nature of freaks

i find it hot

they’re comparable generationally talented first line center professional hockey players

positioning shane as smaller/shorter/daintier than his white dom top boyfriend perpetuates racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes

i personally find it REALLY hot

when he chooses to, shane can physically overpower ilya (hockey, shoving ilya into walls i.e. vegas rooftop and stairwell scenes) but when he wants to submit in bed, he allows himself to be pushed, carried, held down, etc. because they both like it and want it

feminist scholar jane ward: "queer circuits of desire do not rely on the erotic encounter of opposites"

they can wear each other's clothes in a cozy boyfriend hoodie "give. i miss your boring laundry smell" "why the fuck are all your clothes dry clean hand wash only" long distance yearning way or post-game sweat damp base layer horny way or "gross now i have cum on my sweats i'm stealing yours" "okei yay ♥" fondly annoyed way

And I guess a certain degree of implausibility is fine in a silly bodice ripper romance novel where no-one takes the plot very seriously.

But the tv show has established itself as a prestige drama that actually cares about good writing and plausibility.

It doesn't make sense that fans/teammates/management/the league/advertizers would still be so invested in the Hollander vs. Rozanov rivalry after like 6 straight years of Shane CONSTANTLY outclassing Ilya, like at that point, it's so clearly not even a competition anymore! Shane won! Competition over! Ilya is a joke! The writer has reduced Ilya's career to a joke!

It also makes upper management turning against Shane seem absurd, like, THREE cups and you still expect me to believe they'd just throw a cash cow like that away? I can buy the homophobes on the team turning against their captain, but why would the money men at the top care about that shit while the team's ticket sales are at an all time high? The things that make a team turn against its captain are very different from the things that make upper management turned against their most lucrative investment. At that point you're no longer making the villains look evil — you're just making them look stupid.

And that's bad writing for two reasons.

Stupid villains are less compelling, obviously. It's better writing if the villain is capable of strategy, and not just a blithering idiot who accidentally shoots himself in the face when it's convenient for the protagonist.

It's also bad messaging.

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS 1.04 | Seven