lesbiab

Even more, this is far and away from accusing Harvey of 'making Mike' this way. Harvey vows loyalty in exchange for loyalty. He is an absolute man of his word in this regard. As far as Mike is concerned, Harvey is his only strong male influence after nearly two decades of being without one. As their relationship grows, Harvey becomes Mike's only family. He is the adopted elder tasked with handling the issues of his protege/brother/son that Harvey himself did not create.

Unlike Jessica, the volatile Louis, or the Zanes- Rachel's parents he has to impress 24/7, Harvey is the one adult Mike can be raw and real with. This causes him to wrongly aim a lot of his frustration Harvey's way. Being the spectacular alpha he is, Harvey is able to deal with Mike at his worst and remain mostly patient with him. As grating as some of Mike's behavior can be, it's true to life with his stunted emotions. Such a thing is next to never addressed in media.

All of that said, I'm proud to admit there's a special place in my heart for Suits Season 1 Harvey. He swore at times to cement a point, but he never really yelled. In fact, his calm but dominating demeanor and cryptic nature made him uniquely intimidating.

As with Peter, here are some Season 1 moments of Harvey's version of mentoring while actually raising a delayed child:

Mike's really behind, isn't he? I learned this in early high school.

As funny and sweet as this interaction is, it's strange that Mike would be so comfortable acting this juvenile with a boss he hasn't even had a week. He certainly freezes and settles down in Jessica's presence. Evidently, there's some sort of platonic soulmateship between the two guys since the second Mike sat down for that impromptu interview.

If you ever want proof that an authority figure is worthy of your respect, here ya go. Harvey subscribes to 'do as I say, not as I do' quite often, but displays integrity where it counts.

Able to scold and show concern in a single bound. Love how Harvey's basically saying....

Harvey: Have you been in the sun too long? You know your fair skin is sensitive.

Eh boy, the calm but firm 'look at me' demand. Mike even, likely subconsciously, tries leveling their heights as he complies, but the meager effort is powerless against Harvey's Boss Brown Eyes.

😁

More to come, but the first two episodes are loaded with these.

So you build your protagonist. She has no personality traits beyond being decently strong-willed, so that her quirks and interesting traits absolutely can’t get in the way of the audience’s projection onto her. She is dainty, birdlike, beautiful despite her protestations that she is ugly–yet she can still hold her own against significantly taller and stronger combatants. She is the perfect mask for the bashful, insecure tweens you are marketing to to wear while they read.

You think, as you draft your novel, that you need to add something that appeals to the basest nature of teenagers, something this government does that will be perversely appealing to them. The Hunger Games’ titular games were the main draw of the books, despite the hatred its characters hold for the event. So the government forces everyone into Harry Potter houses. 

So the government makes everyone choose their faction, their single personality trait. Teenagers and tweens are basic–they likely identify by one distinct personality trait or career aspiration, and they’ll thus be enchanted by this system. For years, Tumblr and Twitter bios will include Erudite or Dauntless alongside Aquarius and Ravenclaw and INTJ. Congratulations, you just made having more than one personality trait anathema to your worldbuilding. 

Your readers and thus your protagonist are naturally drawn to the faction that you have made RIDICULOUSLY cooler and better than the others: Dauntless. The faction where they play dangerous games of Capture the Flag and don’t work and act remarkably like teenagers with a budget. You add an attractive, tall man to help and hinder the protagonist. He is brooding and handsome; he doesn’t need to be anything else. 

The villains appear soon afterward. They are your tried and true dystopian government: polished, sleek, intelligent, headed by a woman for some reason. They fight the protagonists, they carry out their evil, Machiavellian, stupid plan. You finish the novel with duct tape and fanservice, action sequences and skin and just enough glue and spit to seal the terrible, hollow world you have made shut just long enough to put it on the shelf. 

And you have just destroyed YA dystopian literature. Because you have boiled it down to its bare essentials. A sleek, futuristic government borrowing its aesthetic from modern minimalism and wealth forces the population to participate in a perversely cool-to-read-about system like the Hunger Games or the factions, and one brave, slender, pretty, hollow main character is the only one brave–no, special enough to stand against it. 

but divergent was clumsy make-believe the whole way through. it aped the forms and functions of dystopian lit but the writer didn’t actually have any real, passionate, sincere anger to put on the page. she didn’t know what it was talking about, so she didn’t have anything worth listening to.

You contrast that with how the marketing for the Hunger Games films directly contradicts the messaging of the text, and how Divergent seems ready-made for the big screen, and it becomes really apparent why the genre folded in on itself. Capitalism tried to recuperate dystopian fiction criticizing capitalism, and in doing so, butchered the genre.

Harry: hang on, I have to ask my mum.

Sirius: what-?

Harry: *pulls out an ouija board* hey mum, can I go with Sirius?

Lily, from the after life: A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y N-O-T

Sirius: