Fanon Shane is burdened with hypercritical parents, he’s insecure and anxious due to his high pressure upbringing, he’s terrified of failure, he fixates on all of his perceived failures and uses them to beat himself up.

None of this is true of (book) Shane, who reacts to a trip on the ice in a high pressure moment with a good natured “well, happens to the best of us, huh” attitude. He’s also not insecure at all. His parents are loving and supportive.

It is perfectly okay to not read the books, but I would really REALLY caution non-book readers to be careful with what they discuss unless it stems from an actual excerpt from the text.

This is not me gatekeeping. (Please! Go read the books! If you’re unsure of where to start, I would recommend reading Role Model first, which gives proper context for The Long Game) This is me attempting to counteract the misinformation that has only grown tenfold since Troy and Harris were cast.

With all that being said, a list of things that Did Not Happen In The Books: 

Troy is not racist. This is a reasonable conclusion to draw, that a homophobic bully could also be racist, but there is no textual evidence of this. 

On that note, Troy does not hatecrime Shane. Troy actually does not have any direct interactions with Shane at all. The closest they come to speaking with each other is when they’re on the ice at the same time during an Ottawa v. Montreal game. 

Ilya does not hate Troy. Like all of the Centaurs, Ilya is wary and uncertain about Troy at first. He’s annoyed with the situation surrounding the trade, and he definitely hates Dallas. But he does not hate Troy. 

I hate to break everyone’s hearts, but... Troy does not ask Ilya for Shane’s number. Troy thinks about doing this, but doesn’t actually follow through. This concept is so funny that I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually does this in the show. This is the actual excerpt from the book:

Until.

Ilya is watching Shane interact with Luca one day. Luca says something and Shane repeats it in Luca's Swiss accent. Luca doesn't really seem to notice or care. Shane isn't acting like he's making fun of Luca. And when Ilya comes over, he even says 'hey' in Luca's accent.

And Ilya then does some googling. He comes across the phrase 'echolalia' and reads the sentence: "-especially when individuals feel comfortable or have a strong relationship with the person they are imitating."

a lot of the queer experience is people being like “wait it’s actually crazy you have to deal with that” and queer people just going 🤷‍♂️ because it’s always been like that. it’s sad but it’s not shocking to shane and ilya that they have to hide because there is no other option. it’s acceptance by defeat because it feels like there is no alternative

My wife & I had a ceremony with only our witnesses & officiant in the backyard and then had a handful of her siblings over to grill steaks & burgers and eat rainbow cupcakes and that was the whole wedding, and a big reason for that is that anything more formal or traditional would make my family’s absence painfully obvious. By the time we made it to the wedding, I just wanted to be legally married & get my name changed.

The viral video of a fight in a MacDonald's where a guy pulls a raccoon out of his coat. That MacDonald's was known locally as 99rideau and it was known for being weird as hell at all hours of the night

It has the largest Ikea in north america (or had? Idk if they've built a bigger one)

The drag bar, Swizzles, which was in an alleyway and then down a set of stairs. Sketchy and then fabulous :D

The great Glebe garage sale - every year in summer one of the richer neighborhoods holds a community wide garage sale and over the years it's become bigger and now it's a huge block party

I cant express how easy it is to find great shawarma in this town. We have a huge Lebanese population

During the Ashley Madison leaks Ottawa lit up like a MF Christmas tree because every politician and ambassador has a side piece

It's the capital of Canada and somehow not one outside of Canada knows this

It's the capital of Canada, on the highway between Montreal and Toronto, and yet somehow every band skips us when they go on tour 😭

There's two major universities and one college in Ottawa. One year all three of them had a dry frosh week that ended on the same day, and that day caused a mass casualty incident in Ottawa because of all the drunk students doing dumb things after being sober for so long

The canal. It's 7 km long and connects the two universities, so I used to skate over to see my sister in the winter. Theres little hot chocolate huts every couple km on the ice.

When skating the canal, It's really common to see people in full speed skating gear go rocketing past you.

The experimental farm in the middle of Ottawa which is an agricultural research center and museum. Theres trails and fields and farm animals :)

Ottawa is still in Ontario, the same province as Toronto. During hockey season the entire town divides into Sens fans and Leafs fans. I remember seeing a bus driver in a leafs jersey (jokingly) threaten to shut the door on a guy in a sens jersey when they were playing each other

The drinking age in Ontario is 19, but just across the river is Gatineau, Quebec where you can drink at 18, so underage students will hop the border to go drinking

Gatineau park has a bunch of trails, an abandoned mine, and an abandoned victorian laboratory

Fat/chubby gay men are a big part of the community and gay culture, see: bears. And Harris is honestly portrayed to be closer to a bear than anything else. Do you know how incredible it would have been, for a show like Heated Rivalry, to have a chubby/fat disabled gay man as a main love interest and shown to be [sexually] desirable? There is no real reason they could not have depicted that, because that is what the book shows. I've seen people go, "what did you expect from Heated Rivalry?" Well, it's the book canon! And the people who work on this show give the impression they care about representation. The idea you should for some reason Expect them to not cast chubby actors for chubby roles, is a problem – it's fatphobia. It's cowardly. And even if he is "chubby, not fat" there would be nothing stopping them from casting a fat actor, either! Representation matters! Justice Smith, bless his soul (the criticism lies with the casting crew, not at all him! I'm happy for him and have faith he will act incredibly as Harris!), is not even close to chubby.

It's amazing that they cast a black man and diversified these painfully white couples. But, they could've cast a chubby black man. It's not mutually exclusive, they don't cancel each other out.

I'm sorry, but they have kinda erased a marginalised, under-represented aspect of a character. They made a conscious decision to erase it, knowing people would be disappointed. And it's an unfair position for Justice to be in – he will probably already get harassment from racists for being a black man playing a guy who was white and blonde in the book, but now there's other reasons people are unhappy about his casting. I feel bad for him!

We are living in a crazy ED and ozempic culture right now. The majority of media only ever depicts/prioritizes (unnaturally) skinny people. Fat characters are so often erased and dismissed. Fat/chubby characters as the love interests? It's not common. Fat/chubby people deserve, NEED this representation. It's important. You should care about fat/chubby people getting more representation, please.