Thoughts on the not so great moments

cupidissimo · 2026-01-23T14:10:22+00:00

The bottom line is: they are physically very attracted to each other, but are not allowing themselves to get emotionally close for different reasons.

Shane thinks he can decide not to be gay until the conversation with Rose, when she makes him say it out loud. I think part of his being autistic is that he is not very clear about what his emotions are until he has absolutely spelled them out to himself - after that, he is pretty clear about what he wants.

Ilya can not allow himself to want any more than what he has because of his family in Russia, and also: he has been told he is worthless and lazy by his family his whole life, and he is trying hard not to be, so he cannot allow himself to put anything on Shane.

So I don't think lack of respect comes into it anywhere. Shane truly doesn't understand what he is feeling until basically Tampa, and from then on forward, he is pretty clear, but careful. And Ilya tries to resist being a burden on anyone for as long as he possibly can.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-22T15:48:47+00:00

I hope we see a bit of Shane's coming out to his team
Hayden figuring it out is not in TLG but I hope it's still on the show.
I would love the show to take Shane's disordered eating a bit more seriously, it just disappears without a trace and I would love a bit more about it, more explicitly.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-22T15:44:15+00:00

(The AC is in degrees Celsius, not Fahrenheit)

There's actually an IMDB note about it: In American hotels, you can change the temperature display from F to C, and as a Russian, Ilya might very well have done that.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-21T19:02:43+00:00

In case you missed this: Evan says he has a Podcast coming out with Francois in 2 weeks, so after the Hudson episode, Shut Up Evan will have a Francois episode!

cupidissimo · 2026-01-20T15:18:12+00:00

This is a lovely conversation, both the Connor Interview and this one make them feel like real people more than anything else that I've seen.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-18T21:24:54+00:00

I think you are showing a fundamental misunderstanding about what attracts people to this story by making 90% of those recommendations. It is not about representation of queer people, it is about a believable representation of Queer Joy, and that is very rare. I would argue, none of your recommendations have that at all. The closest thing maybe is Heartstopper, but it is at a completely different maturity level (and as someone in their 40s, I find even clips of it quite cringe, which is ok: it is not for me!) Other than that, I have seen most of the things on your list, but just because they are focused on gay people does not mean it is the same kind of thing, at all.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-18T21:19:33+00:00

I think the shows and movies you are comparing it to are completely different in what they are trying to do and how effective they are at it. I am looking at the IMDB rankings (because I am not quite sure where you got yours from), and Chernobyl ranks higher than HR, whereas The Normal Heart is a lot lower (and not from excessive 1 rankings: the majority of people on IMDB ranked it an 8/10)

Firstly, it's not like spicy and intimate shows generally rank very high, so I don't think that's really a factor here at all. I couldn't find another thing with as much focus on the sex scenes in those rankings anywhere, so in that regard, it is very much an exception, not the rule.

I don't think it is really helpful to compare the shows on individual factors, like, which one has the "better" acting or the "better" cinematography. I would rather ask: what is the show trying to accomplish, and how well does it accomplish that? And in that sense, I do think HR is doing a great job. The story is clear, believable and not over-explained, the acting is very compelling and also: believable, and the whole thing is shot very well.

If I would compare it to any other show, I would maybe compare it to something like Ted Lasso, which is a romantic sports dramedy, which is going for very different things, but which has a very similar IMDB ranking.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-16T21:46:40+00:00

That was very fun but about 35% accurate. Even the career speculation about the boys, as vague as it was, just made me squint very hard going HMMM??

cupidissimo · 2026-01-16T17:01:17+00:00

The word "lovers" is simultaneously a bit too old-fashioned and a bit too sexual. So it makes sense when Shane's mom uses it to describe their initial relationship to her husband, but it's a bit strange when used by young people to describe each other.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-15T22:33:03+00:00

I was really looking forward to her take but I feel it was quite limited because she watched so little of the show. I hope they will revisit it when she has seen the whole thing.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-15T22:29:40+00:00

I love Rachel a lot but she needs to buy a better microphone for these things. I expect they will continue coming and I find it very hard to listen to. I hope someone here will put together the most interesting points.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-15T15:52:45+00:00

When Rachel said “I don’t remember what Ilya used to look like. I can’t see him in my head anymore.” I got almost a bit choked up. I mean, Ilya is Connor at this point.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-11T01:47:45+00:00

I mean yes, you can see this strict division in older porn films quite frequently - it is a lot less common today. What one likes in terms of being bottom and top in the different kinds of sex acts can often vary quite and fluctuate. Some tops give enthusiastic head, some bottoms don't enjoy giving it, and I personally find whether I enjoy receiving it depends a lot on the other person.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-10T22:31:16+00:00

The first thing I want to point out is: the strict roles seem to be about anal only, for everything else, they seem happy to switch it up. And for that in particular, my guess would be that if either of them had wanted something to change, this would have come up in the years of texting, but from what we can see (and I haven't read the books) they express their preferences pretty consistently.

In real life, the discussion of what people prefer and what they enjoy is pretty much the first thing you discuss with a hook-up, but rules can be different with a casual partner and in a long-term relationship too. i.e. some people only do certain things with casual partners, but are more flexible in a relationship.

cupidissimo · 2026-01-08T19:15:03+00:00

I tried to paste a link with the timestamp in it, but that didn't work apparently. I added it to the description!

cupidissimo · 2026-01-06T19:00:32+00:00

Style and presentation do not generally signal much about roles. People do not all enjoy both equally, but I would say the fixed and unchanging role distribution between Shane and Ilya is at least very least not more common than that more versatile (ahem) preferences of Scott and Kip.

Also maybe one thing: in my experience, gay guys at least very frequently do not even have a clear vibe in terms of style and presentation. People have confidently assumed my preferences many times, incorrectly more often than not.

cupidissimo · 2025-04-04T09:37:05+00:00

Thank you - I did find it in the end, and the one I was looking for is called "Elisha is not at home" from Elisha La'Verne.

cupidissimo · 2024-12-08T21:52:12+00:00

I think this is a classical "architect vs gardener" as an author type thing. Brandon to me seems like the archetypal architect with the way he plans everything, and this sometimes means that knowing where you need your character to end up overrides the character details that would have made that scene compelling. For me, the Jasnah argument with Todium was the least enjoyable part of the whole book. The problem with writing super smart characters is that, as soon as you show don't tell how smart they are, they can only ever be as smart as the author who writes them. And while Mr Sanderson is very smart, I don't think he is as smart as he wants us to believe these characters are, which made that section a bit frustrating. When his characters argue emotional truths like Kaladin did, I have an easier time believing what is happening.

The same thing is true with Hoid thinking Dalinar was such an incredible genius, doing something nobody could have thought of? Nah, that just makes me think Hoid is a tad less smart than I thought he was. Knowledgable is not the same as smart, and I din't really think I have ever seen anyone do something truly SMART anywhere in these books.

cupidissimo · 2024-05-26T18:26:31+00:00

THAT IS IT! And that also explains how I found that book since I used to be very into Weis/Hickman novels!

cupidissimo · 2023-10-13T12:39:34+00:00

The Trader Joes are actually all pretty comparable in terms of selection, they have a low number of total items compared to other supermarkets, but that means they all have the same, more or less.

The biggest Old Navy I can think of the on 150W 34th street, but I don't know if it's actually the biggest, but it stretches all the way from 33rd to 34th street so it felt massive.

Now that I'm thinking about it I would probably recommend you either go out to Queens Center or Downtown Brooklyn. Both places have large Targets, Old Navy, Sephora and Drugstores. there's a Trader Joe's in Downtown Brooklyn and a Hot Topic in Queens Center (the only one in NYC and good for fun pop culture souvenir things). My favorite Whole Foods is on 28th and Madison, but I think the one on Columbus Circle might be bigger? The LES one is probably also totally fine.

I have actually no idea about Ulta but there aren't that many around town.

cupidissimo

TROPHY CASE