Say, Whatever Happened to . . . . ?

Did he FINALLY run afoul

of the criminal law?

Actually, Wile E. Coyote took his grievances

to the civil courts instead and sued

the crappy ACME Corporation for 

personal injury damages caused by

all its shoddy products!

COYOTE vs ACME?

Oh, I'm looking forward to this movie!

* * * POST UPDATE * * *

Here's the meme that Leanna of

Can We Have A New Witch, Ours Melted

said in the comments that she was going to send me

(love it, LOL, thanks darlin') --

Some Not-So-Serious Music

And speaking of Bach . . . .

Well, someone's putting on the dog!

And this bunch is putting on the cat!

Here's a handy cheat sheet for identifying composers . . . .

Let's end with some Mozart . . . .

I recently watched the new series remake of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. To be blunt, it cannot hold a candle to the 1984 film made by Miloš Forman. To the piecemeal extent that the remake's screenplay still uses Peter Shaffer's original script, it attains some depth. But the additional dialogue and scenes inserted into the screenplay to make it more "hip, contemporary and relatable to today's audience" are appallingly superficial and jarringly out of place. Ordinarily, I quite like Paul Bettany (Salieri) as an actor who is capable of great subtlety and depth of portrayal. While he did bring some excellent heart and soul to the climactic moments from the original script, he was otherwise completely wasted here.

Can only give this series 2 out of 5 stars, unfortunately.

Want To Run Away To Sea?

And hey, if you haven't seen it yet, you may want to watch the streaming series Our Flag Means Death as preparatory viewing. Gay pirates in love, featuring the great Taika Waititi as Blackbeard and Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet. What more could you want? Its humour veers crazily all over the place from silly to absurd to surreal to insane. I'm sure this is exactly what old timey piratical life must have been like, aren't you?

And Now, In "Heated Rivalry" News . . .

1. Everyone's a Fan!

The Prime Minister (who is, of course, a big hockey fan)

was gifted with his very own "Heated Rivalry"

Team Canada Olympic fleece from the series!

He's fanboying alright!

2. Release The Fleece!

Fans all over the world want to buy a fleece too

and apparently it will soon be available to order

from Province of Canada manufacturing company.

No price has been announced yet, but

10% of sale proceeds will be donated to an

LGBTQ+ charity yet to be named.

3. Olympic Torch Bearers!

Continuing on with the Olympics theme,

both lead stars got to be torch bearers last month

in the Olympic Torch Relay in Italy!

That's right -- "Go daddy" indeed!

4. Let's Make a Smoothie!

Blogging buddy Sixpence Notthewiser of (LO) IMPRESCINDIBLE blog

recently posted an absolutely hilarious but very NSFW parody video. 

I laughed so hard that tears ran down my leg (as they say)!

You can see the video here on his blog or on YouTube here.

Don't miss the outtakes at the end!

5. Speaking of Sixpence . . .

I believe he is re-reading all the novels

by Rachel Reid that the series is based on.

So here's the perfect bookmark for that!

6. And Sixpence, Don't Miss This!

Those of you who read Sixpence's blog know that he

loooooves videos about architectural styles and how people

decorate their homes. Another blogging buddy, 

Parnassus (Jim) of The Road to Parnassus, just sent me

a video discussing all the houses in "Heated Rivalry" (thanks, Jim!)

The video is 15 minutes long but worth a watch if you're a fan!

Heated Rivalry, Part 3 -- The Steve/Bucky Connection

As mentioned in Part 1 of this post, Heated Rivalry's author Rachel Reid is no stranger to the M/M fanfiction world. In fact, one of the love stories told in Heated Rivalry began its existence as an actual Steve/Bucky Hockey AU on the popular fanfiction site Archive of Our Own!

In the fic, closeted pro hockey player Steve Rogers fell hard for twink barista Bucky Barnes, much drama and angst ensued, Bucky's best female friend Natasha Romanov had to give Steve "the shovel talk," Steve smartened up, and the angst-ridden pair finally had a happy ending.

Yes, it became the SCOTT/KIP subplot in Heated Rivalry!

And the series just couldn't resist, it seems, giving a few sly nods to the characters' original identities. Check out Captain America's and Scott Hunter's running gear in these gifs from the Marvel movies and the series, respectively --

And how about when both characters make an effort to pass incognito in public?

Even Cap's star spangled blue uniform gets a coded reference in Scott's USA Olympic Hockey Team jacket --

There's no costume coding for Bucky Barnes' doppelganger (after all, it's not easy to subtly reference the Winter Soldier's silver metal arm). Instead, the coding occurs in names. Both characters have a kind of goofy little nickname somehow derived from an otherwise dignified full name -- James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes and Christopher "Kip" Grady. Oh, and take note of the good-luck smoothies' name that Kip always makes for Scott -- "Blue Moon Over Brooklyn."

Anyway, this amuses me no end and I hope you watch for the coding in Episode 3 of Heated Rivalry.

And hey, if you're still hanging in with me after THREE P0STS, thanks for reading, LOL!

[P.S. Speaking of the free-to-use Archive of Our Own, it now has a new category specifically for Heated Rivalry fanfiction, if you just can't get enough of the boys' antics. At the moment, there are nearly 9,000 fics already posted to the site. And here's the link to the list, you animals. You're welcome!]

Heated Rivalry, Part 2 -- Women and M/M Fanfiction

Fans of famous novels, movies, and TV shows have been writing "fanfiction" for decades, essentially creating their own new stories and plot variations using their favourite characters from them. However, because those characters are subject to copyright, fanfiction cannot be legally published for profit. In ye olden days, even free copies of fanfics had a limited audience because there was no easy or viable way to circulate or distribute them on a large scale.

But then the internet was invented.

Fanfiction EXPLODED.

Although men write fanfiction too, of course, the vast majority of it is written by women, particularly if the fanfic focuses on relationships (friendly, romantic, or sexual) between favourite characters. This is true even where the relationship is between two male characters. And so arose the phenomenon of M/M (male/male) fanfiction about characters who, in their original source material, are actually or ostensibly straight but in fanfics are recast as gay/bi.

Women fanfic authors have become extremely adept at writing gay male sexual romances. The ins-and-outs (so to speak) of gay male sex are no longer a mystery to anyone with access to porn videos. And women are as observant as anyone else. But what makes M/M fanfics more than "simply porn" is their equal and invested emphasis on exploring deep emotional issues and complex love stories between the characters. "The female gaze" is brought to bear on these characters and situations. Women have been socialized since birth to focus on the analysis and understanding of emotions and relationships. This has even been called a "critical survival skill" for us. In any event, women authors bring the full force of this ability to fanfiction.

Fictionalized M/M relationships are also attractive to women, I believe, because of the absence of gender issues between the two males involved. Gender issues between men and women are always and inevitably present in any heterosexual relationship. Many women like to explore what it would be like to relate to someone without those particular issues skewing intimacy and roles. M/M fanfiction offers that freedom to explore.

Heated Rivalry is very much in the M/M fanfiction tradition. It is absolutely rife with standard, favourite tropes of the genre, all of which have their own specialized terminology, references or abbreviations. One such trope is precisely . . . wait for it . . . The Hockey AU! (AU means "Alternate Universe"). And yes, I've personally read quite a few hockey AU fanfics involving Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes on skates, LOL.

Speaking of my Captain America/Winter Soldier fanfiction obsession, Heated Rivalry actually has its very own Steve/Bucky connection!

I'll tell you about it tomorrow in this post's Part 3 finale.

Heated Rivalry, Part 1 -- He Shoots, He Scores!

So have you seen the Canadian-made streaming series Heated Rivalry yet? It's currently taking the world by storm with its winning romance story about pro hockey players in love with each other. But the true sensation is the abundance of hot and pretty darn explicit gay male sex scenes in this mainstream-targeted series. I just watched all six episodes last week and LOVED IT!

(The show is carried in Canada on Crave TV, in the USA and internationally on HBO Max, in New Zealand on Neon, and in Spain on Movistar Plus+). 

The main story follows two rival players on different teams in a fictionalized NHL setting, Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov, whose on-ice animosity conceals a passionate, secret romance. A sub-plot also involves an older closeted player Scott Hunter and his romance with Christopher "Kip" Grady, a smoothie shop barista.

The series does a great job of depicting the pressures of homophobic "alpha male" hockey culture and internalized homophobia, with all the standard fears about career derailment, financial loss, parental and family rejection, social exclusion and punishment, etc. The series does an equally great job of juxtaposing the competing human needs for love, intimacy, connection and an authentic life. And the story will continue in the series' just-announced second season.

Although the series was created, written and directed by Jacob Tierney, a leading light of Canadian film and TV production, it is in fact based on a series of gay male romance novels written by Canadian author Rachel Reid.

Wait . . . what? A woman writing gay male romance smut? WTF?

And this brings us to tomorrow's Part 2 of this post -- the cultural phenomenon of "M/M fanfiction" and why literally thousands of women are so involved in (and so good at) writing gay male romance focusing not only on hot sex but also deep emotions.

Oh, and P.S. -- this series has done wonders for the Ginger Ale market.