I don't actually have 8000 followers, I think

*grumblegrumble* this is like grumblr

[phantomofthehoepera]

I want the record to state I have never been this hard in my entire life

[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.

[roach-works]

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.

[beatrice-otter]

#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."

[whetstonefires]

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.

[beatrice-otter]

#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

[maryellencarter]

I wrote an entire paper in college analyzing the geology of the Misty Mountains and to a lesser extent the White Mountains (the Misty Mountains are easier because we get a cross-section via Moria). One thing I discovered that still knocks me for a loop when I think about it is:

Moria is the only place in Middle-Earth where mithril is found, right? That's kind of a big deal. So, why? What makes that location so special? Is it just random?

I found a paper that had just been published *that year*, 2011 or 2012 as I was writing it, that studied the locations of precious-metals mines in the Pyrenees, the similarly long skinny mountain chain that divides Spain and France. This paper discovered that where there was a bend in the mountain chain, from one of the continental plates having an awkward corner in it that got subducted under the other plate, that had dug deeper into the mantle and caused precious-metal-bearing ores to flow up to the surface in ways they didn't do anywhere else in the Pyrenees.

There's a conversation in The Fellowship of the Ring where one of the hobbits -- I don't have my copy handy or I'd get the direct quote -- asks why they can see the Misty Mountains ahead of them at one point if they're still heading south from Rivendell, and it's explained that south of Caradhras (which you may recall is the surface mountain under which Moria runs) the mountain chain bends and runs southwest instead of due south for a while.

Tolkien had absolutely no way to know *why* this particular feature of a mountain range was associated with intrusions of rare and unique metal ores, but he had gone backpacking in mountains enough to know How Things Should Look.

(And as prev excellently points out, when Jirt made screwed-up geology it was very much on purpose. Mordor shouldn't be square! Mount Doom shouldn't be doing any of the things it does! A composite volcano shouldn't even have especially hot lava! Even the Gulf of Udun, the circular feature at the upper left corner of the square, shouldn't be like that -- perfectly round features should be impact craters or calderas, not The Mountains Just Do This In A Suspiciously Convenient Way. These are all the way they are because Sauron forced them to be, in defiance of the laws of nature. Remember, he's akin to Balrogs and was a Maia of Aulë -- he's a volcano spirit in many ways.)

[sunflowergardens-world]

Amazing work by the LoTR fandom, as always.

[mysteryteacup]

This also serves as an excellent example of why worldbuilding needs - more than realism - to be cohesive and work with the themes of your story.

[swiftrunnerfelidae]

"Kill your local sex offender!" Oh, you mean the guy who went streaking at his local college football game on a dare one time? That's a sex crime.

"No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.

"What? No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.

"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"

Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?

Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?

How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.

Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?

People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"

That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.

Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.

The only way out is to accept every life as worth saving.

[depsidase]

[anarchistmemedistro]

[aquilacalvitium]

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

[aquilacalvitium]

Please keep interacting with this post because when I come to tumblr to procrastinate, this shows up again in my notifications and guilts me into writing again

[butchfriend]

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College

[cognitiveinequality]

[sturionic]

For anyone unfamiliar with Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the entire thesis is that traditional educational models promote oppression by removing students' agency in their own learning. Freire argues that currently education functions as a "banking model" - teachers are the holders of knowledge, and students are empty vessels, waiting to have that knowledge put into their heads like a piggy bank. This reinforces a passive attitude towards information, not seeking and understanding it on your own terms, but waiting for a "banker" to deposit it into your head.

Instead, Freire proposes that teachers and students act as co-creators of knowledge, where students become active participants in their own learning through questions and dialogue. Teachers are also open to changing their understanding of topics in the process of critical dialogue - the goal is not "student learns Fact A and memorizes it as presented," but instead the goal is the knowledge itself, discovered collaboratively by teacher and student, who are acting with empathy and respect towards each other. This also starts the process of the oppressed being able and empowered to question structures of power, take agency, and actively participate in the transformation of society.

So, the irony of writing an AI essay on critical pedagogy is actually insane; because it's essentially the extrapolated endpoint of Freire's arguments that our current educational system creates passive receptacles who not only can't think critically in an educational context, but also become the perfect citizens for a world that doesn't want us questioning structures of power, to view those in power as we viewed our teachers - deliverers of indisputable facts that must be memorized and regurgitated because they command it, and not co-creators of true understanding.

[creekfiend]

the speed with which the victims of state violence are labeled "unstable" by the state should make absolutely clear the necessary connection between police/prison abolition and mad rights/antipsychiatry.

there has never been a time in the history of psychiatry where "strenuously objecting to one's own mistreatment at the hands of authority figures" was not a diagnostic criteria for at least one disorder. read that again.

in a system where the "mental healthcare" frameworks are built on a preservation of the cultural status quo, advocating for oneself in the face of mistreatment becomes a symptom of illness.

[kuttithevangu]

If anyone is looking for more exploration of this idea, there’s a very good and approachable book on how it affects Black Americans, “Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum” by Antonia Hylton, which is partly a history of Crownsville State Hospital in Maryland and the people who were incarcerated there, partly a memoir of mental illness and radicalism in her own family and how Black radicalism and being conscious of the realities of racism become pathologized

[prokopetz]

I think it's actually essential to children's moral development to be exposed to short stories moderately beyond their reading level where a bunch of fucked up shit happens and then instead of offering a moral lesson or any sort of emotional or narrative resolution it just ends.

[fluoresensitives]

Personally I hate AI because it uses slave labor, is killing the planet and is making people stupid, but that's just me. The soulless art aspect is just one little piece of my grander disdain.

[castrolle]

wait how does AI use slave labor? Do you mean the human works that are stolen and not credited or compensated? Because technically under capitalism everything is exploited but there are varying degrees

[postillfastill]

Aside from the scraping, AI tech companies, including openAI/chatGPT, have outsourced training their models to countries in the global south, specifically Kenya in openAI's case. These workers are working in sweatshop conditions for less than 2 bucks USD per hour. I'm on mobile, but if you search 'openAI Kenya slave labor' and related keywords, you can find multiple articles about it.

[almostdefinitelydying]

Kenyan workers with AI jobs thought they had tickets to the future until the grim reality set in

Training AI takes a heavy toll on Kenyan workers, who say they earned $2 an hour to label and sift through gruesome content for American com

[brightlotusmoon]

[astraldrake]

Night of the Hunt

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

On fun thing about everyone using ai to do their data analysis or write articles or whatever is it's really exposing how many people weren't doing their jobs this whole time.

"We just found out that the ai tool we've been using to make business decisions for 3 months has been hallucinating all the sales data!" okay well it was stupid to use ai for this, why didn't you learn how glitchy it was before implementing it, but far more importantly, what you've just told me is that nobody bothered to check the real numbers for 3 months. "This guy has been using ai to write 9 magazine articles for us and the quoted info was all fake, he has been fired" no editor checked the first eight? "I used ai to write this report and the math was wrong" you didn't check the math? In your own report? Everyone is just telling on themselves re: how their work was always wildly unreliable and they already weren't doing their jobs.

[orangelemonart]

Instead of calling you a homophobic slur, nowadays kids just yell AY, YO to imply you're a [homophobic slur].

[yasmeensh]

A very happy 40th anniversary to my favourite video game series, The Legend of Zelda!

February 21st, 1986 was the release date of the first game in the series. I decided to make a piece directly celebrating this first instalment.

The Legend of Zelda has made a positive impact on me. From fun memories, motivation to improve my art, and most of all, to the amazing friendships I've made in our mutual love for the series!

Thank you for 40 years of adventure!

[bakedbakermom]

fuck terry pulling no punches in this one

[silvaurum]

"i would kill a pedophile to protect my child" ok but would you teach your child how to say no? even to adults? even to adults you like? would you teach your child the words "penis" and "vulva" and then use them? would you let them ask questions about their body? would you answer them honestly? would you learn how to cope with your feelings when you talk about human bodies, so they don't feel ashamed? would you set a positive example for how you talk about your body? would you tell your child they don't have to hug or kiss anyone? would you tell your family the same? would you stand by them when they refuse to hug someone? even someone you know has never done anything to hurt them? would you let your child avoid food they don't like? would you let you child avoid people they don't like? would you believe them? would you sit in the discomfort of not knowing all the answers and not take it out on them? would you love your child the same if someone did hurt them? would you make them feel valued just as they are? would you let them talk to doctors or nurses in private? would you let them express their feelings? would you show interest in their life? would you let your child say no to you? would you help your child feel safe coming to you when they make a mistake? would you apologize to your child? would you believe them? would you put aside your anger to focus on what would make your child feel safe and loved? would you put your ego aside for your child? would you take your child's concerns seriously? would you listen to your child? would you believe them?

[shychick-52]

I would both do all those things AND kill a pedo to protect my child, if I had to.

[thecourtofcaligula]

Yesss

[silvaurum]

i'm gonna add this comment by @papercrane:

"Maya angelou's family killed a pedophile that raped her, and that just traumatized her more. "I thought that I had caused the man’s death, because I had spoken his name. That was my seven-and-a-half-year logic. So I stopped talking for five years." Read I know why the caged bird sings."

and here is my comment:

the fantasy of killing a pedophile to defend your child is... an escape from reality. as with all fantasies where a single act of violence stands for a lifetime of effortful care. it lets us off the hook for the day to day labor of actually protecting the human beings around us. it gives us an excuse to look away from what abuse actually looks like.

it allows us to ignore that setting boundaries is a daily practice. it allows us to ignore the subtle ways in which we punish children for having boundaries. it allows us not to think about things we can do, the effort we can put in, in smaller repeated ways, to be kind and caring. to be safe to talk to.

it is a grand gesture that, were you to actually go through with it, would neither prevent the harm that you fear nor help your child to heal from it. it is an idea with no bearing on reality for 99.99% of people, while rape and abuse are a reality for a large fraction of people.

it is not useful to imagine killing a pedophile. it is not useful to claim you would kill a pedophile. it wouldn't be useful to actually attempt to kill a pedophile in almost any situation.

it is useful to think about how you can help your child know they can get help. they can say no. they can tell adults to stop. they deserve to be comfortable. they deserve to be informed.

the entire point of the post is that your child will not be saved by your imagined wrath. the entire point is that your day to day actions, and your attitude towards children as people, are more impactful to your child's well-being. far more realistic. more important.

not least because your child doesn't need you to be wrathful. they need your love. they need care. they need attention.

meanwhile, the public performance of wanting to kill child abusers doesn't do anything to child abusers. most child abusers believe they are doing the right thing for their children.

saying you want to kill abusers doesn't signal anything good to children, either. as others have said, it makes children more afraid to speak up and ask for help. that might be their mom, their coach, their troop leader. it gives those abusers leverage; the children cannot tell if they want things to be stable.

and it makes it harder for adults to BELIEVE children, too! because if their child was really abused, then they've staked their honor on committing that violence, even if it was against their brother or spouse or grandpa or pastor or neighbor or their other kid's favorite babysitter. and if they don't want to do that, well... then they must decide whether they believe completely their child, or whether their child's boundaries must really be respected, or... if maybe it's impossible to know.

how many abuse survivors have tried to disclose, only to be told that so-and-so wouldn't do that, or they didn't mean it, because so-and-so loves you and we all like so-and-so. this dichotomy goes both ways, psychologically. if a child abuser is entirely evil and has to be killed, then someone who's not entirely evil and i don't want to kill can't be a child abuser. this must be something else. there must be a mistake.

you can not adequately protect your children from abuse if you hold on to this idea. i am telling you. your insistence that killing pedophiles will protect your children is holding you back. it is not useful. it is not cute to talk about how much you want to do a single act of violence to abusers as if that would ever be enough to outrun the culture of abuse and the dehumanization of children in our society. you cannot cling to this like a talisman that would ward off any harm your children may come to. you cannot escape reality by telling yourself you'd be a total badass and kill that bad guy dead. this is not helpful.

[sankta-wraith]

Am I the only one who finds this extremely funny