#ishgar

Okay so far we know that Earthland has four main continents. An unnamed eastern continent, the northern continent Guiltina, the western continent Alakitasia, and of course there's Ishgar.

Now aside from these places being fictional (as much as we may want them to be real) and therefore having no real cultures, we don't really get a good look at what the cultures of these lands really are other than some vague exposition. So when it comes to thinking of what these countries cultures would be like, what their food is like, their dress, their language, I've found it best to ascribe real world examples and use those to influence how I build up this world in my fics.

Which is why my own thoughts are as follows.

The unnamed eastern country has been mentioned a few times and is shown to have a somewhat asian culture, since we don't really know the landmass I'm tempted to say that certain parts of it lean more towards different asian cultures. Instead of it being all one monoculture that leans heavily into the Japanese culture.

I've admittedly not been keeping up with 100yrs quest, aside from watching the dub as it comes out, so I can't go too into depth on what the culture in Guiltina would be like. None of my fics have really taken place in that area, other than a small reference here or there, so I have no real need to flesh it out too much. Saying that though as it's the northern continent my mind immediately goes towards a more colder climate and I begin to think eastern/northern european. I know that's not strictly the case and I think I'll revisit this as I know more about the area.

Now Alakitasia is shown to be a hot continent, So I automatically begin to lean more towards the americas. Both North and South. Maybe even seeing some african influence in some areas. The Alvarez Empire in particular was said to cover a vast amount of the landmass (I think), and with it being an empire would likely have absorbed multiple cultures along the way. The entire country has likely become a melting pot of cultural experiences from different regions within the continent. That's not to mention if Zeref didn't influence the culture there himself by bringing over some of the cultural practises from Ishgar.

Speaking of Ishgar though, I noticed that many of the names for the countries come from european languages, such as fiore meaning flower in italian, which leads me to think that the culture there is pretty euro-centric. Now I haven't thought about the cultures in every country, just a few that have come up when I get a little carried away with world building. I have no set real world equivalent for the culture in Fiore and as such I mostly view it as being vaguely european in nature. Minstrel and Midi I see as having a similar cultural spread akin to the British Isles, maybe even touching on some French influences here and there. Caelum I thought of as having an Italian and Greek influence. Then there's Desierto, which features heavily in another fic I have in the works and is mentioned once or twice in tswwid. Since I found out that Desierto is the Spanish word for desert I absolutely cannot picture the culture there as anything other than spanish/latin american.

Ughhhh if you got this far I think you need a medal or something.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Have sparkles.