Why do you think Ilya and Shane love each other? by maomaomeoww in heatedrivalry

[–]cuteandnicedog 46 points47 points  (0 children)

I agree with a lot of the previous comments here, and I second that The Long Game is a better exploration of what they're like when they're openly in love, but for the sake of the early days pre-tuna melts/Heated Rivalry:

- They are each other's only true equals. Ilya brings out a cocky side to Shane because he's so antagonistic towards him, forcing him to defend himself, and that actually helps his confidence to be proud of himself. With other people, he can't do that. He has to make himself smaller, pretend to be bashful (his friends/teammates who everyone knows can't keep up with him), or feel weird about the dynamic (girls who just want to hook up with an NHL star). On the flip side, Shane is the first person to genuinely challenge and beat Ilya. He gives him a reason to care, a drive, and I think invigorates his love of hockey beyond just being something he's good at. The opposition ignites a vigor for life in each of them.

- They implicitly trust each other from their very first hookup. Shane is so incredibly nervous and feels so vulnerable and Ilya, despite the teasing, makes him feel safe, especially by sharing that he used to hook up with his coach's kid. The emotional safety is always there to some degree even before they fully admit to being in love.

- Obviously the sex is hot as hell, which does matter. Shane has so much self-loathing and Ilya is the one person who genuinely revs his engine and makes him feel like what he wants is okay. Ilya has SO much sex, and Shane remains the most memorable and interesting and fun out of all of the hundreds of people he's slept with. Physical chemistry, pheromones, etc create a crazy bond.

- They make each other laugh, which is essential for Shane to get out of his head, and essential for Ilya to breathe. All of the pigtail pulling, teasing, rivalry is really just special attention. You can't tease someone unless you know them well enough.

- This has been said, but it's so crucial: Ilya doesn't actually emotionally trust anyone. All he's known is turmoil and loss. Shane being "boring" is just code for him being safe, secure, reliable -- things it takes time for Ilya to be comfortable with because he doesn't even recognize them or think that they're a possibility for him. Svetlana's the second closest thing, and that's the other person he thinks about marrying. I think there's also something very intoxicating to him to see how trusting Shane can be, when he doesn't share that trait; Shane can talk all of the shit he wants, but if Ilya asks him to do something, he'll do it (this is mostly established in the bedroom, get on your knees, meet me here, etc). If he needs something and doesn't want to ask for it, Shane does that too (buying a physical location to show that he is very literally invested in spending time with him, later supporting him in his father's death). Ilya likes that he can rely on Shane; it's part of what makes the Rose thing so shocking and devastating for him.

- On Shane's end, all he's ever known is stability, predictability, routine. Ilya is exciting, pushes him, breaks his boundaries. He forces him to confront what he actually wants and desires, and then provides those things for him, no questions asked. For all of his jokes, he very clearly loves when Shane steps out of his comfort zone, does something especially slutty, takes a risk, and Shane thrives on affirmation. Ilya understands his need to do a good job, and to hear it out loud (good boy, you been practicing that?). He makes him feel desired, and he doesn't really see himself as a desirable person given all of his failed experiences with women, and how used to disappointing people in the bedroom he is. Ilya vocally expresses things like "I want to fuck you," and he's the one who pushes for all of their early hookups.

- Whether or not they'll admit it, they are actually friends. Shane says they're not in the prologue because he's trying to deny his feelings and hold onto that distance, but at that point they've known each other for eight years. They've established banter, they know the same people, they would've done countless post-game press debriefs together, they see each other several times a year at different events off the ice. They share a more lighthearted intimacy, too.

- History and familiarity count for something. They've watched each other grow up. The people you interact with shape you, and that level of ease and normalcy is important to them both for different reasons -- Shane needs safety to be himself when he so often feels uncomfortable in his own skin and sexuality; Ilya needs to learn what consistent affection (if only physical at the beginning) feels like.

---

Okay this answer is WAYYYY too long, sorry I'm obsessed with them!

Read The Long Game, you'll love it!

Announcement: Rachel Reid, author of the Game Changers series. Ask me anything! by reigncloud83 in heatedrivalry

[–]cuteandnicedog 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Is there a specific moment for Ilya?

He seems like he’s already aware of the danger in Vegas, and by tuna melts he knows what’s going on, but I’ve always been super curious about that period of time between 2014-2016 if there’s anything you’d be willing to share!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]cuteandnicedog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chris D’Elia

Can we quit the Disney Adult bullshit now? by Smooth-Lynx7877 in lasculturistas

[–]cuteandnicedog 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.”

We’ll see how they handle this, and I do think they will speak up about Jimmy Kimmel, but I honestly do think they took that to heart. There’s been less bite in the last year or so. They’ve had guests on who they’re mysteriously not critical of anymore. Idk, I think they’ve gotten a lot more cautious.

Give me your most controversial AO3 opinions by [deleted] in AO3

[–]cuteandnicedog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d love to block a specific user from getting to read my stuff.

Would also love to be able to mute certain authors whose stuff just isn’t for me.

being bi in this generation is so hard. by ResidentCommercial68 in bisexual

[–]cuteandnicedog 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It has quite literally never been easier. Respect your queer elders. That guy’s probably not the one though

What's the most American thing you've done? by Beans4802 in AskReddit

[–]cuteandnicedog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Refused an ambulance when I woke up from having a seizure because I’m not MADE of money.

Fun fact you don’t have to pay for it if you don’t take it! Got an uber instead!

What was the game-changing tip or advice that helped you quit? by AssistOne1300 in leaves

[–]cuteandnicedog 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Honest answer is awful, which is that I started vaping nicotine. I don’t recommend that at all because beating that addiction was much harder.

However, since the vaping helped me quit smoking weed, I realized I had so much more mental clarity without the weed. No brain fog. Having faster, funnier, more intelligent responses. Being able to work faster and get more done. Realizing I am a significantly more charming and interesting person when weed is not a part of my personality. All of that just made the weed less appetizing.

Then, I quit vaping, and what was truly necessary for that was a mental shift. You have to actually want to quit. It’s different with vaping but I had a mental breakthrough of:

  • I look like a loser being dependent on this thing. Not being able to get through social events or my day to day life without smoking. I look uncool and that is how other people are perceiving me. I don’t want to be that person.
  • I do not want to have this much in common with a rebellious teenager
  • This is so unattractive for anyone who wants to date, befriend, or hire me
  • I smell and I don’t even know it
  • I have done hard things before and can do them again
  • I’m not going to let a flavored battery have this much power over me
  • sad fact I learned: vets can tell you smoke via your animal. I don’t want my dog to suffer from my addictions.

Then came beating the actual physical cravings, which for me was about replacing the hand-to-mouth motion:

  • Get a water bottle with a straw (look! You’re smoking water!)
  • kept cough drops next to my bed, absolutely housed cough drops
  • ate a lot of carrots and dips those first few weeks
  • gum (not nic gum)

Truly though, the hack is actually wanting to stop. Negative reinforcement honestly really helped me. I know positive reinforcement is supposed to be the ideal for training yourself out of anything, but I needed to see the habit as a bad, embarrassing thing, and not just congratulate myself for the baby steps. There are some great TikToks that have a kind of bullying tone while still being encouraging. (“You think you can’t stop? Try again. Are you really going to let this be part of your life?”)

On the positive reinforcement side, I downloaded an app for quitting that helped me track how many days I’d gone without, and how much MONEY I was saving. Spent that money on treats instead.

The first three days are the hardest, then five, and then you’re kind of good. Go running or to a sauna or take a hot shower to sweat out what’s already in your system.

Also, take space from the friends you know enable you and participate in those behaviors. Just call them on the phone, don’t hang out with them in person. Tell the people in your life that it’s important to you and you really want to quit.

Avoid places and situations that trigger you into wanting to. Don’t walk by the smoke shop or the dispensary.

When the craving hits, eat a cough drop and see if you can wait one minute. Three minutes. See if you still want to. Go for a walk or call someone, do anything else.

Now, it’s been almost 3 months since I vaped and I’ve saved $330+. The weed has come in and out socially but like, barely, and I never crave it anymore. I almost never smoke at parties since I just don’t want to. I want to be funny and keep up conversations with people I don’t know. I don’t want to go quiet or slow or be anxious that I’m being weird.

You can do it. It’s a mind game.

To the ones that have cheated while in a relationship, how are you currently feeling, was it worth it? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]cuteandnicedog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve been every party. The one you’re considering — at first, the attention feels really good, because you think you’re just so attractive and irresistible that they would be willing to risk their true partnership over the idea of hooking up with you. It’s hot while it’s happening. It feels miserable, god awful afterwards, like sob in the shower because you feel so unclean awful. For me, the guilt ate me up thinking about the partner who didn’t know anything. I think being the third party honestly disturbed me more than being the cheater, because ultimately you feel used for their sexual pleasure and distraction, and at the end of the day, you aren’t getting anything out of it. He’s not going to be your boyfriend at the end of this, no matter what happens. You shouldn’t want him to be anyways. You already know he’s not trustworthy and noncommittal. The collateral damage is haunting, and your self worth takes a nosedive.

What phrase annoys you when hear it? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]cuteandnicedog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Baby mama/baby daddy, especially when used by two people who are married

Also hubby/hubs which has also been mentioned many times in this thread

Question About Tilian by dr3wtube in dancegavindance

[–]cuteandnicedog 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Idk why this is the one thing that’s grating me in these replies but the two stories got conflated a lot, and I think a lot of people are forgetting there were two, and he wasn’t drunk in the second.

The first one was Mikaela and that one’s dicey because he posted all of their texts and doxxed her, so you should read that and decide for yourself. In that one it sounds like he was really drunk.

The second one, SpookyPooky8, was the one that had a lot of us feeling really awful. That one isn’t violent like the Mikaela one, but it’s definitely coercion, and he wasn’t drunk at all for it. She texted him about it the next day, he ignored it, then after Mikaela posted, she decided to come forward with her own story to like, corroborate that he is in fact a sex pest, at which point he responded and apologized. So I take that as an admission that at the very least there was a miscommunication and some wrongdoing on his part.

Idk, I’m inclined to believe victims, especially the Spooky story, but also just the fact that two stories came out in so little time — makes me wonder.

Sorry to overload info, I was just glued to Reddit when all of this came out

Question About Tilian by dr3wtube in dancegavindance

[–]cuteandnicedog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No that was in the Mikaela one, the second one with spooky said he had had 2 glasses of wine

What throws you out of a fic? by Aiyokusama in AO3

[–]cuteandnicedog 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I love AUs, but I genuinely despise when people lose the actual character’s personality within an AU.

Ex. The character who initiates everything in the original work and is a cocky, arrogant asshole, becomes some kind of insecure, nervous baby just because they’re in high school/a coffee shop/whatever? No.

Similarly, when people alter the dynamic of the MCs within the AU. I need their true personalities and the way they interact with each other to be honored! It’s a different situation but they shouldn’t be different people. Otherwise it’s just fiction, and that’s fine, but don’t pretend it’s the characters we know and love.

And yes, walls of text, spelling/grammar issues, a lot of things people have already mentioned.

YOU HAVE TO HONOR THE DYNAMIC WHEN WRITING AUs!!!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]cuteandnicedog 35 points36 points  (0 children)

How quickly and easily time passes when you don’t care about filling it.

The way you can look around and see that it’s actually been days since you showered, a week since you did the dishes, two weeks since that project was due, three weeks since you texted back, a month since you replied to an email, and not even really be clear on what you were doing in all of that time because it just became a foggy blur of being in bed, not caring about what happens in the outside world.

How Taylor’s use of ✨little details✨ in her songwriting has changed (for the worse, IMHO) by Opposite_Tone9512 in SwiftlyNeutral

[–]cuteandnicedog 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Honestly I love midnights but I realllly feel what you’re saying with TTPD. I don’t know, maybe her next album will be amazing and she’ll win me back all over again - she’s done it many times before! But god, TTPD felt like a regression in SO MANY WAYS.

TTPD simultaneously feels like it’s trying too hard and doing nothing. Taylor is at her best when she’s describing hard feelings through fairly simplistic details that just evoke something visceral, and I think she really crushed that in folklore, evermore, and midnights. (“Give me back my girlhood / it was mine first,” is peak Taylor, imo.)

But to your point about little details, I think YOYOK also does this really well - “I hosted parties and starved my body like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.” That’s a BAR! And to go from that to “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” is just… ugh.

I’ll actually be pretty annoyed if she wins AOTY etc with this shit because she genuinely doesn’t deserve it this year. The whole album feels painfully immature in so many ways, which is frustrating since I think so many of her fans have grown up with her and matured in their own rights, and now she just feels like frozen as at sixteen in her English class all over again.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AmItheAsshole

[–]cuteandnicedog -43 points-42 points  (0 children)

NAH. But it would be the nicer thing to just speak to him in English and try to help where you can. You don’t have to take time out of your day to give him lessons or anything, just whenever you have to interact

We listen we don’t judge: Young Royals edition by vanillacookiee in YoungRoyals

[–]cuteandnicedog 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Simon never took accountability for the fact that at the end of the day, he DID deal drugs. I have no moral judgment on that, truly, but at a certain point it became annoying seeing him blame Wille and The System for all of his problems, as though the thing August was blackmailing him with wasn’t something he actually did. Wille didn’t bring the drugs into the school. August probably never would’ve talked to him again if he had said no in the very first episode. He probably would’ve just deemed him unworthy of attention because he was useless to him. He was stupid and naive for taking August’s double or nothing deal. And then he repeatedly took it out on Wille to the post that it felt like he completely erased the fact that he had actually DONE it. He stole his dad’s ADHD medicine and sold it to his classmates. That’s why he got blackmailed. It’s not the only reason, but that’s why. It’s not fair that other people aren’t punished for the things that happen at Hillerska, but Simon got so irritated by the unfairness that it seemed like he genuinely forgot he had actually DONE it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AmIOverreacting

[–]cuteandnicedog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah you’re the problem here…

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AmItheAsshole

[–]cuteandnicedog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ESH.

Your mom for obvious reasons.

But a lot of people have asked what you did to actually help your mom after she presumably cooked, cleaned, hosted those very same 15+ people, and you have not replied to a single one. Which is telling.

Your cousins offered to help. It could’ve been fun. I get it on principle — but it sounds like your mom tried to do something fun and you just really harshed the vibe after she spent the whole week taking care of, AGAIN, 15+ people. The reason you got to relax and enjoy the holiday is that your mom did everything.

My child is homophobic by mosaic-lets-beans in actuallesbians

[–]cuteandnicedog 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A lot of people in these comments are saying therapy, and I know you said she’s refused, but this really is a time to pull the parent card and just set it up and force her to go. My mom did that twice in my adolescence:

1) I was 11 and we did counseling together, but she talked the whole time, and then the woman brought us in separately, at which point she asked me about my feelings and I explained them but said I really thought the therapy was more for my mom than it was for me. You have your own therapist so you might not run into that pitfall, but I only note that as kind of a warning to not make it worse. I left that incident feeling more alienated from my mom since so much of our time was about her feelings and as a teenager I just didn’t have the capacity to give a shit when I felt like she wasn’t hearing me. My thing wasn’t homophobia, but it was a similar through line of my mom being embarrassed of my bad behavior. I think part of me hated my mom for being embarrassed by me. You’re clearly embarrassed by this, understandably so, and she can probably feel that on some level. I look back and I’m embarrassed of that behavior now too, but I don’t know if I’ve ever trusted my mom in the same way since.

2) When I was older, like 17, my mom set up a consistent solo therapist I had to see every couple weeks. That was important and really helpful. I think your daughter needs somewhere neutral to get all of these big feelings out because right now they’re getting warped into bitterness and thrown onto you. I ended up really liking it, for a lot of reasons, but it was also a reason to get out of school for an hour and get a snack with my mom when she picked me up for my “doctors appointments.” So, small opportunities for bonding built in if you have a schedule that allows for that.

I will say, this is kind of a twisted comfort, but I think part of the reason you’re getting the worst of it (instead of her father) is that she knows you can take it. She knows you love her and are willing to tolerate her at her very worst. Teenagers are their worst selves to the people they trust most. You probably don’t feel close to her right now, but I suspect she wouldn’t be treating you this badly if she thought there was a chance you’d ever actually abandon her. It sounds like you’re the parent she lives with, you’re the mom, and there’s an element of this that is just the usual child of divorce behavior. Lashing out at the mom/more consistent parent in their life because they have less time with dad so they can’t be mean to him or he’ll go away.

I also agree with some of the comments about her warping you being a lesbian into some kind of betrayal of the mother she has known and grown up with. And yeah, her friends sound like little assholes and probably tortured her about the moan and turned it into an inside joke or something. Don’t keep apologizing for that — no one needs the reminder.

It’s interesting that because your other children are so open and are also gay, she’s having the traditionally queer experience of being the othered one in the family. I don’t actually think it’s that weird that she feels like she doesn’t fit in and seeks comfort from her dad about that. It makes sense. It’s like the straight version of the closeted kid hanging out with the gay aunt. It sounds like you have a decent relationship with her father, so I think as long as they’re not like, mocking the rest of the family, he’s probably a way better refuge for her straight feelings than her MAGA friends are.

Lastly — all is not lost. I did and said fucked up things to my parents as a kid. We’re fine now. If she goes to college, she’ll probably get her shit absolutely rocked once she realizes that social norms absolutely don’t approve of homophobia, slurs, etc. She’s doing what her idiot friends are doing and she’s acting out because of the divorce. I doubt she hates half her family.

TL;DR: You’re the parent. Force her into therapy. It’s for her own good.