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the entirety of the montreal victorie team has known shane was gay since at least 2014. there are like six women on that team who like men, three of which thought shane was hot, and one of which gets him on a date, only for her to come back like "yeah that is the gayest man ive ever met."
they met at some sort of fundraiser or event and she strikes up a conversation with him, and at the end of the night she oh so subtly asks if he wants to grab dinner (food at tthe event sucked) to finish their conversation about the technical differences between mens and womens professional hockey, an offer shane takes very literally because he's very invested now and actually enjoying this conversation, and at the time has very firmly drawn the line in his head that there is absolutely nothing possibly romantic about hockey.
when her teammates ask her how the night went the victorie player is like "he was really nice, listened intently to everything i had to say, laughed at my jokes, paid for dinner, didn't tell me about how much more difficult mens hockey is. he treated me like the best conversation partner he's had in a while. he's gay. he just doesn't know it yet."
it becomes a thing that anytime the montreal mens and womens teams are at an event together, all the women love talking to shane, and his teammates (who don't know about the not-date because he's never mentioned it) tease him about how he's such a ladies man and he should ask one of them out, they'd definitely say yes. meanwhile the victories all like him because he's actively not hitting on them or talking over them and he really just wants to talk about hockey.
like they're so used to every conversation with an nhl player ending his him disrespecting the pwhl in some way and acting like they should be impressed he's a professional athlete (like they aren't professional athletes too!!) meanwhile shane starts conversations with "so i watched the documentary you recommended on the first womens olympic hockey team and-"
bonus points if shane doesn't even realize/remember being on a date with one of the players until hayden brings it up years later and when shane AND ilya are like "i/he went on a what with who???" and hayden just sighs and has to say "ok so in like 2014 you went on a date with-"
Oh, so the entire Game Changers series is set in a fictional hockey setting where several things are different from Real Life, and that's why you should accept how it is. Okay.
However, one sentence from a post that @teddywesworl made me really understand why I could never do that. Jas says in a March 25 post that "The obvious problem is of course that when you bring real world events into your fictionalized NHL, you are now open to continued comparisons that you may never have intended, in particular for a very old club with deep roots in a marginalized culture to which you, the author, do not belong."
So this is going to be a long rant, gays, girls, and squirrels. Continue when you have time.
SO, in this setting, the cap exists, and Montreal (the gay hockey capital of the world) doesn't give a shit about the Shane Hollander (gay hockey Jesus) being run out of their team, and in HR Ilya purposely doesn't consider going to Montreal because he wants to be paid what he's worth and keep his captaincy and have his career + citizenship, while in TLG that choice is rewritten as if he did it for "love" only. The first time that Ottawa is brought up as a terrible team is in My Dinner With Hayden, by the way.
And when Shane does the same thing with wanting to stay in Montreal for his career and keep his captaincy - well - you are such a selfish pos for that, ofc; how could you not choose the man you love over being seen as a diversity hire who got too diverse and needed to hide behind your boyfriend, haha.
And obviously Shane didn't go through any actual terrible homophobia from his team until the tripping incident; that's why we don't get a Shane POV of him coming out to the team, or anything about how his coach took it, or the staff in the entire Montreal organization. If there wasn't any big problem, then why is Shane so jumpy about being outed? Well, it's just because he is such a high-strung guy and a bad boyfriend, ofc. Shane doesn't have trauma; only Ilya does (RR said it!), which obviously means that racism and the entirety of Canadian junior hockey doesn't fucking exist in this universe, haha.
It's really not important, after all; Ilya is going through such a terrible time with depression, guys. Shane is holding out on him on purpose to make sure Ilya is suffering as much as possible!! You don't understand; it's not like Shane actively dissociates to ensure that he is able to Get Through the Hard Times. It's not like he believed his boyfriend when Ilya lied to his face and made Shane doubt his own intuition that the signs of his depression were actually a big deal haha.
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RR's list of character traits for Ilya and Shane also contributes to how disgustingly TLG is written btw.
An excellent blog that talks about the sheer insanity of what happens to Shane (and Ilya's characterization) in TLG is @polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup
from one of Syn's posts:
["One of the many Rachel Reid controversies around the writing of these books is that she posted a list of character traits that were the core guidelines of writing Shane and Ilya. Most of shaneâs traits were just defined as like, the absence of whatever Ilyaâs trait was. âIlya is cool, Shane is not. Ilya carries grief and trauma, Shane does not. Ilya is very intelligent, Shane is not,â etc.
Shane got a few actual traits though. One was that he was obsessed with hockey, whereas Ilya was not. He was described as being very private and cautious about letting people in, whereas Ilya seeks intimacy from everyone. And Ilya is extremely perceptive, whereas Shane barely notices his own feelings."]
So, all the signs that Shane was observant enough to catch in HR & TLG whenever Ilya couldn't explain his feelings out loud, but RR needed Shane to figure out how Ilya was feeling, apparently don't matter enough to his characterization because in the second half of TLG, Shane randomly turns unobservant and "stupid". Because Shane is not intelligent, Ilya is. And Shane is not cool; Ilya is. Shane is not selfless; Ilya is. Shane is not white or neurotypical or the author's special little sad boi.
Shane has so few characteristics that are just about him, and not just that he is the absence of Ilya's traits. He gets: love of hockey, love of privacy, being cautious with his trust (which makes it more precious that he gave Ilya his trust - and annoys me when RR uses Hayden as a conflict starter for no reason), and he is characterized as a person who, once he understands exactly what he wants, makes sure it happens.
So in total, we have: hockey lover, privacy lover, cautious dude, go-getter. This is Rachel Reid's Shane Hollander, everybody.
So in a Watsonian analysis: TLG is a fucking mess.
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And Harris being with Troy and doing all that cute PDA together in TLG. How cute it is, especially in front of all of their coworkers and in their professional lives. But ofc Hollanov would be the ones who need a PDA jar in fanfic. right. right. And Shane, Mr. Professional, Mr. I Do Not Want Others To Perceive Me Or My Relationships, would be so not embarrassed of this and super comfy with his husband's team he had to sign with after his entire professional career was blown up because it's his HEA. right.
And also, Troy Barrett definitely never said or agreed with anything racist said around him because it was never written into the books; only homophobia exists in this universe, DUH... which ofc means that there is no reason for Shane to be a little wary of Ilya randomly coming out to Troy in TLG. He is just a jealous little guy haha.
Because Troy (white + rehabilitated image like crazy style) and Harris (white + the one who dedicated his time to rehabilitate Troy's image crazy style) get their HEA after Troy comes out and Harris is promoted.
Because Scott (white + rich) and Kip (white + educated) get their HEA where they are The Gay Couple of hockey.
Because Ryan (white + retired) and Fabian (Lebanese-Canadian + "glamourous") get their HEA after making up and escaping hockey.
(Also, Fabian barely gets any attention to his race either; it's mostly an excuse to have him be âbeautifulâ and âgolden-skinned.â)
Because Eric (white + retired) and Kyle (white + non-hockey) get their HEA after figuring out how to trust each other.
So happy ever afters that are kind to both halves of a couple exist.
-----
Ilya Rozanov (white with a background apparently excellently researched and written + a known, successful captain who led his former team to the Stanley Cup once and rebuilt Ottawa to proper playoff contenders in 2-3 years) helps each of these couples understand themselves or sees their struggles in a crucial moment several times, as he is characterized as an empath.
And yet, he suddenly lost all of that empathy when he said he was happy his husband's, Shane Hollander (Asian-Canadian + very successful captain who led his team to 3 Stanley Cups), career was blown up, with several jokes being made about it. What the actual fuck happened in RR's fingertips for this bullshit to be written and brushed off because "its just a romance book" & "you shouldn't take things so seriously in this genre."
No. I'm going to take it seriously.
If this book is supposed to be escapism, then who can escape when Shane is hatecrimed and gaslit, Ilya becomes a terrible partner, Hayden is just a plot device to make you think that Ilya has a terrible reputation that no one can use their brain to look through, Galina is a plot device to make Ilya look like he's trying to get better & to put the "would Shane choose you over hockey" question into his head, and JJ is a black man who apparently doesn't understand why his Asian-Canadian captain doesn't want to put more diversity into his image???
And @lesbianroselandry had a great July 4 post where they said TLG "...includes multiple passages in which rachel reid posits that a bunch of white queer people understand bigotry in hockey culture better than a qpoc in hockey (because he's, like, too autistic to get it or something??),..." which also brings me back to Ilya for some reason (*cough* RR *cough*) thinks that Shane doesn't understand the dark side of hockey.
Pardon? Shane Hollander, who grew up as Canada's golden Hockey Jesus, doesn't know the dark side of Canadian Hockey? Just fucking kill me already.
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Shane Hollander did not get a HEA by the end of TLG, and no one will be able to brainwash me into thinking that he did. He can be written to tell himself to accept that what he got is the best he can get in the book-universe, but he is not a person - he is a character. I am a person who can read everything in that series and think critically about how the minority character - who is in a rivalry and relationship with the white man who benefits from his slashed career - is the one who got cheated out of a HEA. Because even in a fucking unrealistic universe where hockey doesn't work like that, racism fucking prevails. He is the one who had to settle. He is the one who didn't get what he wanted (his jersey in the rafters, his team supporting him, and Ilya as his husband). He gets a paltry fate as a second-liner, with a rookie and Tanner Dillon (who has been said to suck as a winger). He gets jokes about how he'll never get the C, even though he will always have more Cups than the fucker who laughed at that joke. He doesn't even get the A. Are you kidding me? His pay is cut. "Good thing that your husband can take care of you as the breadwinner đ" No. Absolutely not. Shane is literally being forced into the wife role. He is being destroyed in his career, moving to his husband's gay utopia where they laugh at him too, and whenever he brings up feeling a bit sad, his empathetic husband talks about fucking the bad feelings out of him. What the fuck.
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Also?
SHANE IS A GREAT CAPTAIN. No, he isn't written as someone screaming speeches at his team to hype them up, but you know what he did do? He is trusted and liked by his team, so he is invited out again and again, despite however many times he declines. He is a hard worker, diligent, particular, and a great hockey player who elevates the game. He put together a team of large egos, mostly white teammates who undoubtedly gave him a hard time, dealt with an old-fashioned coach, and dragged them to the playoffs every year he was a captain. He is Ilya Rozanov's equal on every level, at minimum, not just what people want to pick and choose from.
No, the fact that Shane's teammates turned on him doesn't mean he didn't cultivate enough good-fucking-will in the locker room. It means they were homophobic enough to betray the person who toiled over their progress and work ethic and brought them to a level of excellence that got them 3 fucking Cups. Stop blaming the gay guy for the homophobia of the people around him. Parents will abandon their children on the streets, send their children to conversion camps, and allow their children to be raped or tortured because of homophobia. The Montreal Voyageurs loved Shane Hollander when they thought he was a great leader and straight. They allowed their homophobia to destroy that. If loving someone enough could stop homophobes, then the fucking closet wouldn't be a thing. Stop acting like Shane was in the wrong for any of that, including trusting the men he loved like family for 10 years.
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I have so much more to say (not even including side character đ, and especially about how Yuna is also turned into a plot device to make Shane look super selfish after Ryan Price catches Shane & Ilya, but I'm actually steaming right now, so I'll reblog this with more when I can.
A final word would be that @ravenbytes had a great take in her March 26 post (you can tell just how long I've been chewing on this idea lol), where she said that, "We canât simply forget that the Doylist perspective exists, and it is crucial that we consider that perspective before ripping a character to shreds for their mistakes. As such, the author has a responsibility to their story to ensure narrative clarity, consistency, and coherence in theme, tone, and character alongside plot progression."
The book can be fun and/or impactful for any reader who isn't bothered by the bigotry or implicit biases of the author. For me, this is like talking about Harry Potter and how JKR very obviously names her POC characters with the most racist option "on accident." If RR isn't racist, then she can at least admit that her subconscious is driving the wheel and crashing her writing into every fucking racist stereotype.
Sure, Jan. Keep enjoying the crack fics and sucking on the grand cock of racism and all the other ism/phobia's.
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The reason why the criticism of the NHL and its many flaws falls so flat in the game changers series is because Rachel Reid refuses to examine the role that race plays in your experience of hockey and hockey culture in Canada, which is honestly very in line with the Canadian, âwell, we barely have racism up here!â even though people of color, especially Black and South Asian immigrants and First Nations people of color will tell you otherwise.
You cannot criticize and examine hockey culture without the foundational understanding of the role that whiteness plays in the toxicity of hockey culture.
When she said that Shane doesnât carry grief or trauma it becomes glaringly obvious that she is missing one of the core problems of the toxicity of hockey culture in Canada. Whiteness is what enables this toxic and abusive behavior to continue. Yes, the NFL, NBA, and MLB all have them problems and issues and Iâm not denying that, but those leagues all have players of color who would never be allowed to get away with what NHL players do.
I mean even when it comes to the rules of their sport, you think a 6â8, 300lb Black linebacker is getting a 5 minute penalty for shoving a ref or for getting in their face and yelling at them? You think a bunch of Black athletes could be living in billet homes in small towns with a reputation of violence against little white teenage girls and it would still be a national problem? Whiteness and racism is core and central to the problems in hockey. Look at Gavin McKenna, an indigenous man, being charged with a felony by State College police because they couldnât wait to make an example out of him.
âShane doesnât carry grief or trauma.â
Iâve been reading hockey player memoirs and one of them is about an âaverageâ player in the NHL. He was by no means a super star or prodigy, just very good at his sport and he talked about how, as a 6 or 7 year old child, he was already facing bullying by adults for how good he was at hockey. Parents of other players resented him so much for scoring they would tell their kids to target him and would scream obscenities. He was even flipped off as a child and humiliated by coaches because he was good at hockey. And this was a white man.
Add in the fact that Shane is Asian Canadian and hockey is a matter of national identity and lm willing to bet that the first time Shane remembers being called a slur, it was while he was playing hockey, and it was by an adult. Because if they already hate that a child is better at hockey than their child to the point of harassing them, how much worse does it get when the parent realizes that it is Asian child who is better at hockey than their kid? Shane wouldâve been punished at every level of hockey starting at 5 years old for being good at the sport and being Asian because he would make white teammates, coaches, and fans feels âthreatenedâ because for so long hockey has been centered around their whiteness.
Not only would Shane have been called names, parents wouldâve been calling for their kids to âtake him outâ to take cheap shots and probably screaming slurs at Shane. And Iâm willing to bet the coaches and refs did nothing unless the Hollanders threatened to sue, and not Yuna, David had to go down there and flash some legal might around and also the fact that he works for the treasury board and probably knows a thing or two about hockey Canada.
But Shane wouldâve been punished for being not white and being good at hockey and it wouldâve been severe because whiteness is the cornerstone of this sport.
Laila Edwards has talked about experiencing misogynoir as a hockey player and has, probably in the best interest of her PWHL draft and desire not to be harassed by racist trolls, not been as outspoken on vocal as she could be.
Look at Jason Robertsonâs exclusion from the Olympics roster and the handwringing of hockey podcasters who âdonât get why the coaches made the decisions they made.â Itâs because the foundation of this sport and its success is whiteness and white people feel threatened when people of color succeed so they have to knock them down a peg even to their own detriment because thatâs how much they hate seeing people of color succeed.
Whiteness is the foundation of this sport and racism is so imbedded that parents will scream at their 10 year old to hit a six year old just because theyâre brown and good at hockey
Like Hockey Canada is struggling to recruit and retain players of colors even as Canada gets more diverse because of the racism.
Even the big book about toxic hockey culture in Canada brushes over the racism even though whiteness and the excuses we make for white men ar front and center as to why hockey culture in Canada got to be the way it is.
You cannot address the issues in hockey Canada unless you also address the fact that the reason why it was allowed to get this bad is because of a whiteness and racism.
Fuuuck I just loss 20000 dollars in adverisement revenue and potential sales when that guy over there didnât look at my flyer because he was talking to the girl he was walking with. The sensible option here is to ban talking while walking since itâs literally theft.
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Crucially #myshane plays to his twentieth season which is just long enough to have the experience of meeting Ottawa's new draft prospect, also named Shane, and to smile and jokingly say, "Hey nice name," and for the rookie to gulp and say, "Thank you sir I am named after you" and that makes Shane sit in his stall and stare at the floor between his skates for. Significantly too long to be healthy.
i love love loooove 'better than the fucking yankees' because shane's not just some hockey-obsessed jock, he's a straight up jock across the board. he's an all-rounder!!! he's a hockey player, and hockey players literally spend like 80-90% of their time talking about all the other sports they're watching. he watches sportscenter like it's the nightly news, has the baseball on in the background all summer. he's showing up at the olympics for sports simply because he knows the athletes, and as a top canadian athlete with his level of marketing and sponsorship, he's met and knows A Lot of athletes. he's getting invited to grand slam tournaments. he's reading all those high performing athlete biographies. he has an opinion on who's going to win the super bowl, who looks good in the nba, which teams will do best in the world cup, who's in form for the masters. in tlg he's participating in the great canadian pastime of putting on some late night australian rugby/aussie rules just for the sake of having some live sports running in the background. he and ilya put the tennis on later in the book for the same reason. that boy is a fucking jock!!!
I adore the Shane+Rose soulmatism in your aus. It is so funny. Imagine being a metro hearing Shane call her the other half of his soul (because theyre incapable of being chill about each other) and youre like Cap buddy didnt you two break up three months ago? and he just stares at you uncomprehending. And then he has the audacity to look shocked when Page Six runs another pregnancy rumor.
Shane + Rose soulmatism my BELOVED. Canon gave us basically nothing about their relationship and mostly just had rose there to be Shaneâs gay sherpa and I walked away like âthey were forged from the same star.â In every world they will find each other and know they are The One (platonic).
I just love platonic love so much. Itâs one of my favorite kinds of love to explore. And I think Rose and Shane have so much potential in their relationship. They both grew up in the public eye and remained there into their adult lives. I just love the idea of them finding each other and being like âoh. You. You understand.â
And no one else has any goddamn idea what theyâre talking about. They could not possibly seem more different on the surface. He is the most hockey boy alive and she is one letter shy of an EGOT. If he led any more of a jock-centric existence he would have flunked out of 11th grade math. Meanwhile sheâs spent her whole life doing Drama Club: The Extreme Version. The only things they should have in common are the fact that they are excruciatingly talented and also the two most beautiful people alive.
But they are both like. This is the only person who understands me. My soulmate. When we are buried it shall be in adjoining graves.
And everyone is like. Oh awesome. So youâre dating right.
And theyâre like. No. Why would you ask us that.
I want them to have the most beautiful and bewildering bond to ever hit TMZ headlines. Rose Landry does one of those interviews where they have you reveal what the last text message you sent was and it was to Shane Hollander. His contact was saved as Soulmate â¤ď¸ and the text was âEvery single day I wake up and thank God for letting us be alive at the same time. You are the best thing to ever happen to meâ (Shane had texted her the most level 9000 bitch thing she had ever seen in her goddamn life and she was consumed by violent love for him. His text is not included in the interview.) Shane Hollander goes viral 9 times a year for being caught carrying Rose Landry in his strong strong arms. (Rose does not know what the point is in being best friends with one of the greatest athletes to ever live if she canât bully him into carrying her places whenever she doesnât feel like walking). Every single awards show that has not conflicted with a Metros game for the past year has resulted in 57 photographs of them hanging off of each other on some red carpet, looking devastatingly beautiful and utterly enamored with each other. (Rose knows that man does not have a life outside of her and Ilya and hockey. He is coming to the Tonyâs with her or so help her god. She cannot take another red carpet without him being there to mutter an ongoing bitch monologue when only she can hear. Heâs better than podcasts.)
And everyoneâs like. Okay. So. So youâre dating right.
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somehow it comes up that troy had a crush on shane and was going to ask for his number. and after troy gets ribbed by his teammates and ilya makes a big scene, shane is like, âwell i never wouldâve gone out with you lol.â
and troy smiles, âright, because you were with roz the whole time.â
âi mean, yes, but also because you and dallas kent spent years calling me and jj ârush hourâ and asking hayden if his wife was his beard to cover up his big gay relationship with me.â
the rest of the centaurs blink. harris puts his head in his hands and groans.
and troyâs like, âoh. right. sorry about that :/â
unreasonably amused by the idea of itty bitty shane not wanting to get off the ice after practice to the point that david gets ON the ice to get him, so itty bitty does the "my bones are gone now" resistance move kids are so good at.
but fails to consider that ice is. so slippery.
like stage your protest all you want, buddy, but you have literally never been more move-able.
Read the post and loved it exactly for the potential of what's in the tags: uh oh now David made it funnnn and Shane, quick little bean that he is, riiiight as he's getting to the edge of the rink, about to be picked up and passed to mom, gets up and skates away to the middle of the rink and PLOMP lays down on his back, giggling and kicking his little skates. "Again, Dad (Shane does not call David daddy in front of his friends, he's not a baby!), again!!"
It doesn't help David and Yuna that everyone and their mother thinks this is the funniest, cutest thing ever and laughs, just spurring Shane to do it more and more.
coupled with the idea of shane's conversation with rose when he talks about how hockey got less fun because it got more intense and so so did he: the idea of ilya dramatically flopping on his back on the ice one day at camp when they're done running drills with the kids
and he is teasingly refusing to get up because he is dead now, hollander, can you not see this, and shane hesitates for just a second, grabs his hand, plants one of his skates, and just sends him sliding off towards the side of the rink, thinking about how his dad used to do it to him after every single practice
and ilya laughs and shane laughs and for this moment at least, being on the ice is nothing but Fun again
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