#but reading this article was really hard :'(

[autumn-may]

Mostly spoiler free summary of my viewing experience

[essskel]

i’m so sorry but if you’re in the ‘fantasy media is escapism I don’t want to think about any REAL world problems‘ crowd then why are you posting about the witcher. there are few fantasy sagas that are quite so explicit and intentional as the Witcher when mirroring its characters, world, and conflict around real people, politics, and everyday struggles. also that’s why it’s GOOD

[yellow-yarrow]

"Now some of you might want to know whether demons still exist in the Elysium world in some way or form, I’m going to leave it hanging)." (x) okay well what is this then

Joyce Messier - "*A Deuill*," she pronounces: "*Who being of great Charme and Guille, sneaketh into the homes of the Godlie*." Conceptualization - That dialect is Ubi Sunt?. You recognize the quote from somewhere. A play, written way back in the Franconigerian century... Electrochemistry - Beneath her waterproof raincoat and silk shirt is a body imbibed in Numb 12 perfume. You are suddenly and intimately aware of it. You - "*And perswades them to addict themselues to his seruice...*" Joyce Messier - "Ah, you know more than you let on..." She gives you a coy little smile. "Philosopher-Detective of Precinct 41." You - (Nod.) "Devil Woman."

Harry is quoting from Daemonologie by King James VI (x)

Daemonologie [..]was first published in 1597[1] by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. [..] Daemonologie included a study of demonology and the methods demons used to bother troubled men. The book endorses the practice of witch hunting. This book is believed to be one of the main sources used by William Shakespeare in the production of Macbeth. (x)

the funniest thing is that I couldn't find Joyce's quote in Daemonologie. The sentence before Harry's quote is this:

Their mindes being prepared before hand, as I haue alreadie spoken, they easelie agreed vnto that demande of his: And syne settes an other tryist, where they may meete againe. At which time, before he proceede any further with them, he first perswades them to addict themselues to his seruice:

The only place I found that exact quote, was an article about Tony Blair, (published in 2014) (x), where he is described as some ancient evil demon. (it's pretty funny)

I think it's interesting how "Devil Woman" is mostly mentioned when there is something that reminds Harry of his ex

Joyce's perfume, which is "Sweet like the scent of chewing gum on some letter, long ago..."

Klaasje (blond young woman in disco era clothes, has birthmarks on her face - Dora had freckles)

Man from Hjelmdall and the Devil Woman book

another smell that is related to Dora is cinnamon

Apricot Chewing Gum Wrapper - There it is again -- the scent of apricots, with a touch of cinnamon. Smells like the end of some distant summer. The surface of another planet, or some ancient temple.

From Sacred and Terrible Air:

(..)was whispered into Fakkengaff’s ear by the very soul of debauchery. She had the white wings of an angel, but the breath against the disc jockey’s ear had been hot with passion, smelling of cinnamon and primal evil.

^ again with the evil thing (and aren't demons fallen angels?)

Daemonologie was written to endorse witch hunting and through the game there are times where Harry can say some pretty sexist stuff about women (calling them whores and devil women) so it's fitting

so. don't know where I'm going with this but pretty interesting stuff

[blamemma]

Daniel Ricciardo talks to Luke Smith, The Athletic, during the Australian GP

[watermelinoe]

rape is just a thing that may happen during war. we're not saying it didn't happen. it may have occurred. rape is not uncommon in war. it's not a weapon of war, there's no proof it's a pattern of violence against women, it's just something that happens for some reason.

[motherlarkspur]

Need you all to know that I wrote my midterm for my college art history class on homoeroticism in the Epic of Gilgamesh and other Ancient Mesopotamian Art. I went as far as to read papers about burial and mourning practices. My professor? Loved it.

[britneyshakespeare]

i'm very interested what ppl find to be the harder shakespeare plays and which they found to be easier. bc i was googling out of curiosity and i found a sparknotes article (link if you're curious) that ranked ten of the most commonly-read plays on difficulty and it put king lear kinda down low whereas it put julius caesar pretty high because of the politics/complicated conflicts. that kind of baffled me because julius caesar was the first tragedy i read outside of the classroom and i found it very approachable; it's one i often recommend to people trying to get into shakespeare because the plot is already familiar to most ppl and you can just enjoy the poetry and how shakespeare chooses to characterize these figures. on the other hand i read king lear a few years later in my shakespeare journey, and to be honest i still kind of have a hard time with lear. maybe i just don't connect with it on some level; i'm not sure. it's not a very tightly-organized play where the action is as centered as in the other tragedies like hamlet or macbeth. that's certainly a me thing and maybe that'll change with age. but i'm always a little surprised when i find someone's experience with the plays so much different than mine.

anyway if you're reading this feel free to reblog and tag or comment which shakespeare plays you found yourself falling into most naturally and which worlds you felt like you had to force yourself into. i'm interested in what ppl feel on this subject

[mrs-gauche]

Quick reminder, I'm gonna tag every spoilery post with "datv spoilers" from now on (or try to remember at least 😅).

[todayisafridaynight]

So Allegedly Infinite Wealth is 100 hours... not that you can't already spend that long on the games if you really want to, but I'd say it's the first time that could be said to be the base experience rather than a time only hardcore completionists are likely to get.

Yokoyama was talking at length about wanting to make the game worth the price tag since the team is incredibly conscious about the value of the players' time and money. They essentially feel they owe players ten times what they paid, so they're aiming for "an enjoyable 100 hours, but also an unforgettable 100 hours."

If they pull it off, I personally think it'd be 100% worth it and not just a "well other studios are doing it so we can get away with it too" price hike... I'm at least happy to know that's not the intent, and I'm intrigued to see how everything pans out and what the ratio is between story and side content

oh yayaya i saw that article this morning!!! 100 hours is actually so unfathomable to me in terms of an rgg game- i mean y7 was At Minimum around 45~50 hours but when i think of other RPGS that easily dip into 70's and 100's of hours, i'm not too surprised to see LAD start to climb towards those numbers now. it'd be such a jump in rgg's terms tho, so i'm TRULY curious to see where the nearly doubled gameplay hours comes from..

i really appreciate yoko's respect not just to RGGS but also to its customers: they want to make a great product, but they also don't want to sacrifice what they want to do to do that in the process

[shinobicyrus]

The tech industry is a huge part of the Israeli economy (accounting for 50% of Israel's exports) and the Israeli government loves their tech sector because it's been indelibly married with their larger military industry complex. Many of the high-tech surveillance and security systems monitoring the Gaza wall, for example, are the product of Israel's massive tech-sector, and all that is for sale to the highest bidder.

So hearing Israel be audibly anxious about how mobilizing a huge swath of their citizenry for ethnic cleansing is hurting their economy, their precious tech sector in particular, fills me with only the pettiest schadenfreude.

But the anti-capitalist in me is also mesmerized by this new portrait of dystopia Israel has dropped. That of the citizen-soldier that must also continue to work part-time while soldiering:

Early on in the war, Raz [a software engineer] was at his base within a few miles of the border with Gaza preparing for a mission, while simultaneously talking on his phone with an overseas customer about a software project. "I had to juggle between those two," recalls Raz, sitting in his company's glass-walled office with a view of the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. "I remember it being super, super hard." Israeli aircraft were firing guns overhead while Raz was talking business with a client. "One of the customers asked, 'What's this noise?' and I had to explain that this is shooting sounds," Raz recalls.

It's like being an "essential worker" but instead of COVID it's a goddamn war. You could write an entire book about the absurd concept of a soldier being force to juggle his job in a warzone for the sake of the economy.

The tech sector in Israel builds a huge number of military and intelligence (i.e. spying) systems, which they export to other countries. It's such a vital part of Israel's entire economy that the IDF is actively pulling back soldiers to lessen the burden on their workforce.

Israel's own economic anxiety has done more to temper their war crimes than international pressure has so far managed.

[coquelicoq]

i've gotten so used to my daily practice of reading french aloud that now when i have to read something boring in english for work i default to reading it aloud. which takes way longer and also i feel like i retain even less information than i would otherwise, somehow. the upside is that my oral reading cadence in english, even of dense scientific articles, is rather excellent nowadays. i could read scientific articles out loud for a living, if that was a thing people needed me to do. which they do not, because screenreaders are a thing. maybe i could read crusty PDFs out loud for a living? but anyway all this is to say shoutout to my man alexandre dumas and also my other man victor hugo for training me to read run-on sentences in my second language. after that, dry journal articles in my first language are easy peasy.

[gaytobymeres]

i think the point of a university-level education is a bit lost on some of my course mates...

[theblacksmudge]

Can people please stop taking articles by stitch*mancy seriously

[prosebushpatch]

fully aware that a night of sleep might be enough for me to realize it's garbage and still majorly lacking BUT I JUST WROTE A QUERY DRAFT FOR MY MERMAID STORY AND I THINK IM FINALLY ONTO SOMETHING. IT ONLY TOOK, WHAT, 5 YEARS TO FIGURE OUT QUERIES?!?!?!

[hometownrockstar]

writing advice is tricky bc i truly believe any kind of writing can work and any "rule" or trick can be broken effectively. Even "show don't tell" or unnecessary details or whatever. It really only comes down to execution, like show don't tell is good advice for writers who want to convey emotion and information in an interesting way to connect with the reader, but theres tons of very famous good writers who dont follow the rule. Its also hard bc not all writing styles can appeal to everyone, so "not liking the execution" might not exactly equal "bad execution". I guess my writing advice is to read authors who do interesting things with worldbuilding, prose, grammer, formatting, ect. Like get very varied, and to identify how you want to write and see what connects with you best, instead of relying on "dont do this" advice

[wc-confessions]

ykw i actually do not blame those who choose to see or genuinely believe nightheart is a unreliable narrator bc i can actually see. that. however its also so hard to really dig it because the erins keep backtracking then adding these weird comments that are bascially just 'sure hes unreliable but also you Should side with him look how sad he is and everyone just doesnt understand but also who knows maybe thats not true maybe it is'

like. i feel like its just hard to really say until we actually get a real conclusion so i think fighting over it is kinda dumb..bc rereading Everything it just seems like. even the erins arent quite so sure and are desperately trying to fight between babying their male protagonist and going with something unique and greatly altering for the series. cause certain scenes Do read like unreliable narration but then every other scene it feels like the world is kinda of justifying every occurance despite what we are supposed to trust does that make sense