Thank you to @gravesidevibes for helping me finally title the remaining part of Damage Left Behind!!!
A brief overview; Damage Left Behind is my (very ambitious) 5 part series of The Nursery Nurse canon compatible fics centred around the character Kathleen and the mark she left on Charlotte and Siobhan. Currently the first part what does the medicine taste like (and why is it so familiar?) is already available to read.
The subsequent parts all have titles now and they are:
Part 2: a chapter by any other name (wouldn’t read the same)
Part 3: anything you can do (i’ll do you better)
Part 4: among the missing petals (there’s still a point to be made)
Part 5: just keep your eyes on me (the rest is easy)
I am working on writing the rest and will update with links when I do post. They can each be read as a standalone or in any order as a series.
Graves and I just got approached by Jehovah’s Witnesses. They see us outside, enjoying the sun, smoking the devil’s lettuce. I wave them over. As they approach I call out “y’all Mormons?” And they go “no, no, Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
And I am rightfully disappointed. Because Mormonism is a lowkey special interest of mine. #actuallyautistic
So I let them know. I go “that’s a shame. I have a special interest in Mormons, I think they’re neat.”
And they were good sports about it. They asked if we still wanted to hear their spiel which I politely declined.
Graves and I just got approached by Jehovah’s Witnesses. They see us outside, enjoying the sun, smoking the devil’s lettuce. I wave them over. As they approach I call out “y’all Mormons?” And they go “no, no, Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
And I am rightfully disappointed. Because Mormonism is a lowkey special interest of mine. #actuallyautistic
So I let them know. I go “that’s a shame. I have a special interest in Mormons, I think they’re neat.”
And they were good sports about it. They asked if we still wanted to hear their spiel which I politely declined.
There is a small beetle climbing the wall of my house. Now, maybe I’ve never taken the time to watch a six-legged creature scale a vertical surface but I think this beetle is going about it a bit goofy. Namely it appears to be lifting the front leg on one side and the middle leg on the other and waving them around wildly while the other 4 legs cling to the wall for dear life.
worldbuilding questions that make your story feel REAL
you don’t need a 500-page lore bible to write a compelling story.
but it doesn't hurt to ask the right questions about your world. that's when the ✨magic ✨ hapens!
if your world feels boring, it's usually because you haven't gotten down and dirty with the deeper layers. have you explored culture? history? daily life? small details?
those little details make worlds feel lived in. those are the kind of worlds you want to read about!
so here are a few questions i like to ask when building a world for a novel or fanfic:
history
what major event shaped the world people live in now?
what do people believe about that event… and what actually happened?
who benefits from the current version of history being told? (fantasy propaganda?? :O)
culture
what does this society celebrate? holidays, rituals, traditions?
what behavior is considered shameful or taboo?
what kind of person is respected here? and what kind is looked down on?
daily life
what does an ordinary day look like for someone in this world?
what’s something people complain about constantly?
what small convenience exists here that wouldn’t exist in our world?
power and conflict
who actually holds power in this world?
who thinks they hold power but really doesn’t?
what tensions exist that could explode into conflict?
environment
how does the landscape shape the culture?
what natural dangers exist?
how do people adapt to survive here?
little details that make worlds feel alive
what slang do people use?
what food is common in this world?
what rumors or urban legends circulate?
most writers struggle with worldbuilding because they don't have a structured place to explore these questions. they don't know what questions to ask. so they are left unanswered, leaving a hole in your world.
in summary: ask lots of (weird and oddly specific) questions about your world's logic.
if you need help, i have a super detailed novel writing planner (50+ pages) with a HUGE worldbuilding section. made by myself (an ADHD writer), so being concise, organized, and thorough were my three biggest priorities!
It's got sections for worldbuilding, character motives, subplots, character arcs, theme + symbolism, and more!
it's basically a place where your entire story can finally live outside your head! <3
🍖 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.
─────── ✦ ───────
đź”— 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.đź«€ 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.
─────── ✦ ───────
6. đź’¬ 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.
─────── ✦ ───────
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.
─────── ✦ ───────
đź“Ť 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:
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
🕯️ 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
Let me gab about my Grey Warden. His name is Orion, he’s a dwarven noble. He has relationships with men and sex with women.
I’ll talk about him after but I need to get to the point of this post — and spoilers for the male dwarven noble origin (literally the only origin I have played) — but if you don’t play along and get into the spirit of conspiracy about your brothers, and you don’t tell the scout about what you were talking to Gorim about/warn that there might be an ambush, then as soon as you leave conversation, everyone in Trian’s party just LOUDLY DIES IN THE OTHER ROOM?!?!?
So yeah, Orion didn’t play along with the conspiracy and was devastated when he found Trian’s body. And then to immediately be accused of doing it.
Let’s see, Gorim asked if Orion wanted the angry man from house Vollney killed and he said yes. Orion took on both Noble-Hunters. Orion won the Proving and gifted the helmet to Ivo. Orion was a bitch to his brothers but didn’t antagonize them.
At the banquet Orion agreed to Lord Dace’s request and stuck to his guns when the nasty lady from house Helmi called him an idiot for wanting to see the good in things. He fulfilled his promise to Lord Dace.
I forgot to grab the shield of Aeducan and got all the way back to the start before I realized that was why the ambush with Trian wasn’t triggering (I thought I was just lost)
Killed the scout for daring to slander my good name. I was a good boy so far.
I did not point my finger at Bhelen while my father interrogated me. Had a homoerotic moment with Gorim in jail. Gave my warning about Bhelen destroying them all and now we are back to where I got before my computer crashed. Yay
I think it’s so funny that I can’t keep my perspectives straight. I fought so hard to stay in the third person with Orion. You can see where I failed. This happens when I write synopsises too, I’ll slip into second person despite my actual writing being in 3rd limited… this post got away from me
The party presently is Orion, Alistair, Morrigan, and Sten (previous Dog, named Duncan).
Killed the bandits on the bridge. Did not kill the raving lunatic outside the chantry.
Alistair made a comment about Morrigan’s nose bearing a resemblance to her mother’s and Morrigan’s response just a a very pointed “I hate you so much”.
We’re either headed to pick up Wynne next or Shale.
It is so hard for me to build a party in this game because I want certain characters to interact and also I want all my favourites in the party. But that’s how we die. Or get into really stupid tactics.
In a perfect world my party would be Alistair, Morrigan, and either Sten or Shale. Orion is a rogue.
We’re in Redcliffe! I picked up Shale first, then Wynne. We’re still waiting to be ambushed by Zevran.
I never want to go back to the Mage’s Tower. Hate it there. Said no to demons and blood mages. Said no to Cullen. Rescued Irving.
Survived the night after convincing everyone to join in in Redcliffe.
Oh right! With Shale: did not have to commit child murder for “Arin is too dumb to solve this puzzle crimes”. We did let the cat possess her tho…
Am I crazy or did there used to be a line of dialogue banter between Alistair and Morrigan after you named Dog where if you named Dog “Duncan” Alistair would comment that it was a good way to honour him. OR If you named Dog “Alistair” Morrigan would comment that Dog!Alistair was probably the smarter of the two. Did I dream this up? I swore this used to be a thing
Let me gab about my Grey Warden. His name is Orion, he’s a dwarven noble. He has relationships with men and sex with women.
I’ll talk about him after but I need to get to the point of this post — and spoilers for the male dwarven noble origin (literally the only origin I have played) — but if you don’t play along and get into the spirit of conspiracy about your brothers, and you don’t tell the scout about what you were talking to Gorim about/warn that there might be an ambush, then as soon as you leave conversation, everyone in Trian’s party just LOUDLY DIES IN THE OTHER ROOM?!?!?
So yeah, Orion didn’t play along with the conspiracy and was devastated when he found Trian’s body. And then to immediately be accused of doing it.
Let’s see, Gorim asked if Orion wanted the angry man from house Vollney killed and he said yes. Orion took on both Noble-Hunters. Orion won the Proving and gifted the helmet to Ivo. Orion was a bitch to his brothers but didn’t antagonize them.
At the banquet Orion agreed to Lord Dace’s request and stuck to his guns when the nasty lady from house Helmi called him an idiot for wanting to see the good in things. He fulfilled his promise to Lord Dace.
I forgot to grab the shield of Aeducan and got all the way back to the start before I realized that was why the ambush with Trian wasn’t triggering (I thought I was just lost)
Killed the scout for daring to slander my good name. I was a good boy so far.
I did not point my finger at Bhelen while my father interrogated me. Had a homoerotic moment with Gorim in jail. Gave my warning about Bhelen destroying them all and now we are back to where I got before my computer crashed. Yay
I think it’s so funny that I can’t keep my perspectives straight. I fought so hard to stay in the third person with Orion. You can see where I failed. This happens when I write synopsises too, I’ll slip into second person despite my actual writing being in 3rd limited… this post got away from me
The party presently is Orion, Alistair, Morrigan, and Sten (previous Dog, named Duncan).
Killed the bandits on the bridge. Did not kill the raving lunatic outside the chantry.
Alistair made a comment about Morrigan’s nose bearing a resemblance to her mother’s and Morrigan’s response just a a very pointed “I hate you so much”.
We’re either headed to pick up Wynne next or Shale.
It is so hard for me to build a party in this game because I want certain characters to interact and also I want all my favourites in the party. But that’s how we die. Or get into really stupid tactics.
In a perfect world my party would be Alistair, Morrigan, and either Sten or Shale. Orion is a rogue.
Let me gab about my Grey Warden. His name is Orion, he’s a dwarven noble. He has relationships with men and sex with women.
I’ll talk about him after but I need to get to the point of this post — and spoilers for the male dwarven noble origin (literally the only origin I have played) — but if you don’t play along and get into the spirit of conspiracy about your brothers, and you don’t tell the scout about what you were talking to Gorim about/warn that there might be an ambush, then as soon as you leave conversation, everyone in Trian’s party just LOUDLY DIES IN THE OTHER ROOM?!?!?
So yeah, Orion didn’t play along with the conspiracy and was devastated when he found Trian’s body. And then to immediately be accused of doing it.
Let’s see, Gorim asked if Orion wanted the angry man from house Vollney killed and he said yes. Orion took on both Noble-Hunters. Orion won the Proving and gifted the helmet to Ivo. Orion was a bitch to his brothers but didn’t antagonize them.
At the banquet Orion agreed to Lord Dace’s request and stuck to his guns when the nasty lady from house Helmi called him an idiot for wanting to see the good in things. He fulfilled his promise to Lord Dace.
I forgot to grab the shield of Aeducan and got all the way back to the start before I realized that was why the ambush with Trian wasn’t triggering (I thought I was just lost)
Killed the scout for daring to slander my good name. I was a good boy so far.
I did not point my finger at Bhelen while my father interrogated me. Had a homoerotic moment with Gorim in jail. Gave my warning about Bhelen destroying them all and now we are back to where I got before my computer crashed. Yay
I think it’s so funny that I can’t keep my perspectives straight. I fought so hard to stay in the third person with Orion. You can see where I failed. This happens when I write synopsises too, I’ll slip into second person despite my actual writing being in 3rd limited… this post got away from me
I cannot play Dragon Age: Origins without some kind of technical issue.
Last time it was literally being unable to cross the bridge at the end of the tutorial. I would crash half way consistently and it required modding to fix.
This time the audio appears to be playing at half speed and is horribly crunchy.
