#simon vs

1. Blue’s personality. In Simon vs., Blue is shy, and takes a while to open up. He’s quiet and nervous, and isn’t super outgoing. But in the movie, Blue is super popular, super outgoing, and not nervous at all. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, but I did miss the quiet, nerdy Bram that we were blessed with in the books. Although movie Bram was cool, and absolutely slayed with his halloween costume.

2. Martin’s Tumblr post. In the book, Martin did have screenshots of Simon’s emails, just like in the movie. However, he didn’t post them. He just posted the blurb that was like “Simon’s gay, contact him for gay sex” or whatever. He made a slight mention of Blue (he said something about blue balls), but he didn’t post the screenshots, so no one found out about Blue. And Blue didn’t even find out who Simon was until a while later, because he didn’t look at the Tumblr. But in the movie, Martin posted the screenshots, which made everyone aware of Blue. This led to Blue deleting his email. In the book, Blue didn’t, but they just sort of stopped emailing for a while.

3. Simon and Blue’s meet up. In the movie, like I mentioned, Blue deleted his email. So to reach him, Simon made a public Tumblr post, asking Blue to meet him in a public place. Honestly, I hated that. Simon put Blue in a position where, in order to talk to Simon, he had to out himself. I mean, Simon didn’t have much of a choice in reaching out to him publicly, but he didn’t have to ask Blue to meet him in a place where everyone would watch them. In the book, Simon emails Blue privately, and they meet and figure things out on their own.

4. Simon’s friends reactions. Simon’s friends, in the book, are super supportive of Simon. Abby does find out about Simon trying to set Martin and her up, but she’s much more forgiving. She takes a couple days to process, but ultimately decides Simon was in a tough spot and he didn’t really have a choice. In the movie, his friends give him no chance to explain, never try to understand him, and ditch him even after he got outed.

5. Simon guessing who Blue is. In the movie, Simon guesses it’s Bram, then Lyle, then Cal. In the book, for the entire time, Simon thinks it’s Cal. He makes mentions of Bram, so we know who he is, and we know Simon thinks he’s cute, but he doesn’t guess it’s him. I kind of loved this, because Simon is canonically very clueless, and the love of his life was right in front of him. I didn’t love how, in the movie, Bram was caught making out with a girl. It just doesn’t seem like him.

6. Judaism. Bram and Nick are canonically Jewish, and it’s mentioned a lot. It’s not exactly problematic that they didn’t talk about it in the movie (except for the one mention that Blue spends Hanukkah with his dad), because that may take too much time, but I love how Simon becomes sort of interested in Judaism because of Blue. Idk, maybe it’s just because I’m Jewish and crave Jewish characters, but I really missed that aspect.

7. Leah’s crush. All throughout Simon vs, we think Leah likes Nick. It’s never resolved, but she definitely doesn’t like Simon. As we find out in the sequel, Leah on the Offbeat, Leah actually likes Abby, and she doesn’t know what to do with those feelings, so she’s sort of surly towards Abby through the whole book. In Love, Simon, we find out she actually loves Simon, and she and Abby are besties with no drama.

8. Leah and her situation. So, I know that Leah on the Offbeat was written while Love, Simon was being filmed, so they couldn’t really have a super accurate Leah in the movie, but in the book, she’s seen to be a bit moody sometimes, and in the movie, she’s very calm. It’s not too much of a difference, though. The bigger difference is Leah’s financial status. In Leah on the Offbeat, it’s made known that she has a single mom and lives in a smallish house, and feels off with everyone because she’s not as rich as most people in Shady Creek. In the movie, it’s shown that she has a giant house right next to Simon and Nick, who we know have rich parents. Again, I know that this was only mentioned in Leah on the Offbeat, and so they couldn’t have really done that, but I would’ve loved to see the characters not living in almost-mansions (seriously. the house that was used to film simon’s house recently sold for over 2 million dollars).

9. Privilege. Yes, in the book, Simon is still privileged. But he acknowledges it. He knows. I feel like in the movie, Simon has a sort of “I’m not privileged because I’m gay, and anyone who acts more gay than me (like Ethan) is asking for whatever harassment happens to them”. I just didn’t love that non-self-awareness.

Thank you to everyone who has read my posts, saved them, shared them, and commented. It really means a lot that so many people have said they resonate with what I’ve said. It hasn’t been easy sharing some of this stuff as it’s not something I always like talking about. But with the #JesusJune reading challenge that was created by Christian bigots, I felt it was an opportune time to let my fellow religiously traumatized queers know that you’re not alone.

It’s been a hard journey to get to where I am today, and I don’t think I could have done that if it weren’t for my partner and queer representation in books. Before joining booksta back in 2017, I can think of only two queer books I’d really read, M or F? by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts and Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. I read them both in high school and then fell off the reading wagon because college was a lot and I was too busy surviving to leisurely read. But it was the first time that I had read books with explicitly queer characters.

I am so very thankful that queer books exist at the capacity they do now. Even though scared adults are trying to ban queer content, it’s there for kids that need it and I greatly hope the ones that do need it are able to get it. If I had books like Loveless by Alice Oseman or known of any out and proud asexual authors, I might have discovered my asexuality sooner. That being said, I’m so glad that kids these days have better access to information that I did growing up (despite what some people want) and seem to know who they are at an earlier age. I think they’ll turn out okay, all things considered.

Remember: whether you are out or not, know you are greatly loved and my account is a safe space. 🌈 Bigots can't and won't win.

but also the scene where simon is talking to martin about coming out being his thing, tbh every scene with jennifer garner, simon talking with the other gay kid about what the had in common and the other guy scoffing at it being easy for him bc it wasnt, the coming out scene with abby, the scene with his dad !!

bram is sitting right next to him, pressed up against his side, and simon is leaning heavily against him. he's wearing simon's hufflepuff boxers and a worn black tshirt and he's got a thick blanket spread across their laps.

they've got a movie on, their third of the evening, and it's late enough that they're both starting to get tired. at one point simon leans his head onto bram's shoulder and bram settles his arm around simon's shoulders and starts to gently card his fingers through simon's hair. it's gotten so much longer, and simon sometimes purrs like a cat when bram gets to petting it like this. feels nice against his scalp is all. it's also ridiculously soothing, and the longer bram runs his fingers through the strands, the sleepier simon feels until his eyes fall closed on their own accord and the wispy warm tendrils of sleep take him under.

it isn't until the movie ends that bram shuts the tv off and quietly, gently nudges simon awake, telling him that it's time to go to bed, and simon rouses just enough to stand and shuffle towards their bedroom, still leaning heavily on bram.

they'll slide into bed together, and simon will immediately curl into bram's side, and they'll fall asleep in the comfort of each other's arms.

when they wake, it'll be sunday, and they'll have a whole day of easy relaxation. maybe they'll go to the farmers market. maybe they'll hit up a park and bram will try to teach simon how to juggle a soccer ball. maybe they'll laze the day away in bed, only leaving the warmth of the blankets for snacks. maybe they'll talk to their families, maybe they'll hang out with friends, maybe they'll bake a whole cake.