Julius Ceasar has been dead for 2064 slutty, slutty years

Julius Caesar has been dead for 2065 slutty, slutty years

Julius Caesar has been dead for 2066 slutty, slutty years

Julius Caesar has been dead for 2067 slutty, slutty years

Julius Caesar has been dead for 2068 slutty, slutty years

Julius Caesar has been dead for 2069 (nice) slutty, slutty years

I was walking out of the Walmart today, and a car passed me, and I got this incredibly vivid impression. It wasn’t really in words, but if I had to put it into words, the two key points would be

a). I needed to watch that car and

b). That I needed to be careful, because the driver of the car was a massive bitch.

It kind of took me by surprise, because I really had no reason to be beefing with that car, and I also hadn’t really had an impression like that since I was religious, which was in my teen years. Right? It’d been a decade since I had a little voice whisper in my ear, and I’d basically written it off as nonsense.

Anyway, I watched the car, because The Spirits or whatever were very insistent that I did. Car drove fine, went into the parking spot, inched forward, and right when it should’ve just stopped, the driver gunned it for some reason and it ran into the curb and cracked its bumper.

So, the driver got out, and she went to the front of the car to check that yes, she had cracked her bumper, and then she turned to look at me. The parking lot wasn’t empty, but we were the only two people standing in that row, and I’d probably been staring at her for tenish seconds now.

She demanded very angrily to know why I hadn’t warned her of the curb. And I could have said I didn’t know you were about to gun it or is it my job to help every stranger park, or even could you have even heard me, inside your car?

And all of those would have been fine, but I was really, really busy digesting that I had somehow communed with Mormon Jesus again for the first time in fifteen years, and that the communion had mostly been there to let me watch someone park badly (?), so what I responded with was:

“Because it was foretold.”

And I can’t tell which would be funnier, if she went silent because there’s not much to be said to that, or if she went silent because in Utah, she might actually believe me, but we parted ways without more words.

I’m still kind of digesting this myself, actually.

God is real but only to tell you to look at that dumbass fail a basic parking manoeuvre

I keep thinking about an in-universe edit of the metros winning two Stanley cups back to back to “long live” by Taylor swift. And a focus on Shane Hollander, and the YEARS he dedicated to that team. And the fucking bridge????

Promise me this

That you’ll stand by me forever

But if, God forbid, fate should step in

And force us into a goodbye

If you have children someday

When they point to the pictures

Please tell them my name

Tell them how the crowds went wild

All for them to BE FUCKING ASSHOLES OH MY GOD I AM SO MADDDDDDDD

Like FUCK OFFFFFF I AM SO MAD AT THE METROS FUCK THEM SO FUCKING HARD

Brutus committed to the bit 100%.

Brutus, buddy, this is absolutely hilarious, but I think I understand now why Dante put you in the lowest pit of hell.

It’s real

tumblr users on march 15th

I went to a Dallas Stars game tonight and as we were leaving the arena I ended up standing on the escalator next to two guys in heated rivalry merch and one of them told the other how fun the game had been so I said “but they didn’t even play All the Things She Said” and he whipped his head around and was like “THE OPPORTUNITY WAS RIGHT THERE”.

And then we talked about Role Model and Troy and Harris and how none of us can be normal about this show :)

Heated Rivalry - “I’ll Believe in Anything”

One thing I adore about the transition of this scene from page to screen is the buildup. Where Shane and Ilya (and the crowd) must be suspecting something like this might happen. Only it couldn’t possibly, because this is hockey, after all. And they must be imagining it.

In the book, it’s just random. They’re both watching the cup final in separate cities, and suddenly Scott Hunter is kissing his secret boyfriend on live TV. In the show, there’s a buildup to the kiss.

Scott takes a little bit to think, as he watches his fellow players welcome their families onto the ice. Then he gestures to Kip up in the stands. Elena persuades Kip to go down. The announcer is obviously puzzled, but is focusing their coverage on the “random fan” Hunter is inviting onto the ice.

Kip hops the boards (awkwardly, since he’s not a hockey player). Then Scott holds Kip’s hand and leads him further onto the ice. And Kip says “you don’t have to do this,” and Scott replies “Yes I do.” The hand-holding still has some plausible deniability, but not much. Kip’s in shoes and ice is slippery, so the announcer doesn’t comment on Scott holding Mr Random’s hand.

But Shane and Ilya are both looking really weirded out. Because it’s not common for a hockey player to be holding the hand of some random guy from the stands. This couldn’t possibly be what they suspect, could it? Not in public, surely?

And then Scott kisses Kip, after all that buildup. And it’s a really big several minutes for all four of them. The two on the ice in New York, Ilya watching in Boston, and Shane watching with his parents somewhere in Ontario cottage country. So not just a moment that came out of nowhere. A sequence of events that built to a crescendo.

Somewhere on Tumblr I recently saw someone say:

“Scott Hunter is the man who threw the first puck at hockey Stonewall.”

Which is brilliant! But I can’t remember who said it. My phone rang right after I read it, and it was the vet about my cat’s test results, so obviously I took the call. But by the time I got back to Tumblr that brilliant post had disappeared from my dash. Please tell me if it was your post and I will edit to credit you.

I found the quote! It’s by @whichcouldmeanothing and is the text over the second gif in the link below.

I actually remembered it slightly wrong. On the gif, it says:

“And thank you Scott Hunter for throwing the first puck at hockey Stonewall.”

Almost the same, but not quite. In fact, even better than I remembered it as being.

Reblog by @raincitygirl76 · 9 images

I was suprised I hadn’t heard anyone else talk about this. Then I remembered that as a lesbian living in Montreal and this show has a super international audience, so maybe it’s only obvious to me.

Montreal is a gay ass city. It is incredibly queer, think Portland’s reputation but French. It has a whole district of the city dedicated to gay bars and queer owned businesses, and more than one lesbian bar. It is a city where being gay is, even compared to the rest of Canada, wayy more normalized.

Having Shane be playing in this city, inside a bubble of strict hockey culture and homophobia adds such a level of heartbreak to it for me. He is so alone in his queer experience, when he’s living in a place where he could so easily have such a vibrant community around him if it weren’t for culture of the league. Shane not being able to ever really feel comfortable and connected in Montreal adds such a layer of isolation to his experience, because he probably sees all this acceptance and queer joy within the city and he knows that because of his passion he’s not aloud to join in.

I Have Thoughts About Ilya’s Family, Yuna Hollander, and the Amazing Rose and Svetlana

This is a long post that may contain Heated Rivalry spoilers.

I’m almost positive that this is the first time, on this blog I’ve had since 2022, I’ve expounded heavily on a Western show like Heated Rivalry. I created this blog specifically to write about Asian dramas.

I’m Asian-American. When I watch Asian dramas, my Asian brain and heart are always looking for themes I can connect with – themes like filial piety, saving face, family structures, and intergenerational trauma.

(One of my very favorite shows from Thailand, Bad Buddy, featured a strong narrative framework of intergenerational trauma, filial piety, and saving face – and is a rivals-to-lovers show that I highly recommend to anyone watching Heated Rivalry at the moment.)

After yesterday’s fantastic episode five of Heated Rivalry, I want to take a moment to write about what I see are some important themes of intergenerational trauma in Heated Rivalry that I think the show is working with wonderfully.

Yuna Hollander, Shane’s Family, the MLH/NHL, and Hockey Culture

Yuna Hollander is the kind of Asian parent that I would normally have started writing about by the end of episode one in an Asian drama series. I’ve read Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series in full now, so I held myself back to talk about Yuna, knowing, generally, what’s coming down the pike with her.

(Source: @firstprinced)

But just to make a few quick notes about her: Yuna is

1) an Asian mom,
2) a HOCKEY mom, and
3) an ASIAN HOCKEY mom.

For context, I have children of my own, and I was advised STRONGLY, early in my motherhood, to specifically NOT become a hockey mom. Why?

The schedules of lessons and practices are brutal for hockey parents. Practices can start at 5:30 am. You have to drive to a rink that may be far away from where you live. You have to deal with expensive gear, and kids growing out of that expensive gear. The fear of safety for your child regarding head and other physical injuries. Tough coaches, long games, longer road trips, demanding and brutal schedules. And that’s just for pre-amateur leagues, nothing professional. If your child is a talented player, as Shane Hollander and Scott Hunter were as children, they might be scouted as early as their early teenage years. Their entire lives will revolve around hockey, and a hockey parent will have to adjust THEIR life around their child’s schedule.

What does being an Asian mom mean as I work to understand Yuna Hollander? As I write about really often, there are some safe generalizations I can make about Asian family structures across dramas from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and elsewhere. Patriarchy is often king, but strong mothers certainly abound. Filial piety is very often expected of children, and frameworks of filial piety can explain decisions made by main characters to acquiesce to their parents that may be inexplicable to a Western audience. In other words, when we as Westerners expect an Asian main character to act more individualistically, they may actually not do so, as they are Asian, and may take more into consideration a parent’s demands or perspective, from the frameworks of collectivism and/or filial piety.

(In Bad Buddy, Pran, managing his mother’s expectations and his devotion to his mother, is an excellent example of demonstrating this kind of behavior.)

Yuna – the Asian hockey mom – is Shane’s manager. She’s cutting him deals, she’s making sure he’s fulfilling his contracts. After his huge hit, he convalesces at his parents’ house. Shane lunches with his parents before big games and big moments, and Yuna piles on the expectations and questions.

Shane’s an only child, devoted to his parents. But – AND – he’s also following what Yuna has designed for him. He wouldn’t have been able to grow up as a major hockey prospect if it weren’t for Yuna’s total devotion to his career.

I say all this, because Shane’s coming out to Rose held something significant, besides the incredible act of coming out. Shane, of course, has not yet come out to his parents. And he hasn’t come out to hockey – to the hockey culture that he was raised in – and is expected, by Yuna, by his teammates, by management, by the fans, to participate in wholly, with the power of his entire professional and personal life.

Yuna raised him to be a hockey prospect, but also to participate in a pre-established culture of professional hockey that, at this moment of the show, has not welcomed out gay players yet.

Yuna has Shane organized as a full-bodied participant in hockey culture. Outside of Shane’s contracts, his on-ice play, his relationships with his teammates, his macrobiotic diet, Shane rebels. He rebels when he’s alone with Ilya, when he escapes the confines of a hotel room shared with Hayden. It stresses Shane out to hell and back, but that’s how he needs to express himself vis à vis his otherwise repressed sexuality. It’s how gay hockey players in real life have previously needed to behave to save their hockey careers.

Gay pro hockey player Brock McGillis lived ‘Heated Rivalry’ - Outsports

Shane, up until the very end of episode five, is bearing the weight of intergenerational expectations from his mother and from professional hockey, to live by their established cultural standards and rules, and to not rock any boats. He’s literally, in so many deals, contracted to not cross any lines. The fact that Shane’s mother – again, a woman that Shane is otherwise totally devoted to – is the conduit to making Shane’s career happen, besides his talent, is, I think, a very important Asian story that the show highlights really well. Shane, by Yuna and by the MLH, is expected to only toe lines – not to cross them.

(Source: the wonderful @rozanovs)

Ilya’s Family

I said yesterday that I think episode five eclipsed the book, in my opinion, and what we saw of Ilya’s family in yesterday’s episode was perhaps the biggest example of this feeling of mine. I absolutely LOVED what the show did with Ilya and Alexei, which was a departure from the book.

(Source: @thebitchesterbrothers)

Ilya left Russia to play professional hockey in America, against his father’s wishes. What the deal is with Alexei’s lifelong beef with is with Ilya, we don’t quite know. What we do know is that Alexei has hated Ilya for all of Ilya’s life, and they share a mother – a much younger mother to Ilya’s and Alexei’s father – who is now dead. We also learn, in episode five, that Alexei credits himself with taking care of Ilya’s father in his dying days – a claim that could be arguably refuted from the phone scene in episode four, with Ilya berating Alexei for leaving his father alone and confused.

I can’t claim to know Russian cultural family structures and standards. But disregarding a younger sibling wholly, while expecting, AT THE SAME TIME, that younger sibling to provide constant financial support, is something that I, as an Indian, can really fucking relate to. At least in my Indian culture, if a younger sibling has made a life-changing decision against the wishes of elders, that sibling can be totally written off within the family structure as a nobody, all while still being expected to financially and emotionally provide for the older members of the family. I know this from experience.

While I question the validity of Alexei’s statement that he took care of his father, I understand Ilya’s feelings of guilt regarding his father’s last days. Ilya, in all other circumstances, never failed to show up for his father. Ilya spent summers taking care of his dad, seemingly without Alexei present. Ilya showed up to the Sochi events in 2014 to make his father look good and proud, despite his father’s continued complaints and berating.

And before his father’s death, in a hotel room in Tampa Bay, Ilya says that he can’t go back to Russia if he lives a life where Shane is his partner. In that moment, Russia is still a bitter part of Ilya’s life – which makes it all the more remarkable that Ilya makes his first confession of love to Shane while still in Russia.

(Source: @thatonekimgirl)

Ilya is inextricably tied to his family. He isn’t necessarily trying to completely run away from them. He certainly came to America to play hockey, as opposed to playing in Russia, because he KNEW he had to get away, physically. But, emotionally, he’s still very tied to Russia and to his family – and he carries the baggage of his family’s and his country’s expectations of him. When Shane climbs into his lap to comfort him in Tampa Bay, Ilya finds himself in a moment where he is FINALLY being CARED FOR by…. someone else. Anyone else. Instead of needing to care for himself.

Ilya, in his confession to Shane, realizes that he’s had these feelings for Shane for a while. His charmed-off-his-ass look when Shane reveals that he’s hired a stylist is an off-the-charts moment of adoration. Ilya’s tremendous fear for Shane’s health after the hit on the ice, and in the hospital room, just give that away more. Ilya is BUCKING the accusations from his family that he’s a lazy nobody. Ilya is a deeply caring person, who knows the immense amount of work he needs to put in to keep his love for Shane safe and growing.

In that hospital room, Ilya is hesitant about their future. After Scotty Hunter’s insane moment on center ice – Ilya is certain. He will move forward, away from the intergenerational expectations of his family, his country, and his culture, to forge a new path forward with Shane.

Rose and Svetlana as Lovers, Friends, and Allies

What the show is doing with Rose and Svetlana – especially with Svetlana, who is quite different from her book characterization – is just GREAT.

Rose and Svetlana represent the new generation of friends and allies in Shane’s and Ilya’s lives. They do NOT carry expectations of Shane and Ilya. Rose and Svetlana are THERE AND PRESENT. NEITHER OF THEM hold against Shane and Ilya that Shane and Ilya don’t want relationships with them. BOTH OF THEM hold mirrors to Shane and Ilya, to help the two young men recognize their own feelings and their own truths.

(Source: @magnusedom)

THIS IS HUGE. Parents should be nurturing and reflective just like this, right?

Well, but. Yuna and Grigori HAVE THEIR EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR CHILDREN, and they have put those expectations on their children without hesitation.

(I hate to put them together in this comparison, but I have to do it just for this point.)

Rose and Svetlana have no such expectations for their lovers.

In fact, both Rose and Svetlana are like, HEY GUYS, what exactly is your own truth?

AND WE WILL BE HERE TO SUPPORT YOU IN YOUR TRUTH.

Rose wants her and Shane to be total besties after Shane’s coming out. Svetlana pulls Ilya out of almost every uncomfortable scenario he’s in with his family members. These ladies STAND ON BUSINESS in protecting their friends.

(Source: @maxanor)

And I think that framework – especially in comparison to how the main parents behave in this show – is so generationally brilliant for Heated Rivalry to focus on.

BECAUSE: the show is meant to depict and to encourage CHANGE. Hockey culture needs to change. Parents need to change. Social change will come with generational shifts.

And Rose and Svetlana represent generational change. After we see Rose and Svetlana supporting their boys, we can ask: at this point, why the fuck ISN’T there an out gay hockey player? We WILL have support for that player amongst an ever-diversifying fan base for professional hockey. No one’s sexuality fucking matters when you’re trying to win games.

Rose and Svetlana are both saying to Shane and Ilya: JUST BE YOU. Be happy. That kind of unconditional support is exactly what Shane and Ilya need to propel them to move forward, together, in their lives.

The show tells us that we need Scotty Hunter on the ice with his Kip to move hockey culture forward. But what I really am loving about this show is that it’s also saying: we need the social dinosaurs to get out of the way, so that people of ALL kinds can be accepted into hockey, and into society, with open arms.

Shane and Ilya represent love, of course, but also growth and change. I love that the show tells us that they can’t necessarily do it alone – and that they WON’T do it alone, with the support of baddies like Rose and Svetlana.

HAPPY IDES OF MARCH!

Ceasar, probably:

Getting really annoyed with all the reviewers on youtube who think they’re defending the show by insisting that it is good in spite of the sex, and that it would be just as good or better if all the sex were censored.

You want to praise Ilya for how good he is at pulling Shane out of panic attacks, but you want to erase the reason he got so good at it in the first place. Ilya would never have learned how to talk Shane down from his freakout at the awkward family dinner in episode 6 if he hadn’t put so much attention and effort into gently coaxing Shane out of his sexual comfort zone with his fingers in Shane’s asshole in episode 1.

Sex is a form of self-expression. Sex is a form of interpersonal communication. Sex is part of the human experience. Sexual stories deserve to be told.

Shane and Ilya’s emotional connection was built on a sexual foundation. Their sexual history is inextricable from their romantic narrative. Their love story is beautiful because of the sex, not in spite of it.

Censorship is bad, actually.

that all star game and that kiss on the cheek must have been like cocaine to hockey stans who are hollanov truthers in the heated rivalry universe

Ooh, I have just the fic for you! Fans on Twitter and Instagram stanning MLH (the in-universe acronym for the NHL, because Jacob doesn’t want to get sued) and hockey players. Some of them are hockey RPF types, although there are a lot more Shayden shippers than Hollanov shippers (clearly Jackie Pike is a beard).

It’s called “MLH Tracker” and it’s by Summerblood (no idea if they’re also on Tumblr).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/76151716

It’s mostly fans on social media gossiping, making fun of the players, and sharing unhinged theories. But sprinkled throughout are text exchanges between “Jane” and “Lily” whenever Ilya does anything particularly noteworthy on social media. Because of course he’s a chaos demon in every aspect of life, even online.

HEATED RIVALRY | THE COTTAGE (1.06)

i do freaking LOVE the opening part of the ASG hotel scene. i cannot get enough of shane marching in there with a Mission. so brave and so determined to say how he’s feeling even though he knows ilya might not take it well given ilya’s history of freaking out over stuff like this. i know we are going to dig into shane’s Issues in fic (which is good and right) but i just think that in so many ways this kid just radiates good emotional health and that is ultimately why these crazy kids are able to work it out. ilya would’ve spent the rest of his life tying himself into knots over all the things he wants and won’t allow himself to have (real intimacy, real trust, real vulnerability). but when he was 19 years old he picked shane hollander to come onto in the showers, just for fun, and shane hollander turned out to be just like, the steadiest, most trustworthy person, someone who would spend the next decade of their lives together being like i think i see who you really are, i think i see the person you want to be, and i think i could love that person if you’re brave enough to be him. and since i know it’s hard for you i’ll go first. i’ll be brave first. so you know you’re safe with me. it makes me emo!!!!!!!

like let’s watch the first part of this scene together. it’s so beautiful. shane marches in looking like the man standing still emoji with his arms at his sides lol like i am going to Say My Piece!!! ilya is IMMEDIATELY on the defensive. he won’t even fully come into the room lol he’s just lurking in the doorway ready to engage in FIGHT OR FLIGHT. then when shane asks him to he sort of half leans against the desk so he can still maintain a safe distance from shane and proximity to the door (babe you’re in your own hotel room where are you gonna go). you can tell he 1000% thinks shane is here to break things off for good. which is fine. that’s totally fine with ilya. ilya does not care. he already made sure to tell shane about the hundreds of women in boston who are lined up wanting to get a piece of ilya rozanov, so like, it’s fine. it’s so cool. he’s so cool and relaxed in his skintight black tank which he totally didn’t put on because he knows how hot shane finds his upper body. he’s so cool and relaxed he’ll take a minute to sort of angle his body away from shane and mess with something on the desk just to show how totally at ease he is in this situation in which shane is going to break off a thing ilya doesn’t even care that much about. and then SHANEEEE sweet BABY says the first honest or brave thing these two men have ever said to each other, which is also, in typical shane hollander fashion, him offering ilya a bid for connection: “it’s not just me, right?” ilya swats that down RIGHT away he is NOT going to connect with shane until he knows what’s going on here. not just you WHAT. purposefully indifferent. shane: you feel it too, don’t you? ilya disdainfully: feel what? shane, being SOOO genuinely brave in the face of all ilya’s avoidant attachment defense mechanisms activating: last time we were together… it was different. ilya [absolutely determined to wreck this to protect himself]: what was different? you were annoying? at this point i’m clawing at my face because surely shane is going to give up??? but NO. shane hollander has decided to make something happen at any cost and that something is making ilya rozanov sit still and listen to shane tell him how he really feels. WOOF. ilya spends this entire first part of the conversation trying to steer them back towards this is meaningless and shane is repeatedly like no. not this time. i am calling bullshit!!!!

Shane is so brave here! And relentless.

We all joke about Ilya’s bisexual terminator stare in the club scene in the previous episode. But Shane is giving gay terminator vibes in this scene. He absolutely will not stop until Ilya admits this thing between them now means more to both of them than it was ever supposed to.

Ilya Rozanov giving off the needy, whiny top representation is so real to me. Tries to be stern but folds like a fuckin house of cards the second Shane does anything remotely cute

Sporfle! Does Shane realize the power he wields? And will he use it for good or evil?

🔪 knife stop 🔪

Take a knife or two to complete any tasks you need to finish soon. Reblog to give your mutuals a knife for any group projects you may be working on

It’s ALMOST TIME!

Today’s the day!

HEATED RIVALRY
1.05 / 1.06

Oh, I never noticed this before. In the second gif, when Shane is in hospital, Ilya is tracing the freckles on his cheek.

Wow!

I don’t want this to come out wrong because I am in no way trying to imply that the men of HR aren’t absolutely ripped to hell and back and objectively, stereotypically, conventionally attractive.

THAT SAID. I love that the show doesn’t insist on making them look like inhuman action figures. I love love love that we get them in poses and positions and actions and angles that yes, 100% to be clear are very hot, but also are more real and relaxed than most mainstream media will show.

We get body hair, we get stretch marks, we get not flexed to within an inch of their life relaxed, less than conventionally flattering positions (slouched, leaning over, etc).

Also, and I’m even more hesitant to say this because again these men are absolutely shredded and stunning. But they also aren’t usually giving about to die of dehydration, roided up, uncanny valley built. They look like (very conventionally attractive) actually human men. I think that’s half of why they’re so sexy to watch and also kind of healing after so many years of marvel style men on screen.

Idk I want to praise their actual human looking bodies without implying they aren’t obviously insanely and unholy shredded. Like it’s crazy that men that perfect can be considered refreshingly real looking but compared to what we’ve been getting from Hollywood the past decade or two, I mean, yeah.

It reminds me of action heroes and heartthrobs from like the 80s and 90s where they look like hottest guy you’ve ever met, but not a lab-made creature that’s kind of uncannily perfect.

Edit: Just to be very super clear. Connor and Hudson do not have realistic portrayals of male bodies. In the sense that like, they are models who famously were working out an absurd amount of the time and sticking to crazy diets and stuff. Ilya and Shane are portrayed in a refreshingly realistic way in comparison to the current Hollywood norm but I think it’s super critical to point out that they are insane levels of ripped. I’m just saying this because I’m scared it will turn into Jason Mamoa dad bod thing where everyone was praising his body positivity and he had a visible 8 pack. Okay sorry not to be preachy. Just…realistic portrays of the hottest dudes ever that still look like human beings.

Having grown up in Canada, being forced to watch hockey, I’d say Connor and Hudson actually have more upper body definition than the average pro hockey player. Post game interviews are often conducted shirtless in the locker room, for some reason.

Connor and Hudson have the bubble butts and powerful thighs I associate with hockey players. But more defined abs and biceps. Presumably because Connor and Hudson, as actors, were working out at least partly for aesthetics, and pro athletes are primarily focusing on what workouts help them do their job most efficiently.

Mercifully, they don’t look like the dehydrated Marvel superheroes. And I hope they won’t go overboard for S2. And I hope Jacob Tierney’s direction in S2 continues to include them standing in unflattering positions (slouching, etc) while naked or partly naked.

Because that’s a big part of what makes these incredibly fit men look like real, vulnerable human beings despite being so ripped. In Marvel movies, the superhero characters never stand or sit in a way that isn’t aesthetically pleasing.

I remember there was one particular scene early on that made me realize Jacob Tierney had a different approach as a director to the usual. Shane was slouching while naked (or wearing only underwear), and his tummy stuck out. And it was so normal!

Even though Hudson’s body isn’t “normal”, the character was uncertain. So Shane was slouching in a way that didn’t make him look perfect. And there were other instances where both Shane and Ilya were shirtless and in unflattering positions. But it was filmed anyway.

Also, whoever in makeup decided NOT to cover Hudson’s stretch marks, blessings be upon you! Real bodies include stretch marks.

Self-Reblogging to add a link to another post which shows us gifs of both Ilya and Shane being shredded. But nonetheless slumped in unflattering ways with their tummies sticking out. Instead of always trying to show off their six pack abs.

Tumblr

You feel it too, don’t you?

From a Canadian, yes. Sounds about right.

Growth. Growth is often acutely painful, but necessary.

Also, both GIFs are reminding me of a line I read once. “His eyes were dark shipwrecked seas.” Which I thought must be from a book, but I DuckDuckGoed it and got nowhere. So maybe it’s from a fanfic in some old fandom of mine.

We did not notice! That is a fun detail. Ilya has one cold weather beanie, it’s also his Shane Hollander beanie, and that’s adorable.

It’s a toque, goddamnit!

Sorry, Canadian here. Kneejerk reaction. And Ilya is on a path to Canadian citizenship, so he should be calling it a toque.

If he’s had the toque he wore the first time he met Shane’s beautiful freckles since he was 17, it’s probably pretty tattered by now.

It really says something that a lot of monogamous people consider polyamorous and aromantic to be “opposites” but every polyam person I know took one look at aromantics and said “they’re just like me for real”

Poly folks x aro folks in the sense that “alloromantic heterosexual monogamous people view love and sex as an entirely different entity than me, and that makes life kinda strange”

Moments on Film: The Delicate Fearlessness of Hudson Williams’s Performance

I am in awe of Hudson Williams’s delicately nuanced and fearless performance as Shane Hollander. He is so adept at making us feel what Shane has written on his heart. His face and his reactions in the intimate scenes are so exposed and truthful.

The bathroom scene had me literally leaning in the first time I saw it. He nails the anger, frustration, longing, adoration, and desire perfectly. He disarms Ilya in this scene with the raw honestly of his emotions. Looking into his weepy eyes does something to Ilya. As much as he tries, he can’t fight it and responds to Shane physically. Williams as Shane is completely unafraid to be entirely vulnerable and let himself be in the moment and to let himself be affected by Ilya and the intimacy they are sharing together. That push and pull is the mark of a real actor.

The emotions we are able to read on his face while he watches Ilya win the Stanley Cup are stunning. He’s having such a strong reaction and yet he has to tamp it all down because he’s in public, and we can understand it all.

The scene with his mom is utterly gorgeous.

When Ilya and he tell each other they love each other, Ilya’s emotions and his tears touch Shane and cause a visceral reaction. They feel like one soul here. Because when you really love someone, their joy is your joy. Their pain is your pain. Seeing them cry makes you cry too. He embodied this perfectly.

He is so truthful in his emotions. It feels bold and powerful.

Ilya tells him “you’re brave’ and we as an audience completely agree. It’s been there since their first interaction.

Such beautiful work.

©️moments-on-film 2026

In honor of the Ides of March approaching, here’s the trash can I wrote on 2 years ago and only touch up in March

It’s heeeeere. The long awaited day has finally arrived. My knife is sharpened, what about yours?

sexually inexperienced shane assuming he & ilya’s incredibly romantic sex is probably totally normal and he’s just particularly bad at handling hookups while an extremely sexually fluent ilya privately and repeatedly spirals over how Not Casual their sex is and how little control he has over it. poetry

shane doesn’t have enough experience to know better BUT ILYA has waaaaay too much experience not to!!!! which makes all of his behavior with shane when they’re bumpin SO scrumptious because while yes i do believe he’s a great and attentive sexual partner in general, i don’t believe for a SECOND that he ever fucks ANYBODY like he fucks shane. with that level of reverence? possessiveness? hunger and curiosity and delight and agony all at once? nah. if he was looking at all of his hookups like that before he was even inside of them he would have like 500 children

#shane spiraling beating himself up for fixating on the soft touches and kisses#thinking he’s like that with everyone#no baby#you are working all his knots loose and you don’t even know it#you are pulling him up by the roots#for him it’s you all the way down [@fuckrozanov]

Same scene, two different takes [S01E05 - S01E01]
Was is different with a guy?[..] Was it better?
Should we call this the ‘odyssey of recollection’ ?

very interesting to me, this little change Jacob (or connor?) made - canonically in the book ilya hasn’t cried in like 10 years. it isn’t until he’s on the phone after his father dies that it seems like he might for the first time, though it’s not explicitly stated he does in fact cry on the phone with shane. yet in the show he sobs into shane’s arms. the change in the show is so… unbelievably powerful if you have the context. it’s powerful regardless, obviously, possibly one of the best moments in the ep.

HOWEVER…… if I am to believe show Ilya also has not cried in 10 years… and then after he has finally admitted to himself how much he cares about shane, and when shane has acknowledged verbally that he feels it too, then ilya finally feels safe enough to let it all go and cry. to stop holding everything together. to let himself be truly vulnerable and seen and held in a way literally no one has done for him (not even sveta, even though she probably would if he let her)

the second shane holds him, he crumbles. i’m so glad we got that moment, got to see this and have it be in person when he can actually be held