Melikes

The Ilya we see in Heated rivalry would not be throwing the first punch, he's not an enforcer. Ilya is a star center and a Pest. He wouldn't be doing his job correctly if he was punching players every other game, it would end up with not enough ice time to let him be the playmaker he's paid to be.

But being a pest can be playmaking! Find a player to bait, emotionally push them just enough that they try to fight you, and then get the fuck out of there before the ref gives you both penalties. This gets your team the power play. There is probably someone on Ilya's line dedicated to helping him get out of the fights he starts, and finishing them for him!

I also think this is also something that Shane would respect. Ilya is good at it and it's a good strategy for his team. I don't think Shane would see it as some dirty tactic, because Shane probably thinks everyone with a brain can see it for what it is! He probably thinks everyone should be able to see that being an asshole is a tactic for Ilya, that it's something to ignore and not fall for, that it's a strategy and not personal beef.

In the show, Scott being a veteran player that Shane grew up admiring (to the point of calling him Mr. Hunter lol) adds an extra layer of emotional weight. Seeing a role model come out is powerful. And by making Scott push 40, his coming out feels bittersweet because you can’t help thinking about everything he gave up and all the years he spent hiding. This is his prize after a very long career, a cup and Kip

But I also think something gets lost when people act like that version is automatically better.

In the books, Scott is only 28. He’s not at the end of his career. He’s still in his prime. His story isn’t about finally getting to live authentically after a long career. It’s about choosing authenticity while he still has everything to lose. There’s something powerful about that too! A peer coming out can be just as impactful as a role model. So I don’t really see one version as superior to the other. They’re emphasizing different things.

The problem is that once Scott gets aged up, I think people start taking Ilya’s humor way more literally than the books ever intended.

In the books, Scott is only three years older than Ilya, which means all the “old man” jokes are exactly that: jokes. He’s chirping a guy who’s basically his peer. Once Scott is almost 40, the joke starts reading like a factual observation instead.

Ilya says Hayden is the 15th best player in Montreal. A lot of fans have accepted that as fact. Meanwhile Hayden is playing on Shane’s line, keeping up with the best player in the league, and leading the team in assists. The books are clearly showing us that Hayden is one of Montreal’s better players. Ilya is just being a hater. 😭

The same thing happens with Shane. I read fanfiction all the time where people genuinely seem to believe Shane has a weak backhand because Ilya made one joke about it. If Shane is anything like his spiritual father Sidney Crosby, he probably has one of the best backhands in the league. But even setting the Crosby comparison aside, you do not become the best player in the NHL with a glaring weakness like that.

Shane comes out of the closet sometime after Scott does, and in some random, lighthearted interview, they ask him what he's looking for in a man. And Shane's just, off-hand like, "Well, he'd have to have at least one Stanley Cup. Obviously." And when he gets a good reaction from that, he keeps going, like "Needs to be amazing at hockey. Definitely needs to be at least an All-Star, if not a captain. Hot too. If he can't bench-press me, I'm not interested."

"The sex tells the story, so it never felt gratuitous to me. The sex is character development. The sex is what is moving this relationship forward, and watching it change over time."

no seriously

RATING: RELIABLE

Queering the Map is a community generated counter-mapping platform for digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space.

The platform provides an interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life—from park benches to the middle of the ocean—in order to preserve our histories and unfolding realities, which continue to be invalidated, contested, and erased. From collective action to stories of coming out, encounters with violence to moments of rapturous love, Queering the Map functions as a living archive of queer life.

déjà si on veut du neutre on est obligés de choisir des néopronoms parce-que contrairement aux anglos on a pas de they/them, non seulement pratique mais en plus Pas trop compliqué à adopter par les alliés néophytes (et encore, vu combien de "bouhou mais c'est pas pluriel comme pronom" on voit encore passer, c'est déjà pas du gâteau). du coup on a deux fois plus de chances de se faire mégenrer en permanence.

ensuite même quand on règle l'histoire des pronoms, nous on a des mutations genrées, donc une phrase ça devient un vrai parcours du combattant parce-qu'il faut bidouiller toutes les terminaisons avec du scotch et des gommettes pour que ça ressemble un peu à quelque-chose. autant à l'écrit y'a le point médian (ou les mots pratiques genres acteur/actrice = acteurice), autant à l'oral c'est la galère.

ensuite quand comme moi on est agenre c'est encore plus chiant, parce-que déjà l'ai du mal avec le they/them anglais, mais c'est vaguement ignorable, autant en français les néos les plus utilisés c'est des mélanges entre il et elle (iel, ael, etc). et puis les terminaisons bidouillées, c'est aussi des mélanges entre le masculin et le féminin (traducteur/traductrice = traducteurice). et certes je sais que de base l'écriture inclusive c'était conceptuellement plus pour l'égalité homme-femme/le féminisme cis que la transidentité, mais c'est un peu tout ce qu'on a.

sauf que moi. bah je suis pas juste "ni un homme ni une femme". je suis pas un mélange des deux non plus. je suis pas une demi-mesure. je suis pas un compromis entre les deux, je suis pas un putain de point médian en fait.

donc au final j'ai aucun mot pour moi. sauf qu'on vit dans une société (youpi), et qu'à moins de m'isoler dans une cave pour le restant de mes jours (j'ai testé mais y'a un truc tout con qui s'appelle la santé mentale ça m'a mi des bâtons dans les roues) bah les gens ils ont besoin de mots pour pouvoir interagir avec moi correctement. et j'en ai pas, des mots.