Not my problem

[epexegetical]

don't you love it when one deeply shitty person decides to personally attack you over their own lack of reading comprehension, and even though you know it's bullshit, it still triggers your C-PTSD, worsening your dysautonomia and making you unable to leave your bed?

and i was finally getting back to baseline, too.

[epexegetical]

Why I Love Scott Hunter, as a gay man

So I've seen a lot of weirdness in the HR fandom over the last few months, which I have tried to ignore, but one thing that always gets me is people who cannot fathom why someone would gravitate to Skip over Hollanov, and to Scott in particular. I get that everyone has their favs. However, I've also seen some people suggesting that Skip is "not really gay", or that it's aimed at straight men (??). So, as a gay Iraqi, who spent a solid 10 years in the closet out of genuine fear of persecution and homelessness, I thought I'd write a little about why Scott Hunter, specifically Francois Arnaud's interpretation of Scott Hunter, is so deeply meaningful to me and so many other gay men.

I am not going to deny it: Scott in the book is... nice enough, as Steve Rogers cutouts go, but a bit dull. Francois Arnaud's depiction of Scott in Heated Rivalry, however, is the single most accurate description, to me, of how it feels to be a more 'masculine' gay man in the closet. I am not an athlete (am chronically ill, in fact), nor am I an orphan, but even still, Scott Hunter is exactly who I have been.

One thing which I think is difficult to understand, unless you've been a closeted gay man, is just how toxic masculinity and homophobia intersect internally. It's not just about being afraid of your sexuality coming out: it's a fear of anything which could even tangentially seem gay. It's a constant internal struggle: you know you're not a real man (because you're gay, the worst thing you can be) but you also know that you want to be. You're not able to wear high heels and makeup and be friends with the girls, even if you want to (in my case, whilst I did want to and did eventually become friends with the girls, I never wanted to experiment with femininity in my personal appearance, though how much of that is socialised and how much of it I come by naturally, I don't know). Because those things look gay.

Every single thing you ever do - the way you look, talk, dress, the tv shows you watch, the music you listen to, the foods you eat - all get filtered under the "will this make me look gay" fear. You can't be friends with girls, because that's gay. You can't express your feelings to your male friends, because that's gay. Liking girls as people is queer and feminine, and liking them as sexual objects is not something you are capable of (despite what Hollywood will tell you, most gay men are not comfortable pretending to be straight, even the masculine-presenting ones). This doesn't start when you consciously realise you're gay, by the way: it starts years before you even know why you're doing it, when you're in that awkward stage of not quite knowing, but not quite not knowing either.

What this leads to is... crippling loneliness. You don't have friends, other than a few men you spend time with but cannot confide in. You learn to keep your mouth shut and go with the flow - someone is saying nice things about gay people in front of you? Silence. Because if you say something, that's suspicious. Someone is saying awful things about gay people in front of you? Also silence. Because you're afraid to say anything. But you can't admit that you're miserable, because that would mean making changes in your life that you genuinely are not capable of. I couldn't come out, and feel safe, because I would be homeless. So I had to learn to be okay with the misery. That it was normal, and I was happy.

Scott Hunter is, to me, the ultimate manifestation of that process. He's been in the closet so long that not only is he terrified of being perceived as gay, but terrified of being perceived at all. He wants to fade away. He listens to podcasts that neg the shit out of him, because he needs to know if they've spotted the gay thing yet (and also because Scott Hunter appears to be the most OCD and OCPD coded character of all time, but I will save that for another post). He clings to the first person he has a real interest in because he knows how few chances he'll get to do that in his life. He has a big, empty home that he's worked hard for, proof of his Masculine Credentials, but no one to share it with. He has friends, and he could confide in them, but he's so fucking scared, because if the wrong person somehow hears, it's all over.

He does this, incidentally, despite being a very clearly masculine man. He drinks whisky and plays hockey and furnishes his home in mahogany and chrome. He dresses well, but he'd never wear make-up. He also, it must be said, does this and manages to remain kind. Yeah, he's quiet, he thinks hard before he speaks, but he's managed to shed enough of his toxic masculinity to be kind to others, to speak of empathy and giving back, to be funny and self-abnegating and selfless... whilst maintaining all that inwardly-pointed self-hatred.

All of this comes through not just in Jacob Tierney's incredible writing, which transforms Scott from a caricature to a human, but also Francois Arnaud's unbelievable acting. The little hint of gay panic when Kip makes that hot lumberjacks comment, and we see Scott go through an entire odyssey before our eyes - shock, fear, confusion, anxiety, and then tentative, yet reckless hope. A "fuck it, might as well". The reaction to Carter's words in Sochi: trying not to appear too interested, because he doesn't want anyone to guess at what he is, and even his best friend being so accepting won't change anything. The sheer agony in his eyes as Kip leaves him, and he realises that he can't say a word to stop him, because Kip is right (and, you come to realise, he expected this all along). The outright panic attack in the art gallery date, Scott trying so hard to be inconspicuous that he becomes insanely obvious? It's obviously a little spoof of Captain America 2, but it's also... kind of telling that in Cap 2, Steve is hiding from the government, and in HR, Scott is hiding from the mere implication of homosexuality. And then going back to his apartment, dropping the walls, and even in the midst of his panic attack, still apologising to Kip, because he knows he was in the wrong? It's heartbreaking. It's devastating, in fact. And it's so fucking real.

I'm not going to read too much into Francois Arnaud's personal life, because I don't know him personally. However, I do know that he's an openly bisexual man who came out at 35. And I do know that the way he depicts Scott Hunter is the most accurate depiction of what it is to be closeted that I have ever seen.

(It also must be said that this is massively supported by the changes to Kip which occur between the book and the show, for which Jacob Tierney and Robert GK deserve equal credit. Book Kip is kind of a brat, who wants Scott to come out after a two month relationship, ruining his career in the process. Show Kip understands. He knows Scott's behaviour isn't his fault, and when he leaves, it's not a big fight: it's laced with empathy and understanding, because he has been there. They're not breaking up because either of them have done anything wrong. They're breaking up because the world won't let two men be queer, but it especially won't let masculine men be queer.)

And, to touch briefly on the fandom for a moment: this isn't a hypothetical. The fanbase of HR, a show featuring gay men in a relationship, is desperate to cast one as the "woman" in the relationship. Why else would Shane, a man of equal size of Ilya, played by a literal mixed martial artist in Hudson Williams, be so consistently reduced to a "twink" with "bottom eyes"? Why else would Francois Arnaud, the only openly queer actor in the show's main cast, be confronted with a hate campaign so severe that he had to move address? Why else would reports come out constantly of gay men being excluded from HR spaces by (mostly) straight, cis women, who seem to believe gay men are only acceptable when they come in perfect, non-confrontational, feminine packages? This is the fanbase for a show literally about gay men. Imagine, compared to this, how homophobic the rest of the world is?

So many people seem to not understand the purpose of Skip in the story. They think Jacob rammed it in because he desperately wanted to adapt Game Changer (ridiculous: if he wanted to adapt Game Changer, he could have. Reducing it to a single episode in HR basically destroys any chance at a real GC adaptation). The reality is, Scott and Kip are essential to Hollanov's story because they prove that even if Ilya and Shane did everything right, they would still be unable to be themselves. Scott is a beloved athlete, desperately trying at all times to be perfect, with a decade plus long career, dating a man who is masculine and muscular, who has nothing to do with hockey. He is doing everything right: he even has the classic hockey-player courtship period, of meeting and marrying within a few years. And yet, purely because of his sexuality, he is being crushed. Not because he's done anything wrong: he's a good person, as is Kip. He's done nothing to deserve being unable to love Kip in public. And nor has Kip. Both of them work to the bone in service of others, both are wonderful, kind, upstanding, generous people, and they're being destroyed because of homophobia. It highlights just how massive and pervasive homophobia is.

(Skip doesn't detract from Hollanov at all, FYI. The show is 6 episodes long because that's what Jacob Tierney chose, and having read Heated Rivalry, I do not see any scenes which were skipped (and I can see quite a few which were extended or created) in the show. Skip deliberately highlights the position that Ilya and Shane are in. Sure, Jacob could have just written the kiss, about Scott Hunter, a character we barely see. But if you don't understand just how difficult that was for him, just how broken and desperate he became in trying to become that Game Changer, how can you understand just why Ilya and Shane couldn't do that? If ep 3 weren't about Skip, I have no idea what that time would be filled with to tell that same story. But I digress.)

Watching Scott in HR, I see exactly what I could have become. Someone who is kind to others, who does everything to keep others happy, but who is broken and miserable because he cannot express who he is... and barely even knows it. Sure, he'll say he's fucked up, but he also can't understand just how miserable he is when Elena asks, because he's the happiest he's ever been! It just so happens that "the happiest he's ever been" is still not very happy, because he's been dealing with this shit his whole life.

Seeing his actual, genuine happiness in the speech in ep 6? Seeing him honestly encapsulating, in a single speech, the single worst part about being gay in this world: the loneliness? It's the most heartfelt and meaningful thing I've ever watched. Hollanov has a great many strengths, story wise, but whilst Jacob Tierney cut down and edited enough of Skip to make what I feel is a genuinely incredible depiction of what it is to be closeted, Hollanov is still predominately Rachel Reid's story (and I am far from a RR hater, but I do think she doesn't quite get the nuances of how it is to be closeted, which is, to me, the one weakness in Hollanov. I am a massive Hollanov fan, don't get me wrong! Jacob, Rachel, Hudson, and Connor combined to create something which deserves every accolade it receives. But every story has it's weaknesses, and for me, the depiction of the closet, re Hollanov, reads a little bit awkwardly. Hence why Skip is so important to the story: it smooths over a lot of those gaps, in a way that makes it feel like Ilya and Shane's experiences are unique to their own characters, rather than a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be a gay man by the author.)

So, to sum up: I have faced a lot of homophobia in my life, and Scott Hunter is probably the best depiction of it I have ever seen in any piece of media. Bar none. A lot of that, it must be said, is down to Francois Arnaud's being an unbelievably good actor, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. A lot of it, too, is because I do have OCD, and Scott's constant engagement in harmful rituals to satisfy his internal obsessions definitely seems familiar. But mostly? It's because it's a story which you can only tell if you have lived it, which Jacob and Francois clearly have. And I love it so.

[concoislover]

I'm afraid the people who need to read this will not. Those who will probably don't need to. Anyway, listen to the lived queer/gay experience, I beg of you!

[lierdumoa]

OP first presumes that his own personal experience of the closet must be the only valid, authentic, and truthful experience of the closet, and then goes on to presume that the portrayal of the closet he finds the most personally relatable is the most valid, authentic, truthful portrayal.

There’s several glaring flaws in this logic.

Scott’s experience of the closet is the least intersectional.

The shape of the closet can be very different when you’re in a foreign country where nobody speaks your native language. Different cultures often have different gender norms and therefore different markers for what is and isn’t considered queer. If in addition to being queer you are also a biracial person who is not only othered for being non-white, but othered in differing ways depending on whether you are in white or Asian space, and your queerness is also perceived differently in those different environs you’re not going to find Scott Hunter’s closet particularly familiar.

You don’t have just one mask behind which you pretend to be straight in that circumstance. You find yourself code-switching between a multitude of different straight personas depending on who you’re pretending to be straight for. You may also have different queer personas if you have different people you’re out to because different queer environments can vary greatly.

The experience of being bisexual can also lead to a person feeling like they don’t quite fit in either straight or gay spaces even after they come out. There’s also the aspect of being othered due to autism. Many gnc autistic people, for example, find their experience of being agender inextricable from their experience of autism because gender just seems like yet another dumb set of illogical social rules allistic people invented to torment autistics.

I’m sorry to say nothing OP says is going to convince me that François Arnaud is some generational acting talent. He’s good but he didn’t wow me. I’m glad his performance was so affecting to OP and that it made him feel represented. I will continue to side-eye OP for his insistence on naming himself the authority on what is and isn’t authentic queer representation and what is and isn’t great acting.

This post comes across like OP judges all queer media on how well it mirrors his own personal experience.

.

One of the blind spots I see over and over again in discussions of m/m, and this post is no exception, is the automatic presumption that it is “for straight women” even though every statistical survey of AO3 m/m readers and writers has indicated the community is predominantly queer.

Few things are more obnoxious to me than being lectured on what the closet is “really” like by some dude I am not out to who is automatically and completely wrongly assuming I’m straightcis.

There are many closets. Don’t fall into the trap of believing your experience of the closet is the “default” or the “most valid” experience.

Get off your high horse about it.

[epexegetical]

Hiya buddy,

At no point do I presume that my experience of being in the closet is the "only valid, authentic, and truthful" experience of it. I am describing the closet the way I and many others experience it, which, as you can see from the many hundreds of people to whom this post resonated, is indeed AN authentic experience of being closeted. It is also an experience I have never before seen accurately conveyed in media, so yes, I am quite pleased about it. Yours, obviously, is quite different, and no less valid.

Your instruction for me to "get off my high horse" is especially amusing when, just a few paragraphs up, you presumed to lecture me about what it is to be queer in "a foreign country where nobody speaks your native language". I'm an Iraqi Chaldean living in Australia, the only people in this entire country who speak my native language are probably directly related to me. I was one of 4 non-Europeans in my entire primary school of 500 - I am VERY familiar with what it is to experience different masks depending on what environment you're in. I came out to my friends six years before I told my parents, and to this day there are environments in which I adopt a "mask" of being straight. What I am describing is the experience of dropping the mask at ANY level, to ANYone, the process of coming out to that first person in your life, and how this intersects with being raised in a culture where masculinity is prized above all else, and men face constant pressure to act a specific way. I am praising this show for conveying that in a meaningful fashion for me personally, and I am praising Francois for his performance in doing so. If this offends you, respectfully, I suggest you find a less combative and frankly rude way of stating it, because waking up to this deeply aggressive post was not exactly a pleasant experience.

Also, fwiw, as an autistic person, I still managed to find Scott's story deeply relatable.

I also very much object to the notion that m/m is "for straight women". M/M is by its very nature for gay men first, foremost, and always. I do in this post describe the deliberate exclusion of gay men by much of this fandom - an experience that I and many other gay men have felt first hand, over and over again, over the last few months. I do not say the fandom is predominantly comprised of straight, cis women - I say that the majority of the exclusion that gay men in this fandom face is from this group. This is based on my and my friends' personal experience. I too get annoyed when people automatically presume fans of m/m are straight and cis, which, incidentally, is WHY I wrote this post in the first place - the assumption I have seen, many a time, that the only reason a person could enjoy watching episode 3 is because they're a certain type of person (straight, white, cis, allistic - you know, the things, barring the first, that you assumed I was, based on nothing at all?). I wrote this post as a reminder that the stories people resonate with do not necessarily fit into neat little boxes based on their own lives. I am a gay Iraqi disabled man, I am incapable of playing sports and incredibly poor and struggle with autism and OCD and ADHD, my family is gigantic, I am obese and far from handsome. And yet, the character I resonate with the most is the orphaned millionaire sporting prodigy white guy who looks like a supermodel. The notion that, because I resonate with this, I must be white and cis and abled and allistic is exactly what I am criticising - so your response is deeply ironic.

Finally, whilst I understand fandom can make emotions run high, I would appreciate it if you could refrain from being so deeply combative if you are going to respond to my posts. I am a severely disabled individual with crippling health issues that are substantially worsened by stress, and comments like yours tend to ruin my whole week, not just mentally but physically also. I state from the outset of my post that I am merely explaining why many people find Scott's story more relatable than Shane's or Ilya's, in response to many a hateful comment from people within this fandom suggesting only a straight person could gravitate to Scott or Kip. At no point do I attack or criticise any other perspective - I merely state my own. At no point do I assume you or anyone else is straight or cis or ablebodied or allistic. All of these are perspectives you have projected onto me, and if you are going to do that - please write your own post. Don't respond to mine, where I can see it, with hate.

[hagiomoto]

Daily reminder to Americans on this website that American war on Iran is bad because Iranians are getting killed not because you can no longer afford going to the movies in the weekends or refill your car 😒

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

"Clearly I wasn't talking about disabled people-" yeah part of the problem is that the existence of disabled people just isn't considered in your worldview like that's the problem we're criticizing not a get out of jail free card

[epexegetical]

for anyone following me for my fics: i am still plying away, i have just hit an absolutely awful patch of ME/CFS where i am just having flares upon flares. will hopefully post some stuff soon, just as soon as my body sorts itself out.

[bebsi-cola]

money is such an underrated accessibility option.

like people want to think any disabled person who is after money is morally suspect some way, because they're not asking for "treatments" or "accommodations" like a lot of our issues can be fixed way more easily with money. can't drive? paying for a taxi is often one of the more accessible alternatives. can't cook? you can pay more to have prepared food delivered to you. food restrictions? that food straight up costs more money. can't clean? you can pay for someone to do that. house inaccessible? having (lots) of money can help with that, you get the gist.

having money won't make us abled. it also won't stop our symptoms from being distressing, painful, or debilitating. but there's a huge gap in experience between the average poor disabled person and someone who's actually wealthy. you can buy your way out of some of the difficult situations most disabled people are left to rot in. wanting money, needing money, asking for money is pretty natural when it's such a useful tool. why get so weird about disabled people wanting money like i'm pretty sure everyone wants money anyway

[mywingsareonwheels]

I honestly think that if you watch the fight on the ice between Shane and Scott and blame either of them or lack compassion for them both... you have rather missed the point of it, and maybe even some of the point of the show as a whole.

Scott's in the closet largely because he feels like for Hockey Saved Him And Is His Family reasons he's obliged to be. He's dedicated his whole life and energy to the game (which he loves, but his relationship to hockey culture is fucked up and self-abandoning in the extreme), and he's burning out. Being told, in effect, that he's not trying hard enough after a brutal loss is naturally going to hurt him massively more than Shane intended, especially when he's just met a man he has feelings for and is beginning to question his choices and what he's been sacrificing. And being on the receiving end of that from a young player he likes and respects, and the day after Ilya chirped him too, and when commentators Will Not Stop Crapping On Him (and he's too fucked up not to keep listening to that)? Ouch.

And of course (which is the bit most people do get, since it's more obvious) Shane's going to think Scott's clocked him and Ilya and is being homophobic, rather than... what's actually happening here. Whether Scott's actually clocked them or not is ambiguous (I think he hasn't), but there's no threat intended that's for sure (I think at worst it's, "ugh your crush is a terrible influence on you", which is unfair but still). But Shane is rightly terrified of being outed; even some of his friends on his team say homophobic shit (eg JJ's casual use of a slur). So of course he's going to think Scott is threatening to out him and is absolutely and understandably terrified and furious. Also ouch.

It's not "crime"[1], it's tragedy. Two sad, scared gay men, one definitely neurodivergent and the other probably so, who have hit each other's rawest spots without meaning to, who probably sound like each other's jerkbrains in that moment, and when they would naturally be friends and allies at that. They don't know each other's contexts, they can't know each other's contexts, and neither of them is being their best selves but omg neither of them intended to do damage. It fits in exactly with the themes of ep3, of how much the closet and the pressures of existing within a homophobic sport fuck with these men. Scott being aged up for the show is a stroke of genius for partly this reason: the closet is making him increasingly ill; it's going to do the same to Shane and Ilya. It's already doing it somewhat.

Also worth noting: by Sochi Shane and Scott are fine to hang out with each other and Scott is happy to support Shane's friend (even if less.. loudly so than Carter, bless him ;-) ), and by 2017 Shane refers to Scott as "a nice guy", continues to be obviously amused by Ilya's blatant crush on the man, doesn't hate the Admirals doing well (given the Metros are already out), and is clearly blown wide open by The Kiss. <3 So either they apologised to each other shortly after the fight (I see an awkward but rather sweet embarrassed text exchange the following morning), or they just... both put it aside because this is hockey and fights over misunderstandings happen all the time, and once they each calmed down they each realised the other didn't mean it like that.

Do I wish they had both handled things better? Oh yes. I do also want to bang their heads together a bit! But also: hug the fuck out of them.

Two characters can be (temporarily) at odds without either of them being even the villain. Especially when they're both in a bad situation like that one. <3

[1] I am once again begging everyone to stop using the "gay on gay" crime or what have you, especially as a joke; it derives from a grotesquely racist phrase. Esp. fellow white people: we do not get to use that construction, please.

[katchystar]

We should also note that Shane was being a massive dick first. He's not chirping Scott in the heat of a scrum or over a face-off. He skates over to Scott after the game (a game his team won 5-1) while Scott is nowhere near him for the sole purpose of chirping Scott. He's being a sore winner and engaging in poor sportsmanship.

[saints-salvation]

My favourite character is Scott Hunter because I too know what its like to feel deranged for wanting human connection.

[epexegetical]

Need financial assistance, if you're able

I cannot put into words how much I hate having to ask, but my medical costs are crushing me and I need assistance, if you can provide it.

The donation link is here (https://gofund.me/366c602cd)

Specifics on why I need this are under the read more. Please don't feel pressured to give unless you are absolutely able to.

Hi, I'm Matthew.

I'm 25, and I have a degenerative disability of some kind. What that is, is not currently clear. I have a number of diagnosed chronic illnesses (POTS, ME/CFS, hEDS, MCAS) but none of them explain why I've been getting sicker and weaker for the last decade.

My symptoms are that I can only focus on screens for a few minutes at a time before I get horrific headaches and nausea. I cannot keep down 95% of foods, and even my list of "safe foods" I end up throwing up at least half the time. I cannot stand for more than about 30 seconds at a time without significant fatigue, on top of my usual fatigue, which has me sleeping about 18 hours per day on average.

At any rate, my issue currently is that I cannot work at all, and attempting to do so significantly worsens my symptoms. I can study if I pace myself and am entirely self-directed, and plan on starting a part time PhD in July. I am also applying for disability assistance with the NDIS, but the application process takes around 6-12 months. Until I can start my PhD (and hopefully receive a stipend for doing so) I am reliant on my disability support pension. The DSP is about $30,000 a year. Between specialist consultation fees and the cost of taxis to appointments (around $800 a month, or $9600 a year), supplements and medications (around $400 a month, or $4800 a year), physio/exercise physio/dietetics/etc appointments ($800 a month, or $9600 a year), and psychology for my C-PTSD ($230 a session), I am flat broke, even while living with my parents and getting assistance with day to day living costs. As my parents are also not well off, the assistance they can provide is limited also. Any assistance you can provide to keep me going until July would be a godsend, because I am already significantly in debt, and my wheelchair is on its last legs.

[mywingsareonwheels]

A very very gentle reminder to fellow Heated Rivalry fans that "gay-on-gay crime" isn't a funny concept because marginalised people distressing each other isn't funny, and queer people (yes including cis gay men) are marginalised.

And also that it derives from a white supremacist bullshit talking point about "Black-on-Black crime" and maybe we don't want to obtain fandom terms that way.

[epexegetical]

trying to keep track of how many fics i have on the go at the moment, and i really should have done this earlier, because it's not... THAT bad

Overheard (with Ch 7 taking forever, but it and Ch 8 should both be crazy long and probably released shortly after each other)

Miles To Go Before I Sleep (three month gap fic for Skip, currently 93k words and counting)

Florist Kip fic

5+1 Scott and Ilya friendship fic (solidly on the back burner)

Younger version of Scott and Kip time travel to 2017 and get to try their relationship as cocky fuckers without homophobia fic

Spirit Airlines crack fic

Sequel to MTGBIS (which will probably be just as long, but which I cannot do until MTGBIS is done)

At least three more metas

i mean, it's not great, and i feel like there may be some I am forgetting, but I'm not exactly drowning.

[themoonandmyman]

having completely opposing headcanons at the same time is important for the diversity of the fandom ecosystem. yes I believe this would happen. but I also don’t. hope this helps

[stantler]

Many lgbt teenagers and young adults growing up on the internet today have socially conservative beliefs that they voice at all times that they got from their conservative parents which they’ve never challenged because they think the life experience of being gay or trans makes them politically progressive

[stantler]

This is why I hate it when people say something homophobic and then go “so you’re really accusing me, a whole ass lesbian, of being homophobic 🙄” like yeah

[homocoholic]

the mere idea of a pr stunt for a gay relationship is simply the most ridiculous and unrealistic thing i've ever seen. we literally live in an extremely homophobic world, there are still many countries where being lgbtq+ is a crime, and in some of them, people are imprisoned, killed, and physically punished...

this is living proof that this fandom is dominated by heterosexual women and "queer" people with internalized homophobia and a lack of understanding of the very community they claim to belong to. i hate these queer people online who know absolutely nothing about lgbtq+ history and struggles and are lucky to live in some less horrible places because many lgbtq+ people died fighting for their rights.

that's why, every time i see a gay man online spouting nonsense and having the lgbtq+ flag on his profile, i already know he's an idiot, pure performance.

go study, you idiots! imagine calling yourself lgbtq+ and not knowing the basics of the issues and suffering that exist.

do you really think that celebs hiding their sexuality or making it ambiguous because they like it????

hollywood is homophobic, which is why celebs clearly queer "like" the ambiguity.

it's 2026 but being out is and will continue to be an act of courage, political and a fight for survival, whether you like it or not (and i say this as someone who is still in the closet for family reasons).

[epexegetical]

Excellent post, OP! To add some numbers to this: 20-25% of the world's population live in one of the 62 countries where homosexuality is outright legal (1). 40% of LGBTQ+ people worldwide report experiencing discrimination in the workplace. (2) Estimates by specific country vary for a whole bunch of reasons (definition issues, cultural factors, survey methodology, etc) but good studies have shown the number is 47% in the United States alone (3), the country where many of these supposed PR relationships are happening. It's also 27% in Australia (2), and close to 70% in Canada (4). Homosexual acts were only fully decriminalised in the US in 2003 (5).

In Australia, 16% of women and 9% of men report experiencing same-sex attraction, but only 3% identify as LGBTQ+ (2). Very clearly, people are NOT in a rush to come out and self-identify even in 'safe' countries. Of the world's 190+ countries, only 77 have discrimination protections in place for same sex attracted people, and only around 20 have protections for all LGBTQ+ people (1)

That's not even to mention the diaspora aspect: many people grow up in families hailing from far less progressive areas, and so face significant discrimination even in the West. Also the timing aspect: decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Anglosphere occurred mostly in the last 40 years.

If you want to think of your queerness as something that makes you cooler than everyone else, and that it's something that everyone wants to be, more power to you! But that is your perspective. The majority of the world disagrees. If you are a heterosexual woman who is saying this shit: just fucking stop. You are being outright homophobic. Calling people who in your subjective opinion "act gay" queerbaiters is literally just outright homophobic abuse, except you've put a self-righteous slant on it so you can pretend you're coming from a place of progressivism. You're not. And we can ALL TELL.

Or, worse, you're pissed off that you can't push real people together like dolls for your own sexual gratification, and instead of reflecting on your own shitty attitudes or accepting that this is what you have done, you're calling those people "queerbaiters" because they don't behave how you want them to. It's fucking repulsive. Queer people are not objects for your amusement.

Sources

(1) https://ilga.org/news/laws-on-us-2024-lgbti-human-rights/

(2) https://www.genderequalitycommission.vic.gov.au/intersectionality-work/chapter-5-gender-and-LGBTIQ-employees

(3) https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-workplace-discrimination/

(4) https://www.yorku.ca/yfile/2024/03/08/study-looks-at-lgbtq2s-workplace-discrimination-in-canada/

(5) Lawrence v Texas (2003) [US Supreme Court].

[epexegetical]

Today's meta brings up sports, and how sports media and fanbases operate, because so many HR fans seem to live in a reality where fans would act like their progressive, young friendgroup, or their tumblr mutuals, or like fucking stan twitter, and in the process massively misunderstand the situation that every gay or bisexual man in Game Changers is dealing with.

In reality, the response to 99% of events that occur in sports (with the sole exception of the 1% that break containment beyond the sports fan ecosystem) would come from an echo chamber. An echo chamber predominantly comprised of an extremely racist, homophobic bunch of middle aged white men.

More under the cut: be warned there are TLG spoilers for this one.

You may have heard of hockey rpf and hockey smut before HR, but it was a VERY small niche until HR happened, and was basically a microscopic subculture before Covid. Going back and thinking "what was the internet like in 2013?" and assuming hockey fans would act like that... yeah, no. 2013 may have been the age of tumblr purity tests, but very few of the people applying those tests were watching hockey, and if they were, they were massively outnumbered by millions of white, straight men.

What that means is that very few people would be analysing the racial or geopolitical context of anything, and those few who did would be quickly drowned out by everyone else (and probably yelled at for "trying to bring politics into sport"). The only people paying attention to hockey would barely ever THINK about race or geopolitics. You ever read the comments on a Facebook post about a professional athlete? That's the kind of discourse you'd see: a bunch of death threats and earnest hatred for members of opposing teams, homophobic commentary, and the earnest belief in shit like The Importance of Rivalry and Fighting is Good, Actually. Tumblrfying hockey fans... I mean, you kind of miss the ENTIRE CONTEXT of why Shane, Ilya, and Scott act the way they do.

Because these fans? They're not just on social media. Every single person involved in the sport would act exactly the same way. Podcasters, commentators, officials, spectators, sports journalists... every single one of them is in this echo chamber. They're fans themselves, or former players. Sports are extremely popular, yes, but they're not ubiquitous. They get their own segment in the news, and sports headlines are usually consumed exclusively by sports fans. There are exceptions, of course, but the typical response to the performance of the Montreal Voyageurs would not come from the entire city. It would predominantly come from the fanbase, a specific portion of the city.

Shane would never have had fans calling out racism, because even his fans would have been mostly white. He wouldn't have done underwear ads and become a queer icon, because if he was, he would receive endless homophobia, and he would thus deliberately steer clear of ad campaigns that looked too sexual instead of just "LOOK AT MY BIG MUSCLES! BIGGER THAN YOURS!". Nobody would have been looking at him through an EXPLICITLY racial lens, because if he or anyone else ever even IMPLIED there was racism against him, he would have been fucking DOGPILED. He would have had commentators making weird, racially coded comments about how he's "technically so proficient" because of his ancestry, and be unable to ever call it out without being treated as a pariah. That's a REALLY important part of his character! That's why, even after so much success, Voyageurs fans are able to turn against him so easily! Because this is not the ENTIRETY of Montreal, a progressive, metropolitan, gay-friendly city, this is the whitest, malest, most homophobic and racist part! And they have been aching for an excuse to turn against him! And he is dating one of those HORRIBLE, SUBHUMAN BOSTON PLAYERS, and therefore is a TRAITOR and a LIAR and a (insert copious deep-held homophobia and racism they've had to choke down for years as he won them cups, here).

Most likely, after Shane leaves the Voyageurs, he gets brutalised in the Montreal press by sports fans, and valorised by non-sports fans who can see the racism for what it is. But the former would massively outnumber the latter, because non-sports fans would not be paying attention. MAYBE this would be a sufficiently large event to justify non-hockey fans paying attention, at which point you would get normal people saying "hey, what the fuck?? he won you three cups??". But very few things reach that stage. The majority of the response would come from within the echo chamber. (Edit: I have since been informed that this event likely would spread far beyond general sports fans due to the specific importance of the real life Habs to Quebec and Montreal culturally, and so Shane would get a lot of support, especially as a French speaker. But the same general rule would apply: the most diehard fans, which is where commentators, pundits, journalists and so on tend to be drawn from, would also be the most negative, and thus the initial response to his trip would probably be incredibly harsh, moderating over time. And this is generally a factor unique to teams which become intrinsically linked to a certain region or group, which is quite rare. I can only really think of one other example, being FC Barcelona's links to the Catalan community, so the same principle would NOT apply to Scott or Ilya, if he had been in Boston at the time.).

Within the echo chamber: sports rivalries are real and important. You don't just hate the rival team, you have a searing personal hatred of every one of their players, as well as their fans. You also have an extremely short memory: a few bad performances, and a hero suddenly becomes a universally reviled failure. Everything your team does is ok, and everything the other team does is wrong. If a team was to horrifically mistreat a player? 99% of people would support the team. Complaining about racism, homophobia, or any other kind of bigotry? Extremely unpopular. Downright despised, in fact. Would make you public enemy number 1, to every team. If you're a minority, you're "one of the good ones" to fans of your team, and face disproportionate hate from every other team's fans. If you're gay, you can add extensive hatred from your teammates and own team's fans to that list. And it's survivable because your team's fans will support you as long as you keep winning... so long as you don't rock the boat. Because if you call out the bigotry, suddenly you're the problem.

To give a real world example: In May 2013, in Australian Rules Football (a culture and fanbase which is roughly as progressive as hockey fans are, i.e. not at all) an Indigenous Australian player (Adam Goodes) was racially abused by a fan. He stopped in the middle of the game to point her out in the crowd (AFL crowds are fucking massive, incidentally, so he would NOT have had a great look at her) and later found out she was 13 years old. As a result, he never blamed her personally, but said she was the product of her racist environment. Do you know what the response to that was? Years of booing by fans, at every game, no matter who the opponent was. Racial abuse left and right, by fans, by officials, by journalists. And a whole load of concern trolling about how mean he was to the poor little girl. It was so bad he had to retire. He later won Australian of the Year, in 2016, because NORMAL PEOPLE realised he was in the right, and a few popular sports documentaries allowed his shitty treatment to reach the mainstream. But the response he faced in his day to day life, as a football player, was universally negative! The AFL did not apologise for his treatment until 2019, which follows a pretty common trend in sports: fans do something shitty, the league does nothing, and then, years AFTER all the players involved have retired, a documentary or a book or an article or an investigation comes out, proves they were in the wrong, and the league half-heartedly apologises. The AFL has had multiple racism and homophobia scandals since, and has followed this exact playbook.

Now, the NHL is not the AFL, and Australia is not Canada, but this is basically the same playbook that exists in every league sport, everywhere in the world. The NHL does the exact same thing. The NFL famously did exactly this with Colin Kaepernick. Being a minority is fine, because the racist fans highkey think certain races are better at certain sports, but you need to never complain about how you're treated, and you need to be a minority that makes you better at sport. Being gay, rather famously, is something straight people associate with being bad at sports. So not only do you face enhanced criticism as a person for being gay, but any slight deterioration in form is more than enough pretext to take you off the team. It's not because he was gay, they'll say, it's because he wasn't good enough! And though that won't be convincing to anyone with a functioning brain, it will be convincing for the target audience: this echo chamber.

This is the culture that exists amongst sports fans. Not funny edits by RPFers (who are a tiny, TINY portion of the population). Death threats because you lost a game, and a few dozen men bet their entire rent against the outcome. Death threats because you had a single bad week. Death threats because you're friends with a member of THAT AWFUL TEAM WE HATE... really just a lot of death threats, but other stuff too. Constant abuse, suggestions that maybe "foreignors" just don't GET hockey every time Shane has a mid performance, constant denigrating of his skills...

Canonically, Shane is the best hockey player in the NHL (according to RR), Ilya is second, and Scott is probably third, with all three of them being contemporaries. In the show adaptation, Scott is clearly conveyed as by far the best of HIS generation, about ten years older than the later generation of Shane and Ilya, with Shane still being the slightly better player of those two, and both probably being better than Scott (though with enough ambiguity brought on by the age difference to make this, effectively, a question that could never be answered definitively). That ambiguity matters: it means people can pick whatever version of reality they desire.

I firmly believe that until Scott comes out in 2017, there would be a universal opinion amongst sports broadcasters and fans that he is the best active hockey player (with any differences in their stats blamed on Scott being at the end stage of his career whilst Shane/Ilya are at their prime). After he comes out, and until 2021 (when Hollanov are outed) that would inexplicably and immediately shift to Ilya being the best (who, as a Russian, falls below Scott in the hierarchy when Scott is a white American, but rises above him when Scott is gay, and ALWAYS is placed above Shane). After 2021? I wouldn't be surprised if people started saying the best hockey player was Dallas Kent, and it's so sad how he's in prison. This is not a progressive culture. This is a hellish, racist, homophobic culture. And stats only say so much. "He was on the better team", "He played against weaker competition", "He only plays well in x and y circumstances"... there's always an excuse to denigrate a player's skills, and that happens much quicker if you're a minority.

Rachel Reid gets this, by the way! She understands that many Montreal fans would not let their team's success under Shane get in the way of the hate campaign they've been longing to launch! She also understands that the fact that Montreal loses in the EARLY ROUNDS OF THE PLAYOFFS in 2021, not in the final, means that the response to Shane in TLG would be predominately from within this fanbase. And thus, universally negative.

Other examples of RR getting it: in the first few moments of Game Changer, an Admirals fan recognises Scott Hunter and says he's "surprised he shows his face around town, the way he's been stinking up the ice lately". Scott hasn't done anything wrong, has been playing for years and doing extremely well, but is treated like shit by one of the few people who DOES recognise him because he's going through a slight slump in form. That is the level of discourse we're looking at here: anyone who Helps Us Win is a hero, and who is doing even a little bit badly is a monster. Look at the entire character of Fabian, and how he thinks of hockey! A lot of fans, it seems, do not understand that Fabian reflects a TRAUMA that a great many men who grow up in a sports-mad culture experience when they're BAD at sports: you are treated as lesser because of it. Constantly. By supporters of that sport (who tend to be your bullies at school) and by your own family. And you develop a hatred of the entire league.

We actually get two great contrasting examples of this in-universe, in Scott and Hollanov. Scott is a gay man. That's his only "crime". He doesn't date a hockey player, he dates someone from the same city he plays in, and Kip is probably the perfect boyfriend for insecure men to have to look at. He's bulky and Masc, so they don't have to reconsider their instinctive homophobic hatred of femme presenting men, but he's also shorter and poorer than Scott, so they can easily decide he's the Bottom, and thus, the Woman (just with a dick). Scott is also masc, monogamous, and is only ever seen with one man, who he ends up marrying. The fact that his game improves after he meets Kip, and he introduces him to the world minutes after the Admirals win their first cup in 28 years, helps too. He also has no dependents to worry about, has won everything he wanted to win, and has enough money for the rest of his life. He ONLY has to deal with the BASELINE level of homophobia of sports fans. Was coming out an EASY thing for him to do? Fuck no. Because he had no idea he was coming out to THE WORLD. He thought he was coming out to homophobic hockey fans! And they would NOT have been supportive. It took him over a decade to do it, and it basically destroyed him. He was the first to do it, because no other sane person would take that risk. Not when they could just wait until the end of their career.

Luckily, for him, he comes out in a way so public that it breaks containment, giving him a significant degree of security. Compare this to, say, Shane, who receives various threatening meetings with Crowell the moment it's even HINTED that he's gay, and you'll see the default position: even the best player in the league is still effectively told to stay in the closet. Look at the fact that the two people who came out after Scott had to leave the fucking league.

With Hollanov, you have the added factor that they play for Montreal and Boston, two teams whose fanbases hate each other so much that they burn effigies outside matches. Despite his immense success, despite Ilya not having played for Boston for years at the time they're outed, Shane still gets shredded by Montreal fans at the earliest opportunity, because he "betrayed" them by not REALLY hating the other teams. This is not a healthy environment! It is not an exaggeration to say that many sports fans would spit in the drink of a player, or even a fan of the team that is "rivaled" to theirs. This is an extremely important part of the text!

And to get meta myself, for a second... the NHL is the villain of HR, and yet so many fans seem to have come out of it deciding to join this toxic fanbase? Finding a team to support, going to games... Francois Arnaud repeatedly has spoken out about how horrifically homophobic the NHL is. He has used the platform this show has given him to call out this harmful, homophobic, racist institution. He is a French-Canadian bisexual man who couldn't skate as a kid because of a medical condition (yes, flat feet are a medical condition, i'm a severely disabled wheelchair user and my definition of disabled definitely includes this) who went to acting school, who happily uses feminine aesthetics in his fashion choices, and who knows first hand how harmful hockey culture can be. A lot like Fabian, in fact! The response from many HR fans (usually the ones who decided to become actual hockey fans after) was to brand him a "mean girl" because he broke their "boy aquarium" fantasies. Never mind the fact that has first hand experience of this toxic culture, and the harm it does: fans watched HR, saw the way this crap hurt Ilya and Shane and Scott for so many years, and decided to side with the fucking NHL. So we can already guess how the fandom will react to Fabian.

So many fans seem to be missing the point so entirely that they BECOME the villains: sending homophobic abuse to the show's best known LGBTQ+ cast member, and sending money to the NHL as they happily take money from HR whilst continuing to be homophobic AF! There's a fucking PhD thesis that could be written on how badly some people missed the ENTIRE POINT of HR, and instead substituted their own weird reality where Hockey is a super gay sport where hot guys have sex all the time, isn't that so cuuuuuuute?! But for now, I will settle on my opening point: you cannot analyse HR without understanding that the people who watch the show (mostly younger women and LGBTQ+ people) are an entirely different demographic to people who watch and support sports (mostly older white men).

Edited to add, since I neglected this bit and it's super important: did I mention the physical danger aspect? Because there's a massive risk to your physical safety that comes from being out in a sport as insanely homophobic as hockey, not just because you'll piss off thousands of angry fans, but also because fighting is allowed in the NHL! It's a full contact sport! You could fucking DIE. Refusing to come out is basic common sense, because you LITERALLY take your life in your hands by doing so. There's a reason that no active NHL players have come out! That reason is not a lack of courage, or there being no gay players: it is because coming out is an objectively dangerous and risky thing to do! When there is a sample size of (presumably) hundreds or thousands of gay hockey players, and NOT ONE of them has come out... that is a pretty clear sign that it's a safety issue. I've been told parts of the fandom think it should have been 'easy' for Scott to come out (wtf?) and uh... this is just outright homophobia and victim-blaming, guys. The overwhelming majority of gay athletes worldwide are not out, and Scott's situation is no less precarious than theirs is. When you're looking at 0% of gay players feeling safe enough to come out, that is not THEIR fault, it's proof that they are not safe to do so.

[fractally]

Fandom insistence on a sweet shy nerdy and virginal Shane Hollander is never not going to be funny when the canon is like. Shane is sitting around totally shamelessly watching rugby in his five minutes of free time because the men are hot. He's so jock-brained masc for masc it's not even funny

[fractally]

Honestly guys sometimes I genuinely wonder if I'm reading a different book than this website because like book!Shane is not really a goody two shoes nor is he a virgin. He is highstrung I'll give you that.

But like book!Shane had experience with girls, was already suspecting he liked men, and then has a very successful experience with Ilya and is like "yep!" and sits around debating how to fuck men regularly. He settles on Ilya because he's got as much to lose as Shane and because their chemistry is chart topping.

I would not call book!Shane a goody two shoes. He's paranoid and controlling, and he's a perfectionist, but he's also very purposeful about getting things he wants. He wants to fuck men and he finds a way to do it---by lying and sneaking around. He wants to be an NHL superstar and not have his sexuality derail that and he makes it happen by shutting down half his brain for years. He's kinda terrifying. If Rose hadn't put an end to things he would have barreled straight into a lavender marriage and then eventually started sneaking around on her too, with some cursed justification, I can't even begin to imagine.

I really feel like people just see "wasian guy in glasses" and like, backfill Shane's characterization.

[fractally]

Breaking my new "no text reblog additions" to pull out @shaneswhitesocks 's tags because I love them.

Honestly maybe this is extreme naivety on my part because I'm just not super attracted to men and my interest in MM is in a very lesbian making two barbie dolls kiss kind of way but I hadn't quite connected the idea of "average tumblr user wants Ilya to fuck them and so needs Shane to be average tumblr user"

There's also this interesting idea where deviation from that ideal is like a crime that Reid has committed

[stele3]

I know we talk a lot about Hudson and Connor, and deservedly so. But I was rewatching the end of 1x05, as one does, and

Let's give it up for François for a minute here, because he goes from celebration and relief to anguish and loneliness to determination and excitement in like, microseconds.