Poprocks

this is a potluck, not a grocery store. at the end of the day, everyone is always reading at their own risk, not just when “choose not to use archive warnings” is selected. we need to know that and cultivate the awareness to click out of a fic early and administer self-care in the event of encountering something we’re reacting poorly to—whether it’s under-tagged, wrongly-tagged, or we’re just having a worse day than we realised and an old allergy is rearing its head after being dormant for years.

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

"The second line isn't a demotion" "Awesome. Ilya can do it"

"It doesn't matter who holds the captain title since they're equals who have equal say" "Awesome. Give Shane the title then"

"It doesn't matter how much they're being paid since it's all going to the same household" "Awesome. Ilya can take the paycut"

"If they want to be on the same team, one of them needs to move" "Awesome. Ilya can go to montreal"

Anyway I hope everyone keeps the long game haterism coming. I follow like 3 blogs for this fandom because my requirement is that you have to absolutely hate the long game and the way Shane is treated before I click the follow button so like I'm loving your blog lol

Yeah it’s really the disparity in how Shane and Ilya are treated both in the fandom and in the narrative itself that exposes the fact that Shane’s position is very much worsened in the long game. Every single one of his losses are treated as not a big deal for Shane but unthinkable for Ilya.

The biggest textual evidence is in the move and paycut. Ilya expressly contemplates moving to Montreal for Shane at a paycut and immediately rejects it as unthinkable because he doesn’t want the paycut. But when it’s Shane, the idea is quite literally laughed off as a joke. Why would he worry about being paid his worth? He has a rich husband who will take care of him.

So many people insist that it’s not a demotion to have Shane on the second line. Awesome. Why shouldn’t Ilya be on it then? If it’s not a big deal for Shane, it’s not a big deal for Ilya.

Losing his captaincy is another big thing. You could make them equals on the team so easily. At the very least give Shane an A. There is absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t have gotten an A. He is the most qualified person on the team three times over. It is incredibly common to still give players that are new to a team the A if they are veteran star players, and Shane is both. Why the fuck would he not have an A. The only thing not giving him an A does is cue him up for a mean joke about how he was demoted.

Ilya straight up tells him at the end of the long game to not even think about being captain because it’s staying with him. And it’s once again being posited as a joke, but it’s a cruel joke in the context.

And while they can’t actually be co-captains, there’s only 1 C on the ice at a time, they could get very close. The Minnesota Wild spent 9 years rotating their captain every month. The Boston Bruins had two players serve as effective co-captains by giving one the C during away games and swapping it to the other during home games. There’s precedent for respecting two players as leaders in the team this way. But the long game goes out of its way to disrespect Shane. He is outright laughed at for not having a leadership role. It’s so fucking cruel.

We need to end this fiction that Shane was a bad captain. That is directly contrary to the textual evidence. He led his team to three goddamn Stanley Cups. That man is the most qualified one on the Centaurs’ roster and somehow his happy ending is to be underpaid and overlooked for positions he is absolutely qualified for, because what implications could that possibly have for an Asian wifey man. At least give him the goddamn A.

If Ottawa was smart, they go hey. We can’t pay what you deserve at the start of your contract. So instead we will give you:

As many damn bonuses that they can get away with for if Shane performs well and gets them to the playoffs again

They backload his contract heavily. They’ll figure it out later, but he’s making what he deserves later on in the contract term 100%. After all, with this combo they could have a serious Cup run this year. Ilya will get a paycut later to compensate.

First line minutes. If he’s technically second line, Ilya and his line are getting extremely similar minutes a night. And Shane is on all the special teams.

Captaincy. Ilya gets the payday, Shane gets the C. If this cannot be stomached for some reason, rotating C position that give Shane preference (like he holds the C the entirety of the playoffs)

never be sorry for that, what's more validating than a bunch of reblogs when i start rambling??? thank you, i LOVE to have opinions and i'm glad to know you enjoy reading them!! <3

as for fic recs... unfortunately, i don't have any that deal specifically with how fucked up tlg is in the ways that most bother me (i.e. fics that actually address how cruel ilya is to shane in it), presumably because no one really wants to grapple with that when we all like hollanov. i do also wish there were fics that would rewrite tlg so that ilya isn't so horrendously ooc compared to hr ilya, but to be fully honest at this point i've just blacklisted tlg as a tag entirely when browsing on ao3 because i'm so tired 😩

that said: i have a couple of general recs about the Vibes at least? here's two that deal with the consequences of shane being outed in two very different ways:

snapping birch - an epistolary fic focused on the fallout of hollanov getting outed during the season following heated rivalry, after shane comes out to his team and it goes poorly. deals REALLY well with not only realistic internet responses but also shane going through the fucking horrors (he plays a contact sport! it is dangerous!). i LOVE this fic. it's probably my favorite hr fic i've ever read.

the montreal metros go broke for woke - by contrast this is not a serious fic in the slightest but it gets points for making me laugh out loud multiple times. what if the metros made a very earnest attempt to be Allies because they gotta keep hollander, that's their weird little funky fella who wins cups, they love him, they gotta figure out how to support him so he doesn't want to leave. also they're stupid.

and then a couple other general recs that i just like (even if they don't really fit "fuck tlg" vibes specifically):

hello from moscow, goodbye from montreal - canon divergence where shane and ilya talk a lot more over the summer and things spiral from there. their banter and developing relationship is really good in this one, i like them :)

carrion comfort - au where the plane to sochi crashes and shane ends up leading the survivors in, well, surviving, in the wilderness. the field medicine and the ocs are both stellar but i LOVE the shane characterization in this fic so much. also the slow burn and the pining is chefs kiss.

sea lion woman - an au where shane met and befriended svetlana (well, she decided they were hockey obsession friends and he said okay <3 yay <3) when he was 17. once again i really enjoy this take on shane and ALSO SVETAAAAA she is so good she's SO good.