Dance on the Edge

Dawn, they/them, a colossal nerd

[beardedmrbean]

Beyblade heavyweight division

[atombombtom]

As I grow older I feel my capacity to understand that Miss Piggy is not a real person reached a peak in my adolescence and is now on a steady decline. I watched a Wendy Williams interview and there's this part that's like "can we get a ring cam!" and Miss Piggy shows her bling and I'm just like fuck she's so iconic. Miss Piggy who are you wearing? Miss Piggy have you ever considered running for office??

[atombombtom]

Like literally every time I see Miss Piggy there's a period where I need to readjust to the fact that it's not a person, and I feel that period is getting longer and longer with every instance

[atombombtom]

now all my Youtube recommendations are filled with Miss Piggy interviews. I’m not complaining. Miss Piggy what’s your secret to ageing so graciously

[bigscaryd]

It's not just the audience; professional journalists, hosts, and actors report it is legitimately difficult to not see the Muppet as a person, and it is, in fact, incredibly easy to interview or act with them once the performer gets properly set up.

[redwaltz]

Like that one time they couldn't figure out why Kermit's audio was so garbage... then realized they'd put the mic on him instead of the performer.

[brunhiddensmusings]

this has been a very longstanding issue - before the muppet show was even a thing some muppets appeared in commercials, such as rolf the dog they had a continual problem where when people directing/shooting the dogfood commercial would give dirrection to rolf that they would be speaking to the muppet, to which rolf REPEATEDLY had to tell them ‘i cant hear you, you have to talk to him’ and point at the performer underneath him rolf is one of the most embarrassing muppets to need this direction as the performer is this, damn, obvious when not on camera

‘sir, i am a bathroom mat, the man you need to talk to is back there’

[petranaradulovic]

I did an interview with Gonzo one time, and when I got into the Zoom call, it was the actor on screen trying to figure out his audio. And then once he did, he went like “OKAY!” and then just like dove to the floor and it was Gonzo and there was never a moment when I doubted that the dude was just Gonzo’s tech guy 

[ariaste]

I have met a muppet-like puppet in real life and when I tell you that my brain was hacked FUCKING INSTANTLY..... It was a person, I swear it was a person. I asked it for a hug (no i was not 5 years old, i was like 28 at this time). i genuinely don't know what came over me, it was just. It was a person???? Witchcraft

[draconym]

A couple years ago, I was invited to the birthday party of one of my former preschool students. I decided to bring my teaching puppet (a big rat) along because I knew several other kids from that class would be there, and she was always a huge hit with them.

They were, of course, very excited to see her. But what surprised me was that after the kids ran off to play in the sprinkler, the parents around me struck up conversation with the puppet. They continued for at least fifteen minutes, asking her questions like, "how long have you been teaching?" and "eaten out of any good dumpsters lately?" until one dad exclaimed "why have I been talking to a rat puppet this whole time!"

[memeuplift]

[jollyfurydragonballer]

[eversoslightlybitter]

[thegorgonist]

The Fellowship When I was a kid, my folks basically told me I was a hobbit. I cherish the memory of them reading all these books to me--and I turned around and read them to my little siblings and eventually to my partner! I've drawn and painted a lot for The Hobbit but never The Lord of the Rings, and this ECCC seemed like the right time to debut one!

[tardisman14]

Reblog if, no matter the size of the role, you would agree to work with the Muppets if offered the chance to do so, no questions asked

[byz-was-here]

THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH THE PITCH BEFORE I TELL EM I’M IN

[mothnem]

Recruiter: Hello, I'm with the Muppets and...

Me: Where do I sign?

[oidingus]

I promise I didn't disappear, I just don't have any impulse control and started several at once again haha

[andiamburdenedwithgloriousfeels]

Do you ever start bullshitting a paper, and then look over it halfway through and think, ’…Wait a minute, I could be onto something here.’

[imguiltyofthis]

this is the definition of college.

[comic-canary]

Literally I was writing a paper on Asian salt water crocodiles, like a simple about them paper for a college class, and I started noticing some inconsistencies in the scientific papers I was sourcing and I accidentally discovered that the crocodile has been misdiagnosed as least concerned on the endangered species list when they should be classified as endangered and now my professor is having me write a formal report to the international Red List to have them reclassified and all I wanted to do was write this paper on an animal I thought was cool and now I’m considered an expert on this species…

[waluwadjet2-deactivated20180727]

this is how it works half of esteemed biologists trip and fall into their specialty while pursuing something else. one lecturer i just went to started as a biochemist researching antibiotics and discovered that crocodiles change colors based on environment and now he has 30+ crocs in his yard for research purposes and he’s just like… “wait… i’m a chemist…”

[polywoggiest]

How did so many people end up with crocodiles on accident?????

[bionelly2]

you just go into science and after a while, crocodile…

[50-shaeds-of-fae]

[interpolationz]

the wildlife photographer of the year peoples choice award is always fun

there's a stoat hiding in that last one

source - go check out the rest of the awards too, they're really incredible

[interpolationz]

some personal favorites from various categories

[stimman3000]

.

[theonlyjelly-iwillput-inmybelly]

RELEASE THE BUBBLE HORSE

[derogatoryemployed]

(via)

[thirdpunch]

[justspooklordthings-deactivated]

Guys, we've talked about this.

You need to give your domesticated wading ghosts larger death pools. I understand if you can't find a real Well, but you need an enclosure at least 5 times the size of the spirit itself.

[kitten-kin]

Thank you for the PSA, and it’s certainly good advice! I am happy to report that in this particular photoset we’re looking at a temporary holding tank, possibly being used to keep a lab employee safe during a routine water test. There is a strict no-shared-space policy for outside contractors at reputable spirit preserves, both to keep the ghost from becoming frustrated at its inability to approach what it perceives as prey, and to ensure the safety of outside parties. Training sessions focusing heavily on positive reinforcement are used to get the ghost accustomed to the holding tank as well as short trips between the pond and an appropriate secured location. Many health checks and enrichment activities can be conducted directly at the water source, but sometimes a more controlled environment is required. Please be assured that the ghost in the photographs is doing ‘well’. ☆⌒( ＾ ▽ ゜)

[humansoflatecapitalism]

[birdandmoon]

Wildlife tracking tips.

Sign up for my newsletter.

[hacvek]

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

[olyia-stories]

@dragonpyre any chance you could elaborate on this

[dragonpyre]

I grew up learning about land formations. Seeing fictional maps that don’t follow the logic and science of them makes me upset

[serinos-kitt]

What are the most common sins you’ve seen relating to this? I wanna know

[dragonpyre]

Mordor.

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!!!!!!!!

[serinos-kitt]

So what is a rain shadow?

[lethalbutterfly]

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.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Oh yeah nothing is more annoying than fantasy maps that can't get mountains, rivers and rain shadows right.

[mindfulwrath]

May I recommend my new favorite tool: Mapgen4. You start with a random seed and then add mountains, valleys, shallow water, or oceans as you like. You can adjust the wind direction to make wind shadows off the mountains fall where you want. You can adjust overall raininess to make the rivers larger or smaller, or have more or fewer tributaries. It works best for small, isolated landmasses (think islands more than continents) but as there’s no scale bar and it’s all slightly abstracted anyway you can do whatever you want with it. I’ve only just started playing with it but it’s SO FUN.

[jeanjauthor]

I do think this could be useful for writers! ...Caveat, if you're going to use this for making a map for anything published (digital or paper, even if it's only in a fanfic archive or whatever), please, please credit the creator and their program as how you made that map! The more ways information like this gets out there, the more useful it'll be to other writers, roleplaying game DMs/GMs, creators, etc.

[oh-opossum]

One of my favourites for mapping plates, biomes, etc is Tectonics.js. If you're familiar with how tectonics shape a planet, you can guess where the features go by toggling plates, crust thickness, etc. Between Mapgen4 and Tectonics.js, we've got some pretty sweet tools at our disposal.

[brehaaorgana]

More stuff!:

European Geosciences Union Blog — Beyond Tectonics: Building fictional worlds to better understand our own

Reshaping Reality's Worldbuilding Tips

Worldbuilding pasta's series, An Apple Pie from Scratch also check their resources page!

R/worldbuilding's Reading List. Also check out their collected resources link. This basic geology guide from 11 years ago is still nice.

Creating an Earth-Like Planet, and The Climate Cookbook (aka Geoff's Climate Cookbook) technically the climate cookbook is a part of Creating an Earth like Planet I think.

Related: Worldbuilding Workshop's "Working Out Climates Using Geoff’s Climate Cookbook." Which goes through using the resource in order to map make. Also just the Worldbuilding Workshop in General.

Madeline James Writes's Worldbuilding Guide

Worldbuilding 101 (this links to the Biomes section but there's like...everything.)

Also I would recommend looking into Landscape Archaeology as well! That's because Landscape archeology is basically adding the social/cultural layer on top of all that geology and geography. Environments change when communities live in them, and communities likewise adapt to various environments.

This is a short free introduction to the concept: "Notes on Landscape Archaeology." To summarize, Landscape archaeology sort of like...studies the relation of people to places/spaces (that is, landscapes) in time.

Also this paper [An Archeology of Landscapes] breaks down/introduces the key concepts that I learned which is first that you can form the "construct paradigm" of a landscape from settlement ecology, ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes.

And then the highlights of their summary of what constitutes defining a landscape:

Landscapes are not synonymous with natural environments. Landscapes are synthetic (Jackson, 1984, p. 156), with cultural systems structuring and organizing peoples’ interactions with their natural environments ...

Landscapes are worlds of cultural product ... Through their daily activities, beliefs, and values, communities transform physical spaces into meaningful places. ...

Landscapes are the arena for all of a community’s activities. Thus landscapes not only are constructs of human populations but they also are the milieu in which those populations survive and sustain themselves. A landscape’s domain involves patterning in both within-place and between-place contexts ...

Landscapes are dynamic constructions, with each community and each generation imposing its own cognitive map on an anthropogenic world of interconnected morphology, arrangement, and coherent meaning ...

Basically a "landscape" is made by a community living in an environment. Once you have a geological environment that makes sense, landscape archaeology is like... Basically how I feel confident knowing where trade routes would be on a map, where there are areas of continual high conflict, what kinds of agriculture exists where, etc. once the geological stuff is hammered out, it's like...I know how that would influence the local cultures and vice versa. At that point, it's easy to start marking the natural borders, settlements, trade/port cities, and even strategic fortresses. If you have properly put rivers on a map, then marking your port cities is effortless, basically.

Also:

This course syllabus for a Landscape Archaeology class is freely accessible. It includes an online resources page.

Place, Landscape, and Environment: Anthropological Archaeology in 2009

(Landscape Biographies is open access, as is Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. But I wouldn't try to read every essay.)

[dedicatedfollower467]

If you are like me and find it helpful to have video reference for a process/activity in addition to a written guide, Artifexian is a YouTube channel that does a LOT of world building stuff and specifically he's in the process of creating a world following a lot of Worldbuilding Pasta's methodology!

[mysteryteacup]

Regarding Mordor: the being upset with the shape of it is pretty much what Tolkien wanted. Because an evil wizard literally made it that way in defiance of the rules of nature. It's supposed to be wrong and upsetting. That's the point of it being that unnatural shape. It's the will of the person being forced upon the land. Same vibe as big-ass mining pits that ruin the local ecosystem. Nature's not supposed to look like that, and nature did not make it.

Mordor's mountains are man/maiar made damage.

So, fantasy writers, go ahead an make scientifically impossble things (that's why you're fantasy writers, not sci-fi writers) but have a justification for why the unnatural thing exists.

And by justification I mean: a reason that ties into your themes of your work (you do have themes, right? you're not doing a D&D GOT bullshit "themes are for 8th grade english" failure to understand how writing works, right?) not just slapping a wizard did it down on things to make them look cool.

[bastardcircus]

Ok, God, I am fucking wheezing, I got trained to work with mice today since I’ll need them for some experiments and the guy who trained me was like, “Yeah ok so if there’s a day where you just absolutely cannot get your mice to cooperate you can always do this” and picks up this cone-shaped bag and just put the mouse face-first into it and shows it to me and I lose my shit because deadass it was a piping-bag of mouse. Like, the whole mouse was pressed into this cone, fur and ears and feet all pressed up against the plastic, tail sticking up absurdly out of the top of the thing. It was so unimaginably fucking funny but like the mouse was perfectly ok with it, there’s a hole for air at the bottom so she could breathe and all but it was genuinely the most absurd thing I have witnessed in months

[bastardcircus]

THIS IS FUCKING IT, IT’S SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS!!!!!

[unclefather]

you will be turned to icing if you don’t start acting correctally.

[trinitite-princess]

naughty rodents go into the i c i n g c o n e

[m-ushroomtale]

🇨🇳

x

[themushroomtree]

[littlefluffbutt]

This. Is. Fucking. AMAZING!!!!💕💕💕💕

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

when I was a little kid at some point I got upset with my parents because I didn't have a crucifix in my bedroom and they did- I was like why do YOU get to be safe from vampires??? you're okay with me getting my blood sucked???? so we took a little trip to the catholic store but the one closest to us was run by a group of nuns that had been moved here from romania. I got a little baby pink cross and this sweet old nun was like 'aww, is this a baptism gift?' and I was like no. I need to be protected from vampires. and she immediately got SO serious and was like 'this is the best one we've got, you'll definitely be safe' and since she was literally from vampire land I was convinced she was like, van helsing. like the whole time my parents had been laughing about how cute my fear was but she literally Knew dracula and was taking my concerns seriously I held this over my parents for so long lmfao