#that last point is missing all of the nuance ahdhahdj i don’t have the energy or space to explain it all

[mj-is-writing]

Hello! Happy WBW!

What's life like for an ordinary person in your world? What would be considered an ideal life?

Well, obviously this varies by country, so I’ll talk about the unnamed continent in the northeast.

This country is somewhat isolated, so there’s definitely a lot of farming, and then that farming is heavily dictated by the climate (which is pretty cold). There’s a lot of livestock farming, so meat and dairy make up a good chunk of local foods. Wool and furs are pretty common for clothing. A lot of the architecture uses masonry, especially on the north and western sides of the country. Using lumber isn’t as common but you definitely see it some in the south.

A lot of people value modesty, and the popular clothing reflects that. Long shirts with sleeves, loose clothing, gloves, etc. (Which all also serve a practical purpose in a place that has a cooler climate) There’s also this idea of self-sufficiency and how that connects with what is considered polite. It would be rude to turn away a dinner guest, for example, but asking to come to someone’s house means that you can’t adequately care for yourself. Charity is highly valued because it means that you have extra, but it’s also a somewhat “weird” thing to do, because other people aren’t your problem. It’s good to give away wealth, but those who need the charity aren’t sympathized with at all. It builds a really strong hatred of anything perceived as laziness. (This setup helps with the story I’m writing in this setting, where a character who comes from wealth and still has it also has to accept being cared for by someone else.) There are a lot of “rules” around what is and isnt allowed, and where those rules apply. I think the one fun detail is that in any house, the servant has more freedom than the guest— the servants are working to take care of themselves and their families while the guests are not. It also makes “business trips” a really common excuse for people to go stay with friends, so naturally there’s an expectation for how much work you have to do before it’s considered a business trip. (Essentially I took the Regency era ideas of manners and etiquette and then made it worse and more obnoxious)

An ideal life would probably mean having enough money to where you don’t have to work, and then choosing a job you love because you will work anyway. Your employees are your equals, so the idea of hiring a lot of servants to do everything for you as if you’re more important is like… not the worst thing you could do, but it’s in bad taste. You still go out in your own field with the farmhands, you still go to the store to buy your own fabric even if you don’t sew the clothes, you paint your own walls when you want to redecorate. It’s also seen as a good goal to get out of the cities. That’s not to say that the cities are bad, they aren’t, but the idea of owning your own farm is very popular. It’s not even about owning a big farm, it just has to be big enough to support your family.

For the average person, this looks a lot like needing both a profitable job and financial literacy. You need to know how to budget. Education tends to be done through apprenticeships along with two or three years of more formal schooling in the middle. The idea is that you learn the actual trade you’re going into, then you spend a few years learning basic math and science, and then you spend the last few years of your apprenticeship learning about the business side of things. Other subjects like reading, writing, and history are usually taught at home. History is also spread a lot by things like songs, plays, and paintings. This adds a bit of fictionalization to every story, but it also makes the history an important part of the pop culture. If it’s important, there’s probably a song, and everyone seems to know them all. The proper etiquette is also something that would be picked up both at home and during the apprenticeship, and is also very important. Knowing which color outfits are acceptable at what event is valued just as highly as an education.

I also really, really love normalizing accessibility in my fantasy worlds, which is a very nuanced topic especially for this part of the world, but just know that I think about it a lot. One of the protagonists of the book I want to set in this country is autistic and non-speaking, and a lot of the book is just about… him going through his life. It’s very much not a story about ableism (even if this particular culture sounds like it would be kinda the worst. Trust me on this one). I would say that, while there’s not a lot of focus on which job someone does, those who make accessibility aids are seen as very important.

#that last point is missing all of the nuance ahdhahdj i don’t have the energy or space to explain it all #but just trust me it’s something I’ve been thinking about for ages. one of the first things I thought of for this story. #writeblr #worldbuilding wednesday #fantasy worldbuilding #fantasy world #fantasy #ask #writing ask #mj_writes #wbw