Not Actually A Cat

now mainly posting from @fanfic-scrapbook • this blog used to be: Thoughts on QL shows (mainly BL), kdramas, other media, my life as a student, and more. Now it's pretty quiet. • I reblog fandom meta at @iamthinkingaboutvariousthings and art & more at @thecatreblogsart. • Banner: Jaab from Step by Step

[gillianthecat]

#effervescent

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[eesttm]

Robyn and Dara in How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

[the-tenth-arcanum]

🗣🗣🗣 free youtube premiere of the national theatre the importance of being ernest announced!

nationaltheatre

[the-tenth-arcanum]

🗣🗣🗣 free youtube premiere of the national theatre the importance of being ernest announced!

nationaltheatre

[fanfic-scrapbook]

I see why the whole entire world is losing their everloving minds over Hudson and Connor. They're So. Fucking. Good. in this.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Ok, maybe episode 3 was worth it for that moment where Scott is inviting Kip to come out on the ice. It's still not a good episode ☹️ but it was a nice moment, possibly made more moving by knowing their backstory.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

God, Hudson Williams is so good in this.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Omg. This scene in the club and the intercuts between unsatisfying straight sex and angst filled masturbation. This show is taking all the good moments in the books and making them 10 times better.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Aww. I love that they let Shane and Rose have real chemistry in this conversation. That was lovely.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Hudson and Connor are so good at making it look like Shane and Ilya are in on the joke together. Even when they've just fought, even when they're uncertain about what the other is thinking. From the rookie season commercial shoot onward. Like, they look like they want each other, of course, but they also so clearly just like each other, and get each other. I fully buy that they're falling/have fallen in love. They are each other's person.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Luckily that was an aberration. Back to Shane and Ilya and the show is good again. Tension! Parallels and contrasts! And my god the chemistry.

Hayden was boring in the books but I'm totally charmed by him here.

Svetlana was intriguing in the books and is even more intriguing here, but I already know the show still won't do her justice. 😞

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Anyway. The book was boring but whatever. But Robbie and François are good enough that they deserved a story they could really sink their teeth into. I want the angsty thoughtful indie movie version.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

And frankly this story needs to dig into how shitty hockey is as an intuition. We need the tension between Scott's "hockey is my family"' and that reality. I gather that's not something RR is interested in, and maybe the show couldn't have gotten funded in Canada if they'd gone there, but it still necessary. Maybe I'm spoiled by fanfic, where they can and do go there.

(Shane and Ilya's episodes work both because it needs that less and implies it more.)

[fanfic-scrapbook]

I will say that Robbie G.K is doing his damndest to turn this blank space of a character into a person. The script is not really on his side though.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

Or idk. Maybe book 1 was simply unsalvageable without changing it so radically it would have been a different story entirely. Which they felt they couldn't do.

It's in this weird place where there's both too much and too little weight given to Scott Hunter's (very understandable!) fear about coming out.

Like. That fear is the only actual plot point or source of conflict in the story. Without it there is nothing but boring domesticity. But they're treating Scott like he's some weird prude for not wanting to be out. They could dig into how homophobia affects both of the characters but it's so shallow. The source of tension feels arbitrary, like it could be replaced with an argument about living in Brooklyn vs Manhattan.

Elena is not giving him any empathy. Which is unkind but also something very plausible for a friend of Kip's to do! But it's more interesting if we dig into that, instead of treating it as just a plot point designed to move the story from A to Z. And it's weirdly not showing any of the homophobia in hockey. Maybe they think showing its effect on Ilya and Shane in the first two episodes was enough, but we need to see Scott dealing with it for his fears to hit home in all this cosiness. The book I think also failed in that, but this was a place the show could have improved.

And Kip just waits like a lump. How has his life been affected by homophobia? Has he vowed never to go in the closet again but find it worth it for this man? Is he perfectly happy to be a secret? Is he even aware that homophobia exists? We have no idea because the show hasn't gone there. And not every story about queer relationships needs to go there, but I would argue in a story about homophobia we need to at least see how both main characters and react to it. Maybe we will in the last six minutes but uh. That's too late to mean anything.

I think I would have liked it better if the story temporarily made us worry he was a serial killer. Let us really feel his intensity and obsession.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

The thing about Kip-Scott is that there's an intriguing premise there (superstar athlete deeply in the closet falls in love with a regular man but is scared to come out because hockey is horrifically homophobic), but the original book didn't manage to do anything interesting with it, and this episode so far is better, but still not turning them into a compelling story. The actors are great, and make them into interesting people. I like the side characters, especially the Dad. Idk, I think for me the flirting and domesticity is cute, but I'm not seeing anything that makes me believe in the obsession, the idea that Scott is ready to upend everything for a man, for this man in particular. It's too cozy. The book was too cozy and this doesn't escape it. It needs more angst.

The story doesn't have enough content for more than one episode, but it also feels rushed, skipping over things, not letting emotional beats land. It feels like they felt like they needed to cram in book 1 (maybe to give the Cup kiss context?) but didn't care enough to make the changes necessary to make it work. Like, with Shane & Ilya, I can feel the thought that went into them. This feels more perfunctory. I think the series would have been better off without it.

[fanfic-scrapbook]

I am watching Heated Rivalry. I was going to wait until the hype died down because it's very very weird for me as someone who obsessively reread the book circa 2019, but a) that's not going to happen for a while, and b) I started reading some HR fanfic then decided I was finally in the mood for the show after all.

And it's lovely! Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, and everyone else managed to turn these (admittedly compelling) cardboard cutout characters into living, breathing, feeling human beings. Shane's little smiles! The way that they look at each other. Their connection is so palpable. The sex scenes are a good mix of awkward-hot. The decision to tell the story linearly was a good choice. I've mixed feelings on Yuna as such a momager, but I like her having more of a presence.

Now I'm 10 minutes in to episode 3. I feel like interrrupting Shane and Ilya to shoehorn in a whole other book is kinda strange, but on the other hand it kinda feels right to leave Shane and Ilya stewing in it for a while. I did read Scott and Kip's book and found it and them pretty boring, but idk, these onscreen versions are winning me over? Their flirting is very cute. And the decision to age Kip up so they feel more like peers was a good one.