Misplaced Lens Cap
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
almost home
occasionally subtle
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
d e v o n
#extradirty
PR's Tumblrdome
we're not kids anymore.
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
DEAR READER
dirt enthusiast
Love Begins
roma★
Peter Solarz
Acquired Stardust
oozey mess
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Claire Keane
seen from Malaysia
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seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Slovenia
seen from Belgium
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
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@sheridoodle
You know I turned on the sound just to help me understand what was going on and I guess it was exactly what it looked like.
Ooh! Spot the industrial safety device! The worker has to press a 'stab the cheese' button with both hands. This is because if they're doing that, neither of their hands can be within the cheese stabbing zone.
This cheese is being stabbed safely
posting this on twitter will get you put into witness protection
The magic of childhood is that you were constantly encountering new things. The best way to feel that way again is to fill your life with new experiences.
The magic of childhood is that you were constantly encountering new things. The best way to feel that way again is to fill your life with new experiences.
Hydraulic press vs Legos
high product standards will do that, yeah
goddam no wonder it hurts to step on em
I love how there's a little push as the studs on top give way... and then the real battle begins
You see, having Sun Wukong as a Lego makes perfect sense ☺️
KICK THE CAN!
Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.
To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.
the oldest reblogs for this post that i can find are from january 2nd of 2013. this can has been getting kicked around tumblr for almost 13½ years now
And yet somehow this is my first time kicking it!
Happy Pride! Reminder that Xion is a transwoman and we all love her for it
To be fair, changing your mind about where a story’s going based on reader predictions isn’t always bad. Sure, it’s not great if you’re all “oh, no, they figured it out, now I have to change everything because my readers aren’t allowed to be cleverer than me” – but on the other hand, sometimes a reader will be like “okay, here’s the dumbest possible way I can imagine this playing out”, and then their dumbest possible prediction is exactly what you’re planning, and you realise that yeah, now that you’ve seen it laid out by someone who isn’t the voice in your head, that’s actually super dumb.
Other variations that don’t just boil down to deliberately frustrating reader expectations include:
Changing the outcome because a reader was like “I really hope this doesn’t happen”, and on consideration you realise that you also hope that doesn’t happen
Changing the outcome because a reader was thinking further ahead than you are and spotted an implication of a forthcoming plot point that you don’t like the smell of
Changing the outcome because a reader’s prediction drew your attention to the fact that your planned resolution would have stumbled dick-first into a massive plot hole
Changing the outcome because a reader picked up on a bunch of blatant foreshadowing and symbolism you didn’t notice you’d put there because your subconscious forgot to send a memo
Changing the outcome because a reader proposed such an elegant solution to a legitimately thorny narrative problem that it would feel petty not to let them be right
Changing the outcome because a reader was like “hey, you know what would be really fucked up?” and the bastard gremlin that lives in your brain started smirking like the fucking Grinch
🍖 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:
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🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
this was made by a non catholic because dick is step 2
Isn't it shoulder, shoulder, head, chest?
Nope, head, chest, shoulder shoulder
Source: was raised catholic and forced into catholic church & school in my childhood
That isnt true: you have to violently jerk off your penis
“You just wrote your medieval fantasy setting to have medieval gender roles and homophobia and prejudice because you secretly fantasize about being able to be sexist and homophobic in a land with no PoC without any pushback! It’s fantasy, there’s dragons and wizards, it doesn’t have to have prejudice unless you, the writer, want it like that! In *my* D&D setting, there’s no sexism or homophobia, so that gay transgender women of all races can be holy knights fighting to protect the good kingdom from the endless hordes of the evil dark race that has threatened its borders for a thousand years!”
social media has evolved into such a voyeuristic spectacle over the last five to ten years its truly shocking to me like excluding tumblr 90% of the explore pages on other apps is just videos of peoples faces set to music or people talking directly to the camera etc etc......by contrast on tumblr there is still a sort of sheen of anonymity based on how its formatted and usually when you interact with a post you read or watch the content first and then learn the users identity second by clicking on their profile ie the dash is not just a wall of people filming themselves unless its a repost......i remember even only a couple of years ago there was a distinction between people who were influencers and got paid to film themselves 24/7 for instagram but now its like every average person on reels/tiktok is performing the same kind of theater for free......i cant imagine what that would do to your psyche long term
the persistence of "he or she" makes me slightly insane. youre willing to adapt and learn nearly every other linguistic change in modern times but yet you stlll refuse the singular they, which has been around longer than you've been alive. annoying.
Okay but imagine being the team of Eridian scientists tasked with keeping Erid's Only Human alive for as long as possible while the whole planet's environment is literally trying to kill him. And then Rocky shows up and is like:
“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”
“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”
Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”
“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”
“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”
“WHY QUESTION???”
To celebrate Erid getting their sun back on track, Grace asks for some alcohol. There's a small amount left from the Hail Mary and Rocky offers to take it to the science Eridians to see if they can synthesise more.
“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”
“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”
“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”
“WHY QUESTION?????”
Grace is like one of those extremely finicky tropical fish who instantly die if not kept in extremely specific conditions.
Only here the fish can talk and keeps asking you to make it vodka.
I get real "I'm at soup" vibes from some media crit
"All YA books are about vampires" you are looking at the supernatural romance shelf in a WHSmith. "All hip hop is misogynistic" have you considered listening to a female rapper. "All classic books are boring stories about straight white men" you are reading classic books by straight white men. "OFMD was the first time I saw a gay person on television" I don't even know how this happened but it's on you
Hi new Tumblr users
Please know this sites hashtagging system is categorical and NOT clout based
Aka if I look up the “Wendell and Wild” tag, I should find clips, media, art and posts related to Wendell and wild ONLY. Same with any other random tag searched
If I spy a selfie, a random neighborhood, or any other kind of “insta” post trying to take likes for a popular hashtag, I’m reporting you for spam. Most other long term users will too and your acct will be fast tracked as a spam blogger and blocked.
You will not ruin the last non corporate site for us, especially by trying to treat this site like influencers matter. If you get popular, it’s bc you’re a clown w a skill not bc your hot or rich or skinny, got it?
#holy shit at people in the notes this isn't 'tyrannical' it's basic courtesy AND against the tos #the spam report button is easily accessible for this exact reason #cross tagging is absolutely reportable spam according to tos so just don't do it #it also doesn't get you any more notes it just pisses people off
Like for real guys: This is against TOS. It is not allowed. It is spam. IT is not less spam because you are not a botfarm. Don't do it.
People (me) will report you for this (I will). If you are spamming the tags, someone (again, me) will click the little report button (and I will enjoy doing it) every time they (I) see your unrelated posts clogging their (my) search.
Do not tempt me.
I will add that nine times out of ten, it is obviously, verifiably spam. Like, links to random websites, porn, ads for shit, scams, all that jazz.
So if I see your post in the mix, I will treat it the exact same way.
very telling that even if you’re not allowed to view content related to self harm/suicide/eating disorders due to not giving up your ID on the uk internet you will still be shown relentless ads for weight loss drugs and fad diets showing unrealistic/AI generated bodies and unhealthy methods and time frames for weight loss that can only be achieved by starvation. oh and also so so many gambling ads. relentless ads for gacha and gambling services. almost like it’s not actually about protecting kids at all or something
I saw a video today from a chronically ill woman about the fact you can feel so guilty when doing fun things.
She talks about how, as a kid, you learn to finish work before you can play and that you take this with you into adulthood. So you keep the mindset of having to finish 'have to' tasks/chores before being allowed to 'play'.
But when you're chronically ill, this is literally impossible! If you'd do that it would be all work and never play. That wouldn't be healthy at all. We need to remind ourselves of this. We don't need to feel guilty for doing something fun!
More than "here in the Southern Hemisphere we have inverted seasons :)" thing, which is TECHNICALLY true, I would go a step further and encourage to think about that "much of the world does not exactly has a spring-summer-fall-winter season sequence as they show in cartoons"
I will scream about this to anyone who listens forever. AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE "ENGLISH SEASONS BUT BACKWARDS" and the insistence that it does creates a massive layer of alienation from the natural world.
I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).
By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.
Most Indigenous nations around Australia had six or more seasons, revolving around wet and dry times as much as hot and cold, and marked by the appearances of certain native animals and flowers. Schools need to start teaching the real seasons, and explaining that climate cycles are too complex to generalise globally, or else we will keep raising generations who view the natural world as hostile and unpredictable and climate predictions as generally irrelevent and frequently wrong - and I'm sure I don't need to spell out why that's a problem in the era of climate crisis.
i want to add that 40% of the world's population lives in the tropics, and the 4 season model just doesn't make much sense for a lot of places in there. usually it's just the wet season/monsoon season and the dry season. it's often hot year round.
the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.
in general the way humans define seasons is largely subjective and varies across cultures. the one you were taught is not at all universal!
