lurking....

Week 8 pf @shanesummerfest and the theme is..

The stakes are set very explicitly by the text. If Ilya is outed, it won’t be good, but he’s not in danger of deportation as long as Shane and Ilya marry. Whether that’s realistic is a different question. In the universe of the book, it’s true. And indeed Shane and Ilya marry almost immediately after the outing.

As for the realism, it’s worth noting that TLG was published in 2022 and Russia’s crack down on LGBTQ rights has intensified quite since 2023. There’s complicated aspects to this—the war has put Russia’s political leadership under pressure, the gay bashing stuff is red meat for a conservative base. Without COVID, maybe there’s no war, maybe there’s no gay propaganda law. Or maybe there still is! But regardless when Reid was writing while Russia was still far worse than Canada on gay rights, it wasn’t to the degree it is now where we’re seeing stripping of passports and attempted extradition of queer Russians abroad.

first laws, prohibiting "lgbt" propaganda were implemented in some russian states around 2008, if I remember correctly. So around the time Shane and Ilya meet and hook up. I think by 2010 it was on federal level (I remember, because I was taking part in a local anime festival in my home town in a state next to Moscow, and organisers asked as to send out "screen plays" for our shitty little cosplay scenes we did, for approval lol. because they didn't want to get a fat fine for braking the new gay propaganda law. anyway)

then it was getting worse and worse, but it wasn't illegal to be gay in Russia. it's still not illegal. (since recently, if you are part of "lgbt organisation", you are an extremist terrorist in Russia, lol. that includes allies, I guess?) basically, you are in danger if you do any activism, or if you are politically inconvenient. I find it interesting, that as Shane's and Ilya's relationship timeline progresses, the lgbt rights situation in Russia becomes more and more oppressive. I wonder how informed RR is. like, it definitely influenced my understanding of books' events.

that is to say, in TGL, realistically, Ilya is not in danger, as long as he's abroad and not politically inconvenient. I'd say, he may be in danger if he travels to Russia after he comes out/is outed - they can try to charge him with gay propaganda, or maybe someone can decide that harming or killing a queer hockey player can be a nice gift to Putin (hockey is his favourite sport). but Ilya's not that stupid, ok

Most of the focus is on their family dynamics, without reference to ethnicity or nationality. It doesn’t actually matter that Ilya is Russian for his relationship to his father to be written as it is—you could swap in any nation with a regressive political culture around LGBTQ rights. Ilya’s family story is bonkers trauma so there’s more emotional development around it, but Shane’s family is on screen.

There is some attention paid to their nationalities in how it impacts people’s understanding of them. Their nationalities also impact their material situations, Ilya’s passport, Shane having a classic Canadian cottage.

and I see those exact things in hr fandom spaces a lot. so so many fics and headcanons just read as "klyukva" to me. and sure, it was hilarious to see at first, but it got annoying really quickly. now I mostly just cringe any time I see the wrong usage of russian terms of endearment or swear words in the hr fanworks. people loooveeee exaggerating or straight up making up absolutely nonsensical things in attempt to add to ilya's russian background.

Hi my name is Shane hollander and I'm the best hockey player in the world and I'm also a gorgeous model and I'm a super wealthy multimillionaire richer than 99% of you will ever be able to even understand and I have loving parents and a gorgeous husband who is also the other best hockey player in the world and also a multimillionaire and we play together for the Ottawa Centaurs, an idyllically progressive cup contending team who kicked my old team out of the playoffs and I'm about to win my 4th cup with them like girl fuck youuuu (affectionally)