lepertamar

[lepertamar]

it is okay to experience the passage of time inconsistently. not everyone can keep their seconds all neat and tidy and evenly spaced and that's perfectly alright

[lepertamar]

Vasco and Machete except they’re doing that thing where one dog gently bites the other’s snout from the side, please please please

Just this once.

[lepertamar]

I wanted to share something i realized in therapy which is that everything i like actually fits together into a coherent category of good things while everything i dislike and think is bad also shares the same coherency, as if there are two superimposed worlds of good things and bad things, each fluently interconnected within its respective moral alignment, but never intersecting, such that each remains pure. for some reason only me and my friends able to discern between them but it will be okay as long as everyone instantly accepts everything i say as true. by the way i wanted to ask that no one tag this as a fictional character or public figure that they are psychosexually fascinated with as it is my unique subjective experience and very personal to me so saying it's like someone from a tv show or podcast or something attacks my basic sense of self and reality and it very often sends me into a paranoid spiral when i see these comments. Ok thanks

[lepertamar]

tbh I do still think of California as a sort of otherworld. I know everybody shits on it, there's fire and traffic and "S*licon V*lley" and so on.

But a part of me will always see a Mediterranean neverland tiled for thousands of miles in every direction with modernist university buildings full of late-20th-century academics working on very exciting stuff. They all look somewhat like Jacob Bronowski.

In the uttermost West, beneath the film grain, the sun sets on the golden gates of a Pacific world, on science fiction writers and beautiful, racially diverse neo-hippies driving down the beach. They talk of quantum shamans and vibrations and it's all nonthreatening, all a bit Douglas Adams, not at all serious, and maybe...

In California, I dream, there are young and old women who believe in dolphins. I used to believe in dolphins.

[lepertamar]

Sunset

Paul Klee

1930

[lepertamar]

hey look it's an instance of that-sure-looks-like-plurality being labeled as maladaptive daydreaming lol (/derogatory)

"Overdiagnosed or Misdiagnosed” – A Classic Case of: Pseudohallucinations and Maladaptive Daydreaming When a Diagnosis of Adult ADHD Was Missed

A 19-year-old patient with a childhood history of trauma and isolation presented with hallucinations that began at age eight and progressed over time. She reported hearing up to 50 voices, described as “good and friendly”.

i am fucking floored that the phrase "dissociative identity disorder" is nowhere to be seen

also like

The internal voices were recognized as non-psychotic self-dialogue, a phenomenon observed in ADHD.

what on earth are you talking about

- ace

[lepertamar]

Being the only bi cis guy amongst almost exclusively trans friends and peers is wild because in theory its like im living in a horny manga where all of a dudes friends turn into hot babes, but in reality they are hunting me like the last bison on the prairie. 5 years ago I mentioned bionicle and one of them asked when I was starting estrogen.

[lepertamar]

Wolf crossing the road in Yellowstone National Park 🐺♡

[lepertamar]

my favorite thing about navigating fanfiction is finding a really good one and being all “oh boy this was good, I hope they have more!” and literally every other story they’ve ever written was for like Miami Vice 

[lepertamar]

United Healthcare getting sued by its investors, because it didn't warn them that the CEO getting murdered (by the tendrils of their unmitigated greed) was going to lead to them approving more claims (for covered services that they had no right to deny) is a cartoonish example of exactly why their CEO got murdered.

Their argument is essentially "You promised us a specific profit margin that is not possible to achieve under this increased public scrutiny of your unethical practices. We only agreed to invest because of those unethical practices. So we demand compensation because you didn't warn us that you'd be behaving more ethically"

And idk. Satire isn't just dead. We've pissed on its corpse and now it's dissolving in lye.

[lepertamar]

🍖 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.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔗 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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

📍 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:

[lepertamar]

i wouldn’t request (and would never vote in) a ‘have you had an abortion’ tumblr poll bc that’s just incredibly bad and risky infosec that can get you prosecuted in the wrong country or state but the std poll has made me soooo curious 😔

[lepertamar]

[lepertamar]

Night | Michael Wolf (Hong Kong)

[lepertamar]

I actually also think. There is an opportunity for connection & friendship and relating to each other between ace/aro people and people who aren't ace or aro but for whom romance just hasn't been a big part of their lives. Idk sometimes the circumstances are that even if you want a relationship or want to have sex, you simply don't do that for a number of years despite your best efforts. It's not a bad thing. It's not pitiable or immature. It doesn't make you less queer. It's just a circumstance you sometimes find yourself in, and I think it's a valid choice to simply enjoy everything that comes with it and not actively seek to find a partner, if you're happy with your life as is. We have got to hype being single more because it honestly kind of rocks

[lepertamar]

Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Larxene/Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi/Sora (Kingdom Hearts) Characters: Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Larxene (Kingdom Hearts), Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi (Kingdom Hearts) Additional Tags: Possession, Sharing a Body, Sadism, Game: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004), Memory Loss, (Obviously) Summary:

Larxene has an idea for how to get away from Axel’s counter-betrayal. A place he’ll never, ever look for her…

[lepertamar]

Paul Klee - Ranke (Tendril), 1932. Oil on canvas.