leah

21 | ace/any pronouns | if you mention Drag Path around me you WILL get a 45+ min podcast episode about it

[ravenclairee]

HUDSON WILLIAMS — 19th Television Academy Honors: Heated Rivalry

[shanehollandered]

i am convinced that ilya is into doing old people shit with shane, especially after they’re out.

there’s a tulip festival in ottawa that shane has never even heard of despite living there for a major part of his life, and ilya’s like “please let’s go to the tulip festival” and shane’s like ???????? why???? tulips?????? wtf?? but of course he goes and he Doesn’t Get It but ilya’s having fun, he’s full on turning his megawatt super smile on shane and taking a million photos of shane among the many colourful tulips and holding his hand and kissing his cheek and talking to random old ladies who tell them (well, mostly ilya because shane doesn't compute information about flowers) about tulips and stuff, and shane stands next to him and holds his hand while ilya animatedly talks and gestures with their hands linked and shane watches him, so enamoured, so besotted, because this isn’t about tulips, it’s just spending time together somewhere outside of hockey, where they're not shane hollander and ilya rozanov but just two guys among people, and shane is happy to continue standing next to his husband and nearly letting him smack Shane's own hand in his face from waving their joined hands around so much.

[swagsmeister]

hollanov grocery run

[ilyashaneconnorhudson]

x

[freshbeeth]

tomodachi life coming through with the representation 👏🏾👏🏾

[applepi3luvr]

It's sad it took as long as it did for there to be properly fleshed out hairstyles. But at the same time,its amazing now that there's more games out there where black kids can see themselves in the creative process. Cause for me at least,it use to irk me how despite there being a bakers dozen of choices to choose from. Only for there to be maybe one or two hair styles that actually looked like mine,and to add insult to injury my hair type aint that uncommon. So again,thank god there's proper hairstyles and hair texture representation in this game.

[kleyasradio]

I previously posted this on twitter but for all the smart people who don't have that hellish app, here's an entirely too long analysis on how Kleya and Dedra are mirrored characters and foils to one another

Both Kleya and Dedra are orphans. They had their families and innocence ripped away from them as children at the hands of the Empire, or, if we want to be more specific taking into consideration Dedra's age, at the ends of a government that rules via violence and repression.

Kleya's family and people are massacred and she is raised by one of the men responsible for said massacre. Dedra's parents are arrested and she is raised in a kinder block, an apparatus that works in tandem with the one that took her family away from her.

Dedra is 3 years old when she is taken away from her parents. At such a tender age, she has no recollection of her prior life, which means she completely interiorizes the Empire's values she's exposed to. Kleya is 11-12, old enough to remember exactly what was taken from her, to know it was an atrocity, and to hate who did it.

Dedra has no sense of self outside of the system that phagocytized her. She becomes the Empire. Its rules and structure are home to her. She finds affirmation in becoming the oppressive force that tears families apart, so she dedicates her life to enforcing that chokehold.

Kleya, too, was shaped by what was done to her, but she becomes the Cause. Her life is in service of freeing the galaxy from the Evil that took everything from her, of making sure no one else will ever have to experience what she did. Most importantly, it's her own choice.

The Empire wants the homogenization of its subjects, and Dedra embodies the Empire, but here is the hypocrisy and brilliance of her character: she is selfish. She is ambitious, ignores orders to seek personal glory. Dedra works in service to the system, cannot imagine anything outside it, but within the system she exists in, she wants to emerge as DEDRA.

Kleya fights for the freedom and individuality of every being in the galaxy but she has stripped herself of any individual hopes/desires. Her own self does not matter to her, to the point that in 211 she doesn't get why Cassian wants to save HER instead of just caring about the intel. 

Even the fact that Dedra dates Syril shows this Selfish/Selfless dichotomy. Having a partner is, broadly speaking, a self-indulgent choice. It's an exclusive bond between yourself as an individual and another person, and Dedra gets herself a boyfriend who is like a pet that will do everything she wants. Kleya instead sacrifices everything to the altar of the Cause. She deprives herself of love or friendship or meaningful connections, she doesn't even entertain the possibility of seeking something for herself. 

And speaking about that, both Kleya and Dedra are extremely controlled, contained, emotionally guarded characters. The rigidity in their physicality reflects the need they both have to maintain control at all times, because vulnerability scares them.

They both grew up without tenderness or affection. Dedra understands love only through a lens of control and power. Kleya wills herself not to feel love at all.

It's very boring to me when people interpret Dedra and Syril's relationship as "she never cared about him, she only ever manipulated him because she is EVIL". That is so two-dimensional and not at all accurate. Yes, she is evil, she is a fucking monster. But also, from her perspective, Dedra does love Syril. We see it in the way she steps up to Eedy to defend him, when his happiness after the meeting with Partagaz causes her happiness. But that's the beauty and tragedy of it, and why she is such an amazing villain. Her understanding of love is completely warped. To her, love is all about ownership and control. But love is the opposite of ownership. True love is selfless, and it is freeing, and Dedra is terrified of freedom. She is someone who wants to love, but never can. Not really. Because control isn't love.

On the other hand, Kleya is someone who very much does not want to love. She wants to be as cold and unfeeling as she can because that will make her free from any vulnerability and she will better serve the Cause. But underneath that armor, she loves immensely. Kleya wants to be heartless, but love spills out of her.

They both have nervous tics that manifest when the control they desperately need is slipping from them. By definition, a nervous tic is something that can't be controlled. This crack in their armor reveals itself literally through a betrayal by their bodies.

Dedra in particular literally needs the dark to be vulnerable. She needs Syril to turn out the lights to have sex. She lets herself sob in Narkina only after the lights go off. Everything that reminds her that she is human is something to hide, something to be ashamed of.

Both have a mentor in Luthen and Partagaz. Dedra spends years trying to impress Partagaz only for him to make no qualms about casting her aside after the Axis fiasco. Kleya wants to hate Luthen, she refuses to consider him a father, yet she cannot help but love him, and when the time comes, Luthen gives up his life to save her. One is a bond of opportunism, the other is a bond of love.

And this is where it shows why they're such perfect mirrors as villain and hero. Dedra spends her whole life in service of a system that rejects her and spits her out. Kleya is ready to be tossed aside, but is instead offered love and kindness, by people she oftentimes had a hand in hurting. She is reminded that her life matters.

This show is SO intentional when it comes to its transitions. In the final montage of the show, Dedra and Kleya's ends are shown back to back, and I don't think it's a coincidence at all. 

Dedra ends up in prison bc of a chain reaction that started with her inability to let go of Axis. She disregarded all protocol in her obsession to catch him. And once she found Luthen, her arrogance led her to face him. She didn't just want to neutralize a threat to the Empire. She NEEDED him to know that SHE beat him. Except, she didn't.

Because Luthen wasn't Axis. Or at the very least, it wasn't just him. Kleya is the Axis Dedra never found, the one she never even knew existed until it was too late. Back in season 1, she tortured Salman Paak and he revealed that a woman had approached him and convinced him to hide the fractal radio in his backyard. That woman was most definitely Kleya. But Dedra, so meticulous with every other bit of information, didn't focus much on it. Her obsession with Axis blinded her. In her hubris, she let the most important piece slip through her fingers. She destroyed her own life for nothing.

Look at their final scenes. Kleya steps into the sunrise, sees the community she doesn't quite feel part of but that she helped create, a community that welcomes her. And she smiles. Dedra, alone and forgotten in the dark, is consumed by misery and despair, in a place that values its prisoners less than droids.

They both essentially started out in a box. Kleya in the metal compartment on Luthen's ship, Dedra in the kinder block. Kleya ends her journey out in the open, surrounded by light and life. Dedra ends her journey back where she started - in a sterile, lifeless box.

Dedra's ultimate personal defeat wasn't the leak of the Death Star information. That's a defeat for the Empire. Dedra's goal was to win against Axis. And she doesn't. She loses. Because Kleya gets to live.

[skotiwolves]

Noah Kahan / The Great Divide

[ilya-rozanova]

forehead kisses

[chachi-baby]

I like to imagine Rose’s brothers gave her shit for not sticking it out with Shane Hollander long enough for him to meet the family then when they find out it’s because Shane is gay they give her shit for not passing him along to one of them and she’s like??? you’re not gay??? to which they’re like !!!! everyone’s gay for Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov ain’t special

[rainbow-femme]

Someone online makes a comment about how Shane probably isn’t a very good boyfriend, saying his flat affect and resting neutral face in paparazzi pics and video must mean he’s detached and not affectionate compared to Ilya who is much more overtly affectionate

Ilya then has the rest of the Centaurs help him make a compilation of secretly filmed Shane moments showing how good a boyfriend he is

Ilya doing the “would you still love me if I was a worm?” thing and without missing a beat or asking any questions Shane just goes “Yeah”

Harris films himself asking Shane random Ilya questions and Shane always having an answer. “Hey what Ilya’s favorite milkshake flavor?” “Mint.” “I’m buying everyone fun socks, what’s Ilya’s favorite color?” “Blue, but only if it’s light, he doesn’t like dark blue.” “What’s Ilya’s favorite fruit?” “Pears.”

Troy waits for Shane to sit on the bench looking at his phone or tying his skates then says “Oh hey Ilya’s coming in” and catches multiple examples of Shane immediately scootching over to one side to make room for Ilya to sit next to him

Ilya puts his feet up on Shane’s lap silently and Shane starts lightly massaging them. Ilya lays his head on Shane’s shoulder and Shane starts quietly playing with his hair

They film Ilya handing Shane random things and asking him to hold them and Shane does without question. The internets favorite is the one where Ilya pulls a pineapple out of his bag and asks Shane to hold it and he agrees, getting his gear on one handed so he can keep holding the pineapple in the other

Hayden gets a video of Shane letting Ruby brush his hair and fill it with clips while he and Jade do Ilya’s nails, Ilya laying with a face mask and cucumbers over his eyes and his head on Shane’s lap

[agender-ryland-grace]

not broken, just didn't have the right words yet

[chalroe]

i love aroace ryland grace. however, i dont think he knows this about himself so for the past decade he's probably been like "yeahhh i'll eventually settle down and find a special someone but i'm just too busy being a teacher to date or anything like that"

cut to when grace & rocky are on their way to erid and things have settled down a bit and he's just like.

oh thank GOD i do not have to ever do that

[thewingedwolf]

one thing i found interesting was how very american mike & emma are. charlie says it, that the school shooter thing is a very american thing & rachel attempts to deny this, using mike as one of the “good” ones - oh my husband was a poor black man exposed to guns at an early age but he didn’t commit The Ultimate ThoughtCrime. and mike immediately slaps this down, that he grew up around guns because his uncle was a cop. but when charlie tells them about how emma could have possibly thought about something like this, he also lies & blames the death of the neighbor. but the thing is - emma being desensitized to gun violence bc her dad is in the military, and not thinking about a) the human cost and b) the way people would talk about her afterwards, this makes complete sense. the child of a cop might be turned off by their love of guns, and a military brat might be too interested in the aesthetic of the lone, tortured shooter! but that is too much for a liberal white person like rachel or charlie to take. it’s too real and it’s not stereotypical enough. especially when both mike & emma feel shame over the worst things they did while both charlie & rachel could not be less bothered. they have actual victims still alive out there! mike was a little shitty to a weird, entitled girlfriend of his & emma was a little too caught up in Making Them Pay but actually did nothing! and that’s something charlie eventually points out - she didn’t actually do anything wrong!!! maybe she turned from those actions for reasons that are self centered (like being upstaged, like what her reputation might be after she’s dead) but does rachel feel bad? does charlie? why is what she didn’t do so much worse than charlie actually kissing someone else?? yes, maybe, it is true that he loved a mask the whole time! but rachel’s ire is not that emma is wearing a mask, but rather that she was fooled by emma’s mask!

[diamondeyes-deluxe]

My favorite thing about The Drama is Rachel's character because she reminds me of the kind of young person online who thinks the mere act of performing disgust or outrage at the morally wrong actions of someone else is somehow politically productive at all, or that it makes them a "good person."

Whenever I see someone disregard or disparage ideas of rehabilitation for people who have done (or in this movie's case, almost did) unforgivable things, I want to grab them and ask "what should be done, then?" Because, people like that do exist, in spades, and short of executing or imprisoning or Black Mirror White Bearing every person who's done or thought of doing something immoral, rehabilitation is probably the best bet for minimizing harm, right? (And if your answer to immorality IS execution or isolation... i do not think youre really the more moral one here...) But even taking out any potential empathy for the humans who do or think of doing immoral acts, sometimes, giving them the tools to lead a happy and fulfilling life are the exact thing that leads them AWAY from the potential acts of like, shooting up a school, regardless of how undeserving you think they are of that.

Its especially interesting because, in the movie, Emma had arguably done way more activism against gun violence than Rachel ever did, despite her cousin, but this means nothing. Emma's primary motivation for her planned shooting was bullying and the isolation she felt (and TCC tumblr), but it was when she found friends and real community and something else to invest her energy into, she was able to pull herself out of those dark thoughts and, like, rejoin society. And what does Rachel do when she finds out? Spreads rumors, and tries to isolate her. And, I say this not to victim blame, but to acknowledge that no one makes those big decisions in a vacuum and that understanding these things better is a NECESSITY for preventing them, which should be the fucking goal; that is exactly the kind of behavior that made her want to do that when she was 15.

[giveemhales]

I am a big defender of Shane not wanting to come out and one of the biggest reasons that I haven’t seen discussed much is how much worse it is to come out as a Gay Asian Bottom compared to coming out as a bisexual (white) man who is already regarded as a sex machine. Like Asian men are already overly feminized in the west. Shane’s general demeanor is subdued, he doesn’t drink or party often, and he abides by strict rules and a diet that already makes him an outsider. He doesn’t sleep around and has only has one public relationship with a woman under his belt, which ended very quickly. He’s the exact opposite of Ilya in all these ways and it puts him at a disadvantage. He has a “soft” image he spends his whole life actively opposing. His image is working against him; him being gay contributes to it and worsens it. Ilya’s image is working in his favor; being with a man is an anomaly OR further proof of his sexual prowess. And bc of Ilya’s well known history of sleeping around and generally aggressive attitude, it will be assumed he would be the top. Through a heteronormative lens, which is obviously the norm in hockey, that makes him the “man” in the relationship. If anything, his ability to “dominate” another man may bolster his image, make him even more of an “alpha male”. But being a bottom is seen as inherently demeaning and effeminate, thanks to misogyny, homophobia, and rape culture. The less bulky, quiet, shy man with a shocking lack of experience with woman is obviously the bottom (and this is even worse if they have the height and body differences canon to the books). Shane will be seen as weaker (and what could be worse than that in a contact sport like hockey). He’ll be viewed as the “woman” in the relationship, which is to say he will be viewed as inherently inferior. And draws further attention to the parts of him he’s tried to hide (aka autism symptoms) which will now be treated as further evidence of his sensitivity and otherness. Everything he does now is gay. But being with Shane is the only gay thing Ilya does. Without the threat of Russia, Shane has far more to lose from coming out imo. And his team’s reaction proves that. He deserves some grace.

[saints-salvation]

Im aware I will be crucified for this opinion but ill say it anyway. Fandom culture is going downhill and I do blame heated rivalry fans.

I love heated rivalry, who doesnt, but my god are people flooding A03 and fandom spaces with no concept of how to actualy behave in them. Wolfbird is just proof of my point. I understand people's frustration, but even the reaction to the authors anouncment is part of the problem, posting things saying how you cried because its not being updated or begging to be part of the group of friends that will get updates is not helping. Not all fics get updated and if you read fanfic you just have to be ok with that. Just because the fic is incredibly well written and so popular doesnt mean its readers are any more or less entitled to updates than the readers of other fics. Im not saying all the people posting about it are a part of the problem, but arguing that a few people shouldnt ruin it for the rest and guilt tripping the author just adds to the problem of authors being treated like they owe you updates.

This isnt meant to be a post going omg look at how heated rivalry fans, a demographic made up largely of women and other minorities are ruining fandom spaces because thats neither fair nor the point. What im trying to say is if you are new to fandom and heated rivalry is your first introduction, please, please, please take the time to learn fandom culture and how to interact with others in fandom. Even the concept of dont like dont read, because even if you dont like something in a fic and decide to post about how its disgusting or disturbing, I promise you that one of your personal favourite authors either reads or writes it and will see the shift in fandom culture your promoting and will be discouraged from writing.

At the end of the day every single person who created something does it for fun and because they enjoy it, if they no longer find it fun or enjoyable they just wont make anything. Please treat your authors nicely because wolfbird is becoming one of many and the sad part about that isnt that you cant read it, its that someone who loved writing was pushed to stop writing.

[saints-salvation]

Im aware I will be crucified for this opinion but ill say it anyway. Fandom culture is going downhill and I do blame heated rivalry fans.

I love heated rivalry, who doesnt, but my god are people flooding A03 and fandom spaces with no concept of how to actualy behave in them. Wolfbird is just proof of my point. I understand people's frustration, but even the reaction to the authors anouncment is part of the problem, posting things saying how you cried because its not being updated or begging to be part of the group of friends that will get updates is not helping. Not all fics get updated and if you read fanfic you just have to be ok with that. Just because the fic is incredibly well written and so popular doesnt mean its readers are any more or less entitled to updates than the readers of other fics. Im not saying all the people posting about it are a part of the problem, but arguing that a few people shouldnt ruin it for the rest and guilt tripping the author just adds to the problem of authors being treated like they owe you updates.

This isnt meant to be a post going omg look at how heated rivalry fans, a demographic made up largely of women and other minorities are ruining fandom spaces because thats neither fair nor the point. What im trying to say is if you are new to fandom and heated rivalry is your first introduction, please, please, please take the time to learn fandom culture and how to interact with others in fandom. Even the concept of dont like dont read, because even if you dont like something in a fic and decide to post about how its disgusting or disturbing, I promise you that one of your personal favourite authors either reads or writes it and will see the shift in fandom culture your promoting and will be discouraged from writing.

At the end of the day every single person who created something does it for fun and because they enjoy it, if they no longer find it fun or enjoyable they just wont make anything. Please treat your authors nicely because wolfbird is becoming one of many and the sad part about that isnt that you cant read it, its that someone who loved writing was pushed to stop writing.