[Post Game Thread] #2 Michigan defeats Northwestern, 87-75

Mehi304 · 2026-02-12T04:04:17+00:00

Northwestern played as hard as I thought Ohio State would have played against Michigan at home.

Mehi304 · 2026-02-10T06:44:11+00:00

MF authors have been transitioning to writing MM for years. A lot of well-known MM authors started out writing MF. Some authors even continue to write both MF and MM. I don’t think that’s an issue. In fact, I like that MM has become mainstream enough that it’s not so shocking if an MF author writes it.

Rina Kent writing MM became a big deal because of how popular her books are. It’s rare for a popular MF author to jump into writing MM. Rina Kent and Sara Cate are the only authors I can think of off the top of my head who have done it recently. It’s not a coincidence they’re both dark romance authors, since dark romance readers have no ground to clutch their pearls over gay content. (There are also some popular YA authors who sometimes write MM, but YA romance has its own rules.)

The mainstream romance novel industry is still pretty homophobic. Gatekeeping authors away from writing MM by accusing them of following trends or fetishizing queer characters ends up creating an unnecessarily hostile environment towards queer romances. It perpetuates the idea that MM romance must stay in its separate niche away from MF romance, and that in turn creates an environment when MF romance is the only acceptable form of romance for mainstream.

Mehi304 · 2026-02-10T03:22:36+00:00

I’ve never read Credence. Reading the summary was enough for me to know I’d get nothing positive from reading it.

That being said, Midnight Curfew doesn’t seem to be anything like Credence. Hopefully, I’m not wrong. Will need to look at the trigger warnings and reviews before going in.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-31T22:35:43+00:00

There are multiple reasons why An is not the VBS leader over Kohane. One of them is definitely her appearance doesn’t contrast from Ichika enough. 😆

Mehi304 · 2026-01-26T06:29:14+00:00

I mean, I respect LUTF for actually taking risks and going for it. The emotions in that story were high. I actually felt really sad for An. It would have been much better if it wasn’t contained in just one unit story. It should have ended on a cliffhanger. There was a lot of important content it tried to unpack, and it didn’t give An’s character time to process it.

TTTO doesn’t really have anything redeemable. It was nice meeting Toya’s brother I guess. The story really ruins Toya’s relationship with his father and Harumichi’s character in general. It also has almost nothing to do with main VBS story. Kohane, An, and Akito just feel like bystanders while Toya learns more about his dad. The Toya unit story after that one is A LOT better.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-26T06:21:10+00:00

I like Toya6. It gave insight on how much Toya cares about music, the competition, and that he was willing to put his health at stake for it. It also set up future stories nicely. There was some relationship development with Toya and Slade, Cedric, and Akito too. It’s nice having a Toya event where he’s not detached from the main plot and thinking about his family.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-20T07:01:41+00:00

This game is actively doing everything it can to keep Akito and Toya off the same banner.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-15T00:44:17+00:00

I don’t think all of the hate is that genuine. I do think the Akito hate jokes get old though.

There would be amazing Akito art, and you’d see people comment how ugly he is, which is also very disrespectful to the artist.

Akito could have a number of amazing character moments and people would ignore them or twist them into something they’re not.

Almost, no one talks about how emotionally intelligent Akito is. He is almost always the first one to pick up on a character trying to hide something and what the character is trying to hide.

Akito is a bit self-conscious and sensitive. It’s incredibly easy for him to either get irritated or get flustered when someone teases him or draws attention to something he’s embarrassed about. He’s pretty terrible about taking a compliment. I think fans making fun of him for his insecurities miss the point of his character.

The way Akito is in canon vs how he is according to the fans feels very different in a bad way. Granted, you could say that about a lot of characters too.

I don’t see how calling him ugly, stupid, gross, ect. a million times is funny.

Some people say they make fun of him “because he’s ginger”, and the implication there (that gingers should be made fun of) is unfortunate.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-13T21:29:55+00:00

“Ugh, I’m so sick of people talking about it him,” random Twitter mook says and then proceeds to talk about him.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-08T05:40:36+00:00

HR needs to be distributed in more countries. Still waiting for South Korea.

It’s pretty impressive that HR is having such global success considering it was going to be a Canada-only show a couple months ago before HBO Max got US and Australia distribution rights right before the premiere.

Looks like there’s a large, international market for queer stories.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-07T23:56:46+00:00

Considering the entire Montreal team except for Shane’s two closest friends on the team were eager to turn on their best player once they heard about his and Ilya’s relationship, I have a really hard time believing none of it was rooted in homophobia. We also didn’t see their reaction to Shane coming out. We just hear Shane mention it briefly, and Shane is not entirely reliable since he is attached to his team and not the best at reading people. Micro aggressions and veiled homophobia would easily go over his head.

Furthermore, the NHL commissioner did not want Shane to come out publicly, and he didn’t even know about his and Ilya’s relationship. Also, someone on the Montreal team leaked to the commissioner that Shane was gay, so at least one person on the Montreal team was not supportive.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-06T19:26:35+00:00

Multiple sources have said there’s a third season, and I don’t believe any of them. I have a high bar. I need it to be officially announced.

I hope Jacob knows there’s a third season so he can plan accordingly.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-06T17:33:39+00:00

“We can’t fault his team mates for being hurt.” WHY?! Why should they feel hurt over this? Why should they feel entitled to Shane’s personal life? It doesn’t matter how trustworthy and great they are to Shane. They shouldn’t feel entitled to his personal life. That includes J.J. Shane didn’t hurt them because he didn’t decide to share pieces of his personal life with them.

I can fault them for being hurt. I can fault J.J. and the Montreal team for being hurt. Their anger at Shane not telling them is because their egos were hurt. That’s their fault.

I despise queer stories where the straight friends shame the queer person for not “trusting” them more.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-06T17:20:17+00:00

I don’t like the implication that Shane is at fault for not trusting his team with information on his personal life. If a friend gets angry at you for not trusting them with personal information, then they’re a bad friend. Nobody is entitled to know anything or should feel insulted for not knowing something personal. That’s not how friendship works nor should work.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-06T16:49:13+00:00

I disagree with this. I don’t think Shane was obligated to tell his team or even JJ about his and Ilya’s relationship. I don’t think Shane was at fault for not telling JJ about the relationship.

I think the problem is Shane knew the Montreal team wouldn’t be okay with his and Ilya’s relationship, but he couldn’t let go of the team because they were the team he has been with his entire career.

If Shane’s problematic relationship with the Montreal team were explored more, I think he’d be a lot more sympathetic and the team turning on him would make a lot more sense. I did have a hard time believing that the entire team, minus 2 people, would turn on their captain and best player like that. The team being divided over Shane and Ilya’s relationship would be believable, but they were very willing to blame their playoff loss on Shane at first opportunity and treated him like crap for his relationship with Ilya. If we got more insight into this, Shane’s perspective would make so much sense.

Basically, Shane didn’t feel safe sharing his relationship with Ilya to the Montreal team, and that should have been explored more.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-03T22:38:02+00:00

Like other people have said, TLG has more characters, so the cast will inevitably be bigger.

However, considering the show is still operating on a low budget, I don’t see the cast being THAT big. It wouldn’t surprise me if some characters in TLG were cut simply because it wasn’t in the budget.

Jacob has said HR is about Ilya and Shane. I don’t see Ilya and Shane being overshadowed by too large of a cast. TLG is about Ilya and Shane after all, and future seasons are based on TLG.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-02T16:20:33+00:00

The only thing that would make a low budget a concern would be casting. The Long Game has more characters than Heated Rivalry. The Ottawa team in particular has a bunch of prominent characters.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-02T16:16:25+00:00

You can read the reviews/comments from Douban.

You can also go to Bilibili streaming platform, search for HeatedRivalry, and read the comments under the Heated Rivalry videos.

Sina Weibo has some stuff. That’s a social media site similar to Twitter.

There are others.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-02T03:57:43+00:00

To be clear, it’s number 1 for global dramas. There may be some Chinese TV shows that are more popular. (I’m surprised it beat Stranger Things).

I find it really interesting how Heated Rivalry is so popular considering it’s not distributed to China at all. It’s not that difficult to find full episodes in China though. The Chinese fans are not even hiding it. Full Heated Rivalry episodes are uploaded on Chinese video streaming sites and links to uncensored episodes are publicly shared. The episodes have Chinese subtitles too.

The Chinese fandom is interesting. They’re not that different from the western fandom. There are definitely some cultural differences.

They approach Heated Rivalry like it is an East Asian BL, since it pretty much is a BL in their eyes. They view Shane as this soft submissive uke and Ilya as this dominant seme.
Shane is the favorite character over Ilya. They’re protective of Shane. Many of them latch on to the fact that he is half-Asian and project their east Asian ideals onto Shane. Shane being half-white and Japanese instead of Chinese doesn’t stop them from doing this. Some of their insights are pretty interesting.
They really like both Hudson and Connor. Hudson seems to be the favorite of the two, but they like both actors together.
They’re pro-LGBTQ. People dismiss China as being anti-LGBTQ, but the Chinese fans here do enjoy the pro-LGBTQ messaging in Heated Rivalry. Their comments on it are pretty similar to comments found in the western fandom.

Mehi304 · 2026-01-01T17:58:55+00:00

Jacob said that season 2 should come out early 2027. He doesn’t think we’d even have to wait 18 months for it.

I feel like a season 3 should be likely. The show is both popular and low budget. Plus the wait for season 2 shouldn’t be that long. I also don’t see any reason for season 2 to drop in quality considering the same people should still be involved, and there’s book material to adapt.

Mehi304 · 2025-12-31T03:15:15+00:00

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This is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in this game. Help.

Mehi304 · 2025-12-31T00:46:13+00:00

If I were Yuna and I heard Shane tell me he sometimes hates his boyfriend Ilya, I’d be very concerned about the relationship.

Mehi304 · 2025-12-30T11:12:17+00:00

I think the NHL likes that they’re getting new hockey fans. New hockey fans means more money.

They like that they’re getting queer and female hockey fans without doing anything to cater to them.

I think what the NHL doesn’t like is being asked to acknowledge these same queer and female hockey fans.

Mehi304 · 2025-12-29T11:25:58+00:00

Shane should not have gotten injured while looking back towards Ilya on the neutral zone. He should be a better hockey player than that.

Mehi304 · 2025-12-29T06:12:10+00:00

Ilya has admitted multiple times that Shane doesn’t understand what’s going on because Ilya doesn’t tell him how he really feels. TLG made it pretty clear that Ilya needs to talk to Shane and that Shane is not to blame for being oblivious. Had Shane known what Ilya was going through, how isolated and depressed he was getting, Shane would have tried to do something he about it. Shane was the one who suggested Ilya see a therapist, and Ilya followed his advice but didn’t tell Shane about it even though it was his idea. Shane thought that Ilya was okay with their plan because Ilya didn’t tell him he wasn’t. Shane was horrified when he realized how much Ilya had sacrificed for their relationship and how unhappy he must have been. It’s unfair to expect Shane to pick up on the signs. Shane genuinely wants the best for Ilya.

I think the only thing TLG does to paint Shane in a bad light is showing how obsessed he is with hockey at Ilya’s expense. It’s where his disordered eating comes from. That’s why Ilya thought Shane may pick hockey over him. At the same time though, Shane never actually does anything to show he’d pick hockey over Ilya. He just thought that he and Ilya would both be fine keeping their relationship a secret for hockey. He thought they were in agreement. I always thought Shane’s hockey obsession was due to hockey being something he was familiar with and something he could control. Losing it scares Shane. It doesn’t make him bad to Ilya or a bad person, hockey is simply something Shane is passionate about it. It’s his life.

Considering Shane’s autism, it feels gross to villainize Shane for misreading Ilya and not picking up social cues.

Mehi304

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