mintie

cats when you step on their tail: i'll admit that was rather ouchie, but given the lifetime of goodwill and trust between us, one must conclude this booboo is but a fluke.

A very, very specific cdrama thing that I adore is when writers play with names. The fact that all of these women literally were never referred to by their actual names in the palace and Ruyi remembers.

Also ok for SCIENCE I timed myself and quickly reciting the first 5 lines took 16 seconds, let’s call that fifteen because I mispronounced meodosetla. At that pace (if you could keep it up consistently and I mean never cough never take a drink) you’d be looking at 2.65 hours, or 2 hours and 39 minutes (or 159 minutes). This is actually 20 minutes shorter than the theatrical run-time of Peter Jackson’s Two Towers (179 minutes).

Now, the original post was about reciting Beowulf in an hour, so 2 hours and 39 minutes is not gonna cut it, and is so far over time that even doubling your pace can’t save you. You’re gonna lose this speedrun and Æthelflæd’s new scop poet is going to laugh at you. However, there’s a cheat to exploit here. In the period when Old English (language of Beowulf) was spoken, people often just said there were 12 hours in a day and 12 hours in a night, no longer how long or short daylight actually was. This made the concept of a daylight hour stretch in summer, when daylight lasts way longer than 12 hours. There’s a good article on this I’ll find it if anyone wants it. I don’t actually expect anyone to have read this far.

also, extracts from my latest wiki exploration

He had an insatiable appetite for collecting, and acquired much of China's "great private collections" by any means necessary.

On several occasions he claimed that a painting could be secure from theft or fire only if it was taken into the Forbidden City.

i'm 100% reading this in a mafia voice "you can either give me [famous painting] willingly, or i will steal it and/or set your house on fire."

The Emperor's massive art collection became an intimate part of his life; he took landscape paintings with him on his travels to compare them with the actual landscapes, or to hang them in special rooms in palaces where he lodged, in order to inscribe them on every visit there.

"i pack only the absolute necessities for my trips. some teeth powder, fruit snacks, change of clothes, several hundred retainers, and the song dynasty silk scroll painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival."

@giftober 2024 | Day 15: "references"