Untitled Duck Game

sometimes I’m reminded that there are still people who don’t know ao3 was literally created by incest shippers — and the site’s sole purpose is to 1. be completely against censorship and 2. host all kinds of dark, taboo fics that are banned on other platforms — and the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

you are in the house that was created by freaks. for freaks (affectionate). every disgusting thing you can think of is rightfully allowed and welcomed on ao3, because they are exactly the reasons why ao3 was created in the first place.

ao3 was created because its creators got tired of censorship, they got tired of dark and taboo fics getting banned on pro-censorship platforms, and they wanted a place that was safe for ALL FICS THAT WERE DARK AND TABOO.

ao3’s main principle is being against censorship and being proship / profic.

there are some things in fiction that make me uncomfortable, but instead of shaming people who are just minding their own business and not harming anyone in real life, I choose to curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting what I don’t want to see. ao3 has excellent tagging system, so instead of being a bitch, use their tagging system properly and you won’t see the things you don’t want to see.

it’s your job to curate what you see. it’s not other people’s jobs or responsibilities to censor themselves for your personal comfort. the world does not revolve around you.

also you cannot censor “only the things you personally hate” without expecting everything else, that isn’t of conservative beliefs, to be censored too. because censorship is a slippery slope and a fascist tool. I promise you there are people who think “why do tags for queer love even exist on ao3? they’re grooming children”.

if you allow the things that you hate to be censored — because someone with enough power gets to control what other people can and cannot create/consume, it will not stop at the things that you hate.

It's this piece, titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil. Because on first glance, you're like. Yeah, okay, it's obvious what it's saying. Even nazis, even evil people can appreciate beauty, too. But then you learn its name, and suddenly the interpretation shifts a bit. The idea that evil is banal has in itself become banal. my first response to seeing a nazi on a bench is "oh it's about the banality of evil" and not "jesus christ there's a nazi on the bench."

what I find really interesting is how the way this is drawn (especially considering who drew it) the art style seems extremely deliberate. This type of nostalgic landscape painting is very reminiscent of nazi art and specifically, Hitler's art.

Nazis were extremely judgmental of "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art). Bansky's usual work very well fall into this category! So for him to go for this style of painting in particular is another choice I find very interesting, because I can see some people react to this painting with some variation of "oh, I didn't know he could actually draw! I thought he is a hack but he is a real artist!" - and that is where they would agree with the Nazis.

So in summer of 2024 I was on an Alaskan cruise that ended up also having a gathering of 800+ Christian nationalist qanon people, no hyperbole at all. And it was one of the weirdest weeks of my life.

But one experience from it was this very strange feeling that this painting reminds me of. When you view this painting youre observing the nazi observing the landscape. When I was I'm Alaska looking at melting glaciers and massive untouched mountains and wilderness, I was also looking at nazis looking at it. And it made me wonder how they saw it, where their appreciation for the natural world sits.

I wondered if they knew that the landscape was only there because it was protected from mining and oil refinery. Or how they were taking in the visibly shrinking glacier without reflecting in horror about the effects on climate change. I looked and thought about the people whose land it was well before settlers, I sought out that history on our excursions, I know they didn't. When we all watched whales together I wondered if they cared, or if they were looking at sacrifices they were willing to make.

It was very surreal because I could hear them talk about how beautiful it all was. But I knew we weren't looking at the same thing, not really, and I wondered *what* exactly they saw.

Just like I wonder about what this nazi sees in this landscape, and how that vision aligns with his others for the world. If it's something he feels entitled to, something he sees as a sacrifice, something cold and aesthetic without any wonder or love for the natural world and the people in it.

But! I do think her particular place in the narrative and who she is to Ilya opens up some interesting avenues wrt her feelings about Shane. I've generally seen her in fic as being aggressively supportive of their relationship, though I've read a couple where she is uneasy about the move to Ottawa (reasonably so!) and one fantastic one where she straight up dislikes Shane because she doesn't think he's doing enough for Ilya.

There's plenty of jealous!Shane, but what I'd love to see more of is jealous!Svetlana. Not jealous in the romantic sense--we see pretty clearly that Ilya's not like that for her--but Svetlana reckoning with the presence of Shane in Ilya's life and what that means for her place in it.

The scene with Sasha in Sochi is fascinating to me. She tows Ilya along like he has no say in what's happening, she tosses Sasha at him like she's ordering for Ilya at a restaurant, and then even with Ilya's old squeeze in the room splaying his body out for Ilya in the exact way that she clearly wanted, she still monopolises Ilya's attention. There's a benevolent peremptory presumptuousness to her behaviour that I love: she's clearly used to having to muscle him into things that are for his own good because he won't reach for them himself, and I think it's so juicy that she's used to having the sole right to do that for him.

How would she react to having that exclusivity taken away? Ilya very obviously lets only her behind his walls, until Shane bulldozes his way past them in Tampa. I think it's interesting to examine how Svetlana would react to losing that primacy with Ilya--it's not jealousy in a romantic or sexual sense, but Ilya's never had anyone like Shane before,and that would be an adjustment for Svetlana, I think. She's not just going from being Ilya's first call to his second call: she's going from being his only call to his second; from being the only one behind the wall to sharing that space for the first time. From having the surety that she can walk into Ilya's house to surprise him, in whatever way she wants, to having to reckon with Shane or even having to check with him first. Especially given the much closer relationship in the show--I can't imagine that show!Svetlana meets Shane the day before their wedding, and given their closeness, Shane forbidding Ilya from telling Svetlana would be a lot less excusable than it was in the book.

We don't know much about Svetlana outside of Ilya, so we don't know how strong her support system is without him, but there's room to wonder how crucial his availability for her, for lack of a better phrasing, is, and how she'd grapple with no longer being his first priority. To be clear, she knows, and we know, thst the worry is baseless and that Ilya would drop everything for her. But there's a security in being First and it's interesting to wonder how Svetlana would deal with losing that, and how that would affect how she interacts with Shane.

There's also the hockey of it all--Ilya is surrounded by it, but for Svetlana, he's very likely to be one of the most hockey-intelligent people in her life and they're clearly accustomed to constantly talking puck with each other. Now, there's Shane: famously high hockey IQ but can also engage directly with Ilya as a player and is probably the only person in the world who can, who has access to Ilya's hockey brain in a way Svetlana never will. This is kind of a mirror of my headcanon for Hayden's jealousy of Ilya: being supplanted as the best friend's First Hockey Person.

It's a higher level sheepdog skill, they usually do it in trials too.

it's well made, well shot, well directed, the music is interesting, the costumes are both thoughtful and subtly period accurate, the sex scenes are intentional and, again, accurate to what hooking up when you're like 18 actually feels like...the actors are of course attractive but they look like real people. the characters are varied and well fleshed out, the acting is really, really strong

so many shows and films shoot and then slot in whatever music kind of fits or could be licenced in the budget after time, but you can tell that the scenes in hr were shot with that specific music in mind. and the same intentional approach runs through the whole thing

Mr Freckles and Mr Freckles Lover here

Yes I'm on my way to be delulu giggling whiner because of them

TV show: HEATED RIVALRY

Пожалуйста не обижайте Илюшу золотце такое 💔

Shane is like no! It’s embarrassing! And this is public! And you wouldn’t make me actually do that to Rose would you? You know the answer, I’m gay!

Only Rose thinks the whole thing is hilarious and gives Shane the go ahead so there’s no real reason to resist Ilya’s begging anymore, still he holds out to the day before the interview.

“Fine! Fine! You can ask about Rose, but I get to ask about anything I want too!” And Ilya’s like yes yes of course my love. His boring Shane would hardly ask anything damning.

Fast forward to the day of the interview Shane is fondly exasperated with Ilya’s Rose questions, and Ilya is being a cocky bastard so happy with how it played out.

Until they switch sides and Shane breaks out his first question:

“Is it or is it not true that despite famously calling Scott Hunter ‘a nearly extinct fossil’ you think he’s hot?” The blood drains from Ilya’s face pretty quickly after that.

“Do you think Hayden Pike is a good hockey player?”

“Do you consider Hayden Pike a close friend?”

“Who do you love more: me or Anya?”

“Besides me who is your favorite teammate?”

like the way he asked "what is nur-ate-iv?" makes me think man TRULY was not catching all of the words getting tossed at him so fast the second his eyes were even a LITTLE open. like he wasn't asking "what story did you come up with?" he's asking "what word are you even saying to me right now?" man got like 0.2 seconds to be like "oh i'm awake now?" before he was getting PELTED with english because shane had a forty step plan that couldn't wait like. three more hours.

in my heart, shane sleeps like a ROCK and is also non-functional if his sleep schedule is disrupted

either ilya is completely mia because he went to lay down with whatever kiddo came to get him and then fell asleep in their bed without meaning to, or shane wakes up to little feet pushing into his kidney or a little fist tucked under his arm or a kiddo sprawled sideways over him AND ilya in a way that canNOT be comfortable

@zouisalmightie

wakes up at 6 am alone and goes to investigate where his husband ended up and finds ilya curled up on a twin bed he's taking up almost all of the real estate on, their wide-awake child reading their little picture book while using him as a backrest, and shane picks kiddo up, sends them off to the kitchen to wait for breakfast and then *gentle smooch smooch until ilya stirs without fully waking up* hey. i'm sure twisting up like a shrimp is super comfortable and good for your back, but we have a king size bed, too, in case you forgot. just a reminder that you have some options here.