#literally the only downside to tumblr is that it wouldn’t let you post more than one video per post

[personinthepalace]

Lionel Moncrief. Spy catcher

I created several sketches using my Max plushie for @flusteredbard’s snap snap adventures competition!This is one of them. You can view the rest on my instagram :)

[yellow-r-o-s-e]

it's all unscripted

Word Count: about 2000

Pairing: romantic Lumity, platonic Blight siblings

Characters: Amity Blight, Edric Blight, Emira Blight, also brief Luz Noceda, Eda Clawthorne, and Owlbert

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Post Episode, Takes Place Immediately After S02E08 “Knock Knock Knocking On Hooty’s Door”

Warnings: Crying, Anxiety, Bits of Implied Perfectionism, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse

Author’s Note: I literally cannot stop thinking about Amity in this episode. She went through such an emotional rollercoaster, poor girl.

Summary:

Luz was in love with her.

The revelations still sent fireworks through Amity’s heart.

They were even dating now, which was unimaginably cool.

She tried desperately to hold that warmth close to her, fearing it would slip away as she got further from the Owl House.

This—sneaking back home and pretending nothing had happened—was the easy part. It should be, at least.

Read it on ao3 at the link below, or click the Read More button to read on tumblr

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33079672

Amity still felt dazed and jittery when she arrived in front of Blight Manor. Her feet hit the ground with a soft thud, crunching against pink and red pine needles. The concrete steps in front of her house loomed, looking colder and more threatening than she remembered. As she pulled her hood lower over her eyes, her fingers trembled.

It was fine. She could do this.

A headache had snuck up on her. Her forehead and eyes felt like they were burning, and she had a lump in her throat.

Still, she’d had a fantastic night. Nothing could take that away. Luz was in love with her, and they were dating. The memories still sent fireworks through Amity’s heart. She tried desperately to hold that warmth close to her, fearing it would slip away.

This—sneaking back in and pretending nothing had happened—was the easy part.

She turned to the palisman beside her.

“Thank you....” What was his name again? Edalyn had mentioned it, as she was insisting that he should fly Amity home to make sure she was safe, but then Luz’s hand had lightly brushed against Amity’s shoulder, and Luz’s gorgeous face had been right there, so close, and all of Amity’s thoughts had fizzled out to make room for sparkly giddiness.

“Thanks, little friend,” Amity whispered. The wooden owl seemed satisfied and flapped his wings. Then he took off, headed back to the Owl House, where his family was waiting for him. Luz was probably, hopefully, still thinking about her, and she’d be happy to see her little owl friend return safe, and...

A few pangs of inexplicable jealousy surged through her before she wrestled them away. She grit her teeth. This wasn’t how she was supposed to feel. She had been so happy a few minutes ago, it shouldn’t have evaporated this fast.

She closed her eyes and counted down from ten, bracing herself to move forward through the clearing. When she reached ‘one,’ she held her breath and sprinted until she made it inside. She shut the front door as quietly as possible and leaned against the wall.

Then, with no warning or reason, the electric glee came back full force, making her feel unsteady on her feet. She blushed, biting her cheeks to stop herself from smiling, or worse, squealing with joy. That wouldn’t end well for her. Luz’s words echoed in her mind. As much as her instincts tried to dissect the events of the night, as hard as she searched for any downsides or sources of negativity, she still felt like she was floating.

The good feeling lasted a few seconds before it was replaced by guilt, which didn’t even make sense.

“I need to get back home. My mom is going to kill me,” she had said, out loud, like a complete idiot. She had meant to say it to herself, but then Luz was alert and looking at her seriously and oh… oh no. She’d ruined the moment.

“Not…” Amity swallowed. “Not literally. I’ll be fine.” Needing to do something with her hands, she gave Luz a thumbs up.

“Are you going to be…” Luz’s voice was so soft, Amity felt like her heart was cracking.

“It’s totally fine…” Amity laughed, but it sounded hollow, even to her own ears.

“Because, earlier, she did try to kill me, literally, and I don’t want you to be in danger because of me, and-”

Amity groaned, trying to shift her focus to current issues, like getting up the stairs without being caught.

It would be so much easier if she could just feel all of her emotions at once, Amity thought, making her way down the empty hallway. If it was all at once, she knew she’d be feeling overwhelming happiness twinged with only tiny amounts of negativity. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of emotions were too much for her to handle, so they took turns crashing over her in waves.

She managed to slip upstairs unnoticed, and her hands were shaking when she silently opened her bedroom door, but she was pretty sure it was more from the leftover thrill of the night than fear of being caught by her parents.

She closed the door behind her and saw herself sitting at her desk, scribbling at a homework problem.

“What?” She blinked, confused.

The illusion of her dissolved into mist, and she suddenly realized that her brother was sitting next to her desk, looking directly at her. She froze, unable to speak.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

“We didn’t know where you went, but mom came to check on you, and I figured you didn’t want to be caught,” he said in explanation. “You’re welcome.” He smiled.

That made sense. Amity was pretty sure she should feel grateful for the save. Unfortunately, any gratitude she felt was more than cancelled out by the fury that he was in her room, perceiving her, drawing out the already too long night. Ideally the night should have ended twenty minutes ago, when she had still been with Luz.

“Hey, Em, she’s not dead,” Edric spoke into a shimmering circle, no doubt sending some sort of illusion to carry the message to their sister.

In a matter of seconds, Emira burst through the door, out of breath.

No no no no no, she hadn’t planned for this. She didn’t know what to say to them, hadn’t even figured out how she was feeling. She just wanted it to be tomorrow already, so she could be standing next to Luz at school, and everything could be bright and shiny and wonderful again.

“Oh, hey there Mittens,” Emira said, making finger guns. “Glad to see you here. Not that we were worried or anything-“

“Where were you?” Edric interrupted. “You freaked us out. Em was on the verge of telling mom-“

“No, I wasn’t.” Emira leaned against the wall, faking nonchalance. “I’m not a snitch. It was all under control, and I trust you.”

Edric stuck his tongue out at her.

“I’m sorry,” Emira said, “which of us said they thought they saw her get eaten by a worm demon?”

“Oh.” Amity finally found her voice, and their gazes snapped toward her. She slid down to the floor, trying to escape their gazes. “No, he’s right, that did happen.”

“What?!”

“Are you okay?”

And then the twins were talking over each other, pressing for more details, and Amity couldn’t quite breathe, and-

“You’re overwhelming her!” Emira chided. “Look at her face.”

“Like you weren’t also-“

“Shush.” Emira gently nudged her brother aside, sitting down in front of Amity. “Mittens, baby, can you tell us what happened?”

“I’m not a baby,” Amity grumbled. Why wouldn’t they leave? She just wanted to be alone, for Titan’s sake.

Emira rolled her eyes, and Edric shoved her gently.

“Mittens, teenager who is very wise,” Edric said. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“Yeah, um…” Amity tried to think back through the night, searching for an understandable place to start. “Well… you see…” she swallowed. “I…”

And then, she broke down sobbing.

Edric reached out a hand toward her, waiting until she nodded to pull her into a tight hug. She buried her face in his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“I know! That’s the problem! It’s not…” Amity hiccoughed, frantically rubbing at her face. “It was good. I’m just stupid. I don’t know why-“

She let out another sob. She was pretty sure she was getting snot all over Edric’s shirt. Good. That’s what he got for annoying her when she wanted to be left alone.

She made several attempts at speech that all came out garbled.

“Take your time,” Emira said.

“Luz-” Amity sniffled again. “Luz thinks I’m cool.”

Edric laughed at that. Amity tried to glare at him but still couldn’t stop crying.

“She’s so cute.” Amity sniffled, out of breath. “I’m gonna throw up.”

“That,” Edric cleared his throat, trying not to laugh again. “That sounds very difficult. How will you ever survive?”

“Shut up,” Amity grumbled, pushing him away from her. She stood up and flopped face-first onto her bed.

“We’re…” she had meant to get it over with, to say “we’re dating” and let the twins react over enthusiastically, but anxiety overtook her and her throat dried up.

"I'm sorry," Emira said, not sounding sorry, "but what does that have to do with being eaten by a worm demon?"

"Luz's dumb bird-worm thing kidnapped me," Amity said with a small laugh, grateful for the subject change. Then, she felt her face go bright red. She couldn't very well tell her siblings about the Tunnel of Love, or she'd be teased for the rest of her life.

"Okay..." Emira sat down next to her, and she fought not to hiss at the intrusion of her personal space. Emira must have sensed her discomfort, though, because she stood back up immediately. "And then?"

"Things... happened. And then Luz asked me hnnmnnmnm," she buried her face in her pillow.

"I didn’t quite get that." Emira said. Even without looking up, Amity could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Luz..." Amity took a deep breath. It was fine. She was okay. It wasn't going to become any less special if she said it out loud.

"Luz asked me to go out with her." It was silent for a second, and she savored the words.

"Woo!" Edric held out a hand to high-five her, and she tapped it lightly.

"Congrats!" Emira said. “No wonder you’re such a mess.”

“You did say yes, right?” Edric asked.

“I’m not stupid,” she said, throwing a pillow at him.

“Someone’s avoiding the question…”

“Yes!” she said. “I said yes, okay. Can I go to sleep now?”

“Hmmm,” Emira tapped her finger against her chin, and Amity groaned.

“Fine,” Emira said, “because we love you so much, and we’re so proud of you, we’ll let you sleep. Just this once.”

Emira grabbed her brother by the elbow and dragged him out of the room, shooting Amity one last smile before closing the door. Finally, she was blissfully alone.

Memories swirled through her brain again. Luz’s hand squeezing hers. Luz’s horrified expression when Amity had tried to fake a smile but couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. Luz’s nervous laughter as she told Amity how much she liked her. Luz’s knee bumping against hers as they sat face to face, theoretically trying to decide what being girlfriends meant, but getting too distracted staring at each other to finish the conversation. Luz kissing her cheek and looking at her so sincerely as she told her “fly home safe.”

Amity’s heart thudded in her ribcage. She might combust if her siblings found out about how stupid in love she’d acted tonight, but she was going to explode anyway if she didn’t tell all the details to someone immediately.

Resigned, she sat up, and crept out of her room. Her siblings were still standing in the hallway, whispering excitedly. Edric noticed her first, tapping Emira’s hand to get her to look.

“Mittens?” she asked.

“I’m feeling every emotion,” she admitted, “and I can’t sleep, and I need you to come back actually,” she mumbled, not meeting their eyes.

“Sweet,” Edric said.

It wasn’t even a teasing remark, but Amity still blushed. She was screwed, she knew. Still, with their eyes on her, the hurricane of emotions that was tugging at her felt a little less heavy and a little more manageable. She was lucky to have them as her siblings, not that she’d ever tell them that.

“Aww, is she too in love to sleep?” Emira asked.

“Shut up,” Amity said, blushing even harder.

“Okay, okay, I’m shutting up. It’s your turn to talk,” Emira said. “Tell us everything.”

[marvelslut16]

What were you thinking?

Prompt number: 14 “You better leave now.”

Fandom: Marvel

Paring: Sam Wilson x reader

Rating: T

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: Swearing. A man that can’t take no. Dumbasses who are oblivious to each others affections. A terrible Hawkeye pun. Reader called a slut. 

A/N: This is day 10 of fictober, it was my moms birthday so I spent it with her and not on tumblr. But when I logged into tumblr this morning I saw that this fic didn’t post at it’s scheduled time, so here it is a day late. First time writing Sam so I’m sorry if it sucks. 

Tony’s endless galas could be fun, you had an excuse to dress up instead of being stuck in your Avengers gear, and it always includes a free bar. The downside is the hoards of drunken men that hit on you that can’t seem to take no for an answer. And tonight is no exception, dressed in a black dress with a slit up your right leg, men can’t seem to stay away from you. 

You sigh as Nat hands you a refill, she had snuck behind the bar moments earlier to make yours and her drinks extra strong. Both of you going through relationship woes, more like non-existent relationship woes. Her eyes never seem to leave Clint for long, he’s standing on the balcony above the ballroom watching the guests like a hawk, his job never seeming to be done. When Nat does look away you catch his longing gaze on her. The two dumbasses can’t see the love they have for each other buried under their years of friendship. 

Your eyes trail from Clint back onto the main floor only stopping when they land on Sam’s back, he’s standing next to your favorite couple Steve and Bucky. Nat gives you a sympathetic look while you just roll your eyes at the three women hanging onto Sam’s every word, and two more clinging to his arms. At least Clint only has eyes for Nat and she doesn’t have to watch the man she loves be flirted with constantly. 

You were with Steve when he met Sam back in DC, and you were immediately enraptured with his sarcasm and dry sense of humor. Steve was always your closest friend on the team, but that quickly changed when you befriended Sam and you became inseparable. For a few months, about two years ago,  you were convinced Sam had feelings for you. Everyone around you said he was being obvious; always spending days off with you, nights at bars after a rough mission attached to your side, volunteering to go on missions with you when you needed a partner, and demanding he go as backup when you had a different partner. You let your hopes get the better of you and you let the walls around your heart fall for him.

But you built them back stronger, thicker, and taller than before when he invited a woman he met at a bar one night to be his date to a gala. Prior to that you were each other's dates, always matching his tie color to match your dress, but suddenly that stopped with no warning or no specific event to blame for his change of heart. So for the past two years you had each either gone stag or with your flavors of the month. 

You lean back on the bar, trying to stop from seeing red as the woman draped on his left arm leans up and nibbles on his earlobe. You catch both Steve and Bucky sending you looks of pity, if you weren’t trained to be so observant you wouldn’t have caught them, that’s how fast they are. A tall handsome man leans on the bar next to you, arm draped on the bartop behind your back, his front facing your right side. 

You look at him through your eyelashes; he’s taller than Sam, at least six and a half feet, his skin not as rich and chocolatey in color, and his eyes didn’t hold that same look that sparked a fire in your soul and core. But he’d do for the night. You send Nat a quick wink before turning your attention to the mysterious man on your right, focusing your attention solely on him. 

“You wanna dance gorgeous?” the Cheshire grin that splits across his face is momentarily off putting, you can already tell that this man has never been told no in his life.

“You bet,” you grin and agree anyway. What’s the harm in a little fun anyway? 

Once on the dance floor he pulls you in tight, chest to chest. Your slightly tipsy and hazy mind ignores the warning sounds being fired off in your brain. Instead you dance with him, letting his body lead yours in the slow song. Throughout the song the man, whom you still don’t know the name of, his hand slowly slips closer and closer to the curve of your ass. The next song is a bit faster so you start to pull away like the rest of the couples on the dancefloor, instead of letting you go the man’s large hands grab you by the ass and press you up against him again. 

Your eyes widen as your eyes frantically search for one of your friends: your eyes go to the balcony but it’s Clint free, he’s talking with Nat at the bar; Tony and Pepper are in a quiet corner saying goodnight to Morgan, who’s being watched by Happy and May; you finally find Bucky and Steve standing just off the dance floor, both sets of eyes locked on something behind you. 

Before you can turn around and see what's causing Bucky to smirk and Steve to have a knowing grin, the hands are being ripped off of your ass and you're pulled into a firm, familiar, chest. You relax slightly as Sam wraps you in his arms and holds you securely to him. 

“What the fuck?” the man you had been dancing with swears a little too loudly, eyes from surrounding party goers are now on the situation. Their murmurs alert more and more people to the possible fight brewing in front of them between an Avenger and some millionaire over another Avenger. 

“I think you best leave,” Sam grits his teeth, arms squeezing you a little tighter. The man lets out a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh, rolling his eyes at Sam. 

“Do you even know who I am?” the man tries to intimidate Sam by staring him down. 

“No, and quite frankly, I don’t care,” Sam moves you from his chest to where he’s standing in front of you slightly, but keeping an arm around your waist. “You made (Y/N) uncomfortable, so all I know is that you better leave now.” 

“Well if she wasn’t dressed like such a slut-” Sam’s arm unwraps from you, he’s forming a fist and getting ready to take a swing. 

“Oh how original,” you roll your eyes from behind Sam, moving to stand beside him. “Let me guess, it took you all night to come up with that excuse just in case someone tried to turn you down?” Sam steps in front of you again as the man goes to lunge at you. You giggle and roll your eyes again, is he really dumb enough to try and pick a fight with multiple Avengers. “Did I strike a little nerve there? Was I too on the nose for you?”

By now Tony’s called security and the man is being forcefully removed from the gala, Sam’s hand wraps around your wrist and he pulls you out a door in the other direction. He leads you through multiple winding hallways and away from the prying ears of gala guests. Sam only stops when he feels you’ve put a substantial distance between you and the party, having taken too many different turns for anyone to follow. 

“What were you thinking?” Sam asks, you can hear as he fights with himself to keep his voice level. 

“What was I thinking? What were you thinking? You almost got yourself into a fist fight Samuel!” 

“What were you thinking dancing with him?” he sneers. 

“I wanted to dance, he asked, therefore we started dancing!” you glare at Sam. 

“You could have gotten hurt!” he sounds exasperated. 

“Says the one that almost got into a physical fight with him,” you roll your eyes at Sam, arms coming up to shove him lightly at your next statement. “I can take care of myself Samuel, I don’t need you to save me.”

“You think I don't know that?” he grabs both of your wrists as you go to shove him again. “You’re strong, capable, and can kick just about anyone's ass. Hell, you took down the tinman in training the other day. It’s one of the things I love about you, but dammit I want you to need me as much as I need you!”

“What did you just say?” you latch your hands onto his wrists since his hands are still holding your wrists. Your heart swells at his slight confession, an overpowering feeling of love washes over you as your walls crumble down. 

“I love you (Y/N). And I need you,” he lets go of your wrists to wrap your arms around your waist, you rest your hands on his biceps. “I pushed you away when I realized how much you meant to me, when I realized I couldn’t function right when I wasn’t by your side every day. So I pushed you away and into the arms of countless men I was scared would sweep you off your feet.”

“You’re an idiot,” you laugh lightly.

“That’s what Barnes tells me every day,” Sam looks down at you sadly, and you realize you haven’t said it back. 

“I love you too, you winged idiot,” Sam cuts off your giggle with his lips, finally kissing you with those plump lips for the first time. “You’ve already swept me off my feet, both figuratively and literally.”

Permanent tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen​ @rexorangecouny​ @mrs-malfoy-always​

[lateasalways]

(Damn, I had to make a new post because something weird happened to the cut when I edited, it went into the ask itself and isn’t working and I can’t fix it lmao, sorry!) 

Anon asked:

it would be interesting to me if you made a post about the elton books you have read. like how they differ and your opinion on them. ive only read Me but im interested in finding some other reads

Hi!  I’m sorry this took so long, I’ve suddenly been CRAZY busy with work now that there’s proper concerts happening again (and yay for that), but Anon, you have no idea how much I would like to answer that question and I’ve been thinking about it all week lmao, I think it’s super interesting to look at the differences between them. So of course I went amok and wrote way too long so just bare with me.

I’ve read 5 books in full and I’ve listed them in the order in which I read them.

1. Me by Elton John. You’ve all read that so I don’t have to explain it. It was the first one I read and my fav thing about it is how funny it is, and of course it’s very personal and therefore more emotional than some of the others. I absolutely love it and I honestly haven’t read a book that has engaged me so much in yeeeeaars, I would recommend that book to anyone, not only Elton fans.

2. Captain Fantastic by Tom Doyle. This book focuses on the 70s (but also includes his childhood/youth). I thought it was a great supplement  to Me, because many of the same stories are in there, but since the time span is shorter, it’s more detailed, and we get to hear other people’s versions of the events. What I particularly found interesting is the part about Elton breaking through in America. He’s always described it as sheer luck and being at the right place at the right time himself, and I’m sure that’s his experience of it, but that’s not what happened. I find that extremely fascinating. Here we get to hear from his first American label who basically got Empty Sky for free because it had been rejected by many others. Before they got the chance to release it Elton John came out which is obviously a step up production wise and they dropped everything and started pushing that album instead. Everyone at the label thought it was so great they really went all in with the promotion and managed to create a hype even though he was a complete unknown and that’s how he got the Troubadour gig. This book in several ways I think show that Elton is too humble when it comes to his talent, like you don’t get to headline over established and popular artists before the most important people in the industry as an unknown by sheer luck. It happened because the album was so great, the label were convinced he was going to be a star and they went for it. I really liked the book in general. Even though there is no shocking new info there, it shines a different light on several stories from Me which I find very interesting.

3. Sir Elton by Philip Norman. This book is about his life up until 1991 and it’s really long and super detailed, like some impressive work went into this one. (I listened to the audio book on scribd as they had a 30-day free trial because of corona, I don’t know if that’s still an offer but if it is I really recommend it.) It’s  a bit weird because on one side the author managed to detail and capture Elton’s personality SO well (he’s said so himself too) and the way he writes makes some of the stories so vivid it almost felt like watching a movie. I actually found myself getting as emotional as I did reading Me at several points, like I literally shed tears here and there. But then on the other side, there are several things that bothers me a lot about this book. First of all it seems like Norman for some reason think Stanley was a great father and is trying to convince us that Elton is wrong about everything he’s said about him. Like, why? He’s clearly talked a lot with his 2nd wife Edna and her perspective is obviously very different from Elton’s. But some of his points are just really weird like f.x. he says that Elton says his dad didn’t care about him but this is wrong because he actually had a framed photo of him in his room when he was in the RAF. Like….????? How does that prove anything? As long as Elton didn’t know about it, it means fuck all! You don’t get a gold star because you keep a framed photo of your only son wtf? Another example: One Christmas after the divorce Elton didn’t get a present or a card or anything. But this was because they had very little money and their new son was ill. Well that’s sad, but Elton didn’t know that? You could at least have called and explained it or just sent a card to let him know you were thinking of him too? The whole problem is that he didn’t SHOW that he loved him or was proud of him, he can have as many framed photos he likes but that doesn’t matter when you never show any kind of affection. Another example cause I’m on a roll: Edna says Elton in fact enjoyed his visits to them (which he himself has said he hated) she says he used to sit alone and play with their typewriter. That sounds sad AF??? Why are you trying to convince me this is great parenting? I know it was a different time but fuck! One thing I do believe though is that Sheila probably helped along the narrative that Stanley was awful, I think it’s very likely that she has exaggerated or even made up stories about him, but that’s not Elton’s fault. Another downside with the book (imo) is that Norman is apparently the world’s biggest fan of Dick James and there’s just sooo much boring stuff about Dick James there, I’m sorry but when he starts talking about Dick James I recommend you fast forward. The whole point is to set up the court case between him and Elton that happened in the 80s (in which he clearly thinks Dick was in the right) but I’m just not interested in that at all. If you are though, this is the book for you lol. Then there’s the things the author got wrong. First of all, he didn’t know about Elton’s drug use which is quite essential. Although you can easily read between the lines of what the interviewees are saying, so it’s not that distracting. Second, he seems to believe that Elton is actually bisexual which he obviously isn’t (and before I get accused of bi-erasure, he has said so himself time and time again that he’s never been interested in women and his coming out as bi in 76 was a “chicken out”) and it really bothered me cause it reads a bit homophobic to me as he seems to believe Sheila when she said that he “wouldn’t have been gay if it weren’t for show business.” So I’m a bit conflicted about this book. It has more negatives than the others but the good parts are SO SO GOOD. I would be very interested in hearing other people’s opinions about it.

4. Elton John by David Buckley. Another one I listened to on Scribd. This is a quite new one so certain things have come to light which makes it more accurate. It’s another book that didn’t have  a lot of groundbreaking new information, but he’s for some reason the only one who’s talked to Gary Osbourne and he has a lot of interesting things to tell. I think Gary deserves more credit and he was very close to Elton in a very interesting part of his career/life so it’s worth reading for that. This book is also about his whole life but way shorter than Sir Elton so obviously not as detailed, but there’s some fun stuff and new anecdotes in there.

5. Elton, my Elton by Gary Clarke. Gary was Elton’s on/off boyfriend between 1982 and 83 (ish) and obviously knows him in a way these other authors don’t. I was a bit unsure about reading this as I think it’s a bit tasteless to expose someone to that extent (and he goes into some seriously intimate details), but otoh I felt like it was kind of the missing puzzle piece so I bought it in the end (on ebay) and I can’t really say if it actually answered the questions I had or just gave me more. I thought Elton was weird before reading this and it certainly didn’t make me think he’s any less weird. It starts kind of cute, it almost reads like one of those self-insert popstar fanfics at first (not that I’ve ever purposely read any of that but you know, it’s hard to be on tumblr without stumbling upon that stuff now and again) but then it gets really dark. Which is because Elton apparently was clean when they first met but then after some time he started spiraling, so it’s just… it actually made me a bit nauseous tbh and it’s so frustrating too, I genuinely yelled “Elton, no!” out loud at one point lmao. But I have already talked at length about this book, particularly what I found disturbing about it and you can find that post here. If you’re interested in reading this book though, you should be warned there’s some rapey content, (though to be clear, that has nothing to do with Elton) and dubious consent.

So anon, since you’re looking for some further reading, these are all good and interesting books I think. It’s a bit hard to say which one I liked best because obviously, for every book I read there’s less new info. But then all of the books have stories I hadn’t heard before so they’re all worth reading if you’re crazy obsessive like me and wants to know absolutely everything lol. I really enjoyed reading all of them (well enjoy isn’t the right word for Gary’s book but yk.) so I guess you should just consider what sounds more interesting to you and go for that :) If you take away the negatives I think Sir Elton is probably the one I enjoyed the most, while Elton, my Elton is the most revealing. Elton John is more complete while Captain Fantastic is really good if you’re more interested in the 70s and his breakthrough.

Thank you so much for the ask! I hope you found what you were looking for and enjoy some further reading! To anyone else who might be reading this: if you have thoughts on any of these books or things you want to discuss, please, my inbox is open! :D

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 14

A/N: So I've been thinking, and do you guys think I should post my fanfics on Archive of our Own too? I know some people prefer AO3, plus if anyone makes fanart of a certain scene then I could, with permission of course, be able to put it on there (wink wink nudge nudge i have a tumblr). Plus there's that whole thing about how AO3 has lawyers and stuff to protect their fanfic writers. That's pretty cool.

Kyrianae Narii: Yeah people would totally call Izuku one of the fathers of modern magic. I mean, I wouldn't. If anything, he's the grandson of modern magic. (¬‿¬)

xoxoxo

I closed all of the text boxes I'd gotten now that we were back at Yuuei, the police were done taking our statements, and just waiting for our parents to show up on account of the fact that they didn't want to let us go just yet unless it was with a relative. My level jumped from twenty-eight straight to thirty-six after taking out the Nomu. It made sense, it was so above my level that I couldn't even see how much it was above my level. Plus I got another title, Giant Slayer, for having beaten more than one opponent with a level at least fifty over mine, the other one probably being the zero-pointer. It gave me a small offense and defense boost for every level over mine an enemy was, which I knew almost immediately would get less and less useful as time went on, even if it was very good at the moment. I was already level thirty-six, and it was the first semester. Not to mention, depending on how it worked, it was entirely possible that it'd make me weaker against weaker opponents. Of course, I wasn't the only one who leveled up in the USJ. I looked over at Uraraka, who was sitting next to me.

Megalovania

LV 23

Uraraka Ochako

Apparently she'd stopped Kurogiri for so long by using gravity to slam him into the ground and then making him fall in another direction whenever he tried to make a warp gate to get away. It was apparently really effective, at least until he managed to trick Uraraka into throwing him into a portal. She had a really intense look on her face still, and I could feel my weight fluctuating from the gravity mana she was unconsciously releasing.

"I apologize deeply for not being able to help more," Iida said to Uraraka.

She sighed and lightened up. And I mean literally lightened up; the gravity effect stabilized, causing her chair to stop creaking. "No, you did fine. I just couldn't help feeling like... Like maybe if I noticed that portal sooner, I would've been able to do cancel out Thirteen's Black Hole..."

"I-I'm sorry!" Nebula said.

Uraraka smiled and ruffled her starry hair. "No, you're fine."

"B-but I couldn't help at all, you did everything..."

"There'll always be next time," she said. Nebula sniffled. "Let's... change the subject for now. What the heck was that thing you did to the giant monster?"

"Yeah," Kirishima shouted, quieting the general conversations that were going on, "that was super manly!"

"I would also like to know," Tokoyami said.

I felt my face heat up a bit and rubbed the back of my neck. Almost everyone who was still there was staring intently at me as they waited for my explanation. "So, you guys know how my Quirk works like a video game, right?" They nodded. "So one factor of this I almost never use is that I get points for leveling up that I can use to raise my stats, and I used that to raise my WIS, which gave me three new skills. One of those was Duality, which raised my elemental affinity and gave me access to secondary elements, one of which was lightning."

"I told you, Kaminari!" Jirou shouted, pointing at him. Yaoyorozu smiled awkwardly and put her arm on Jirou's shoulder.

"And then I got a much better version of Elemental Aura from raising its level enough called Elemental Embodiment when fighting the Nomu, which was what I used to beat it."

"So that's why it looked like you were teleporting," Hagakure said.

"Yeah, though it wasn't really teleportation," I said. "I just spilled a lot of water on the floor and conducted myself through it in Lightning Embodiment."

"Dang, that's pretty awesome," Kaminari said. "I wish I could do that."

"Well if you practice Lightning Aura enough, you might be able to do it. To use Elemental Aura, you infuse your body with elemental mana. Elemental Embodiment is just that, but... more," I explained. "Sorry I can't give you more for that, but I only used it three times in the middle of battle and the downside of automatically learning things with my Quirk is that it's a little hard to explain how to do them sometimes unless I concentrate really hard on what I'm doing."

"Nah, it's cool, man. I'm sure I can figure it out eventually."

"And by the way," Kacchan said. "You probably shouldn't use a spell that makes you generate electricity all over your body anywhere near anything sensitive to electricity. Not at first anyway." He paused for a moment. "Actually with your Quirk, you should probably know how the fuck that shit goes."

Kaminari gave a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, I learned that lesson already."

"What were the other two?" Sero asked. "You said you got three WIS skills, right?"

"Yeah. There's Tactician, which just lets me think better and automatically gives me information on my skills as I need them, but only when in a battle or crisis. The other one..."

Mantra (Passive) LV1 EXP: 52.19%

Mantra is a sacred utterance, words to live by. This skill represents the ability to change one's meditation into an internal mantra when not in danger, providing some of the benefits of meditation without the downside.

Allows the use of Meditation as a passive when not in times of high exertion and/or stress, but with 1/5th the effect.

Stacks with Meditation.

"Mantra is interesting. I can't use it in battle, but it basically turns another of my skills, Meditation, into a passive at the cost of some of its effect. That pretty much means that my HP and MP regenerate a bit faster and, even more usefully, I can automatically train one stat aside from LUC at a time."

Slowly, we broke back up into our smaller groups and started talking to each other. "Hey Deku," Uraraka said, then pointed to Tsu, who was sitting alone. "Is it just me, or is Tsu-chan shaking a bit.

I winced. "Oh," I said. I'd asked her if she was okay after everything was over, on account of the part where she almost died, but she just said she was fine and I didn't even think to Observe her to check to see if that was the case. Though in hindsight doing that might have been an invasion of privacy. "She... almost got her face disintegrated. I think I might need to talk to her."

Uraraka got up, a serious look on her face. "No, I'll go."

xoxoxo

Tsuyu Asui felt like she couldn't breath, and her heart was pounding. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see that man's hand in front of her face. Her hands kept on shaking, even when she tried to stop.

"Are you okay, Tsu?" a familiar voice asked. "Deku said something about your face almost disintegrating, which sounded like it was really scary," Uraraka said.

Tsu took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself. She didn't want to worry any of her classmates. "I-I'm fine, Uraraka."

Uraraka sat down next to her. "You can call me Ochako, if you want. It's okay if you're scared, Tsu. I was terrified, and I didn't even get attacked." Tsu bit her lip. Her vision started to blur, and a hot tear rolled down her cheek. Ochaka held her arms out, offering a hug. "Do you want to cry on my shoulder." Tsu let out a small kero and leaned into her embrace, pressing her face to Ochako's shoulder. She sobbed and let the tears flow. "There," Ochako said. "Feel better?" Tsu nodded, face still on her shoulder. Ochako rubbed her back lightly. "That's good."

xoxoxo

"I feel shame as a class representative that I didn't notice how Asui was suffering," Iida said as he watched Uraraka comfort Tsu.

"Maybe you could see if anyone else needs a hug?" I offered.

"Ah, thank you, Midoriya. I will do that."

"Just remember," Kacchan said, "if someone's on the verge of a fucking panic attack, make absolutely fucking sure to use your fucking indoor voice."

"I know that," Iida said using his fucking indoor voice. He looked over at us. "Bakugou, Midoriya, are you two alright?"

"Oh my fucking what," Kacchan said flatly. "I'm pretty sure we're both fine!" He shooed Iida off. "Go, ask how everyone else is!"

"We're good, Iida," I said. "Koda looks a little nervous, maybe start with him?" I gave Iida a thumbs-up as he walked over to Koda.

I heard the tapping of a certain needle cane. "Midoriya-kun!" Recovery Girl said as she entered the room. "I'd like you to come to my office. I've patched up Erasor Head and Thirteen enough that I'm willing to let you get some hands-on experience."

"Right," I said. "I'm coming."

"Izuku!" my mom shouted, then grabbed me in her death grip of motherly worry. "Are you okay? I was so worried!"

"Katsuki!" Auntie Mitsuki shouted. "You damn well better be alright!"

"I'm fine, ma!" he shouted back to her.

"So you two must be Midoriya-san and Bakugou-san," Recovery Girl observed. "If you don't mind, Midoriya-san, I'd like to take your son to my office for a bit."

Mom stepped back a bit and inspected me. "Is Izuku hurt?"

"M-mom, I'm fine!" I said.

"Sorry, I think I should've worded that better," Recovery Girl said. "Midoriya-kun is fine, but I'd like to have him help with the actual wounded. He's taking my support hero courses, remember?"

"Oh, right!" Mom said. "How is my dear Izuku doing, by the way?"

"He's doing pretty well, which is why I want to borrow him for a bit. Plus, his healing spell can be safely used on people I've used my Quirk on because he's the one providing all the energy. I still need to learn it..."

"Right," I said. "If you don't mind, Mom, I'm going to go with Recovery Girl. I'll see you when I'm done."

She smiled at me. "Go on, sweetie."

xoxoxo

I looked over my new elemental affinities.

Air: 20

Earth: 20

Fire: 30

Water: 30

Bio: 20 (earth+water)

Ice: 20 (air+water)

Lightning: 20 (air+fire)

Molten: 20 (fire+earth)

Sonic: 20 (air+earth)

Vapor: 20 (fire+water)

I'd tested each combination of elements in Illusion Barrier just in case any of them were immediately explosive. The only one that did anything close to exploding, though, was sonic, which caused a low humming sound when I used it. Bio was... worrying at first, but I found that all it was was a combination of poison and plant, though I felt like maybe there might have also been some flesh manipulation in it that I wasn't quite willing to mess with just yet. It was interesting, though, using the secondary elements. Now that I was out of danger and able to properly concentrate on my magic, I noticed that it wasn't exactly fusing the elements together as I thought it was. If anything, it was more like using power that was less fragmented than the primary elements. It was odd but that was the best analogy I had. "Right," I said. "Is everything ready?"

"You do realize that this probably isn't the best idea, right?" Blaise asked, referring to the six ritual circles equidistant to my bed and in particular the molten lava and cup of boiling water he was keeping warm.

Halitus nodded. "Agreed."

"I'm going to be out of it either way, might as well speedrun it," I responded.

Rayne grinned widely. "I like it! We get all of the new weapon buddies at once!"

"Yeah, weapon buddies!" Dune agreed, happily pulling the cord on my I Am Here All Might action figure (with kung-fu grip).

"Right, let's start this," I said. I placed my hands in front of the circles, had Dune put the Laughing All Might in the empty circle to provide the sonic element, and activated the six rituals at once. "I, Midoriya Izuku, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee."

xoxoxo

I stirred from my sleep to the sound of a familiar explosion. "Suck it!" a slightly less familiar voice said. I opened my eyes to see several children that looked like they were roughly twelve, along with one girl who looked like she was ten, in varying states of corporeality. The boy whose voice I heard looked like he could have easily been Kaminari's younger brother, except for the odd-looking ears, the red spots on his cheeks, and a strange lightning-bolt tail. He had a yellow jacket with two brown stripes on it. My new lightning elemental, Raimon. He was holding one of the controllers of my Switch, and judging from his furious button presses he was the one who was playing the Pikachu that was winning. A lot.

"Cheater," Rayne whined. She'd gained even more dark blue on her clothes and hair, and she now had blue fingerless gloves with white knuckles. It looked like she was playing as Greninja. She wasn't very good with Greninja, though. I couldn't help but notice how Raimon and Rayne resembled the characters they were playing as. "I knew I shoulda picked the sword guy..."

"Which sword guy?" my vapor elemental, Claude, asked. He wore light, red body armor, had three spikes in his red hair, and for some reason reminded me of a lobster. "Aren't like half of them sword guys?"

"Thirteen of seventy-four," Halitus corrected. Halitus had changed a lot, actually. His hair was now sky-blue instead of his robes, and he had two long ponytails. His robes were fully made of the cloudy material with the exception of five blue tassels in the back that might have actually been some weird tail. He now had patches on his cheeks like Raimon, though his were white.

Claude rolled his eyes. "Same difference."

"Not even close, bro," the biggest of the elementals, Iggy, said. He was my new molten elemental. He had a red long-sleeved shirt with three blue circles on the sleeves and two large brown lumps on the back. His hair was also red with a few spikes, so he and Claude almost looked like they could have been brothers if not for his... camel ears? He had a red tail as well. "And I think it's my turn now." He put his intangible hands on Rayne's controller, and I felt a weird shift in the mana that was automatically leaving my mana pool as he and Rayne switched between being partially summoned and fully summoned. "Who else wants a go?"

Mifuyu, my ice elemental, switched with Raimon. "That would be me." Oddly enough for an ice elemental, she had dark red hair, eyes, and two tails. She was dressed in dark blue ninja clothes, like Rayne, but in a different shade. She had a small yellow gem on her forehead. Mifuyu picked Shiek and Iggy picked Dedede.

"So how are you guys able to summon yourselves?" I asked.

"That would be from my help," Pyra said. "It seems we elementals can summon ourselves, partially or fully, so long as our summoner can bear the strain of our summoning without a noticeable decrease in mana. Master Kacchan gained the strength to handle me recently, and it seems your current limit is three. With Sonia out regardless to allow us to be as loud as we want without waking your mother up, that meant that we've mostly been playing doubles matches."

"You're welcome, by the way," my sonic elemental said. She had a purple shirt, a black scarf, and black jeans. On her nose she had rounded triangular purple sunglasses that you could still see her golden eyes through and over her ears were some expensive-looking purple headphones. "Yeah, after the primary elementals filled us in on everything, Pyra showed up and told us how to summon ourselves so we could play some games to wait for you to wake up on your own."

"We did have some fun with a party game earlier," Juniper, my bio elemental, said. She had a blue-green dress with darker green patches on it. Around her neck she had a scarf that appeared to be made of green fronds, with a sort of brooch on the form of a pink bud. Her eyes were red, her hair was green, and she had pointed canine teeth. "I hope you don't mind too terribly. We didn't mess with anything and made sure not to mess with your saved data."

"Actually, if you guys want to make an account on that you totally can," I said. "I'm pretty sure that'll give you guys save files separate from mine."

"Let's do that later, then," Blaise said. His shirt darkened and the sleeves now had small patches of light blue on them. His scarf had changed to have long red ends with a few black dots on them. "For now we're just playing Smash."

"Can I join in next round?" I asked.

"Sure," Sonia said. "We still have an hour or so 'til morning, according to a few of your neighbours' clocks anyway."

"Hey, can I play next too?" Dune asked. Her clothes were now half camo and half solid black.

We played until the sun rose. It was fun.

xoxoxo

A/N: Just in case you didn't notice by now, Midoriya's The Gamer lacks the party level up feature that the original does. Only Midoriya can get more powerful from his Quirk.

And I bet you guys can tell at least one pairing I ship based on this chapter.

Now, for the elementals. First, I'd like to say this one thing. There is exactly ONE Pokémon that has the true power of steam, Volcanion, and I didn't want to bust out the legendaries just yet. So that meant I had to look over all of the Pokémon that can use Scald (the closest to a vapor spell I could find that wasn't Volcanion-exclusive) to figure out which one was the steamiest.

Juniper: Ivysaur

Mifuyu: Sneasel

Raimon: Pikachu, natch

Iggy: Camerupt

Sonia: Noibat

Claude: Corphish (insert morbid joke about steamed lobster here)

They're in their secondary stages (when applicable) because as intermediary elementals they're in the middle, in case you couldn't tell.

[garyfuckingking]

My 10 pages long essay and Powerpoint on The World’s End and Gary King

(aka why The World’s End and Gary King are two of the most precious things that exist, aka why I love The World’s End and Gary King)

(Based on my own original idea and written after I read this post - @ineverhadadoubt thanks again for sending it to me-

Also please check out this amazing post about the pubs in the movie.)

(I thought I’d tag some people that seemed to agree with my original post and might be interested in reading this. It’s fine if you don’t btw: @smashing-anarchist-poet @jessefandomunited @shakespeareanmemes @jesusinanalcove @aknownlegend @snovyda @smuggsy @immortal-gamora @doodlerdoodle @zane-garrett @lady-dragonfruit @nogoatshere  @hum4n3rror @theforceawakcns @duskteeth - wasn’t gonna tag everyone, some I couldn’t even tag so that’ll do-)

Before I begin, I’d like for you to be aware of a few things. 

First off, this is gonna be a very very veeeeeery long post so bare with me if you can. I’m probably gonna keep apologizing for the lenght of it in between two things I’m talking about but I’m passionate, sorry.

It’s also a very big post because there’s pictures and a lot of gifs tbh. 

Like... i think like, don’t even try to read this on your phone? Idk what it will do to it. tumblr mobile ain’t that strong i think

There’s so much to be said about this movie.

TW: There’s going to be mentions of suicide, depression, addiction, ...

Also, I’m probably going to forget a lot of the points I’d like to illustrate and talk about, that’s one of the downsides of running on a three hours of sleep schedule. 

You can check the tags for some trivia on this whole post.

So if anyone wants to add something, feel free. I’d love for people to give me their opinion on the movie, etc. 

I’m also probably not gonna mention the direction of the movie too much. I love Edgar Wright with all my stone-cold heart but if I have to talk about how much of a fucking genius he is when it comes to comedy and his movies, we’re literally gonna be there all week, plus I’m not actually planning on writing a 10 pages long essay -or am I?-.

If you haven’t seen the movie, SPOILER ALERT. Seriously though. There’s some stuff in the movie you probably don’t want to know by reading this if you’re planning on watching it and I’m going to talk about everything so.

Finally, I’m going to talk about why I think the movie is not as popular as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and the rest will mostly be about Gary King and why he’s a great character but also why he’s an important one.

Well. Let’s go. This is gonna be a wild ride.

In this essay, I will...

Ok, in all seriousness.

So I guess there’s supposed to be an introduction here. This is very unprofessionnal, and I’ve learned how to write essays so shame on me. Oh, well. We’re here to talk about Gary Fucking King. It’s ok if it’s a mess, the guy’s a living mess on his own. So, when Simon Pegg comes to mind, the Cornetto Trilogy usually does as well. At least, the first movie that you probably think of is Shaun of the Dead. And often, Hot Fuzz is mentionned as well. But I never ever hear anything about the World’s End. God, even Stephen Colbert got the name wrong while talking to Simon, calling it “The End of the World”. Granted the movie wasn’t the subject, but... Why did it happen? Why is The World’s End seen as “the weakest one”, as “not as good as the first two”, is the one people don’t remember, and is assimilited to other weird claims of the sort? 

I personally feel like it’s because it’s more layered than the other two movies, actually, it’s a bit more complicated. I’m not saying here “if you didn’t get it you’re dumb” or “only smart people will get the message”. Not at all. I had to watch it a couple of times before I started to get a lot of things about Gary and the movie in general, and even today, when I watch it, I notice new things and tiny details that I never realized were there before. That happens with the whole trilogy because the three movies are amazingly well done, but I feel like it’s harder to grasp with The World’s End. But why? 

I think it’s because we directly know what Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are about. The three movies are about more than an apocalyptic scenario or living surrounded by a cult made of murderers. There’s always a message behind the main themes. 

With Shaun of the Dead, it’s kind of a given, really. The little introduction of the environment shows you that it looks like the town is filled with z****es before they even actually arrive and just with that, the scene is set, we know what -behind the parody and other elements of the film- Simon and Edgar decided to criticize about society (it becomes deeper with Shaun’s character but I’ll get to that later, same with Angel).

In Hot Fuzz, the critic of society is a bit more subtle, but still there for people to see. That’s the point right? Send a message without making you feel like you’re “being thaught a lesson”, or something like that, and these movies do it brilliantly. Because that’s the thing. People watching the Cornetto Trilogy sit down in front of their screen to have a good time, have a laugh and go one with their day. But The World’s End is different. It’s still extremely funny, but it doesn’t give off the same vibe as SotD and HF. You feel like there’s something more, you feel that it’s actually a tragic movie. 

Yes, it still has the same kind of message, here with how much of a fuck up a human being can be, how humans are stubborn even if they make mistakes, but that it’s part of life and a word with “perfect beings” wouldn’t necessarily be better. It’s about growing up and accepting that you have to leave your childhood or teenage years at some point, and all that stuff surrounding these themes. You think it was the better part of your life, but often... it isn’t (again, I’ll come back to this later). It’s just harder to grasp because of the tone and maybe because people don’t like to hear this kind of things.

So the problem is, people often miss (or dismiss) the point. 

I don’t think you know about this but there’s this French website called Betaseries. 

On it, you can have an account and have a list with the tv shows you’re currently watching or the films you’ve watched or want to watch.

You can download subtitles for the new episodes you wanna watch if you need them, you can rate movies, comment to give your opinion, you can tick which episodes you’ve seen so that you can keep track of what you’re watching and not forget where you’re at, etc. Pretty useful website, I’m always on it.

So, I obviously went to see what people thought of The World’s End. It’s got a good enough rating, really, 3.62 out of 5 stars. It’s not a four or a five but only because of two users who didn’t like it all that much. So I read their reviews. One was a 2/5 and one was a 3/5: 

“To summarize the movie: the world is invaded by a pacifist extra-terrestrial entity that kills human to exchange them with clones but that accept to leave the planet if you ask (with insults, please!) ???

To use one of the movie’s favorite expression: WTF?????!!!!!

I liked the story of “Shaun of the Dead” better ^^”

“Having liked "Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”, I was impatient to see Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s new movie, unfortunately, it isn’t as “good” as the last two. Technically perfect, the story drags on and the mid-life crisis Simon Pegg’s character goes through becomes tedious after some time… but not everything’s good for the trash! The English humor is really present, the play-on-words, the references… you don’t mind watching it. I feel like you need to watch it a second time to appreciate its real worth.

Naturally, watching it in VO is absolutely necessary.”

The other people that commented had all 4 or 5 stars and were only saying that the movie was very funny, therefore enjoyable and good.

I think that’s the thing. When you think “Cornetto Trilogy”, you think “having a good time”. You watch it, you can see that there’s a message behind it, but you don’t spend your time focusing on it or looking for it, because it’s usually pretty simple to get. You pay more attention to the comedy, the references, etc.  

And that is where The World’s End becomes different. It’s not focused on the comedy or the references (well, yes it is and it’s still incredibly funny, it was meant to be), but you have to focus on what is actually going on with Gary King to get it all. That’s why the big meanie leaves “just because they asked”. Remember what it says before leaving (and destroying the world btw)?

That’s something that’s been said to Gary a few times throughout the movie, but here, it’s clearly aimed at the three of them, hence at the humans, because they’re speaking for their entire race. That’s why it leaves. Because the message is “it’s pointless arguing with humans, they’re going to do whatever they want anyway, you can’t change their mind, etc., they have to learn thanks to their own mistakes so you have to let them make them, not force them to be perfect.” This kind of things. 

But when you read the reviews above... These are the only two reviews where you can see that they really tried to get what was going on, but maybe missed it, and because of that, they didn’t like the movie all that much and rated it badly. Gary King isn’t just going through “a mid-life crisis”. He really isn’t. There is so much more to him that it drives me actually crazy that this movie isn’t as praised as the rest of the trilogy. Literally nuts.

With that being said, I think it’s time to really get into who Gary King is, why he is such an amazing character and why there’s more to him than a “mid-life crisis”. So I’m going to talk about him (obviously), about his effect on others, about his relationship with his friends, his addiction, etc., and why it just makes the plot so much better. I hope you’re still with me. And that it’s been understandable up to this point because I really can’t express my ideas the way I want to easily, sorry about that.

The Cornetto trilogy doesn’t just have these hidden messages, morals, … A common thing between these movies is that the characters played by Simon Pegg are all flawed. They’re just flawed human beings. And these characters have to work on themselves to become better. The plot is usually what makes them realize things and help them grow to become their best self.

In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun is going nowhere with his life, he’s stuck in a routine with a dead-end job and a relationship he’s screwing up because Liz is the only one working on it. It’s not that he hates his life, but he doesn’t do anything to make it better either, he doesn’t really see the point. . He’s just there so he does what he’s got to do, but he doesn’t get out of his way to do more. And like Pete says, Shaun needs to sort his life out and do something. Here, killing z****e is apparently the way to a healthy and more positive life. (and no, I will not say the z-word and you shouldn’t either)

In Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel puts his work before anything else. That’s why his very serious relationship ended, it even caused him to be disliked by his colleagues and superiors. Like Janine says, he won’t ever be able to turn off if he doesn’t find someone he cares about more than his job. And throughout the movie, you see how Nicholas becomes, but also how other characters become thanks to him. I could talk about this masterpiece, about the foreshadowing in it and especially about Danny Butterman for hours on end but I’m not here for that today.

Also, Shaun had Pete to tell him what was wrong with him. Nicholas had Janine to tell him what was wrong with him. Who does that for Gary King? Because again, Gary is a very flawed character who needs to change as well. But first, we have to ask ourselves one question:

Who is Gary King?

Let’s get some answers.

Well, I’d give you a lot of answers if I had them but… we don’t really know much about Gary King, do we? Well, what we know about his past is what he told the people in the rehabilitation session. That he was The King. But it’s only later on in the movie that we’re able to get new details about him that help us get a clearer idea of who he is. 

The King, the leader of their little group, the popular kid, is also selfish and self-centered. He’s injured his friends with his reckless behavior, he injured himself, he was already a heavy drinker and was using drugs. We don’t know much about his real past, about his family, or else. We know he hasn’t spoken to his mother in eight months when the movie takes place. He arrived in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt but hasn’t told anyone, clearly. His mother doesn’t even know. He doesn’t like the way the hospital was “helping” him and after a quick decision, he got out of it to regroup his old friends and make an attempt at the Golden Mile again. 

We know he isn’t happy. He’s bitter and sad, clinging onto a past he thinks better than anything else he could ever have. Addicted for most of his life and depressed to the point where he tried to kill himself. In the movie, he clearly just tries to reassure himself about his life, always lying to himself and to others.

Whenever reality catches up to him, he shies away from it, he’s not even able to look at Andy anymore. And the problem is, his friends are the reality and he’s the lie. He’s convinced himself of things so much that he believes in them and he can’t hear another version of the events that have happened, he needs to keep his embellished memories intact because he’d rather believe in a lie than in what he is.

He desperately needs the attention, because he’s so alone. He needs to live in his lie, to relive that great night, that moment when he could seduce Oliver’s sister, when his friends would have followed him to the end of the world, to finally prove himself right. And like Andy says, he’s never wrong, is he? He’d rather lie about his mother dying than face rejection and where he’s at. He’d rather have people stay with him because they pity him than because they want to be with him.

He lies about it as a last attempt to convince Andy to come along to Newton Haven, after also giving him money he had been owning him. (I’ll talk about the rest of this scene later on, it’s a very important thing to mention.)

And then, when reality is thrown at his face by Andy again, he miserably tries to get his sympathy once more, despite Andy not having it:

Just after that scene and right before they find out the truth about his mother, Peter says “I can’t help but feel sorry for him”, what Gary intended to do. He manipulates and is upset that things don’t go his way, no matter for what reason he is actually manipulating them. He wouldn’t admit it’s because he’s lonely and unhappy and that because he needs them to feel better, he’s fine with hurting their feelings again.

When he leaves the table to go to the restroom, he looks at himself and finally lets some real emotion out, only to realize what he’s doing.

He’s not proud of it. His friends have changed, yes, but he hasn’t. He’s still the same impulsive and selfish young man he used to be, but now he realizes that’s not how life works. Life doesn’t just go his way like it used to, or like he thought it used to. Life happens to you, you're not in control, and he probably realized that months ago, as he tried to end it.

Still, when the teenager arrives in the restroom, he puts his walls back up again directly, tries to show off and to befriend the young man by impressing him. He sees himself in him, a young and free man who just enjoys his time with his friends. 

That’s why he was looking at them this way earlier in the pub:

Or when both groups crossed path outside in the afternoon. Yet, when the boy doesn’t respond and ignores him, he gets upset again and is ready to provoke a teenage boy for not paying attention to a drunk guy inviting him to drink with him and his friends. 

Yes, the alcohol and the built-up frustration of the evening made him provoke that boy, but it doesn’t mean he’s not aware of the gravity of his actions every time he does something. He’s clearly aware that he manipulates his friends, that he only thinks about himself. It’s always in very short moments that you see him look away or having a hard time processing everything, because he knows the way he acts and as much as he hates himself for it, he can’t help it. To the point where he uses the terrible situation of Newton Haven, no matter if they might die, to finish the pub crawl. Why? He doesn’t care if he dies. At all. It’d probably be easier for him. 

He can’t stand himself, but he can’t be someone else. He got upset at the boy’s silence, taking it as an insult, a way of being disrespectful towards him and in his head, no one should disrespect Gary King. There was a time when he loved being himself but like Sam rightfully says:

So with that in mind, what is Gary King? 

That, I believe, is one of the most exciting part of the character. He’s as much the villain as he is the hero of the movie. 

He’s a villain in his behavior, always has been. He liked being a “bad boy”, but he really did hurt his own friends and has been selfish for a long time. A lot of things that he did and still does make him a villain in this story. Yet, he doesn’t flinch in front of danger, he throws himself in battles the way he used to when Peter would get bullied. He fights for his life and stands his ground in front of the “big boss”, speaking on behalf of the entire human race so that the enemy would leave them be. He’s obnoxious, but he’s also very lovable. Again, like Sam said:

He wouldn’t be able to make someone else happy, or maybe for a while, but he probably wouldn’t be able to resist getting back to his old antics. He’s not meant to live a quiet life with a family, he needs his freedom, as he calls it, but deep down, he’s never actually been a Bad Person™ . He does care about his friends, in his own fucked up way, but he’s too damaged to do any good around him, it doesn’t matter if he’d like to or not.

That’s why he leaves again in the end. He can’t stay there and face everything that has happened. He saw his chance to start all over again and let his remaining friends be happy together, without getting in the way. He did the right thing by getting sober, but he regained his freedom, is still a rebel by staying with a bunch of blanks and not humans, and he’s with the version of his friends he’s always wanted to be with again. Maybe it’s a bit unhealthy for him to stay with these specific blanks, but it’s a better coping mechanism than alcohol and drugs. He’s his true self, but he’s sober and definitely feels better, like he belongs there.

Now, the time has come. Let’s really introduce his friends, talk about his relationship with them before talking about how he takes responsibility for his actions and how he deals with change. (yes I’m sorry this is endless)

All his friends have little stories to tell about his behavior during the movie. He injured all of them as well as he injured himself, and even if Oliver is the only one who didn’t receive a scar, he got his own birthmark removed because of the nickname they would always use. Gary was the only one using it still during the movie, despite being told off.

I’ll introduce them using Gary’s words in the beginning of the movie. It allows us to see the way he perceives them. Keep in mind that it’s the only way he could ever see them at that point, as he doesn’t know what they became and who they really are at that point in their lives. What we, as viewers, know, is that they seem to have all become pretty successful when it comes to their careers, and they just seem to have a good life in general, compared to Gary who is in that hospital and dealing with his addictions.

So, we’ve got Oliver Chamberlain. Gary introduces him by saying: “Ollie was funny, he fancied himself as a bit of a player, but really, he was all mouth. We called him O-man because he had a birthmark on his forehead that looked like a six. He loved it.”

He certainly did not love it. Like I said, he got the birthmark removed because it annoyed him so much to be called O-man. We don’t know much about Oliver, really. He manages a boutique estate agency in North London, he’s doing good, he’s always working. His sister is Sam Chamberlain, Steve has had a crush on her since high school and Gary had sex with her in the disabled. He’s in a sort of competition with Steve to win her over. We know Oliver was already acting like a business man in school. During their first attempt at the Golden Mile, he was out of commission after the 6th pub.

He’s also often mentioning Gary’s drug abuse throughout the movie. 

He was clearly uninterested in going back to Newton Haven, he was very reluctant at the idea, but Gary succeeded in tricking him to go back. During the movie, Gary says a couple of times that Oliver is doing really good, as he didn’t go that far in the crawl the first time. He obviously doesn’t know he has been replaced by a blank in the middle of the crawl but he does say that he likes the new Oliver, the one that seems to be fine with following him around, who is able to go on with the crawl and encourages the others to join the party.

Now, Peter Page. Gary says: “Pete was the baby of the group. He wasn’t the kind of kid we’d usually hang out with, but he was good for a laugh. And he was absolutely minted.”

The cool guy hanging out with the most bullied kid in school? He indicates there that his wealth was one of the reasons he was friend with Peter, despite saying that “he was good for a laugh.” You can see that they get along pretty well during the movie, once Peter is relaxed with the alcohol. They joke around and laugh together quite easily. During the first attempt at the Golden Mile, after smoking marijuana in The Smokehouse, he was left on a park bench while Gary, Steve and Andy kept on going. He still works with his father and became his business partner. He’s the one who sold The Beast to Gary back in the day.

The scar Gary gave him was when Peter let him drive his 50cc Suzuki. Gary rolled over his leg.

He clearly was looking up to Gary at the time, probably because he was defending him whenever he’d get bullied.

There are a few moments where you can also see how submissive Peter still is, traumatized by the extreme bullying he went through in high school. He hates confrontation. He hides behind his newspaper when his kids are “fighting” at the table. It’s impossible for him to say anything when he meets his bully in one of the pubs and whenever a fight explodes, he’s the first one to try and hide, not fight.

He was killed and replaced after finally standing up against the blank that replaced his bully.

Steven Prince. Gary doesn’t have much to say about him: “Steve was a pretty cool guy. We jammed together, chased the girls. I think he saw us as rivals. Sweet, really.”

Like Oliver, we don’t have many information about his life. He had his own construction company, and he was bought out in ’05. At the beginning of the movie, he’s going out with a 26-year-old fitness instructor but the person he truly loves is Oliver’s sister, Sam. Gary and Steve got along just fine, but with what Gary says, you can see he thought he was better than Steve in different ways (shocking, I know). Gary and he used to play music together but stopped when Gary sold Steve’s bass to buy drugs.

In 1987, so when they were around fourteen, while they were playing cricket, Gary accidentally pushed Steven onto a broken bottle and Steve was left with a scar… well, on his ass. Now, we don’t know the origin of the bottle, but you certainly don’t need it to play cricket, from what I know? We also don’t know what they were drinking, so maybe I’m reaching by saying it could have already been Gary’s if he was already drinking alcohol, but we wouldn’t know so again, I might just be reaching! not confirming anything. Still, Gary injured him as well.

He wasn’t really happy when he saw Gary again for the first time, but still ends up going back. During the first Golden Mile, Steve was still there at the end. Even if they didn’t finish it, he was with Andy and Gary on the hills at sunset. 

Now, Andy is the most important one, obviously. It wasn’t a surprise. Simon and Nick always play the two main characters and they always have a very strong bond. And Gary’s relationship with Andy is quite fascinating to say the least. For someone with as much pride as Gary King, talking about the way he feels is not all that easy. At least not without disguising it a little. Before we get into that part, here’s Andy’s introduction. This time, I’ll just explain who he is, and then show Gary’s words because I’ll talk about them more.  

So, from what we know, Andy used to play rugby when he was younger. When the film takes place, he’s a corporate lawyer, he’s married and has kids. He seems to be doing quite well, even though we learn he and his wife are separated at the moment and that he's trying to get her back.

During the first pub crawl, he made it to the end of the night with Gary and Steve, ending up on the hills at sunset and failing the Golden Mile. Back in ’86, Gary injured him as well when they reenacted the knife game from Alien. Gary accidentally stabbed him in the middle finger.

We know that he remained friends with Gary until December 1997. Gary overdosed and Andy, while being extremely drunk, attempted to drive him to the hospital. He crashed his car and he had to go through a life-saving surgery that lasted for 12 hours before getting arrested. At that point, Gary who had made a “miraculous fucking recovery”, as Andy puts it, had abandoned him on the scene of the crash. After these events, Andy stopped talking to Gary and also stopped drinking.

It seems that “the accident”, as it’s referred as in the movie, drove them amm apart. We at least know they were still talking to each other in ’92, two years after they left school, because that’s when they decided to stop calling him “Fearless Leader”.

So they probably kept hanging out until the accident. Gary was certainly the glue sticking the group together but finally took it too far.

Now, when talking about Andy, Gary says this: 

“And Andy. Andy was my wingman. The one guy I could rely on to back me up. He loved me, and I’m not being funny, but I loved him.”

Why would he be funny by saying that? Because admitting he loves his friend makes him less of a badass? No, he really liked his friends. But he loved Andy so much.

And I’m not talking as a shipper or anything. I’m really not. Actually, I’ve never shipped Gary with anyone if I have to be honest. Like Sam says, he’s not boyfriend material. I’m talking about platonic friendship. A very strong friendship that still existed despite “the accident”. That’s why Andrew keeps following Gary until they arrived at The World’s End, because he still cares, and he can’t watch him destroying himself like that. That’s why they all went back. Because in a way, they cared. They kept complaining but seeing everyone wasn’t that bad. They did laugh together, even with Gary, despite being pissed at him. They also weren’t expecting much of him, they know him:

But Gary’s relationship with Andy is special.

Andy is kind of the one who made everyone come back. They clearly didn’t go back for Gary. They went because of Gary, but each of them has asked if Andy would be there first. Probably because Andy’s presence would mean that if he could get past Gary’s mistakes, then maybe they could and should give it a try. And Andy went back with the hope that maybe Gary has changed, even just a little bit. When they are sitting outside while Gary’s playing Need for Speed (for someone who hasn’t seen it, this might sound like a weird as fuck movie), he says this:

Well, of course, he then learned he got money from the other three and gets mad, but you know. He did hope for a split second that he wasn’t exactly the same and that maybe, it was really because of what he told him in his office that Gary wanted to do that again. That’s also why he cuts him some slack at the beginning)

Speaking of the dialogue in his office! Remember I said I would come back to that scene at some point? Well, here we are. Yes, you might have forgotten because this post is very long and I ramble but if you’re still with me, well… it’s not almost the end but we’re getting there.  Anyway! So, Gary lies about his mom dying and that’s the following conversation:

Again, maybe I’m reaching, but he seems so honest that I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually using his mom’s death as a metaphor for his own suicide attempt. It got him thinking about the old days. He never really stopped thinking about them. He still has The Beast, he still has the tape Steve made him and that he was still always listening to, but these last months were probably extremely rough for him and got him really thinking about all of this in a more depressing way than he ever did. His life had been going downhill since he got out of school, but he finally hit rock bottom really hard.

He says his mother has always really liked Andy, but he might as well be speaking about his own feelings. He even says that he likes the guys, but that Andy was the best friend he’s ever had (and probably the only one he ever felt this way for.)

He has a weird behavior around Andy. He’s always acting so confident, but throughout the movie, he keeps seeking some kind of reassurance from Andy. Either because he wants his approval but also because he wants to prove himself right, or because he wants to believe everything is fine between them.

He has a really hard time expressing his true feelings, probably because he’s used to hiding them all the time. Every time he does express them, we can see how miserable he is and why Simon calls him “a walking tragedy”.

This leads me to the three most powerful dialogues in this movie, I think. I mean, in my opinion, they are the most telling about Gary’s truth, even though the movie is sprinkled with hints on what’s going on, like with this very obvious line:

We clearly know that it was something that was told directly to him, we know where, despite him acting like it’s just some trivia.

So the first dialogue I have in mind is the one with Sam. Sorry, loads of gifs are coming your way:

I feel like for the first time in the movie, he’s kinf of done with his own behavior and he’s ready to have a serious talk and admit some important things. Like when he says Steve is better than him, because he knows he’s a fuck up but now he’s ready to admit it. And in a few lines, you see something else. No, it’s not all about that night, it never was. Life doesn’t have purpose for only one night in your life. Yes, maybe it was the happiest night that there ever was, if it even was, but it doesn’t mean shit, really. But Gary holds on to it like his life was depending on it. Well, in this scenario, it kind of is. Sam tells him that it doesn’t have to be all about that night, kind of letting him know he has the choice to leave it behind and finally move on. And she can see that he gets it. But then, if Gary can’t hold onto that night, he at least wants to keep some things from it, hence his questions about the disableds. Sam agrees, giving him at least that because either way, he’s losing against his own life. If at least he’s trying, she can let him hold onto that memory.

It makes me think of the moment Gary tells Andy that the Golden Mile is all he’s got. There could be so much more, but Gary feels like he’s got nothing else, unlike his friends who have “everything”, like he says. That’s wy he fights for it, because it’s what’s important to him, like Andy is fighting for his marriage.

The second dialogue would be this one: 

No, it wasn’t his fault that Andy crashed the car. He didn’t overdose on purpose, and Andy chose to drive him to the hospital while drunk and driving four times over the limit. But he did choose to flee the scene and leave Andy to die. And Andy wouldn’t be so angry and resentful if it hadn’t hurt him so much. It hurt him because he loved Gary. 

Remember, when introducing Andy, Gary himself says that Andy was the one guy he could rely on. You’d think it would be the same for Andy, but Gary betrayed him.

Before the third dialogue, I want to elaborate on this, on Gary taking responsibility, kind of? He doesn’t talk about his mistakes.

Every time someone points out one of his past mistake or how his behavior is inappropriate, he changes the subject or tries to get his way.

He doesn’t want to face the things he’s done because he knows he can only blame himself for these situations and he already hates himself enough, he doesn’t need to be reminded of these things again and again.

And it’s also because he wouldn’t like to see his friends discover the way he really feels. Whenever his suicide attempt could get discovered or whenever he thinks about it, he quickly tries to hide the truth.

At first, I’m pretty sure he thought that Andy knew about his attempt, because he’s so surprised when he asks to see his arm. Then, when Andy tells him what injury he wants to see, he’s in full defensive mode and changes the subject again, trying to prove he’s him thanks to his memory, and not a scar.

Andy was ready to bash his head right in if for one second he believed he was a blank, but even then, Gary won’t show his arm, because he can’t let them know he hit rock bottom.

It’s the same with Sam:

The same old gary. Gary doesn’t like change. He hates it. He hates to see that his friends have changed and he knows that in a way, he changed as well, no matter how hard he tries to remain the same old Gary, the one that was happy.

When he learns that there are robots and that it’s not them that have changed but the town, he’s ecstatic.

And finally, the third dialogue I was talking about:

Getting help put Gary in emotional pain, even worse than what he already had before, because of the way he was treated. He hated it, he felt so miserable. Feeling like he’s living a lie, like nothing is what it’s supposed to be, feeling like he has absolutely no control. He doesn’t, not on life, but he could decide to do better. He just doesn’t have the courage.

Andy was already caring, way before that. And he’s always known Gary needed help. At that moment:

Andy wants to finally put the limit. It’s true, it’s the last one. Then, Gary will have completed the Golden Mile. Then, what? That’s not the point but what would Gary have done after that? He would have no purpose and like he says, the Golden Mile is all he’s got. Still, Andy doesn’t let him have one more drink.

Back in the tenth pub, he seemed to happy that Gary was accepting to let it go, to have one last drink and put an end to the crawl. He was still hoping for change.

I feel like this scene just shows how hard it is to overcome addictions just by yourself. He tried, when he got in the hospital, and he ended up leaving. He was really drinking his last beer, at that moment, but he couldn’t resist, once again, and had to have the other two. He really wanted to try, but the temptation was so strong.

Andy follows him because like his marriage, Gary is important, and he fights for what’s important to him.

Maybe Andy was able to make it on his own after the accident, but Gary isn’t Andy. He knows that Gary can’t make it on his own. He was never able to. It doesn’t mean he isn’t strong. Andy knows how strong Gary is, living through his addictions for so long, seeing that he tried to kill himself. He knows he’s strong, but it doesn’t mean he can’t have some help from people who really care about him. Now, he knows that can’t happen unless you force him to. So if he has to actually physically fight Gary to stop him, he will, because he knows his friend wouldn’t be able to stop unless being actually knocked the fuck out. He could let him have the last pint of the Golden Mile, but it would mean he allows him to do what he wants one more time. He puts a stop to it because the Golden Mile doesn’t matter, Gary matters. If he has to shatter his last chance of completing the crawl, even if he’s so close he can almost feel the beer on his tongue, he will if that’s what it takes to make him come to his senses.

Besides, he knows that Gary regrets what he’s done, both in the past and that day. He doesn’t constantly mean to hurt his friends. He does it because he can’t help it, but like Sam says, he’s not a bad person.

By the way, I often wonder what would have happened if they had forced him to show his arm when checking everyone’s scars. If Andy, Peter and Steve had discovered about his suicide attempt at that point.

Would they have understood that Gary was on a suicide mission, at that moment?

And that it was only making it all the more exciting for him?

This is Gary King, everyone. 

Also, funnily and terribly enough, he relieved the night the same way he first lived it back in 1990. Some gifs and images as evidence:

Which begs the question; was the first night even that great to begin with?

I think I covered everything I had in mind (not bloody quite but well). I don’t even know. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this but I’m glad it did, I got to ramble about my favorite trilogy for hours on end so. And also... I’m pretty sure I was trying to prove something with all this but my point is: I’m in love with Simon Pegg. 

No, ok. Again. Seriously. 

The World’s End is such an underrated movie. And Gary King is such an important character. The movie depicts human nature in the realest way, with all its flaws. And Gary King is depicting mental illness, was written by someone who went through this kind of things. The movie is very personal for both Simon and Edgar, actually. I don’t know much about Edgar, to be perfectly honest. I love his movies, he’s an genius, but I don’t know much about his personal life. I just do know this movie is important for him too. I do know that Simon has dealt with alcoholism, if I’m not mistaken he’s been sober since 2010, he knows what it’s like to battle addiction and depression.

The movie doesn’t romanticize these problems one bit. It shows how bad it can be, and how it can be perceived as by people not knowing much about these things. Remember that comment talking about the fact that the “mid-life crisis” Gary’s going through gets annoying after a while? Welp.

Could you imagine actually living in Gary King’s head for more than an hour. Unbearable. Especially since he’s aware of some of the fucked up things he’s doing and must hate himself for it. 

Yes, there’s the humor and the crazy robot stuff going on on the side, but that was my point at the beginning. That’s why the big weird entity that invaded earth isn’t the big villain of the movie.

I always say the same thing about villains. Take Thanos in the MCU for example. He’s the fucking worst and yet, his actions are justified. Careful. Not excusable, justifiable. You understand that there’s a point for him, that he firmly believes in what he’s doing, that he’s sure his actions are what’s supposed to be done to make Earth a better world, that what he does is right. Yet, because we’re rational and fucking decent, we know that’s not the way you solve problems. Here, the enemy believes it needs to replace humanity with perfect beings, to… make Earth perfect, or something. You know that it’s pointless, because like they show, only three humans in Newton Haven were spared. Earth is filled with flawed humans, you’d have to replace everyone to make it better. And yet, these actions are “justified” by a thought process. Doesn’t mean turning humans into compost is excusable. That creature’s definitely a villain, but not the main one in the movie.

The end of the world ain’t even a bad thing in the movie. On the contrary. A lot of people survived and Andy himself says things are simpler. They’re kind of back to the Dark Age and they realized that all their problems seemed very small in comparison to such events, and they’re happier.

Here, Gary is his friends’ enemy, he’s the blank leader’s enemy, and he is his own worst enemy. He hurts absolutely everyone, himself included. Because of his own addictions and depression. That’s what can really happen in real life and that’s something I really like about the movie.

And he ends up alone. He took the decision to leave but you don’t have a dumb female love interest that falls for the bad boy and make the worst decision she could by getting with him at the end so that we’d have a happy end and so would Gary. Sam’s very honest with him, she tells him how things are until he finally understands and agrees with her. He makes the right choice (“for once,” like he says) and makes her save herself and is fine with her ending up with Steve.

He’s always known the truth, but he had to accept it and he does. It’s difficult, but he does.

I don’t think Gary’s end’s a happy one. I have mixed feelings about Gary’s end because I don’t think he’s going to be satisfied on the long term and he does deserve some happiness at that point in his life. He excluded himself from everyone and is still stuck in that circle of not growing up. He’s definitely happier and he’s sober. But what is going to happen? He’s going to grow old and the blanks won’t change and then what? How is he going to feel about that? 

It’s a real ending, not a cheesy one. But at least he always has that option of coming back at some point. He did once. And he would be more welcomed, and he’d act the right way.

Like he told his teacher back in high school, all he ever wanted was to have a good time. With the four blanks, he’s traveling and having his own fun, he does what he wants, he has the freedom he always wanted to have, he kind of found his path. That’s all he ever wanted, he just found a new way to do so. At least, he’s got that, and he knows his friends have what they want as well. Earth is destroyed but Steven is with the love of his life, and Andy got back together with his wife and lives happily. 

Well. I think that’s about all I wanted to say. I hope. That was long enough. I just hope you guys are still reading, and that you “enjoyed” this thing that took me forever to write. I’d love your opinion. I’d love it if it made other people watch the movie or enjoy it more than they did at first. I just love this movie so much. And I just love Gary King so much. 

I rest my case. Lets’ Boo-Boo.

[zaynsami]

so, ironically, i wanted to type this out yesterday but didn’t have much energy to finish. turns out, its National Best Friends Day, so this couldn’t be more perfect

for someone with social anxiety, the internet (tumblr) is the perfect way to make friends. i’ve actually tried (and failed) to make friends on here, but nothing ever sticks. i’m horrible at making conversations and keeping them going, which is why i always struggled to make fulfilling friendships. however, for some reason, life has decided to bless me with four amazing friendships that i am eternally grateful for. (tbh, i fucking hope i dont jinx everything by writing this, but i’ve always liked writing about good moments in my life). i’m surprised, really, at how long and how close my friendships have gotten. for the life of me, i thought that they would get tired of me or wouldn’t like me anymore and would drop me, quick. but they haven’t yet, so we’re good. 

tbh, i’m not the easiest person to deal with. if you talk to any of my old friends, they would tell you the same thing. i’m moody af. i get into these moods where i dont want to deal with anyone and i just want to be alone. for some reason, not many people understand that. they think i’m just being a jerk loner who wants nothing to do with them but that’s not it. it’s just the way i am and it’s hard to get rid of these habits. that being said, my friends understand this and they still love me despite this. tbh, it baffles me to know that there are people other than my family members who love me. and honestly, it took me awhile to get it through my stubborn head that these new friends actually love me. like they actually care about what i have to say and about my well being and that hasn’t happened in such a long time that i was scared. i was scared that i would do something wrong, or that they made a mistake being friends with me. so i let my negative thoughts consume me, and it took me awhile to understand that this was real. these friendships that i formed with these people are real and that i shouldn’t be scared anymore. and im not.

i am grateful everyday that i have people who genuinely care about me. i am grateful that i have people who make me laugh so much to the point where i am literally in tears. i am grateful to have people who just make me happy. there are very few days now where i have one of my episodes because i know that if i tell them, they will hope that i get better and tell me they love me. the only downside to all this is that they all live in different states and i haven’t gotten the chance to met them. maybe one day we’ll get the chance. and i know that will be such a happy day because i will get to meet and hug these people who have honestly made my life so much better ever since i became friends with them. anyways, i made this hella gay post to tell my friends how much i love and appreciate them and how thankful i am that they’re my friends. happy national best friends day, thotty babs <3

[rationalclover-blog]

morsance replied to your post “you know, all things considered, i only owe 21 replies and 7 starters...”

how do you actually inspire yourself to write/keep writing w/o getting discouraged abt some aspect or another like--hOW....

I know it’s a day later but lmao I wanted to reply to this anyway so... I just looked up the definition of ‘discouraged’ just so I was sure about what you meant lmao but if you mean this in regards to my own writing or just rping in general, well... I hope this helps or explains any, but I do have down points from time to time. They’re not usual & when they happen it often has nothing to do with actual writing and more to do with issues with others or stuff irl? Because on the real I’m sorry this is gonna sound cheesy as balls, but it’s true: I’m inspired by all my writing partners. I said it multiple times already, but whenever I don’t feel up to par I’ll just go back and read old replies & boom hi I can do this. 

The thing is, though, that I typically am quite confident in my skills? not that I think I’m great, but I do think I’m decent? I have spikes of confidence & others not so great but I’m generally at a stable “cool cool” place omg. I just... okay, let me just say that in this aspect I’m logical as it gets: if I don’t see a reason to doubt myself then I won’t, generally (like i said, there are low times). So I just write because not only does it help me feel 10/10 to have a creative outlet like that (especially writing a character I love so much), but also because I rarely feel any pressure doing it? I just have a lot of fun, I manage my own time for replies, etc. and it just works out. 

Like ok, here’s an example of something I did to keep on the fun once... I think the last actual anxiety inducing ultra discouraged problem I had was that a lot of my starters get ignored or missed, etc. u know, normal stuff? but since i used to write them super long and put so much effort i just felt personally bad? like i wasn’t worthy of a reply or whatever? that was my way of thinking it, at least. Of course I thought ‘hey these people are busy’ and ‘hey tumblr probably ate the notifications’ (also btw on that note, I installed an extension so I won’t see the amount of followers I have ‘cuz whenever I’d lose more than 1 at a time I’d feel like crap and now I don’t find out :’)), but my brain has its own logic. I’m just saying all this crap so you can see my anxious mind in action lmao, but basically what I did to stop those annoying thoughts as much as I could was: take a step back, realize stressing over things like this won’t solve anything & then I started tagging all my starters as ‘♣ starter’. The reason why I did that was so I could find them more easily & hence re-use them if ignored. LIKE OK LMAO I KNOW IT SOUNDS BAD, but there’s literally no downside. So now, whenever I have a thing where I’m like ‘this is really affecting me and I can’t write rn’ I try to look at it from a different perspective until I realize what the #problem is & what I could do to stop fretting over it.

I just think that all the positives are greater than the negatives; otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Whenever I feel like I can’t deal with tumblr, I take a break from it, but mostly I just enjoy being here and writing with y’all aaaah. Also, another thing that’s super important is having stable partners? Like, when I say I’m sad someone left or went on indefinite hiatus for an eternity, I’m not joking, that actually kills the muse no matter how much I may love it. I’ve never had such wonderful & stable partners as I do on Kent, honestly, it’s like a dream come true. But on the other hand, it’s absolutely awful to develop relationships & your own muse through them and around them just to be left alone fjaksldfjaslkfa that’s a very discouraging thing too. I guess what I’m saying is that I feel far too grateful and comfortable here to truly be discouraged for long periods of time. I’m just excite to write with more people fjalksfjakls