hello!! my friend and i made a heated rivalry roleplay and it’s becoming rly hard to find people to join, if anyone’s interested please lmk!!! it’s on discord and everybody is open besides shane, ilya, and svetlana!!

Even my cinema profile on Instagram knows what I like and showed me a repost of this interview where somebody asked for his hair routine. Our funny Ilya, I mean Connor 😁, makes some jokes, tell some true about a team behind his beautiful curls and then says he wanted to shave his hair.🤭 Hudson says he want that too or a crazy hair. Well, he waited a lot to do it and it does look great with the hair shaved 😎 as always. 😏

So, for those complaining yet complaining about a curless Ilya: we could have a very crazy hair for Shane🤣 Nah, we know we wouldn't, Shane would never ever have a leopard print hair.😆

I started watching the show after so many of those interviews starting to pop-up on the feed of my personal account there and I can't wait to they finish the filming and we get some more of those videos.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEs04BlZm_/😍

I just realized something huge that broke my heart. I can't believe that after 6 months of obsession I still have new thoughts about this show/books. I just wanna preface this by saying that this realization may be huge for me but obvious for other people, so keep that in mind.

All this time they spent hiding, they were scared of being found out, for different reasons- be it internalized homophobia (shane), fear of career impact (both), russia (ilya), etc.

So it went from hiding their own feelings to their own selves, hiding from each other, and hiding from the world.

And then I realized that on top of all the obvious fears / impacts of being found out, there's something else: that if they are found out, they will lose each other.

So the first part of it is, if we are found, we'll lose our career / reputation / safety etc.

And underneath it is also: if we are found, we'll lose each other, we'll lose this, we won't be allowed to be together.

So not just protecting themselves/ their career but also protecting their love.

It also really explains to me the logic behind their initial plan of waiting till retirement.

Oh my god I cannot take it. It's heartbreaking 😭🥺 these poor boys.

I am wondering if this is the sense you've got as well?

Welcome back Loons to GCPN. The Heated Conference has its first winner. The Neck Kiss took down the Knee Kiss and punched its ticket to Round 2!

With the Heated Conference officially underway, we turn our attention to the Rivalry Conference as Round 1 action opens. The "My Boyfriend?" kiss has drawn a first-round BYE and automatically advances to Round 2.

That leaves one matchup on today's card:

Bathroom Kiss vs. Shane's Dad 👀 Kiss

Which kiss survives Round 1 and moves one step closer to the championship?

How to vote: To keep voting simple, head to the pinned VOTING BLOCKS comment below and upvote the kiss you want to advance. Only votes on the official voting comments count.

Why do I feel like people aren't talking enough about how perfect the casting for Ryan Price and Fabian is??

Like first off all, just for reference the guy that Shaheen is standing next to is 188cm and Daniel is 194 so imagine the height difference...

Also they both just truly embody the roles. I truly need to see the two of then on set or off set just for science 😏

such a perfect encapsulation of all the communication issues between Shane and Ilya up until this point. Shane mentions his parents and not giving them the leftovers so as not to blow their cover and Ilya says,

“Yuba and David yes?” And then pauses.

Shane doesn‘t understand this is an invitation to a say more about them, so Ilya adds “And?”

Shane STILL isn’t picking it up (sweet Shane) so finally Ilya is forced to be direct “Tell me about them.”

Shane is still struggling to carry the conversation “what do you want to know?” Ilya leaves it open, ”tell me anything.“ They kind of banter like this a bit teasing about being boring, and the Ilya asks what he really wants to know, “Do they know?”

For Shane, who basically only equates his sexuality with his love for Ilya, he interprets this is a question about their relationship. Ilya clarifies, “no, about you.” Ilya is trying to understand why he wouldn‘t tell his otherwise loving and open parents with whom he is incredibly close about this part of his life. He doesn’t understand that for Shane, the only part about being gay that means anything is how he feels about Ilya. But Ilya interprets this is Shane’s fear? Embarrassment? Lack of importance? As to why he hasn’t told them.

Ilya points out he can tell them he’s gay without outing their relationship. This leads to Shane’s line “it doesn’t really matter” which I think Shane meant, it doesn’t matter because I can’t tell them about you. But Ilya interprets this as “this relationship doesn’t matter. You don’t matter”

it’s basically Vegas and Tuna meltdown all over again, except they a little more open and on better terms now. Oof.

the first time I watched it I felt like Ilya was kind of being a jerk and felt terrible for Shane. but now, after several rewatches and some reading, I get it.

First, their prior encounter at Shane’s apartment is when they both start catching feelings. Ilya, as usual, is much quicker to realize this than Shane, as he hightails it out of there after Shane’s tender forehead kiss. On their way out Shane brings up Russia, and in his sweet obliviousness, does not get how high stakes it is for Ilya.

Then we have the Sochi disaster. Shane has no idea how bad it is for Ilya atm. The early loss, his dad’s mental decline, the real threat of being exposed. Shane is trying to connect but does not get how threatening that is to Ilya at every level. So Ilya does what he thinks is best and puts distance between them.

Shane is hurt obviously, but doesn’t get it. We have the bathroom reconnection where both of them can’t help be get sucked back into their orbit, despite the conflicted feelings.

So now I see the set up for their meeting in the penthouse. Ilya is trying to see if they can just go back to how it was, focus on the physical—but is is still incredibly attuned to Shane. He notices Shane’s discomfort at the window and remedies it.

I see now also that Shane is enjoying the power play. and when he tells Ilya he needs him, Ilya basically loses his mind.

unfortunately, post sex Shane brings up the worst possible topic—going back to Russia. Again, he doesn’t get it and Ilya is not going to engage to explain. So he signals it’s time to gtfo and Shane does.

Previously, I read Shane’s elevator scene as a bit heartbreaking. Now I see it more as Shane’s own recognition of how deep he’s in. The quiet “fuck” acknowledging how intense his feelings have become.

oh man. These two. My heart breaks for them both!

!!THIS IS INSPIRED BY THE PREMISE OF HR. ALL CHARACTERS ARE ORIGINAL!!

Fandom– Original Work (sapphic; for fans of Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry)

Rating – Mature

Title – No Love Lost

Genre – Sports romance / enemies-to-lovers / slow burn / angst with a happy ending

Off-site link – https://archiveofourown.org/works/91674771/chapters/244088341?view_adult=true

Summary – Grace Yang has spent her whole career making sure nobody looks too closely at her. Mila Vuković has spent hers making sure they can’t look away. They’re the greatest rivalry their sport has produced. It’s a great story. It’s also not a true one. No Love Lost” is what actually happened. Seven years of it, in the gaps between cameras, handshake lines, hotel hallways, and the one word neither of them ever said out loud. A loosely sapphic reimagining of the premise of Rachel Reid’s “Heated Rivalry.”

I went looking for a very specific fic — the sapphic version of Heated Rivalry — and I could not find it anywhere. So I got mad and wrote it myself.

Grace is the sun: warm, beloved, the best closer the game’s ever produced, and secretly holding back. Mila is the ice: cold, foreign, untouchable, the one defender alive who can put Grace’s fire out, and secretly unraveling. Four times a season they meet at center court and give the world exactly what it wants. Nobody knows what it costs them.

It’s a very slow burn. Sun vs. ice. Enemies-to-rivals-to-lovers where the “enemies” part is a performance. Seven years of pining across a basketball court. Love triangles and media leaks. A secret big enough to swallow two whole lives.

WIP, updating regularly, and I’m having the time of my life with it. Comments and kudos genuinely make my week. Come suffer with me. 💛