❝ 𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒 ❞

They had to get out of the sticky, briny tavern his instant because Shane needed to run his fingers over Ilya as soon as possible. He slammed the coins onto the table and stood up with the conviction of a newly invigorated man. “Would you like to keep speaking, or would you like to give me that tour now?”

Prince Shane Hollander of Montreal had always been under the control of everyone but himself. He is to hide everything: from the people he loves, to the powers he holds, out of fear of persecution from the wicked Empire. For one night that he grants himself, he is beholden to none other than the gorgeous stranger he meets in a tavern during his year-long exploration of the lands he is one day to rule. He allowed himself simply one night, to explore pleasures he had no idea existed with a man he is never to meet again.

Three years later, the Empire's most wanted pirate is chained before Shane, awaiting his execution in Montreal's dungeons, and Shane discovers that his indulgence was far more difficult to forget than he assumed.

you know what gets my heated? people who argue “not everything has to be true to the book 💯. connor isn’t as tall as book!ilya, hudson is korean-canadian, not japanese-canadian” as if those changes are IN ANY WAY COMPARABLE to making a character skinny who’s not skinny in the book. show!ilya is still a (ever so slightly less) tall, ripped jock. show!shane isn’t still wasian (and the average tv viewer isn’t gonna differentiate between ethnicity that diligently when it’s mostly ignored anyway and specificity is in no way important). but the average viewer can very well tell the difference between a conventionally attractive skinny man and a pudgy, clearly not athletic dude. it’s a dishonest argument and i hate it!

Like, maybe you shouldn’t blindly trust that a white man deeply entrenched in show business is not fatphobic?

I know people want to believe that members of marginalised groups are never biased. But gay male culture is ripe with fatphobia, ageism, ableism and misogyny.

There are actors who are chubby, queer and black. So maybe people should be a bit curious why only two out of those three adjectives apply to the person they chose.

ohh my god don't even get me started on the inherent fatphobia and racism entrenched in queer spaces, especially gay men's spaces.

i lowk feel like jacob wanted to cast a skinny white man, but because he knew he'd get backlash for that, he cast a queer black man instead, so he could dismiss the distaste for removing body type inclusivity as racism and have justice take most of the blame. ykw say what i will about rachel, making a chubby queer character the center of the focus of an mm romance was so rare at the time and the fact that its being erased just screams prejudice to me.

a reporter was so fucking weird about h he himself has said that he was almost fired over it. his big take away from that? he will no longer talk about hr to 'protect his peace'

a professional trade publication publicly salivating over the idea of ilya and scott as the lead couple on main? they just have a preference!

the fucking sumo wrestler 'joke'

what about having a humiliating photograph from high school blasted all over the internet? oh well, unfortunately the prime minister of your country has made you the poster boy for assimilation so you can't hop online to say yeah my hometown is a racist shithole, that was just another tuesday in k*mloops without damaging the international reputation of your country

I’m not worried.

#Heated Rivalry

it would make no difference whatsoever if the producers of heated rivalry issued a formal blanket statement to random internet commentators saying “hey racists on the internet! we see you being racist. stop it.” that would just give the racist trolls the attention they want (and don’t deserve) and pull focus from all the good things about the show.

there’s a phenomenon called “the Streisand effect” whereby you can unintentionally draw more attention to a thing by complaining about it (when it would’ve been ignorable/not-widely-known-about before, now it’s The Thing Everyone Talks About. So be careful what you take aim at. You might end up just giving something shitty free publicity and making it worse. Choose carefully which hill you die on. Remember: trolls thrive on attention. My advice? Don’t give it to them. Ignore. Block. Report. Repeat. Do not engage.)

That notes app “statement” that Francois Arnaud put out months ago that Hudson co-signed and everyone re-blogged? Did that do anything? No. It just let the trolls know they were being heard. And got the trolling written about in various mainstream publications. It put attention on a shitty thing and (if anything) made the trolls double down on their behavior because they knew their bullshit was getting through. It would have been much wiser to ignore all the social media negativity and keep focus on the good stuff. “Living well is the best revenge” and all that.

“I feel bad for you.”

“Funny, I don’t think about you at all.”

This is the way.

lmao what is this take??

yes i KNOW what the streisand effect is. if the solution to stopping racism was ignoring it then we would be living in a utopia, but only people who have experienced racism (aka poc) can really assign value to acknowledgement of racism occurring. without people ACKNOWLEDGING IT, people like you can brush it off as a small thing.

and the racism isn't just trolls! its everywhere!! from the actual heated rivalry insta account prioritizing connor in its posts before being called out to publications putting more of a focus on connor's upcoming projects, to the fucking CARROT INCIDENT?? there are microaggressions everywhere for those with eyes to see. the things is, its only easy to see if youre looking for them.

and this isn't to say that its connor's fault!! i love connor down and will also support him but its strange to think about WHY people hating on hudson always seem to support connor by himself. or (eugh for its parasociality) concois.

AND the statement by hudson and francois (also love him down) basically brought the racism to the forefront of the conversation while tierney didn't do much other than "it's important to have asian leads". like... yeah, jacob tierney. i could've told you that when i was five.

you’re so right omg. like i will never hate the transition from internalized homophobia to a fully realized queer person BUT your actions while inside the closet against those outside of it are not forgiven just because you have changed. like you have been redeemed but not forgiven which IS the nuance that both tierney and reid don’t understand with troy. the person on the other end can understand that troy has changed and been redeemed without having to forgive him!!

and with the long game situation it infuriates me how reid treats ilya like a baby. like it’s not shane’s fault ilya can’t communicate his emotions!! and it’s not even ilya’s fault either, because he’s depressed!! like it’s a nuanced situation that reid manipulates in order to fit her narrative.

you know what i agree with this part actually. i take back what i said about him not giving shane the time to develop. because he did and i hope he continues and doesn't mostly spend s2 with side characters.

… good? leave?

this is a good point. i could leave!! but that won't change the fact that the shows fandom is SO racist and SO bigoted and SUCH an unsafe space for lgbtqia+ individuals. i will watch the show because i am a fan of the source material and the actors, but the treatment they receive by SOME*** of the members of the fandom is so sickening and disheartening to see. this compiled with the creators decision to neglect responding to that, removing body type inclusive characters, AND openly prioritizing white characters is so sad to see.

ALSO??? THIS FANDOM IS SO SO TOXIC TOWARDS ACTUAL GAY MEN THAT THEY DON'T EVEN FEEL SAFE IN THE FANDOM ANYMORE???

in today's isfd crumbs while i work on chapter 2 (technically ch3 with the prologue), my amazing beta @hollanovgirldads81's comments on the outline that made me laugh so hard in the middle of the night

also, a poll for my more fanfic inclined people... should i start a hollanov sideblog for isfd posting but also general hollanov posting and my other fanfic work (like my other fic that im working on right now?)

as a palette cleanser from IN SOME FROZEN DEVOTION, my fantasy hollanov fic, because i can't write one more word of fancy english without bursting, i've been thinking about writing a oneshot about a vacation, a roselana wedding, and EITHER a second chance romance or enemies to lovers. i also don't know whether to make them mlh hockey players like in canon or regular people/college students. poll below to help me decide!

SO EXCITED for y'all to read this!!! 9k words of hot pirate ilya ik you guys like that. did i reinvent prince ben x harry hook?? maybe i did but you know what who is going to stop me?? not myself lol

my amazing beta @hollanovgirldads81 read through the first ~6000 words of "chapter 1" (technically 2 but prologue doesn't count) and gave such amazing feedback!! its tuesday somewhere so hopefully the chapter gets published today...? i have about 1500 more words to write in order to hit my outline so take that as you will.

BUT if you haven't yet, you can check out the smutty/worldbuildish prologue of isfd and glaze me in the comments 😘