#loveless style like what rooney says | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shiningstarr15 · 1 year

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✨New BroTP Alert!✨

I recently finished reading the book Loveless and when I tell you these two currently are my everything right now..

Rooney Bach is one of those characters that owns the smug smirk and teasing attitude (that I honestly love so much and may or may not actively look for in potential friendships)and the fact that SHE’S the one to give what will go down in history as the greatest platonic love confession of all time is honestly just BEAUTIFUL 😭😭

The definition of platonic soulmates ✨✨💛💛

So yea I had to draw them lol

This book was amazing and beautiful and not only did it make me feel much less alone about feeling so much more strongly about friendships than relationships, but helped me to discover and come to terms with my bi-oriented aroace identity (an identity I’ve had trouble realizing for a very long time) 💛

I’ve been telling everyone from day one that friendship is honestly the most beautiful thing to me. I have very high platonic attraction as well as amical attraction (the desire to form a siblinghood with someone) and I wondered for awhile why I couldn’t seem to find anyone that really just DID IT for me romantically or sexually. And also why I have trouble figuring out flirting, sexual tension, etc. (I do have aesthetic attraction which is why I can say certain people are hot and not want to go down on them, they are just pleasing to the eye 😬)

Anyway, hope you like it. I loved drawing them in my personal style and think they turned out adorable tbh 💛💛💛

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stripyhorse23 · 3 years

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TV of 2020

1) I May Destroy You

I May Destroy You might not have been written during the pandemic, but when it arrived in June it felt like the sort of complicated, cathartic show that could have been. Detailing one woman’s experience of rape and its aftermath, Michaela Coel (who wrote every episode) continually found rich narrative avenues in which to explore her characters’ individual experiences of sexual assault and consent. If that makes the series sound concept-driven, it always placed its characters first; the push-and-pull between Arabella, Terry and Kwame is key to the ways in which Coel’s tender, curious writing is able to explore power dynamics within relationships, friendships and hook-ups. Other, lesser shows that are this deliberately open-ended might feel opaque: it’s testament to the show’s confidence of voice that isn’t the case here.

2) Normal People

Like plenty of others, I binged the entire series of Normal People in a weekend, although one of its many pleasures is how Sally Rooney and Alice Birch’s adaptation teases out the episodic nature of the former’s bestseller. From Connell’s early days at university, to a Tuscan holiday turned sour, and an exchange year in Sweden, Normal People was about the ways in which the people we love move in and out of our lives over the years. It wasn’t immune to mis-steps (the show draws something of a crude line between the abuse Marianne suffers at home and what she seeks out in romantic partners), but the sheer emotional heft of the show was undeniable, nowhere less so than Paul Mescal’s floodgate-opening performance in Episode 10.

3) Adult Material

Perhaps one of the year’s most overlooked shows, Adult Material follows Hayley Burrows as she attempts to balance life as the harassed mother-of-three and the twilight years of her career as adult performer Jolene Dollar. The slyly comic edge of the first episode is quickly eroded after Jolene becomes embroiled in the abuse of another actor on-set. A stark portrait of alcohol abuse and loneliness, it’s also a sharp indictment of how little the so-called ‘culture wars’ surrounding pornography are meaningfully impactful on sex workers themselves. Hayley Squires gives the sort of white-hot star performance usually reserved for 90s Hollywood rom-coms, a veneer of frustration and resignation overlaying even her character’s most abrasive moments.

4) Cook, Eat, Repeat

Why not in this interminably shitty year, choose the one show that offered the sort of balm it’s impossible to reverse engineer? Following hot on the heels of a disappointing series of The Great British Bake-Off, Nigella Lawson’s warm, inviting half-hour new series was the televisual equivalent of a long bath and a facemask. Her fish finger bhorta, brown butter colcannon and black pudding meatballs have already made it into this household’s repertoire, but there’s something innately comforting about the luxurious silliness of Nigella that almost transcends criticism. Whether it’s the giddy nonsense of her liquorice box, the ‘did I hear that right’ moment when she revealed her pronunciation of ‘microwave,’ or the seductive self-care of making a creme caramel for one, no other show elicited such pure enjoyment from me this year.

5) I’ll Be Gone In The Dark

The true crime documentary series boom has increasingly leaned into a focus on the victims, from last year’s The Yorkshire Ripper Files to Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, but none so effectively or compassionately as I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. Less a story about the hunt for the Golden State Killer and more a study of trauma and obsession, the series splices together home footage of the late Michelle McNamara’s investigation with survivor testimony to create a haunting portrait of one man’s legacy of pain. The early episodes are replete with skin-crawling tension, anguish and tears, but the later episodes allow that to fall away, focusing on the mental fortitude necessary for the survivors at its centre and the sense of community fostered by meeting other women like them.

6)The Salisbury Poisonings

I had no interest in watching this BBC limited series initially: the advertising made it look dry, the story itself (the Novichok poisonings of 2018) seemingly devoid of juicy narrative material. That I’ve watched this three times in the space of a year speaks to its robust, urgent filmmaking. Like several other shows on this list, it arrived into the context of a pandemic it couldn’t have foreseen, but watching the rapid, careful response of local government (crucially and deliberately obstructed by Whitehall) to this crisis presented a sort of horribly watchable what-if scenario. What seemed at first blush to be middle-of-the-road programming evolved over three episodes into the sort of spare, quietly terrifying journalistic drama that invites comparison to last year’s Chernobyl.

7) We Are Who We Are

It turns out that Luca Guadagnino’s woozy, seductive style transfers perfectly to television, and despite We Are Who We Are lacking the timelessness that typifies I Am Love or Call Me By Your Name it thrillingly captured the turbulent adolescence of its teenage characters. Equally effervescent and raggedly emotional, the show’s joy always felt hard-won, bumping heads with the often cynical, unreadable motivations of the adult characters. A tender and frank depiction of queer identities within traditionally restrictive environments, it’s also a love letter to young friendship and the lifeline that can provide during our formative years. Spellbinding.

8) Selling Sunset

Perhaps the year’s most impressively constructed reality show, I was slow on the uptake with Netflix’s Selling Sunset only to have it take over my life for a few weeks during the summer. Manufactured reality series are tough to get right, but much like The Hills (surely this show’s biggest influence) Selling Sunset gains a lot of mileage from gaming pre-existing friendships for maximum impact. Christine and Mary’s beleaguered relationship and, obliquely, their respective responses to fame continued to provide wildly watchable fireworks, but the build-up to Chrishell’s separation from husband Justin Hartley was exquisitely handled. Suddenly Davina’s strangely uncharismatic shit-stirrer and Christine’s predictably OTT wedding were forced to take a back seat to something approaching genuinely moving television. Trying to tease out what was real and what wasn’t, and following the ways this all spilled out onto social media, was pure, unmitigated pleasure in a year sorely lacking in just that sort of unfettered escapism.

9) My Brilliant Friend

Two seasons in and there might not be another character on TV that I’m as continually frustrated and fascinated by as Lila, the eponymous ‘brilliant friend’ of the show’s title. Sparingly warm, often cruel, seductive, Season 2 of HBO’s masterful adaptation sees her trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage but as ever it’s her fractured relationship with Lenù that forms the emotional spine of the show. There’s often a strange sort of snobbery around the term ‘prestige drama,’ as if all that money on the screen is a smokescreen for a dearth of anything to say; My Brilliant Friend uses every colour in its paintbox to portray the yawning void that opened up between Lenù and Lila as they entered adulthood, from the lavish, provocative outfits Lila’s adopts after she marries Stefano to Max Richter’s evocative score and the detail poured into the show’s supporting characters. Rewardingly complex.

10) Mrs. America

I laboured over what would take my tenth spot this year since there was so much TV that I loved, and especially this year so much of it felt essential to how I was receiving the world around me. Ultimately, Mrs. America’s mixture of astute political commentary, character-driven writing and host of enjoyable performances tipped the scale in its favour. Cate Blanchett’s all-timer of a performance as Phyllis Schafly understandably received the majority of attention, but Mrs. America gave us so many memorable moments: Sarah Paulson’s Alice ringing the bell at reception whilst high, Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Chisholm speaking to a potentially bugged hotel ventilator, Margo Martindale’s Bella Abzug quietly realising she’s no longer the radical of her youth on a busy New York street. This sort of deft, smart political drama isn’t often this much fun to watch, and what an ending...

11) This Life

An honourable mention to a show made almost twenty-five years ago that nevertheless helped define the year in TV for me. Shows that were once considered part of the zeitgeist can often feel quaint and old-fashioned in retrospect, but Amy Jenkins rambunctious flatshare drama isn’t one of them. Whilst it can sometimes feel like the show’s characters are universally adverse to making even one good decision between them, there’s a compassion and care underpinning This Life that means it never comes across as overly cynical or sneering. There’s also a lot to be said for discovering a performance that you genuinely consider to be one of the best of the decade, and no other character this year frustrated and moved me in the ways that Daniela Nardini’s Anna did. Bonus points for the genuinely chaotic final episode, perhaps one of the best I’ve ever seen.

And FWIW, these are ten performances from shows not on the list above that I loved this year: Marielle Heller in The Queen’s Gambit, Nicholas Hoult in The Great, Sarah Lancashire in Last Tango in Halifax, Poorna Jagannathan in Never Have I Ever, Michael Sheen in Quiz, Imelda Staunton in Talking Heads, Leila Farzad in I Hate Suzie, Alison Pill in Star Trek: Picard, Gillian Anderson in The Crown and Andy Allo in Upload.

And ten episodes of TV that I loved too: ‘Terry and Korvo Steal a Bear’ (Solar Opposites), ‘The Gang Deals With Alternate Reality’ (The Good Fight), ‘Uncle Naseem’ (Ramy), ‘The View From Halfway Down’ (Bojack Horseman), ‘The Vat of Acid Episode’ (Rick and Morty), ‘I Am’ (Lovecraft Country), ‘No Small Parts’ (Star Trek: Lower Decks), Seven-Spotted Ladybug’ (Everything’s Gonna Be Okay), ‘Daytona’ (Cheer), ‘Whenever You’re Ready’ (The Good Place).

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tshepiso-reads-books · 4 years

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A Wrap-Up of Sorts

I’ve been in a reviewing funk for basically all of July. There are several books I’d like to review but I just can’t get my brain to craft meaningful worlds and a sensical order no matter how hard I try. This is a problem because I generally don’t like to read books if I have books unreviewed and the backlog is starting to get a bit intimidating. So these are some mini-reviews for books I’ve read in the past 3 weeks.

Revenant Gun · Yoon Ha Lee

The conclusion to the Machineries of the Empire series was confusing, to say the least. I have struggled in the weeks since I read Revenant Gun to parse why Lee made the choices he did in this series. The new perspectives we follow and the ultimate villain of the story feels incongruous with the set up in the first two books and many of the character choices baffled me. However, despite my qualms, Lee did still manage to write an engaging story. I’ll always be attached to the characters in this series and Jedao and Cheris especially had my heart. I enjoyed learning the backstory of Kujen and delving into his particular backstory as well. I overall had a good time with this series but I think I’d need to reread it before I could state any definitive opinion on it.

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The Empire of Gold · S. A. Chakraborty

The Empire of Gold was the perfect conclusion to the Daevabad trilogy. Every moment of this book was brilliant and the journey Ali, Nahri and Dara went on throughout this series was excellent. I adored the themes explored throughout the series. The way Chakraborty handled what it truly means to redeem yourself and how to move past centuries of violence was perfectly done. I could see some finding this book slow but I found the pacing perfect. Chakraborty took the time to show growth in our characters by having them make meaning full sacrifices and confront their previous desires. This made the stakes and consequences of this series all the more impactful. Chakraborty truly put her characters through the wringer and they benefited from it.

I adored the political machinations throughout this book as I always have in the Daevabad series and was on the edge of my seat throughout this entire reading experience. I absolutely adored watching the conflict within Daevabad play out though my one criticism of the series would be that I wish we saw more of Zaynab and Aquisa. Chakraborty stepped up when it came to romance in this book and for the first time in the series I had a legitimate emotional connection to Ali and Nahri’s romance. The Empire of Gold was perfect in every way and certainly won’t disappoint fans of the previous two installments in the series. Anyone with even a minor interest in fantasy needs to pick the Daevabad trilogy.

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Loveless · Alice Oseman

Loveless was another Alice Oseman knockout YA contemporary. The story follows Georgia Warr a college freshman navigating her desire to be in a romantic relationship despite her seeming inability to find love. I will warn that Oseman has an incredibly close first-person narrative style that may make this book, and especially its first half, difficult to read. Georgia and the other prominent side characters in the series, like most teenagers, are very stuck in her own heads. They often jump to conclusions and make short-sided, selfish choices and fail to make obvious connections which may make this book a frustrating read. However, these aspects of the characters make our main cast feel all the more real.

Loveless is a coming of age story about a girl coming into her identity as asexual romantic and Oseman’s ownvoices depiction of that was stellar. Seeing Georgia going through the long and arduous process of discovering and accepting her sexuality was while occasionally frustrating heartwarming nonetheless. I’ve never experienced media with asexual romantic representation and I’m glad to see that this book might make teens who feel lost and confused comforted and understood. And the way Oseman unpacked and directed the various ways society enforces heteronormativity and allosexuality (feeling romantic and/or sexual attraction) was spot on and even helped me unpack my own feelings about my sexuality.

Oseman’s characters are naturalistic in a way that makes them very easy to connect to and the strong friendships at the core of the novel were wonderful to read about. The side characters in this story Rooney, Pip and Jason felt fully fleshed out and individual in a way that made the story feel whole. Oseman’s underlying message about the importance of friendships and their equal importance and meaning as romantic relationships really hit the mark with me. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who loves grand romantic gestures, Shakespeare societies, and complex friendship dynamics.

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Prosper’s Demon · K. J. Parker

Prosper’s Demon was not an enjoyable reading experience. The story follows an unnamed morally grey exorcist. He discovers the genius philosopher, engineer and artist Prosper of Schanz is possessed by a particularly wily demon and the story unfolds from there.

Reading this book felt like listening to a scratched CD. K. J. Parker’s style in this novella was jumpy and skipped from place to place with no indication of where the story was going. Convoluted sentences structured in confusing ways were common and I often had to reread lines to fully understand what he was saying.

I also found it hard to connect to the narrator because Parker obfuscated his motivations and thought process in a way that made it impossible for me to care about him in any way. The story jumped from flashback to present timeline in a way that gave me narrative whiplash and while the story ultimately made sense by the time all the pieces fit together and our narrator’s plot revealed the story had already lost me. So while there was some interesting worldbuilding and I can see Parker’s style working for some this book just didn’t hit the mark for me.

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I can’t say whether or not I’ll come back to these books for stand-alone reviews but I’m glad to have gotten my thoughts out there for these books so I can move on with my life. I hope I’ll be in more of a reviewing mood in the future but I can’t be sure of that anytime soon. You may be seeing a lot more Recent Reads style wrap ups from me in the future.

#Loveless #Prosper's Demon #The EMpire of Gold #Revenant Gun #Book Review #mini reviews #Wrap Up

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