Trans masc fanboy I have a thing for tall older women characters Ignore all of my stuff pre 2018 as I was a ‘egalitarian skeptic’ sh*t-head and I apologise for that
🍖 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
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bruh i used to hide out in the library in middle school during lunch to read because the lunchroom was overstimulating and i had so many bullies and so many issues with eating in front of people so i would just skip lunch and retreat into book time in the safety of the library, and one day the librarian came over and told me the library had started a new "lounge" for honors students in a little sideroom with comfy chairs where students could snack while they read if they want
and i was today years old when i realized i never saw a single other student in that little room that definitely held storage stuff before then and that the librarian absolutely made that up so i would have a safe space to read and be alone and eat in the library
"terminally ill people should be allowed to choose to die if they feel it is the best decision for them" and "euthanasia can easily become eugenics" and "we should provide support for depressed and suicidal people" are statements that can come into conflict but should all be respected
I've started reading Anne Lister's (early 1800s lesbian) journals, some highlights:
where they start off, she's accompaning her ex-its-complicated (Mariana) who just got married on her honeymoon. Anne responds to this heartbreak by fucking Mariana's sister (also along on the honeymoon)
she is also an absolute dirtbag towards this sister (confusingly also named Anne aka Nantz), "she would gladly have gotten into bed or done anything of the loving kind I asked her", "I said she excited my feelings in a way that was very unjustifiable unless she meant to gratify them"
part of how she explains she's gay to Nantz is saying how pretty hr sister Eliza is. Notably this is not the sister that Anne has been dating.
then she immediately drops Nantz and makes a snide note that "superior charms might not be so easily come-at-able on such easy terms"
Later she meets back up with Mariana and then proceeds to spend so much time hanging out with yet another sister (Lou) that Mariana gets jealous, which Anne glosses over in a way that might read more heartfelt if she had not previously a) noted that one of Mariana's sisters was very pretty or b) slept with another one
On the one hand she is such a snob towards her neighbors, but on the other its clear she's acutely aware that they are all aware she is Different and are gossiping about her, so I find it hard to hold the classism against her
her idea of flirting with a local middleclass girl she meets is to send her a poem about having a temporary fling with a social inferior. Luckily she does not go through with this idea, but big Darcy energy
at one point she buys a pistol and shoots out of her window and the recoil knocks it out of her hand so dramatically that the pistol smashes the glass
so much of these journals are about finances, which I'm sure the historians adore, Anne keeps noting down how much everything cost
There's some interesting gendered bits going on in her: Anne mentions at one point sitting in just her underwear and men's suspenders, and mentions "the abuse I had received for [...] manners like those of a gentleman". She's also very focused on getting a full (masculine) education: classics, math and science, etc, and there are multiple places where she notes particularly when a(n unfamiliar) man treats her intellect as an equal.
there's one long bit that really gets me where she goes on for a while about the various expenses of traveling by coach and ends it with "Any gentleman might travel on these terms, if he chose to go into the traveling room & was sure of being well received so long as he did not give himself airs, but behaved like a gentleman. Indeed, he said, many gentlemen did travel in this way..."
gods I wish she lived in a time where she could be butch
Anne Lister kept parts of her journals encrypted, mostly the lines to do with her sexuality, and there's a strange poetry in the way this collection renders the encrypted text in italics, queerness once unreadable but still written plainly alongside the deniable straightness, "Had a hot supper & did not get back until 3. I slept with M---"
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
prguitarman
blakekathryn
