Talikty

I’m well aware Rachel Reid doesn’t depict Shane ‘in touch’ with his Japanese heritage which would be a great plot point about how immigration can erase culture and the isolation faced from both nationalities when neither really accept you, ‘too white’ for your Asian heritage but ‘not white enough’ for the American one. As someone who also deals with this, it would’ve been unimaginably gratifying for this to be an actually developed plot point where she expands on the difficulties of the social isolation faced as a child and how losing touch with a culture that’s been in the family for generations upon generations does impact Shane.

Yes, I need this man to discuss how he doesn’t speak the language fluently and that he doesn’t know their religious beliefs or how their etiquette works or what type of cuisine is enjoyed or seeing people who are in touch with that culture and feeling like not deserving to be part of it or losing contact with family still there because family is so different there than in a predominantly white country where individualism is the favoured culture but collectivism is in Asian countries and so on. I could honestly go on for days and days about this but the main point is, it feels like when shows include the ‘token poc’ to hit a checkbox rather than including them to actually deal with the struggles of people in that situation. Shane Hollander is Asian-Canadian but he may as well be just Canadian with how it’s treated in the books. I can respect her choice more if the reasoning behind her decision is that she doesn’t want to misrepresent and stereotype Japanese culture but even so, with all the research she’s had to put in to make the series as good as it is, it feels mildly disrespectful. Ilya and his struggles with Russia and their perspective on homosexuality is dealt with respectfully and in an accurate manner so even just including small tidbits from Japanese culture for Shane would’ve been so much better and immersive. Maybe giving him a Japanese middle name or having him enjoy a few Japanese dishes or even just a few words from the language (like how he addresses Yuna) would be enough.

This isn’t even getting onto how there’s little racism discourse which, in the hockey setting she’s writing in? There abso-fucking-lutely is. Shane will have dealt with being called shit like ‘chink’ and have any ethnic food he had around other kids called ‘gross’ and asked to pronounce words from his language whenever they come up randomly in an attempt to be ‘inclusive’ and so on. Shane has so much going on behind the scenes and yes, Ilya is the favourite child and I can respect that but it’s one thing to include a poc with the intent to commit to that and another to include them so it feels more ‘diverse’.

Finally, now that more people are currently talking about Troy and his interactions with Shane while he was in his asshole era which also plays into this and I do have many thoughts on it, it felt like I could actually voice some of my complaints about how Rachel skirts around Shane’s race. Mainly because I read some fire fics about this which helped me put these thoughts into more cohesive ideas.

On the other hand doing so also means water feels very bad as you’ve chugged a litre of water within the time span a snail can move half an inch and your body is screaming ‘CHUGGGG’ like you’re at a uni frat party surrounded by overly boisterous guys, all intoxicated out of their minds but your stomach is simultaneously yelling ‘NO MORE, FLOOD, STOPPPP’ at you because it’s so strained from trying to withstand the sudden influx of actual healthy liquid that it’s essentially a reenactment of Noah’s Arc inside there, just without the arc.

The other universe:

MY SHAYLAAS OMG THEYRE SO CUTE AND I LOVE THEM TO PIECESSS 😭😭

Sneak peek of a fic im writing. This one has to be published bc I’m an hour or smth in and so attached the only reason it isn’t posted is cause I perished. Even then, I’ll get a friend to post it I swear.

My ass had a big grin on my face while writing this, that’s how domestic fluff it is. I actually couldn’t stop smiling it was delightful and I love them 😭😭😭

First off, it immediately places them as equals in their relationship. While I enjoy the ‘character A saves character B from their woes and they get together’ trope too, there’s this inequality of power in the relationship near immediately. Whether that’s because character B will then feel indebted to character A which means they will feel compelled to please and thank character A than speak their own mind or because character B requiring saving that A provided means that A likely holds a position of greater wealth, influence, power, etc. They do not stand on equal ground and while the saviour trope is delightful, a lot of characters are made out to be independent and strong only to end up relying on their partner for struggles they could’ve dealt on their own. I’m not trying to say, that is, that character B should reject all help or not lean on character A at all when it comes to their issues but so often it crosses that boundary into dependency rather than a sanctuary as a safe space to recover to fight back with more strength. The point I’m making is that, I’m Jiuhuo’s relationship, they are equals in every way. They challenge and balance each other in ways nobody else can, acting as each other’s sources of respite from a merciless world with no respite (not post-canon obviously). Where one may falter or require a boost. they’re aware the other has the same level of abilities as them and the same prowess at the tasks so they can feel assurance rather than worry. It’s that trust and faith in their abilities because they meet each other at the top rather than one being on a pedestal and lifting the to meet them at the top, or vice versa. Qin Jiu and You Huo are both great masters to everyone around them and they balance each other out, You Huo’s cold and stoic personality with Qin Jiu’s insincere mimicking of a regular person’s behaviour. You Huo who doesn’t pretend and naturally stands out from the crowd and Qin Jiu who was on the death squad so he needed to seem regular but also attract attention, thus disguising his true self but still standing apart from the general population. Neither of them belong and stand so far above the crowd that only they can match and understand each other in the ways that are necessary.

Then, is Qin Jiu recognising how much You Huo needs the love. You Huo would never accept Qin Joy’s bell for anything he could do himself, as long as it doesn’t cause serious permanent harm to himself or any harm to others around him, he’d rather stick it out by himself than lean on anyone else. That’s just how he was raised. He was independent from a young age and never shown familial affection, whether because there was none to offer or people were too scared to meet his gaze, he’s been alone. Qin Jiu who was an orphan and always distant from others, finding it hard to form meaningful relationships gaining a spark in his eyes when he interacts with You Huo because he’s interesting and powerful and there is so much potential between them that if they set their minds to it, they could absolutely take over the world in canon. Within each other, they find that love they’ve been deprived of in their youth.

But I think it'd be funnier if he had the same alcohol tolerance as Chu Wanning out of sheer spite and willpower. MQ gets challenged by some random jackass god to see who can hold their alcohol better and everybody's just sitting around waiting to see MQ lose pathetically because 'he's never drunk before' and 'with those vows and that cultivation path? no way he'll ever win' and MQ just absolutely decimates his opponent to the point of no return. Nobody was betting for him and Feng Xin was standing off to the side, scowling at how MQ's going to 'make a fool of himself' and how he thought he 'cared about his reputation' but ready to drag MQ back to his palace and get him a glass of water while he's at it.

Then, 10 shots later MQ is still throwing them back like it's water and jackass god is feebly holding onto the nearby table with a grimace. Another shot later, he passes out and MQ still looks tipsy at best with a smug gleam in his eyes and a shocked silence just rings out. During which, MQ elegantly states how it was a waste of his time and leaves. Nobody says a word, still recovering from the sight they saw.

Yes, we’ve all cried over how LG/The Concept of Moving On is just a hard hitting subject when it comes to Cheng Xiaoshi. Having to continually relive and redo every action, knowing that there’s an almost 100% chance he’ll have to keep this up for the foreseeable future because the moment he pauses and stops and grieves means that the weight of his anguish will force him to collapse in his wake has me staying up and writing a 20k character study in my head some nights.

But also, every single timeline, with close to no doubt about it, he loses other cherished people in his life. Friends, close acquaintances, family (Qiao Ling is kind of the only one we’re all that aware about considering the lack of backstory reveal but i have zero doubts she must’ve died in at least one of the other timelines considering it all) all gone, those precious memories that only he remembers. QL won’t remember the night of CXS’s death and them clutching onto each other like a lifeline. QL won’t remember that one time they sporadically got boba that hasn’t occurred in other timelines because something changed in that one. Captain Xiao won’t have any recollections of that one inside joke made when times were happier.

LG is the sole carrier of those past times and when he does die, it’ll all go with him. Those overwritten timelines, countless other deaths he’s had to push through because yes, saving CXS is the priority and yes CXS’s death breaks him each time it happens but he’s not apathetic to others’ deaths and in the end, LG is forced to live in isolation, even with CXS, the one he holds the most genuine care for. Because CXS doesn’t remember 3 timelines ago when he comforted LG after a nightmare and CXS doesn’t remember when LG was so close to the edge and losing the tether to reality that QL noticed and they got hotpot together at Haidilao. LG is the sole person to even know about those timelines, the important parts that keep him going and diving through time at least.