fannish argosies

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food

So I actually agree that canon can absolutely change details about the world for the sake of worldbuilding, but in this case she didn’t. It is explicit in the book that Montreal is just as hockey obsessed as it is in the real world. At the very beginning of heated rivalry, she talks about how Montreal fans loved the Voyageurs to the point of absurdity. They were the loudest fan base and the most enthusiastic fan base, to the point where it was hard for visiting teams to play against them. The fans travel to Ottawa to cheer on the Voyageurs because they’re such dedicated fans and they sell out the arena for the entire season in advance. They are described as the most legendary team in the NHL—all of which is just copying pretty directly from real life. Fuck, the Voyageurs is just the name of the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate team, which is why they had to change it for the show. She just sort of copied and pasted Montreal’s entire hockey culture.

She seems to have left all of Montreal’s queer culture on the table though.

Like. Seriously, someone correct me if there’s something I forgot, but I can’t remember it being in the books at all. And I’m kind of pissed at that exclusion, specifically because it’s implied that Montreal fans are a part of forcing Shane out.

I say implied because we get to see next to nothing about what happened to Shane that was so bad that it forced him off the team he loved. Almost the entirety of the aftermath happens from Ilya’s POV and he glazes over the it because he doesn’t give a shit about what Shane’s going through. He talks about how there’s a host of opinion pieces in the news the day after the game about how Shane tripped on purpose and goes off about how they’re insulting to him, actually, because what do you mean he needs Shane to throw the game to win. We know that the team and the media have a vitriolic reaction, and there’s a host of “angry tweets in the game’s wake. Of course when Troy Barrett suffers backlash we get to see the tweets and an in depth portrayal of how they affect him. But I think we can glean that there was not an outpouring of support from Montreal’s fan community considering whatever happens is so bad that Shane feels like he’ll never be comfortable representing that team again.

Again, I think that it’s fine to borrow from the real world but change real world details for the sake of world building. I do it myself. For example, the pride tape ban in snapping birch really happened, but it happened years later. I moved the timeline back but kept the real details, because it happened after the events of snapping birch and I wanted to talk about it.

I do have a rule though. And I don’t ascribe negative traits to real people, especially if they don’t have those negative traits in real life. I think it’s in really poor taste. Like. I don’t want to be like “here’s my obvious insert of John Doe, except for the purposes of this story, he just loves kicking fucking puppies.” Like. John Doe probably felt a little hurt by that.

Granted, Montreal fans aren’t a singular person who can get their feelings hurt. But I still think that having them be part of what forces out Shane for reasons related to his identity as a queer man was in really poor taste.

Like. We might not have queer rights if it wasn’t for the Montreal LGBTQ+ community.

In the 70s, the queer community in Montreal was targeted in a series of police raids and they rioted so goddamn hard that Quebec banned discrimination based on sexual orientation across the province just to get them to stop. In fucking 1977. It was the first major jurisdiction on the entire planet to legally protect sexual orientation, and it happened because of motherfucking Montreal. That city is one of the birthplaces of queer rights.

I’m going to be honest, coming into this fandom, I straight up thought that Montreal was kind of conservative and homophobic. That’s how the fandom treated it. I didn’t know anything about the city before I came into the fandom. The biggest basis I had was “pushed Shane out after he was outed.”

i truly believe (and had this feeling, although unnamed, when reading TLG in particular) that this villanification of the city AND CULTURE of Montréal comes from (maybeeee unconscious) anti-quebec sentiment.

as written above, Montréal is very (the most) gay and very (the most) hockey. the story is about a gay hockey player who is the face of Montreal hockey. if shane hollander was real, he would have his own statue around the centre bell before even retiring. why pretend he would get run out of the city by the media and the fans?

now, this is where i get a lil spicy

long story short, the rest of canada doesn't love the province of québec. we speak french, we are the epicenter of a lot of the recognizable canadian culture although we tried to leave the dominon twice, we were excluded from signing the last constitution, etc, etc. the rest of canada finds us, at best, kind of annoying. until the 70s, the city of Montréal was pretty segregated anglo/franco with the Main (boulevard Saint-Laurent) separating the city east (franco)/west (anglo).

btw, that's where the nickname for the actual Canadiens de Montréal, the Habs, comes from. it's short for habitants, which is what the anglos called the francos for a long time (inside and outside of québec). it was meant to convey the class diference between the groups.

to preserve and perpetuate language and tradition, québec as a whole, and Montréal as a metropolis, have tried to separate and distinguish themselves culturally from the rest of canada.

the rest of canada feels like we're excluding them (current policies do be problematic, but i'm not expanding on that, cause i don't have time to write a thesis on inter-provincial politics) because when they inevitably come to study, or work, or live in Montréal, we ask a pretense of conversational french. (...if you are a barista in the gayest city in the country, you should know what oatmilk sounds like in french).

so yeah, québécois, montrealites, we are considered the problematic child. the rest of canada often sees us as the heart of the division. we are seen as antagonistic, ungrateful, tax-monchers, etc, etc.

full spice, you may ignore these ramblings

i have had the chance to live in both Barcelona and Montréal for extended periods of time and have been immersed in both cultures (considered sub-cultures to a certain degree in the wider country's landscape).

in cities like Barcelona and Montréal (and in wider contextes like catalunya and québec), it is impossible to separate culture, and its expression, from language. what makes their cultures (queerness, lifestyle, work-life balance, civil/workers rights, diversity, festivals, business models, etc, etc.) so enticing is inseparable from their languages, it is because of their languages.

you cannot think that they are great cities to live in, or to work in, or to study in, without linking that special-ness to language. Montréal is special, fun, cool because it is francophone. Barcelona is special, fun, cool because it is catalan. to pretend to pertain to these cities because you happen to be from the same country they are in (which they have both tried to leave lol) is futile without actual immersion in the language and, thus, in the culture.

once you're in it, it's easy to note the disdain that the rest of the country has for these two cities, all the while trying so hard to use the positive aspects of their cultures (socially, but also in terms of working conditions and work culture) without actually doing anything to preserve it.

we strayed from the point, coming back around

so yeah, reading reid's depiction of Montréal's hockey culture in relation to her gay character, i cannot help but think that the violent inaccuracy is just... montréal/québec bashing lol

Because,,, from Shane's POV: you LOVED being captain. Specifically, you loved being Montreal's captain. You were respected and revered and you had a place on your team, a strictly defined role, and we all know how much you love strict rules. In the hieracichal system of hockey, you were at the top and goddammit you EARNED that place at the top - it is irrefutable evidence of your work and talent. And now, you've just had to leave your beloved team essentially in disgrace and you have to join a new team where you're not sure where you fit, but it's not going to be at the top. And no matter how much you love the man who's now calling the shots, it's gotta sting to be demoted like that.

As for Ilya's POV: Being captain of the Centaurs was the one thing that gave you even the shakiest sense of purpose in the malaise of change and newness of leaving behind everything you knew in Boston. And goddammit you feel a righteous sense of ownership over this team that's finally excelling, becoming a real franchise competitor, and yes there were a lot of contributing factors but one of those contributions was YOU. You love being captain, getting to control your room. And it does feel like YOUR room now. That sense of belonging, that's not something you're willing to give up, it's something you worked for. And, in a smaller, pettier way, haven't you given up enough by now? You deserve to keep this.

LIKE ‼️‼️ THAT'S FASCINATING!!!! And don't get me STARTED on how this friction in the locker room is probably gonna trickle down in some capacity to hollanovs sex life,,, Shane's genuine desire to submit to Ilya sexually is gonna have a tough time rubbing up against Shane's internalised homophobia,,, because when Shane was captain of the metros, him and Ilya were equals and competitors,,, their even footing soothed Shane's perception of himself and his sense of masculinity even when he was subbing for Ilya,,, now that he's Ilya's 'subordinate' in their work life too, I think there's gonna be an instinctive defensive posturing flare up on Shane's side that's probably gonna lead to even MORE friction in the locker room because subconsciously, Shane feels like he has to make up for the sin of submitting to and enjoying Ilya's control over their sex life, and that's gonna manifest as him bucking control in their professional lives

As for Ilya, his already ingrained need for control that makes him such an adept dom is really gonna struggle in the face of Shane's strange sudden defiance in their professional lives, which is probably gonna make him instinctively tighten his grip on the reins, which is just gonna make Shane's bridling worse. And the cycle will continue until they have a blow up fight about it.

King Arthur at Tintagel

Today is Bastille Day, National Mac and Cheese Day, and International Non-Binary Day!!!