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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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whenever you take too much time to write something know it is because stephen king has been stealing your life force

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my son (a 45 year old single dad)

he’s ready to commit a war crime and delete the evidence

Pattern is Simplicity S9770

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Get one of your balls into the bucket. Your spoons must be poking through the fence when touching the ball, and only your spoon may touch your ball. You may not touch the other team's balls or bucket or spoons. You must always be on your side of the fence and your ball must always be on the other. If your ball touches the ground, you must start again. Fastest wins.

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so the Mat Baynton yoghurt task is obviously an excellent addition to the Taskmaster-as-kink-exhibition thesis (multiple pages worth, right there)

but I would also like to submit Alex's "Hold Jason, hold him" instructions at the end of the live task because that gave such intense "get this man some aftercare, stat" energy

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Are you experiencing a supernatural situation? Got some problems with your poltergeist? The boys are busy with Ghost Files at the moment, but we’ve set up a hotline for all your ectoplasmic enigmas!

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okay i've lost my mind and decided to do something. see this post. but i need help. please send me any """weird""" trope or prompt or AU or whatever that you can think of. preferably of things that aren't done very often nowadays, but that's not really necessary i guess because there is still some interesting and unique stuff being done. sometimes.

i know this is vague but like, just a few as an example:

sex pollen

mpreg

soulmate geese

wingfic

that sort of thing, and more!. send via an ask, comment on this post, reblog it (please reblog it), whatever. i'll keep this post in circulation for a while, i have no timeline in mind for this.

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Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner's roadblock to art isn't even technical skill it's frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach's capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That's how you build on the technical skill. Throw that "won't even start because I'm afraid it won't be perfect" shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck.

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Tentatively exploring the "stuff for you" tab/hub/link/whatever, and it's 85% people I already follow and have therefore already seen under the, you know, the "following" tab.

Of course this is "stuff for me", it's MY STUFF.

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Star Trek Strap Tournament Round One (Match 9)

(Reblog for larger sample size!)

Link to other matches

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This movie is awesome!

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spin this wheel

you're now this mythical creature, congrats!

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If you're reading this you need to tell me the name of your favorite black character NOW‼️

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World is piss!