The obvious ignorance and racism of the line aside, "Shane has never seen the dark side of hockey" is also just completely nonsensical if the rest of the book is about Shane being afraid of the consequences of coming out.
Ilya seems to acknowledge that there IS in fact a dark side of hockey, to the extent that he goes to the funeral of a fellow player and feels the need to defend Troy (but notably not Shane) from the league commissioner...but simultaneously there is nothing for Shane to be afraid of, his fears are overblown, and obviously being out is an unequivocally good thing (ignore Shane's career collapsing in the background).
So which is it?
Is there a dark side, in which case Shane's fears are rational and Ilya owes him more empathy and understanding?
Is there a dark side but Shane isn't aware of it? In which case, what is he afraid of, if he doesn't know enough to have fears? And why isn't Ilya, who IS aware of it, more concerned? This would make more sense in a narrative where Shane were pushing to come out and Ilya was the one who felt obligated to stay closeted for any number of reasons, but that is very specifically not the canon narrative.
Or is there no dark side? In which case Ilya's line at the camp is nonsensical, but also none of that nonsense about the player who's funeral Ilya attends or Ryan Price's whole arc or for that matter Troy's make any sense, and also also the Metros wouldn't turn on Shane, because that implies the existence of a dark side.
Reid really is a boy mom™ and Ilya is her favourite. Take the racism out of the equation when it comes to Troy, cause people don't wanna acknowledge that with limitations of social media during that time and with Troy growing up with a racist father, and being in a racist sport, and having racist friends the probability/possibility of being racist has a very slim chance of being non existent. Why would Ilya want Shane to be friends with someone that called him a slur? Why does Ilya feel entitled to push them to be friends? There is a singular throwaway line about Shane being uncomfortable with Troy, but nothing else.
Okay people change, why doesn't Shane have the autonomy to reject Troy on his own terms? Why is Shane forced to be on the same team as his bully? Ryan was able to walk away from Troy and it was actually put into words that Ryan didn't have to forgive Troy, why the fuck wasn't that same option given to Shane???
There's a conversation to be had about Shane not communicating to Ilya that he is struggling because his team have been homophobic to him for over a year, and that this is likely compounded on top of the systemic racism he's experienced in the sport all his life. Also that Ilya has not been communicating to Shane about how his depression is making him feel and why he is behaving as he is towards Shane, also with how he's struggling on his team and doesn't feel able to Captain, and his therapy and what he's learning to help so Shane can know how to help.
But that would require them to understand and be able to articulate what is happening to them. The problem really comes to be that they have few friends or community who can relate to their experiences who could help them on their individual journey to understanding so that they can bring that to their relationship and deal with these things together. This is the case at the start of The Long Game for Ilya, but he gets growing support as the book goes on. Shane gets less as the book goes on.
They both feel shame for what is happening to them. Even though systemic racism and homophobia are not Shane's fault, they're humiliating, degrading, and dehumanising, so facing them takes support from queer community and people of colour and qpoc. Shane gets a mother who understands in a way that can help him cope by helping him create a player that is undeniable because racist society will set him up to fail. This coping mechanism is finite, it is not enough because it is pushing back at a system much bigger than him and which eventually does what it does and takes it all away from him and segregates him.
Mental health problems and father trauma are not Ilya's fault, but he's culturally ashamed of it. He gets a friend Troy who can relate and perhaps offer support and in show a childhood best friend who was there and knows what happened to him, as far as his father and childhood were concerned. And he gets therapy.
Shane is yet to get more meaningful outside support. Instead, one of his supports gets taken away, twice. His one friend of colour is demonised in the writing. A poc ostracising and humiliating another poc in a room full of white men is an outrageous choice. Then, removing Shane from access to JJ, who always noticed when Shane was low and needed to be pulled out of his head, in order to segregate him to Ottawa, the queer team.
The support Ilya has should mean he is now able to have the conversations he has with Troy and his therapist, with Shane now, to better explain to Shane what the hell is going on with him and why he's behaving as he does from Shane's pov. But that support stops at Ilya and doesn't reach beyond to his relationship. Instead, Shane is also Ilya's support as well as his own. He is expected to be resilient, understand Ilya's needs and do it all, alone.
The story chooses to say that Ilya has no support because he can't tell anyone about Shane, and that is compounding his mental health struggles, when in fact, the support he needs is nothing to do with Shane. His upbringing, his own brain and the way it sees his world, have nothing to do with Shane, but his therapy focuses almost entirely on Shane. So the book spends all its time getting Shane to 'fix' the pain he's 'causing' because he's the reason for Ilya's suffering.
Strange book.
@tarawitht pretty much sums up why this is happening in this book, so perhaps not so strange, pretty expected, really.
with the start of filming season 2 and all the cast announcements coming out, i feel like it is time for me to finally share my thoughts, feelings and predictions for season 2.
PREDICTIONS,,,, (these could all be wrong, but I need to write them down in one place in order to free up some space in my brain)
I said back in december that i think the long game will probably be split into two separate seasons bc tooooo much happens to fit into a single six episode season, and i still firmly believe that will be the case
2. TIMELINE CHANGES: We already know that Jacob Tierney will be including Shane coming out to his Montreal teammates bc to not include that would be horrible and a disservice to the story and Shane as a character. They also have to introduce sooooo many new characters; obviously Troy, Harris, Dallas Kent and the Centaurs but also Ryan Price. How do I think they're going to do this?
2a. Toronto Locker room: i think that we are going to be introduced to Ryan Price alongside Troy Barret and Dallas Kent (who are being terrible, as expected) inside the Toronto Locker Room, probably while they are watching the Irina Foundation Press Conference on TV. We are gonna need to see Troy say something homophobic bc we need to not like him in order for him to have his redemption arc. We'll also get to see more of the toxic culture in hockey that ultimately destroys Ryan's mental health and forces him to retire early (and will build the foundation to what Shane will be dealing with after coming out to his teammates and after they get outed).
2b. Role Model and Tough Guy: Role Model happens alongside The Long Game, so it seems quite obvious that Troy and Harris's story will be interwoven along with Shane and Ilya's. Tough Guy, however, I do think will be like a single episode like they did with Scott and Kip. (I hope we get the Ryan/Fabian and Shane/Ilya double date bc I think its important, personally, especially in regards to Shane's internalized homophobia)
2c. There is such a big time jump between the different books, I hope Jacob Tierney will be able to meld it all together in a cohesive way that makes sense.
3. Music: In an interview, Jacob Tierney said that he loves the song Lost Together by Blue Rodeo. Initially, I thought that it would the replacement for Shane and Ilya's first dance song bc I do not believe Diamonds by Rihanna would be in their budget. Upon listening recently, I think there is a possibility for it to be a needle drop for The Boxing Day Fight OR The Plane Crash.
4. We did not get Ilya describing his proposal to Shane at the Cottage, so I feel like it really needs to be included in like the first episode of season 2 when theyre maybe doing some pillow talk about ilya moving to canada and playing for the centaurs. (predicting the proposal will happen at the end of season 2 and then season 3 will end with the wedding) -- this is just wishful thinking, not a real prediction, i just want to see their proposal
CONCERNS
In an interview, Jacob Tierney described Hayden Pike as a "good guy" and like a "golden retriever" so I am concerned about him changing the character of Hayden and his relationship with Shane. Because I dont care how much people love fannon Hayden, he is not a good friend to Shane nor is he a good ally (this is not me calling him the devil). Hayden's behavior to Shane about his sexuality and his relationship with Ilya, really contributed to and fed Shane's fear of coming out. AND thats an important part of the story to tell bc sometimes the people closest to us do hurt us even when thats not their intention.
Harris and Troy casting: My main concern is about giving the reformed bigoted white man a black love interest. Will it give white savior? Is Jacob Tierney actually going to flesh out the conflict and give Troy a real redemption thats actually deserved? We will just have to wait and see, I guess.
I am begging for Jacob Tierney to do something about how Harris's heart condition is handled. Like are you seriously telling me that Harris spends so much time concerned about fucking hard and nasty style bc his heart is just toooooo weak, YET he's shotgunning 7 different espresso-based drinks daily like bffr I have a different heart defect and I can barely even drink decaf coffee bc I'll feel like im having a heart attack. Harris's caffeine habits have me more concerned about his heart than whatever some strenuous cardio will do to it.
How Rachel Reid fumbled Shane's struggles in regards to his race and sexuality, and the isolation he experiences as a result of it, I always found incredibly disappointing and sad. I hope Jacob Tierney continues to handle Shane's story with the care it deserves, but did not receive from Rachel Reid.
'A popular fanfic author stopped updating her fic because she said that the stress of being constantly falsely accused of using AI was a witch hunt and it was destroying her mental health to the extent that she needed to take a break from writing, leading to multiple online discussions defending her and debates about AI accusations and how You Can't Really Tell So Leave Her Alone, and then someone realised that there were Claude coding artefacts in her fics and that it was a super pervasive problem in that particular fandom, proven definitively by looking at the source coding of each work on AO3, and she denied it for a bit but then ultimately admitted that oopsie, she had been using genAI all along, and then she deleted all of her fics off AO3 and people got mad because they were being denied access to their favourite fics, even though they now knew definitively that they were genAI slop, and then it turned out that she'd actually stopped updating the fic on AO3 in the first place because she'd been shopping it around to agents and editors as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, and she'd been in conversations with a publisher which ultimately got dropped because she'd lied to them about her AI use' oh cool, so we're in Hell, then
I feel like simply calling JK Rowling a transphobe isn't strong enough anymore. Like. This is not your grandpa calling you by your deadname at a restaurant kind of transphobic. This is her wanting to eradicate all trans people (with an extra special hatred towards trans women specifically). This is her trying just that by personally funding transphobic hate groups with millions to push around laws in the UK. It is not hyperbolic to call her a dangerous, genocidal maniac.
It's not about cancelling a problematic writer. It's about literally trying to save lives by denying her as much money and power as possible.
whenever i see fics where cliff steals “jane’s” number to text about ilya or to add “her” to a groupchat with the boston team, ive never seen one where it is the adding jane’s number to the groupchat that outs shane and ilya (at least only to the boston team). bc you cannot convince me that at least one of the guys on the boston team does not have The Shane Hollander’s phone number. they’ve either gotten his number from junior hockey days or bc Shane Hollander is yuna and david hollander’s son, so he is incredibly professional and networks like thats what he was actually trained to do. (plus the hockey world is small)
just imagine cliff adding jane to the chat and someone saying “bro why’d you add hollander?” and “jane” immediately leaving the chat.
Wait (I'm a tourist, I don't go here). Does this mean that these two guys - who are apparently trying to hide their gay trysts from everyone - are using their regular everyday goddamn phones to sext each other? They--They don't have separate numbers just to contact each other? You know, to make sure that if someone gets a hold of their numbers/the numbers leak, no one would connect their names to said numbers?
i think it would kind of be more suspicious if (bc they would sext each other in the locker rooms before games) they only pulled out their second phone to text one specific person than just have each others numbers under different names in their phone and just deleting any incriminating evidence. they also started their relationship when they were like 19 years old, so they probably thought they were being so smart about the different names thing.
stormborns
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
areudirty
vaporwave
