exactly what you said in your tags. iâm a queer asian person, and if i had a white partner who reacted to me being upset after experiencing racism homophobia from a person in power at my job, the way ilya does after shane calls him to talk about what crowell said to him, i would seriously need to reevaluate that relationship. and i donât think thatâs what rachel reid was trying to do, which makes it all the more worse. the fact that ilya was mad at shane because this experience would probably make him not want to come out even more, likeâŚ. no fucking shit? if thatâs what he just got told? but the narrative never frames ilya as wrong for it. itâs okay for people to fuck up and make mistakes, i like those stories, i like when characters arenât perfect, but it feels so insulting to my intelligence to be accused of hating flawed characters when ilya is never framed as such in the narrative. shane is flawed, ilya is perfect and shane needs to get on board with his desire to come out. if tlg had been framed as a story where theyâre both wrong and both need to learn how to communicate, that wouldâve been one thing, but thatâs very much not what happened.
I feel like so much of the fandom has been saying âeveryone get ready pls donât hate Shane in season 2!!!â and Iâm like âgirl you need to stop me from hating ILYAâ
And to be clear, I donât hate Ilya. I love Ilya. And I donât think Iâm going to hate him in season 2 because I trust the show runners to fix. Whatever that bullshit was.
I hate how Ilya acts in the long game.
He is borderline cruel to Shane at times. And he exhibits a shocking lack of empathy towards Shaneâs fears and concerns considering a hallmark of his character is how empathetic he is. In the long game, he is empathetic to everyone but Shane.
If the narrative had framed the conflict as a mutual communication issue that they needed to overcome together, I would have been so much happier with it. I do not want my characters to be perfect and I want them to struggle. I want them to experience conflict, including communication issues. Like, thatâs a good conflict, especially in the context of a relationship narrative. But the narrative affirms again and again that Shane alone is the problem, and we know it is meant to, because the author herself says so.
Ilya is so dismissive of Shaneâs concerns in every conversation. Take when heâs asking Shane to go to Ottawa after Shane was just *checks notes* abandoned by his best friends of over ten years. Shane says they donât have the cap space for him. Ilya asks how much money he needs. Shane says âno, itâs not about that, I want to be paid what Iâm worth.â Ilya says âokay but consider you have a very rich husband to provide for youâ
Like that is not what Shane just fucking said!!! A queer Asian man said âhey uh itâs unfair if I have to be paid extremely below my worth to have this jobâ and his white partner replied âdonât worry baby hubby will provideâ like what the fuck??
But the narrative affirms Ilyaâs view. Shane immediately laughs and agrees. He was wrong to be caught up in it to begin with.
Do you have any idea how destructive Shaneâs move to Ottawa and subsequent pay cut must have been to his reputation? He went from the most respected captain in the nhl to a second fucking line center on His Husbandâs Team getting paid less than any other player on a team that had never so much as even grazed the fucking Stanley cup. He must have looked fucking radioactive. No one even wants Shane Hollander anymore. He is lucky to even get to play. It is so callous and disrespectful and humiliating. Jesus fucking Christ, she did not have to write it that way.
Do you realize that nhl players can and have voluntarily taken pay cuts to make cap space?
Ilya himself could have said âi will take a pay cut so we can get you here in a way that doesnât devalue you. We are merging our finances anyway, it does not matter whose name is on the check, we get the same money either way but I do not want you to lose any more respect than you already have after what your friends and the media just did to you.â Other players on the centaurs could have said âoh we all agreed to take a pay cut to even have a chance at Shane fucking Hollander on our team. Iâd take a pay cut just to have Shane Hollander make eye contact with me. Thank you to the metros for fumbling the greatest player on your team we will NOT let this opportunity pass us by. Oh my god weâre going to win the Stanley cup.â The Centaurs management could have come out and said âhey we moved heaven and earth to renegotiate these contracts so we could afford Shane Hollander on this team. Absolutely everyone on this team is a trooper for doing this and it sucks that we have to cut anyoneâs pay but we are all so committed to bringing the Stanley cup home that we decided to make it work.â
Again, NHL players regularly do this. It is an option and one the author could have found out about with a single fucking google search. It is built into the cap system. Players openly chose to be paid less than their worth because they believe getting a certain player makes their team a contender for the Cup. And no one talks about that fact like it is a devaluation of the players. The public knows that they are worth more money. The pay cut is because the nhl salary cap system is ass and their team cares enough to get that goddamn Cup.
Shane would still likely have to take a pay cut just because he and Ilya are such ludicrously valuable players that itâd be hard to ever have them operating under the same cap. But it could have happened in a way that doesnât humiliate him further. It could have given him even the tiniest scrap of dignity back. And instead she put him on goddamn fire sale and had him fucking laugh it off. Heâs worth less than the fucking rookie but itâs fine because his big strong husband will provide for him. It is a meaninglessly cruel humiliation ritual that did not have to happen and it makes me so unbelievably fucking mad.
It is not about the money. It is about the fact that Shane Hollander is a queer person of color who gets paid pennies on the dollar despite being better than every single straight white player in that league. And we are told itâs not a big deal because his husband will take care of him. Jesus Christ.
If I lived in universe and Shane had told me how Ilya treated him after that conversation with Crowell or after the metros reject him or in almost any other conversation they have in that book, I would have been like âI WAS RIGHT TO HATE HIM DURING HIS FUCKASS NAVY BLUE SHEET PHASE BABY DUMP THAT MAN.â I would be livid. I would drive to Canada to kick that guyâs fucking ass. I would have called Scott Hunter and been like âhey are you and Kip looking for a third. Also where are we on the retirement front like will the admirals be needing a new gay superstar center soonish bc boy do I have someone for you.â
Shaneâs fears of coming out after he receives racist and homophobic threats from the commissioner of the goddamn league are valid. But the narrative never acknowledges that. It says Ilya is right to be mad at him and affirms him again and again. It punishes Shane for his fear and it never lets him process all the ways he has been hurt. I am so goddamn angry. The fact that Shane is the one who got hate for the long game is mind boggling to me.
