I THINK LOVE IS SOMETHING / THAT HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE - Michael Gray Bulla // Heated Rivalry

Boy boy boy boy

the "i don't think i can keep pretending that i don't like you" / "you don't like me" [delivered immediately and with the total confidence of a guy who knows he's a piece of shit because his dad spent his whole life telling him that] exchange kills me. then i am resurrected and killed AGAIN by the way the camera frames shane's little double-take at that. i feel like shane has never really glimpsed ilya's shame up close before and i wonder if seeing that little moment of reflexive self-hatred is unlocking something for him about ilya

"I CANT HANDLE THIS" *handles this*

"I CANT TAKE ANOTHER DAY" *takes another day*

"Love your neighbors more than your government"

Sticker spotted in Savannah, Georgia

A government that won’t protect your neighbors is a government that shouldn’t exist.

Miles Teller as Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) dir. Joseph Kosinski

enjoying my pasta #mypasta

I just finished this one I hope y'all like it🙏

“I ate an edible last night” yeah I did too you dumb fuck it’s called food for dinner

Got the early morning call didn't have chance to get out of jammies

Connor Storrie arriving at NBC's studios for his appearance on The Late Night with Seth Meyers

I appreciate how honest Heated Rivalry is about how sex is not this thing thing that is perfectly divided from the rest of our lives, even in situations that everyone acts like it is, and when most people would even think it’s inappropriate or unrealistic for it to overlap.

Ilya is friends with Svetlana but they casually have sex sometimes. When Shane is freaking out about his dad catching them he self-soothes by crouching and nuzzling Ilya’s dick. After Ilya cries in the Tampa hotel, and Shane comforts him, it’s implied they follow that with their typical passionate and filthy sex. When Ilya is in Russia for his dad’s funeral, and probably experiencing all of the grief and regret and resentment and pain that comes with that and with seeing his family, he initiates phone sex with Shane.

Some of these examples are more extreme than others but they all depict sex overlapping with the nonsexual, and what most believe should remain nonsexual. Friendship shouldn’t be sexual. Panic shouldn’t be sexual. Despair shouldn’t be sexual. Grief shouldn’t be sexual.

But in real life, sex is not neatly divided from all other human experiences. It especially isn’t for queer people, who not only tend to be more open-minded about sex and sexuality, obviously, but also by virtue of being queer now have sex and sexuality interwoven into all other areas of their life, including their fears, their pain, their trauma, their grief, their regret, etc.

Obviously, some of this is probably just because it’s a romance or because Reid wanted to write smut. But in the tv show, it’s depicted so naturally and at times it’s so raw and it feels so real to me. I think some people probably find it unrealistic or worse, think it in some way taints these other scenes that in a different show wouldn’t have been given a trace of anything sexual, but I think it’s so smart and I’m grateful for it. It’s reflective of real life, especially queer real life.

I really don’t think anyone but a gay man in complete control of the show would have allowed Shane to self-soothe that way. He gets it.

The thing with Heated Rivalry is, we’re going to see a flurry of attempts to recreate its magic. But that’s impossible. The strange alchemy of it. The right story at the right time. A rabid loyal existing fanbase. The perfect cast. The perfect showrunner. A rabid loyal *new* fanbase via naturally viral social media. In dozens of media exec offices right now they’re frantically scrambling to figure out what the market wants. Hockey? Sports? Gay? Romance? Rivalry? Butts? It’s all of these things. It’s none of these things. You cannot bottle the lightning.