the fact that "eco" and "ethical" are two separate concerns in the global north, and that "eco" is a much more popular concern, with many "eco" products being made in actual sweatshops, is a big part of why i am The Joker
if you think this is an exaggeration or splitting hairs where it doesn't matter:
i used to work at a Local Organic Produce store that's popular with the lefties in my city who are interested in food justice. i quit for a lot of reasons, mostly the boss, but something i will always remember is one of our suppliers coming in to drop off produce, being told her check wasn't ready, and her laughing and responding it didn't matter -- even a low bank account was more than enough to pay the migrants who picked her produce. i am not filling in any blanks here. she said this.
after quitting, this was a common story i told people about my time there. some then became annoyed at me, acting like i was a wokescold trying to undermine the store's "eco" mission with unrelated "ethical" concerns. but, like -- if food justice isn't for the people making food, who the fuck is it for?
like, don't get me wrong. my contention here is that the things go hand in hand, and that something which is unethical isn't actually eco. after all, humans are a part of the fucking ecosystem, and if a product can only be made by unsustainably exploiting humans, then it's unsustainable. doesn't matter which chemicals were used in making it, or whether or not animals were factory farmed.
they *cannot* be separated. a product cannot be either eco or ethical — it must be both. a product that is made through human suffering cannot be eco for the reasons you said; a product that causes human suffering by contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem cannot be ethical. it must be both and we must insist on both
Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don't want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for the 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago. Nobody who wants to play something for the purpose of retro gaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we're certainly not going to let the original dissappear. They're crying about opportunity cost for a product they're not even selling.
op i know you're probably talking about like, video games, etc, but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company's out of business, or the company decided to not maintain it, and it's a fucking nightmare. we have two windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware. one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research. part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make it difficult-to-impossible to convert those file types without their specific software. by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so that i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can't be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post here and go "well op just wants old video games to play" (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and then close it off) but also this is critical for like. biomedical research. if y'all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
When I worked for the government a few years ago, one of the offices I was in charge of managing for their network, security, and IT systems was the nuclear task response office, this is the office that is in charge of toxic cleanups, nuclear fallout (if such a thing ever happened), and more.
They required having tech from the past sixty years ready at a moments notice (if X fails, try Y, then Z, etc). A lot of the older digital methods are all abandonware, sitting on computers developed in 1991 because they couldn't figure out how to safely transfer or migrate them to newer hardware (or even knew they had! found a server from '95 at the back of a closet somehow still running! connected to a powerstrip from '89! I kept the powerstrip, it's so chunky.)
One of my favorite jobs was figuring out how to get this software that had virtually no documentation remaining (likely buried in the office, but I never found it), or instructions, or really anything to a modern, more resilient, system. The company went out of business in '93, and the only known developer I could track down was in a retirement home.
I did eventually shift it over to run in a container/emulator for DOS, but it was a nightmare (one I loved) that took me months of hacking things together to figure out how it all went together.
Abandonware, the source code, the documentation, the IP, all of it, should be legally required to be disclosed, released, and submitted to public and government archives after either 12 years after first release, and/or upon dissolution. Until that happens, this entire era is likely going to be referred to as the digital dark age. Where everything was once online and available, but where nearly all of it was lost.
Will admit that one of my favorite flavors of character to write is indeed “I’m in charge, I dont want to be, but also, no one else is doing it right so i HAVE To be.”
“You’re weak,” he told her, as he filed her fingernails. “These were luxurious when I met you and now, they’re becoming more brittle. You’ve gotta eat more.”
“You saw how much more I have in the Boon Box. That’s it. Everything.”
“You could always concede. I didn’t join you here in banishment to feel you wither away.” She sighed, then as though doing it on purpose, her stomach rumbled. "I should have known better, but in passing by other witch’s familiars, they always look so happy and fulfilled. Of course an imprisoned witch wouldn’t be as fun… but, it isn’t all the time that someone summons one of us, and truth be told, I’ve never been quick enough to mark a witchborn at birth and often whenever I come across them later, I simply am… underwhelmed. So, to meet a fellow beauty enthusiast and artist made me excited. You’re simply a dying princess who was tutored into making beautiful things. And I am a foolish spirit who will probably perish on this plane, unnamed and lost for eternity.”
She frowned. “You’re being a Negative Nancy.”
“Is that going to be name?”
“You want to be named Negative Nancy?”
“I intend to be named SOMETHING! Need I remind you, on this plane, it is one of your duties to give me a name, and I can’t pass into any other plane without one, except for the worst plane for a spirit to wind up.” He stopped filing her fingernails and tapped his own against the table that they were using for this little manicure. “What was the Prince’s name, that the mortal form belonged to?”
“What?”
“The… piggy body thingy that I entered your plane through. What was his name?”
“I don’t know. She turned a human into that pig and then killed him in that body.”
“Well, yes. That is the easiest way to do it and it was a gift to you. It’s not like she would summon a possession or a poltergeist as a gift. She may send you one now, though, after being so rude about my awakening in this world. She may have made it look simple, but that is not easy magic, Punzie. You really should have at least been grateful that she decided that you were worth a gift. Even if I’m not what you wanted.”
“No! Don’t say that! You’re great. Do you think I could ever get my hair to do this? A TEAM couldn’t get my hair to do this!”
“It’s been weeks. I still don’t even know who I am to be called on this plane.” He said, sadly, strumming her hand lovingly. “It feels like you would have preferred to have the prince live, forever cursed in that body, until whatever life span that a little pig creature has, ran out. Would that have felt a more fitting punishment for his transgressions against Witch Mother? A lot of witches do that, you know. This, to me, is a much more noble death for him, and I’m not just saying that because his body was my doorway.”
She bit her lip. “You are wise, like… an advisor.”
“For many witches, that is precisely who their familiar is. But, I don’t think that is what I am to you. I think you are a very smart girl and that should you survive, you could be quite wise yourself…” He let it hang in the air.
“But, I have to survive.”
“It’s only right. You don’t deserve to die in a tower with only your familiar and an embracing spirit pouring from your scalp.” He looked at what he had done with her hair this time. Hairstyles never stayed in very long, but it was fun creating them, then, Punzie would look in the mirror and paint them on pages for her texts. The tale of her life in the tower might not be fun, but they would be beautiful and vivid… However long or short that life might be.
“I was going to say, like a sage, and ask what you think of that.” He lifted an eyebrow, the eyebrow with the patch of dark around the eye. “As your name,” she said. “At first, I was thinking maybe a flower, because you remind me of flowers, delicate and beautiful and colorful..”
“I love flowers!” He clasped his own beautifully manicured hands together and smiled.
“What about… Sage… Blossom?” She asked, sitting up, excitedly, HOPING he would like it.
“I. Love. It.” He cheered, and looked genuinely happy to have the name. He grabbed some of Rapunzel’s pens and immediately began figuring out his signature. She got up from the table and went to lay down. Sage Blossom was right. She wouldn’t last long if she didn’t make peace with the witch she belonged to.
She had learned two weeks ago when she tried to show Sage Blossom how she generally received her Boon Box. She showed him the letter, placed it to her heart, set her intention, and asked for something. Moments later she heard a bird, seemingly in the distance. “Wait… it should be coming from downstairs, she said and handed the letter to her familiar to go downstairs. There was nothing there, but she could hear the bird screeching on the other side of the tower… the door was gone. She furrowed her eyebrows, “The door..” she said, pointing at the wall.
“Is there a door that I can’t see?” Sage Blossom asked, fiddling with a pair of suspenders he was wearing.
“No… That’s… the door is gone!” She yelped.
“And this was… a physical door, or like.. A witch’s doorway?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It is a door that a witch creates to be able to connect to another space. Usually found in a lair, or maybe a tower shaped prison..”
“Yes! I mean… When I got here, the crew from the ship unloaded all of my things upstairs and whenever I needed things, I did the ritual that I just showed you and I would hear the bird call from down here and I would come down here and the Boon Boxes would be right there, by the door!” She covered her mouth, panicked.
“May I tell you what I believe happened?”
“Yes, please.”
“I believe that your mother is who either sold you to the witch or she had to give you to her for some type of debt or agreement. In the terms of this, she allowed you boons that she herself was not willing to give or that your mother offered as part of the contract. In order to get those to you, she may have extended the permission for your mother to create a witch’s door here. It was probably never an actual door. The crew that came through may have been contracted or even servants of one of the witches in order to open and lock this witch’s door, to which the Witch Queen would have keys and the Witch Mother would control access to the property. You… disrespected your Witch Mother and she must have withdrawn access to this property, which would seal the witch’s door…”
She shook her head and willed herself not to cry. “Usually when a transgression such as this takes place, you have to prostrate yourself, pledge your allegiance to the witch of your domain, and make an offering or sacrifice of some kind.”
She shook her head, “I won’t!”
He looked thoughtful as his eyes surveyed the doorless tower, “What options do you believe yourself to have?” He wondered. His eyes passed over the super long ladder, but he could tell it wasn’t long enough to reach out of the window. As her eyes also found it, she realized that without more Boon Boxes coming in, she wouldn’t have more wood to elongate it.
“My hair!” She said and ran upstairs with it getting out of her way to avoid tripping over it. He followed her up and said, “I don’t follow you? I mean, obviously, I follow you. I followed you up here. I mean, I am not following your idea for options”
“So… whenever she comes to visit, she tells me to throw down my hair and I throw it down and she just comes up on it,” She explained, gathering her hair by the window. “So, I’m thinking that if I throw my hair out, maybe I jump out and land on it.”
“And how will you get back inside of the tower?”
“I won’t. I’ll live on the island. There’s trees and stuff. Something is bound to be edible!” She could tell from his face that he didn’t agree. “You don’t think so?”
“I think that if this island was a part of nature’s design, that might be true. That is not what this place is.”
“What is this place is?” She asked, still gathering her hair.
“This is…” He tilted his head and clicked his tongue as he tried to think of a way to explain this. “Oh! Have you ever seen a little scene, and all around it is a dome.”
“Have I ever seen a little seen?” She asked.
“Have you ever seen with your eyes a little scene, as in a setting, something like maybe a castle and over it is a dome to capture the scene inside of it.”
“OH! Like a snowglobe! Yes!” She said excited and for a moment he was too, that they understood each other. Then both of their excitement flatlined. “The island is like a snowglobe.”
“The island is part of the prison, or at the very least, part of Witch Mother’s lair. She’s bound to have servants or guards, or worse… traps or puzzles.” You may get out of the tower and find yourself in dangers that being in the tower hid from you.”
“Or… that’s what she wants me to think! When she first showed up here, she told me that outside wasn’t safe for people like us, and she included herself in it. So, if there’s something out there that is unsafe for her, it can’t all be her lair.”
“Or that’s what she wants you to think. By the way, before you go setting off on any suicide missions, will you please give me a name?”
“What?”
“A name. It is your job to name me on this plane,” that had been the first that he had mentioned getting a name and she had felt obligated to try to give him one before she “died,” but she was so confident that she would be okay that she promised to give him one once they reached the ground.
“Please, please, please, pull me up!” he said, grabbing the hair, practically squealing in his pig voice. She moved to pull him up and found that it did NOT work like it worked with the Witch. “PUNZIEEEEE!!!” He squealed, crying, now.
He changed into his pig form, she climbed onto the windowsill, threw her hair out and leapt! She landed flat on her face inside of the room, but her poor, then nameless pig familiar went flying out of the window, squealing as he fell she rushed over and reached out for his falling form, and she glowed like sunlight as her hair extended to catch him on a bed of afro, just in time. He changed into his humanoid form and looked around, startled. “Rapunzel, pull me up!” he said.
“See if you can go find…”
“I’m trying! Change! Change into your pig form!” She called. Once he did, she was able to pull him up with ease. She tried to cuddle him in relief, but he quickly resumed the humanoid dandy and he was irate.
“Do you know what you almost DID to me?”
“There was some kind of barrier. The hair can go out and you could, but I hit some type of…”
“I told you not to do it!” He wailed. “And to put me out there, nameless! They could have killed me on this plane! Nameless, Rapunzel! I would have been sent to a plane for those that the spirit world does not know. I’ve crossed planes. I am not in my original format. I need a name HERE, to exist, in truth. And until you’ve done that, how cruel of you to endanger me, not knowing what exists outside of this tower!”
Now, she was crying. “I didn’t know…”
“I know that you didn’t, but you also weren’t willing to listen! If you don’t know what you’re doing, you should not be making decisions for both of us! I am here to aid you. ACCEPT MY AID!” He adjusted his bowtie, letting her cry it out. He wasn’t going to reassure her that it was alright. It wasn’t. Her best option was to summon Witch Mother and apologize.
“I.. will ration out the rest of my food and… figure something out. If I haven’t figured it out by the time that I run out..”
“Or perish..”
“I promise I will name you before any of that happens…” She made the promise more to give herself encouragement to make it each day in the now realized confines of the Witch’s prison.
Now that she named him, she could simply lay down and die. He would be sent to another plane, but now that he had a name, he wouldn’t be lost. “Rapunzel, I am going to contact Witch Mother,” he said.
“I won’t apologize to her,” she said.
“Not even for me?” I am willing to prostrate myself for her to allow you to live, but I don’t know what she will do to me.” She tried to sit up, but she was too weak. “Maybe she will excavate me…”
“No, Sage.. Blossom…”
“Punzie?” He rushed to her Boon Box and looked through it. He found one of her sugary snacks and went to squeeze it into her mouth. She weakly swallowed, and he began to chant something. In the distance, she heard the Witch’s hissing. The same as she had heard moments before she left and came back with the prince in a pig’s body.
Hours later, Rapunzel sat up with a start. She clutched her belly. “I’m so hungry I feel like I should be dead.”
“You should be,” she heard him say from his seat on the windowsill. “I bought you some time.”
“How?” she wondered, coming over to the windowsill. She looked down and saw a pack of wolves. “Whoa… where did they come from?” She asked.
“They are hungry for my blood,” he said. “I almost have the mind to leap from here and let them devour all of me.”
“Sage..” She said and it was like something in him snapped back into the world with her. He looked at her and gave her a small smile.
“I made a mistake, didn’t I? Choosing the girl in the tower with the hair of sunlight. We’re not a good match, Punzie. I should let myself leave this plane.”
“No, please.” She whimpered, “Don’t leave me alone..”
“I am not the one abandoning you.” She lowered her head to watch the wolves. “I tried to beg for your life. She told me that you will not die of starvation.”
“That’s good!”
“But you will suffer hunger.”
“That’s bad.”
“And if you feel hungry enough, you will realize that the only thing left to eat for you is me.”
“No… I wouldn’t…”
“She called you to rise up. You were asleep, but moving. She told you to feed..” He lifted his sleeve and showed her a gnarled stump. She gasped and covered her mouth. “Don’t worry. She called you off, put you back to bed. She took the hand to show me what would happen if we tried to leave the tower again while under these restrictions. She threw it out of the window and they showed up.
He repeated her exact words in her exact voice and tone, “They hunger for you now, and as long as Rapunzel insists on being petulant and disagreeable, she will hunger too. And the madness that can consume a person who hungers and can not feel fed will get her to turn to you for that sustenance. She will feed on you until she picks your bones clean and then, only then, would you die in this world to cross to your next. Unless of course, you throw yourself to them. They’ll be waiting, if you decide that will be nicer than seeing your mistress eat you alive.” He cleared her voice out of his throat and said, “And she’s right. I would rather be torn apart by the wolves than eaten alive by my only friend in this world.”
“I won’t let that happen,” she said, reaching for his hand. He flinched and she winced, and withdrew her own. He covered the stump with his sleeve again. She stood up and faced the wolves. “Witch Mother, I know that you can see what happens in your domain. Please come to me that I might beg forgiveness and spare my friend..”
“Let down your hair,” she heard and startled, looked down to see that the wolves apparently were gone and only Witch Mother stood there. She didn’t even have her hood. In fact, she was dressed like she had been at some type of ball or something. She looked more like a fairy godmother than the wicked witch that Rapunzel now knew for certain that she was.
She let her hair down and within moments, there she was. “Make this quick, I have a meeting with a girl in love with a prince. The things that they’ll sign away for some attention from an important man!”
Rapunzel got onto the floor, the way that she had seen Witch Mother do, whenever she first met her, and once again, did not see what her hair was doing at the time. The hair, which had previously been styled in an elaborate updo of pin curls that sculpted a high beehive mock snowglobe, of a castle scene, with the bottom of it put into several rows of twists that were then gathered up into seven corded bubble ponytail puffs. Truly so elaborate that Punzie had stared at herself for hours before doing a simple sketch and promising to create an actual painting when she had more energy.
Now, it was growing longer, making itself bigger, practically daring Witch Mother to harm the princess. But, the Witch knew better. It was why she had taken her anger out on the familiar. It was why she had gotten her a familiar. “Get up off of the floor, Girl,” Witch Mother fussed. Rapunzel scrambled to her feet and touched her hair, realizing it had gotten ruined in the prostration. “ I expected to hear from you after feeding the wolves. Does your familiar need a hand?”
Rapunzel made a silent prayer for the Witch not to start clapping, because if she did, she might actually throw her out of the window and damn herself and Sage Blossom.
Instead, she reached into a clutch that Punzie only had just noticed that she had, and dug around in such a way that they couldn’t tell if she was doing a bit, or if the magic had some type of magic that made it bigger inside. She smiled, “Ah. Yes…” She pulled out a human hand with a diamond ring on it and said, apologetically, “I’m afraid I have nothing to translate to the hoof, but this will be fine for this version of him, so long as he doesn’t remove the ring. To remove the ring is to remove the hand, and to remove the hand is to lose the hand.
Now, Sage Blossom prostrated himself and Witch Mother didn’t interrupt him, nor acknowledge him. She kept speaking to Rapunzel. “I have several deals to work in a nearby kingdom tonight. Most of them, after Midnight. Don’t think because you weren’t punished that your insolence will continue to be tolerated.”
“Yes, Witch Mother.”
“I will not be allowing your previous mother to reopen her door. You’ve lost that privilege. When you have needs, you will call upon me, and only me. The familiar is here to keep you company and talk sense into you. Should he fail again, he will wish that I fed his hand to the watching wolves. They are always out there. They have always been out there. But, now, they will be on high alert and they will eat anything that they find that doesn’t kill them.” She prattled these horrific things out like she was giving her child simple instructions for a night out!
“Lastly, there is the matter of earning back my trust. You need to give me something to let me know that should your mother send out a quest, and I believe the longer her door is closed the more likely she will - You will choose to remain in my care.”
“What?”
“Familiar,” Witch Mother said.
“If the Queen summons princes to take up this quest, should they make it to you, you will turn them away.”
“Or alert me to take care of them.”
“You want me to promise to refuse my rescue?”
Witch Mother gave a wide, genuine smile of victory, “Will you, Rapunzel, Princess of the Kingdom of the Witch Queen, devote your time and life to following my guidance and being made in the image my craft will create, forsaking other lives and worlds to spend yours as I see fit?”
“You don’t have to,” she said, moving to put the hand back into her clutch. Sage’s eyes fell.
“Okay… I… pledge uh… alligiance?”
“I do.”
“Will you wear my mark, as a show of support to the vow that you have given?”
“Yes.”
For the first time in a long time, Rapunzel heard her hair scream. She touched it to check on it, and it felt odd. It wasn’t as fluffy as it was supposed to be and it felt… just wrong. The look on Sage Blossom’s face didn’t help. He looked horrified. He barely seemed to notice as Witch Mother placed the hand against his stump and connected the two seamlessly. She reached for his face and moved his mouth into a smile to match hers. “She is going to be my life’s work,” she whispered, then sat on her staff and flew away.
Sage’s smile left with her. He finally noticed his hand, but quickly got over it to pull her to the mirror. He didn’t know how to explain what had been done to her. In the mirror, her fat fluffy form, flawlessly smooth dark brown skin was exactly as it had always been, but her hair… Not only the strands coming from her head, the roots, and all of the feet of it all around the tower had become as straight and flowey as her mother’s… but as blond as Witch Mother’s. “WHAT THE FUCK???”
Four Bajorans & their outfits, from Rainmongerers. (ao3 link)
This is Itzig's second outfit that is never described (because Kira and Girani don't actually attent the actual ceremony) so I wanted to at least draw it.
The "crochet" garments make no sense portrayed like this (the backside should be visible through the frontside through the holes) but I kept them like this for legibility.
the majority of the worldbuilding is in the fic itself, but one note on weddings:
the ceremony has been modernized and changed but historically it could include changing a d'jarra "within reason", so within one down/one up (and probably except the lowest one). so getting from the bottom to the top is possible, but it takes around eight generations.
the closer to the Occupation time, the more common it became for better-off members of lower d'jarras to marry poor members of higher d'jarras, kind of like poor nobility marrying noveau riche on earth (so one side gets the money out of it and another gets the social advance). even though the d'jarras are not in use anymore bajorans still sometimes change their earrings to signal a change of identity, beginning a job in a new field or joining a new family (like itzig and like girani, who initially threw her weaver-caste earring out to hide from cardassian "employment offices" but kept wearing her chosen one even after the Occupation ended.)
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Hi. I'm Deejay, a black trans writer who is housing vulnerable and I'm just tryna survive a weird change of income after turning a job down for lack of accommodation for my disabilityand schedule.
I'm hyper focused on rent. Especially after some fatigue spells after a ptsd episode.
Black agender poet from the Chicagoland area Individual poems on the posts section!
Hey y'all. I am making this post for rent and a few bills. Someti… D'Wight Walker needs your support for Support DJ's Fresh Start After Leav
Please help bruh. Nothing makes any sense anymore. Im in a food desert, I need money for milk bread and eggs and I feel like every other need is gonna push me behind. Im busy with my case manager handling a stalker this week. Please help me stay secure?
it’s a shame more vampire media doesn’t pull from vampire bat behavior because they’re such sweeties. they can only survive their incredibly specialized diet because bats will share blood with colony members that didn’t find a meal! there’s evidence that suggests the donors sometimes initiate this behavior themselves by approaching hungry bats! the colonies are mostly harems of females with a few males but they’ve been observed letting unrelated males in when it gets cold so they can all stay warm! cute little social critters!
casual reminder that this museum has their entire collection digitized and available free for public use: https://art.thewalters.org/ and they have armor/weapons there
reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics
Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like it’s from a shield. If it’s hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.
And then the misty mountains!!!! Why isn’t there a rain shadow!! And why is there a FOREST where the rain shadow should be!!!!!!!!
Wind blows clouds in from the sea, but mountains are so tall the clouds can't get past 'em, so you get deserts on the windward side of mountain ranges because clouds can't get there to water the land, or do so only very rarely.
this is because, as clouds are forced upwards by rising land, they cool and dump their rain. so the side of the mountain facing the ocean (or an inland sea, or a great lake) gets all the rain as the clouds are squeezed out, and the opposite side gets nothing.
my favorite thing is the american great lake snowbelts! so, the 'flow' of weather across north america, in very general terms, blows from the northwest on down south and east to the gulf of mexico.
so the wind is blowing from west to east, and in the winter it's a dryer wind than in the summer because it's colder. but after blowing across a great lake for a hundred miles, the wind is wet again. and that wet turns into snow. so for all of these lakes, the big cities are on the west side, not the east sides, because the east sides absolutely suck to live on.
the sole exception is buffalo, NY, which literally has to be there because, unfortunately, that's where all the important canal stuff between lake ontario and lake erie is happening.
also this always strikes me as cool, check out where cleveland is:
it's right at the edge of that snowbelt. and you see way more cities west of it than east, too.
#but again. mordor looks like that becaue sauron made it#and he's an ass
On a Watsonian level, sure.
On a Doylistic level, Mordor looks like that because plate tectonics was a fringe, ludicrous, laughable theory that nobody outside serious geology nerds had ever heard of until scientists proved seafloor spreading in the early 1960s. The first edition of the LotR trilogy was published in 54-55. We literally did not know that plate tectonics was real until almost a decade after the book was published, so obviously, it was not something Tolkien could have been considering as he made his maps.
I don't know enough meteorological history to know when white people figured out about rain shadows and added it to geology classes, or what would have been taught about volcanoes and such. But any education Tolkien got on the subject would have been in childhood/adolescence; his college education focused on the liberal arts, not the sciences, and his professional study was linguistics and the middle ages. So anything Medieval and earlier European authors wrote about he had a pretty good chance of knowing about. But not much exposure to modern science. So his science knowledge was probably limited to "what English schools taught at the turn of the 20th Century."
I mean, it's true he didn't know about plate tectonics, but he did know what mountains look like, and that it's not normally That. And it wasn't his style to break that kind of norm without cause.
LotR has recurring themes of the reckless imposition of one's will on the natural world creating ugliness, an order you thought was inherently an improvement that in fact is inferior to what you have displaced. (Typified by reckless tree-felling; a reflection of the despoiling of the English countryside and the world by Progress.)
Mordor is a rectangle because Sauron is an asshole.
#the rain shadow thing otoh was undoubtedly total ignorance#but those mountains were made as the fortress of a demigod#too steeped in evil to understand beauty#it's *supposed* to look like something that Shouldn't Exist#like quite often this is something that happens in worldbuilding yes#things are arranged Wrong because a person doesn't grasp the underlying logic#but mordor is a bad example for the same reason it's an obvious one#it's So Very Wrong because it was designed to be wrong#to give you a bad feeling with how much it shouldn't look like that#if he just wanted it unapproachable on all sides it could've been in a caldera formation it didn't *need* corners#the corners were a choice#tolkien's job involved lots of looking at maps and things okay#meanwhile people whose lives revolved around the weather generally knew where the rain happened#long before it was formalized into 'rain shadow effect'#people not having The Science doesn't mean they don't have eyes and brains
Western Washington vs Eastern Washington is a good example of a rain shadows effects for fellow writers.
Western Washington:
Eastern Washington:
For fantasy writers, Washington is a really cool state to study because we have nearly every biome from alpine forests, desert, alpine desert, rainforest, riparian forests, wetlands, coastal, and so on. We have two main mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. We sit on three tectonic plates which give us said mountains (and earthquakes). Our ecology is really neat here.
