Just Reread Whump Au For The Nth Time Now, And It Suddenly Occurred To Me What In God's Name Would've

Bruce Wayne wakes up in the past, five months after Jason Todd died, and spends most days sat beside the grave because he never found out exactly when Jason had come back and he wanted to be there to save him when he did.

From an outside perspective, everyone is extremely concerned.

Jason Todd I fear

Egg yolks and honey (eyah!)

Get out

Maybe all the things you thought made you you aren’t really…you. Barbie (2023) / Fight Club (1999)

THIS. And my personal theory being, the federal agents that came to the Mystery Shack in search of paranormal activities are some like attachment agency to Cognito Inc.

I know I mentioned this in shitpost-adjacent blog before, but I feel like I really have to give a better explanation here.

It is so very possible that Inside Job and Gravity Falls take place in the same universe, it's not even funny.

I've got little theories and essentially one of those conspiracy corkboards in my brain, but the one thing I really want to talk about is in Myc's Hiveschool Reunion.

In that episode, the gang all travels to Oregon (you know, where Gravity Falls takes place) to get down into the earth. And I'm like 90% sure it was just a throwaway line, but Reagan says, "if we go too deep, we'll hit [...] some wacky gravitational bullshit."

Well. You know what else is underground and makes some "wacky gravitational bullshit" in Oregon?

Ford's portal. Booyah.

World Building

Creating Land

❂

⥇ agriculture

⟿ what is grown in abundance? how common is farmland? where is the farmland?

⥇ architecture

⟿ what kind of buildings? how tall/spacious? what are they made of? how well made? how well planned?

⥇ animals

⟿ what wild animals are lurking in the area? hunting? any animals affecting the livestock or agriculture?

⥇ biomes

⟿ desert? tundra? grassland? forest? savanna?

⥇ bodies of water

⟿ seas? lake? ponds? rivers? fresh water/salt water? fishing? keep in mind, settlements are often built near bodies of water

⥇ climate

⟿ dry? rainy? temperate? tropical? polar? how have people adjusted to this climate?

⥇ elevation

⟿ altitude? how does the altitude affect lifestyle?

⥇ geology

⟿ rocky? types of rocks?

⥇ landforms

⟿ mountains? valleys? plateaus? plains? hills? glaciers? peninsulas? volcanos? canyons?

⥇ latitude / longitude

⟿ location on planet? how does it affect other elements of land?

⥇ livestock

⟿ common domesticated animals? common animal usages?

⥇ minerals

⟿ any valuable minerals / metals? are they mined regularly? how are they used?

⥇ natural disasters

⟿ earthquake? tornado? volcano? duststorm? flood? hurricane? tsunami? how often do these occur? protocols?

⥇ population

⟿ how many people? how dense is the population? how does the population affect surrounding nature?

⥇ resources

⟿ what is abundant? scarce? how are they used? how available are they?

⥇ sacred land

⟿ religiously important land? historical importance? widely accepted as sacred? how is it honored?

⥇ soil

⟿ good or bad for vegetation? rocky?

⥇ tectonic activity

⟿ earthquake frequency? volcano frequency? trenches?

⥇ topography

⟿ how common are maps? how accurate? how long have they been around? who makes them?

⥇ vegetation

⟿ what is abundant? scarce? what grows easily? with difficulty? what is commonly foraged? who forages? plant types? tree types?

Quick Tips on Writing Better Characters

Here are a handful of quick tips to writing stronger characters and understanding them better as a writer.

Give your characters a title. This can help with worldbuilding and placing your protagonist into the environment. What do others call your characters? The emperor, the bastard son, the Grinch, the chosen one, the class clown, the evil witch, the popular girl, etc.

Use your settings to enhance your character. You can use the locations of your novel to mirror or contrast your character. Do they blend in or stand out? What they focus on can say a lot about them (ex. a fearsome character mishearing things on a dark street, a princess in a ballroom only focused on the exit.)

Know your protagonist's motives and goals before you start writing. What is something they need that fuels their actions throughout the novel? Money, freedom, an artifact, food? To protect their sister at all costs and survive the Hunger Games? 

Now that you know their motive, make it more complex. A character's motive can be made more complex by putting them in high-stake situations that force them to make decisions. For example, Katniss wants to protect her sister, a very common motivation. However, present-day conflict makes her to do it in the most extreme way by volunteering in the Hunger Games. The plot forces her to make an extreme choice fueled by her motivation.

Your protagonist should be active. It's okay to have your story's events sometimes happen to your character (this is referred to as the character being passive, ex. a tornado sweeping them away) but your protagonist should be active a majority of the time. This means they should always be making decisions, thinking, reflecting and progressing through obstacles.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

actual intense analysis of the situation aside, I love that Steven has only ever professed to truly hate two people in the entire universe. One of them is the dictatorial leader of a society of colonizers who is quite literally the root of all of steven and his gem family's problems and also personally traumatized him by physically ripping a vital organ out of his body. The other is a teenager who harassed him and his friend at a party.

Guess which one he still talks to.

they finally bred a kind of dog with an organ for processing food into gunpowder, which will hopefully make shooting things much cheaper going forward

honestly? that one David Tennant Richard II Kiss™ is my favourite acted kiss in history

look how ridiculously tender and how achingly desperate it is. so gentle, so kind, and yet so selfish at the same time. i've never seen anything quite so human

just. just look at these

there's something so genuine and chaste about this kiss, while also being gorgeously passionate and heated and...... it's just perfect