Mattyboy

Oh, if it's trains like "Pizza boy rides a train" yeah, it has trains.

Carterverse Merrickville seems to be a bit bigger and better serviced than Earth-prime Merrickville. There are tracks, but I think the passenger station in E-P Merrickville was demolished quite some time ago. A nearby town, Smiths Falls, was a big enough railway intersection that it tried to brand itself "Chicago of the North," but that's a bit of hyperbole - it's the premier rail hub of Lanark County, at least, and does still have a passenger station. But there certainly is the possibility of either locomotive or human-relationship train-wrecks here.

Sometimes stuff is set in the American South because people want to critique white Southern culture (which -at its worst- totally deserves it) but leans too much into "Luke Duke git sum corn pone" type cliches. I often skip over stories I think will have those tropes, because I'm just not that interested. The set up here of a family of second-gen Syrian-Americans who are still into Syrian food culture but are pretty American otherwise is a lot more sophisticated than that, and is more likely for lots of real people. And BillyTeddy story was fun, so I thought I'd see what you were up to here. And this was also fun, but not the same as that.

This was charming! and not quite what I expected!

This "soft power" moment was followed by a very funny speech at the CMPA

I guess Oliver was working through the surprise that the meeting turned into a job offer. I hope he catches up with events and realizes that if they're head-hunting him, he can ask for stuff, such as some security guarantees for Orel and whatever Merrick legacy assets he values. It'd even make him look good that he didn't want to leave his old job in a shambles.

Lydia seemed to have gotten it wrong with "4 pm." It needed to be "right now."

Yeah, I get that this kind of thing is hard, but I'm finding it disappointing and actually a bit out of character for Oliver to collapse like that. He knew absolutely everything he needed to know when he got into this that it would be like this.

Yeah, I thought the first episode (which is all I've watched) was a bit rushed. Probably could have used some more hockey. I agree that it isn't that groundbreaking from the perspective of anyone around here, but it is for many Shoresy watchers and a lot of people have had basically no exposure to the genre, which is I think where a lot of the energy of this as a pop culture phenomenon is coming from. Geewhilickers short story Out of My League posted on AD and at Dabeagle's site is at least as good as Reid, better developed with better hockey.

Nice that it looks like Darren's made a good start on friends and allies.

From the Hollywood Reporter, and most daily New York City newspapers: "Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents stay home during a Sunday [press] conference as snow continued to fall heavily across the city. One of his suggestions for passing the time? Reading Heated Rivalry, naturally. “The snow is coming down heavily across our city, and I can think of no better excuse for New Yorkers to say home, take a long nap or take advantage of our public library’s offer of free access to Heated Rivalry on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card,” he said during the press conference, met with smiles and laughs from the team behind him. The New York Public Library announced Saturday (Jan. 24) that anyone with a library card would have access to download any of the books from author Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series, a string of six connection queer hockey romance novels. The library is offering the instant access through Feb. 14 — a game changer for any patron who’s experienced the agony of waiting for a recently popular book to come off hold at the library."

Maybe we're still heading for Oliver/Lydia. As awful as the folio is, it's excellent that it's on the table and Orel and Finn came to a consensus about what it was and how to handle it. It's nearly enough to hold up an extortion charge as is. I feel Tarquin is overestimating how easy it is to revive sealed juvenile records into current trials; that part was mostly a bluff, which Finn and Orel haven't quite named yet as such, but they're making the right call on it. It's actually good that Tarquin is still at the bluff/intimidation phase; the really bad stuff will be what happens after that fails.

Yeah Rory being Pan seems like it might explain a lot of this; he wasn't really gay for Robbie earlier, but he's come around as he's gotten to know him.

That was a good win for Oliver but he looks barely prepared for what's coming. I hope he was recording, from now on it'll be flat-out foolish for any of them to have unwitnessed interactions over this. And even then Tarquin may have stooges who are used to following his orders.

Wow, the first part of that was unexpectedly intense. The swing from "haha, someone fell in the pool" to "he's drowning and I can't save him" is powerful.

I think so; the official term is non-resident elector. I was only familiar with it for school boards but on looking it up it's municipal councils as well. It does seem to have a "no taxation without representation" idea underlying it I think edit: I see you looked it up faster than I did. I've been ninja'd by a paladin! Aren't there cross-class rules about this sort of thing?

Property taxes apply to real estate whether it's a primary residence or a vacation property. It financially benefits rural townships in places like the Rideau Lakes that there are nice cottages and summer homes there. By the way, in Ontario you can vote for a few offices, like school boards, if you're a property-tax payer in a township or district, whether or not it's your primary residence (which does determine if you can vote in a federal or provincial election).

Orel was revealed to be far less broken than everyone in town assumes. Still weird, with the synesthesia and trauma, but definitely an agent. So is that the same mustang from the early chapter of the story that started it all?

I'm kind of disappointed in Oliver. He knows enough to know that what he tried didn't have a chance of working, and he gave Tarquin a LOT of information. He's lucky to be alive, and that was a serious setback for the good guys.

Rachel Reid is the author of a bunch of gay hockey romances, one of which, Heated Rivalry, is being serialized by HBO Max and Crave. It was Crave's most watched-ever new show, and was the #1 show on HBO Max for a while. At the beginning of the month Reid's books made up 9 of the 10 books on Canadian bestseller lists (down to 5 of 10 this week) and she has spots 1-9 on Amazon's "Sports Fiction" category (and #10 and #12 are copycats of her stuff). They aren't quite that in the US but they're making quite a stir there as well. Hockey fiction is gay romance now. So hockey is for lovers; even if they're fighters, they're probably also fucking. See here for some more local opinions

Rachel Reid would like a word

It's now a game for lovers, not fighters.

It's good that Finn said out loud that he knows that Tarquin is on to them, perhaps not fully aware, but that he's watching them at least.

I had that thought too, this story could end right here with a ball peen hammer and the founding of a new republic. Hmm, might need another one chapter for Lydia and Mrs Patel to finish the set up.

Tarquin was ousted from that role after a rape, as finally the old boys got together and dealt with it. The OG "No Kings" movement.