ok i know so much has been said about this already but i'm rewatching heated rivalry after reading the books and the club scene absolutely gives challengers a run for its money. the show is obviously good before then but THAT to me is the turning point of oh shit, this is art. everyone involved in this production is cooking.

and THIS is what you get when you fully commit to taking a story seriously even at its most absurd points, when you don't shy away from the emotions you're trying to convey, when you fully immerse the audience in the world you're building and put them in the characters' heads and make bold choices with the style and direction and acting. when you have the actors make eye contact with the viewer while they're getting off as if they're looking at each other then cut to black

i think a lot of media these days suffers from protecting itself with self-conscious winks at the camera, trying to be in on the joke in case viewers make fun of it. actually, assuming they will. but audiences can sense that. and when you make something without apologizing for it or deciding it's cringe from the start or trying to win people over in advance, turns out you're able to say a lot more.

and it sticks with people. it makes people wanna buy the source books, read them in a week and then rewatch your 6 episodes for details they might've missed. when you say trust me, come along for this ride, that confidence can pay off big.

Okay I’m officially taking the word ‘toxic’ off the fucking table. No one is allowed to use it until you silly hetero fucks understand the difference between closeted queer relationships and open heterosexual ones.

I’ve said it at least four times, I’m going to say it again:

Ilya and Shane are not ‘toxic’.

To assign that label to their relationship is to ignore literally every other piece of context the show is giving you. You don’t have to have read the books or know their inner monologues to pick up on the extremely obvious text and subtext the show is presenting you.

Neither one of them are privy to the other’s thoughts and emotions because neither of them can effectively communicate them. They are trapped by their respective circumstances, and never once did they specify they were anything other than a casual hookup, until the very end of the season one.

Ilya does not ‘use’ Shane. Shane is not an object, he’s a character that is,

1. A grown man

2. Has his own agency

3. Has control over his sexual desire and sexual actions, despite how ‘submissive’ you might read him to be. Both Shane and Ilya have equal power in their relationship and that’s what draws them to each other.

Shane is also by no stretch of the imagination, ‘feminine’ just because he bottoms.

That’s homophobic, misogynistic, and a racist microaggression. Do better.

Your understanding of relationships and monogamy is completely skewed by heteronormativity, and it shows.

In your 20s, you'll feel like you're losing the race. It's important to understand that there is no race.

All my long books im hoping to finish through 2026)

I think it’s incredibly fucked how capitalism discourages learning for learning’s sake. People will have interests they’ve spent years researching then say it’s “useless knowledge” bc it didn’t go towards a college degree and isn’t part of their job. Learning is never useless! Your brain is growing and developing throughout your whole life! People would never have epiphanies or sudden lightening strikes of creativity if they weren’t learning new things! That goes double for topics like science, politics, and history, which inform your understanding of the world you live in!