Another great thing about Heated Rivalry on the meta-meta level is the fact that Connor Storrie has so many moles. Because in my native language the word for mole is literally mother’s mark and we have this folk believe that they represent your mother’s love for you. Because it “leaves marks on you”.
That means that Ilya is covered head to toe in physical embodiments of his mother’s love for him. He has so many moles, he is so loved.
And there is no way this could’ve been an active casting decision, because why would it be? It just shows that Connor Storrie was destined to play mama’s boy Ilya Rozanov
(And don’t even get me started on the big mole on his cheek, that is like prime cheek kissing location)
When does the play close? When its “action” stops? But does not that include, at least to some degree, the curtain call (which, of course, the actors rehearse)? For at this point the actors appear before us only partly as their “real” selves. They remain partly, and significantly, still “in character,” retaining mannerisms, perhaps, of the characters they have been playing. Who are they, then, at this point? Hamlet is not the prince (for he is dead), but he is certainly not the actor who played the prince either. He does not laugh or caper about as a man might who has scored (in the soccer fashion) a success. He may smile, wanly, as befits one recently slain; he may take (ruefully?) the hands of his no less “dead” opponent Claudius; he may even embrace the long-dead Ophelia. Is not this still acting? (The actor “playing” himself-as-actor.) Is not this part of the action? […] It is the point, in short, at which we see the “edge” of the play before it disappears entirely.
from terence hawkes, “telmah,” in shakespeare and the question of theory (1985)
Ordinarily I would not even approach the Big M/M Media Thing Of The Month Discourse with a ten-foot pole and would be content to watch from the sidelines and obviously I think people should read or watch whatever they want and have a great time but I saw this and I just think “I don’t want to read or watch women suffer so we can try simply not watching women at all” is insane
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
i’m not kidding we need to stop conceding the point that it’s weird in the first place for women to be into gay romance/porn/etc. it’s driving me up the wall that every attempt i see at thoughtful/nuanced Social Commentary on the matter begins with “lots of people don’t understand why women would be into this, BUT here’s a list of Special Reasons that this appeals to the Feminine Gaze” as if this is not just reinforcing the premise that there is some fundamental & universal split between how men & women experience desire. imagine how much more productive our conversations could be if we instead started with “lots of people don’t understand why women would be into this. why? what assumptions are those people making to begin with about women?”
