human-collector0

[human-collector0]

i h8 when people see girls wearing flannels or basketball shorts and stuff and assume theyre butch. Thats just a femme on her day off. We cant all be on the clock 24/7 as perfect women and be done up all the time lol. What if shes doing laundry. What if thats her lovers outfit because she forgot a change of clothes. What if she just cant afford the wardrobe yet. Dont call a girl butch unless she tells you she is. This goes doubly for trans women and triply for mixed and nonwhite women who all have to deal with being masculanized without their consent everywhere already. Let girls be comfortable pleaaaaaaaase

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hot people in NYC voting in the primary during early voting (June 14th-22nd) or on election day (June 24th) rank Zohran Mamdani #1, Brad Lander #2, and don’t rank Andrew Cuomo anywhere on their ballots, pass it on 🥰

[human-collector0]

how everything is feeling

[human-collector0]

The stupidest people are in charge because we couldn’t prosecute a political crime because it would look too political.

[human-collector0]

trans people will literally go “i have a complicated relationship with my history with gender and sometimes see it as a gender i ‘used to be’ and i don’t really look like a cis person of either gender and i don’t think i can fit it into simple categories” and everyone will spontaneously combust

[human-collector0]

That post I made over new years had people at my THROAT for saying I only buy real leather. Sorry I really do think that wearing textured plastic that will fall apart in under 5 years and go on to irreparably poison the environment is the worse option here.

[human-collector0]

🍖 How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces

(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)

So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented: → Three types of ceremonial jewelry → A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed → A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn

Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.

And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.

Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.

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🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style

Ask yourself: → Who’s in charge, and why? → Who has land? Who doesn’t? → What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?

Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.

Start there. Not at the embroidery.

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2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict

Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?

→ What was destroyed and mythologized? → What do the survivors still whisper about? → What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?

No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.

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3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists

Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about: → Death? → Love? → Time? → The natural world? → Justice?

Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.

You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.

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4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)

Culture shows up in: → What people apologize for → What insults cut deepest → What people are embarrassed about → What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately

For instance: → A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?” → A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.

This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.

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5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals

Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about: → Breakfast routines? → How people greet each other on the street? → Who cooks, and who eats first? → What’s considered “clean” or “proper”? → How is parenting handled? Divorce?

Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.

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6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture

A culture isn’t a monolith.

Even in deeply traditional societies, people: → Rebel → Question → Break rules → Misinterpret laws → Mock sacred things → Act hypocritically → Weaponize or resist what’s expected

Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.

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7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap

Worldbuilding gets boring fast when: → The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure → The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric” → Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like

You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy. → Let ugly things be beloved. → Let beautiful things be corrupt. → Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.

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📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy): → Culture is not food and jewelry. → Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction. → Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter. → Let your world feel lived in, not curated.

The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list. It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.

Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)

—rin t. // writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range // thewriteadviceforwriters

Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

[human-collector0]

[human-collector0]

Not being very active on twitter or tiktok is fun because you'll occasionally get wind of some Discourse that makes hundreds of thousands of people extremely mad but you'll have the luxury of just going, "wow, that's stupid", and moving on while everyone else continues to suffer from rage induced aneurysms over pointless nonsense every waking hour

[human-collector0]

[human-collector0]

😭😭lowekey its acutallyllyyyy so hard im getting such baad 😭 empathy fatigue from having to think of people from other countries 😭😭 as people😭😭with their own thoughts and stuff😭😭😭😭😭😭 they didnt teach 😭😭😭 it 😭 in schoolv😭😭

[human-collector0]

quaker oats is disgusting and I will go out of my way to never eat anything made by them again. they kept at least one factory so disgusting that when the FDA said Hey you need to actually follow health regulations (in response to a MASSIVE fucking recall due to contamination that made a ton of people sick, and anecdotally myself and several people I know got sick from food that was NOT recalled) they said actually it would be too hard to follow health regulations and SHUT THE FACTORY DOWN INSTEAD

AND THEY TARGET SO MANY OF THEIR PRODUCTS AT CHILDREN

[human-collector0]

You ever notice the people who really hate tma/tme as terms really love to use agab? Do you think it's cuz they get to call transfems male that way?

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apparently i'm a cis guy speaking over trans people. i guess some people have given up arguing why i'm actually wrong and have started pointing to me being cis as to why my hottestest of takes: "all men experience some amount of male privilege over women", is wrong, specifically when it applies to trans men

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gee! i sure do love this complex female character with COMPLEX thoughts and COMPLEX feelings and COMPLEX reasons for her actions. surely the fandom wont villainize her and make her into a irredeemable monster for doing something even slightly unkind! (male character has done something a 100x worse.) looks at social media oh! well surely they wont water down her character into a single trait and/or only examine her at surface level, misrepresenting her entire personality, motives, and values! looks at social media again oh.