misha, i have no clue about heated rivalry, but what if i sit here and demand more of your thoughts on the crossover au.
Awe thank you, Nosho! Allow me to be mentally ill for a moment and write way too much.
Gosh, it's so hard because I don't want to give too much away, but basically the show, based on the series Game Changers by Rachel Reid, is about an intense sports rivaly/love affair between two professional hockey players and how they have to deal with having a fraught, mostly hidden on-again off-again relationship. It's incredibly steamy and there are really erotic and intimate sex scenes.
I was really struck by the themes of perfectionism, repression, concealment, public/family pressure versus private freedom/inhibition that fit really well into a vampire narrative too.
Interview with the Vampire, especially it's most recent adaptation on AMC+, is similarly sensual and erotic. It's certainly darker, which comes with the territory, but the ideas of repression/secrecy and freedom/inhibition are soooo rich.
So basically, because I'm a slut for a period piece and I love the Gilded Age, the Fin-de-Siecle, and way too much plot with my porn, I'm imagining how an upper-class, new-money, mixed-race Canadian might deal with all of these internal conflicts, and where the right place for him to experience true freedom for the first time would be. I immediately thought of the 1900s World Fair in Paris.
There would be every reason for people from all over the world to go, it saw massive participation and it was an unbelievable spectacle of modern engineering and technological advancement.
The modern idea of professional athletes and athletics was in its infancy, so I didn't want to pin myself to those themes when they're not really part of my historical wheelhouse anyway. So, I'm sticking with what I do know - cultural history.
In the late 19th century, the first waves of Japanese immigrants were coming to settle in Vancouver, particularly after the launch of a regular steamship service in 1887 and the establishment of a Japanese Consulate in 1889.
I'm envisioning Shane's mother Yuna as one of these first generation (issei) Japanese Canadian immigrants, who - with her family's backing - establishes her own business. (I'm stretching timelines a bit because the first Japanese immigrant to Canada, Nagano Manzo arrived in 1877, which is about when I have Shane born to be about 23 in 1900).
Shane's father David is employed by the Treasury board of Canada, so I've kept his background similar, he's a member of the Treasury Board for the Dominion Government, established in 1867. British Columbia joined the Canadian Federation in 1871. So, I imagine David - visiting the new 6th province - meets Yuna, they swiftly fall in love, move to the capital of Ottawa and by 1877, Shane is born.
David is a McGill graduate, so it stands to reason that Shane would attend McGill, situated in Montreal, as well. Guess what else began in 1877? The first and oldest University Hockey Club is founded at McGill, giving me an opportunity to give a nod to his hockey stardom, even though he bypasses collegiate hockey straight into professional athletics in the source material.
So, being situated in Montreal, Shane has the opportunity to get a respectable political economics degree (satisfying his father), picking up French from his surroundings (becoming multilingual to satisfy his mother), but knowing his character, he probably really threw himself into hockey.
By 1895, Japanese immigrants were being met with political hostility, and eventually banned from provincial elections in British Columbia. So imagine the pressure Shane must be feeling, being mixed race, with his parents' and society's expectations that he continually excel and outperform his peers, be the perfect son and the model Japanese Canadian to impress the upper class.
So what do his well-connected parents do? They get him a position on the Canadian delegation to the World's Fair! Every aspect of his life to this point has been shaping him into the perfect candidate to be an attache leveraging his education and language skills to make a good impression with the most politically important figures in the Dominion. Imagine what this could mean for him and his family! But the pressure!!
So enjoy this ridiculous essay. I haven't even gotten to Ilya and his history and role in everything, but I hope this gives an idea of the kind of weird over-researched fanfic I delight in!
