“is there anything so undoing as a daughter”

YOURE SO RIGHT THOUGH

In the books, when they’re talking about Ilya switching to a Canadian team, Ilya proposes leaving Boston for a Canadian team himself. It is brought up explicitly because America is bad for Russians at the moment, and he wants non-Russian citizenship. And during the conversation, Ilya has this moment where he can tell Shane wants him to come to Montreal, but Ilya doesn’t want to because Montreal could never afford both of them. Ilya says “Not Montreal,” and Shane immediately understands. He proposes Ottawa as an alternative because it needs a star center and has the cap space for Ilya.

And, critically, I cannot find a single mention of the fact that Ottawa is a bad team in Heated Rivalry itself.

Like. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t remember any mention of the fact that Ottawa is terrible. I pulled up the pdf of the book and searched couldn’t find a single mention of the word “Centaurs” in it. I searched every mention of the word “Ottawa” and couldn’t find a single mention discussing how Ottawa was a bad team. The closest we get is Shane saying that they need a star center, but still needing a star for one position is a very different thing than it being the shittiest team in the whole league. And you’d think that Ilya would maybe bring up the fact that that team is absolute ass and would destroy his career if he went there if that was a legitimate concern. The Long Game rewrites its own canon to victimize Ilya and make Shane the villain in the Ottawa move. Its claims are fundamentally and irrevocably inconsistent with the explicit text of Heated Rivalry.

The entire dialogue around Shane being selfish in the Ottawa move drives me absolutely raving insane because it is fundamentally based in revisionist history. Shane is at no point in the conversation a driving factor in Ilya’s decision to leave Boston. Ilya decides he wants to be on a Canadian team before he even talks to Shane. The fact that he wants to come to Canada specifically is because of Russia, not Shane. And picking Ottawa is for the sake of Ilya’s career.

Signing with Montreal is outright considered and rejected by Ilya so he doesn’t have to take a pay cut. The explicit reason why he doesn’t want to sign with Montreal is the fact that Montreal cannot afford both of them. And that decision is later recast entirely into Ilya picking Shane over hockey. If Ilya wanted to pick Shane, he would have just taken the pay cut in heated rivalry and they would have been playing on the same team since fucking 2018–and it would have been on a team that Ilya himself describes as “the most legendary team in the entire league.” He would have had a great team and been tearing it up winning Stanley Cups but he didn’t want to take the pay cut or hit to his captaincy and his position and Shane fucking understood that and found him an alternative that wouldn’t require him to sacrifice his own position.

They explicitly pick Ottawa so that Ilya’s career doesn’t have to suffer and then the Long Game revises the entire narrative to turn it into how Ilya sacrificed his career for Shane. It is absolutely nonsensical when read in light of their conversation around the move itself. They outright reject playing on the same team so Ilya doesn’t have to sacrifice his own career.

And then!! All of the reasons why Ilya shouldn’t have to sign with Montreal suddenly do not matter at all when it’s Shane who has to suffer them. Shane has to take a pay cut? Laugh it off. Hubby will provide. He loses his entire career as narrative punishment for “making” Ilya sacrifice his career, but signing with Ottawa was explicitly so that Ilya wouldn’t have to sacrifice his career. Ilya actually does what Shane is accused of and villainized for in The Long Game, and Shane never did it to begin with. I feel like I’m being gaslit by an entire fucking fandom. Can anyone hear me hello

thank you for the tag @hollanderdiaz <3 GIF COLORING CHALLENGE - show gif with and without coloring

.one hundred and four

"Your freckles." Ilya grazed a fingertip over his own cheek. "I am nuts about them." "I have no idea why. I hate them." "Noooo..." Ilya moaned. "Hollander. They are stunning." "Stunning?" "Yes. Am I not using that word right? Very beautiful. Um...take my breath?" "Wow. All right." The skin under Shane's freckles turned very, very pink.