Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie reading thirst tweets.

This is fun but also hot and sexy.

On 12/23/2025 at 6:38 AM, Maxim said:

Chile this is the first time I'm hearing about this. I must have been living under a rock.

This looks like the exact type of stuff I'll want to watch with my husband during the Holidays.

You betta get onto it like the Hamilton Widow getting onto poisoning Bill. ;P

On 12/23/2025 at 7:28 AM, OzFrog said:

Everybody needs a Scott Hunter in their lives… 🥰🫠

Mmmmmmmmmm

I've spoken about it already in here but it is easily the best adult LGBT show I've seen in quite a long time and it's not close. It's beautifully shot and written, in addition to the excellent work from the leads and of course the remarkably explicit content.

A recent interview from Jacob Tierney that various streamers or bigger outlets tried to push them to move all the physical consummation and sex to Season 2 (or add another 'female entry point') speaks to not only the political climate but I think just generally a squeamishness about this kind of material when it's not couched in the Heartstopper, etc. mold. There's a drive to neuter gay sexuality and try to make it much more about emotional intimacy between men vs. the physical, and a tendency from female-driven fandoms of these shows to infantilize the characters or stars as desexualized pets. All of the above also being a line of attack the Guardian happens to level at HR too, but which I think is very clearly inaccurate and untrue - you can't get through virtually any episode of this show without explicit, often dom/sub-flavored fúcking. There's no way for young or sheltered audiences to engage with this and strip out the sex. Tierney himself has said 'these books are porn', but fortunately there's more to the story than that.

I like Heartstopper a lot but it's a sweet coming of age story about two young boys as written by an asexual woman in the late 2010s. They amped up the sensuality a bit as they matured, but it's still something very rarefied. HR is also written by a woman, something that made me skeptical going in as does any huge hype cycle around a new show these days, but Reid is a generation older which may speak to why the material is more frank and explicit. And Tierney, the showrunner, is an old pro in Canadian circles and openly gay, so that helps considerably.

A THR piece re: the female audience.

Reid has theories as to why women are so drawn to her material. “A lot of my female readers prefer to not have a woman in the book because of their own, usually dark pasts with sex with men,” she says. “They prefer to get lost in a fantasy where there’s nobody there that they can relate to directly. They don’t want to insert themselves into these sex scenes. It just feels safer.”

She also thinks there’s an appeal to the kinds of men she writes about — men “who are emotionally vulnerable, who are maybe just a little bit different from the partner they have or the ex that they had.”

Then there’s just the basic math of human sexuality. If you like penises, the thinking goes, two are better than one. “Men like lesbian porn,” Reid reasons. “So why wouldn’t women like this?”

Edited Thursday at 08:47 AM2 days by Vee

That's a pretty good quote. And totally understandable.

Only a few hours to go until the last episode of the season gets released. Who’s all packed for the cottage? 🖐🏼

23 hours ago, ranger1rg said:

Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie reading thirst tweets.

This is fun but also hot and sexy.

Also this one of Hudson’s skincare routine - chaotic but utterly mesmerising at the same time…

56 minutes ago, OzFrog said:

Only a few hours to go until the last episode of the season gets released. Who’s all packed for the cottage? 🖐🏼

Soooooo ready! Got my box of tissues right here!

Openly weeping over that fckn cottage, man. I feel so incredibly grateful to have been able to watch this series. You never want to attach the word “perfect” to anything these days, but gosh, it was about as perfect as you can get in this genre. I may or may not have the energy to write a full reflection later on, but I do just have to say that the decision to put the final credit roll not over a black screen but over a good old-fashioned AMC-style beauty shot sequence seems like such a small matter but god, what a stroke of genius. They literally rode off into the sunset.

@ranger1rg I just watched the Empty Netters do a live reaction stream for the final episode - I have never seen a bunch of straight men go so completely and chaotically crazy over a LGBT show in my entire life!

21 minutes ago, OzFrog said:

@ranger1rg I just watched the Empty Netters do a live reaction stream for the final episode - I have never seen a bunch of straight men go so completely and chaotically crazy over a LGBT show in my entire life!

I completely agree. Their response to all this has been incredible, and I've fallen in love with these guys -- not in the way I love Shane and Ilya, but still.

Part of me says that this is just a reaction that every human being should have, but I also know that isn't the world we live in. To have true allies like this is groundbreaking and mind-blowing. I cry watching our boys on the show, but I admit I also cry listening to the Empty Netters and to the guys over at What Chaos. Maybe their support shouldn't mean so much to me, but it does.

Heated Rivalry is such a win for so many, and so long coming, but these podcasts are also a victory.

I didn't really know how much I needed to see and experience queer joy -- unabashed and unashamed. I want to live in that world.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If I come off as melodramatic, all I can say is that I'm holding back because I know how emotional I am over this experience.

This is a love story and if you have a heart this series will speak to it.

One of the finest pieces of television I have ever seen.

Very proud of what Canadian talent was able to achieve, funded by two provinces and the federal government's tax credit system. O Canada!

4 hours ago, ranger1rg said:

I didn't really know how much I needed to see and experience queer joy -- unabashed and unashamed. I want to live in that world.

Exactly this. The phrase "gay boy joy" has been on my mind ever since last week, and it really does come down to that. We've all seen so many movies and shows roll out obstacle after obstacle, so much so that it's become a cliche, and we've gotten accustomed to accepting endings that are "happy enough." To see a true happy ending, one where the couple gets together and stays together, no one denies or tries to run away from his own sexuality, no one is disowned, family doesn't have to get cut off - I don't think many of us really knew that we needed this, and at this time of year? Amazing.

And to speak on what Vee said, all of this happened within a very adult realm. Shane and Ilya didn't get a happy ending because they were cute, innocent, carefree kids who just like each other. These are grown men (because by the time we get to the cottage, they're like 26 years old) who were initially drawn together by pure lust. Ilya was already someone who loved sex and loved giving and receiving pleasure. Shane was less experienced (and supposedly the book goes more into how his attempts at straight sex were not enjoyable) but he had a sex toy. At no point do they fit the earnest gay role model archetype, but guess what? They still deserve sunshine.

This whole thing really just spoke to me in ways I did not anticipate. The Shane/Yuna scene at the end? Again, something that on the outside would seem almost perfunctory hit me like a sledge hammer. Any gay man who had to come out to his mom, whether it was a good experience or not, wishes that it would have happened that way. Seeing it happen that way for Shane fed my soul.

That the story stretches from 2008 to 2017 speaks to my millennial soul. I graduated high school in 2008. These characters are my contemporaries. They came of age and developed their sexual identities at the same time I did, and I know what that was like. Watching them go through young adulthood, hitting up the clubs in the recession pop era, the busy busy busy world of working hard and building your life while also relishing in your youth, and then growing to the point where sitting by a fire at that damn cottage becomes way more exciting than any night out could ever be. Baby, they are livinggggg!

The switch-up in who's hands are on the steering wheel across the whole series. When it was meant to just be a sexual relationship, Ilya kept bringing it back to that. Any time Shane tried to have those conversations to deepen the relationship, Ilya pulled away, left, kept his distance. But by the end, Shane makes it clear (in his own way) that this is no longer just a sexual thing, and even when Ilya tries to get into his pants right away, Shane holds off just a little bit longer because he refuses to let the actual affection/romance get lost in the lust anymore.

And the music! I will never be able to hear literally any of these songs ever again without being whisked back to this series and everything it made me feel. Like, just the opening bass line of "My Moon, My Man" gets me out of my body at this point.

18 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

Exactly this. The phrase "gay boy joy" has been on my mind ever since last week, and it really does come down to that. We've all seen so many movies and shows roll out obstacle after obstacle, so much so that it's become a cliche, and we've gotten accustomed to accepting endings that are "happy enough." To see a true happy ending, one where the couple gets together and stays together, no one denies or tries to run away from his own sexuality, no one is disowned, family doesn't have to get cut off - I don't think many of us really knew that we needed this, and at this time of year? Amazing.

And to speak on what Vee said, all of this happened within a very adult realm. Shane and Ilya didn't get a happy ending because they were cute, innocent, carefree kids who just like each other. These are grown men (because by the time we get to the cottage, they're like 26 years old) who were initially drawn together by pure lust. Ilya was already someone who loved sex and loved giving and receiving pleasure. Shane was less experienced (and supposedly the book goes more into how his attempts at straight sex were not enjoyable) but he had a sex toy. At no point do they fit the earnest gay role model archetype, but guess what? They still deserve sunshine.

This whole thing really just spoke to me in ways I did not anticipate. The Shane/Yuna scene at the end? Again, something that on the outside would seem almost perfunctory hit me like a sledge hammer. Any gay man who had to come out to his mom, whether it was a good experience or not, wishes that it would have happened that way. Seeing it happen that way for Shane fed my soul.

That the story stretches from 2008 to 2017 speaks to my millennial soul. I graduated high school in 2008. These characters are my contemporaries. They came of age and developed their sexual identities at the same time I did, and I know what that was like. Watching them go through young adulthood, hitting up the clubs in the recession pop era, the busy busy busy world of working hard and building your life while also relishing in your youth, and then growing to the point where sitting by a fire at that damn cottage becomes way more exciting than any night out could ever be. Baby, they are livinggggg!

The switch-up in who's hands are on the steering wheel across the whole series. When it was meant to just be a sexual relationship, Ilya kept bringing it back to that. Any time Shane tried to have those conversations to deepen the relationship, Ilya pulled away, left, kept his distance. But by the end, Shane makes it clear (in his own way) that this is no longer just a sexual thing, and even when Ilya tries to get into his pants right away, Shane holds off just a little bit longer because he refuses to let the actual affection/romance get lost in the lust anymore.

And the music! I will never be able to hear literally any of these songs ever again without being whisked back to this series and everything it made me feel. Like, just the opening bass line of "My Moon, My Man" gets me out of my body at this point.

Thank you for this beautiful post.

I am absolutely obsessed with this show. It's the exactly the kind of show I wanted for years. Usually, when it comes gay media, it's either very "Hallmark/PG13" or "trauma porn". While I can enjoy both (loved both Heartstopper and Fellow Travelers), what has been missing, is a sexy, smutty gay romance for adults that has a happy ending. I hope this spurs more adult MM romance shows. From the reactions this show is getting, clearly lots of other people have felt similar to me. To echo Jacob Tierney, people want queer joy.

I love Scott and Kip a bit more than the main couple (who I also love), but that comes down my own personal experience. I've been Kip before. Not dating someone famous, but being out and dating someone in the closet. So I connect with Skip on a very deep personal level.