I'm gonna say why I admire Hudson so much and why I think he's really brave. Because let's be honest, he was given a character - Shane Hollander - who is a prime example of how a white woman from yaoi kingdom writes an "exotic bottom boy character" conforming to all the Asian, feminized bottom stereotypes without giving any consideration to the racial representation.
Shane looks "pretty", his exotic looks are constantly mentioned, his body is hairless, he's smaller than his big sexy Russian top, he's on the autistic spectrum, he's ranked low in the biggest dicks list of the GCU, he's a strict bottom, he's got a tiger mom... and his race only affects his look, but not his inner world or his struggles.
I think for a more insecure actor, playing such a character would be basically a career suicide - forever being locked into the "little Asian bottom" box.
But Hudson did something amazing with Shane. Shane in the TV show is masculine in really appealing way (soft and kind, but also firm and assertive), he radiates an easy physical strength that's not inferior to the top, he's a jock, but like a smart one who shines with his love of the game, he's autistic but not a caricature, he's unapologetic about his sexual preference once he figures it out, he goes down on his knees or crawls on the bed like he's acing a challenge thrown in his face.
And Hudson goes around crassly hyping and glamorizing being a bottom, taking up space, refusing to feel shame or be embarrassed about Shane. At the same time, with his wacky, shameless humour, he also shows himself being polite, caring, considerate, charming - never as a subservience, but as a confident embodiment of non-toxic masculinity.
I'm truly at awe how he took this racial stereotype, took control of the characterisation, took control of the narrative, the discourse and elevated both Shane Hollander as a character, and Hudson Williams as an actor, who is not merely the next prince of Wasia, desirable for his looks, but someone who is capable representing more than just his race or heritage. Someone universal - with appeal for the queer community, for all people with no-filter ADHD chaos, for people valuing decency and kindness.
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Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):
Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business â search â richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click.
"Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said.
Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers â perhaps even those they have requested â but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from.
"If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."
And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):
While Google already has âAI Mode,â the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.Â
Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what youâre searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questionsâsimilar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.
And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:
When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of âcatastrophicâ impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.Â
Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.Â
Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers. Â
Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Googleâs planned changes to search are âgoing to have a devastating impact on the Internet.âÂ
âIt will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,â she told Technology Magazine. Â
So I saw this news last week and finally switched over to duckduckdo and the difference is STAGGERING. It's like...search from 20 years ago. The results I want are at the TOP. I can't believe I waited so long to switch.
agreed, switching to duckduckgo last year was the single best improvement in my life. just remember to change the search settings > manage ai and turn all the different toggles to Off (duck.ai), Never (search assist), and On (Hide ai images)
âIt will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,â she told Technology Magazine. Â
So when the news sites go out of business, the content creators give up, the only places you can buy things from are the ones big enough to pay Google's going rate for being included in results, and the entire internet has been turned into an AI-generated ouroboros of shit... then what?
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love the trope where an authoritative side character pointedly pretends not to help the hero theyâre not supposed to be helping by saying shit like âwell I canât just let you wander around up to the THIRD FLOOR where you could just FIND THE THING YOU NEED in the FIRST ROOM ON THE LEFT. And under no circumstances should you USE THE KEY FROM UNDER THE MAT. I wish I could help you, but I CANâT. Now excuse me, I need to take this phone call for the next 37 minutes EXACTLY.â
My doctor did that for me once. I had to get an expensive brain scan and she was like âdo you smoke?â and I was like ânoâ and she was like âwell thatâs a pity because the government will pay for this expensive brain scan if you had been a smoker so - do you smoke?â đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł I was like âyesâ and sheâs like âoh wow then this scan will be freeâ
hiiiii is your handle a reference to the obernewtyn chronicles?
hi there!! it's so nice to see your ask pop upâi was like, hey, another frequent commenter from wtf-is-hockey's blog (which i looove!)! i love how a niche part of the fandom is coming closer together.
my handle is based on my ao3 name, LadyElspeth. when i registered for my ao3 account last year, i knew i wanted to write smut, lol, and i thought of a silly inside joke to myself.
my favorite game ever is probably the sims 3. and in one of my favorite in-game towns, bridgeport, there is a family, where the mom is very prim and proper and full of political aspirations, like her house literally looks like the white house, but the daughter is very rebellious and very much a troublemaker. the mom's name is lady cook; the daughter's is elspeth cook.
so i thought to combine their first names.
it's hilarious to me because i love this dichotomy. like, yes, i want to write smut on ao3, it was literally the primary motivator for me to get an account. but there were other types of stories i wanted to write, and i wanted to tread the line between both. and the "lady" in front is funny: it's both a title and a name, lol. "elspeth" is similar but different from my irl name, so it is still me but different.
i haven't heard of the obernewtyn chronicles. just looked them up and this book series seems so fun!! the characters' special powers are giving me dnd vibes.:))))
thank you for the ask! i really enjoyed going down memory lane for this one. and i just followed you (finally!)!!
In all the years that Iâve been on this site, it has never once crossed my mind to send someone anon hate. Especially like purposely going out of my way to seek out a blog and send them hate. Other than this being such gutter-butt loser behavior, why are they assuming that the user would cares about their hate? Exactly what do they think theyâre accomplishing here? Do they think theyâre going to change someoneâs opinions, that theyâre going to deleted their post or their blog? Imagine sending a stranger anon hate, sitting on their blog, refreshing their page, waiting for their response, and somehow thinking thatâs not pathetic.
I fully got into an argument with someone on here when that Joan Didion thing was going round. I literally told them that I'd never heard of her and acting like he said William Shakespeare when after looking her up it appears her writing is mainly nonfiction and American centric.
In response I got condescension and told I don't read enough and I'm uncultured. At which point I decided HR isn't worth the disrespect and blocked. Like I read 100 books a year I don't need someone to come at me because Hudson just happens to have recommended all books I haven't read before (except his current East of Eden)
There are millions of books published a year nevermind the back catalog, it's not wild to think people don't know her. Like I wouldn't expect people to know Jacqueline Wilson even though she's a prolific English children's author that pretty much every one read as a child.
Your experience isn't universal and being pretentious about books is what stops people from reading
I was literally shocked Hudson knew her. I know her but I only know her because she has written some of the most notable works in my genre in my country. I was required to read her for my degree. But literally I would not expect anyone under 40 to know her, anyone outside the US to know her, or anyone who doesnât have a strong interest in Hollywood or creative nonfiction. Yes, sheâs an enormous name within her niche. And her niche is still very much a fucking niche lmao. But people just need to brag. They feel superior for knowing about her and so they want people to know. But it literally doesnât matter. It doesnât matter how well or widely read someone is anyway but it definitely doesnât mean anything for someone to not know Didion.
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âWilliamsâ victory feels especially well deserved because Shane Hollander is not an easy character to portray. As we wrote in our review of the series, Williams delivers âa masterclass in micro-expressions and physical restraint.â Shane spends much of the story fighting against himself, suppressing emotions he barely allows himself to acknowledge, and Williams manages to communicate entire emotional arcs through a glance, a tense jaw, or a slight shift in posture. Every crack in Shaneâs carefully constructed armor lands with devastating impact because of the work Williams puts in throughout the series.
Seeing that performance recognized on one of Canadaâs biggest stages feels incredibly rewarding. Williamsâ win is also historic in its own right. At just 25 years old, he became the youngest performer ever to win Best Lead Performer, Drama, at the Canadian Screen Awards, accomplishing the feat on his very first nomination.â
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On the subject of Shane's pay cut at the end of tlg - idk, I think it was a no win situation all around. I think it was probably for the best to glaze over it, because trying to dive into it seriously wouldn't have looked good on anyone.
Sure Ilya could take a pay cut, but then it'd be 2 queer players who aren't getting paid what they're worth. Publicly, it would look like Ottawa only took them because they came cheap, 2 for the price of 1. And narratively it might have come off as Shane valuing his public image over Ilya's, something that had already caused friction in the book. It would look like he was regressing.
And sure the rest of the Centaurs could take a pay cut. But it's wouldn't read well as a viewer. Because Shane is going to go to Ottawa basically no matter what. That much the reader knows. If he took money from the Centaurs, he would be doing it strictly to save face.
And a team taking a pay cut to play with a great player is one thing; having them take a pay cut to spare his feelings is another. And maybe the characters wouldn't know he was always going to sign there, but the reader would. And it would feel weird to essentially watch Shane and Ilya trick their new teammates into financing an emotional bandaid.
It would also feel a little bitter on any reader who like the Centaurs. Because the Centaurs already face a ton of humiliation in-universe just being the Centaurs: worst team in the league. Even Shane talks down about them. You spend the whole book rooting for them as underdogs, watching them grow from a joke to an actual competitive team. Having them pay money to essentially soothe Shane's pride would feel bad - yes you want Shane to be paid his worth, but not at the cost of anyone else. Bood and Troy and Luca also deserve to be paid their worth, ya know?
I think the main problem is that any attempt to make up Shane's pay would be performative in-universe, and possibly reflect badly on the character as a reader. He's not going to be making the same amount no matter what, and he's going to Ottawa no matter what. These things are set in stone. Discussing it in length would only bring attention to a problem that doesn't have a good answer.
Narratively, I think it was just something better glazed over. When Ilya tells Shane to consider he has a rich husband, it's more of a joke than anything. And he does agree that Shane deserves to be paid his worth. But their conversation isn't being too serious at the moment - it's just an emotionally charged rant when Shane is feeling mad after the trip. It's not a planning moment or even a serious discussion moment, and Ilya doesn't even think Shane is serious about leaving Montreal.
Idk, I think this is one of those times where it was better that RR didn't go into detail. It leaves enough space for the reader to decide for themselves the details of Shane's salary. Maybe the team did take a pay cut, maybe Ilya did, maybe someone retired. For the sake of the story, it doesn't really matter. Kinda frustrating if you really care about that, but there are a TON of things that RR doesn't go into depth over because that's simply not the story she wants to tell. Maybe it'll come up in Unrivaled, who knows.
I do agree that RR doesn't dive deep enough into Shane's ethnicity, but that's more of a "writer didn't consider exactly how deep a rabbit hole went before she put it in" type thing.
Anyway this isn't a criticism on you or your take, which is valid. I just think it's an interesting subject to think about. I love snapping birch btw
So Iâm gonna respectfully disagree with all this.
First, donât agree that it looks like Ottawa only got them because they came 2 for the price of 1. Because they canât do that. They already have Ilya.
Ilya is under contract. His contract is not expiring. He is entitled to the full amount of that contract unless they agree to execute a mutual termination and renegotiate a new amount to free up some cap space. Any downward departure cannot happen without Ilya making it happen.
Letâs say Ilya is getting paid $17.5M. But they only have the cap space to give Shane Hollander $2M. Ilya has the freedom to say âhey, lets mutually terminate and I will re-sign for $10M or however far of a downward departure that the NHL will approve. Give the other $7M to Shane. We will be paid roughly in line with each other, and it will be clear to everyone watching that we are making a salary sacrifice to make this team a cup contender.â
The optics are completely different on that decision. Shane is leaving his team in disgrace. But Ilya is an established captain who does not need to change his salary at all. Shane taking a low salary looks like no one values him anymore. Ilya choosing to lower his own salary looks like he is a good captain who is doing whatever it takes to make his team a cup contender. Jamie Benn took a massive pay cut to help maintain a competitive roster for the Stars and we lauded him as a goddamn hero. The optics for Ilya are fantastic if he does this. The optics for Shane are atrocious.
One thing I fundamentally disagree with is the premise that Shane has to go to Ottawa. He doesnât. Especially if we look from the perspective of someone in-universe.
As readers, we want Shane and Ilya to be on the same team. We know that the book is trying to bring them there. So to us, it feels obvious that Shane is destined for Ottawa.
People in-universe donât know that. Even though they know heâs with Ilya, people regularly make long distance work or super commute. Up until this point, they know Shane and Ilya have been comfortable doing exactly that. Shane Hollander can theoretically sign with any team close enough to make the relationship work.
You know where he can go? The New York goddamn Admirals.
Scott Hunter is going into retirement. The cap space just freed up for them for a new star center, and Shane Hollander has three goddamn Stanley Cups. He and Ilya would have to be long distance, but they were already long distance, and this is the same distance that they had when he was in Boston. They are rich enough to super commute via private jet. In the publicâs eyes, this is a guy that should have options.
If he signs for pennies after his name was just dragged through the mud, he looks like he doesnât. He is radioactive. No one wants Shane Hollander anymore. Only his husbandâs team will take him, and thatâs only if he is on fucking sale.
I donât agree that this would come off as Shane regressing either. Especially because it would be so simple to frame it in a way that negates the possibility.
Donât have Shane ask. Have Ilya offer.
Have Ilya bring it up. Have him say âcome to Ottawa. Yes we are low on cap space but I will call management right now and tell them that if they let me terminate and resign for lower I will bring them the goddamn Stanley cup. We will both have to take pay cuts but it would be worth it to be together.â
The pay sacrifice is now mutual. And Ilya comes off like he is considerate of his partner who just got publicly humiliated and abandoned by his best friends of more than ten years. Iâm saying âthank god he has Ilyaâ not âfuck Shane for wanting money.â Shane never has to ask for money to begin with.
From the canon ending, I do not think better of Shane. I think worse of Ilya.
The way it goes in canon, Ilya has his partner tell him he is so fucking angry after he was spat on by people heâs known for a fucking decade. He says he doesnât deserve this. Ilya barely even acknowledges this. He just says âokay well we will appreciate you in Ottawa.â This doesnât do anything to address the pain and loss Shane is feeling about what his friends just did to him.
Shane immediately raises the fact that they are out of cap space and the fact that itâs not about money, itâs about wanting to be paid for what heâs worth. And Ilyaâs like âoh donât worry baby, hubby will provide.â
Pause for laughter.
Ilya absolutely ignores what Shane just fucking said. Heâs not worried about money. He just wants to be valued by the team heâs on. I think worse of Ilya because his partner who just got fucking hate crimed raised a valid concern that he outright blows off.
Shane doesnât come off like heâs putting Ilya above his career from that scene either. He just agrees that he has a rich husband to provide for him now, so it doesnât matter. He doesnât get the character benefit of saying âyou know what? I donât care what Iâm paid. I just want us to be togetherâ because the thought doesnât even occur to him.
The entire analysis I just said about Ilya also applies to the Centaurs. Their contracts are set, so it does not look like they are being valued less by management if they take a cut. Management literally cannot value them at any lower than their current contract price. Nothing can happen without the Centaurs making it happen. So it looks like they are the goddamn heroes bringing home Shane Hollander and getting their team its first ever Stanley cup. They would get a fucking parade for that, and any marginal percentage that they lost from their contracts would be more than made up for in the sponsorships theyâd get from the good PR. This would be ultimately a good move for them in the public eye, and there is no need to âtrickâ them to do shit.
The solution is the same. Do not ask them. Have them offer.
Youâd need to change the structure of the scene to do it, but you could do it with a few paragraphs. Have Ilya tell the rest of the team that he may be able to get Shane on the team too. Have them affirmatively flood the group chat with âoh my god weâre going to win the Stanley cup. Fuck wait the salary cap. I would take a pay cut to make this happen. Iâm calling my agent right now.â
Shane didnât ask them to do that. He didnât ask them to do shit. Let them affirmatively recognize that there is a problem and immediately mobilize to fix it.
Do you have any idea how much better that would make the reader feel about Shaneâs move to Ottawa?
Shane has just been rejected by the team he has spent more than a decade on. And it is a team that has been in varying degrees homophobic towards him since they found out he was gay. They act with vitriolic anger towards him after the trip, and almost none of them come to his wedding. That hurts.
Now hereâs a new team. Shane doesnât know them that well. Heâs not friends with any of them. All he has is Ilya and that is because he just lost everything else. He is a fish out of water and he has no assurance that this will go well for him.
If those people go out of their way to do something to make him feel welcome after what his friends just did to him, I love them. I love their characters. I am excited that Shane gets to go to Ottawa because even if he shouldnât have been ousted from Montreal, the narrative has just reassured me that he is amongst people who care about him, and it has soothed some of the pain of what just happened. These teammates want you, and are going out of their way to show you that. You didnât ask. They offered.
There is another solution to this problem. And itâs to not bring up the salary cap at all.
Who put a gun to Rachel Reidâs head and made her bring up the salary cap? Just donât include it in the conversation. Shane never says shit about the salary cap, and neither does Ilya, and the problem does not exist. Most readers will never think about it. The ones that do are free to draw whatever conclusions they may. Maybe Ottawa has oodles of cap space. Maybe the cap is higher in universe. Maybe they all took pay cuts. There is nothing in the narrative to contradict them, so the reader is never obligated to say âOttawa does not have the cap space for Shane Hollander.â The answer could be anything.
Like, I do agree that it would be better to leave the space for the reader to draw their own conclusions. But Rachel Reid did not leave that space. She presents the problem and the solution in the same breath. Ottawa does not have the cap space for Shane Hollander. Take the pay cut, hubby will provide. It leaves the space to say that maybe something changed after that conversation, but that is not a lot of space. After all, Ilya just said it didnât fucking matter, Shane just agreed it didnât fucking matter, and who the fuck is going to challenge that?
Thereâs another thing I fundamentally disagree about with the premise of your argument, and thatâs that this would be just some performative emotional bandaid meant to soothe Shaneâs pride. I agree, this would be solely directed towards lifting Shaneâs emotions, especially if Ilya was the one to take the cut.
Why would caring about Shaneâs emotional health ever be a bad thing?
I want Ilya to be the kind of character that gives a shit about his partnerâs emotions. I want the Centaurs to be the kinds of characters that care about their teammatesâ emotions. Emotions are important.
After the trip, canonically, everyone Shane has been playing with save Hayden completely abandons him. They reject him in the most insulting and degrading and homophobic way possible. Only J.J. ever reestablishes contact. Ilya has all of his teammates at their wedding, and Shane gets two fucking people. And the media? Itâs eviscerating him. His name is mud in the home heâs lived in and loved since he was 18.
That is not minor. People are put on suicide watch over less. Something similar happened to David Beckham during the World Cup and there are entire documentaries about how it almost fucking killed him.
Emotions matter. I care about the emotions of the people I love. And if someone I loved went through what Shane just went through? I would move heaven and goddamn earth to alleviate that. I would do absolutely anything I could to show them that they were still valued and loved. Call it performative, call it a bandaid, but I call it showing someone that I love them enough to want them to feel happy and welcomed and appreciated. I do not want the people I love to be publicly humiliated. And I would never in a million years let my poc partner who was just dragged through hell go through the public humiliation that is going for fucking gay discount if I had the power to do something about it.
The most common explanation I hear for why the game changers books are they way that they are is that the author decided to just glaze over it because it wasnât what she wanted to focus on or its just a romance book, itâs not that deep. Thatâs the explanation Rachel Reid herself gives. Itâs just a romance book, she never thought itâd be analyzed with this depth, itâs not that deep.
Whenever I hear something like that, I think to myself âthat sure is a lot of words for saying, âI am a bad writer.ââ
I harp on this so much, but itâs because I truly believe it: You cannot escape the consequences of your own narrative. You do not get to introduce something and then pretend it isnât there. If you are not willing or able to address those consequences, do not bring it up.
If you are the writer of a story, the world is your goddamn oyster. You do not get the excuse of âoh, well, I couldnât really deal with that conflict properlyâ you are the one who introduced the conflict to begin with. No one has a gun to your head, girl. Just donât bring it up.
I can think of thirty goddamn ways you can resolve the salary cap thing that takes five sentences or less. The easiest? Again, just literally never mention the salary cap. Boom. Done.
She could have had them take pay cuts. She could have had there already be room in the cap because itâs much higher in the game changers universe. She could have written two sentences in the beginning about how thereâs a veteran player on the Centaurs who is about to retire and free up cap space, foreshadowing the fact that Shane would be able to move there soon. There are so many ways to solve this that does not have the frankly racist connotations of having a gay Asian man be paid pennies on the dollar but itâs fine because he has a rich white husband to take care of him.
Like, the fact that she did not consider how deep the rabbit hole was before making her main character a marginalized individual in a racist and homophobic system is exactly what I am criticizing her for. She chose to make him half-Japanese and then never once think about the actual experiences of Asian men. She chose to drizzle in her representation without making actually it representative in the fucking slightest. And I am saying that makes her a bad writer.
