solitude is bliss

When you finally realize that someone’s behavior has more to do with their internal struggle than it ever did with you, you learn grace. You also naturally learn detachment as well.

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

@dragonpyre any chance you could elaborate on this

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

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

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!!!!!!!!

So what is a rain shadow?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

More stuff!:

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:

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:

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!

 - Napoleon’s Infantry Handbook, Terry Crowdy

none soldier with right beef

I think the toughest thing about adulthood is that your life could be crumbling and you still have to show up and do what u need to do

I thought that's all adulthood is until you find enough sustainable personal success to keep you happy

...he is weaving the chocolate. Do you copy, this bitch is WEAVING CHOCOLATE

We are so damn lucky Chocolate Guy has a passion for chocolate and crafting beautiful, lifelike desserts.... because if he chose to put this level of work, dedication, and sheer determination into anything even slightly nefarious (instead of nearly breaking the laws of physics in order to create culinary masterpieces) we would be so epically fucked.

did I really just watch this man cheerfully force a block of chocolate through a pasta making machine?

It just keeps going...

he made the eggs look like eggs inside...

I wish I was this dedicated to eating healthy

You guys just have to trust me on this one and click here okay?

OH MY GOD I NEEDED THIS

For the chronically anxious and/or otherwise mentally ill:

This is not a screamer, jumpscare, or any other kind of horror link I don’t know the name of. It will not cause you to question reality and as far as I’m aware, there is no reason it should cause any kind of hallucinations or psychosis. I don’t want to spoil the surprise because it’s DELIGHTFUL but I am happy to tell you it’s very sweet and gentle and also great lowkey stress relief. This is a cinnamon roll link appropriate for all ages (yes, all the way down to babies) and you will enjoy it if you click it. ❤️

This makes me so happy

GUYS

there's even more layers to it if you look it up in a desktop instead of mobile

You guys just have to trust me on this one and click here okay?

OH MY GOD I NEEDED THIS

For the chronically anxious and/or otherwise mentally ill:

This is not a screamer, jumpscare, or any other kind of horror link I don’t know the name of. It will not cause you to question reality and as far as I’m aware, there is no reason it should cause any kind of hallucinations or psychosis. I don’t want to spoil the surprise because it’s DELIGHTFUL but I am happy to tell you it’s very sweet and gentle and also great lowkey stress relief. This is a cinnamon roll link appropriate for all ages (yes, all the way down to babies) and you will enjoy it if you click it. ❤️

This makes me so happy

“The Breakfast Club”

Beam Of Lightning in Kangiqsujuag

moonwater

— Dan Pearce

Sharing this because I had NO IDEA that this is how they worked… 

I did but it is still super cool to see it close up in such great detail.

There’s something of the obscene about this.

@zahai

— Leonardo DiCaprio

If you think all books are trite and cliche, and you can't stand any more love triangles, here's a simple remedy: Stop finding new books through bestsellers lists' and algorithmic recommendations and literary award winners. The commercial element of the publishing industry is and has been steadily becoming more and more of a bland content machine for the past century, and it's worse now than it ever was. To find new books, do the manual searching. Look for the obscure stuff in your library or bookstore, try out different fiction magazines for an issue or two, go to your local nerd conventions and take note of the indie publishers, read random things from anywhere and when you come across an author you like, dig up their entire bibliography, both in the sense of everything they've written and everything they've referenced. Recommend books to your friends and ask them for recommendations and learn which of your friends have similar tastes as you. Read fanfics for your favourite comfort media, and then google the lines they've clearly lifted from elsewhere to find the books they were stolen from. Listen, remember back before google and back before goodreads and back before amazon, the closest you got to having reading made convenient for you, for books to just appear before you, were the scholastic catalogues. And back then, between the september and the april catalogue, how reading had to be an actual hobby. You had to actually spend effort, go out, and find books to read. You had to research to find books to read. You can do that again, I promise. It's easy, I promise. Just start out by becoming familiar with your local library again and reading everything that even vaguely catches your eye. Your ability to read hasn't been lost as you grow older, you've just been shovel-fed trash by an industry that doesn't care about quality and has learned how to abuse marketing terms, has bought up more literary awards than anyone ever admits, has turned most of the remaining into popularity contests, and just outright already has marketing keywords and a plot outline in mind that they want to find before they even start reading manuscripts. Free yourself from their influence and you will re-discover the joy of reading.