Hello, friends! This is my happy place. For the most part it's random as hell but every now and then I post pretty consistently about certain things. I am currently obsessed with too many fandoms. Feel free message me if you aren't too shy. I promise to write you back!
For those of you who are fans of Francois, don’t send me asks anymore. I will not answer them. I will just be deleting them. The same goes for solo Connor fans and solo Hudson fans that are sending asks looking to bash the other. I will not participate in that kind of discourse anymore. My blog is not for that bullshit. I am a black queer woman who is neurodivergent. I will not be tolerating racist anti-Asian violence against Hudson and I will not be tolerating homophobic sexual violence against Connor. That shit is dehumanizing and I will not engage.
To all of you who have been working overtime to fuck up this fandom and turn it toxic, I feel sorry for you in the most pitying way possible. It really must suck to live inside your body and mind and not be able to escape. So sad, so pathetic.
Anyway. From now on, there will nothing but praise and love for Hudson, Connor, Hudcon, Heated Rivalry, Shane Hollander, and Ilya Rozanov. Fuck off if you don’t like it.
Okay ya’ll. I’m gonna have to add an exception to my rule of never posting about K on my blog. But only this one time. I don’t like her energy or the energy and the behavior of her glazers. It’s just so dark and chaotic and I don’t want to invite that in to infect my space. However, I had a thought regarding her appearance at csa that I cannot get out of my head so I need to post to let it go and move on.
So, I’ve seen many posts commenting on her choice of attire for the ceremony in comparison to Hudson’s. While some have been really nasty, most have been reasonable critiques. What I noticed is that, unlike her previous appearance, she was not styled at all by a professional. The outfit doesn’t need to be expensive to look expensive. Which makes it obvious that this time, Hudson did not pay for her styling by Anastasia.
Now here’s where the speculation comes in. What if the reason for that is because there isn’t a point to it anymore. With Hudson’s incredibly detached and cold performance that night, it seems bare minimum has hit a new low. His photo dump honestly reinforced that as well. He kept with the same pattern as usual: talk about her but mention Connor right after. Never let people forget that Connor is always on his mind and her presence doesn’t change that. Make sure everyone knows where his heart is.
Now when I say that there isn’t a point in using his connections/money to style her, I’m alluding to the possibility that this may well be the last event we see her in. I mean, he still isn’t rich yet and I know that styling isn’t cheap so why bother if the charade is ending soon. I think that’s also part of the reason he put so little effort in to the performance this time. He really is done.
These next few weeks are gonna be interesting so imma continue to sit back and observe.
Personally I hate AI because it uses slave labor, is killing the planet and is making people stupid, but that's just me. The soulless art aspect is just one little piece of my grander disdain.
wait how does AI use slave labor? Do you mean the human works that are stolen and not credited or compensated? Because technically under capitalism everything is exploited but there are varying degrees
Aside from the scraping, AI tech companies, including openAI/chatGPT, have outsourced training their models to countries in the global south, specifically Kenya in openAI's case. These workers are working in sweatshop conditions for less than 2 bucks USD per hour. I'm on mobile, but if you search 'openAI Kenya slave labor' and related keywords, you can find multiple articles about it.
Just realized that the reason I love making friends on tumblr is because it’s exactly how you make friends on the playground as a six year old. No, I don’t know their name but they love mermaids too and built this awesome sand castle. No, I don’t know their age but their imaginary cheetah is friends with mine. You like this show? You like this character?? You can sing the theme song really loud??? Here is a flower crown. Here is a juice box. You can share my time and I might never see you again but part of you stays in my soul forever. In my mind we’re still on the swing set and the sky is blue and nothing will ever be wrong again.
⚰️I know we love to talk about how intertwined they are how ancient their connection feels. I am interested in knowing how does hudson match connor then? How does he match connors magic with his own? I have seen them as equal partners since the start even though it seems uneven sometimes. I guess im in a lovey dovey mood & I would love your musings on this. (Also used that emoji you said in your pinned)
i’d like to touch on what i think c’s famous intuition is first, outside of any mystical or otherworldly implications. i’ve come to understand intuition as a form of rapid discernment: your body and mind processing a million tiny pieces of information at once, making countless micro-decisions until the process becomes so automatic that it simply feels like you “know.”
in that sense, strong intuition is often learned rather than innate. it can develop in people who grew up in environments where they couldn’t fully be themselves, because paying close attention to others becomes a survival skill. for queer children, sensitive children, or children who are otherwise different, being able to quickly read a room can be the difference between belonging and rejection, safety and isolation.
taken from his own words, he was “this artist, sissy boy in west texas that didn’t want to play football.” that’s a heavy awareness to carry from a young age. even if you have supportive people around you, you still understand that there are aspects of yourself that exist in tension with the broader environment. that kind of social isolation leaves an impression on anyone, especially a child.
so you learn to observe. you learn to adapt. you learn to hold yourself a certain way depending on who’s in the room.
if you’ve read my other asks, i’ve talked a bit about gender performativity—the idea that we learn what masculinity and femininity are supposed to look like by observing, interacting with, and responding to the direct people around us. then we reproduce, negotiate, resist, or reinterpret those expectations throughout our lives
i think the same process applies here. c is perceptive because he has spent a lifetime observing. he watches people. he interacts with them. he understands the roles they’re playing and the pressures shaping them. he has done the difficult work of understanding himself both inside and outside of those roles early in life, which affords him a sui generis capacity to adapt, reinterpret, and inhabit different ways of being without losing sight of who he is
maybe that's part of why his acting—his job—feels so convincing, even when it's just his face. he understands people. he seems capable of recognizing the patterns that sit beneath the surface almost instinctively, because intuition is built on years of observation and once he recognizes those patterns, he can reproduce them in a way that feels authentic and human. he's embodying the logic of their inner world, that's what makes it feel like he's not just imitating a person. how saucy!
alright, back to the point: so when people say he’s highly intuitive, i don’t necessarily think they’re describing some magical sixth sense? i think they’re noticing the result of decades spent paying attention. his mind has become incredibly fast at reading patterns, filling in gaps, and identifying the underlying mechanics that drive people. by the time that process reaches consciousness, it no longer feels like analysis—it feels like intuition
then you meet a man who cannot seem to keep himself hidden. no matter how hard he tries, his interior world is constantly leaking into the exterior one, his thoughts and feelings surfacing before he can contain them.
after spending a lifetime learning to read people, connor encounters someone who is almost startlingly transparent—a person whose emotions announce themselves before they're ever spoken aloud. and all of it circles back to identity in a way that feels almost inverse to his own experience.
connor learned to turn inward in order to survive the external world; hudson seems to turn outward in order to survive his internal one
where connor's instinct is observation, hudson's is vulnerability. not because vulnerability comes easily to him, but because he seems to continually choose it despite the risks. connor learned discernment through repression; hudson learned that connection was worth pursuing in spite of it
he wants to be understood. he wants to collaborate. he wants to create with people rather than compete against them. even his ambitions often seem rooted less in recognition than in participation—in being part of something meaningful alongside others; good or bad, his sense of self appears to be fundamentally relational. he understands himself through others, through exchange, through conversation, through creation, through belonging: where some people seek validation by distinguishing themselves from others, hudson seems to seek it by finding ways to connect with them
and those values don't begin with connor. they precede him. they're part of the person hudson already was long before they met
for someone who grew up feeling isolated, who spent years aware of his own difference, who learned to navigate environments that didn't always embrace him, how could that not feel transformative? after years of learning distance, caution, and self-monitoring, you suddenly meet someone whose first instinct is openness. someone who extends trust where you learned vigilance, who seeks connection where you learned discernment, who moves toward people instead of bracing for them.
it's not just that he understands you. it's that he offers a way of being in the world that you've spent your whole life searching for without realizing it. he embodies the ease, acceptance, and belonging that always felt slightly out of reach
how could that feel like anything other than meeting your soulmate? not because he's perfect, and not because you're the same, but because he answers a loneliness you've been carrying for so long that it has become part of the architecture of who you are
so: how does he match connor's magic with his own?
by letting connor be connor—the real connor, the "artist, sissy boy in west texas that didn't want to play football"—and proving to him that that kid can be loved without qualification. not loved because he learned how to perform, not loved because he became perceptive enough, or successful enough, now, or careful enough before, or useful enough all along. just loved.
for all of connor's insight into other people, i imagine the harder task was always extending that same grace to himself. after all, discernment is often born from self-surveillance. there's something suffocating about spending every day with a mind that is constantly monitoring, correcting, and negotiating with itself: do this, don't do that, don't say that, don't feel that, and everything will be fine.
and yet you feel it anyway, because for all the logic in the world, there are parts of yourself that cannot be reasoned away even with time. if you grew up constantly reading a room, anticipating reactions, and adjusting yourself accordingly, it becomes difficult to separate who you are from who you've learned to be. and i imagine that's especially true growing up and entering an industry built on perception: you're expected to please. you're expected to become someone else. you're expected to look a certain way, speak a certain way, carry yourself a certain way if you want to succeed. even authenticity becomes something that can be curated and sold
and then here comes someone whose instinct is not to scrutinize or reshape him, but simply to embrace him exactly as he is
in that sense, hudson's magic is permission. maybe he doesn't possess the same level of discernment, but he doesn't seem any less willing to welcome whatever is placed before him. he isn't searching for an idealized version of connor; he sees the beautiful parts, the wounded parts, the parts that don't fit neatly into any category, and none of them appear to diminish his affection
he sees connor regardless. more importantly, he sees him and loves him. loudly, openly, and without embarrassment. there's nothing tentative about it; he seems to approach loving connor with the same force a bulldozer approaches a fence
hudson doesn't ask for a version of him softened for consumption; made more masculine or more feminine, less strange, less emotional, less himself. he treats the very qualities that once marked connor as different as things worthy of affection, not obstacles to overcome, but parts of the person he loves
that's the inverse of an act. an act is something you perform in response to the 'other'—an attempt to manage perception. it's a negotiation between who you are and what the world is willing to receive.
love, at its best, is what happens when that negotiation becomes unnecessary. when the performance can finally end, and you discover that the person standing in front of you isn't asking for a role at all. they're just asking for you
connor's gift is understanding people; hudson's is making people feel safe enough to be understood.
new thought—if i were being annoyingly tarot-brained about it, i can see that manifesting as pentacles to connor's swords and cups. maybe that's why they fit together so well spirituality as well. understanding alone doesn't always create safety, and safety alone doesn't always create understanding, but when the two exist together, people tend to flourish
how cool if true!
i have work to do now so beep-boop bompous logging off! i hope that answered enough? i am sorry if it didn't
If there is one single post you must read if you wish to understand the inevitability and depth of the soul connection between Connor and Hudson, this is it.
I could quote the whole thing, to be honest, because every single paragraph has weight and significance, but this...
"how could that feel like anything other than meeting your soulmate? not because he's perfect, and not because you're the same, but because he answers a loneliness you've been carrying for so long that it has become part of the architecture of who you are"
...this one hit hard, because it is true for all of us in a way.
@honeybomp I am forever in awe of your magical weaving of words and thoughts into something so profoundly moving and spiritual. 🤍
sorry to be a broken record every month but christ menstruation is a stupid concept. oooooh excuse me for not getting pregnant, why the fuck is there goo falling out of me about it? grow the fuck up and reabsorb that shit for nutrients.
This is something I've thought about for weeks, and I'm going to explain it as best as I can:
Shane Hollander is fantastic autistic representation in general, but something that I really appreciate is the fact that Heated Rivalry is probably the first time in mainstream media that I personally have ever seen an autistic character portrayed as being sexual.
I think, as an autistic person, I've only ever seen autistic characters being portrayed as sexless, because non-autistic people assume we're all like that. Asexual autistics exist and they are my siblings and I love them deeply; that's not the problem. The problem is automatically being perceived that way by non-autistics. It's a stereotype rooted in the long history of autistic people (and disabled people in general) being infantalised.
So to have Shane Hollander, who is not only sexually active, but also (and this is a compliment) a freaky little slut is so refreshing. I love that Shane is an autistic freaky little slut. Because, yes! Autistic people can have sex! Shocking!
And what's better is that even though Shane is submissive, he's always treated both by Ilya and the narrative as an adult. He loves to be bossed about by Ilya and he loves to be gently bullied, but throughout it all, he's always respected and treated fairly. He is treated like an adult.
I think, in the beginning, that was likely one of the appeals to Shane about Ilya. At the start of the story, the two people he's closest to are his parents, and while David and Yuna are great, they're his parents, they still see him as their little boy, even as he's drafted into the NHL (sorry, the "MLH"). Yuna also doubles as Shane's manager, and she's obviously very protective of him. They never baby him in any way, but there's always that underlining... y'know, he's their baby, right?
With Ilya? He's just Shane. Being around Ilya was likely the first time Shane got to be someone outside of his parents' baby boy (and of course Mr. Canadian Hockey Dream Star).
There's something really empowering about seeing an autistic character being sexually active and being sexy and not having his autism being portrayed as detrimental to his sexual appeal!
