(If the second wheel lands on an option ending with a plus sign, spin it again)

(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

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This post was originally from a FAQ, but since the original link is now defunct, I am re-posting it here.

There are many things to keep in mind when naming the town or city in your novel:

1) Genre/Theme/Tone

It’s very important to consider the genre and theme of your story when choosing a town name. Take these names for example, each of which indicates the genre or theme of the story: King’s Landing (sounds fantastical) Cloud City (sounds futuristic) Silent Hill (sounds scary) Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat) Bikini Bottom (sounds funny) Radiator Springs (sounds car-related) Halloween Town (sounds Halloween-related) Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related) 2) Time/Place It’s also important to consider the time and place where your story takes place. For example, you wouldn’t use “Vista Gulch” as a name for a town in Victorian England. You probably wouldn’t use it for a town in modern day North Carolina, either. Vista is a Spanish word and would normally be found in places where Spanish names are common, like Spain, Central and South America, the southwest United States (including southern California), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Florida. 3) Size/Settlement Type An isolated town of 300 people probably won’t be Valley City, but a sprawling metropolis of 30 million could be called Windyville, because it could have started out as a small town and grew into a large city. 4) Geography Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island. Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water. 5) History Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name. 6) Combination of Words

person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek

group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge

descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill

person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville

landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville

Word Lists

Types of Settlements

Geographical Features

Place Words

Common Suffixes

Other Descriptors

Inhabiting areas just above the deep ocean the ochiodont, if you could not tell, is a much larger and much more predatory relative of conodonts and like conodonts ochiodont lacks a jaw bone, so this 6 meter long fish has obviously developed some unique ornamentations to help handle prey. using their primary set of dental destroyers ochiodonts use these to handle prey closing them around prey quickly causing severe damage with the sharpened hooks, if the prey might be more harder to handle that's were the second pair of teeth come in as ochiodonts will use theses ones by ramming in and stab into prey as quickly as possible before the larger set of teeth can deliver a killing blow.

An Arkansas lawmaker shocked onlookers this week when he asked a transgender health care professional about her genitals at a hearing on a bill that would prohibit gender-affirming care for minors.

Gwendolyn Herzig, a pharmacist who is a trans woman, was testifying Monday in support of the treatment for minors during a state Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“You said that you’re a trans woman?” Republican state Sen. Matt McKee asked Herzig. “Do you have a penis?”

The audience erupted, with some audibly gasping and at least one person shouting, "Disgraceful."

"That's horrible," Herzig said, after taking a few moments to gather herself. "I don't know what my rights are, but that question was horribly inappropriate."

Herzig, who holds a doctorate of pharmacy, then added: "I'm a health care professional, a doctor. Please treat me as such. Next question, please."

Herzig said she went into Monday's hearing hoping that Republican lawmakers would be receptive to hearing her perspective as a trans woman and a health professional.

"Any other question I was expecting other than what I got," Herzig, 33, said in a phone interview with NBC News. "It was probably the most publicly humiliating thing I've ever gone through."

McKee did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.

The exchange prompted outrage on social media from trans activists and the state's Democrats.

"Absolutely sickening," Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, wrote on Twitter. "Arkansas State senator Matt McKee asked a trans person at a legislative hearing 'do you have a penis?' Does this State Senator have any basic human decency?"

The Democratic Party of Arkansas tweeted, "Republicans are not hiding their transphobia."

The legislation, S.B. 199, introduced in the Arkansas Senate this month, would prohibit physicians in the state from providing most types of gender-affirming care to minors, including prescribing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, or from performing transition-related surgeries.

It would also allow anyone in the state who has received gender-affirming care as a minor to file a malpractice lawsuit against physicians for up to 30 years after they turn 18.

More than a dozen major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, support the treatments that would be barred if the bill becomes law.

In 2021, Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-affirming care for minors, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the law. The 2021 legislation largely mirrors the bill introduced this year.

Five other states have enacted similar forms of the legislation, including South Dakota, whose Governor signed a measure into law on Monday.

Less than two months into 2023, lawmakers in at least 24 states, including Arkansas, have introduced legislation that would restrict transition-related care for minors, according to an NBC News analysis.

S.B. 199 advanced through Arkansas' Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, and it is expected to pass through the state Senate in upcoming weeks.

After testifying, Herzig said she defiantly sat through the rest of the hearing before heading back to work at the pharmacy she owns, Park West Pharmacy in Little Rock, the state capital.

As video of her exchange with McKee spreads on social media, Herzig said, "Going viral, I guess, is OK."

As the 20 year old sets up his tee shot to hit onto the fairway the old man notes “when I was your age we used to hit over the trees - not around to the side.”

So the 20 year old readjusts and tries to hit over the trees - but can’t clear them and loses his ball. He tries again and loses that one too…

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” is a trap. It means there’s a good chance the officer doesn’t actually have a good reason to ticket you, and is trying to get you to waive your 5th Amendment rights and incriminate yourself. If you make a guess, that’s a confession of guilt.

i’m screaming..