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Fire, Water, Earth & Air Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, The Seeds of Conflict | The Ravening War, The Red Warren | Dimension 20: Burrow's End & Dimension 20: On a Bus

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truly one of the most hostile episodes of dimension 20 there's ever been

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that’s a good one

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some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received: always put the punch line at the end of the sentence.

it doesn’t have to be a “punch line” as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:

doing it wrong:

She saw her brother’s dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.

doing it right:

Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchen—probably from the fridge, she thought—she followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brother’s dead body.

Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, you’ve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and it’s buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and it’s like an emotional exclamation point. Everything’s normal and then BAM, her brother’s dead.

This rule doesn’t just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. It’s why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.

Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate reader’s emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:

She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.

Oh! There’s a ghost! That’s shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesn’t even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and that’s obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:

She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldn’t see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.

Because the ghost is in the middle of the sentence, it’s presented like it’s a mere shelf-blocking pest, and thus less important than the REAL goal of this sentence: the grape jelly. The ghost is diminished, and now you get the impression that the character is probably not too surprised by ghosts in her pantry. Maybe it lives there. Maybe she sees a dozen ghosts a day. In any case, it’s not a big deal. Even though both sentences convey the exact same information, they set up the reader to regard the presence of ghosts very differently in this story.

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Jewish children with their teacher in Samarkand (1905-1915), photograph by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. Library of Congress.

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he's streaming; tip?

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I've said this before but you really need to start loving Jewish people more than you hate nazis. Everyone says they'd punch a nazi but don't speak up against antisemitism. Everyone hates a nazi but won't correct their own antisemitism, even if it was an accident. Everyone says never again but they don't acknowledge the antisemitism built into our society.

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This is a reminder to always check for hechshers even for brands that you know have kosher products, because TIL that some batches of the Pospsicle-brand grape, cherry, and orange ice pops are not actually kosher (since they were produced in a non-kosher facility in Italy) and...are unfortunately mixed in to the larger distribution and hiding amongst their kosher counterparts.

Even more unfortunate, my discovery means that I now have almost 800 popsicles that I can't serve 🙃 at least my boss knows someone who was more than happy to take them off of her hands

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today is july 15, the anniversary of Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón abolishing the spanish inquisition in 1815.

to honor the jewry of that region, my mother’s people, who suffered at the hands of that horrific organization, i wanted to post some excerpts from Forgotten Giants by Rabbi Yosef Bitton and other things people don’t typically know:

the inquisition was abolished 300+ years later. it existed and held power for over 300 years. (1815 is particularly interesting bc napoleon got rid of the second class citizenship of jews and closed the ghettos and gave us basic human rights…and then when he was defeated, our rights were stripped away again. but also cristina abolishing it was a moot point then. the emancipation etc came from napoleon and his reforms. )

spain would go on to learn NOTHING from this history and continue to stew in jew hatred to this day after spending decades as a fascist nation. portugal has learned nothing either.

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i hate when men complain about women’s body hair, even like the fine hair on their backs. go fuck a shark if you wanna have sex with something hairless

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I have a small but growing list of potential future dnd characters I've dubbed "DnD Characters a DM Might Love or Might Shoot me for"

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My beloved (Ixora)

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What the fuck do you mean there was an official Perryshmirtz I Knew You Were Trouble amv that aired on the Disney Channel?

My jaw is actually on the floor.

(Wayback Machine link to the original youtube upload for those of you who can't believe that this was official - https://web.archive.org/web/20130525003845/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQVR-fgeM8)

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ROAD WIZARD! CAST HAMMER EXPLOSION SPELL ON THE HAZARDOUS VEHICLE FOR SAFETY OF THE PEOPLE!!!

artfight attack for @swordy-da-goat >:]c

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🍖 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:

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

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Lazy afternoon

(illustration for my patreon merch club last month!)