#i LOVED the book

[nimata-beroya]

Who has acquired yet another pairing to ship after reading Dark Disciple?

[wyrcan]

watched the nightbitch trailer and why are they marketing it as like a semi comedy??

[parttimesarah]

AHHHHHH!!!!!!

[thebroken--soul]

I want what Astrid Parker and Jordan Everwood have.

[chocomonki]

This is a The Sun and The Star positivity blog

[enfinizatics]

finished reading “family family” by laurie frankel!!! a 5/5 read!!!

a wonderful read that i didn’t see coming. i found out about 'family, family' while searching for a new read that wouldn’t be the same as the last 5 previous books i’d read (sapphic sad rom). and oh god, i’m so glad i gave it a chance!! amusing but also thought-provoking, ‘family, family’ is a real page turner that keeps you on your toes. positive representation matters!

ps. as always, i’m screaming into the void about becoming friends on storygraph if you use it!!! if you don’t: pls do, it’s so much better than goodreads!! (username: romanovaaa)

[evansbby]

I just finished a ballad of songbirds and snakes and I….

[ntamed]

daisy  jones  and  the  six  inspired  threads  when  ???

[love-and-bubbles]

I finally watched My Policeman for the first time. How did any of you recover? Am I just to be haunted forever? I had devoured the book. I knew the premise. I had thought about it so many times. When I read it, I had cried heartfelt and had to take breaks reading it as it stirred thoughts in me deeply, unsettling me pleasantly, letting me despair with feeling closely, to what it could have meant to live such an innocent but unjustly damned life. And yet… here I was: Engrossed in a film made to destruct my delicately protected heart. And I nearly made it. I nearly got away with looking at it with my rational eye. What a wonderful blunt judge I can be when necessary! How I can deconstruct the most artistic piece of work with my mind, to reduce it so far as to remove all emotion from it. And I was so close this time around. So close.

So here are my thoughts (and they are neither special nor professional, just human) on this artwork.

Logistics, really, weren't allowing me to watch it any sooner. As always, I had pledged myself to watch it when I was in the right mood and had the right setting. In this case that meant: By myself. This was the case tonight. Everything was quite super. Hot chocolate, my Harry hoodie, and my newly acquired Amazon Prime account ready. But was I? Who knew?

Oh, how I loved the opening sequence. The music, the melody, the scenery. The grey, and rough waves foreboding the heaviness of the movie, then suddenly, surprisingly a shift onto the happy simple melody which so beautifully mirrored the (for me) essence of the story told. Yes, as Harry says, it is a story about lost time. It is a tragic story, quite bleak, full of unspoken sorrow, misery, and helplessness. But also beauty, love, friendship, excitement, and wonder. The waves, the melody. It was all there.

The movie strayed from the book quite a bit, especially at the beginning taking less time to delve into the story of how Marion and Tom met and how Marion fell in love. Overall I might say, that the movie, despite its sexual explicitness, felt a bit less gay compared to the book (as in the focus seemed more on all their relationships). It was also less subtle. In the book, it felt like all their feelings and their relationships with each other were slowly untangled and explored simultaneously, while in the movie they seemed to be shown one duo after another until they lead to one big jumble altogether. I couldn't tell you which way I preferred. I personally think it was brilliantly done in the movie. A beautiful way of depicting their triangular relationship.

So the first part, showing the happenings from Marion's perspective, wildly ignores the relationship between Tom and Patrick, just as it was through her eyes and understanding. It is kind of beautiful to see it that way, as it is what is true to her. And Emma Corrin did an excellent job of portraying the very complicated feelings Marion was experiencing. Absolutely love them!

Also can we please talk about how insanely beautiful Gina McKee is? I already adored her in the panels, she would always speak so eloquently, but her nuanced performance really blew me away. What a character!

The next thing I noticed (and I am writing this down in the order of how I noticed these things) were the aesthetics, the sets, the costumes, and the styling. That first house Tom and Marion moved in together blew me away! It was so beautiful, it was so quaint and the perfect contrast to everything their marriage was. At this point, I wanted their marriage to work, because I wanted to just see this perfect beautiful life they could have in this perfect beautiful house, with the cute little kitchen, surrounded by nature. I wanted her to work and be an independent woman and him to be an amazing father to their children who would run around the surrounding meadows. And together with Marion, I experienced all these dreams and visions getting destroyed by Patrick. And I hated him. I felt for her. I, who has read the book and knew what would happen, who would always prefer to consume queer media and do so in masses, who are queer themself, was rooting for the straight couple. It might have just been the fraction of a very fleeting moment, but I felt her. I saw myself standing there in that kitchen, being so impossibly close to fulfilling all my dreams, and still, they would slip through my fingers just when I thought I would finally grasp them. I don't condone what she did. I don't think she was the victim. Were any of them? Weren't they all? I think it is so much more nuanced than that. (Also I remember that in the book she didn't like the 'cottage', as she puts it. And never felt comfortable there. I think that is why this scene feels so different to me in the movie than in the books. The lie is much more clear as one is in their heads as opposed to just watching them.)

Let's talk about the other characters then. Tom… Mr Harry Styles. Obviously, I did not go into this movie unbiased in his regard. I would have watched this movie without him playing in it, as I (as I have mentioned above) love queer media, especially movies. At first, Harry's performance irritated me. I, ready to give him the benefit of a doubt, ready to look at him as just another actor, wasn't particularly fond of his very stilted way of talking. However, as the movie progressed I understood more and more the intention and nuance behind it. Harry is quite brilliant with his gestures. Especially his facial expressions and small nods and movements. He also portrayed quite subtly how differently Tom behaved and talked when he was around Marion vs. Patrick. And when it was told through Marion's eyes vs. Patrick's. My disdain for his performance disappeared completely and was replaced by genuine surprise and curiosity. I felt his authenticity and rawness in his acting. I started to see the layers and wondered how deep they would reach. I got intrigued. And finally, it got me. That bloody movie got me good.

Patrick… Patrick in the movie feels so different to me than in the book. He seems a lot more tragic, less glamorous, also rawer, than in the book. Is it just me or does Gina McKee look so much like David Dawson? Or David looks like Gina. Anyway… Beautiful humans. I found his story was changed the most (apart from Marion not writing her story and the whole feminism character arc missing). I was kinda disappointed how the story with Julia (the teacher friend) was cut short and changed as well. I liked the entire 'she was going to seek her out at the end and apologize' and her 'coming to terms with the nature of the issue' story at the end of the book. That storyline was such a mirror.

The ending… I found the movie version showed a much more positive future picture than the book version. In the book, Patrick had a few more strokes, if I remember correctly, and was doing a lot worse in the end than it was shown in the movie. I found, in general, a lot of the issues seemed a little softer in the movie, less bleak.

So I was watching it with a more analytical mind… And I did not expect it to hit me. I don't cry easily. At times, I found the cutting forth and back between the characters a bit overused and it seemed cheap to me. I thought that everyone should be able to make the connection without the younger actors layn on top of the older ones like that. I can be quite harsh watching something even the first time. However, and who would have thought, that was exactly what broke me in the end. Joke's on me ig. When in the very final shot Tom leans into Patrick, I mentally went 'okay the movie is over and it wasn't as emotionally taxing as I expected' but then they cut to Tom being Harry aka the young Tom, leaning into Patrick and it hit me! I was suddenly ugly crying, all by myself, in this empty room, and I couldn't have told you why or what it was but it broke me. The entire bloody movie hit me like a truck. No warning. No slow build-up. It just hit me. The tenderness between them, the true and raw love they had, still and always, and how it was still there and nothing had changed, just the pain, so much pain and yes, Harry, wasted time. And it was like the entire movie I had watched through Marion's eyes (even though we had those beautiful flashbacks from Patrick's diary that showed their intimacy and love) that final moment it was like all the tension all the unspoken words and truths were obliterated and incinerated by this simple honest gesture. It was like the entire time with my eyes I had seen one thing but with my heart I had felt another and in that moment it came to fruition. They fused into one truth.

In general, I can say, all the scenes that showed Tom and Patrick by themselves absolutely were incredible masterpieces of cinematography, directing, and acting. They felt so real and true. Of course, the scenes with Marion were amazing as well and the discomfort they often elicited in one is the perfect example that they were done just in the way they were supposed to. But especially Harry in the Tom-Patrick scenes was just an entirely different level.

After the movie came out, I blocked My Policeman on all social media, so I haven't read anyone's review yet. However, one thing that I did hear from time to time was that people while they loved it weren't going to rewatch it over and over again because it was just too much and I didn't get it because I was like: 'Even some of the most tragic gay love stories are on my comfort movie list because it is still just so beautiful to watch them together.' But this movie is an entirely different level of heavy. It is not just sad and devastating it is depressing and not in an explosive sad way but in a truly depressing way. And while I still believe what I said in the beginning holds true, about the happy upbeat melody because it also is so beautiful, when all three of them are happy together, two of them are happy together, when the skirt is green and the window frames are yellow, it has been haunting me since I watched it and it certainly is not easy on the mind.

It is a beautiful piece of art and I have the highest respect for everyone working on it and making it into this raw true depiction of the stories it tells. All individually and collectively. It has truly and utterly shaken me and touched me and taken me to places I might not have gone without. I have the highest respect for everyone who has to go through any form of anything like the stories told and I will wave that pride flag every chance I get because this unfortunately is still the reality for too many people. So relevant, so hauntingly beautiful, so important, such a powerful and courageous take on such an important topic.

[molzysketch]

Twitter loved this a lot so I’ll share it here too 👍

pspspspspsp if you guys like gravity falls check out the new shakers at molzysketch.com

[razzafrazzle]

Just Checking In! (aka Something About Red Triangles)

[candycatfalls]

Wait the book of bill appearing to Ford first is fucking HILARIOUS actually. Ford literally killed Bill less than a month ago, and Bill's still banking so hard on him getting him out of therapy that the book shows up in Ford's stuff MULTIPLE TIMES. Girl the situationship has been over for thirty years give it up 💀

[fermentedgutz]

god, why is HE third-wheeling on our cryptid hunt…

[parttimesarah]

✨ The trailer for A Kind of Spark came out!!! ✨

[lesbxdyke]

I could think of no better way to share the news than this!

So when I was 17, my cat went missing and I'd given up hope of ever seeing him again.

Until on Monday, 27th of May, 2024, my friend sent me a FB post asking 'isn't that your mother?' about the person named on the microchip.

Here he is! 16 years old, and found safe, twelve whole years after he went missing!

Yesterday (Tuesday the 28th of May, 2024) I went to the rescue that had him, and I reclaimed my boy, renaming him Artie! (He'd originally been called 'Cat' because my mother and I couldn't decide on a name)

He's home safe with me now, currently inhabiting my bathroom and purring up a storm every time someone goes in there!

I'll be doing slow introductions between him and my current cat to give them the best possible chance of living in harmony!

Here's some pictures of Artie once we let him out of the carrier:

[happyheidi]

𝖠𝗋𝗍 𝖻𝗒 𝖠𝗇𝗇𝖺-𝖫𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺 𝖲𝗎𝗅𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖺𝗇 | 𝖨𝖦: 𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺𝗅𝖺𝗎𝗋𝖺_𝖺𝗋𝗍