#repression movie

[chelsiegeorgia]

leaked dialogue for sonic 3 surely

[the-woman-upstairs]

Really fucked up that, when they’re young, Patrick and Art are SO tactile with each other, so comfortable sharing the same space. Art lets Patrick touch him and move him and physically overwhelm him and easily acquiesces to it, if not outright enjoys it.

Then in the present, they’ve been so far out of each other’s orbit for so long, held such animosity that when they have their moment alone in the sauna, Art physically recoils from Patrick’s close proximity! It’s so painful to watch because even as Patrick’s goading him, it’s so obvious he wants to be able to get back into Art’s space. But Art has erected all these walls around himself, he refuses to give Patrick an inch or even admit to missing how close they used to be!

AND THEN we see Art and Tashi later and he wants her to hold him, to be gentle with him, and just TOUCH him. Like, he does miss that kind of close physical contact! He either doesn’t know how to ask for it or is uncomfortable being that openly vulnerable. Worth noting that he pretty much always defers to Tashi in regard to initiating physical intimacy (with their first kiss, though he does state his desire, SHE has to be the one to make the first move). And it seems pretty obvious that Tashi herself isn’t comfortable providing that intimacy, whereas Patrick actively seeks to provide it (the hug/forehead kiss after their win together in the early years, dragging the stool closer to him).

Art has tried very hard to act like he doesn’t need physical affection and even though his discipline and devotion to Tashi has made him a stronger tennis player, it’s made him a hollow person, which, in turn, has kept him from becoming a GREAT tennis player.

All of this, of course, is why the ending hits so damn hard.

[afacelesschampion]

This is a cruel world, especially for the little things. Not all of them are allowed to live.

LONGLEGS (2024) dir. Osgood Perkins

[mulderscully]

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE (2023) dir. Matthew López 🍓

[ech-e-sketch]

Chaos trio, they’re so ridiculous

[k-wame]

Jacob Elordi as Bobby Falls He Went That Way (2023) dir. Jeffrey Darling

[agrebel18]

Nimona 🤝 Gwen Stacy: being Very Transgender/Not Cis to the point where you can’t separate it because it’s literally woven into their character arcs and even having trans flags surrounding them in some scenes yet some people only call it “coding” and “theories” purely because neither of them said “oh btw I’m transgender” on screen

[renshengs]

sometimes you're just a rich handsome 27 year old graduate from south korea's most prestigious cop school with a glacial relationship with your big powerful cop dad and then you move to a small town substation in the countryside for work where you spend the next entire month being an uncooperative asshole while accusing your new 40 year old coworker of mass-murder before he helps you catch the actual mass-murderer and then afterwards you need to take a 3 month vacation about it because you realize being around him is changing you for the better and also you're falling in love with him at breakneck speed

[meraki-yao]

Edwin Payne

So i have a new obession

[Charles]

[mikesbasementbeets]

byler in every episode -> 3.01. suzie, do you copy?

[cowboy-robooty]

watched brokeback mountain yesterday.... mid as fuck. i think it wouldve played out a lot better if the main characters were yuri and jimmy from yarichin bitch club. do u see my vision?

[bisclavaret]

Jaws study/painting practice (2 hrs)

[turnipoddity]

Does Lawrence Gordon is gay?

to me? Yeah

[beautifulhigh]

Welcome to the next edition of Jen's meta ramblings

I have watched the movie at least once a day since it came out and I kid you not, I see something new every time. The fact that this is Matthew López's first directoral debut is just... I'm in awe. And you can tell how much he loves the story because of the way things like this are set up and played out

In the novel, Henry and Alex are skinny dipping in the lake at night, and so I absolutely got the change in both time of day and also attire. But let's talk about that little island shall we?

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea

Every single one of us is not meant to be alone, without connection and without a link to someone else. We are parts of a whole and if we lose that... well. It's not good.

Henry is on that island, our prince who belongs to Britain and Henry Fox who thinks he has to belong to himself. The prince is forced into status and circumstance, of appearances and mindless ribbon cuttings. When he does something that means something - like the trip to the cancer ward - then he doesn't do it with cameras. I'd argue he's not the prince there, he's Henry Fox. The man who lost his father to cancer.

But this is not that meta.

Henry has shut himself off, shut himself away. He doesn't date the people he's interested in, he doesn't live his truth (and for very good and valid reasons). He has decided that while Prince Henry belongs to Britain, Henry Fox is an island.

And look who is swimming up to that island. Look who is coming out to Henry, having realised the night before that oh yeah, I do feel forever about him and so Alex swims out to that island.

And the first thing he does? He makes Henry laugh. He is silly and fun and the complete antithesis of the composed and collected Prince of Wales. And then he joins Henry, on his island.

This gorgeous overhead shot shows us that Alex is putting himself on Henry's right (protocol or his good side?) but he's also in the centre of the island. He's not on the edge of it. In the metaphor of Henry Fox's island, Alex is putting himself at the heart of it all. RIght before he lays out his heart to Henry.

The shot that broke our hearts too, along with Henry's. Because we can see the shore in the background now. We're reminded that islands are not - they cannot be fully independent. People cannot be islands and even though Alex is literally and metaphorically planting himself at Henry's side, Henry knows that this island he's formed for himself in his heart and his sense of self cannot stand if Alex is there. If Alex is with him then he is no longer an island. Henry Fox will not belong to himself and the sense of protection and self-preservation we see coming out in the Storming of Kensington is under threat.

So he bails.

The island is submerged, like the mythical Atlantis, because how do you render land useless? Drown it. How do you deal with water? Drain it away. He abandons his island and flees back to the only other space he has left - Kensington Palace - in an attempt to regroup. He drains his life of Alex and what he brings. He has to return to being the Prince of Wales because Henry Fox got too close. Because Henry Fox realised he was being loved by a man who would literally swim out to where he is.

Moment of appreciation for the shot. Matthew, you have a fucking talent and I cannot wait to see what else you do. Because our #imtaller boy looks so small here. So lost. When else have we seen someone look so small and lost?

Oh. Yeah.

When he's curling in on himself in an almost last-ditch attempt to protect himself and his boundaries from what is coming. You can see that he's no longer dry, that Alex's "shower time" has changed him. Alex brought laughter and love and water onto his island and Henry has just realised what this means. This isn't a visitor's visa. This is immigration.

Which is what makes THIS so much more. Back to our boy, drenched from the storm, plaintively asking Henry to talk to him.

Because yes, the Storming of Kensington happens during an actual storm, but by now you know I overead into everything... so once again we have Alex "swimming" out to Henry. He's dived right in and gone are the jokes, gone is the humour. He is here and he is asking to be let in and daring Henry to send him away.

This is Alex, serious and in love and following Henry to whatever landmass he is setting foot on. Henry is trying to be an island and Alex is out here going, "I'll just build another boat you fucker". A true 'ship if you will. He swam out to an island on a lake, he flew to a tiny island across an ocean. He is standing at Henry's borders and he isn't launching an offensive. He's just saying that if Henry wants to be cut off from everything then he needs to do the cutting himself.

Prince Henry felt like he belonged to Britain, Henry Fox felt like he had to belong to himself, and Alex turned up and went "nope. Mine now". (Insert additional historical quip about the English being colonised for once.) But there is still some truth in that: the Prince is part of England, and we should all belong to ourselves even in relationships. Henry just learns that the different parts of him can co-exist. Bit like how water and land can co-exist without one destroying the other.

Henry is Alex's North Star but he's also his solid ground. Insert quip about Alex colonising Henry and claiming him for his own, planting of flag, your innuendo of choice goes here. Pyramus wished there wasn't a wall - Alex straight up scaled Henry's.

There's a divergence between Prince Henry and Henry Fox, but at the heart of them both there's Henry. And this is the man that Alex sees, this is the man that Alex loves. Alex swims out to the island for Henry Fox, Alex pushes through the rain for Prince Henry. Alex holds steady in the storm of talking with King James/Queen Mary and the public.

And it started with Alex literally making his way out to Henry on an island: be that England for the Royal Wedding, a pontoon island on a lake, or knocking down Henry's walls.

To this moment. Which is very hard to grab a screenshot of, but Alex asks Henry to "take a walk" with him. This time it's Henry going to/with Alex. The fact that he's there is one thing (and a rant rather than a meta) but at this point they have each other. They belong to each other. Where one of them goes, the other one follows. Independent, together, co-existing.

Anyway. I'm sure there will be more bullshit ramblings and metas at some point. Follow me if you want more of that (but be warned: blank and empty blogs are blocked on sight) because we are not islands in this metaphorical storm of life. Let us swim out to one another, dry off with one another, and live a life with broken down borders and walls.

ETA: I now have another name to add to the thanks. Stephen Goldblatt, from the bottom of my soul, thank you

[lollytea]

I need to watch Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure to reach my final conclusion on if she's even attracted to men

[tarotofbadkitties]

Art played dirty to win marriage and fatherhood in his competition with Patrick, and he knows it. He knows he lost the game to win her in the first place, and got his chance with Tashi by setting up the sequence of events that led to her and Patrick breaking up. When she comes up pregnant not long after Art catches them in that bar, Art and Tashi would both know that Patrick could be the father. The advantage of not saying anything for Art is that not only do they not risk breaking up by fighting over this, but he also avoids the risk of Tashi telling Patrick he might be a father. In one fell swoop, he not only gets to marry a woman he knows loves Patrick and has loved him since before he broke them up by lying to them about their unexpressed feelings, but also gets to claim his kid as his own.

You can view what's going on as Tashi cheating on Art with Patrick, but I think Art views it the other way around, because when you get what you want by deceit or manipulation, it's hard to feel like it's rightfully yours. Art has deprived Patrick of his place in their lives, and it's not only been killing him to miss Patrick, it's been killing him to watch Tashi miss him and suppressing these feelings have not only caused his marriage to Tashi to go cold with things unsaid, it's also killed his tennis game the same way Patrick said it would over churros. On the surface, he's been keeping Patrick away because of Tashi, but on a deeper level, he's been keeping Patrick away because his knows he can't keep his hands off Patrick and he's going to give into his desires if he gets enough chances. When Patrick pulls him in close during the churro scene, he almost kissed him. When Patrick tried to hug him during practice, Art took off running like a loon. Art trying to say he's not scared of Patrick's dick when he spent his entire adult life running from how much he wants it is his most hilarious lie in the film.