The Adventures of Jorge Luis Borges, Part Two

Shadow of the Erdtree builds onto the story of the base game of Elden Ring by asking important philosophical questions such as, "How do you feel about scorpions?" and "What would you do if there were giant scorpions?"

I haven't gotten to the part of the DLC that's hard yet. My initial impression regrading the DLC is that the level of difficulty is fairly chill, and I've been taking my time and enjoying the scenery. The landscape is lovely, and there are a lot of cool little NPCs scattered about. FromSoft really outdid themselves.

I'm not sure what order you're supposed to go in, but Jorge's first port of call was Belurat, Tower Settlement. Belurat is a fun mini-city with a gentle upward vertical orientation. Last night, Jorge found a "Well Depths Key" item, which leads me to believe that the area extends underground as well. I am the world's #1 Sewer Level Appreciator, so you can imagine my surprise and delight at this discovery. I'm looking forward to the horrors.

Legions of Pigs

Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West
https://www.amazon.com/Legions-Early-Medieval-Agrarian-Studies/dp/0300246293/

From North Africa to the British Isles, pigs were a crucial part of agriculture and culture in the early medieval period. Jamie Kreiner examines how this ubiquitous species was integrated into early medieval ecologies and transformed the way that people thought about the world around them.

Kreiner tracks the interlocking relationships between pigs and humans by drawing on textual and visual evidence, bioarchaeology and settlement archaeology, and mammal biology. She shows how early medieval communities bent their own lives in order to accommodate these tricky animals—and how in the process they reconfigured their agrarian regimes, their fiscal policies, and their very identities.

Yes!!! Someone wrote a book just for me!

I've always been really curious about European history and culture, but I'm bored to tears by wars and kings. This is exactly the sort of scholarship I've been craving.