Give Yourself An Extra Big Hug Today!

i knew i was going to die when i saw you for the first time in twenty-seven years. 

your voice, first—oh, that voice—and then i turned and saw you, across the room, across the great divide—and i swallowed hard because i knew. i was going to die for you because i would always die for you. remember? all those times i ran for you, jumped off the quarry for you, drove your truck fast down the highway because you liked when i got reckless—all that stupid shit i did for you, no question (a little pushback, maybe). i would die for you, simple. and i knew when i looked to you and you looked back to me that i was going to.

but i didn’t want to. i fought it every step of the way. i could see—if i just made it through the dinner, if i just made it through the pharmacy, if i just made it through the ritual, if i just made it through the sewers—there was a life with you, waiting patiently.

i wanted to make it.

we have lived a life of should-haves. all of us—and it goes back further than that summer: we should have turned left on jackson instead of right when we were just kids and maybe we never would have found ourselves in it’s path. and i should have told you, so many times. i had every chance. i should have followed you, gone wherever you wanted, driven west in that car i saved up for and forgotten all about new york, forgotten all about anything that wasn’t you. but we never really got it right.

when the claw went through my chest, it didn’t hurt. when i said your name and my mouth filled with blood, it didn’t hurt. when you laid me against the rock and pressed your hand to my stomach, it didn’t hurt. 

but it hurt when i laughed and it hurt when you smiled that split-second smile. (that’s when i knew i would not last much longer). it hurt when your smile fell. it hurt when you walked away from me. it hurt knowing i could not get up and follow you. and it hurt knowing that when you came back to me, you would have to find me dead and i could not hold you—i would never be able to make the pain go away anymore and i would be the cause of it.

i knew i was going to die for you a long time ago. i had just forgotten for a while. i didn’t know it would be like this—i thought maybe you’d hold me a little longer, maybe i’d tell you then.

i don’t know what i said while i died. i wanted to say, i wish you wouldn’t go. i wanted to tell you i was sorry i would not keep my promise to hold on. i hope you know i wanted to. i remember the blurry and fragmented image of you, walking away after slipping your pinky from mine. most of all, i wanted to tell you that tomorrow, we should get up early and go back home to our place, how about it my love?

but the last thing i remember is you, behind me on the cliff at the quarry on a summer day, reaching out to take my hand before we jumped, your voice shouting my name. and then—

would it be a nice day tomorrow? would the sun be shining on you, the way i always liked? 

i wonder. 

i love that sirius black escapes azkaban and his first 2 instincts are:

seek vengeance  

buy expensive gifts for school children 

family hug!

I want to write but I never know how to start something. Any tip?

As silly as it sounds Darling, I suggest you just start writing. You don’t have to have a concrete plan, or even a hint of a plan, just start writing and let the story take you for a ride. You don’t even have to start at the beginning.

As an example, even if you have no idea what to write, just come up with a key word or the beginning of a sentence.

“grandmother” can turn into “You’ve always looked up to your grandmother”

From there you just keep writing, ask yourself why the character looks up to their grandmother, what reasons could there be, both mundane and fanciful. Just like that you keep on building, and eventually you have something to run with.

It sounds silly enough, but I’ve found that no matter how hard I’m struggling to come up with something, if I just start writing, something’s going to happen eventually.

Hope that helps you a little Darling. I have more advice under the advice tag, some of which is more in depth than this, if you decide you want more.

After reading that Ron defense post and how much you love him, I'm really curious as to why you like him so much! Have a good day xxxx

Of course! Okay, this is a mess, but off the top of my head:

Ron’s character comprises a lot of classic tropes that I particularly like—the big, stifling family; the humble beginnings; deep love under cover of laughter; the knight of heart who overcomes his fears. From the beginning, he’s colourful: an optimistic, humorous, buoyant kid, all red and gold and blue, flaring up in anger, in laughter, diffusing tensions with wide-eyed simplicity. To me, there’s something so charming in this self-proclaimed underdog, second always to his friends, and yet never hateful; so humble that he is oblivious to the fact that he is a key cog in his world dynamics.

Ron is never put under an admiring light, because Harry tends to rely on him with the spontaneity of a brother, and Hermione doesn’t share her insights with Harry. Because of Harry’s tranquil trust and because of his depiction in the movies, Ron has slowly become, in popular opinion, a simplistic oaf, a prop for crude comedic devices. To me, however, he is the easiest to identify with now—born in the worlds he inhabits, and yet overlooked by those who, he believes, shine brighter—at the Burrow, his twin brothers and his sisters, who bulldoze their way through life when he tends to take his lazy-ass time—in the magic world, Hermione and Harry, both raised by muggles and yet welcomed with open arms by strangers because of their skills. Ron’s skills are rarely put in the spotlight, and you know why? Because despite his tendency to frustration and anger, which are usually targeted towards himself anyway, he is usually quite unassuming, so convinced is he of his lack of self-worth.

Harry is humble, yes, and selfless, but he has a strong sense of his abilities, of his talent, and the luck that life, despite the hardships, has bestowed upon him. Hermione, potentially because of her blood status and lack of beauty in the early years of school, stuffs her cleverness in everybody’s face and has made it her definite trait. They can take pride in something. Ron, from beginning to end, is completely blind to his own abilities, damaging his sense of self in the process. As the series progresses, Ron falls more and more in the shadow of his friends, trying through temporary jolts to rise to the light (his trying out for the Quidditch team, Lavender,…), and falling back when this fails (keeper is still lesser than captain, and the respect he was looking for was Hermione’s, not Lavender’s). The point is: he is still looking for himself, as we all do at 15. He is still looking for a purpose, for a silver lining, when his close friends seem to have already found their purpose in life.

I think we don’t give Ron enough credit, again because Harry’s narration is biased. It’s been said that Ron is jealous, and angry, and susceptible, but time and time again Ron diffuses the tension between buttheads Hermione and Harry, and when he leaves—escaping the shadows I mentioned earlier, deciding to live for himself for a while—, Harry and Hermione’s relationship falls into silence and disinterest, because the link of warmth between them is ultimately Ron. I think he is very socially clever, despite being oblivious at times—he compliments Hermione when she most needs it, mingles his anger with Harry to lighten the burden, and is shown to worry and discuss Harry’s problems with Hermione behind the scenes, although we don’t have access to what is actually shared. He is also attuned to the atmosphere enough to crack a joke at exactly the right moment, unassumingly. I think this feelings-focused approach is also his biggest weakness: impulsive, he usually falls into self-hate and anxiety after his outbursts; attuned to his surroundings in a global rather than detailed way, he feels that he is overlooked, knows that he is under-valued, but does not know how to prove or to address it. Jealous, no—but envious of a life where he would feel more loved, more comfortable with himself, where he would get more admiration, absolutely. The issue comes from there, of course: his being poor, his being clumsy, his being always considered the Potter sidekick, second place, last place, these all erode his sense of self throughout the books. There’s a lack of self-respect in Ron: he always makes himself the butt of the joke, he becomes upset when people point out the flaws he knows and hates. But his need to be validated through others is both deeply immature and deeply relatable: it is a forced step before reaching the understanding that only you can know and respect yourself entirely.

To me, Ron (along with Neville) is the bravest of them all, and really deserves his place in Gryffindor. Contrarily to Hermione (who buckles under pressure often, because she is ultimately in need of control) and Harry, who is defined by his selflessness and is ready for self-sacrifice, Ron is always scared as fuck and yet always fights. He has the most to lose, being from such a big family. Yet he faces his arachnophobia at 12 in order to explore his best friend’s hunch about the spiders. At 11, he had chosen to potentially die in order to allow Harry safe-passing to the Mirror cave. He was born in the magical world: giants, Voldemort, even Sirius Black are not rational enemies to him, but the stuff of nightmares, legends that tamed and terrified him when he was little. How could he approach them with a level-head when he has been raised to fear them? He cannot be as rational as those who discover the existence of human villains when they reach teenagehood. To him, these are monsters. Ron not only has to fight them, he has to unlearn what petrified a whole nation, to challenge his education, the deeply ingrained fears and lore that has been part of his personality-building.

I think that’s what I like best of all: because he is so flawed and realistic from the get-go, he is allowed to undergo the most amazing character development, and to grow up before our eyes. That kid who was dismissive of “know-it-alls” and “weirdos”, raised to be casually racist towards other magical races (goblins, elves and giants), deeply unsure of his own worth, tortured between envy and deep loyalty/love, hateful of his humble station, becomes by the end of book 7 a defender of the school underdogs—standing up for Luna, Hermione and Neville several times throughout the books—; actively attuned to social justice (admiring of Grawp’s efforts, striking friendships with elves and insisting to leave them a choice to fight or to flee); too impulsive and hurt and worried not to leave the hallows quest, but humble and brave enough to come back immediately; showing time and time again pride in his family, and finally finding pride in himself through the last of Harry’s missions. Harry gives him the sword so that he can destroy an Horcrux. By the end of the book, Ron is whole enough, stable enough that he can finally equate his friend and give Hermione the fang so that she can destroy the cup as well.

Ron never sheds his anxiety, his self-consciousness, never loses this impulse of hiding behind humour; his growth is, realistically, not an ideal one. Yet his development is so compelling, and so full of lessons in life and new-found self-awareness. So yeah. That’s why I like him very much!

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here... I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

*saving this for later 😎*

queer books that didn’t disappoint me the way everything else has. please enjoy.

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”

(the avengers + defining moments + schools of ethical thought)

SITES FOR WRITERS

Fantasy name generator

Fighter’s block - try to defeat a monster by writing

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict a child’s appearance 

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict other traits

Fifty Plot Twist Ideas For Your Work-In-Progress!

Name generator (Character, Baby, Last name, etc.)

Plot generator ; Inspiration for your next novel, film or short story

Character generator ; Generate Rich Characters in Seconds

Writing Exercises ;  This site provides (completely free) writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks. 

Notebook ; create your characters, worlds, objects, places, etc. and save them

Festisite ; Create a fake license, marriage certificate, credit card, ticket and you can find other stuff as well.

The most common last names in the US

Lists of most common surnames

List of most popular given names

List of the least common surnames [last names] in America, rank 16,001-20,000

Fantasy name generator (again)

Random Name Generator (Choose origins, gender, etc.)

Said is dead (Remember that you can use said, don’t use it to less.)

How Much Blood Can The Human Body Lose? 

How Long Can Someone Go Without Breathing?

The 6 Types of Collars Every Man Should Know by Name 

18 Different Types of Sleeves Design Patterns

What are the most widely practiced religions of the world?

Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel

Hemingway editor ;  It grades your writing by its readability. 

Zen writer ; writing without distractions (Might not be free after a while)

33 Ways to Write Stronger Characters

75+ bad habits for your character

30 SCENE IDEAS FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

10 Things Writers Don’t Know About The Woods

British and American terms

Free writing worksheets

Feel free to add more!

friendly and gentle reminder that if there is a thing you’ve been wanting to make and have been putting off because you don’t know if anyone will like it

DO THE DAMN THING

we doing self indulgence 2020. make stuff. put it out in the world. it don’t get notes? who cares, you put a thing that literally did not exist before out there. keep doin the thing. do what makes u happy