their presentation as Simple or Tension. In the most basic terms, a Simple pneumothorax is the creation of a space between lung and chest wall which is uncomfortable, may require intervention, but does not expand and is not life-threatening.

 This qualifies as, The Bad, but it does not qualify as …

Tension Pneumothorax: (The Ugly)

Each time you take a breath, a small amount of air moves into the space between the lungs and the chest wall and cannot escape. This results in several forms of badness:

·      The air trapped between the lung and the chest wall does not pass through the alveoli, and as such, cannot replace the carbon dioxide waste with needed oxygen.

·      With each breath, the space grows larger and pushes against the lung (tension pneumothorax), compressing the alveoli and further decreasing function.

·      This ever-expanding bag of air pushes against the pericardial sac and compresses the heart, decreasing cardiac output. This is rapidly fatal without immediate intervention. The “Adam’s Apple” or trachea shifts or “points” to the side where the pneumothorax is. (this information will be helpful later)

If the stab wound has pierced a blood vessel, potential space may be filling with blood as well, creating a hemopneumothorax an all too common occurrence here in the emergency department knife and gun club.

The Cure

 In an Emergency Room:

In a Closed Pneumothorax insert a chest tube with a one-way valve so that each inhalation will force air out, decrease the size of the air pocket, and alleviate the symptoms.

 Treating Open Pneumothorax is a rapid-succession two-step procedure:

·      Close the sucking chest wound to stop the influx of air through the chest wall

 ·      Insert a chest tube as above to decrease the size of the pneumothorax.

 In the case of hemopneumothorax; if the bleed has stopped, the chest tube will clear the blood. If not, surgery is required to “tie-off” the bleeder.

And now … Fiction:

           So, your character is in the field, far removed from a hospital. This is well and good if you want him to die. If not …

          Suppose your character has suffered a closed tension pneumothorax:

 ·      Blast Injury: the character has punctured a lung due to over-pressure. They may have other injuries as well.

 ·      Blunt Trauma: fall from a height, hit by a car, smacked by a bear, etc.

 ·      SCUBA: saw a monster on the bottom, came up to quickly and dropped a lung due to pressure change

 Improvised Chest Tube:

 Supplies: a pocket knife, ink pen, plastic glove, duct tape, and left-over alcohol from last night’s festivities.

 Technique: have your rescuer pick a spot halfway between the armpit and the nipple on the affected side (remember the tracheal shift) and count down four or five ribs.

 Clean the area with the alcohol. Clean the pocket knife with the alcohol. Remove the cartridge from the ink pen and use the barrel without the clicker. Cut a finger off the glove with your knife and cut a hole in the tip of the glove finger. Slip the glove finger over the non-pointy end of the ink pen barrel and secure with a small strip of duct tape.

Your rescuer will need to make a small puncture over the rib and push the pointy end of the ink pen barrel over the top of the rib so that it enters the chest cavity. There will be a slight “whoosh” of air as the pneumothorax decompresses; the vein, artery, and nerve of the rib run along the bottom and MUCH badness will occur if they are injured. The area around the pin is sealed and secured with wide strips of duct tape.

If the injury is an open tension pneumothorax:

·      Knife Wound

 ·      Puncture wound of any type: tree branch, punji stick, fence picket, etc.

 ·      Gunshot Wound

 If the hole is small, your rescuer could insert the makeshift chest tube as above through the opening. Alternatively, the hole could be covered with duct tape to create a closed pneumothorax and the chest tube inserted in the as above.

If there are no supplies for a chest tube, a flap valve can be created by taking a piece of plastic wrap or thin ground cloth sufficient to cover the wound and securing it on three sides with duct tape. The open side functions as a flap valve, letting the air escape but not reenter the pneumothorax.

This may get your character to a hospital.

This is a long post, but now that you know the anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology you can use it in your writing.

Click the link below for the rules for questions

what kind of english is that? let's look at some famous examples of each.

Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, / þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, / hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. <- this is old english. note that it is unintelligible to a modern english speaker. (excerpt from beowulf)

Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth / Inspired hath in every holt and heeth / Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne / Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne … <- this is middle english. it is more intelligible, but it’s still very different from what we speak now. (excerpt from the canterbury tales)

Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. / Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight? <- this is early modern english. this is so intelligible that we trust teenagers to read it in school. (excerpt from macbeth)

the english you are using to give a post a medieval or renaissance/shakespearean vibe is early modern english, not old english. (it's fine that you're using early modern english for a medieval vibe; no one expects you to learn middle english for a silly post about knights.)

how do you use pronouns?

'thou' is the informal second-person singular pronoun.

thou/thee/thy/thine

thou is the nominative form. you can use it for the subject of a sentence -> thou knowest me.

thee is the oblique form. you can use it for the object of a sentence -> i know thee.

thy and thine are the genitive forms. you can use them as possessive adjectives for nouns starting with consonants and vowels respectively. -> thy leg is broken. thine arm is broken too.

thine is also the possessive form. think about it like the word 'mine'*. -> my heart was once thine.

*'mine' is also used like thine as a possessive adjective in early modern english; you would say 'mine art' instead of 'my art'

ye and you

originally, 'ye' was the formal or plural nominitive second-person pronoun, and 'you' was the oblique form. so, it would be 'ye know me' and 'i know you'. 'ye' fell out of use and was replaced by 'you'. at that point it was already used as singular. but it was still much more formal than 'thou'.

the 'ye' you see in 'ye olde shoppe' stuff is not this pronoun. it is the way that printers who no longer had a thorn (þ) wrote the word 'the' (previously 'þe'). the 'y' in certain typefaces looked like a thorn, so we got 'ye' for 'the'.

how do you conjugate a verb?

you can't just slap a -th or -st onto the end of any verb. those are for specific conjugations. phrases like "i hath noticed" or "he thinkest that" are not grammatically sound. it's like saying "i has noticed" or "he think that".

the -st or -est ending is for (most) present and past tense verbs conjugated with 'thou'

some examples: thou canst, thou couldst, thou sayest, thou goest, thou wentest, thou hast, thou hadst, thou dost (or doest).

'thou' also has a few irregulars. some examples: thou wilt, thou art and thou wast (for 'to be'), thou shalt.

the -th or -eth ending is for (most) present and past tense conjugated with 'he', 'she', or 'it'

some examples: he hath, she sayeth, it doth, he goeth, she thinketh, it moveth

there are, of course, irregulars. the most important one is 'to be', which conjugates the same for this set as it does in modern english.

note: not every verb conjugates this way. for example, past tense verbs might use auxiliary verbs. so, not 'she cookedeth', but 'she did cook'.

by and large, the 'i', 'we', 'you' (or 'ye'), and 'they' conjugations were the same as they are today.

there were also some verbs that were used differently than we use them today, though (some of these fell out of use over the early modern period):

to be -> sometimes this verb is used instead of 'to have' as the auxiliary verb. 'i am arrived' means 'i have arrived', and 'she is come to see thee' means 'she has come to see you'.

to do -> sometimes this is used for the present progressive (i think that's the right name for it). 'he does speak' means 'he is speaking', and 'i do write' means 'i am writing'.

would -> this can be used to express a desire. 'i would i were a bird' means 'i wish i were a bird'

must -> this can be used without 'go' to mean 'must go'. 'i must to england' means 'i must go to england'

will -> this can be used without 'have' to mean 'will have'. 'you'll none of that' means 'you will have none of that'

there are a million other things i'm not covering, like different sentence structures for questions ('thinkest thou...?' as a valid alternative to 'dost thou think...?'), and different contractions ('she'll not' rather than 'she won't') but this post is long as fuck and i have things to do! enjoy! linguists, feel free to correct me on what name of tenses or declensions or whatever i have mixed up.

'wherefore' = 'why', not 'where'. think about it pairing with 'therefore'. an example of the two in use:

'my love, wherefore didst thou pretend to see me not?' [babe, why did you pretend not to see me?]

'thy father, from whom we do keep our love hidden, did at that moment walk nearby. therefore i turned from thee that he might not espy us together' [we're keeping our relationship secret from your dad and he was walking by. i did it so he wouldn't see us together.]

'hither' = 'to here', not 'here'. there's a whole set of these, actually. 'whither' = 'to where' and 'thither' = 'to there'. these pair with 'hence' ('from here'), 'whence' ('from where'), and 'thence' ('from there'). an example of some of these in use:

'whence came you?' [where did you come from?]

(pointing to the left) 'thence came i hither.' [i came here from there.]

'and whither go you now?' [and where are you going now?]

(pointing to the right) 'my lord calls me thither.' [my boss is calling me over there]

'very well. get you hence.' [alright, get away from here.]

'whom' ≠ fancy 'who' and this one is just also true today.

'whom' works for the object of a sentence. 'who' is for the subject. in other words, 'whom' receives the action and 'who' does the action.

'whom wrote that letter to you?' -> incorrect! this should be 'who wrote that letter to you?' because 'who' is doing the action.

'whom did you write that letter to?' (or even better, 'to whom did you write that letter?') -> correct! 'whom' here is receiving the action.