#paul munsky

[panneshirley]

every movie I watched in 2024:

The Half of It dir. Alice Wu, 2020

[nerd-at-sea5]

the scene where aster slaps paul while looking at ellie is very silver springs by fleetwood mac. to me.

[fishyyyyy99]

This quote from The Half of It (one of my favourite films), reminded me of Never Have I Ever - of all the different kinds of love portrayed on the show - romantic, platonic, familial, and of course, self-love. And the quote isn't actually dissing love at all, even though it may seem like it. It's saying that love is imperfect, but that it is worth it not to give up on love.

[crush-like-that]

if you e seen the half of it. Where’s my Ellie+Paul friendship

[theboldeststrokeyoucanmake]

i didn’t choose this town,

i dream of getting out,

there’s just one who could make me stay,

all my days

[made-this-cause-why-not]

If I have said it a million times let this be my one and one millionth time- the half of it does not need a part 2. We were not robbed of Ellie and Aster's relationship. In the first five minutes, Ellie says that the movie is not that kind of love story. Ellie and Aster weren't in love, Ellie just had a crush that turned into a weird friendship. The best fic about the movie that I read once a year is Rotten Work by LittleQueenTrashMouth because it doesn't even mention Aster. It's just about Ellie and Paul, two friends who have a true loving relationship with eachother. Like, they were seniors- even if something real happened between them, it would have been short lived. And while I do want Alice Wu to direct something new for me to obsess over, making a part two would literally ruin the first movie.

[yosoyesmesnchz]

SI SUPIERAS (2020) - Alice Wu

[sapphirebluejewel]

Endless List of Characters I Love - Paul Munsky

"I never want to be the guy who stops loving someone for loving the way that they want to love."

[straightbaittournament]

MAY THE BEST BAIT WIN! propaganda under the cut:

buffy driscoll and tj kippen:

in the show there's this thing were if a character looks back to someone while they're leaving it means they have a crush on them. so they had a scene were tj looked back towards were buffy was, but then it was revealed he was gay and in love with buffy's best friend who was standing right next to her in that scene enemies to friends were tj is redeemed through the power of gay love towards buffy's best friend

nell serrano and edward:

Not Dead Yet? More like Not Together Yet

eva garvey and gabriel:

they were really cute together and all their flirty build up actually had me, a known dyke, kind of rooting for them and then halfway through the show right in what's about to be a makeout scene they reveal he's gay lmfao. then they sleep together (platonically on different side of the covers) in his houseboat. iconic and i'm not mad about it but it was SO clearly calibrated to be straightbait and switch it was so funny like the cameras were WORKING for those lingering shots

ellie chu and paul munsky:

Classic set-up where they start off as strangers and become really close. He even has a crush on her! note: ellie is canonically a lesbian, so there's also a bait and switch element to this one

joseph cooper and amelia brand:

These two are explicitly set up as the male and female leads of the movie and shown to have a close relationship with each other, one where in any other movie I would have expected them to end up together by the end of the movie, especially since one of the central themes of Interstellar is love as a force that can change the universe. However, the two do not get together by the end of the movie and there is never any explicitly romantic scene between them.

travis touchdown and sylvia christel:

in the first game travis spends the entire game trying to get with sylvia (HE FAILS MISERABLY) and inbetween the sequel and the spin-off they get married, have kids, you know the drill HOWEVER COMMA in that same period of time travis runs away from said family and later moves in with a man. So.

good luck! now go vote!

[babygirldilf]

The half of it will always be one of my all-time favorite movies... I miss them :')

[mymoviewatches]

ᐢ..ᐢ - The Half of It (2020)

- - - - [Movie Rating 15] - - - -

★ Ratings ★

✩ Personal Rating: 8.3/10

✩ IMDb Rating: 6.9/10

[the-writer-nerd-ro]

Watched The Half of It and I am both better and worse for it

[lavendermoonlitskies]

Ahhh finally, a metapost about my favorite movie

Okay, so I was completely thrown by Paul trying to kiss Ellie the first time watching The Half of It (2020). It just felt so out of left field and I was just like, “Dude! What are you doing?” He’d literally just gotten together with Aster. How did he all of a sudden like Ellie?

Even Paul asking her if there was someone else was so shocking because it’s like: “You dummy! Aster!” (And it’s funny because not only did that question apply to Ellie, it applied to him as well. The dialogue in this movie was so on point.) He and Aster were a thing now. That’s what all of this had been for. But on the second watch, I realized that Paul’s feelings for Ellie had had a natural buildup and progression.

Truthfully, he was never in love with Aster and he and Ellie both knew it. Like Ellie said, they had nothing in common and the person that Aster had been corresponding with was not Paul. He was never going to convince her otherwise because he hadn’t even been privy to half the conversations Ellie and Aster were having (nor was he really interested). He was quite literally “hid[ing] behind other people’s words.” Ellie was the one carrying that relationship.

It was only through his bonding moments with Ellie that Paul began to understand what love actually was. He had a much easier time talking to her during their ping-pong sessions; he asked her about herself and her family; he actually listened to and understood the metaphor she explained to him about Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit; he listened to her sing at night when he took out the trash. He helped her find clothes that suited her and saved her from embarrassment at the talent show, showed signs of jealousy when Trig called Ellie “hot”, and let her crash at his place when she drank too much at the senior after-party. I think the letters he found in her bag afterwards were what solidified things for him: Ellie had initially dismissed and rejected his taco sausage, but once she tried it, she started writing to all of these food critics to get his name out there. (And we know Ellie’s a fantastic writer, so she made his chances ten times better.)

Ellie had invested so much time and care coaching and training Paul to give him even an eighth of a chance with Aster, despite knowing he was “probably gonna crash and burn.”

While he did get a second date (again, because Ellie saved his butt), his in-person dynamic with Aster did not improve and Alexxis Lemire noted the disconnect in that scene where Aster gives Paul the painting after her day (read: date) with Ellie. She was looking for that pensive, insightful person from her letters and kept coming up blank.

Later, Paul was much more interested in knowing that Ellie was going to be at his football game than Aster. When Ellie said that Aster had wished him luck, the first thing he did was ask Ellie if she was coming. And though he waved at Aster in the stands, he paid way more attention to Ellie, even becoming so distracted that she had to signal for him to pay attention to the game.

Then, instead of meeting Aster afterwards like he’d promised, he went to find Ellie getting Yakult from the vending machines. He didn’t seem the least bit upset about Aster walking in on their almost-kiss because his crush on her was gone. He’d developed feelings for Ellie while Ellie had fallen for Aster.

While Paul did in fact love Ellie, I think he confused platonic love with romantic love and wrongfully assumed that Ellie felt the same way for him. Heck, even Ellie’s dad thought they were together!

But I think the sweetest thing ever was Paul admitting that he loves Ellie platonically when he accepts that she’s gay. He doesn’t say, “I never want to be the guy that stops being friends with someone for loving the way they want to love.” He says, “I never want to be the guy who stops loving someone for loving the way that they want to love.”

He accepts Ellie for who she is, accepts her feelings for Aster, and opens up the floor for their joint confession about the letters.

Good on you, Paul Munsky. Good on you.

[crookedtidalwaves]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Half of It (2020) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ellie Chu & Paul Munsky Characters: Paul Munsky, Ellie Chu Additional Tags: Stargazing, Slice of Life, Stress Relief, Friendship, POV Third Person Limited, POV Paul Munsky, Ellie Chu & Paul Munsky Friendship, Chinese Mythology & Folklore Summary:

Paul drives out to the fields sometimes to stargaze and unwind. He invites Ellie on a whim.

[trobeds]

i keep thinking of that one post about how the ronance would fit a the half of it au and byler would fit an ill give you the sun au and now my brain is braining at 4987398753485mph. this is not a guarantee i will attempt to write it but i can guarantee ill have it running through my brain for at least a week

[lyledebeast]

Pride Month Movie 9: The Half of It

Alice Wu's 2020 comedy was completely new to me, and I knew from the trailer that I'd love it. I liked it as much as I thought I would. I love that the main relationship is not romantic in spite of romance being one of the main themes. Ellie Chu is gay and Paul Munsky is straight. I love Ellie's father speaking 90% of his lines in Mandarin and spraying the idiot jock who tries to kiss her from the window while washing dishes. That is easily the funniest scene in a very funny movie.

My favorite part of all, though, is the alcoholic English teacher who turns a blind eye to Ellie writing and selling literary analysis essays to her classmates. There are SO many movies (so many movies) about teachers, especially liberal arts teachers, who live and die for their students to achieve better things as though this is a deeply noble cause, and what more could you want from your profession than that? But having to live and die for your students while also working one or two additional jobs is a tried and true recipe for alcoholism and other kinds of addiction. This movie gets to a lot of hard truths about the experiences of immigrants, queer people, and young people generally while still feeling light and fun. Highly recommend!