#subtlety

Okay, I know I am late to the party in this one, but I have *finally* seen Heated Rivalry and it’s phenomenal and I have Thoughts.

One of my thoughts is about how different the same line is from different mouths.

FYI spoilers.

Ilya’s father has just died. The man was cruel and hard but Ilya couldn’t help loving him, and Ilya’s brother has been a lead weight Ilya can’t stop bleeding for. At the funeral, his brother corners him and asks him what his plan is now. Demands it. How are you going to take care of us now that dad is gone. It cuts Ilya down and is the final push to make him reject the role his family has for him.

Then in the last episode, Shane’s mom asks him the same thing. Whats the plan? But it’s *completely different*. She isn’t asking anything of him. She’s pivoting immediately to square up solid in his corner, ready to do whatever he needs. It’s so different. It’s the same line, both delivered from family after a shock, and it communicates so much more.

There isn’t a right way to love someone. There isn’t a right thing to say when they need you. It’s the context and the love and how you show it that matters, and the fact that this show and these actors managed to put so much into the simple, clean subtlety of the script that made the most throwaway lines stand out and show so much is just. This is just one detail in so much that shows the brilliance of everyone who worked on this.

So uh. Yeah.

Model: Aubrea Jojola

“Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood. If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality, you would be the most potent human being in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all of the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.”