#WordWeavers 2026.10.06 — What is considered completely normal in your story's world that would seem bizarre to us?
Practically everything? I don't want to give away the discovery aspect, so I'll pick something not mundane that's also SFW:
Men typically raise their sisters' children.
Which means their nieces and nephews. It isn't uncommon that boys will raise younger sisters, or cousins of first and second degree. The tradition causes considerable angst in the WIP.
To be clear, this is a normal gender role. Men grow up expecting this.
Blue—One of Bolt's LIs and the man with whom she's most comfortable—is already supervising his teenage sister who is a scatterbrain nerd with little common sense. He's doing this while being trained as a praetorian (a rare and special job), while occasionally working as what looks to our eyes to be a type of (male) geisha. Bizarrely, to our eyes perhaps, he's increasingly certain that were his sister to become pregnant he'd willingly give up his hard-won jobs to raise her children. In his society's terms and in Bolt's eyes, he is a very masculine guy.
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[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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