[profile picture id: a panel from the spider-man 2099 comic (1922) picturing miguel o'hara with his arms crossed over his chest. he is wearing blue sunglasses, a white button-up and a dark green jacket. end profile picture id.]
[banner id: a gif from the across the spider-verse movie picturing miguel o'hara running at the go-home machine as he extends blades from his forearms. he is wearing his blue and red spidersuit. the go-home machine is a machine resembling a giant, white spider, and it is encapsulating a character in the background into a holographic cage. end banner id.]
๐ How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces
(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)
So. Youโre building a fantasy world, and youโve just invented:
โ Three types of ceremonial jewelry
โ A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed
โ A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn
Cute. But thatโs not culture. Thatโs aesthetics.
And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your storyโs probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.
Hereโs how to fix thatโaka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
๐ Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style
Ask yourself:
โ Whoโs in charge, and why?
โ Who has land? Who doesnโt?
โ Whatโs considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?
Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. Thatโs where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.
Start there. Not at the embroidery.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
2.๐ช 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?
โ What was destroyed and mythologized?
โ What do the survivors still whisper about?
โ What do children get taught in school thatโsโฆ suspiciously sanitized?
No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
3.๐ง Belief Systems > Customs Lists
Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about:
โ Death?
โ Love?
โ Time?
โ The natural world?
โ Justice?
Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everythingโfrom prison sentences to griefโcompletely differently.
You donโt need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
4.๐ซ Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)
Culture shows up in:
โ What people apologize for
โ What insults cut deepest
โ What people are embarrassed about
โ Whatโs praised publicly vs. whatโs hidden privately
For instance:
โ A culture obsessed with stoicism wonโt say โI love you.โ Theyโll say โHave you eaten?โ
โ A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.
This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
5. ๐ Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals
Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about:
โ Breakfast routines?
โ How people greet each other on the street?
โ Who cooks, and who eats first?
โ Whatโs considered โcleanโ or โproperโ?
โ How is parenting handled? Divorce?
Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your characterโs assumptions, language, fears, and habitsโwhether or not a festival is going on.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
6. ๐ฌ Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture
A culture isnโt a monolith.
Even in deeply traditional societies, people:
โ Rebel
โ Question
โ Break rules
โ Misinterpret laws
โ Mock sacred things
โ Act hypocritically
โ Weaponize or resist whatโs expected
Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. Thatโs where realism (and tension) lives.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
7.๐งผ Beware the โPretty = Goodโ Trap
Worldbuilding gets boring fast when:
โ The protagonistโs homeland is beautiful and pure
โ The enemyโs culture is dark and โbarbaricโ
โ Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like
You canโand shouldโchallenge the aesthetic hierarchy.
โ Let ugly things be beloved.
โ Let beautiful things be corrupt.
โ Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.
โโโโโโโ โฆ โโโโโโโ
๐ TL;DR (but like, spicy):
โ Culture is not food and jewelry.
โ Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction.
โ Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter.
โ Let your world feel lived in, not curated.
The best cultural worldbuilding doesnโt look like a list.
It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters canโt escapeโeven if they try.
Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)
โrin t.
// writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range
// thewriteadviceforwriters
Sometimes the problem isnโt your plot. Itโs your first 5 pages. Fix it here โ ๐ค Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:
โฆ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages โฆIf you're unsure whether your opening is โจdoing enoughโจ to hook re
๐ฏ๏ธ download the pack & write something cursed:
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.โ Write the Darkness โA 75-prompt horror
If i worked in childcare and my 6 hours were up i would start putting babies in ziploc bags and shipping them to Turkmenistan listed as endangered fruits and vegetables
discord. steam. github. i'm there. bluesky. i don't and won't use it but it's there. factorio forums. yup. remember cohost? i was there. shortcircuit908.
while i don't believe in an afterlife or souls and do accept that a corpse is an empty space where something once was, i also think that if we give a body which cannot advocate for itself that meaning and personhood, then we cannot simply disregard it as it suits the living to do so without any consideration for the consequences of that, especially when we will all one day be in the same position regardless of our consent in the matter. unlike abortion, where you're advocating for a hypothetical person that doesn't exist yet, a corpse is what remains of someone who did and had a material impact on the world. the dead aren't due any more dignity or respect than the living, but they also aren't due any less for the same reasons, and how much someone values the lives of others among them inevitably reflects how they treat their dead.
perhaps it'd clarify my position to say that, yes, a corpse is an object and an empty space which cannot feel or react, but a body is how we connect and interact with each other and the world, and a corpse is also, unavoidably, a body, however vacant, and you cannot treat a body as you would an object if you want to claim to uphold human rights, because that's a dangerous road with a steep drop
Mitch McConnell has been sent to a nice farm out in the country where there's lots of open space to run around and lots of other senators for him to play with
This is just Gardiner's sign list of Egyptian Hieroglyphics A1-B2 with a couple of repeats thrown in at the end. You've thrown a vocabulary list at us.
Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do.
glossary:
eek also
and even
tho at the time
prys great value
wonder a cause for astonishment
nyce stupid
spedde succeeded
You know the form of language, too, can change.
Within a thousand years, even the words
that were most precious then, seem strange
and foolish to us; yet they spoke them so
and did no worse in love than we now do.
