laila edwards is more than another character to add to your willmack universe. this isn’t saying thats she can’t be in fics, this is saying you shouldn’t have looked at her draft and immediately have gone “omg! now she can be friends with willmack and willmack will be her buddies and she can be in willmacks life. and she probably would wanna live with willmack” like, this isn’t about them. this is about her.

it is in fact ignorant to deteriorate her to that, and to take some valid points and go “i hope no one believe this terrible thing about me wanting to use a black woman as a piece in my shipverse!”

also, this doesn’t have to be rpf related. laila simply cannot just exist as she is? how odd. and the amount of likes i’ve seen on posts saying “it isn’t racist for me to use her like this! it isn’t ignorant to whittle her down to willmack’s friend! it isn’t strange to say she’d wanna be stuck to them like glue!” is very weird.

this is one of those moments where i remember how majority white nhlblr and nhl fandom is. you don’t even realize the error of your ways, and when someone brings it up to you you’re immediately defensive instead of accepting the information and working to be better

the issue here is the fact that people immediately saw laila’s draft and thought of how to apply that to their favorite white boys instead of highlighting her accomplishments and who she is as a person: first black woman in team usa, first black woman to win gold for team usa, highest drafted black woman in the pwhl. she has done so much, so pardon me for getting mad when someone wants characterize her as “willmacks friend who gets annoyed by their gay antics”

Thank you, Stu. Remember we loved you (still do).