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some cool rings <3

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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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I really like those "here are my ocs with their pride flags" type of arts and I thought of making one but unfortunately I just keep making bi bitches

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Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

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*immediately sees your pinned post after sending ask*

okay shifting gears a bit, tell me about what inspired the wip?

- @akindofmagictoo

I'm always down to talk about Prince of Petals!!! (The whole series is one of my favorites, and I love the characters)

Part of the inspiration came from playing Bellaia (the main character) in Dungeons and Dragons. I made her as a warlock with a fae patron. I was inspired by her backstory of making a deal with DnD's Prince of Frost, and wanted to explore her story outside the little campaign we did. I love the seasonal fae courts, so I made one for each season.

My other big inspiration comes from my love of the fae themselves. Ever since I was little, I loved fairies from the flower fairies in Cicely Mary Barker's book to Tinkerbell to the fae of folklore and mythology. I made fairy houses at my grandparents house. I love the fae, but I don't love the popular depictions of them in fantasy today. (I hate the fae in Sarah J Maas's work as well as the fae in When the Moon Hatched.) They act nothing like their folkloric counterparts and instead could be swapped out for elves or any other long living fantasy species.

I wanted to write a story where the fae actually behaved like fae instead of what is more popular. I love the seasonal fae courts as well as the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I love fae bargains and their inability to lie. So, I wrote my fae aligned with folklore. I'm very proud of how I have written each of the Princes in charge of the fae courts, their court members, and the pawns they use to broker for power.

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first base is ripping each other's throats out second base is fucking and then pretending it didn't happen after it's over. third base is falling unconscious from blood loss in the other's arms

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WIP Tag Game

I was tagged by the wonderful @orphanheirs Thank you for the tag!

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips.

We have

Prince of Petals

Prince of Sunlight

Toxic Las Vegas Heist

Seven's Apotheosis (formerly Blood of the Seven)

Ice Vikings

Saint Story

Dragon Lords

Alice in Wonderland

20s Story

More Wolf Than Man

Tarot Witches

Witch and Shadow

I will tag @flowerprose @bebewrites @awritingcaitlin @ryns-ramblings @charlesjosephwrites @akindofmagictoo @lady-grace-pens and anyone else who wants to join in!

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PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

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To celebrate The Voice of Wild Places going to ARC readers soon, I've gathered some books that take place largely in the 20s and 30s. There is one that recently came out and I'm so excited that I needed to include it; it takes place in the 1910s.

The Voice of Wild Places is a queer historical fiction set in 1930, following two ex best friends as they search for lost cities, and the legend who disappeared looking for them.

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Pondering my orbs.

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Things Your Character Deeply Regrets (Even If They’ve Never Said It Out Loud)

(They may hide it, deny it, or carry it like an anchor.)

✨ Something they said in anger and can’t unsay.

✨ Someone they let go before they were ready.

✨ Not being there when it mattered.

✨ Saying “yes” when they should’ve said “no.”

✨ Saying “no” when they should’ve said “yes.”

✨ Not fighting harder.

✨ Fighting for the wrong thing.

✨ Being too proud to apologize.

✨ Being too scared to speak up.

✨ Choosing the easy road and watching it rot.

✨ Trusting someone they shouldn’t have.

✨ Not trusting someone who earned it.

✨ Keeping a secret that hurt someone.

✨ Breaking a promise they meant to keep.

✨ Turning into the very thing they once hated.

✨ Wasting time they can’t get back.

✨ Hurting someone to protect themselves.

✨ Letting shame win.

✨ Staying silent when someone else needed their voice.

✨ Realizing too late that love was the point and they missed it.

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characters whose sexuality is "i'm under way too much stress to figure that shit out rn"

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Zeh'ave

💨Brain damage has left her with amnesia 💨A being made of magic 💨Works as a power supply for generators 💨Desperate for something fun to do 💨Bits of memories coming back at inconvenient times 💨Floats when she sleeps 💨Can't dissipate on command

Picrews under the cut!

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