Toth

Should we put on a Fallout songs playlist?

Uhm, I'm getting the impression that you think social democrats are far left because they have 'social' in their name. Well, originally they were, a hundred years ago, but Schröder is just a combination of corporate shill and narcissistic village idiot who likes the attention of him bragging with his oh so personal friendship with Putin. Since I learned the word Tankie at the same time as you, by reading the Ukraine thread yesterday, I'm not entirely sure, but I think if you want to look for people with boners for Stalinist communism, you probably have to comb through some parts of Die Linke, though for most their anti-NATO pro-Russia stance comes across as more of a deluded attempt at pacifism in which dismantling NATO would magically make Putin go away. Though there probably are a few confused former SED members among them who somehow slept through the last three decades of Russian history.

You bet he does. A while ago he published an op-ed claiming this is all because of Ukraine's aggression. Which is pretty much in line with what Russian media says. When I looked up a site two days ago it was just a barrage of "Ukraine attacked this", Ukraine attacked that".

Shouldn't Schröder be on a list of sanctioned Russian agents? I say freeze his assets!

To be fair, I kinda let them die on purpose because technically it would be nice to have a dinner table again. Edit: And like I said, letting them handle the winter on their own only killed a small number of them. Interestingly, those in the plastic pots have proved the toughest while those in the repurposed terracotta pots and salad bowls died first even though they technically should have had the most space for roots.

Updates from my windowsill farm: - one of my chestnuts unfortunately died, the other however is becoming quite big and trying to reach the height of the oven. I tried to put the others into the freezer like many of the recommendations told me, but when I planted them afterwards, nothing happened. I guess that trick doesn't work for me. - one of my colleagues gave me one of the avocado seeds she had been busy germinating. It has been quite difficult to keep it alive. At one point all of its leaves rolled up and, having seen a video where the same was done to chestnuts, I cut open an ice tea tetra pak and planted it in there. Somehow it made a recovery, with only one of the rolled up leaves falling off, the others getting some strength pack and new leaves growing. My colleague told me that around the same time all of her avocadoes died. - having watched a report about scientists in Israel bringing back an extinct date palm species by planting 2000 years old seeds I thought to myself that this can't be that hard, can it be? So I bought some dates and tried to germinate the seeds. Somehow all it did was them getting ugly pimples all over the place, making me worry that they might have just getting mold. When I planted them, either they just deflated and died or nothing happened at all. Damn... - in another spontaneous idea I bought a bunch of lychees to try and plant them. I put them first into water where the shells of the seed cracked, but they never developed roots, even when I put them into a wet paper tissue that seems to be the general all-purpose germination trick. However, when I planted some of them out of impatience and accidentally uncovered one of them yesterday, it had developed a thick root downwards, even though no plant was visible as of yet. So I will keep watching how this will develop - one thing that does work fantastically: Mango! I opened up the core of one, put the seed inside into a wet tissue and let it soak below the heater for a couple of weeks and it worked amazingly, growing a root and the plant while still inside the plastic box. I planted it recently and the plant itself has started to right itself up after just two or three days or so. - my pepper army has taken some losses over the winter, they especially don't seem to like having too little light, but there was no helping that. I'm actually surprised how many of them are still going strong. Also somehow, inexplicably, four of my tomatoes have survived as well. It's probably pointless to keep them for more than a year, but I'm hesitant to throw away anything that is still alive

Strange. When does the communist dictatorship start that Söder promised me?

Absolutely, but at the same time looking like kindergarten kids while have incidences of above 1100 in some regions because of vaccination rates below 70% and people forget to get the booster shots.

Well, and we are only marginally better off, but on top of that have no functioning government. Söder accuses Scholz of not doing enough as the next chancellor while Scholz fires back that he is not yet chancellor and it's the CDU/CSU's job to do something (even though the SPD is still coalition partner), meanwhile Merkel carefully asks the presidents of the federal states to come together... maybe next week. It's ship without captain.

Fine, maybe thug is the wrong word, but in my interpretation I chalked most of his problematic decisions up to sheer impatience with political intrigues and bull-headed insistence to get whatever he wants or needs at the moment, everyone else be damned. But thanks, I keep that one in mind! I knooow. That's actually why I asked for recommendations not for topics I intend to write, but in which I already have written. To just see how others may have handled the same issues that I had. I do find it highly problematic myself to let myself influence by anything other than my own research. And yes, the role of women in these histories is also something peculiar. Like with Richard growing up at his mother's court alongside his sisters makes not having them as characters silly, what with his mother being the motherfucking Eleanor of Aquitaine, crashing the party on Sicily with Berengaria, also his sister Joan being dragged along for the crusading ride and there being the whole issue about Isabella of Jerusalem and all the plots about who gets to marry her (with several conspirators being female themselves...). Or simply having to give not just Nefertari (who everyone knows anyway) a role in a Ramesses story, but also Queen Tuya and the endlessly sarcastic Hittite Queen Puduhepa, what with the copious amounts of correspondence of them that underlines their importance here. Heck, that very same correspondence shows Ramesses being surprisingly blunt and self-aware about being a total slave to PR in what should be considered diplomatic correspondence.

Just found this thread and am a little curious given my strange situation where someone should start reading historical fiction who... somehow drastically prefers writing it rather than reading it. At all. As a nit-picky guy with a history Master I'm getting severely irritated when the setting doesn't feel 'right', the speech patterns are too modern and the characters not fitting the era in their belief system. I'm not saying I'm better, not at all, but when I write stories set in the past, I at least have control over how much artistic licence I give to myself... and how much I wander off and try to narrate actual historic events 'on a ground level' with no heed of containing myself within what makes sense thematically (and in terms of scale). The discussion right now about "Women of Troy" I find intriguing, given how one of my stories is indeed a take on Troy from the perspective of Penthesilea. Makes me think that it would be interesting to track down much more competent writers and see how their take on this is. So either I could get inspired, roll my eyes, or shrink in shame.^^ Looking through the pages here, I guess the other most interesting mentions here are Cornwell's Arthurian books given how myself also default in my Arthur picture to a Romano-British warlord. And given how I'm forever typecast as the Ancient Egypt guy and also wrote extensively about Ramesses, I guess Christian Jacq may be worth a look. But his mention threw me right back to where my thought process started: I did leaf through a Christian Jacq book once in the waiting area of my dentist. And... I found it really weird with extremely anachronistic dialogue that instantly threw me out of the setting. So I'm back to being extremely hesitant about that one. Anyone know anything worthwhile featuring Richard Lionheart? I have vague memories of having read "The Talisman" at my library as a kid, which I guess has somewhat influenced me in having my fun about making Richard really like having a chivalrous reputation, but is there anything that also portrays him as a politically inept thug?

Well, it certainly needs to be moved from the roads to prevent injuries. Wet leaves are a nasty hazard. Not sure how much grass you have in public spaces. That you have to remove it from large grass patches is something I also heard, but it is definitely encouraged to leave it below your shrubs for insects and hedgehogs to hibernate with. Heck, here if you are a garden owner this is the season where you can barely walk two steps in the evening without getting run over by a hedgehog huffing and puffing about their business. You really shouldn't take away their leaves.^^

Mmh... first I have heard of that. Have you tried it yourself? Because I seriously didn't do anything other than take the seeds from one bell pepper in a packaged bag from the supermarket, throw them in the bucket and then get overrun by plants.

Wednesday I wanted to dig up the chestnuts to put them into the freezer after watching some Youtube videos explaining that this is what you've gotta do to make them sprout. Well... apparently not me. Two of the four planted chestnuts turned out to already have sprouts. Today I came back to dig one of those up to put it into a separate pot, but it turned into a bit of a hassle because the root was already like 10 cm deep. Little buggers grow fast! ... also, while I was already at it, I randomly buried two walnuts next to it... I mean... why not?

Doesn't even need to do that. Everywhere I am baffled to see people complaining about how the absurdly risen fuel and heating prices are all the fault of the Greens, somehow, despite the new coalition not even having formed yet and it's mostly derived from the gas and oil shortage due to Asia (China) buying out the market (and the idiocy of the German providers not stocking up in summer and now punishing the consumers for it). Not quite sure where this originates from, but I did notice yesterday when switching to RTL group derived news they were quick to start their segment with blaming the CO² tax before bringing in an interview with a woman who then stated the actual reasons.

I must admit, the Corona lockdown had succeeded in turning me crazy. I don't have a garden. I don't even have a balcony. But still at the beginning of all this I jokingly thought to myself that it would be neat to be self-sustaining like some kind of prepper. So I started randomly planting all kinds of seeds that piled up from whatever fruits were currently on the table. I planted loads and loads of orange, lemon, tangerine, pear, pomegrenate, tomato, pepper, currant, strawberry, cherry, mirabelle and gooseberry seeds. Absolutely convinced that they wouldn't become anything anyway, so I planted them in wild abandon. Well, fuck me. By now all window sills and the whole dining table are covered in plants. Oranges, tangerines, peppers and tomatoes definitely work the best. Mad as hell that my lemons and pears got killed by a spider mite infestation. For the last month I have been able to harvest lots of tomatoes and peppers, the peppers even tasting astonishingly close to the hyperengineered supermarket peppers I took the seeds from. In fact: Those fucking peppers! I took all the seeds from a single yellow pepper that I thought wasn't ripe anyway and threw all of them into one bucket of soil, learning far too late that yellow peppers are just a type of pepper and not a state of ripening. Next I knew I had 45 goddamn pepper plants to tend to. I... honestly can highly recommend it, these little guys are perfect for your little home farming enterprise. The pomegrenates are also terrific. Planted three, two sprouted and even though one at one point looked a bit frail, they have now grown to quite the impressive height. Unfortunately I don't have the patience for any kind of stone fruits. I read somewhere that you can drastically increase the speed of cherries sprouting by carefully cracking the shells, so I did that, but it didn't lead to anything. Berries hate me as well. Now the next step of insanity came upon me: On my way back home I found a couple of marron trees that were already dropping their fruits. Well... I grabbed a handful of them and we'll see whether I can make some of those sprout. Has anyone experience with those?

*squints at Superman & Lois* Well, there is still hope...

Anyone else following Higurashi Sotsu or Magia Record right now? In Higurashi Gou/Sotsu's 34th episode they went and had a bit of a meta escalation extremely reminiscent of Umineko. I seem to be in quite a minority with my take on things, but given how the internet hivemind bolstered by leaks and the like always turns out right, I'm somewhat confused. Meanwhile Magia Record keeps massively improving upon the game's story, setting up in wide strides the events of the game's finale. And I pretty much love it! Damn, the writing is impressive and I'm still awed what the fuck happened in the gap between this second season and the painfully mediocre first season.

Just fyi, in my now deleted post I covered that on a weekday I have to be up at 4:45am. If I have to wake up any earlier, I can scratch sleep altogether.

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What is happening? What should have been good is mediocre and what should have been mediocre is suddenly actually great? Now a couple of weeks ago the second season of the Higurashi sequel, now dubbed Higurashi Sotsu, started. Individual scenes are well crafted and there are a lot of interesting visual callbacks to the original Higurashi in there. Unfortunately that's all there is to it. There are some stunning leaps of logic in there and it is all so stunningly predictable, depicting the most lazy way the 'mysteries' presented in Gou happened. I suppose the idea is indeed that they think it clever that it's the original arcs, just that the most obvious solution is this time correct, but for this kind of non-twist the show has far too many episodes. It drags on and on detailing stuff that has been already blatantly clear since about 20 episodes ago and it's so goddamn boring. Please go back to the meat of the story with the whole post-Matsuriyabashi looper-thunderdome. Then the second season of the Madoka Magica spin-off Magia Record started yesterday. I went in with all my hazy memories of being disappointed in the first season not being daring enough to actually change the meat of the rather thin Mobile Game it is made from. And then comes in this episode that works basically on the premise of how Madoka and Homura not being present during the arc where they had been originally introduced has massive consequences on the dynamics of the cast as they end up having to speed-run through the core revelations of the setting and work out their issues in time to go rescue Mami in Kamihama. This is all Anime original stuff and it was fantastic. Especially as a Sayaka fan, her journey through all kinds of emotions during this episode was a massive treat and made me somewhat teary eyed. My girl is so strong here! XD Hot damn. Am I being more hopeful? Fuck, I think the first episode of the first season was also rather good. No.... please don't give me hope only to then be mediocre again, please... But until then, I can encourage every Madoka Magica fan to watch at least this episode, because it's absolutely worth it: https://imgur.com/a/JO4xXsv

I should probably note what happened with my Higurashi Gou watch: The show has wrapped up its first season and is on a break with a second cour following in July. Now looking back on the show I am extremely conflict. The core idea and the conflict that they want to create is really great and I love how Gou is built to be a crossroads for the wider When they Cry franchise which up until consisted only of rather vaguely connected individual stories which take place in completely different worlds and only a very meta-textual overlap of characters. And then in comes Gou and massively fleshes out that concept and telling a story that Umineko alluded to that seemingly was Higurashi, but never quite and now rectifying that dissonance. Unfortunately on the other hand of the spectrum I must note that the direction is abysmal. I already noted in my previous reviews that I found myself very irritated about how the show keeps covering already well known Higurashi material for no other reason than an initial joke that got dragged out for FAR too long. Similarly the second half, while starting out as a great bridge between Matsuriyabashi and Gou to explain what the fuck happened that the characters got stuck again in 1983, it ended up surprisingly hasty in explaining how it happened while at the same time treating the necessary character development haphazardly and outright ignoring characters and motivations that would have affected the outcome that they wanted for the villain of the story, something that goes extremely against Higurashi's core principle of being a character-driven clockwork made of confliction motivations that all create the plot. It's a serious shame because I could see it working out extremely well with a tighter script and only half the episodes. In other news, I also recently saw the third Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel movie. If you had read some of my reviews here before, you probably noticed I'm a masochist for the Fate franchise. And the weirdest part is... I... I actually liked the movie! Bloody hell, how did they manage that? Okay, I do know how they managed that, but that only makes me more confused: The movie was basically just a barrage of pivotal character moments where they agonized about the decisions they are making and question their motivations. The only problem is that the two movies before that do an abysmal job getting these motivations across (if they even attempted it at all). So... Heaven's Feel III works great, for people like me who spent the last seven years tearing this franchise apart and know these characters and their motivations by heart. People who just watched this and UBW (and you have to watch UBW because Heaven's Feel I skips all the scenes they have in common) will probably feel super confused and not buy it at all. Also the fight scenes in this one are spectacular in a good way. So far I had been very disappointed in the fight scenes in ufotables Stay Night in comparison to Fate/Zero since their fights and their choreography rarely accomplished anything other than paint the characters as super duper powerful. Something Fate/Zero accomplished utterly implicitly if you bothered to look at the carnage around them, but the focus of the Fate/Zero fights still lingered on the strategies of how the characters approach their fights and become more a test of their motivations than anything. Meanwhile in Fate/Stay Night it's just flailing with pretty CGI effects. So imagine my surprise that I found them actually interesting here, given how short most of the fights are and how they usually served a clear purpose for the advancement of the plot, while also allowed moments of characterization to shine through instead of "Gate of Babylon goes brrrrr". Apparently it helps that they poured all their budget into the ultimately relatively meaningless Rider vs. Saber fight that goes on for seven fucking minutes and is just 'splosions as Michael Bay took over for a bit.

I mean... I feel you. I started to watch the entirety of Detective Conan, about 7 years ago and still only got till... *checks bookmark* Episode 855. Detective Conan just hit the 1000 episode mark as well.

Okay, I'm curious whether you can tell us in, like, five years or so whether they found the damn treasure yet.^^