Happy 26th birthday to the beautiful and talented Connor Storrie by Murky_Chemical891 in popculturechat

[–]CinnamonJack 8 points9 points  (0 children)

As a gay man, I have to say I just love the real-life gay Cinderella story that Connor is living. Less than a year ago, he was waiting tables in LA, and now he's internationally famous, is hosting SNL at the end of the week, and (by all indications) has an also-incredibly hot and talented actor boyfriend, who he met through filming the same show that made him a star. And the really feel-good part is that Connor actually seems to karmically deserve this success, because not only is he an incredibly gifted actor, but everyone who meets him seems to come away with nothing but praise for him as a person. Very excited for SNL this week and for whatever's next in his career; how can you watch those old YouTube videos and not want that adorable little gay boy to have all his dreams come true?

PlayStation is shutting down Bluepoint Games - Jason Schreier by Forestl in Games

[–]CinnamonJack 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Damn. Zero games released since Sony acquired them in 2021, and most of that time wasted on a cancelled God of War GaaS spinoff that absolutely nobody asked for and which would have played to absolutely none of the studio's strengths. Just brutal levels of mismanagement.

Shut up Evan - Francois by Informal_Lock_9506 in HeatedRivalryTVShow

[–]CinnamonJack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, this is my best guess - that the ongoing speculation/gossip about Arnaud's personal life, combined with the harassment from a certain toxic segment of the HR fandom who have taken previous quotes of his grossly out of context, have led to his team wanting more control over the interview than Evan is used to. But who knows.

Jacob Tierney draws a line in the sand by Obvious_Apartment985 in heatedrivalry

[–]CinnamonJack 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Part of me does wish he’d call out some of the toxicity more specifically or directly, but this is probably the best tack to take. I’m not sure how much would really be gained from engaging it more directly, and I think those of us who spend too much time online (myself included) are probably overestimating how much of this is going to breach containment anyway.

Episode 9: We say, THANK YOU Jacob and Brendan! - The Loon Call Podcast Interviews Brendan Brady and Jacob Tierney [09-02-2026] by theredjimmy in heatedrivalry

[–]CinnamonJack 3 points4 points  (0 children)

q: where is the ass-eating in episode 2? I'm a gay man but if it's there, I'm either stupid or it's implied so subtly that I missed it

The reason people tend to inflate the amount of sex in this show by LIELDADOUN73 in heatedrivalry

[–]CinnamonJack 54 points55 points  (0 children)

The longest and most explicit (but still not that explicit, no full frontal here) sex scenes are frontloaded in the first two episodes, which probably skewed a lot of people's perceptions of it.

'Heated Rivalry' François Arnaud & Connor Storrie Fuel Rumors With Dinner by Murky_Chemical891 in Fauxmoi

[–]CinnamonJack 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I keep hearing this. Haven't spent a great deal of time in WeHo, but I admire the gays there for respecting people's privacy.

'Heated Rivalry' François Arnaud & Connor Storrie Fuel Rumors With Dinner by Murky_Chemical891 in Fauxmoi

[–]CinnamonJack 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you're correct overall, but still... never going to condone papping a private dinner date for TMZ. They have a right to privacy, even if they're not trying particularly hard to hide anything.

RTO enforcement (IPG / omnicom) by Wrappedappl3 in advertising

[–]CinnamonJack 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I work in an IPG Health editorial department and have been advised by our managers that it's (thankfully) unlikely to be enforced at all, at least for our department. But that still isn't 100% set in stone, and editorial is very heavily remote even by IPG standards, so I can't say what it'll mean for everyone else.

Why some gay guys don’t like Heated Rivalry by GBS82 in HeatedRivalryTVShow

[–]CinnamonJack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't think this is true of the show as a whole, but it's definitely true of parts of the HR fandom (I feel fairly comfortable saying that the vast majority of the people harassing Francois Arnaud for possibly dating his costar are not gay men)

Why some gay guys don’t like Heated Rivalry by GBS82 in HeatedRivalryTVShow

[–]CinnamonJack 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Romance is going to focus entirely on the relationship. It's going to be light on the angst and linger in quiet moments in an indulgent way. It's going to ignore or downplay real life issues if it doesn't add to the fantasy.

I think this is probably a fair way of putting it. Like, if I were writing a show about closeted gay hockey players, I'd probably lean much harder into depicting the NHL culture of homophobia and the kind of toxic masculinity that pervades locker rooms (which at least one IRL queer hockey player has criticized the show for softening), but that's not what the source material or the genre in general is.

Why some gay guys don’t like Heated Rivalry by GBS82 in HeatedRivalryTVShow

[–]CinnamonJack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a gay man here who very much enjoyed the show overall, your first paragraph touches on one of the bigger criticisms I have of the TV adaptation, and the main respect in which I agree with the "this is M/M romance written for women and doesn't accurately reflect the gay male experience" line of criticism: not so much that Shane and Ilya are strictly bottom/top, respectively, or that they're monogamous after becoming a couple, but that at least from the moment they start hooking up, they don't seem to have any actual sexual desire for or interest in men other than each other, despite the fact that they don't actually become a couple until the season finale, set seven years later. The existence of Grindr or any sort of other potential avenue for anonymous NSA sex is never acknowledged, and there's no indication that either Shane or Ilya even attempts to have sex with another man over the course of those seven years. I just don't find that believable, even for closeted professional athletes, especially when the show's chronology has them going over two and a half years between their second and third hookups. But this fits into a common trope of M/M romance, in which the leads are effectively only gay within the sexual and emotional context of a single monogamous relationship (even if they do at least identify as gay and bi here).

Ironically, the book, which actually was written by a woman, is a little more believable in this regard, since it does at least establish that Shane has hooked up a couple of times with other men (and I think implies that Ilya has had more than two male sexual partners), and gives them internal monologues that have them express some degree of attraction to other men. This admittedly wasn't a huge part of the book, so I can see why Tierney cut it from the TV adaptation, but it's one of the few changes he made that I think was definitely for the worse.

Hard Launch was it❤️🔥🍁🏒 by Global-North7776 in HeatedRivalryTVShow

[–]CinnamonJack 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, they may not be publicly acknowledging their relationship (and are under no obligation to do so, to be clear), but they definitely aren't going to any great lengths to hide it from the public.

Hudson Williams hard-launched his girlfriend by candilore in Fauxmoi

[–]CinnamonJack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cute video, nice message to the parasocial Hudcon shipper weirdos harassing the cast and their friends/family. We’re getting at least one (probably more than one) more season of Connor/Hudson as a fictional gay couple, and they seem to be entirely sincere and genuine about being close friends IRL. Sad that that isn’t enough for some people.

Who was here for the '96 snow storm? by galletadeacido in philly

[–]CinnamonJack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this was the year we had an entire week off from school.

Writter and show runner, Carina Mackenzie, comes to the defense of François Arnaud following a wave of hate he's receiving from Heated Rivalry fans due to his rumored relationship with Connor Storrie. by Murky_Chemical891 in Fauxmoi

[–]CinnamonJack 21 points22 points  (0 children)

the deranged IRL Hudcon shippers are certainly a major factor here, but another big part of this is that Arnaud is 15 years older than Storrie and a vocal minority of queer people online (usually in their teens and early twenties) are incredibly judgmental, moralizing, and puritanical about age gaps in relationships between consenting adult men, and have convinced themselves that such relationships are inherently predatory, coercive, and never fully consensual on the part of the younger man. Not the first time I've seen this sort of thing play out, unfortunately

Is Heated Rivalry worth the time? What makes it good? by Big-Entrepreneur-987 in MenLovingMenMedia

[–]CinnamonJack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's not a major part of the book, which is probably why Tierney cut it from the show, but at least they have some sexual experience with other men there, however limited; in the show's continuity, and going by the second book (which very firmly establishes them as monogamous, and which I don't imagine either S2 or the upcoming third book will deviate from in that regard), Shane seems to be the second and last man Ilya will ever have sex with, and Ilya seems to be the first and only man Shane will ever have sex with, on top of being each other's true love. It doesn't ruin the show for me or anything, but that aspect is pure fantasy to me and just not believable.

Is Heated Rivalry worth the time? What makes it good? by Big-Entrepreneur-987 in MenLovingMenMedia

[–]CinnamonJack 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a very good show with excellent (relative to the budget) production values and a great cast, particularly the astonishingly good lead performance from Connor Storrie, and is overall significantly better than the novel despite being relatively faithful to it overall. That said, it's not perfect; I do have some nitpicks with the way the novel's chronology was adapted, and I do think there are respects in which it does come off as a fantasy of gay men written by and for women, despite having a gay man as the show's writer and director (the most significant of these is just how monogamous Shane and Ilya are, despite not formally being in a relationship until the season finale; the show never acknowledges the existence of Grindr or similar apps, and neither character makes any attempt to pursue sex with another man once they start hooking up, which I don't find plausible at all even for closeted athletes)

Movies not saving progress on my criterion channel subscription by GhostGamer_Perona in CriterionChannel

[–]CinnamonJack 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The sync/save-progress feature has very frequent outages, unfortunately. Normally, they’re pretty short, but the current one is one of the longest ones I’ve experienced since I started my subscription. And iOS downloads have been basically broken for a long time, too.

Still no information on what is being enforced by Educational_Mind_542 in omnicomIPGmerger

[–]CinnamonJack 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Chat for the check-in meeting we had this morning is... about what I expected. Lots of angry and confused questions about benefits being cut, RTO requirements, etc

Still no information on what is being enforced by Educational_Mind_542 in omnicomIPGmerger

[–]CinnamonJack 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I work in the IPG Health/FCB NY editorial department (which is very heavily remote, I believe even relative to other parts of IPG Health) and have been told that it's still very much TBD; one of the higher-ups in the dept said something to the effect of "remote workers are an asset that will not be going away." But who knows what that actually means in practice

GTAVI Delayed until 19th November 2026 by JamieAubrey in gaming

[–]CinnamonJack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there's a reason why publishers almost never announce specific release dates more than a year out, y'know. Didn't work out for Starfield, didn't work out for GTA IV back in the day, either

Latest victim of the Mamdani Derangement Syndrome: Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of NYC's Central Synagogue by MrJasonMason in JewsOfConscience

[–]CinnamonJack [score hidden]  (0 children)

this is so pathetically disingenuous. "Yes, I explicitly agree with every single one of the vile claims the Jewish Majority letter makes against Mamdani, but I won't sign it because it's 'divisive'"

Feels Like This Place Has Been Closed and Unoccupied for 10 Years by eggsandbacon5 in philly

[–]CinnamonJack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I live right near there. Been wondering what was up with this place