#with an immersion in creative writing

[helpimstuckposting]

You ever read a line you wrote and you’re like fuck, did I do that? I said that? Damn okay, alright, maybe I’m pretty good at this

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

🍖 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.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔗 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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

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.

─────── ✦ ───────

📍 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:

[ladycatashtrophe]

I know many people need their silly little scenario time before bed to fall asleep at night, but I for one also require a decent amount of immersive-daydreaming-time immediately upon awakening to fortify my soul for the day and that's why I'm an English major.

[maggplays]

Bio? Something like that.

How did I start modding? Literally no one has asked this, but here's my story, don't worry it's not long... I guess that depends on what your definition of “long” is, haha! Hang on, here we go.

On a random day in January, 2024, a few days before my birthday, I might add... I woke up to stars in my right eye. A few days later, I was told I had a very rare injury and it would never heal. Those are not words an artist/gamer wants to hear! Long story short, I am now legally blind in my right eye. If you think, oh that's not a huge deal, you can still see. Humor me, get a cheap pirate eyepatch, put that on, then pour yourself a cup of coffee. Not as easy as you thought, right? Depth perception. It’s a thing. Anyway, on with the story. Suffice it to say, I was depressed. Majorly. Then, through some random conversation somewhere, I found Stardew Valley.

Perfect! 2D animation, cute pixel art, story that's not sugar-coated anime, I love it! Got to year 3, TBH I've never played past year 3 because ADHD, and realized the dialogue was quite lacking. Then I discovered mods. What the-, it's a freakin' goldmine! Downloaded a lot of things, mostly dialogue, and tossed half of them. While playing through a Sebastian run, I saw it. Oh. My. God. It's a coding error glaring at me in my dialogue box. This is NOT acceptable. I tried to ignore it, but then it happened again. Okay, time for some investigation. I opened the folder and found... json files. Interesting, I wasn't entirely clueless since I do know HTML code from back when the internet was a baby, Facebook had no ads, and dinosaurs roamed the earth. Okay, okay, the internet was more like a spoiled toddler. Yes, I'm old. Shut up. But I digress. It didn't take long to discover the misplaced punctuation and go on my merry reality-avoiding way. Until I got bored again.

I looked for more Seb mods, but there were like seven. Three were yandere, not my jam, and only 2 were updated for 1.6 and were dialogue-only. Solution? Make my own mod for myself. I spent six weeks downloading mods, learning code, Googling to very little effect, writing dialogue, learning how to make an event, discovering I knew nothing, and on and on. The perfect distraction from the whole eye thing. I finished a decent draft, loaded it up, and praise Yoba, it worked! And on we play. At some point, I saw a comment complaining about the lack of Sebastian dialogue mods. Huh, yep, they're right. Too bad. Oh. Well, I guess I could load this thing I made, it's really just my own internal story monologue while playing the game, I'm NOT a writer, and most people probably won't get it. But I did spend a lot of time on this, and maybe someone out there will like it. Heck, no skin off my nose since it's free. So I took a deep breath, made peace with my inner demons, and threw it out into the void of Nexus, expecting it to be swallowed up and ignored. That... didn't happen.

In the first few hours, several people downloaded it. Huh, Nexus must have a decent search algorithm. That was literally all I thought about it. The next day, 300 downloads. And comments! Mostly positive with the exception of one wild demand I subsequently ignored. At one week, it had 3,000 unique downloads. I was floored, 3,000 weirdos downloaded my mod. Add to that, people seemed to actually like it! I've never gotten so much positive feedback for anything in my life. Seriously. Apparently, my oddball internal monologue, thanks ADHD, is quite entertaining. Heck, might as well make another one... and here we are. Yes, I've gotten negative comments and unreasonable demands, but I do my best to ignore them and practice staying positive. Trolls be damned! It's a lot harder to do that for yourself than for other people, turns out.

So, bottom line, found something interesting? Try it! Does it make you happy? Keep doing it! Even if it's only for yourself, do the thing and let it make you smile. Share it with the world if you're so inclined. Get out there and kick ass!!

[archiveofthelibrarian]

Y’all ever daydream about a story too much that you feel like you have already written it? Like just now I was looking for the 5th chapter of a fic that I have only written the prologue of. Like, how is it even possible?

Side note: I was indeed very bummed out that the fic has not, in fact, written itself overnight.

[bookishdiplodocus]

Skipping a song because my imaginary voyeur won't like it

[creature-studios]

Venus

The hum of the indestructible suit's teleportation system intensifies, and then, with a blinding pulse of light, you find yourself standing on the surface of Venus. Instantly, you’re engulfed in a world of extremes. You activate your helmet’s camera, and the display comes alive, recording every detail of the alien landscape around you.

The ground beneath your feet is rugged and desolate—a tapestry of jagged rocks and powdery dust in muted shades of gray and deep brown. Faint streaks of darkened volcanic deposits snake across the terrain, remnants of ancient eruptions that shaped this world. The air is oppressively thick, and although you can’t feel it directly, the sheer density presses against your suit like the weight of an ocean.

The sky above you is painted in shades of dull orange, swirling faintly as the sulfuric acid clouds drift and churn. The Sun—normally blinding and dominant—is a faint, glowing disk hidden behind the dense atmosphere. Its light filters weakly through the haze, creating an eerie twilight that blankets the land. You lower your visor slightly to counter the muted glare, allowing the camera to capture the subtle, otherworldly colors of the scene.

You take a cautious step forward, the surface crunching softly beneath your boots. Each movement stirs the fine, gritty dust that clings to the ground. Your balance feels slightly off, the planet's crushing atmosphere amplifying even the smallest motions. The air itself vibrates faintly, and your helmet’s audio system picks up the low hiss of the wind. Though gentle in speed, it presses against you with a peculiar force, nudging you forward like an invisible current. It’s unnerving and strangely mesmerizing all at once.

A sudden tremor ripples through the ground, stopping you in your tracks. Beneath your feet, the terrain quivers as if something deep below the surface is stirring. Your eyes are drawn to the horizon, where a towering volcano rises against the burnt-orange sky. A plume of dark smoke coils skyward from its summit, its edges glowing faintly red. The ground around its base glows with rivers of lava, bright yellow and red streaks carving their way through the rocky expanse. As the molten rock meets the searing atmosphere, it hisses and sizzles, creating ghostly wisps of steam that rise and dissipate.

You edge closer to the base of the volcano, mindful of the heat that radiates even through your indestructible suit. The lava flows pulse with an almost hypnotic rhythm, the brightness of the liquid rock creating a stark contrast against the muted surroundings. You stoop to examine a blackened rock nearby, its surface smooth and glassy from the intense heat. With a small toss, you send it skipping across the ground, watching as it vanishes into a distant crevice.

The landscape around you shifts subtly as you explore further. You notice massive ridges etched into the ground—steep cliffs formed as Venus's crust buckled under the planet’s immense pressure. The intricate patterns in the rocks tell silent stories of eons of geological turmoil, their sharp edges softened by the planet’s relentless atmosphere. The helmet camera captures every detail, documenting the jagged cliffs and winding fissures that mar the surface.

Another faint tremor passes through the ground, and your attention is drawn to a far-off plain dotted with peculiar, pancake-shaped domes. These formations, created by slow eruptions of viscous lava, glisten faintly under the dim light, their surfaces eerily smooth against the chaos of the surrounding terrain. The air above them shimmers with heat, distorting their shapes like a mirage.

Looking to the horizon, you feel the sheer scale of Venus's alien world. The oppressive sky seems to press downward, its orange hues deepening as the Sun struggles to penetrate the clouds. Despite the hostility of the environment, there’s a strange beauty to it all—the interplay of light and shadow, the vibrant reds and yellows of the lava against the muted landscape, and the quiet, relentless power of a planet that exists in perpetual conflict with itself.

You take one last look at the towering volcano, its molten heart still spilling its fiery lifeblood into the landscape below. With a steadying breath, you press the teleportation button. The world blurs, the searing heat replaced by the cool hum of your suit as you return to safety.

But the memory of Venus lingers—the breathtaking beauty, the raw power, and the haunting stillness of a world that challenges the very limits of human imagination.

[flickersprout]

so im working on cbwtm again instead of llab because i have no self control. and i think i need to be put down for some of this shit. i am taking so much poison damage from the implied future scenes i may or may not be brave enough to write. anyway. here's a snippet from one of the bits that doesnt make me feel like a rabid dog

God, since when was I a coward? Whatever. They stretch without any sort of elegance and reach for creative access. Even after the mask, even after years of near-disuse, the psychic stretch is second nature. One breath in, one out, eyes closed, their clamoring body left in the background, hunger and thirst and pain all unknown to them, visitors she pushes out kindly but firmly, and with the returning inhale this eager, reactive server lays down its mantle.

[meadowsxdream]

I’ve been creating stories for sims, stories that are more relatable through their complexity.

I’m really enjoying the process and experience with my first series, I wanted to start with simple create a sim makeover videos of my sims from 2020, the ones I made right before my computer screen went black, and a trusted friend who was meant to repair it never gave it back.

A month ago I was able to get myself a laptop, and my sim obsession is back in full swing. A love for a game that goes back 24 years, to the very beginning with sims 1.

My old sims were simple, ready to exist in other stories as fleeting encounters for legacies that were never their own.

But I’m bringing them back and rewriting their stories. 10 sims, 10 stories, a 10 episode series.

I am teaching myself how to record and upload content, already from my first video to my fourth I want to redo everything!

Instead I’m moving forward to the next, Cleo, who I’ll be sharing over the next few days!

I just wanted to share my channel here in case anyone from Simblr enjoys what I am doing and wants to help me get my videos out there to more simmers on YouTube!

I’m already dreaming up some let’s plays, a large project for my simself, showcasing favorite CC, mods, and other content from our incredibly creative community!

I often dream of doing things, and never follow through. With the sims, I’m able to express myself, and that’s something I will always be grateful for. I’ll be exploring a lot of different ways to bring sims 4 creations to life.

𝑴𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘

[exhausted-archivist]

In regards to my last reblog on the scale of Thedas, latitude and stuff. I’ve been thinking about how much thought I give all this. Especially because this topic is one I’ve been talking with a lot of people about lately. It crops up a lot with people who, like me enjoy natural world building or are fanfic writers. Or really anyone who sits down and reads the lore at length. More times then not the question of Thedas’s scale comes up.

So, I want to establish I am very well aware that I’m likely giving it more thought than the devs. I have that luxury as a fan and consumer of the series. It is extremely relevant for me because I like making maps for the series, plotting out travel paths, and scaling things for da ttrpg campaigns I write.

So because I think about it a lot, I notice all the many different scales of Thedas in terms of travel time. How the scale they gave the ttrpg doesn’t match up with any scale they established in the main games or books. I think if the devs sat down and thought about establishing a standard scale and also considering just basic stuff we also wouldn’t have the Deep Roads be 2-4 miles / 3.21-6.43 km below sea level and display a lack of geothermal qualities. I think they’d consider how they built a world with at least 9.1 million people and tons of mega fauna such as giants and dragons and 14’/4.26 m tall bears that hunt dragons, all squished into roughly 1/4 of Europe and how much that isn’t really sustainable. How there would be much more impact if nature encroachment in civilization and how common things like that would be in places. Which they do consider it to a degree, I’m not saying they don’t. But I think if they thought about it just to make the world something that holds up a little better to idle musings, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. That the world would feel more real and alive and also narratively give them more to work with.

The contradictions and lack of consideration for the natural world has always been one of my critiques of Dragon Age, among other things. The reason why that is, is mostly because of a noticeable trend the lack of natural world building in fantasy. It’s a topic that has been discussed elsewhere and at length by other people, but to summarize nature is slowly having less and less impact in fantasy even in an ambient quality. Obviously this isn’t a universal statement, nor a universally required thing for a story to explore and have. That there are things that do focus on and explore it, but speaking in general terms, it is a trend in the majority of media.

Which for me is a bummer as it is an aspect of writing and world building I enjoy. I really like themes of man vs nature and to have that you need to have a basic level of natural world building. Which BioWare doesn’t really explore in Dragon Age despite having elements of it - such as how regular raw lyrium is explosive, mages get sick around all lyrium unless it is diluted to a safe amount for mages, and raw lyrium straight up kills them if they’re in the same room.

So then you have questions of how do mages go/handle being underground with such a risk? Dwarves have stone sense but would mages be able to tell when they’re getting close to large lyrium deposits because they’re getting sick? Does this impact grey warden mages? Darkspawn mages?

Things that don’t get fully acknowledged or explored despite being mentioned casually in codices most people don’t read. And they don’t for a couple of reasons such as potential coding issues but also all the questions you’d have to ask:

How would you implement that as a mechanic? Would you lock mage players out of entire areas featuring raw lyrium? Would they take environmental damage if you wanted the players to explore it regardless? Would it be a mechanic only applied by in harder difficulty modes? Do you acknowledge it in banter but not in any other way? Create a way to explain why the pc mage and their mage companions aren’t dropping dead?

BioWare’s answer seems to seemingly just ignore it because it would make gameplay too challenging/punishing and likely might not be fun for a player to deal with. But they compromise by keeping the lore active in the canon through codices and low impact additions. Which is a completely okay solutions, not my preferred but I get why they do it.

When I approach this lore, I do so without expecting them to fully flesh out each nation or know which city has the most resources and the geologically rich lands in said country. Dragon Age, and BioWare in general, relies on semi-soft world building. The world was after all designed for a game. They only need to build out what they need and what hopefully won’t paint them into a corner with future installments.

Additionally, the writing style for Dragon Age doesn’t suit the hard world building that I prefer, I’m quite aware of that but also know that when it comes to talk about world building in any media, there is always the issue of people (like me) who world build for fun and consider all these small aspects but ultimately they aren’t always needed and necessary for the story a game like Dragon Age is telling.

Dragon Age is told with the intention of things being given from an unreliable narrator. Built on the concept of: there’s three sides to the truth, what x thinks happens, what y thinks happens, and then what actually happened. Which works and I love the premise.

That said, I think that it also impacts lore that shouldn’t be subjected to the unreliable narrator. Foundation or anchor lore points to be specific. Which, as we know, BioWare has always struggled with consistency in their lore, particularly with Dragon Age.

Distance is one of those foundational points that shouldn’t change, and it’s also one of those points that you don’t have to give exact travel times. You can leave it vague and stick to the official statements like the ones we have of Ferelden being the size of England (or Ireland depending on the source you use). If you’re going to be giving specifics, then I think being consistent with how long it travels to get to point a to b and not changing it multiple times in one game should be a basic expectation that is met.

Other ones the series has and is pretty consistent with is how we know Thedas has 24 hours a day, they have seasons like we expect, and are in the southern hemisphere.

Do they sometimes slip up because editing doesn’t catch they’ve made a reference that applies only to the northern hemisphere? Yeah, and that’s not bad. There are a lot of people working on the project and things slip through.

I know I have the luxury to think about Thedas in a capacity that allows for the hard world building that I like. I also know I focus on and enjoy aspects of lore that are not exactly popular for their main audience and are pretty niche.

I don’t expect BioWare to world build how I do because I’m not world building for a massive and varied audience. Not even when I do world building for my tabletop games, because I’m catering to a smaller and more specific audience.

Still I think it’s valid and worth pondering these little elements of the world building. For fun, appreciation, and to nurture one’s own creativity and understanding of media, the world, and what they think makes a believable world.

Devs might not have time to consider it but we sure do and that’s half the fun of enjoying media I think.

[ancientroyalblood]

World-Building in Fantasy Writing: Crafting Unique Realms

In the realm of fantasy writing, the creation of worlds is an art unto itself, a meticulous process where each word, each detail, bears the weight of building something extraordinary. The task is daunting, for within these words, worlds must spring to life, realms that breathe and stir with unique cultures, landscapes, and histories. In this exploration of world-building in fantasy writing, we…

[natasha-in-space]

One of my favorite things ever is mocumentaries on video game events as if they were actual real life events. Hell yeah I will watch a 2 hour documentary on the fall of Raccoon City like it was a real tragedy that occurred and changed the world as we know it. What's that? A 30 minute video essay on the ruination of the USG Ishimura like it was a real ship that has been struck by a horrible disaster? Oh I will gobble that up!

[ladycatashtrophe]

It is very inch resting being an English Writing student with 3 different disorders that all have obsession/compulsion/impulsivity as symptoms because do I ~like~ Hawthorne or Emerson? No. Am I, perhaps, wasting my time in a library that closes too damn early researching transcendentalism and romanticism and how they lead to a whirlpool that contains gothic literature, surrealism, and sentimentalism because these crotchety old men were out of their gourds but sometimes right? Yes. Yes I am.

[thefanficwriterscraft]

Our Second Transcript is here!

I know, not only did I (@pebblysand) edit a whole episode yesterday, but I'm also posting a transcript after a five-month hiatus (lol), I can hardly believe it myself!

Released eighteen months ago, this episode is, interestingly, our most listened episode ever! In it, we talk about how we get ideas for fics, and introduce concepts that have since become key features of the podcast, like Lani's love of settings, and my aphantasia. If you're feeling like a trip down memory lane, feel free to check out that link!

I do hope to be able to get some more transcripts out semi-regularly. They do take a lot of time to produce and it's kind of sadly dropped to the bottom of my priority list, right now, but it is there, I promise! I know this really helps with accessibility ❤️.

[kaigweny]

𝕀𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

🩵🪻 Hello there!🪻🩵

ᗩᗷOᑌT ᗰE

🪻 Kai - 19

🪻 Autistic creature with ADHD

🪻 Puppy regressor

🪻 Kins: crow, cockatoo, wolf, dog, ferret, cryptid kin

🪻 Miscecanis: omega

🪻 Scent: sweet orange with hints of cedar and coffee

🪻 Polyamorous; genderfluid; genderfaun; transmasc; pansexual/romantic; demisexual/romantic

🪻 Very very punk (amatopunk, cringepunk, voidpunk, hopepunk,...)

🪻 Pronouns:

⛲️he/him/his/himself

⛲️they/them/theirs/themselves

⛲️pup/pups/pups/pupself

⛲️mush/mushes/mushes/mushself

⛲️bone/bones/bones/boneself

⛲️void/void/voids/voidself

⛲️star/star/stars/starself

⛲️critter/critter/critters/critterself

⛲️bubble/bubbles/bubbles/bubbleself

⛲️🫧/🫧s/🫧s/🫧self

⛲️🍇/🍇/🍇s/🍇self

⛲️🐾/🐾/🐾s/🐾self

⛲️🐶/🐶/🐶s/🐶self

⛲️💀/💀/💀s/💀self

⛲️🦴/🦴s/🦴s/🦴self

⛲️🪐/🪐/🪐s/🪐self

⛲️✨/✨/✨s/✨self

⛲️💫/💫/💫s/💫self

ᗯᕼᗩT I ᑭOᔕT

🩵 Original fantasy & sci-fi short stories

🩵 Fanfics and headcanons

🩵 Other art projects of mine (sewing, theatre, etc)

🩵 Witchy hippie bard stuff

🩵 Kin stuff

🩵 Pet regression stuff

🩵 Miscecanis stuff

🩵 Immersive daydreaming stuff

🩵 General Dumbassery

ᗰY OTᕼEᖇ ᗷᒪOGᔕ & ᔕOᑕIᗩᒪᔕ

🐳 My main blog: You are here ;3

🐳My French blog: @surrealistic-belgian-gremlin

🐳 My immersive daydreaming blog: @kailutopia

🐳 My AO3 & my Wattpad

💜 Dividers by @cafekitsune 💜

💜 Blinkie Creator 💜

[archiveofthelibrarian]

Y’all ever daydream about a story too much that you feel like you have already written it? Like just now I was looking for the 5th chapter of a fic that I have only written the prologue of. Like, how is it even possible?

Side note: I was indeed very bummed out that the fic has not, in fact, written itself overnight.