#so.............................................talented

unpopular opinion but I think once Shane and Ilya are publicly out / married Ilya stops referring to Shane as the "second best player in the league". like sure, in private, he keeps up the bit and they playfully shit talk as always, but publicly Ilya is #1 Shane Hollander fanboy. he can't stop telling reporters that he is married to the "best player in the history of the NHL" and that his husband is the "greatest thing to ever happen to the sport". he's derailing every professional conversation to emphasize how amazing Shane is at the game. that man is hyping him up and NEVER implying that Shane is not as good at hockey as Ilya, not even as a joke, bc he refuses to let the world see Shane as anything other than The Greatest Of All Time

the moment i first understood the myth of meritocracy i think was when i read the "Eragon" books as a teenager, and it said on the back that the author had started writing them at 15 and it became a bestseller. this stressed me out so much, I also wanted that kind of success in writing at such a young age & kept thinking I should also be able to do it, that I must be doing something wrong – and then YEARS later i found out his parents had a publishing company and financed him touring through the whole U.S before the books became successful