#jarring

[frankencanon]

Reading the manhwa, I always wondered what was up with Ron and the lemonade but I think the novel makes it a lot clearer:

Twice Cale asked for cold water and twice three times he—out of character—thanked Ron for it. So the next time he asked Ron decided to test him by bringing him something he knew Cale would hate in order to see what he would do.

Would Cale go back to normal and throw a tantrum like usual? Or would he keep up this strange, suddenly polite act?

And of course Cale, fearful of retribution assassin-style, just thanked Ron again. He even drank the lemonade.

"Thanks," he said. "That's good stuff," he said.

(Honestly, if I were Ron I'd be tempted to keep feeding him lemonade, too… I mean, if he's gonna react like that… Choking it down while saying things like "that's good stuff"? I'm sorry, but that'd just be too funny to resist.)

P.S. Don't worry! I didn't highlight the actual book; the highlighting was done on my phone.

[surelyspacejunk]

'Sainthood' in the Shadow Realms

When I was exploring Enir-Ilim, the pillars made of humans reminded me of stories of the 'Hitobashira' in Japan (which literally means 'human pillar'.) Hitobashira was the practice of sacrificing humans before a grand project (such as bridges or castles) to appease gods and ensure the success of the project. In some stories, the sacrifices are entombed/buried alive in the structure as part of the ritual. It was also said that the hitobashira gave the building more structural integrity (with a side effect of the occasional vengeful spirit because not all sacrifices were willing participants.) You can read the wikipedia entry for hitobashira here if you're interested.

Bringing this back to Elden Ring, I felt like this was the most straightforward explanation to what sainthood meant; becoming human pillars for the gate of divinity to usher in a new god. If building Enir-Ilim required a large number of sacrifices, and the shamans somehow acted as catalysts that stuck more bodies together, it'd make sense why the hornsent would hunt them to extinction. It would also make sense why it wasn't just the numen put in jars, it was as many people as they could fit to complete the project.

If this is correct, then it makes sense why it wouldn't matter if the people in the pots were willing or not, their sacrifices would ensure the Gate of Divinity would be made and have their deaths honored in the name of 'sainthood'. The parallels of unwilling sacrifices/martyrdom and direct visual wordplay on hitobashira/human pillars make me think that this explanation is as simple as it gets. It was also shown that in The Lands Between, jar folk were used to bring bodies back to the Erdtrees, so it would make sense if their predecessors in the Shadow Realm also had a role in bringing bodies to Enir-Ilim.

[mack-will]

ohhhh no warning whatsoever, just slapping me right in the face with a mack bu photo.... thanks sharks broadcast thanks a lot for this emotional rollercoaster

[sluggoonthestreet]

Sluggo reads a pretty good bedtime story, but it helps to have a captive audience.

[ros-sauce]

Sometimes I am very aggressively reminded some of you are quite young

[sockeye-run]

Spiced Blood Orange Cranberry Jam!

This has become a new holiday tradition for me, it went so hard last year I had requests for it again this year 😍. So bright and warming with the spices.

[nikoshereifear]

what’s a word for someon rewlly annoyibg