if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it being the last line of the brokeback mountain novella is so crazy it makes me feel like my guts are falling out. if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it. jesus fucking christ
if you write shane hollander as religious or spiritual or believing in god in any way you have fundamentally misunderstood him to an irreparable degree. i don’t care if it’s an au he literally cannot do that. it’s like writing an au where he’s a strict top it’s incompatible with him as a character
no bc ilya rozanov is going through it in the long game and god gives him luca haas and here is a boy and he looks up to you and he is nothing like you and he is so easy to love and then god gives him troy barrett and here is a boy and he looks up to you and he is so much like you and he is so easy to love too and what the fuck is ilya supposed to do about that?
shane getting held down in their bed and fucked so rough and crying and writhing and pleading and ilya grabs his face to make him look up and meet his eyes. and shane says please please ilya why are you doing this to me i thought you loved me. and ilya cums on the spot
Actually I’m going to make this a full post—it’s crazy how much hate Reid gets over the diet thing when the way she wrote it was very clearly Shane trying a fad diet type thing and then backing off. Shane has zero, nada, nilch diet thoughts in the Heated Rivalry book. He eats pasta and bagels and drinks multiple beers in a row without thinking about it once. He only mentions that during the season he often abstains from alcohol, which is very normal for athletes.
In TLG the diet is a new thing, and is directly linked to his age. His family and Ilya rib him about it because it’s new. He’s able to give it up fairly easily because it wasn’t an integral part of his psychology it was something he was doing in response to an acute worry (aging). There’s also the implication that Shane is soothed psychologically by restraint and discipline in general. But Shane’s diet stuff in TLG feels closer to like the year your friend watched Supersize Me and cut out fast food or something. And then decided eventually ah fuck it we all die anyway.
It’s Tierney who integrates Shane being weird about food into his overall character. And gives him a specifically macrobiotic diet, which lowkey feels like a racial micro-aggression to me, but whatever.
What's really grating when people discuss Obsession is how much weight people put on Bear's wish. Like the wish is what made him the bad guy. No one can sit and say they've never wished upon a star or thrown a coin into a well for something to happen. You're not expecting it because logically you know magic isn't real. Same thing with Bear. There was no reason for him to think he needed to choose his words wisely while he was making a wish over a $7 toy he got from a novelty shop alone in his car. There was even less reason for him to think magic was real and the wish would work. Nothing that happened there made Bear the bad guy.
What did make Bear the bad guy was everything he did once he realized the wish was real. Once he realized that his action was causing suffering, then the onus is on him to stop immediately. That's why the dinner scene was so important because it wasn't the phone call to the customer service representative that made Bear realize the wish was real. It was the dinner scene where Bear is told that 1) Nikki sees him as a brother and 2) she lied about her dad being sick. Bear then asks Nikki if she loves him more than anyone else in the world and she says yes. Without a shadow of doubt, Bear knew the wish was real right at the moment. Yet in the very next scene he has sex with her knowing that she could not say no. This moment is what makes Bear the bad guy for the rest of the film, not the wish he had no reason to think would work.
Fondly thinking about how lame and eccentric Ilya was being in Tampa like UGH Hollander whatever u don't even care about you being gay or us being in love 😒 look how little I care I am making so many movements with my arms 🙄 and then he gets a smooch and is like okey I lied I do have feelings please don't look. Guy of all time.
my favorite is when he shyly starts caressing thumbs with shane on a beach at sunset and then next scene shane comes to his room and ilya is immediately like i have never felt a feeling once in my life. we get together we fuck it’s simple. okay yes i also try desperately to hold your hand on a beach at sunset. that’s unrelated. like the fact that this happens within 60 seconds onscreen is so funny to me
okay, I just finished reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and like, holy shit. it was a ride
what I really didn't expect going into it though and what has therefore really made the novel fascinating to me is the presentation of her husband, Caleb. going into it, all I really knew was that he's the husband of a tradwife (typically implies, I would think, a shitty person), and that he gotten deeper and deeper into the manosphere. so, like, obviously I'm not expecting much on likability or even... interest, tbh
but I actually found he was so much more sympathetic than anticipated and that just really provided a fascinating character that had. SO much more to say!!
SPOILERS but please read my analysis of him it'd mean the world to me I love the shifting of his dynamic with Natalie!
like, so we meet him in the first section of the book and he seems typically trad husbandy, but Natalie does mention early on that he was both coddled and neglected by his parents, and that he doesn't really wear his masculinity comfortably, so you start to kind of understand there's more to him, but whatever
to me, it's not until, maybe after their wedding that you really start to see him as a bit more dynamic. again, he is coddled, he's rich, he's the youngest of five, you start to see that he's lazy, he doesn't want to really do much. he doesn't seem overly interested in Natalie but he was raised Christian and with certain expectations and he follows them, but you continue to see how it chafes against him. he doesn't want a job and nobody has ever held him to that expectation that he would have one, so whatever. he has sex with Natalie, but you can tell he's not particularly into it. he can't even get hard. Natalie later sees the porn he looks at and is horrified, but it's not exactly like step-siblings going at it or abuse or underage or anything too harrowing. he likes watching REAL LIFE COUPLE HAVE HOT SEX or PASSIONATE LOVEMAKING (lots of pussy licking!). he seems to value the idea that a couple could get each other off, even that a woman's pleasure could be involved, but he clearly just does not feel that with Natalie
despite this, he gets her pregnant and things seem to be moving along like a facade of what you'd expect for his life but he doesn't really put himself into it too much
I don't think he's the most malicious at this point, but he's dumb and he doesn't understand the real world and he's spent all this life being rich and not needing to try and it's like. what? now he has to try? that doesn't seem right
he is somewhat willing, though. Natalie wants him to get a job and he's reluctant, but you can tell that he hasn't completely dismissed it, he just moreso doesn't see anything that interests him. why work if you're not going to be happy? this is a privilege that he absolutely has and is willing to take advantage of. when he does find a job that would make him happy, he's excited at the prospect, and Natalie also fully believes he would great at it. that he'd give it his all and show care and enjoyment for the work he's doing
the goal posts kind of shift there, though, which is interesting. it's not enough to find a job--it has to be the right type of job. Natalie's not happy with the idea of him teaching kindergarten--something she says he would no doubt excel at--because it's not manly enough. and here's where gender roles really come into the book sharply. I believe Natalie even says here that it's too bad she's not the man, while Caleb is the woman, because she's more ambitious and he wouldn't mind staying home and having smaller goals
and it's... like duh gender roles hurt everyone but it is kind of insane when you really think about it. they can't take on the roles in their relationship that feel more natural to them, in their specific circumstance, because it's not what's expected of their biology? are we all hearing this? it's an embarrassment to be a certain type of person with a certain type of job because it's not masculine enough? Natalie and Caleb are still very imperfect as a couple but I do think they could've gotten more enjoyment out of their marriage if they were at least allowed to be themselves, but god forbid that not match their penis and vagina assignment!
from here, we also get, Natalie can't just tell her husband what to do (also probably against gender roles), so she has to convince him that public school is bad. and because she says that and Caleb literally has a sack of potatoes where his brain should be, he decides to do his own research, very likely just googles "is public school bad?" and very easily falls into all sorts of reactionary content online. which he doesn't exactly have the media literacy or personal knowledge to dispute, so he ends up believing it
and I thought that this was such a fascinating look at how people can get started down these pipelines! the way you could trace Natalie poisoning her own husband's mind when she was simply trying to shit down a desire she thought was Wrong of him to have. how innocent it can all be--a thirst for knowledge, to confirm something you're not sure of, without the right research skills... it's easy to getting sucked into believing everything you read online. Caleb gets sucked IN!
and I think that it also shifted perspectives... we talk a lot about young boys being vulnerable to this pipeline, and when I kind of picture the type of guy who would care about the manosphere, I guess I never really thought "someone who's established in their life and not traditionally masculine" would still be able to stumble into it. but they are. anyone is susceptible, is the scary part
and now for a good chunk of the book we just sort of follow how he digs deeper and deeper into this. at the same time, we're still jumping in and out of the bits in the 1800s which I will get to, and we see even more that I think lends Caleb sympathy. Natalie agrees with his father to have more children, and basically has to pressure Caleb into it. she specifically describes him as looking pained when she asks to have sex, and then she tries for like 10 minutes to get him hard before sending him off to jack off in a bowl. and, like, whether or not you define that as rape, it's fucking coercive, and you can tell how little he wants it. again, the roles are reversed. in many heterosexual relationships, pressure for sex can come from the husband. in the idea of these more "trad" relationships, I would say it's probably more the husband wanting to be fruitful, or whatever. Caleb is fine with one child, he seems to like her, he plays with her, he doesn't want more, but he's forced into it
years pass, with Caleb continuing to fall into online conspiracies. I find it interesting that even in that, he's not particularly malicious. he talks about the manosphere, but he never gets too outwardly "women belong in the kitchen". he doesn't quite boss Natalie around. he does blame the feelings of inadequacy in the world on how "society is trying to feminize men", but he kind of just. talks. vaguely. and doesn't seem overly passionate. he doesn't seem to realize that the reason he's sort of a failure is less his femininity and more a combination of his parents failing to raise a competent son and his wife denying who he is
the manosphere does have a clear impact on how Caleb sees himself, though. Natalie notes at one point, maybe around their third child, that he watches the kids longingly but no longer plays with them. she says that he no longer thinks playing with his children is appropriate because of how the people online have characterized masculinity, and how he's expected to perform it. this just takes further enjoyment from Caleb's life and isolates him from his children, and it's about here that I think he starts to lose a bit of sympathy, because you see that he's not the most involved father
there's a night that Natalie is taking too long to cook dinner so she can record it to post online, and their eldest goes to get Caleb, complaining that they haven't eaten yet. it's shown to be a failing on Natalie, Caleb showing up with their child and questioning why she hasn't fed her. and it is a clear failing, the prioritization of online image vs the actual real life needs of her child. but while Caleb is annoyed, it's important to note two things:
1. Clementine had to go find her father, because though Natalie was busy cooking, he was not present to watch the kids. I believe this is before they have nannies, too, so he expects Natalie to take all of that on herself
2. Caleb could easily take on cooking or providing for the kids. he could make them snacks while Natalie works. instead, he pretty much does nothing to challenge Natalie's neglect or combat it, getting mad at her while not providing any support of his own to his children
you can also note that he seems to have no objections with selling his children on the internet for fame and money. not that he seems to concern himself too much with being involved in Natalie's work, but a good father might be concerned with how the visibility would impact his children. of course, growing up with a politician for a father, he might also be so used to it as to barely be bothered. I just think that he needs to be held accountable for basically not doing shit to keep these kids safe
again, we move forwards, and here we hit Shannon. she's fascinating in her relationship to Caleb, because she challenges him. while Natalie let her husband get brainwashed with things she also knew not to be true but pretty much left him to it, Shannon does push back. and Caleb seems to like that. she treats him like a real person, which I guess no one else ever has? he's pretty much immediately in love with her! finally someone is showing him the attention and respect he craves
but it's interesting, too, because he seems to pretty easily believe her. and it's like. usually people with strong held beliefs aren't so easy to win over. Caleb then comes across as extremely impressionable. you could mold that man into whatever you need so easily. it's interesting, though, that he decides he's in love with Shannon because she challenges him. almost like he kind of needs someone to not just let him get away with whatever. he craves more, but Natalie just needs his sperm, his father's money, and him out of the way, so she doesn't particularly care
even when the scandal comes out about them, Shannon emphasizes that Caleb is kind. it's just that he's also a dumbass without a spine
but, things really turn when the scandal comes out. first off, they finally have a conversation about their relationship. well, an argument. good news is!: Caleb doesn't like fucking Natalie cause she feels like a dead body. so, um. unfortunately the bar is in hell and some men would not have minded... it's a win for Caleb we're running out of other options for wins
but their roles really reverse, here, when they choose to live as if it's actually the 1800s. maybe the full, immersive commitment to the bit helps them to better fit their gender roles, but suddenly, Caleb is not the same stupid manipulable idiot from earlier. and we can assume it takes a while to fully settle into, but it's fascinating. he starts this transformation during their argument, where he also slaps Natalie when she speaks poorly of his mother. he seems to take enjoyment in taking mean in these moments, telling her how he should've divorced her when he had the opportunity, how his father genuinely wants to kill her
now, if he'd divorced her... really at any point before here I think he'd still come away from things looking half decent. but he doesn't. he's never going to, no matter how much he might want to. he's in it, now
so, he agrees to fit the 1800s lifestyle. he agrees to subject his children to this, because it's not just him. and he says later on that he couldn't leave Natalie and the children, but... even if in some sick twisted way he cares for Natalie, he could've come back for her if he really cared, but at least gotten the kids to a better guardian in the meantime. Clementine is the one who has to take the children. at 16, it's Clementine who takes on the role of responsible parent, dragging all but her youngest sibling with her off of the farm. to make matters worse, while Clementine tries to free her siblings, Caleb also actively brings three ADDITIONAL children into this world they've created
and both Caleb and Natalie, but I'm really going to blame Caleb for this because he seems to be more mentally sound, parentify their eldest daughters. Caleb leaves it to Clementine to save her siblings. fuck, he even has his oldest sons ensuring they don't starve out there. his children are taking care of him, trying to fix his mistakes. it's fucking insane
and you see it with Mary, too. Mary is so fucking parentified she acts like Natalie's fucking mother instead of the other way around. and, again, Natalie's unwell. but Caleb leaves that to MARY to sort out. Caleb leaves Mary to basically be the surrogate wife and run the household. to ensure her younger sister and her MOTHER are safe
Natalie says at one point that Caleb only does the farm chores he likes best and leaves the rest to the farm hands. without those farm hands, it's clear that he dumps the responsibilities he can't be fucked with to his daughter. he leaves a child to take care of the things that should be his job as the mentally sane parent, but can't be, because he's The Man. he's finally and fully embracing his masculinity, but it comes at the cost of seriously fucking over his children, even outside of the whole raising them like it's the fucking 1800s bullshit!
one of the very last things to comment on in this role reversal is sexual assault. as I established earlier, it's clear that Natalie is coercive if not outright assaulting Caleb when it comes to sex. but now, in their olden times play fantasy, he's truly and properly The Man, and, of course, he assaults her
maybe they worked out their sexual issues at some point while Natalie was still sane, but that doesn't give him carte blanche whenever he wants it. she barely knows what's going on and resists the idea she belongs here. he tries to act noble that he left her alone for a few weeks, but his needs still come first, and this is their role as a husband and wife. he expects her to just bend over and enjoy it, without any consent, while knowing she's clearly still out of her mind. he acts like it's her duty, but it's not one she can actively consent to carrying out right now, and that's fucked! (also! it's never a fucking obligation!)
he's also been drugging her, mind you, and while that's allegedly for her benefit, it's still fucked up in the context of their new sexual dynamic
now, when this initially happens, at least for me, I kind of assumed this is a Caleb of a different universe, born and raised in a different time, and so while it's upsetting that he's capable of that, still, you almost can excuse the Caleb of present day. he's got little to do with this
but then you see how those two fit into each other and... all empathy you can have for him is gone
Caleb goes from someone who was simply coddled and dumb + easily influenced, to a neglectful parent, to a full out psychopath who fucking rapes his mentally ill wife like it's nothing
while he's initially presented as the submissive one to Natalie's dominance, in time their relationship dynamic shifts, turning Natalie less into a villain and more a victim, and doing the opposite to Caleb! Natalie WANTS them to play pretend at this life, and finally their delusion is so strong that they've become exactly who she wanted, whatever the cost for the both of them
they are really such fascinating but AWFUL characters but I do LOVE their ending. they hate each other. they're all they have. they're leaving together. they will never be free of each other. they will die in separate jail cells <3 it's poetic!
People criticizing yesteryear by saying that it’s not an accurate depiction of maga Christians because she doesn’t quote the bible or go to church. Like that’s the fucking point. It’s not about that! It’s about “trad wife” influencers who use Christianity to promote their whacked up lifestyle and draw people in. She doesn’t truly believe anything she says. Natalie hates her husband, she hates being a mom, she has two Nannies and cleaners. She’s a fucking liar, that’s the point. She portrays a “good Christian wife” because that’s what her followers want. That’s what they expect from her. It’s showing how all those beliefs intersect. Evangelical Christian, maga fundamentalist traditionalist, alt right nazi pipeline. Her husband reads alt right conspiracies on Reddit. Online Natalie is not real life Natalie and she tells you that over and over and over again.
Yesteryear thoughts: It's funny how things Natalie gloatingly imagined happening to Reena in fact happened to her, at least four times.
Natalie imagines that Reena won't be able to conceive naturally and will have to resort to IVF: all but one of Natalie's original six children were conceived via turkey baster. Not quite the same thing, but the only reason Natalie isn't acknowledging that her children weren't conceived "naturally" is because she feels that the harsh set of rules she holds everyone else to don't apply to her.
Natalie imagines that Reena's husband will cheat on her with an early twenty-something employee while she's in her thirties and pregnant, and her husband will leave her for that early twenty-something employee: Natalie is pregnant in her thirties when Caleb cheats on her with Shannon, his early twenty-something employee (Legally, yes, she is Caleb's employee and not Natalie's, because Natalie signed the legal rights of everything over to Caleb). Yes, there are some differences. Shannon very plainly has no plans to be with Caleb in a proper relationship, and there are definite question marks over just how consensual that "affair" really was, but it's kinda spooky, isn't it?
Natalie imagines Reena becoming addicted to cocaine to cope with her stressful life: Natalie becomes addicted to valium to cope with her stressful life.
Natalie imagines Reena struggling later in life, with the only thing she has going for her being a plush retirement account: Reena is in fact doing great in her middle age, while Natalie is doing thirty years in prison, and given her age and implied state of health, there's a real chance she'll die in prison before ever getting out.
It's kinda like poetic justice really is a thing, or something...
The first time I went to Georgia, I stepped out of the car, walked to the porch, immediately had a fat fucking roach scuttle past my foot, said “This place has roaches.” only for my father to respond “Nah. It’s just a palmetto bug. 😌” and that was how I found out about the costal southeastern cultural tradition of lying to yourself by pretending all the roaches are native wildlife and not visibly a winged cockroach of the pest variety.
a man who has never denied himself anything meets a man who denies himself everything and the hedonist tries to lure the self-abnegator into succumbing to the pleasures of the flesh and succeeds but their rendezvous makes accidentally clear that true pleasure is derived from the perilous destructive nature of intimate connection and eventually true actual love and so we come to conclude that in fact the hedonist is the one who has never allowed himself anything true while the self-abnegator has never strayed from the path of his want and then they put them on ice skates and gave them sticks
I find this idea that Ilya is suddenly a different character in TLG really strange. He seems quite consistent to me? They both do actually, though they’ve had pretty big character arcs off screen esp with how they relate to their own queerness (Shane has dealt with a lot of his shame, as has Ilya—he no longer feels disgusted with himself when he thinks about their dynamic)
But like idk Ilya has always been an uncommunicative asshole that’s his whole thing. He’s not like sweet daddy dom in HR and then mysteriously a bad guy in TLG. The stuff people point to in HR—Ilya knowing Shane’s preferred drink—also show up in TLG, Ilya knows Shane’s order at the restaurant with Fabian before Shane does. He thinks about Shane very deeply—just look at the Christmas present.
But they’re no longer having dates months apart they’re trying to integrate their lives so we also see them losing their patience with each other and Ilya in particular lashing out because he’s struggling with his mental health overall. One minute he’s helping Shane order the next he’s griping about how Shane’s diet makes Christmas not fun. To me that strikes me as extremely realistic for a real relationship. People are like oh in HR Ilya makes Shane “feel seen” but in TLG he’s dismissive—in HR Ilya laughs at Shane coming out to him! What are we even doing here guys.
Ilya’s all over the place in TLG and I guess that does make him less appealing that in HR where we just get this sketch of a hot brooding guy from Shane’s POV but I don’t know I think that’s a lot more interesting
Is there some kind of active discourse generating black hole over on threads or TikTok or Twitter right now or something? Why are so many people suddenly saying the exact same extremely negative takes about TLG
i swear none of them even read the book and if they did they’re incapable of forming their own opinions on it
i saw this actually terrifying reel the other day that was like “oh immediately after i finish a book i forget everything in it never ask me a question haha” and every comment was like “yes so true” “i thought i was the only one”
one negative post gets screenshotted off tumblr and gets circulated to threads and twitter for everyone to nod along with
it’s like that one post that everyone GRABBED onto about “oh ilya wore his boston raiders shirt to take the anger from shane’s parents off shane and on to himself” and it’s like okay. can we back that up. or did just one person have an idea that you all decided was canon.
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