#invented romance. invented loved even. who knew it was all in a musical motion picture released in 2001. god this scene killed me GOD

[lydias--stiles]

♡ IT HAD TO BE YOU, WONDERFUL YOU ♡

canon compliant juke valentine’s day fic ♡ for all you sweethearts in the fandom

Before hopeless romantic Julie Molina fell in love with Luke Patterson, she always felt glum on Valentine’s Day. She tortured herself with romcoms leading up to the holiday, went into the “couples goals” tag on Pinterest, pouted when her crushes she never talked to dated other people (read: Nick) and felt all around envious of those having a lover to spend the day with. Her mother dying, she who held the biggest heart of all, also didn’t help her mood.   

But that was before Luke blasted himself into her life. Sure, their romance was a little unorthodox, but predictability was overrated anyway.

They got together last summer, when the band played an amazing gig at a tiki bar on the beach and they were drunk on the heat, pink lemonade and each other’s adoring gazes. Dancing on the beach with him and the boys, Luke had grabbed her in his embrace and whispered lyrics at her she’s never heard before. His fingers grazed her jaw when he said it was a love letter - “For you, Jules.” She didn’t have to go far to reach his lips, both eager and giddy to finally come home.

(Weeks later, the love letter was transposed to music and performed for an audience. It was full circle moment. He loved music and her and now it was all connected. Luke had been dazed, but Julie was quick to kiss the stupor away. They could do that now. It was insane.) 

All week, Julie had been working on a secret gift. She scoured her room was scraps and pictures and notes; reminders of Luke hidden in every corner without realising it. A purple pick was found under her bed, a song in her dream box they never got to finish, a seashell he plucked from the beach, a row of pictures from a photo booth, love notes. Julie would lie if she said she didn’t find it adorable how his only reference of romance were the 80s flicks, as it gave her a heartthrob of a boyfriend that didn’t back down from cute gestures like those notes. It left her heart racing and brought a blush on her cheekbones. the sun’s jealous of that smile jules

It was only natural she made him a collage. 

They had an unspoken agreement to never involve money. Though they were in a band together, all the money they made directly went to Julie. She invested it back in their life passion, obviously, but the fact remained that Luke couldn’t take her on typical dates or buy her the typical gifts. Until American Ghost Dollars got invented, they had to be creative. 

Going to the movies were movie nights in the studio with a projector and cookies they made together. A love song instead of dinner. Dancing in her bedroom with AirPods instead of partying.     

And it was enough. It was more than enough. She loved him so much that each second spend together was perfect as is. 

The collage was small enough that he could easily tuck it away. Pictures overlapped, a dozen Mini Luke’s and Mini Julie’s staring at the camera or each other, from before and after they started dating. 

A photo Flynn took of Luke peppering her temple with kisses backstage. A polaroid of when she snuck up on him and smacked a kiss on his cheek, his teeth flashing white from the beam on his face. A Snapchat of when she showed him the filters and he kissed her instead. Multiple pictures of them snuggling on the studio couch, supposed ‘blackmail’ for Alex, but Julie cherished them. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his arms wrap around her back as she’s sprawled on top of him.

The pretty shell didn’t fit on the collage, so she decided to make a bracelet as well. A thick band made from orange, red and yellow string, the shell as its penchant. 

That morning, she pulled on her most Valentine’s day inspired outfit and rushed to the studio. Her gifts were still in her room, out of sight and kept for later, now she just wanted to see her boyfriend. 

Her smile, painted in cherry lipgloss, stretched wider when she slid the doors open and saw that no one was inside. Just last night had he kissed her a little longer after rehearsal, wiggling his brows like he knew something she didn’t. Luke was terrible at keeping secrets. She wasn’t surprised to find it empty, unless…

Luke poofed in front of her with a warrior cry and hoisted her up in one fluid motion. Julie yelled in delight, gripping onto him as he spun them around. For the occasion, he swapped his regular orange beanie for a red one. (One day, her heart was going to explode from all the silly stuff he did.) Matching her expression, his hands steadied her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.    

An index finger flicked his chin playfully. “How long did it take you to plan this?”

He gasped, faux-offended. “Julie! I’m spontaneous as shit.”

“Mh-hm,” she hummed, leaning in to kiss his lips. His frown melted away, the languid kiss flickering with the hint of passion it usually held. Slowly, he set her down, her staying locked between his arms. When she pulled back, he chased after her and pecked the side of her mouth - once, twice.    

“I’m gonna smother you with so much kisses that you’re gonna get sick of me,” he declared, as if the threat of loving her was scary. 

She pressed her forehead against his with a grin. “I look forward to it.”

Instantly keeping up his promise, he nuzzled against her cheek. “What’d you wanna do?”

“Well, we’re ending the day in the hammock.”

“Duh.”

“And,” she sneakily added, “we can be really cheesy and watch ‘Valentine’s Day’.”

He made a face, both remembering their divided opinion on the movie. “If we’re seeing it again, then I’m choosing all the snacks.”

“Deal.”

“Nice,” he breathed, raising his fist between their torsos so she could bump it with her own. Her cheeks were already aching from smiling so much, giddy to spend the entire day with her boyfriend undisturbed by the boys or family or school. 

Her fingers scratched into his plaid jacket. “You know what I’m also looking forward to?” His eyes narrowed at her lilting voice. “Giving you your present.”

His jaw fell slack. “Jules, now I’m gonna be thinking about it all day.” But then she saw the devilish glint in the green of his irises as he uttered: “Guess you’ll have to wait on your present too.”

“You-” That was unexpected. “You have a present?”

Luke bit down on his lip, watching her surprise. “I was waiting for that reaction. Sweet. Okay, I’m saying we dip everything in chocolate. Fruit, popcorn-”

“I’m willing to try one of those crazy combinations you love so much,” she proposed. The excited smooch she got afterwards was worth it.

The couple claimed the kitchen for an hour as they made their snacks, most of which being the typical chocolate covered strawberries both liked a lot, and then nestled themselves in her room. Curled into his warm body, they shared earphones as they watched ‘Valentine’s Day’. Though she asked to watch it, all her attention went to his hands continuously caressing her waist and thigh. It lulled her into a blissful trance. Sometimes he would make a joke (“We’re way cooler than Taylor and Taylor!”) and she’d chuckle and hum and rub his chest. By the time Jessica Biel was smashing the piñata, she was placing soft kisses on his neck and he had to pause the movie. 

Hovering over her with a wolfish grin, he pecked her nose. “I thought you wanted to watch.”

“And I thought you were going to smother me with kisses,” she bounced back with a quirked brow. For a beat, they shared an amused look. 

Then Luke laughed, diving for her lips and doing just that. That rushing feeling coursed through her veins, a pure shot of adoration and attraction with each warm, open-mouthed kiss. He tasted like chocolate, skin sticky from fruit, and smelled in that perfectly boyish way. Julie sighed into the kiss. No cheesy movie or love song could compete with the sensation of slipping her fingers in his hair and having his arms tighten like he never wanted her to stop. Her bedroom was heaven on earth.   

(Perhaps that was silly. She was only seventeen after all. How much did she actually know about the world to accurately make that statement? But did it even matter if right now, right here, she felt like the luckiest girl in the universe? The cynics could bite her.) 

She didn’t know how long they let their lips and hands wander. It was hard to care about time when his mouth was on her ear and her nails drew shapes on his back. 

“I bet,” he whispered, “Taylor and Taylor never felt like this.”

She giggled. “You’re just jealous of the big teddy bear.”

His smile pressed on her cheek. “Maybe.”

When Luke and her first got together, they were scared to touch. Sure, they had their moment on the beach and previously, they found plenty of opportunities to be in contact. But after they made if official and there was nothing to hide behind anymore, it got scary. They yearned for affection, but what if Luke disappeared one day without meaning to and then they’d both ache for each other’s comfort? They got over it eventually and now it was only natural to feel his smile on her skin.

It was hard to imagine kissing anyone but Luke, unfathomable having a different boy hug her from behind at school and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. Only Luke could write her love notes. Only she was allowed to write him ones as well, or leave cute post-it’s on his guitar to cheer him up when he had a bad day. It was just them.

Her mind going haywire over such a simple touch jolted her memory, Julie abruptly sitting up and bringing Luke with her. His brows raised in surprise. She pecked the pout away, brushing her nose against his. 

“Can I give you your present?”

A breathy smile tugged on his cheeks. “Yeah, I’m curious.”

Julie untangled herself from their embrace and reached inside her wardrobe for the gift. Sitting cross-legged in front of him, she gave him his present with barely-concealed anticipation. Hopefully he loved it as much as she loved making it! 

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she sang, watching him pull the tissue paper out the small bag and unearthing the collage and bracelet. 

Speechless, he gawked at the collection of pictures. Eyes flitted past each quickly, like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Crawling over to sit beside him, she placed her head on his shoulder. “You like it?”

He sniffled. Julie looked up and was shocked to note his eyes were shiny. “Aw, babe!”

His gaze caught hers, distraught. “You’re not supposed to make me horny and then emotional!”

She laughed and pressed a kiss on his cheek. His cute reaction made her heart lurch with fondness. “It wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”

Luke sighed, hand guiding her face to place a proper kiss on her lips. It was short, but just as electric as all the ones before. He kissed like he played guitar - always intentional and one hundred percent. 

“I love it,” he muttered. “Thank you. And I love the bracelet too.”

“I made sure it matches your others.”

He captured her lips again. “Yeah… Thanks, Jules.” His nose scrunched, arrogance dripping from his voice as he tucked a curl behind her ear. “My present is better though.”

Her arms crossed, challenged. “Oh really?”

“Hell yeah, it is. Gonna knock it out of the park.” With a snap of his finger, he conjured his songbook and stuck the collage between two fresh pages. He clicked his tongue with the typical bravado he exuded onstage. “Who knows, Jules, you might even get a crush on me.”

Just as she was about to retort with a tease of her own, her eyes caught a fluttering page with words she didn’t recognise. Pointing at it, she asked: “What’s that?”

Luke frowned, thumbing to the right side and rolling his eyes. “Some lyrics that got stuck in my head a few nights ago. It doesn’t work though.”

“Maybe not. I kind of like that part.” She tapped on the line ‘so deep, your DNA's being messed with my touch’ with a pensive wrinkle knitted in her forehead. Ideas began to brew, throwaway pieces from other discarded songs coming back to her and meshing well with what he’s already composed. “Yeah, this is good, Luke. Do you want to work on it?”

He hesitated for a beat, stare trailing from her to the half-eaten plate of snacks. “Do you want to?”

“Of course,” she smiled. They were Luke and Julie - did either of them really think they could go a day without music? Even if she hadn’t discovered this diamond in the rough, he’d inevitably spring upright to write down a riff or her fingers would tingle to try out a melody. Songwriting was perhaps the best date of all, showing that work and play could successfully be mixed together. 

He sighed in relief. “Good. Okay, so I was thinking…”

Hours went by tinkering on the song, the afternoon drifting by and them having moved to the hammock in the garden. It was a spot Luke rediscovered and she all too willingly found a place next to him. They cherished the quietude and warmth even before they were dating. The page was now littered with flowing, strung-together verses and a half-done chorus. Instrumentals were for tomorrow when they were all together. In the back of her head lingered the thought that he still hasn’t given his supposed homerun of a present, but Julie reminded herself then that it didn’t even matter. This was enough. He was enough. Who knew, maybe he was just talking smack! The doubts vanished as Luke drummed his fingers on her stomach, humming a beat.      

“And you thought it wouldn’t work!”, she teased. 

He puffed. “Cause it didn’t! It needed the Molina Touch!”

A brow quirked, amused. “The Molina Touch?”

“Yes,” he grinned and tapped her chest. “The Touch.”

“I don’t have the Force, Luke.” When his face fell flat, she decided to play along and mimicked his motion. Her fingers circled his sternum as she said: “Well, I look forward to the Patterson Energy bringing it alive onstage.”

The boy rolled on his side, she following suit. The hammock bended to the movement, pushing them closer together. The couple snickered, noses nudging and locked in the other’s arms. Above, the sky was coloured like Monet, purples and blues and pinks as the sun dropped below the trees. Julie stared at the way he craned his neck, green eyes blown wide while marvelling at the sweeping atmosphere. He was the most beautiful person she’s ever encountered. She was probably a little obsessed with him, never bored of looking at him, of finding new freckles, moles and spots. 

Her reverie snapped like a bubble as he said something. 

“What?”

He repeated himself. “Wanna get waffles?”

She blinked. “Waffles?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “V-Day waffles. I bet they have red velvet ones.” His face twisted, like he was in on an inside joke, and murmured against her lips: “Whipped cream, Jules. Can’t resist that.”

Damn. He knew her too well. “Reggie’s going to be mad we went without him.”

“Then he should get himself a ghost lover,” he joked. Slapping her hip, the exclaim was resolute. “Let’s go!”

The drive was short, an surprising amount of waffle places scattered around Los Feliz. The cityscape was painted red for the day. Heart-shaped wreaths adorned the doors of stores, bars promoted special cocktails with pink hues, boutiques displaying date night dresses on mannequins in the windows. At the end of a large strip of food joints, a waffle house joining in with a red banner hung across the frontage. RED VELVET WAFFLES! ONLY TODAY!

Julie shot him a suspicious look. “You knew?”

He shrugged, smirking. “A good guess.”

They were lucky. The parking lot was pretty much abandoned, no onlookers to see her joking around with air. He stayed in the car as she got the treats.

As she queued, her aimless thoughts found Luke as a focal point. It was hard not to. Maybe the best thing of all for a hopeless romantic like her, was that she found someone who was an even bigger dreamer than she was. If she jumped for the stars, he rocketed himself into space and hoped for the best. It made days like Valentine’s special, but it also felt like another regular Saturday. He didn’t kiss her differently, looked at her more intently - it was always like this. The red velvet waffles was just… extra. A cherry on an already perfect milkshake. Luke and Julie never needed fireworks to make the other feel remarkable. 

Dropping back in the driver’s seta with a sigh, she propped the waffles on the dashboard. “I’m not sure if it’s going to taste right, they look kind of mushy, but I’m sure the whipped cream-” The words died in her throat as she looked at Luke, a timid smile on his lips as his present laid flat in his hands. A mixtape. 

Her eyes tracked the CD for a beat (jules <3 written in sharpie with his infamous scrawl) and then flicked up to his face. That was most spectacular of all: the nervous twitch in his eye, the breathy smile. Luke was flustered.       

Gingerly, she took it from his grasp. “How did you make this?”, she whispered. 

The palpable energy didn’t waver. “Carlos. He lend me his computer and explained how to burn CD’s.” His chuckle was awkward. “Had to get you in the car somehow.”

A smile bloomed on her lips. Her heart was truly going to explode; the gesture so thoughtful and sweet. (Shit. He did knock it out of the park. How will his ego cope?!) Reaching over the middle console, she chastely kissed him. “I already love it.”

He shook his head with a grin, shoulders loosening a bit. “You haven’t listened to it yet. C’mon, play it.” He shot her a cocky nod. “You know how to use a CD-player?”

“Very funny,” she quipped. Cautiously, she took the CD out of its case and slipped it into the player. It whirred for a beat, her upping the volume, and just as she thought she’d hear some 90s rock band, something unexpected happened. 

hey jules

She froze, staring at Luke’s feverishly excited face, as his crackling voice came through the speakers.  

i finally learned about technology! you happy? anyway, you know i love you. i love everything about you, i think… i think that’s kinda why i’m here to begin with.

Tears lodged itself in her chest, ready to spill. Love was going to make her go mad one day. She loved this boy so much that it was insurmountable by anything else.

that’s not- it’s not what this cd is about. His tone brightened. what i love most about you, julie molina, is how fucking in love you are with music. so what better thing to give you, is more music? these are ten songs that remind me of you… happy valentine’s day, baby. 

It clicked off. Quietly, slowly, a melodious piano variation flowed in. Her breath hitched as she recognised it. Frank Sinatra’s ‘It Had To Be You’ reminded Luke of her? Her hands were shaking. His calloused ones grabbed them, pads of his fingers caressing the skin. A pout jutted from her lips, her eyes shimmering with emotion. It wasn’t fair. Boys weren’t supposed to be this romantic. 

His smile could light up the entire state, touch trailing across her arm up to her cheek, grazing the lone tear that she wasn’t even aware of. “Don’t cry,” he chuckled. “I can be the only sap.”

Shaking her head, she pushed herself over the console and placed herself on his lap. The divide of a stick shift was a plain crime. Circling her arms around his neck, Julie kissed him in the way she thought the song felt. Warm and languid and timeless and wholly, utterly loving. Depthless and infinite. The thrill of his bass voice melted them together, no space between them with his hands wrapped around her lower back. 

For nobody else gave me a thrill With all your faults, I love you still It had to be you, wonderful you It had to be you

“I love you,” she sighed into his mouth. “It’s not enough. It’s not…”

He kissed the lament away. “I know. That’s why music works.” Sinatra sang a line and then he grinned. “Gotta express ourselves somehow.”

Though that was true, though they had music to shape their thoughts into the most beautiful declarations of love, all she wished to have was a word. A simple word that perfectly encapsulated what she felt. Love felt too small. Too simple. But until she found it, she’d keep saying it.

And so she did. “I love you, Luke.” 

His eyes shut in delight. “I love you too, Julie.”

They wouldn’t leave for a long time. Locked in each other’s loving embrace, they listened to every song on the mixtape. And when it ended, they looped it.

Time and space wasn’t really important to them anyway.     

For nobody else gave me a thrill With all your faults, I love you still It had to be you, wonderful you It had to be you

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

@blush-and-books​ @bluefirewrites​ @ourstarscollided​​ @alexjulies​ @unsaid-emily​ @willexx​

#i will force any person to listen to jazz thats my life mission #happy valentine's day! #juke #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfiction #otp: i think we make each other better

[boyreinvented-a-blog]

Set on the prosperous Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of America during the Roaring Twenties within its fictional narrative. That era, known for unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz music, flapper culture, new technologies in communication (motion pictures, broadcast radio, recorded music) forging a genuine mass culture; and bootlegging, along with other criminal activity, is plausibly depicted in Fitzgerald's novel. Fitzgerald uses these societal developments of the 1920s to build Gatsby's stories from simple details like automobiles to broader themes like Fitzgerald's discreet allusions to the organized crime culture which was the source of Gatsby's fortune.[5] Fitzgerald educates his readers about the garish society of the Roaring Twenties by placing a timeless, relatable plotline within the historical context of the era.[6]

Fitzgerald's visits to Long Island's north shore and his experience attending parties at mansions inspired The Great Gatsby's setting. Today, there are a number of theories as to which mansion was the inspiration for the book. One possibility is Land's End, a notable Gold Coast Mansion where Fitzgerald may have attended a party.[7] Many of the events in Fitzgerald's early life are reflected throughout The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was a young man from Minnesota, and like Nick, he was educated at an Ivy League school, Princeton (in Nick's case, Yale). Fitzgerald is also similar to Jay Gatsby, in that he fell in love while stationed far from home in the military and fell into a life of decadence trying to prove himself to the girl he loved. Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her preference for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success.[8] Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, and, like Gatsby, he had always idolized the very rich.[8] In many ways, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised.[8]

In her book Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of 'The Great Gatsby (2013), Sarah Churchwell speculates that parts of the ending of The Great Gatsby were based on the Hall-Mills Case.[9] Based on her forensic search for clues, she asserts that the two victims in the Hall-Mills murder case inspired the characters who were murdered in The Great Gatsby.[10]

Plot summary The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and veteran of the Great War from the Midwest—who serves as the novel's narrator—takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the fictional village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties but does not participate in them. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the "valley of ashes",[11] an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment Tom keeps for his affairs with Myrtle and others. At Tom's New York apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party takes place. It ends with Tom breaking Myrtle's nose after she annoys him by saying Daisy's name several times.

The Plaza Hotel in the early-1920s As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick from their same division in the Great War. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy through a purely chance meeting in 1917, when Daisy and her friends were doing volunteer services' work with young Officers headed to Europe. From their brief meetings and casual encounters at that time, Gatsby became (and still is) deeply in love with Daisy. And even more, he became obsessed with the idea of her, and the ideal of living in the world he saw her living in, as the fulfillment of all the possible dreams he could ever have.

Gatsby spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of Tom and Daisy's dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping one day to rekindle their lost romance. Jordan confides in Nick that the only reason he bought the mansion is that it was across the bay from Tom and Daisy's home. And Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties were an attempt to impress Daisy and raise her curiosity about her "anonymous" neighbor across the bay. Gatsby had hoped that one day curiosity would have brought the unsuspecting Daisy to appear at his doorstep, and thereby he'd be able to present himself as a "new man", now of wealth and position, and now able to join her at her side and within her world. That however never played out, and although Tom had been invited (as a guest of Jordan's) to a Gatsby party and had attended more than one of them, both he and Daisy had (for different reasons) never responded affirmatively to an RSVP to attend as the Buchanans (Mr. and Mrs.). The deeper reasons behind this fact are expanded upon later in the story by Daisy. His research of Nick, who has so fortuitously rented the small cottage next door to Gatsby's mansion, results in a wholly new approach to his problem of how to introduce Daisy to the "new" J. Gatsby.

The whole purpose of the "invitation" to Nick to attend a Gatsby party was to develop a relationship with him so that Gatsby could later ask Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. They begin an affair and, after a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Daisy speaks to Gatsby with such undisguised intimacy that Tom realizes she is in love with Gatsby. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. He forces the group to drive into New York City and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, asserting that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand. In addition to that, he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes on their way home, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Tom's mistress, Myrtle. Nick later learns from Gatsby that Daisy, not Gatsby himself, was driving the car at the time of the accident but Gatsby intends to take the blame anyway. Myrtle's husband, George, falsely concludes that the driver of the yellow car is the secret lover he recently began suspecting she has, and sets out on foot to find him. After finding out the yellow car is Gatsby's, he arrives at Gatsby's mansion where he fatally shoots Gatsby and then himself. Nick stages an unsettlingly small funeral for Gatsby in which none of Gatsby's associates or partygoers attend. Later, Nick runs into Tom in New York and finds out that Tom had told George that Gatsby was Myrtle's secret lover and that Gatsby had killed her, then gave George Gatsby's address. Nick breaks up with Jordan, and, disillusioned with the East, moves back to the Midwest.

Major characters Nick Carraway – a Yale graduate originating from the Midwest, a World War I veteran, and, at the start of the plot, a newly arrived resident of West Egg, who is aged 29 (later 30). He also serves as the first-person narrator of the novel. He is Gatsby's next-door neighbor and a bond salesman. He is easy-going, occasionally sarcastic, and somewhat optimistic, although this latter quality fades as the novel progresses. Jay Gatsby (originally James "Jimmy" Gatz) – a young, mysterious millionaire with shady business connections (later revealed to be a bootlegger), originally from North Dakota. He is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful debutante from Louisville, Kentucky whom he had met when he was a young military officer stationed at the Army's Camp Taylor in Louisville during World War I. Fitzgerald himself was actually based at Camp Taylor in Louisville when he was in the Army and makes various references to Louisville in the novel, including the Seelbach Hotel where the Buchanan party stayed while in town for Tom and Daisy's wedding. The character is based on the bootlegger and former World War I officer, Max Gerlach, according to Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, Matthew J. Bruccoli's biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby is said to have briefly studied at Trinity College, Oxford in England after the end of World War I.[12] Daisy Fay Buchanan – an attractive and effervescent, if shallow and self-absorbed, young Louisville, Kentucky debutante and socialite, identified as a flapper.[13] She is Nick's second cousin, once removed, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald's own youthful romances with Ginevra King. Daisy once had a romantic relationship with Gatsby, before she married Tom. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the central conflicts in the novel. Thomas "Tom" Buchanan – a millionaire who lives on East Egg, and Daisy's husband. Tom is an imposing man of muscular build with a "husky tenor" voice and arrogant demeanor. He is a former football star at Yale. Buchanan has parallels with William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King. Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo. Like Ginevra's father, whom Fitzgerald resented, Buchanan attended Yale and is a white supremacist.[14] Jordan Baker – Daisy Buchanan's long-time friend with "autumn-leaf yellow" hair, a firm athletic body, and an aloof attitude. She is Nick Carraway's girlfriend for most of the novel and an amateur golfer with a slightly shady reputation and a penchant for untruthfulness. Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins that Jordan was based on the golfer Edith Cummings, a friend of Ginevra King.[14] Her name is a play on the two popular automobile brands, the Jordan Motor Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle, alluding to Jordan's "fast" reputation and the freedom now presented to Americans, especially women, in the 1920s.[15][16][17] George B. Wilson – a mechanic and owner of a garage. He is disliked by both his wife, Myrtle Wilson, and Tom Buchanan, who describes him as "so dumb he doesn't know he's alive". One interpretation of the novel's ending is that he learns of the death of his wife, he shoots and kills Gatsby, wrongly believing he had been driving the car that killed Myrtle, and then kills himself. Myrtle Wilson – George's wife, and Tom Buchanan's mistress. Myrtle, who possesses a fierce vitality, is desperate to find refuge from her complacent marriage, but unfortunately this leads to her tragic ending. She is accidentally killed by Gatsby's car (driven by Daisy, though Gatsby insists he would take the blame for the accident). Meyer Wolfsheim[note 1] – a Jewish friend and mentor of Gatsby's, described as a gambler who fixed the World Series. Wolfsheim appears only twice in the novel, the second time refusing to attend Gatsby's funeral. He is a clear allusion to Arnold Rothstein, a New York crime kingpin who was notoriously blamed for the Black Sox Scandal which tainted the 1919 World Series.[20]