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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:

[kmlaney]

Author spotlight! Michael Twitty is an award-winning author and culinary historian who specializes in food of the African-American community from enslavement in the mid-18th century to post-reconstruction in the mid to late 19th century.

Michael Twitty's books touch on American history, and the relevance of ingredients available in a historical and modern context. As a Black, Jewish, gay man, he explores the importance of his history and presence in the world.

Pre-order his latest book Recipes from the American South, coming out on October 15th, 2025.

Relevant links: Website, Amazon, Instagram

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Conversation carried out throughout the shift

[kmlaney]

best thing tumblr ever did for me is the term "rotating it in my mind". it's really true that sometimes you think about something real hard but you can't tell what the thoughts are exactly. it's revolutionary stuff, i might even say

[kmlaney]

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

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Tumblr, I propose a battle of wits!

I have put Iocaine powder in one of these two goblets. You choose, then we both drink.

[kmlaney]

Happy Pride month to all the gay folks who should still be with us but were lost to AIDS. So many of them had (and continue to have) huge impacts on the world, despite their lives being tragically cut short.

Since this is primarily a Muppet blog, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Richard Hunt.

Richard Hunt was a gay man and a fantastic puppeteer who started working with Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, and company in 1970 at age eighteen and joined the cast of Sesame Street two years later. While working with the Muppets, he originated the characters of Scooter, Beaker, Statler, Sweetums, and Wayne, but also became the primary performer of Janice and is responsible for the flower child personality she is now known for. He was also known to be a fantastic singer.

But maybe most importantly, he made so many people happy. According the book "Of Muppets and Men" by Christopher Finch, Hunt "seems to get more unadulterated pleasure from performing than anyone else in the organization. When he is not working on camera, he is apt to have Scooter or Beaker or Janice -- anyone -- on his arm for the purpose of entertaining... He makes the crew laugh, jokes with the guest star, clowns for the shop personnel. He is one of the chief reasons for the loose atmosphere that exists around Studio D despite the pressure and the slow pace that are endemic to television production."

Hunt died at age 41 due to AIDS complications. The Muppet Workshop made a panel for the NAMES Project AIDS quilt in his honor. The Richard Hunt Spirit Award is presented every year at the Sesame Street wrap party to the cast member that best honors Hunt's generosity and dedication on set.

Rest in peace Richard. Thank you for the laughs and the smiles, and happy Pride 💛

[kmlaney]

“Medieval peasants couldn’t handle my Spotify playlist” but could YOU handle a medieval bard relaying the epic of Beowulf over the course of an hour? Humble yourself.

[kmlaney]

Meet Pearl, who is the mascot for the Halifax Oyster Festival AND the Horrible Things With Legs tag if ever there was one

I love that this is a person in a costume. She definitely represents her message well! Thank you!

[kmlaney]

[kmlaney]

Curious Tiger Chews on Cardboard Tube in His Outdoor Enclosure

[kmlaney]

I think the best part of Murderbot is its staunch belief that it’s average at its job, and it only does better because it doesn’t have a working governor module

It’s always like, I’m just a SecUnit, the only reason I’m better is because humans somehow have worse judgement than me in my very narrow field of expertise, and I have the ability to process multiple things at once, and I don’t die when I get my shit wrecked. None of these are advantages over other bots, so I’m actually just average as far as skills go.

Meanwhile, Murderbot’s track record is something like ‘regularly takes out other SecUnits, regularly hacks fairly complicated systems, takes out multiple hostiles while saving and protecting clients/hostages, beat two Combat Bots in succession, and went toe to toe with a Combat SecBot while taking out two other SecUnits, rounding it off with inhabiting spaceships and crushing the incredibly difficult and malicious killware infecting them.’

That’s not even counting the guts, skill, and determination it takes to hack your own hardware/code which is fully capable of frying your brain in the first place

[kmlaney]

reblog to give prev a transgender pride marble

[kmlaney]

ayn rand failing to understand that sesame street is for young children

[kmlaney]

Limerick Template

There once was a [PERSON] from [PLACE] Whose [BODY PART] was [SPECIAL CASE] When [EVENT] would occur It would cause [HIM OR HER] To [BREAK A LAW OF TIME AND SPACE]