After Three (3) Years Since The Release Of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Dir. Anthony And

reginald talking about his messy break up with carmichael: and thats why i adopted seven children

pogo: all i asked was what your plans are today :\

Give yourself an extra big hug today!

Artwork by Maeril

Nobody understands the bond between a girl and the mediocre book she read when she was 13 years old.

If it's okay, could you write a meta on harry potter? Not the series but the character. And maybe discuss some of his dynamics with others if it's not too much?

Harry issuch an under-appreciated character, which is somewhat ridiculous given thatnot only is he the protagonist but he’s a well-written and multi-faceted character,with a lot of nuances, a compelling backstory and great dynamics with many ofthe main characters. Yet parts of the HP fandom will literally hate on him foranything; today I ran across a post which blasted a twelve-year-old Harry fornot financially supporting the Weasley, ignoring the fact that, you know, he’s twelve and the fact that theWeasleys would in no way ever accept Harry’s money.

Harryovercomes a lot throughout his life, and this is even before the whole ChosenOne crap was placed on his very young shoulders. For the first eleven years ofhis life, Harry literally never experienced love, support, affection or evenproper care. He was often neglected, at times outright abused by the Dursleys,and I think these years and these circumstances shaped Harry more than thefandom tends to recognise. A lot of his stubbornness and refusal to seek helpfrom adults would have stemmed from this, as he spent eleven years believingthat adults couldn’t or wouldn’t help him. His generosity and caring naturealso probably stems from this, having experienced neither in early years of hislife, he has a desire to share both.

Harryalso has a deep aversion to fighting and negativity, and unlike Ron andHermione, he derives no pleasure from arguing or fighting. He gets genuinelyupset whenever Ron and Hermione take their verbal sparring too far, oftensnapping at them and telling them to let it go. Harry spent so many years in avolatile environment, so many years where a single wrong word or look couldproduce an explosion, that his natural instinct is to avoid conflict andarguments, which is somewhat ironic given the argumentative natures of both ofhis best friends.

Harry isa character who doesn’t change much over the series. This isn’t to say that hedoesn’t grow or evolve as acharacter. He definitely undertakes his own journey, and goes from an isolatedand insecure young boy into a strong and heroic young adult. But who he is athis core never really changes. He holds onto his goodness, his self-righteousnessand his “saving people” attitude until the very end. If you look at hischaracterisation in the first novel compared to his characterisation in thelast novel, it is remarkably similar. He is still a person who will walk intocertain death to save others, still a person who believes in bravery and doingthe right thing, and even if his faith in those around him has been tested andstretched – and in some cases broken – his general belief in the good in theworld prevails.

Harry is such a genuinely good person, like,there are few characters out there who contain as much goodness and forgivenessas Harry does. He is always genuinely outraged and upset at what he perceivesto be wrongdoings, such as Snape’s unfairness and favouritism or Umbridge’s reignof terror. He also refuses to kowtow to authority if he believes they are inthe wrong, such as when both Fudge and Scrimgeour try to sway him to theirsides. Harry’s genuine goodness and belief in what is right, in what is fair is one of his defining charactertraits, and it amazes me that a lot of the fandom does not seem to see or acknowledgethis side of him.

I havealways found Harry to be quite an isolated character, and I believe that thistoo stems from his upbringing and his life with the Dursleys. Growing up in anenvironment where he received no support, where he had no friends and no familymembers who paid attention to him turned Harry into a very self-sufficient andsolitary person, and if you look closely at his inter-personal relationships, itbecomes apparent that all of his close relationships are with people who arealso isolated and/or lonely in their own way.

Ron andHarry bond almost instantly when the two meet on the Hogwarts Express, bothdelighted to make one another’s acquaintance. Despite his large family, Ron isalso a solitary person, not being particularly close to any of his siblings andoften feeling fierce competition with them. Harry not having had a singlefriend before in his life is keen to make one, but even at this young age candistinguish between a genuine offer of friendship (Ron) and a friendship whichmay come with strings attached or an inequality within the dynamic (Malfoy).

DespiteRon’s occasional jealousy (which is nowhere near as fierce or as prevalent asparts of the fandom would have you believe) Ron and Harry’s friendship is anequal partnership, mirroring that of James and Sirius. Both Ron and Harryhave a penchant for trouble making, and Ron does occasionally come across assomewhat callous and cruel, but both have a deep desire to do good and believein bravery and heroics, all of which bonds them and cements their friendship. Ithink they recognise the loneliness and desire for close bonds in one another,and both give and take over the course of the friendship, providing one of thestrongest friendships on the written page.

Harry’sfriendship with Hermione is somewhat different. While again, he has bonded withsomeone who is quite an isolated character and he is close to Hermione andobviously cares for her deeply, his dynamic with her is neither as free or as easy as his dynamic with Ron. He and Hermione are close to one another, butthey are both closer to and connect better with Ron than they do with eachother, and this is evident whenever the two spend long periods of time togetherwithout Ron’s presence, such as when Harry and Ron have their falling outduring GoF or when Ron leaves them during Deathly Hallows. When Harry is withRon one-on-one it is still easy and fun, but when it is just him and Hermione,things are different, and it really does show how integral Ron is to the Trio,and how his presence balances the dynamic within the group.

Harry’srelationships with people outside of the main Trio also reflect this tendencyto bond with isolated and/or lonely characters, as evidenced by his closefriendship with Luna and even his romantic relationship with Ginny. Bothgirls are initially presented as isolated characters who gain friends over thecourse of the books. Luna in particular is a very lonely soul, and I thinkHarry’s fondness for her stems from him relating to this loneliness.

EvenHarry’s relationships with the adults in his life follow the same pattern, asthe four closest adult friendships he has – Sirius, Lupin, Hagrid andDumbledore – are all with figures who are quite isolated. Sirius, of course,being incarcerated for much of his life and having lost all his friends hasbecome an isolated figure, and his relationship with Harry seems to combinethat of cool uncle and nephew with the dynamic of best friends. As much asSirius does genuinely love and care for Harry, there is a part of him that does see Harry as a James substitute,but the same can be said for the way in which Harry views Sirius, as asurrogate parental figure, as well as someone who can provide a link to hisparents.

Lupin andHagrid both also provide this link in their own ways, Lupin more so thanHagrid, having been a Marauder and someone who was close to both James andSirius. Harry’s relationship with Lupin feels somewhat like a mentorship which gradually moves into genuine friendship. His relationship with Hagrid, ofcourse, is just beautiful from the start and develops into one of the deepestand most heartfelt relationship of Harry’s. Hagrid, too, is another somewhatisolated soul, spurned for his freakish size and odd attachment to dangerouscreatures.

Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore really deserves its’ own meta, I feel like entirevolumes could be written about the nuances, intricacies and levels of thatrelationship, but once more, it shows Harry bonding with someone who has hadtheir fair share of isolation and loneliness, and who can identify with thepain and struggle Harry faces over the course of the series.

All up,Harry is just a wonderful character, rich, multi-faceted and very endearing. Ihave always loved Harry for his big heart, his desire to do what’s right, his stubbornnessand the determination he applies to every task he undertakes. He really is awoefully under-appreciated character and I often feel that the fandom ignoreshim and overlooks how amazing he actually is, and that is a real pity, becausethey’re missing out on a great character by doing so.

Sometimes I’ll get really into a show or movie or book or whatever and it’ll be the only thing I post about on my tumblr for weeks

Yes, it is 100% happening rn

Do you think it's possible for the show to come back from where it's at? This entire second season has disappointed me further with each episode and I feel they've destroyed Liz's character.

Hmm... well I don’t think I’m going to get the resolution I want out of Echo’s fight. So for me it’s more about whether I can isolate this specific arc enough to enjoy S3 Echo. Similarly, I really want to move away from scenes of Liz arguing about her right to others’ DNA so I can isolate that storyline in my head as well. If we’re not getting an apology, then switch gears so I can too lol.

I do think there’s a lot of good content that could come from Echo working together as exes, with tension, bitterness, awkwardness, and pining. I also personally love the idea of Jones making things hella awkward for Echo, and Echo maybe having to navigate Jones trying to infiltrate the group and replace Max (e.g., Max saying “Jones left”, and Liz being the one to realise that it’s actually Jones having locked Max up [chained to the floor!] and pretending to be Max after learning how to imitate him). That’d be fun for me.

As it is, I’m still enjoying Max’s story. I love watching him get more alien, being able to read/understand alien language, being able to “communicate” with all these things, connecting more with his family and trying to understand his own identity/history. Him starting to unravel is fun, but also, it was interesting to see him choose himself in 2x13. Everything he’s done in the past has been for his siblings or for Liz, so this is new territory that he’s choosing to stay in Roswell for himself. And I’m excited about the clone!Max speculation coming true (that ridiculous fucking beard aside, lmao).

If I stopped enjoying the Max stuff as well, then I would be out 🤣 I don’t know where the rest of Echo fam is at right now tbh.

Writing a First Draft

I’ve seen a lot of advice posts that encourage writing a “bad” first draft, or saying that the point of the first draft isn’t to be “good” just to be done, but I have yet to see any examples of what that actually means (which is unfortunate because for a lot of first-time writers that may just mean that their best effort on a first draft isn’t “good enough”), so that’s what I’m here for! The ultimate advocate of ugly writing, babey! Let’s write some “bad” first drafts!!

Forewarning that this is going to be difficult for you perfectionists out there (same hat tho!!!), but really, if you’re looking to finish a first draft within a reasonable time frame (and not continue to rewrite the beginning 50 times to get there, only to be disappointed when the next scenes aren’t as “good” as the beginning), then this really is the way to go. Perfectionism comes in super handy in later drafts, but it’s a real burden in the first draft, and I really really relate to that. What I find that helps keep my perfectionism in check while I’m drafting is to keep a separate Word doc open (or a notebook and pen at hand) to jot down new ideas or things that have changed throughout the draft. Putting a page number down next to the notation will save your life as well. Your future self will thank you!

Okay, so let’s get into it! You have an idea, and you need to get that first draft out before you lose motivation or move on to a shiny new WIP idea. What’s that first draft going to look like?

Write the scenes you’re excited about first. If you’re someone who, like myself, needs to write things in chronological order, then write these scenes in chronological order - but! if you have the conclusion figured out, then write it now, yes, even before that one bit in the middle you’re not sure about. Is it likely that some details in these scenes will change as you keep writing different parts of the book? Yes! Do it anyway! Anything you write will be helpful for later drafts, so write those scenes!!! Plus, if you start with what you’re excited about, you’ll want to keep writing even after they’re finished, because your brain will just keep generating other super cool ideas for those in-between scenes. And yeah, there will definitely be filler scenes to write, but you can probably worry about those in the next draft.

If you’re on a roll, don’t worry about punctuation, grammar, or spelling. I mean it! If those red squiggles in Word bother you, turn them off (they’re really only semi-helpful for editing, and we’re not doing that right now). If you write faster and think better using “internet grammar” (minimal/excessive punctuation, no capitalization, weird spelling, etc.), then do that! If it helps you get words on the page, it’s worth doing.

If you’re not on a roll, try putting some space between what you’ve written and what you need to write. For me, that frequently means hitting enter (even mid-sentence if I suddenly get stuck), typing “monkey,” and then hitting enter again, as many times as it takes for my brain to reboot and remember what the hell I was going for. If that means I have a chain of 20 monkeys in the middle of a paragraph, so be it. They get to hang out there until I come back in draft two and delete them. 

I’ve also written “uhhhhhh” and “oh fuck now what” several times in a first draft. It happens. It’s easier to write in a way that mirrors your thought process, so just do what works. Use memes in your prose to keep it moving - it’ll make future you laugh when you go back through on draft two!

Don’t be afraid to change major pieces of plot - but don’t you dare go back and rewrite earlier pieces to match! Let’s say you’re at the end of act one and you revealed some tragic detail about your MC’s backstory, but now you’re in the middle of act two and you’ve realized that it no longer fits your idea of MC and you no longer want it to be true. Simply make a brief note of it and keep writing like that scene in act one never happened. Deleting, rewriting, and repurposing are all for later drafts! The goal on the first draft is literally just to reach the end - and it’s inevitable that you’ll find and change the story along the way.

Forget about foreshadowing. No matter how detailed of an outliner you are, the fact is that in the first draft you really don’t actually know what’s going to happen yet in your book (see point 5). So forget about trying to foreshadow. Spell out what’s happening plain as day - because the first draft is just one long exposition dump to aide you in future drafts. If you get halfway through and a sudden twist or weird piece of backstory jumps out at you, write it in as if you had foreshadowed, even though you haven’t yet. Make a note of it, and maybe even note where you could foreshadow this in the next few drafts, but keep moving forward. 

Changing perspectives is fine even if it goes against how you know you want your final draft to be. If you have a scene in mind that you know you need to include, but you have no idea how MC would react during it, but you know how your side character would react, write the scene from the side character’s perspective. You can think about MC’s POV in that scene later - again, the point is just to get it written, so if switching POVs gets you through the scene, do it.

Ultimately, this is what people mean when they say your first draft is going to be “ugly.” It’s going to be a little (or a lot) messy. But that’s okay. The struggle of the beginning writer is realizing that your first draft is not going to look like anything you’ve read before - because those are final drafts. And to the gifted writers who breezed through school (like I did) by submitting their first draft essays for grading - that’s not going to work here. Every time you rewrite a piece, it gets better. If you try to make your first draft perfect, you will just end up frustrated and disappointed at the time you wasted, because you’ll end up reworking 80% of it or more in the subsequent drafts. Your writing style will change and improve, and your knowledge will grow, and every time you revisit a draft, that will be reflected.

So write that ugly draft. Insert so many author’s notes mid-paragraph that you look like an early 2000s fanfic writer. Contradict previous scenes like you’re constructing the most elaborate Winchester Mystery House -esque draft the world has ever seen, complete with paragraphs that lead to nowhere and mysterious monkey chains cutting sentences in half. 

And then, in the second draft, make it look as though the first draft never happened.

Y’all I think the Carmichael is cool but if I see ANYONE who wants to FUCK THE FISH I’m leaving this fandom and I ain’t looking back

when will i find my emotional support white man