Major spoilers for all of Heated Rivalry and The Long Game ahead!
TLG was my introduction to Shane, Ilya and their relationship and having read TLG without the added knowledge of Heated Rivalry made me hate Shane. So, I get why people read TLG and find Shane indefensible. I did too. Reading HR after TLG didn’t help things.
Then the show made me realize that maybe I was thinking about Shane the wrong way. So, I picked up Heated Rivalry once again, and the thing is, on my re-read, it was so fucking clear that Shane and Ilya have been falling in love with each other since the moment they met. It’s just their circumstances made it impossible for that love to be acknowledged in any concrete way, and in the end, it managed to prevail despite those very circumstances. These two have never been able to shake each other off.
It’s also interesting to read HR and realize just how incapable Shane is of denying Ilya anything. I love the prologue of HR - it’s truly an underrated gem in that book. It also perfectly prefaces the Tuna Melt scene because chronologically, it would have happened just before that scene. And, the thing that always stands out from that prologue is that Shane hates that he needs Ilya as much as he does and he rants about it, is ashamed by it and frankly scoffs at what he perceives to be his weakness which has more to do with his internalized homophobia than Ilya because all of this is his surface emotion, deep down he knows that he will never be the one to put an end to it and if this has to stop, it would have to be Ilya.
I especially love the club scene in the book (and on the show – Holy shit! Truly my roman empire!), but what I want to talk about comes before it when Shane finds himself wanting Ilya to text him and not knowing what he would do if Ilya were to text him. In no world does Ilya actually text him because Ilya at this point has been hurt, and he’s literally licking his wounds, but it’s interesting to theorise what Shane would have done had Ilya actually texted him because again Shane finds it very hard to deny Ilya anything he asks of him.
That’s their relationship in a nutshell - Shane would give Ilya anything he wanted if he just knew that Ilya wanted it. But, Ilya never asks anything of Shane, even things he should probably ask of him.
This is basically how we find them in TLG.
They have been in a committed relationship for three years by the beginning of TLG, and atleast one of those years was when Ilya was still playing for Boston. Their entire relationship, besides the summers, has been defined by missing each other. The thing with TLG that really gets to me is how much they yearn because only Shane & Ilya can be in a fully committed relationship and still yearn for each other like nobody’s business.
It creates an interesting problem.
When you only see your boyfriend for a few hours at a time for most of the year, it means that you want those moments to be as happy as possible because being with him is what makes you happiest. So, Ilya is trying to shield Shane from just how badly he’s struggling mentally, and the thing is, initially, it’s easy to pretend, because being with him makes you forget you’re depressed, but then he leaves, and it’s like you’re drowning again. And, eventually, he starts picking up on it, and you realize that it might actually be in your favour to do something about it. So, you get a therapist and don’t tell your boyfriend anything because you want to be fixed so that he doesn’t have to deal with a broken you.
Thankfully, by the end of TLG, Ilya realizes that there is no magic cure to his depression, and even if everything in his life is going great, it doesn’t mean that he won’t still get these spells, which changes his approach to his mental health. But again, Ilya wants to initially shield Shane because he doesn’t want to ruin the very few moments that they do get together. He literally doesn’t want their limited time together to be ruined by his issues. Again, this is wishful thinking on Ilya’s part and eventually, this results in a fight.
At this point, Shane still doesn’t know that Ilya is struggling with his mental health in ways that have made him seek out a therapist. And, Shane comes out of the fight absolutely desperate because when you have loved someone for as long as Shane has loved Ilya, you sometimes forget how vast that love is and having to confront the idea of it being taken away from you is akin to a death sentence.
The problem is – the subject of the fight, while complicated by Ilya’s depression, is actually something Shane should be aware of even without that added context. This is what makes Shane look bad. In HR, Shane comes up with a whole plan about Ilya moving to Ottawa so they can actually have some semblance of a relationship. This means Ilya moves to join the Ottawa Centaurs (I’m serious, I’m ride or die for this fictional team, it’s way too important to me. It’s Ilya’s team in a way Boston never was and never will be! Ilya & the centaurs 4ever – I don’t care that they had to change the made-up names for the Montreal & Boston teams, but if there was one team that should retain its book name, it’s the Ottawa one, because you don’t know what this team means to me. I love how the author unintentionally made Hollanov fans root for Ottawa). But Ottawa hasn’t made the playoffs for ten years at the point Ilya joins it. Joining the team means that Ilya, for the first time, is losing in a very real way, in a way that starts to frustrate him going into TLG.
Side Note: I love how everybody was like expanding Svetlana's role in HR season 1 would mean Ilya wasn't as alone in the lead-up to TLG. Have any of you read Role Model? Ilya loves his team, and his team loves him back, but the nature of depression is that you could be surrounded by a million people who would drop anything to help you and still feel lonely. Ilya has his team, has Shane's parents, he literally has SHANE, who would literally move heaven and earth to be able to fix any problem Ilya faces, but it doesn't matter because when Ilya is depressed, nothing matters. Nobody is enough, no matter how many people are on his side, it would still not be enough. Consider the end of TLG when everything Ilya identifies as the source of his depression has been resolved, it doesn't cure him because that's not how depression works, and thankfully, Ilya realizes that.
While Shane, on the other hand, is commiserating over the fact that that could never be him. He would be too embarrassed to lose as much as Ilya now does, not realizing that the only reason Ilya is fine with losing as much as he now does is because the trade-off is a relationship with Shane.
The thing is, Shane really doesn’t seem to get it. He hears Ilya talking about not wanting to have a Russian passport any longer and doesn’t link it back to himself. Ilya wants a US/Canadian passport only because his worst nightmare is being outed, being ousted from the league and sent back to Russia, a country not known to be queer friendly. And, the probability of him being outed increases if he is in a relationship with a man, and the only reason this is a problem for Ilya’s bisexual ass is that he can’t seem to give Shane up. It would be okay for him if he was still on a Russian passport if Shane wasn’t in the picture because then his worst nightmare would only be a distant possibility but now he’s allowing himself to think of a relationship with Shane and that means preparing for the worst and number one on the agenda is trying to make himself as safe as possible if the truth was to ever come out.
But again, Shane doesn’t track that thought process because they haven’t even said ILY to each other. He thinks Ilya wanting to abandon Russia is completely unconnected to their relationship. Then Ilya really drops a bomb about how easy it would be to get US citizenship if he were to get into what would essentially be a sham marriage with Svetlana, and Shane dies on the inside because the idea of Ilya being married to anyone breaks his heart (he hasn’t even let himself consider Ilya being married to him). What he hears is that Ilya doesn’t care about him enough to not want to marry Svetlana, even if it were just for the passport, which Ilya makes very clear.
The thing is that if a passport is all that matters, then Shane could offer to marry Ilya himself, but as a closeted NHL player, that’s something Shane can’t offer Ilya at all. I feel like maybe that’s what Ilya is trying to coax out of Shane, but Shane completely misses it. We already know that Ilya knows that he is in love with Shane and he has a good idea that Shane likes him too but I think he wants him to say it and this is just a round about way of him getting Shane to open up to him about his feelings (this is something Ilya does a lot with Shane, he tries to sus out Shane’s feelings without having to be vulnerable himself because Ilya at his heart is just a little kid who has been hurt a little too much for him to be able to wear his heart on his sleeve).
So, Shane doesn’t get it – he considers Ilya’s problem, getting rid of his Russian passport and formulates a plan that would help Ilya get what he wants without realizing that Ilya only wants it because he loves Shane.
This is why he doesn’t realize the blunder he’s creating when he asks Ilya if he would choose Shane over hockey, because Ilya already did; he tanked his entire career for a chance to be with Shane, and Shane was so caught up in the specifics that he completely missed it.
But the thing is, his not knowing that doesn’t mean he loves Ilya any less. He literally wants to be able to give Ilya whatever he wants. Shane loves Ilya deeply, but unfortunately, no matter how deeply and truly we love our loved ones, it’s not a safeguard against hurting them.
What to read after Light Bringer? (Series similar to Red Rising)
August 2023 update!
Red Rising is my favorite series of all time, and since I first read it, I have sought series and books similar in both spirit and execution. Some of these recs are books I haven’t read personally, but have often come up in discussions with other users!
1. The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
Status: ongoing, expected 10 books in total, 4/10 out at the moment
Book 1: The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings takes place on the world of Roshar, where war is constantly being waged on the Shattered Plains, and the Highprinces of Alethkar fight to avenge a king that died many moons ago.
2. The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone
Status: finished, 6/6 books out.
Book 1 (in publication order): Three Parts Dead. Comprised of 6 standalone books set in the same universe, the Craft Sequence tells the tales of the city of Alt Coulumb. The city came out of the God Wars with one of its gods intact, Kos the Everburning. In return for the worship of his people, Kos provides heat and steam power to the citizens of Alt Coulumb; he is also the hub of a vast network of power relationships with other gods and god-like beings across the planet. Oh, and he has just died. If he isn’t revived in some form by the turn of the new moon, the city will descend into chaos and the finances of the globe will take a severe hit.
3. Hierarchy by James Islington
Status: ongoing, 1/3 planned books out
Book 1: The Will of the many. The Will of the Many tells the story of Vis, a young orphan who is adopted by one of the sociopolitical elites of the Hierarchy. Vis is tasked with entering a prestigious magical academy with one goal – ascend the ranks, figure out what the other major branches of the government are doing, and report back. However, that isn’t quite as easy as Vis or anyone else thought it was going to be…
4. Suneater by Christopher Ruocchio
Status: ongoing, 5/7 books out
Book 1: Empire of Silence. Hadrian is a man doomed to universal infamy after ordering the destruction of a sun to commit an unforgivable act of genocide. Told as a chronicle written by an older Hadrian, Empire of Silence details his earlier adventures and serves as an introduction to the characters and the setting.
5. Dune by Frank Herbert
Status: completed, 6/6 books out
Book 1: Dune. Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities.
6. The Expanse by James S A Corey
Status: completed, 9/9 books out
Book 1: Leviathan wakes. Set hundreds of years in the future, after mankind has colonized the solar system. A hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together for what starts as a missing young woman and evolves into a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.
7. The First Law by Joe Abercrombie
Status: completed. 3 books in the original trilogy + 3 standalone books + 3 books in the newest trilogy
Book 1: The Blade Itself. The story follows the fortunes and misfortunes of bad people who do the right thing, good people who do the wrong thing, stupid people who do the stupid thing and, well, pretty much any combination of the above. Survival is no mean feat, and at the end of the day, dumb luck might be more of an asset than any amount of planning, skill, or noble intention.
8. Cradle by Will Wight
Status: completed, 12/12 books out
Book 1: Unsouled. Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he's ever known...and forge his own Path
9. Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons (one PB’s favorites)
Status: completed, 4/4 books out
Book 1: Hyperion. The story weaves the interlocking tales of a diverse group of travelers sent on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion. The travelers have been sent by the Church of the Final Atonement, alternately known as the Shrike Church, and the Hegemony (the government of the human star systems) to make a request of the Shrike. As they progress in their journey, each of the pilgrims tells their tale.
“It is humiliating to even have to say this: that women matter more than fetuses or embryos, that a frozen cell in a petri dish is not a human being, but we are. It is an absurdity to make this argument, an exhausting waste of our time, a degradation. That, too, is part of the point.”
Sam Lansky has such a wondrous way with words, and I’ve loved reading his pieces for over a decade. If you’ve ever been around him, you know he’s just the best type of person: Curious. Interested. Hilarious. Intriguing and intrigued. I have tRuSt iSSueS when it comes to interviews but I couldn’t be happier that I did this one with him. I was blown away to see quotes from people I adore and admire like Stevie Nicks, Greta Gerwig, Shonda Rhimes, Phoebe Bridgers, Natalie Maines, Kenny Chesney, and Lucian Grainge. I was so happy he spoke to fans Madison and McCall who were so eloquent, loyal, and kind. I’m really reflecting on this year, and all the years that led up to it. Can’t say thank you enough times. 🥲
"Should parents read their daughter's texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?"
Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”
I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.
I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”
Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.
Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.
It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.
It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.
Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:
Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.
Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.
Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for - surprise surprise - depression.
Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”
TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:
You do not respect their rights as an individual.
You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.
You probably haven’t been listening to them.
Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.
Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.
hey look this is one of the most important things you need to understand as a parent.
there is no time in my life that i ever trusted anyone with any information about me that might potentially end up in the hands of my parents. any negative or bad feeling i had about them, my life, my self or anything else was a secret that i was literally willing to die over. i kept no diaries, i had no confidants, and the few times i complained to a sibling about things they did exactly what i thought they would and told my mother.
my relationship with my mother is complicated. it always has been.
at the same time i was telling her nothing about anything my life i was also on the internet as a young teen writing gay porn to get adoring comments from strangers because i was an egotistical young writer and also because i craved this steady stream of approval.
so i’m a single parent now.
i have GONE out of my way to let my child know that her information is safe. her diaries, sketch journals, random notebooks and personal life are hers. they have always been hers. at age 4, at age 8, at age 12 I have never looked at anything of hers that she did not offer to me. if i ask her what she’s working on in art or what she’s chatting to an online friend about and she doesn’t want to tell me, that’s the end of it.
I let her know that I am always available to her when she wants to share and that I only want to know because I like to know what she’s into when she’s ready to share.
we watch anime together, we talk about fandom trends, we laugh about bad straight people romance.
she can literally come to me about anything and we talk about it. she is not shamed for being angry at me or anyone else. she is not shamed for making bad choices. she is not shamed for reading fanfics or thinking or talking about sex.
you know why?
because she’s a fucking person. and she’s only here under my umbrella of protection for a tiny portion of her life. my only job is raising a person who can become the best version of herself. and that starts with teaching her that all people deserve to be treated with respect and understanding.
and yeah, sure, ok there’s a lot of bad out there. you know how i contend with the potential of people who might try to take advantage of her, groom her or convince her to share credit details and naughty pictures of herself online?
i talk to her about it. i have since she got her first animal jam account. these are the things to look for. these are the things that should make you suspicious. these are the facts of what is true and some of the things people might say to you but they are manipulating you.
raise your kids with trust and be honest with them about the bad things. its really not that fucking hard to understand.
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