I Present To You: My Children, Collie And Colin

I finally made the meme I've had in my head for over a year

if you've never engaged with a creative art on a regular basis you need to understand that it requires concerted effort to get into "the groove" to make something and every second that it takes to get into that groove causes physical pain, but the only thing worse than doing it is not doing it.

to me the HTTYD remake is one of the more egregiously offensive of the live action remakes (alongside the lion king). you know the people who storyboarded and animated the original aren't getting any kind of residuals, and this "new" version is beat for beat, shot for shot. i don't even really think the general public believes the narrative that something being animated means it's not worthwhile until it's remade in live action, it is exclusively greedy studio execs hoping to milk every dollar out of every propped-up, mangled corpse of "IP" they own. it is insulting on so many fronts

So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.

Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.

One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.

All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.

So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.

And Mr. Hargrove loved it.

It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.

Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”

And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.

Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.

One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.

That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.

And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.

And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)

So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.

Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.

hunter, king and vee are what I call the "extinct species club" poor kids and their corpse pits 😭

'Can I make my own book of friendship?'

'Of course, Collector'

Amity reading Otabin to The Collector would be so cute - I think they'd love it, especially having a bedtime story that isn't that malicious pile of stone slabs they have

Spoilers for watching and dreaming below - the scribbles in the photos King's looking at

Just a huddle of weirdos helping the resident god make a book of friendship

★ Hey Francois ★

Welp "For the Future" absolulely wrecked me and I made this to cope. I just want to hug the collector right now because he's not bad, he's just lonely. I'd like to think that he talks to Francois when King goes to check on Eda. Oh my little heart. Bonus: Me watching For the Future:

My boyfriend caught a glimpse of The Collector and King scenes:

ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself

bro. bro thats kinda messed up