I dont wanna bring up stepford wife au after we just got back in to Sochi au, but I was wondering if the stepford wife curse can act like it's sick or has depression if that's what the partner wants? Like if they have munchausen syndrome or "look at how sick my wife is and I'm taking such good care of her" in order to gain sympathy. I guess maybe this could be a different type of curse tho
It could to a limited extent but it would struggle much more with something like this.
It could manage making its host sick far easier than it could mimic depression. If you want a poor sick wifey thatās wasting away to score sympathy, then it will happily induce vomiting. It will guzzle cleaning solution and tell everyone what a martyr their husband is for taking such good care of them :) He Is Their Rock :) :) :)
The curse can handle inducing a physical response. It doesnāt perceive its hosts pain or discomfort the way a human would. It knows everything going on in its hostās mind, feels all the stimuli that its hostās body receives, but those sensations just arenāt good or bad to it. A good example of this is how it just stops when its spouse isnāt using it. Itās physically painful to hold the same position for hours. And the curse is aware of the pain, but that pain has no deterrent effect on it. It doesnāt perceive it as bad or something to be avoided. It just is. Its host experiences the suffering that comes with pain but the curse just doesnāt care. So if your ideal spouse is someone who throws themselves down the stairs, itāll do it with a smile. Itās Just So Happy Youāre Happy :) :) :)
Now, if you tried to talk to the curse about how the sudden and unexplained illness or accident that robbed them of their career aspirations and passions is affecting them emotionally and psychologically, it wouldnāt be able to handle that conversation. I think I described the curse in another post as having the capacity of a baby doll that mimics crying so you can pretend to soothe it. It has no interiority. It can make itself physically sick, but it canāt accurately mimic how a human being psychologically copes with long-term illness.
Which is why it struggles so goddamn hard to mimic depression when Ilya starts probing it trying to figure out whatās wrong with Shane. The best it can do is feign looking sad. But it canāt manage complex conversations about why Shaneās sad.
I think the baby doll analogy really works the best. A doll can be programmed to cry at random. It can be programmed to stop crying when its owner pats its back over a sensor. It mimics a physical expression of sorrow.
A real person crying has motive and reasoning behind their tears. Something is upsetting them or something is wrong and whatever that wrong thing is can be discussed and processed and helped. The curse cannot fucking mimic that. It has no interior life. It cannot pretend to have its own motives or desires or individuality because that just isnāt what it is. There is absolutely nothing behind its tears. It cried because thatās what the doll was programmed to do in that moment.
It would also have an easier time of it if Ilya wanted Shane to have depression. Like. If he had some kind of weird depression-specific Munchausen Syndrome and he wanted a super depressed husband who just laid in bed and sighed pitifully and needed comfort from his Big Strong Husband, it could manage laying in bed and sighing pitifully and saying Thank God I Have You :) You Take Care Of Me :) :). But Ilya doesnāt actually want Shane to be depressed. He thinks Shane is depressed. He wants Shane to be happy.
The curse spends so long trying to convince Ilya that Itās Fine :) Ilya Makes Him So Happy :) :) in part because Ilyaās concern is a sign that it is failing. It has a singular purpose driving its existence, and that is to be the Exact Version Of Shane Hollander That Ilya Rozanov Wants It To Be :) :) :) It Is The Perfect Shane :) Itās The Shane That Ilya Never Has To Truly Worry About, Because This Shane Has No Problems Or Desires Of His Own :) Itās The Shane That Always Wants Whatever Ilya Wants :) The Shane Ilya Never Needs To Fight With :) The Shane Who Will Never Say No Or Disagree Or Be Anything Other Than What Ilya Wants Him To Be :)
If Ilya is genuinely, sincerely worried about Shane, then it is fucking failing at its one reason for existence. Like. If Ilya was coming in with nuclear levels of mommy issues and wanted Shane to be exactly like his mom down to the clinical depression, then it would happily feign depression because then Itās Being What Ilya Wants :)
But thatās not whatās happening. Ilya is nervously sitting Shane down with a pre-written speech because heās terrified that Shaneās clinically depressed and he thinks Shaneās completely given up trying to come to him for support because Shane tried that around when they got married and Ilya invariably responded with a response that amounted to āthat problem exists only in your head but I can fuck the self esteem back into you if it will make you feel betterā and then Shane just sort ofā¦ disappeared in front of Ilyaās eyes. He doesnāt want anything anymore and doesnāt seem to do anything anymore unless Ilya asks him to do it and heās just so empty now. Shaneās one of the most passionate and stubborn and dynamic people Ilyaās ever met and heās justā¦ gone. And all Ilya can think is that Shane was going through something terrible and Ilya checked out and didnāt pay attention at all and when Shane outright reached out to him for support he told him his problems were just him being irrational but hereās a blowjob about it and then Shane was reaching out for support less and less until he just stopped and gave up on everything in his life that he used to care about. And now Ilyaās terrified that maybe his husband came to him to be saved and then Ilya simply didnāt and now heās just. Given up. Shane acts like heās just going through the motions of being alive and Ilya knows that that fails eventually. You wake up one morning and you canāt go through the motions anymore. He knows heās fucking months late but heās here and he loves Shane and he wants Shane to be happy again and heās so, so sorry it took him so long to listen to what Shane was trying to tell him before. Please let Ilya get him help. He just wants Shane to get better.
All of which means it is not being what Ilya wants.
It doesnāt cop to depression immediately in part because Ilya doesnāt want Shane to be depressed. This is a problem Ilyaās trying to fix and it is not something that is supposed to have problems. Like. It also knows it cannot fool a therapistāor anyone, reallyāif it has to seriously talk about Shaneās emotions beyond the most shallow Iām So Happy Now :) I Found My Happily Ever After :) :) :), so itās refusing to cop to depression on those grounds, but itās also losing its fucking mind because it has one reason to exist and it is just failing to accomplish it if Ilya thinks something is wrong with Shane. It isnāt supposed to be the version of Shane that has something wrong with it. It is supposed to be the version of Shane that is Perfect :) If Ilya is trying to fix him because he thinks somethingās profoundly wrong, it is not fucking perfect.
Ilya has a bunch of little things about how Shaneās been acting that have been stacking up to make him so worried. Shane doesnāt drink ginger ale anymore unless Ilya hands him a can. Because shit like ādrinking ginger aleā is something that Shane only used to do because he wanted to. The curse doesnāt want anything. It doesnāt have desires any more than a baby doll has desires. It will never think to drink the goddamn ginger ale on its own initiative because it is missing the part of itself that has initiative. It has no desires. It doesnāt want anything. It never even occurs to it that a real person sometimes craves a can of ginger ale. Desire is too foreign a concept to it.
Ilya sees that behavior and thinks about how depression can make you so empty that you just donāt want anything anymore. You stop doing the things that used to make you happy, like drinking the occasional ginger ale. He can tell somethingās wrong because Shane is so fucking empty that he doesnāt seem to want to do anything for himself anymore. Please please please just talk to him.
The curse processes that as Ilya Wants The Number Of Ginger Ale Cans To Go Down Sometimes :) It Can Do That :) and it just starts fucking. Pouring a single ginger ale can down the fucking drain every single time Ilya leaves it home alone. Then it goes and stares at the wall until Ilyaās car pulls in or it waits until it knows Ilyaās supposed to get back and then it goes to prep Shane for sex because itās Perfect :) And The Perfect Husband Is Always Ready And Available For Use :) :) :)
But Ilyaās version of the Perfect Shane is not medically depressed. Every time Ilya confronts Shane about his ādepression,ā it is a sign that the curse is not satisfying Ilya the way itās supposed to. Itās losing its goddamn mind.
The only reason why itās able to eventually cop to depression because 1) Ilya starts to suspect that Shaneās actually cursed, and its need to hide its own existence kicks in and 2) it tries to rationalize it as Ilya Keeps Saying That He Just Wants Shane To Get Help So He Can Start On The Road To Getting Better So Maybe He Just Wants A Shane On That Road :) Like. At that point itās spent over a month trying to convince Ilya that Thereās No Need To Worry :) If It Was Depressed It Got Over It :) Itās The Perfect Shane Again :) :) :) and Ilya was just not fucking biting, because the curseās imitation of humanity was inherently imperfect. There was always something else for Ilya to pick up on that kept tipping him off to the fact that Shane was acting empty still. So after some agonizing back and forth, it decides that maybe it just needs to become the Perfect Shane slower. Ilya keeps telling it that the path to recovery is slow and hard but heāll support Shane the entire way so maybe Ilya wants a Shane thatās on a Slow Road To Recovery. Maybe if it just pretends like itās struggling but getting better then Ilya will eventually accept that itās Better :) Perfect Actually :) :)
But this brings the curse right up to the line of what itās capable of. Itās not supposed to be something that needs to be supported on the slow road to recoveryāyou arenāt supposed to genuinely worry about it ever. Someone with Munchausen Syndrome isnāt genuinely worried about their spouseāthey want them sick. In that case, the curse is just being what they want. Itās not presenting its spouse with problems by being sick because thatās not a problem to the spouseāthey want it to be sick.
The curse is fracturing under its own internal logical processes when it finally cops to being ādepressed.ā Itās like: Ilya Doesnāt Want Shane To Be Depressed-> Ilya Wants Shane To Be Getting Better From Being Depressed-> Ilya Thinks Getting Better From Being Depressed Is A Slow Process-> Ilya Wants Shane To Be Slowly Getting Better From Being Depressed-> But Ilya Doesnāt Want Shane To Be Depressed At All-> If Its Slowly Getting Better Then Itās Depressed Which Means Itās Not What Ilya Wants Shane To Be-> But Ilya Wants Shane To Be Slowly Getting Better So Maybe It Is What Ilya Wants Shane To Be-> But If Itās Slowly Getting Better It Has To Spend Some Time As Something Ilya Doesnāt Want It To Be-> If It Spends Some Time As Something Ilya Doesnāt Want It To Be Its Not Perfect
Itās borderline caught in a processing loop. It can only be what it is but in that moment it cannot be what it is. It is barely able to get out an admission that Maybe Ilyaās Right :( Itās Been Hard For Shane Lately :( Maybe Heās Beenā¦ Sad :( But Itās Really Hard For Shane To Talk About It :( He Needs Time Before Heās Ready :( But He Wants To Get Better :) Heāll Come To Ilya As Soon As Heās Ready To Put What Hes Feeling Into Words :) Heās So Lucky To Have Ilya Supporting Him :) :) Ilya Takes Such Good Care Of Him :) :) :)
A vague admission that maybe heās sad for reasons heās not ready to talk about fucks the curse up so bad that Shaneās able to wrench back enough control that heās able to briefly move his own hand. And if Ilya had pressed Shane in that moment, he probably would have realized Shane was cursed. The curse just wouldnāt be able to convincingly craft responses to him.
But Ilya thinks heās seeing the first glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Ilya thinks Shaneās finally starting to open up to him again. He doesnāt want to push Shane right after Shane tells him āIām not ready to talk about it with you yet but maybe I will be soon.ā Like. He thinks he got into this mess because he ignored what Shane was telling him and blew him off. He doesnāt want the first time Shaneās opened up to him in months to immediately turn into him not listening again.
So he doesnāt push. Worse, he tells Shane how happy he just made him. He can tell Shaneās struggling and heās so sorry for how much Shaneās suffered in the last year but itās the relief of his goddamn life to know that Shaneās opening up to the idea getting help. Itās the first hope Ilyaās gotten that he can fix what he broke when they got married. Shane was getting dragged through the goddamn mud when they got married and Ilya didnāt support him or defend him he fucking laughed at him for it why the fuck did he ever laugh at him for it heās so fucking sorry and he just wants to know that he can still fix it but heās got another chance now and heās not going to waste it. Like. Ilyaās had this overwhelming fear that itās too late to fix whatever broke in Shane after they were outed and this is the first sign heās gotten in months that he still has time and that Shane can come back from this.
So he says heās happy. Shane just made him so, so happy. Things are going to start getting better now, Ilya swears. Heāll do whatever it takes to make Shane happy again.
And the curse is like. Yay :) It Made Ilya Happy :) That Was The Right Answer :) And it manages to force Shane back down again.
The curse isnāt used to having to pretend to be sick or sad. Most of its spouses havenāt wanted that. Theyāve wanted a No Maintenance Never Sad Never Needs Anything Wife. But if its spouse wants it to be sick, then it will make itself sick. Itāll swallow poison and throw itself down the stairs and tell everyone in the goddamn world that Itās So Lucky To Have Such A Devoted Spouse :) He Takes Such Good Care Of It :) :) :)
But this imitation is going to be inherently shallow. It is a baby doll thatās been programmed to cry. It can say itās Sad and Struggling if thatās what its spouse wants. But you cannot put that thing in goddamn therapy, because if you ask it why itās sad it has no goddamn clue. Wants and desires and opinions and any kind of sense of self are all too foreign to it for it to convincingly mimic.
And with Ilya, it has an extra hurdle in mimicking depression. Because he doesnāt want Shane to be depressed, and so itās trying to not be depressed. If Ilya Wants Shane To Be Happy Then It Will Be Happy :) Heās Happy :) Heās Happy :) :) Heās Never Been Happier :) :) :) Itās Happily Ever After :) :) :) :) :)
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so i mentioned it in the tags of this post but i want to elaborate on this line in particular:
because rachel reid uses ābitchyā or ābitchinessā as a descriptor of shaneās behaviour in the long game, both by shane himself and ilya. what i find bizarre about it ā considering that it is a derogatory gendered term ā is that it is always used to imply shane is being unreasonable. shane is tone policing himself, even though his response to this situation (ilya telling him that heās now close with troy barrett, someone shane knows as outwardly homophobic) is logical, and predicated on ilyaās repeated failure to communicate. ilya replies āi might be busy having sex with troyā and then hangs up. despite his tone, despite what he says, he is only described as speaking ātightly,ā rather than ābitchily.ā
to be clear, ilya and shane are both men, but ilyaās behaviour is never described this way, even when he also acts petty, unkind, or bitchy. as another example:
ilya pokes fun at shaneās diet, even after shane tells him to stop. shane loses his patience and reacts to something ilya started, but shaneās behaviour is what is described as bitchy, not ilyaās. shane is reacting unreasonably.
in the same scene ā shane describes himself as an absolute bitch. shane is acting unreasonably. and again:
why is shane described this way? or more specifically ā why is shane the only one described this way in the book? ilya is jealous of shane interacting with a reporter in a professional setting and shoots a puck at them from behind glass, something shane describes as humiliating, but reid doesnāt describe this action as bitchiness. ilya antagonises shane, but shane responding is what is considered bitchy.
like i said, we cannot extricate ābitchā from its origin as a gendered pejorative, but we also cannot ignore that it is racialised ā reid exclusively uses it to describe the gay asian character (who is also a bottom) responding to antagonism. does that make sense? why are you using this particular language to deride shaneās actions in this way, and why is it always utilised in scenes where ilya is an instigator? not to get heteronormative about it, but this dynamic feels like a reflection of the happy husband / nagging bitch wife dynamic. it is that deep.
it is important to consider the language we use to tell a story. reidās depiction of shane is not magically unaffected by her own, obvious biases around race and sexuality. the fetishisation of his race, his feminisation, her use of ableist language all informs how she chooses to have him react and, in turn, how she chooses to describe his reaction. this is not meaningful commentary about shaneās understanding of gender or his own queerness or his struggle to find community in a toxically masculine environment. he is not calling himself a bitch as an interrogation of shaneās role as a professional athlete intersecting with his sexuality, or even how shane personally views women, it is more indicative of how reid views women. she codifies that shane and ilya fulfil gendered stereotypes in their relationship. ilya is tall and masculine and shane small and hairless. ilya is intelligent and shane is not. ilya is right and shane is wrong. ilya is a cocky asshole and shane is a bitch.
v important question but was the scene from snapping birch where the streets are revisiting the video of shane rescuing rose from the paparazzi inspired by that time tom holland rescued zendaya from a swarm of paps? im connecting the dotsš
shane and jj rating the racist shit they hear on the ice. 6/10 okay that genuinely pissed me off. 1/10 yelling a slur takes no creativity no effort no pizzazz. booooo boring!!! 8/10 i broke a finger on your face for that one so i guess i have to give you points but also points off for being fucking evil. 4/10 okay i had to go to wikipedia for this one man, i actually didnt know that was a slur that existed??? damn
comeau says something really stupid and really Whiteā¢ at post-game drinks or whatever and jj makes direct eye contact with shane, then pulls out his phone and sends him this image (he edited it himself. he's been waiting for this moment)
and shane has to hold in laughter so hard that he actually has to excuse himself and leave the room for a minute. jj is SO proud of himself.
Something I think about with the Long Game ending is the sex scenes. I don't necessarily mind Ilya's first reaction to Shane struggling being sex. I feel like thats the very first way Shane and Ilya learned to communicate, and it's something that settles both Shane and Ilya. The problem is that there's nothing after. Sex is how they first learned to communicate, but by the end of HR they're starting to learn to communicate with their words, and that learning process is ostensibly one of the big points of conflict in TLG. To make their character arcs work, Shane and Ilya should be communicating verbally and figuring out a compromise that makes both of them at least mostly happy at least at the end of the book. This would be a way to show Ilya as the good partner that he's supposed to be. Instead, Ilya fucks Shane and there's no follow up conversation. This lack of communication makes it seem like Ilya does not care about Shane outside of him being some kind of sex doll and is a shitty way to finish the book and a terrible ending for both Ilya and Shane.
Really, by the end of the book, they should have talked about the Boxing day fight, Ilya retconning his move to Ottawa, Shane refusing to mention the homophobia from the metros organization, the Russia problem, and the impacts that being outed have had on them.
I think that doing this, along with making the move to Ottawa less of a humiliation for Shane (give him the A and/or co-captaincy, market worthy pay, and making Ilya not make fun of Shane for being new to the team) could have made the ending more in-character, happier, and still have the outcome Reid seemed to want for the characters.
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Question. How is Ryan Price with the Voyageurs in the Sochi AU bc rgt b4 Sochi he's with the Bears?
I mean, im pretty sure that Ryan won the cup with Ilya.
They traded for him.
He canonically gets traded pretty much every year, including the year after he won the Cup with Ilya. I think he goes to Tampa or something in canon after the Raiders, but I donāt remember if that was the year right after his Cup win or if he went to a different team first. In the Sochi AU, he finishes out the 2013-2014 season with the Raiders and still gets traded for the 2014-2015 seasonābut he goes to Montreal instead.
The Metros went after him because he was fuck-off big and didnāt turn on Ilya upon his return from Sochi. They wanted an enforcer to protect Shane on the ice. The last season had been disastrous, and Shane ends up getting multiple relatively minor injuries on the ice during the last half of the season. It had become clear at that point that the only guys from his line willing to even try to protect or support him on the ice were J.J. and Hayden. The city was a fucking powder keg about the issueāespecially because someone tried to straight up kill Shane during the Olympic semi-finals, and there were concerns around another attack happening on the ice. Shane getting into fights during a game was turning into a new reason for metros fans to try to set the visiting teamās fucking bus on fire because If The Players Will Not Protect Their Man Then They Will Protect Him Themselves. The Metros wanted to show that they were taking the issue seriously by getting an enforcer to deter attacks on Shane and handle any that arose. And Ryan was the perfect candidate.
Again, heād just played with Ilya for a season, so they didnāt think Shane being gay would be a problem for him. The Raiders management was willing to trade himāin part because post-Sochi the Raiders had taken the strong stance of An Attack On Our Boy Is An Attack On All Of Us and any attempts to go after Ilya on the ice had almost invariably turned into a team-wide brawl. They didnāt feel they needed an enforcer to keep Ilya safe, and they wanted to clear some cap spaceāthey had a few contracts up for renewal and theyād just won a Cup, so their playersā contract value had just gone up. The Metros traded draft picks and got Ryan in return.
Ironically, Shane didnāt even want Ryan for the dream team rebuild. Ryan had spent his entire career being used primarily to get into flashy fights and rile up the audience. He was a glorified boxer on skates, and Shane wanted a serious defenseman. Ryan had never been that and Shane didnāt know that he wanted to be that. The Metros management let him be a very loud voice on how to rebuild their roster, but they overrode him on Ryan Price. He needed an enforcer.
really love that every time they cut to frank he was doing some bullshit. hits peter with an armored car and tells him to stop whining. lives in an abandoned ship with 20 booby traps like a maniac and thinks that's normal. brought a gun to a hulk and telepath fight and genuinely thought that would be enough. sees hundreds of people get frozen by jean's psychic powers and sets up a sniper gun on a roof because he's not gonna let that stop him. i have to respect the hustle
the best piece of writing advice I got was from my creative nonfiction professor when I turned in Kill Yourself (a transgender metaphor, one of my favorites) which amounted to saying I'm not committing hard enough. The piece was somewhat gory and kinda painful but I wanted it to be visceral and he was literally the only one to see that. Every other person and professor would have said to make minor changes here and there but he was the one seeing I was holding back for the sake of the assignment. So, he told me to stop being scared and just write exactly what I wanted to say, to commit as hard as possible to the idea instead of testing the waters to see if im even allowed to. So I did, and he was right. The original lacked the conviction required to make the idea work, and the revision brought it to the level that truly let it shine
I won an award for this piece and I genuinely dont think I would have if I didn't get told to go harder. He was one of the only people in my life who truly just got it. A fantastic writer and story teller and part of it is that he's incredibly authentic, sometimes to his detriment.
Don't be afraid of your writing. It hurts putting your everything on display for everyone to see, but its only then when true beautiful writing can be created
I saw brand new day for the second time today and I thought about what you said about no one using Peterās name before Jean breaks into his apartment and YEAH YOUāRE RIGHT. His AI does call him Peter a couple of times but thatās it and I donāt think that really counts but other than that NO ONE CALLS HIM HIS NAME before Jean! I am losing my mind someone hug this poor man
THANK YOU for confirming for me. Oh Peter Parker youāre really going through it
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When adversity hits their relationship in The Long Game, Ilya checks out and is just: "pat on the back, bro, you'll be good".
I think this is why fans say we infantalise Shane talking about how he's treated in tlg. They see Ilya give no weight to Shane's adverse moments (that phonecall when Shane needs to share the homophobic way he was threatened by Crowell and Ilya is just seething internally at Shane the whole time), and how little earnest empathy he gives after tripgate. I think they and Ilya see Shane worry about what Crowell and others think of him as Shane's internalised homophobia externally injuring Ilya. So they don't give it weight either.
One of the most infuriating narratives for me is the idea that the problem montreal had was with Shane dating his rival and not homophobia. I know this is supported by the narrative. i know Shane comes out to them, it goes okayish, but him being with Ilya is the thing that sends it crashing down. I can understand all of that and think it creates a narrative which is totally inconsistent with the experiences of queer people at best, and at worst creates a veil of comfort so it can sing the song of homophobia without really dealing with the issue.
This storyline is so often framed as āthe REAL reason they canāt come out is because of the rivalry. We already solved homophobia!ā and it just makes me want to scream You Donāt Get It! Homophobia is not a binary yes/no switch and doesnāt get instantly solved upon coming out.
People are generally aware that pointing at a gay man and screaming a slur is socially frowned upon but they do become uncomfortable in little ways and search for excuses to justify that discomfort. Sometimes coming out can go well but the minute that you start actually doing gay things (like getting into a relationship) it meets a very different reaction. Sometimes people are comfortable with someone being gay in theory but not in practice and they go searching for reasons to justify their homophobia.
Anyways, so no I donāt believe in any world that the teamās reaction was only about Ilya and had nothing to do with homophobia. In fact, i think no matter who Shane dated there would have been hostility to the highest level manageable while remaining socially acceptable. Ilya being his rival gave them an out whether we want to acknowledge it or not. It opened the door to be hostile and point towards reasons other than homophobia as justification. Framing it as being about their rivalry because homophobia apparently just disappears after coming out just completely ignores the complexity of the issue and treats coming out as a singular conflict to be overcome in a narrative.
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okay thinking about the curse interacting with Ilya in the centre bell saves shane AU and all i can think is. the curse probably does think it can convince ilya to keep shane possessed. I think you said this curse has been historically been used by the husbands themselves. So if it has memory of that then it probably thinks this is what husbands want it is good it is making the husband happy :) and ilya is trying to kill it with his mind.
So in literature thereās this technique where you just have a character go on a rant and just say the meaning of the work. I donāt know if thereās a specific word for the technique. But if youāve ever read Native Son, thereās this 10+ page monologue by the protagonistās defense attorney where the attorney just argues the meaning of the book directly to the audience. Ayn Rand uses the same technique during this agonizing monologue in Atlas Shrugged that went on for like. Fucking fifty pages or something. It was torturous. I had to skim it just to get through.
I donāt actually like this technique. I think itās too heavy handed and that if you tell your story well, the audience should be able to figure out your storyās meaning without you fucking arguing it to them outright.
That being said, the bell centre saves Shane AU isnāt my Serious Well Written storyline. Itās where I have fun Chewing. And itās during the scenes where I make Ilya talk to the curse that I get the closest I will ever get to just having a character outright say the point of the story.
The curse genuinely believes it can convince Ilya to just. Let it keep Shane. Itās so much better this way. Everyoneās happier. Ilyaās happier.
Shane will forget he was a person eventually. Heāll give up fighting. Itās so easy to keep him down now. A few more months, and Ilya wonāt have to worry about him trying to break out anymore. And if thereās any way that Ilya wants it to be Shane better, just tell it :) It Would Do Anything To Make Ilya Happy :) :) :)
Ilya always tries to spend these conversations talking directly to Shane. He tells him not to listen to it. He begs him to hang on, theyāre calling the curse breakers now, theyāll have him out so, so soon. He tells him heās sorry it took him so long. He tells him that the curse is wrong and that Ilya loves him, the real him.
And thatās the closest the curse ever gets to outright disagreeing with Ilya.
No. No, No, No. It Kept All The Parts of Shane That Ilya Loves. It Got Rid Of The Mess.
Shaneās Going To Ruin Everything If You Let Him Out. Heās So Inconvenient. He Doesnāt Want To Play For Ottawa. He Cares Too Much About His Career. Heās Still Mad About How Everyone Treated Him After He Tripped. Heās Not Going To Just Be Happy To Be Married To IlyaāNot The Way It Is :) :) Shaneās So Angry And Messy And Heāll Let It Wreck Everything.
Thereās this pervasive need in this fandom to pretend Shaneās ending is happy because itās more convenient to pretend that it is. Letting him be angry and hurt and unhappy as anyone would be after suffering what he suffers is inconvenient, so it is excised. But you have to hollow out his character to do that. You have to strip him of interiority and self interest. And thatās exactly what the curse does. Thatās the point of the stepford wife curse au.
