#salt rock

[geologyin-blog]

Evaporite sedimentary rocks are rocks that form from the evaporation of water bodies, leaving behind concentrated minerals. They are layered crystalline rocks and can be found in various colors depending on the mineral composition. Read more here:

[parkinggaragefanblog]

Parking Garage 💧 Leeches

Jaguar out now!

[dark-nimbus]

When in doubt, lick random shit

[estinininininen]

i love all the fun fact reminders in the notes that this is english lore only and everyone else is very confused because it creates a real-world version of the same effect: other people see english players laughing or even making art about the salt rock, are suitably "?!?!?!?!", and have to go through the same horrifying process i outlined above. who. who Authorized this in the english version. are english speakers okay? not just regards to ffxiv but, like, in general?

look i've read/watched/played a lot of fantastical stories and i love creative displays of how mind-boggingly alien different cultures can possibly get.

but there is something just. so viscerally frightening to me about ishgard and their communal table salt lick and i can't stop thinking about it. ishgard is already framed as a foreign place to the warrior of light/the player so everyone in-story is patiently explaining the importance of the church of halone and ishgard's history because everyone knows the big stuff has to be explained to an outsider. but something small the ishgardians think is normal would slip right past.

i'm ready to laugh myself sick any time of day at the idea of the warrior sitting down to eat at fortemps manor for the first time, emotionally drained and scared. and one of these finicky nobles you have to trust your life with just picks up a pale rock you thought was a centerpiece with a curiously smooth, maybe even already damp worn surface, opens their mouth, sticks out their tongue, and SCHLURPS

i would feel such visceral horror. briefly wonder if i had fallen in faerie-land/the dark world/the upside-down. it would only increase as i look left and right and everyone else continues eating calmly. only maybe if haurchefant were there would someone realize how weird that would seem to outsiders and laugh at my expression.

it's like in the simpsons when homer time travels, sits back down to dinner, and discovers the butterfly effect gave everyone lizard tongues. it's so close to a normal dinner time interaction and yet incredibly far. you think ishgard must have a weird supersition about it to explain. "what, is - is it bad luck to break up a salt lump?" you ask

"no" haurchefant says. "it's just always been done this way"

and so often in any society there is no better explanation than just that but this is so fuckkng weird it would briefly make you question all normal human instincts if ishgard thinks this is okay. that is such silly, terrifying, and superfluous world bulding. it's great.

[xmoonbeams]

I have one of these myself, it's very beautiful.

[ourladyofomega]

📸 source: Kill Rock Stars (FB)

[viiioca]

my least favorite character in ff14 is the ishgardian rock salt tooltip

1.) it's always correct to disrespect item descriptions you don't like, especially if they only exist in english

2.) *pinches nose, extremely a nerd voice* it's been established in-game that ishgard is culturally distinct from coerthas and that a defining feature of ishgardian cuisine vs. coerthan cuisine is how extensively spiced and seasoned it is (whereas coerthan food is noted to be blander and probably derived from gridanian cuisine, and ishgardians dont appreciate coerthan food and vice versa). that motherfucking food is seasoned!!!! get that shitty rock off the table!!!!!!!!!!!!

3.) since ishgardian food is well-seasoned already, if the salt rock exists it should only be as an incredibly funny secret insult. if you lick the rock you're telling the host that you think that he is shit and his food is bland (like a coerthan, god forbid, or even worse, a gridanian). the rock should only exist as a catalyst for 3 to 7 generations-long ishgardian blood feuds. i want to see people getting knifed at the table for daring to lick the rock. i want to see families get ruined. make the salt rock political

[eroticlamb]

Louise Post, circa 1997 ♡ Unknown photographer

[anneapocalypse]

On Wuk Lamat, and Female Characters in FFXIV

The Thing with Wuk Lamat is you can tell me you think she had too much screentime; you can give me numbers on how many lines she had or how many scenes she's in relative to other characters or other expacs; you can prove to me "objectively" that she gets more focus than other main NPCs; you're simply not going to convince me that this is something I should be unhappy about. And not just because it's silly to think you can use numbers to prove a story is good or bad and make someone else go, "Wow, you're right, let me just throw away all the joy I experienced with this story and revise my opinion because you've scientifically proven to me that I'm wrong."

Because while I love Final Fantasy XIV and I have greatly enjoyed its story in so many ways, fundamentally one of my biggest beefs with this game has been how much female characters have been denied complex character arcs and growth and agency and interiority.

Minfilia gets treated as a sacrificial vessel who lives for everyone but herself and doesn't even get to have feelings about her own death because that entire arc is focused on a male character's angst about it instead. The game tells us in the Heavensward patches that Krile sees Minfilia as her best friend and then just forgets about that later and never follows up on what that loss must have meant to her. Ysayle is basically right about most of what she's fighting for but harboring a bit of self-delusion is apparently such a terrible sin that she has to pay for it with her life, while her male foil is deemed so worthy of salvation that there's a whole plot point about how important it is that we risk our lives and others' lives to save him. Y'shtola is a major character who's been around since the beginning, and the game keeps dropping maddeningly interesting things about her (apprenticed to a cranky old witch in a cave! saved her own life and the lives of her friends with an illegal and dangerous spell and it worked! reserved and undemonstrative yet regularly through her actions reveals herself to be deeply caring! disabled!) and then shows complete disinterest in following up on any of those things with the kind of depth and care shown to male characters with complex arcs like Urianger.

In general there is also a repeated thread of female characters being portrayed as weak or overly emotional: Minfilia is weak because she doesn't fight and needs to be eaten by a god in order to gain "a strength long sought." Krile is portrayed as not being able to pull her weight with the Scions (despite the fact that she actively keeps five of them from dying in Shadowbringers) and the only thing they could think of for her to do in Endwalker was be yet another vessel for Hydaelyn (hmm, that sounds familiar) and it's not until Dawntrail that she gets much actual character development in the main story and even that has to come alongside "Look, she can fight now so that means she's useful." (And I love Picto!Krile, I'm just saying, there's a pattern.) Alisaie, despite having very good reasons for needing to find her own path apart from her brother, is portrayed as having to prove herself when she returns, that she's "not the girl she once was," and "will not be a burden" (while Alphinaud is repeatedly given the benefit of the doubt and reassurance and affirmation from other characters even after he takes on responsibilities he isn't ready for and fucks up big time).

And if you follow me you know I adore Urianger, and I love Alphinaud and Thancred and Estinien too, so please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here! I'm not knocking those characters, or saying we shouldn't also love them. I just use them as a comparison to demonstrate how the female characters have been neglected.

Lyse has some of the stronger character development among the female Scions, and while she's still kind of portrayed as being too emotional and hotheaded in early Stormblood, I think it's actually explored in more depth in a way that I like; Lyse has good reasons for wanting to fight for her nation's freedom, but having been away from Ala Mhigo for several years now, she needs to understand the stakes for the people who've been there fighting for years, what they've lost and still have to lose. She grows as a person and rises to the challenge of leadership, and I'm even okay with the fact that she leaves the Scions afterward because it feels right for her to stay in Ala Mhigo, and at least she doesn't die.

And by all accounts she was, like Wuk Lamat, widely hated when her expansion came out.

Unironically I think the other female Scion with the strongest character arc is Tataru. She tries to take up a combat job, finds that it's not for her, and decides to focus on where her strengths are instead. In doing so, she both holds the Scions together as an organization in the absence of a leader by capably managing their finances, and also comes into her own as a businesswoman and makes international connections that benefit both the Scions and her personally. In contrast to Minfilia, she's not portrayed as weak because she doesn't fight, and is actually allowed to be an important character who's good for more than being sacrificed. Tataru is still distinctly in a supporting role for the player character, however, and her character arc happens as a side story that takes up a relatively small amount of screentime over several expansions, which I think is probably why she doesn't evoke such a negative reaction.

But there is a pattern of the game's writing showing disinterest in the interior lives of female characters generally, and in making their growth the focus of a story.

So yeah, I'm going to be happy about Wuk Lamat! I'm going to enjoy and celebrate every moment of her character arc, of her personal growth, of watching her put the lessons she's learned into action. I'm going to love and treasure every moment when she gets to be silly, embarrassing, emotional, scared, grieving, confused, upset, seasick, impulsive, and still deemed worthy of growing into a hero and a leader. I will love her with all of my soul and you simply will not convince me that it wasn't worth the screentime after such a profound imbalance for basically the entirety of the game. We've never had a major female character get such a strong arc with this much love and attention put into it and that means more to me than I can truly say. The backlash to it is disheartening, as this kind of thing always is, but I'm not going to let it ruin the wonderful experience I had playing it and how much joy it continues to bring me.

And for those of you who don't want any of that for a female character, thank goodness you have Heavensward and Shadowbringers and Endwalker and no one can take those away from you.

(And if you follow me you know that I love Shadowbringers and Endwalker and have very fond memories of Heavensward despite some issues with it, so not only can I not take that from you, I am not trying to!)

Some of us have been real hungry for a character like this with an arc like this, so, I think, y'know, maybe we can have that. As a treat.

[foolsfrogg]

I saw someone redraw this album cover w/ Laios and thought it fit Hilda too

what the flip there’s not enough tags so im just gonna list the creatures here:

Hilda, tide mouse, rock chewing slug, elf, land puppy thing, vittra, miniature cow, nisse, water spirit, barghest, salt lion, thunderbird, troll, butterfly, and deerfox

[muckyschmuck]

you heard her, she doesnt want your snacks

[parkinggaragefanblog]

Parking Garage 💜 Drift

Jaguar out now!

[strongermonster]

fascinated with the unfolding story of the most hated man in my grandparents small town, who is a guy no one has ever seen or heard of before, who showed up out of the blue and decided he was gonna be an amateur food critic of stuff available at the farmers market.

my last update on him is that he bought a barbeque sauce from a local lady and then reviewed it as "decent but pedestrian" and called it a "passable imitation of store bought/big brand" and ended with "but ultimately uninspired" and now henrietta is on the war path. literally everyone hates him. the little free community gazette has never flown off the grocery store shelves like this before

[rocksaltpaperscissors]

other shows' musical episodes: cute little self-deprecating meta! fourth wall breaks teehee! one tearjerker song but otherwise a loving homage-y tension-breaker!

malevolent's musical episode: diversity win! the serial-killing maniac mowing down civilians and torturing the main character has musical synesthesia induced by extreme violence

[l0serdust]

hole, metallica, and veruca salt. canada, 1995

[jadafitch]

Halfway Rock Light Station, Bailey Island, Casco Bay, Maine. Sometime in the 1960s, coastguardsman, John Cluff was returning to the island with the recently repaired precious television set. It's always tricky landing a peapod in rough seas, the boat flipped, and the set sank. Three sad weeks with no tv.