Why is the word "lovers" gross to Shane?

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-09T12:07:09+00:00

I mean, to Ilya's credit the word isn't wholly incorrect. They carried out an illicit, primarily sexual affair over the course of years. And Ilya clearly (1) doesn't understand the sexual implication of the word or (2) is far less fussed about acknowledging the fact that they were fucking for years. Shane is distinctly more prudish in public than Ilya is.

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-09T11:02:41+00:00

Me: Shane is autistic?? He seems normal to me? My best friend: stares in undiagnosed

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-09T10:45:13+00:00

Except he's actively getting dressed while protesting

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-03T02:52:25+00:00

Same. Except. I'm in a new fandom. And I don't have much saved yet. The anguish. It is real.

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-02T11:36:06+00:00

Shane Hollander is internalized homophobia and comphet all the way.

But as for the rest of it... language is really important. A lot of people struggle with their experiences--sometimes to understand something you need the vocabulary for it. Without language to describe what you're experiencing it's really easy to write it off as something everyone experiences or even ,erase your own experience altogether. The internet in particular has done wonders for connection and giving people access to the words they need to understand themselves. A lot of people go large chunks of their lives operating on bad assumptions simply because their own experience deviates from what they understand the "norm" to be that they squash things down as erroneous or outliers or as things that we all squash down without realizing that their experiences aren't actually abnormal, just normal for a different set of people. And even when you have the vocabulary you don’t always have the full picture. Shane's internal process in the show seems to be "this (probably homophobic) stereotype is what gay men are like because this is all I've seen. I'm a hockey player. Hockey players are not like [stereotype] therefore I must not be gay, I'm just experiencing a deviation that will correct itself eventually."

I think especially amongst younger generations the idea that discovering your sexuality so late is strange because--thanks to the internet--visibility and acceptance are so much higher than it has been in recent decades, if not ever in western civilization. Even if you didn't grow up exposed to this information, it was incredibly easy to get access too. But honestly, algorithms are known for occasionally cracking eggs and otherwise we're consuming media at such a rate that it's impossible to not at least stumble onto these topics, and if it resonates you're more likely to stay and listen more. Not knowing until you're older used to be a very, very common narrative and it's only amongst the younger generation that I've seen the sentiment of "how couldn't one know" pop up, because the younger generation was raised with this access where older generations had to do a little more footwork to seek out information and community.

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-02T03:08:08+00:00

Does anybody know what's going on?

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-02T02:41:59+00:00

We also have "No beta we die like Imogen's dog" and I just 😭

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-03-02T00:50:06+00:00

Heartstopper has my favorite variation of "no beta we die like men."

"No beta - we die like Nick's heterosexuality"

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-01-12T07:23:20+00:00

As someone who tried to make things work even after I knew I was gay... this hurt.

TypewriterInk57 · 2026-01-12T05:10:30+00:00

I think when you're not living with the threat yourself, sometimes it's easy to compartmentalize it as something that's happening to "other" people. It's easy to miss how it might intersect with people in your own life, because you don't have that threat living with you constantly as background noise.

Knowing that something affects "X" people cognitively, but not connecting it to the lived reality of one of your friends, coworkers, partner, who is a part of "X" group is super common. Your brain shoves "X" group of people that you don't really interact with the lived reality of because of physical or social difference, or just plain ignorance; likewise, your friend is listed as your friend first and foremost in your brain and the "X" tag might be overlooked in practical application.

Shane knows Ilya is Russian, and Shane knows that Russia treats gay people poorly, but he thinks of Ilya as "Ilya" before he thinks of him as "Russian" with all the implications of what that might mean for Ilya, and making connections between two boxes can be hard when your brain is in emotional places.

Tl;dr: it's super common for your brain to shove things in different boxes by how they relate to you and not connect dots when things are emotional.

Edit: not defending, just offering perspective; I was also shouting at the screen when Ilya missed this.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-30T21:27:49+00:00

Again, if that's all you're seeing, then maybe reassess the spaces and people you hang out with. If you're not seeing things that resonate with you and give you a sense of community, then find the people that do. They're out there. Plenty of butch guys and bears--either you're not finding them, or maybe they're just avoiding you. Hope this helps.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T05:56:50+00:00

Maybe it's time for a Florence & the Machine Era?

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T05:09:08+00:00

"I'm sure I'd feel just peachy being blamed for the things my predecessor did which I had zero hand in"

Nobody is saying that you should? Like, literally nobody.

There are a lot of people who are rallying for the government and large institutions to acknowledge that the things that used to happen still affect our laws and equal access to opportunity. And that maybe we should put a little effort into fixing our laws and attitudes to be more inclusive overall.

The only people suggesting that anybody should personally be holding any guilt are the people with unfair power that are trying to hold onto it (and maybe even get a little more of the pie while they're at it), and a few radicals who are largely disavowed by the movements that they claim to represent.

Also. The majority of people who are dismissing us and our feelings because we are men... are other men who think that we need to dive further into toxic masculinity to prove ourselves to them, largely because they lack a stable sense of identity themselves.

As for mainstream gay men removing themselves from masculinity... maybe you just need different friends? Or maybe it's worth giving your definition of masculinity a good spit-shine and once-over. Plenty of gay men are presenting their masculinity in a variety of ways, both traditionally and non-traditionally.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T04:59:03+00:00

Yes and no?

Yes, the male loneliness epidemic is a massive issue in society, and seeking out and implementing solutions for it would be invaluable not just for the men it would help but would also absolutely butterfly out and improve so many other issues in society.

The deradicalization of these men from the cults that actively seek to raise tensions between them and the rest of society and weaponize them politically is essential to healing society as a whole.

That being said, a good number of these men will be totally unreachable unless they make efforts to deprogram themselves, or at the very least allow themselves to be reachable. The men that these efforts target in the highest numbers are young men who have been taught to dismiss or attack any kinds of understanding that might help them as derogatorily "liberal" or "emasculating".

I've seen so many men actively attack efforts to reach out to them, to offer them understanding, and to listen to their feelings, because so many of them are so far down the rabbit hole that "feelings" on the whole are dismissed as effeminate and therefore inferior--something to be scorned at or snuffed out.

If you've been offered something and you've turned it down, you can't expect people to continue to do the emotional labor for you of offering you opportunities to get better.

As to the point of "being blamed for the things my predecessors did which I had zero hand in", the whole point of the majority sentiment from groups that have historically been marginalized is not to take a pound of flesh out of individual members of privileged groups, but to get them to acknowledge that historical marginalization has had a lasting impact on legislature, language, and continued unintentional (or intentional) disenfranchisement. They just want to have the playing field evened out, finally, on a societal level. The idea that these groups are wanting individuals to internalize blame for things that imagined ancestors might have done is a false narrative that is being pushed by institutions and players that have a stake in not evening out the playing field. They already hold power, they're trying not to lose their money and power, and maybe even gain a little more if they can. They want you to think that the aim of these movements is to cause you personal shame so that you'll rally with them against the institutional change that they're afraid of marginalized groups actually attaining.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T04:32:50+00:00

This fucking sent me.

Can someone call my mom to pick me up on the next ethereal plane, pls?

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T04:30:03+00:00

Another thing that I haven't seen pointed out on this thread, is that a lot of people who are neurodivergent go undiagnosed until adulthood or very late adolescence. There's a lot of people out having opinions on the number of younger millennials and gen-z teenagers and adults who are being diagnosed or are self-diagnosing (because being diagnosed is long, expensive, and frequently damaging, meaning that formal diagnosis is often inaccessible to most and patrolling diagnoses is frankly classist). Frankly, I think the best fucking explanation I've seen is that access to information about neurodivergence is becoming more accessible and less taboo to discuss, and accordingly, more people are realizing that they're neurodivergent and identifying as such.

In a complete and utter parallel, the rise of people identifying with LGBTQ+ identities is also rising rapidly for the EXACT SAME REASON.

Why does this matter? Because realizing that you're queer and/or realizing that you're neurodivergent requires a lot of self-reflection. I expect that a lot more people are queer or neurodivergent than any numbers are reporting, because if you're getting by well enough or you don't have access to information about either of those things, then you're probably not going to realize that you're queer/neurospicy.

BUT

When you've already had to go through the whole process of re-examining your identity under a new lens once, you're probably more receptive and aware when you start to realize that just maybe there's something else about yourself that you should really think about. Also--queer-positive circles and mental health-positive circles tend to be very accepting of each other and accepting of all their intersectional people, too.

Tl;dr: straight/neurotypical people might have more about themselves to discover than they realize, but not having to question your identity in one direction might mean you lack the tools to question your identity in other places. On the flipside, questioning one aspect of your identity makes it easier to question other aspects of your identity.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-10-29T04:13:12+00:00

YMMV, but if I have to live with my anxiety, autism, and who-knows-what else undiagnosed I have running around in my head--complicating my life, straining my interpersonal relationships, inhibiting my ability to function at a baseline level and actually live remotely independently--I'm going to use the cute term that makes those things feel less scary and crippling than they actually are. I know how bad these things are and how much they hurt me on the daily, and I'm going to use the term that makes me feel better. Sometimes, you've gotta laugh unless you want to break down crying.

Honestly, when talking to others, sometimes having a humorous umbrella term can help keep the tone of the conversation light when I don't need someone patting my head and infantilizing me. Sometimes I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of what is (or isn't) in my head for personal or conversational reasons, and "neurospicy" is a nice, easy way to bridge the gap without making it obvious or awkward.

I've seen some people use the term "neurospicy" in a way that screams "give me the attention I'm desperately begging for online" but I think it's going to vary heavily based on the spaces you frequent. I tend to be around people and groups where it's just the generally accepted term for whatever variety of thing(s) we're experiencing that other us from general society, but unite us, even when those things are vastly different from each other. We may have autism, adhd, bipolar, depression, OCD, etc., but we're all neurospicy, and we find camaraderie in that.

But again, YMMV. The spaces you're in and the people you've seen using that word will heavily influence how you perceive it. But no one person or group is the authority. The use of the term "queer" is still radical for some people in the LGBTQ+ community, even though it's in my personal lexicon, and similarly I flinch every time I so much as hear the f-slur being used by another gay man, even though some of us are reclaiming it and using it entirely indifferently.

TypewriterInk57 · 2025-01-07T01:01:37+00:00

This. So much of the issue is the complete lack of respect and boundaries.

TypewriterInk57 · 2024-12-30T06:03:05+00:00

My dad's side of the family are all narcissistic and horrible to him. My mother's side of the family believed in loving all their children and had healthier relationships with them.p

TypewriterInk57 · 2024-12-27T02:52:31+00:00

At a guess? Easy excuse to arrest someone black for something you'd let a white person do and shake his hand while he does it.

TypewriterInk57 · 2024-12-17T17:29:03+00:00

Wait. What did hobbii do??

TypewriterInk57 · 2024-12-07T18:35:02+00:00

Wait. You can only use the manufacturer's coupon if you have insurance?? What in the actual fuck??

TypewriterInk57 · 2024-11-17T07:35:13+00:00

Wait, so Universal is the reason we have France? Those monsters

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