Bill's fang earring

and one of my favorite things about your stories besides the amount of effort and care and thought you put into each of the characters to make sure they come of as real and have their own unique narratives (the work your putting in really comes through in your writing and makes your works so fun and engaging and fulfilling to read)

and just how incredibly well you tackle complex themes and ideas and just never present a simple solution and instead make the reader sit with your work and just fully acknowledge how fucked up the situation is and then draw real life parallels to our own world is literally so fucking good, you don’t even understand

sorry i got sidetracked and also used a lot of ands so double sorry if that made it hard to read

anyway what i wanted to say is that i love that you fully recognize that shane transferring to ottawa is not a happy ending. i think a lot of people acknowledge shane’s right to be angry and have lingering trauma about the metros, but that’s also usually side by side with (or sometimes the exclusive sentiment is) the ‘oh! he gets to be with ilya now on a team that’ll accept him so everything’s sunshine and rainbows!! <3’

i haven’t seen anyone else straight up go ‘hey. that shouldn’t have happened. the metros should not have been able to force out shane fucking hollander and shane should’ve been able to stay with the metros if that was what he wanted. he should’ve been granted a choice.’

i just think it’s so important to recognize that shane should’ve been able to choose where he was going to play. that the lack of choice is really just an extension of being forced out of a space that he used to belong in, it’s a reminder that he’s been othered so he should be grateful that he has any options to begin with. and that’s just something he’ll have to live with that

also maybe it’s just me but one of my instant turn offs that’s unfortunately really popular in this fandom is when shane’s characterized to not have been a good captain, as never wanting to be, or not liking his role as captain - or when he’s written to have never gotten along with any of the other metros ever (which makes no sense cause why would he choose to come out to them??)

just anything that creates a narrative to soften the blow of shane being forced out of the metros by turning it into ‘well he didn’t actually like it there and is probably really happy to have left’

i just think it diminishes his feelings on the situation. like personally i would be so fucking angry to begin with but i’d also probably be grieving. and also shit was just happening to this man. he had such limited agency when it came to the situation with the metros and i just really hate how that’s usually completely glossed over or simplified

so i really fucking appreciate you going no. it’s not fucking fair or right that shane has to be the one to leave, and then actually exploring his relationship to the metros (and montreal) in a nuanced way that acknowledges that the situation is actually really fucking complex. that man has been a part of that organization and a staple in that city since he was a teenager, chances are he has some attachment to it - so even if he was happy to get to be with ilya year round and play on the cens, he was probably still feeling some type of way about the metros - because guess what? emotions are not neat and tidy and you can’t just move away from the source of you conflicting feelings to make those feelings go away.

so, yeah, you’re creating some really amazing writing with some really fucking amazing character analysis so thank you for putting it out into the world <3

(sorry for this being so absurdly long, i really didn’t mean for it to be - it got away from me and i got too attached to cut anything)

I have never fucked with an ask harder in my entire life. Anon, you are speaking my entire language.

So, full disclaimer, I know the Ottawa ending is very popular with a lot of readers, and not every story is going to be my cup of tea. That is okay. Not every story is written for me, and that is totally fine, I get that. If you like the ending of the long game, I fully respect that, but maybe skip this post, because I did not like it and I don’t have super charitable things to say about it.

My less generous interpretation is that heated rivalry is so compelling *because* the love story is made more electric with bdsm, but it’s intentionally made more commercially successful through plausible deniability to not alienate/scandalize a wider audience. Dog whistling if you will, while cloaking some of the more misunderstood aspects of kink in scenes like the Vegas bathroom / penthouse with a level of emotional turmoil that gives viewers a way to opt out of (and in some cases, blame) the bdsm of it all.

So there’s one reading of those scenes where Ilya & Shane are roleplaying to artificially mask their true desire to be more emotionally vulnerable with each other. Like playing dress up to make things less intimate / real. It’s hot but it’s keeping their hearts safe. Reid’s Vegas bonus/blog chapter makes reading this scene a bit blurry, and I find it fascinating that she decided to include it/release it after the book was published — did she feel pressure to clarify that Ilya was actually acting out of fear in those scenes? Did that justify his particular flavor of sadism in that moment? I think that’s where the plausible deniability comes in.

Because for people who appreciate the sadism in those scenes, the way Ilya is acting feels more intimate than not. He’s trying to understand Shane and himself and the ways in which they are sparking this hunger thats gnawing gnashing growling inside them; when Ilya makes Shane pout and cry and Ilya hears the quiver in his voice when Shane’s shouting back at him, it’s Ilya’s way of finding the crack in the shields they’ve both been using to keep themselves safe. His sadism is getting them closer, and Shane’s submission to it is accepting that, rewarding that sharpness from Ilya with a softness he shares back. It’s not a crutch to avoid emotional intimacy, it IS their intimacy.

But it’s also tangled up in the emotionally devastating reality of their circumstances, they can barely get to know each other because they’re separated by the homophobia & racism & the injustices of their career, countries, families, and their respective traumas navigating all of that. So they’re bonding through sex without enough of Everything Else — communication, hanging out, casual mutual enjoyment — to fully support each other as much as they each need, and they hurt each other in the process. This is true whether or not sadism is the main driver of the scene, as evidenced by Ilya’s botched tunamelt-his-heart scheme, so it’s a bit of a double standard to say that ilyas sadism is less intimate / mature / loving than his “softer” side. But by giving the Vegas scenes an unhappy ending (Ilya not knowing how to ask for less emotionally charged pillow talk from Shane, Shane not knowing how to ask Ilya for a sweet kiss goodbye), there is an escape hatch for anyone viewing who doesn’t enjoy / want to enjoy their D/s dynamics.

The plausible deniability extends to how ilyas sadism is portrayed throughout his narrative arc as well. His demeanor during Shane’s first time anal is portrayed as gentle and encouraging and then he ghosts Shane for six months and the next time they fuck he’s big bad wolf-ing it, and Shane thumps his head on the elevator door and deletes his we didn’t even kiss text. It’s Good Ilya vs Bad Ilya and the bad Ilya is also kinkier. And then towards the end of the story, the domming and sadism become less stereotypical, which is refreshing for viewers who are enjoying the breadth of that portrayal, but can be more easily ignored by anyone who doesn’t want it. Ilya forcing giving Shane a blowjob while he’s on the phone with Hayden is crackling with sadistic electricity, but there’s giggling and the sun is pouring through the windows and they’re at the cottage they’re endgame they’re about to tell each other I Love You and anyone who isn’t looking for bdsm there doesn’t have to see it.

— youre right, it’s not a neutral act to ignore the kink. I guess what I was getting at is that it DOES feel anti-kink to ignore it and also the entity doing much of the work towards that action feels like the source material itself.

Like don’t get me wrong I love how the book and tv series are both very show-not-tell about the kink but ALSO the story is narratively putting scenes in an order that make it feel like there’s an emotional arc from bad kinky sad sex (vegas) to good nonkinky happy sex (the cottage). Vegas bathroom is my favorite scene of the show followed by Vegas penthouse but im in the minority in large part because it ends on a sour note. And the cottage has my third favorite scene with the phone call blow job. So to ME the arc does not feel like it goes from bad kinky sex to good nonkinky sex but again I think I’m in the minority with that read. At least what I’ve seen with mainstream interpretations of how the overall cottage vibes feel to most folks.

which is that so much of the For Those Who Have Eyes To See reading of this as a D/s love story, and most of why i am like, so genuinely emotionally invested in it is that the journey is not from more kink to less kink. it's a journey from less emotional connectedness to more emotional connectedness, as seen through the lens of crazy hot sex. it's not that there's less D/s as things progress between them, any more than there's less sex! but the D/s becomes emotional rather than exclusively sexual. it's no longer just "i'm gonna order you to beg to be touched in this bathroom," it's also "i'm going to pet you while you crouch at my feet." which is like, crazy! never seen before onscreen kink content! and for those of us who are knowledgeable about and perhaps personally invested in dominance and submission as a lifestyle and a cornerstone of relationships, the second thing is actually arguably kinkier because it's not sexual, because it explicitly shows that dominance and submission are simply part of how they relate to and love each other (everything is hollanov TPE)

but the average person i think has literally no idea that D/s even can be non-sexual and has never thought of waht it could potentially mean to people on an emotional level for someone to dominate and someone to submit. and so as the sex becomes warmer and the whole relationship including and maybe especially the kink becomes as much romantic as it is sexual, it's harder and harder to see it. and people are viscerally uncomfortable with power exchange, so they don't want to see it, and the show makes (and possibly has to make, given the constraints of the media ecosystem) room for a reading of their love story as this hayes-code-esque "and then they fell in love so they had normal sex forever instead of weird kinky sex, which is something only people who don't care about each other would do" as opposed to what i see, which is "and then they fell in love, in large part because ilya's dominance and shane's submission ultimately lead them to feel emotionally comfortable with and deeply connected to one another, and just like everything else about their relationship it no longer has to be sexual for them to allow themselves to have each other"

When they think of doms, for example, they think of Christian Grey and his literary clones. Or the faceless stone tops that many characters get reduced to in the most shameless AO3 porn (not that there's anything wrong with that). They don't necessarily realize that the cold, brooding, humorless, borderline or actual rapist characterization is part of the BDSM fantasy and not a realistic portrayal.

So when they see Ilya Rozanov - who is warm and funny, attentive and loving, with a complicated emotional life, they can't match it up with their idea of what a dom is.

Outside of erotica, the closest most folks come to BDSM is in police procedurals. In those cases, they're usually victims and suspects, and they're always at the most visually extreme end of the experience so the straight-laced detectives can react to it. So you'll get a lot of bondage gear and latex suits and dominatrices with whips and so on.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but it means that when these folks see Shane and Ilya, and their lack of bondage gear or whips or anything like that and they think "oh no, they're totally vanilla." (Logistically speaking, these are characters who get to meet up four times a year. They're not going to waste time on complicated bondage set ups. And anything like whips or toys would be something they'd have to pack which risks discovery in many ways

They don't pick up on "more", or Ilya's penchant for gripping the back of Shane's neck to ground him - which he does even at the dinner table with Shane's PARENTS. Or Ilya spitting in Shane's hand. Or the slamming into the sofa during the montage. They do generally pick up on Vegas, but they look at it like a one-time thing and then equate the unhappy reactions afterward to the "strange" sex as opposed to the lack of aftercare.

Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!

Original

I wrote a master’s thesis on intentionally single people, and the number of them that said in various ways, “I didn’t know not dating people was even an option at first” was absolutely tragic. They honestly thought they had no choice and it never occurred to them that opting out was even a possibility available to them.  

People honestly believe these are life experience you are required to have AND THEY ARE NOT.

Now take this logic and apply it to things like ADHD, autism, clinical depression, and other less visible/divergent disabilities. You cannot think your way out of feeling.

Finding all the paragraphs where you used some hyper-specific word more than once

Rearranging paragraphs that you swear you wrote in the right order but turned out to be totally backwards

Going for a walk, coming up with the perfect line, and forgetting it as soon as you get home and open your laptop

Creating a separate document where you can dump all of those nice sentences that no longer fit in anywhere