#ssosh

The team mom one in particular is interesting to me because like…maybe I’m simply too gay but it never even occurred to me that Ilya being a “team dad” means that Shane would fall into a team mom role? The way I conceive of secret society of stickhandlers is that Ilya and Bood are the team dads and Shane is, at best, a reluctant step dad.

Even aside from the heteronormativity at play, it’s important to me to emphasize Bood’s leadership role. He was drafted to Ottawa in 2014 and has the A, he’s been captaining that ship since it was sinking! And while Ilya was depressed, closeted, and isolated, Bood was the social heart of the team.

I am in fact part of this fandom and I see y’all shitting on me for the bit in secret society of stickhandlers where Ilya doesn’t provide extensive aftercare for the women he sleeps with. People keep telling me/posting that it’s OOC and upsetting that he tells one woman she can go to a 7/11 down the street for food after sex and he chucks Gatorade at another as she’s walking out the door.

It’s OOC? When in canon he doesn’t provide food after sex for Shane, who he actually cares about, for like SIX YEARS??? Ilya being a fuckboy is part of his character in the early years. Why is it considered a wrongdoing to portray that? I can’t help but think people are upset because they like to imagine he’d be a perfect angel if THEY slept with him and I’m shattering that illusion. Disrespectfully: boo fucking hoo!

We also do have to think about how Ilya’s treatment of the women he sleeps with informs his relationship with Shane. If Ilya is an amazing partner after sex and super kink informed and conscious of the importance of aftercare…what does that say about his dynamic with Shane in the early years? Nothing good imo!

Like the premise is rooted in queer solidarity but I’m always hyperaware of the fact that Ryan is in this group chat with his fucking bully. I think Ryan overall wouldn’t be online much and wouldn’t be invested in these scandals. But I also kinda have him detach from the group chat because…his bully’s in there

Ryan’s anxious enough to take the path of least resistance but I hope that sometimes he talks to Fabian or Wyatt or his therapist about the fact that everyone’s just kinda…cool with Troy now and how bizarre that feels.

It’s fic though. It’s just for fun and Ilya making daddy jokes is indeed fun so I get it! But I will say, just to speak to my own writing, this is something I thought about when writing Luca’s scandal in secret society of stickhandlers

The way I write is I envision a story first and often when I sit down to write it, what actually happens is far from how I imagined it. With Luca’s scandal, I was imagining a story with a bunch of silly Ilya jokes about his “child’s” innocence being ruined, etc etc. That’s what commenters were explicitly anticipating would happen. It’s an easy way to get a laugh and I’d made that kind of joke in the series previously.

Then I sat down to write the story and I realized…that’s so infantilizing in a way that didn’t feel true to Ilya. I realized that Luca was the same age that Ilya was when he won his first Cup which made for an interesting parallel. And it also meant that Ilya’s response wouldn’t be “but you’re a child” it would be “yeah, okay, you’re an adult. Game recognizes game. How can I support you as your friend and your captain?”

lol thank u!!! people asked me previously if I’d ever write a scandal where Shane was chaotic online and I was like “mmm no, he’s too media trained”

Sorry for sending this here I know I could have commented on the actual fic I just read but I wasn’t thinking of speaking until I came here to follow you 💀

hmmm idk maybe there’s a vibe 👀 maybe 👀