THE MIRRORING IN HEATED RIVALRY, PEOPLE edit by: __coldties on X

The reactions to the ending of Heated Rivalry is why capital-R Romance people will fight and die on the hill of the Happily Ever After/Happily For Now ending. That ending is load-bearing. It's earned. It's the soothing hug after the story took a bat to your emotions.

So I am going to say something about romance as a genre. A lot of people think that romance is ignorable because <insert thing they think about romance> and romance authors don't count because <insert thing they think about romance>. This thread is not about whether you have to like romance.

The thing about Bari Weiss is that she has the unshakeable confidence of someone who has never once been the smartest person in any room she's entered, but has also never noticed.

Buckle in, we’re doing Romance 101 - Heated Rivalry edition. This is for all the folks showing their ignorance about what Heated Rivalry is doing. Note: Very little of this is my original thoughts. These things are Known.

I am going to watch this freaking show just to write a think piece countering stuff like the original post. The NHL as a league is a bigot's wet dream. They banned players from using pride tape. They have no out players. The fan base and players are overwhelmingly white, straight, cis. +

The culture in Heated Rivalry is not about the culture *at large*. It's the homophobic culture of hockey, specifically. The NHL is STILL the only major men’s league with no out gay players. Brock McGillis, who came out after retirement, has said this show was too real for him.

good morning, I have noticed that some of the critical responses to the Crave show Heated Rivalry have been, let's say, incomplete sex scenes are craft! goddammit!

I can only come to one conclusion: a very horny romance show that is not actually about hockey broke a lot of critics' brains.

I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.

Love when people write a whole philosophical treatise that boils down to "give me your work for free or you're basically a cop"

I haven't shared book news here for a minute, so I would like you all to know that Publishers Weekly declared this book has "over-the-top kinky sex"

I read that Substack article and what a terrible day to be literate

Me, waking up: I'll just have a quick scroll through Bluesky--OH DEAR GOD

GodDAMN that is brutal.

I KNOW they aren't this fucking dumb, so the fact that they think their voters are fucking dumb enough to believe this is insulting.

I don't know how many Senators up for reelection in 2026 actually argued in favor privately and then stepped back to let someone else fall on the sword, but I would bet CASHHHH Chris Coons was one of them.

The coordinated nature of this—none are facing voters in 2026—means that either Schumer approved it or failed in his job as Senate Majority Leader to stop it. Dems voting "no" get zero credit until they demand a change in leadership. Schumer out as Leader, Durbin out as Whip.

Someone needs to do a post-mortem of that election because it was an absolutely unhinged cocktail of racism, xenophobia, billionaires with too much time on their hands, a political party working to kneecap its OWN CANDIDATE, all served with a side of legacy media losing its collective fucking mind.

Zohran was polling at six percent in January. Nothing is impossible

Inject it right into my veinsss

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This election was worth it just to watch Cuomo lose twice lmaooooo what a loser

I don't know what will happen in NYC tonight, but I do know that regardless of outcome, any number of public figures, celebrities, politicians and institutions that oppose Mamdani have done so with a level of rhetorical ugliness, racism, and dishonesty that should neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

This entire thread had me DYING. I can't stop laughing

sometimes i remember the time Dick Cheney shot a guy on a hunting trip and the guy who got shot was the one who apologized anyway have a good day everyone, go NYC!

Mother of god, this is brutal

support whomever you’d like, but what is frustratingly dishonest about this take is that actual issue — the thing critics have identified as the problem — isn’t the decision of the 21-year old to get the tattoo, but of the judgment of the 40-year old who still has it.

The only reason they're going after ILR right now is because there was an uptick of COVID migrants who came in on relaxed rules to fill occupation shortages and will soon qualify to stay permanently. This is just pointless fucking cruelty for no reason.

You don't demolish a portion of the White House and build a $250 million dollar ballroom unless you intend to squat in there long enough to use it.

My husband (not American) was asking me, "Shouldn't the protests be more serious than costumes?" and I explained to him that in a time of video manipulation and misinformation, it's very hard to make protests look threatening when people are wearing things like giant inflatable dick costumes.

I know decorum in politics was always performative nonsense, but I am legitimately exhausted by politics via shitposts. In this case, literally. Social media literally fried these people's fucking brains and now it's everyone's problem.

Just randomly remembered the time my cat (IQ: single potato chip) ate one of those giant house spiders and then vomited up a pile of eight fully intact spider legs. JUST the legs. Long, spindly spider legs in a sad little pile on my carpet at 3am. You're welcome for that visual.

I don't know how to explain or word this right now, but I feel like he wants to go to war because he thinks it's masculine. It's purely for the aesthetic, the image. It has no basis in reality. He's treating real life like Call of Duty.

I just got indefinite leave to remain 2 years ago, so I'm reading this like, I don't even know what the fuck this means. We pay taxes, we pay TWICE for the NHS, we pay an exorbitant fee for visas to reach ILR, our income is constantly scrutinised. How the fuck more are people supposed to contribute?

Cannot emphasise enough how incredible this interview is and how batshit the Kissenger part was. Amazing work.

This article is so good. Coates is always worth a read.

Between this, the WSJ, and the lack of understanding of internet meme culture, the level of damage done through irresponsible reporting is incalculable. You have a bunch of young men being radicalised through a toxic sludge of online brain rot, and these people have zero idea how to report on it.

Y'know that Guardian article which cited an anonymous friend of Tyler Robinson claiming he was the only "leftist" in his family? It just got updated after the "verified source" decided he couldn't remember his "relationship" with the accused shooter well enough to be quoted

the pundits trying to figure out the brainrot on the shell casings right now: "what is a furry sex meme"

it’s early but it seems like maybe this is relevant again (wrote it last week fml)

TIL that for some people with irreparably damaged corneas, you can pull one of their teeth, drill a hole in it, install an artificial lens, sew it into their cheek (so tissue attaches), then pull it out and stick it in their damaged eye, and ... it works fine!?! www.nbcboston.com/news/health/...

if that news is true, don't say anything you wouldn't want to see screenshotted and spread all over right wing media

whenever I ask the question "why is this thing in the US so shitty? how did it become this shitty?" and I do a little research, it's honestly wild how often the answer is "because Reagan"

"He just couldn’t keep out of the classroom" JESUS CHRIST

ChatGPT and Meta next 😘

This article is soooo fucked up. I feel terrible for Cindy Bi's daughter from another surrogate, because she's going to grow up with a mother with boundary issues and when she escapes at the age of 18, she's going to need a shit ton of therapy.

Look. I know we were HOPING for it. But I'm just saying we can use this opportunity to make his life so much more miserable first.

If he's not dead or too ill to scroll, I hope he's seeing all the messages celebrating the IDEA of him being dead. The man already thinks he might be going to hell, so it's even more delightful if he passes after witnessing such wide, international "I'd piss on his grave" loathing.

I have to imagine that for Otis, finding a box that she fits into so precisely must feel the same way it feels for us to find the perfect pair of jeans.