Hey! I love your Shane blowing up at Troy post - thoughts on the Bood of it all? I can’t remember if he’s the only PoC on the Cens pre-Shane but I think it would be interesting if he’s like. Perfectly Pleasant to Troy but in a coworker way and then Shane joins and Ilya’s been hoping that Shane would make friends with Troy because he thinks they’d get on (and if Troy didn’t have History they probably would have!) and then — it’s not like, immediate, but at some point during preseason/early season, someone says something in the locker room (not badly intentioned or anything truly bad at all! just Very White) and Shane and Bood both like, sigh quietly and then clock the other doing the same. And then before anyone knows it Shane and Bood are - not besties but they’re definitely closer than Shane is to anyone else on the team except Ilya (and maybe Luca)
i'm sorry if this goes on a tangent about racism in game changers (or lack thereof). let it be known that this was originally twice as long but i felt your question was getting lost at that point lol.
i just want to say that i love this question but it's hard to answer because troy and bood have actual interaction in role model, whereas troy does not interact with shane hardly at all in the books. it's easier for me to make up scenarios with troy and shane because they don't have much of an established canonical relationship.
it's also a difficult question to answer using the parameters set in the books. rachel reid addressed the toxic parts of hockey culture without really acknowledging racism as a part of it. i understand that she may have felt this was outside her purview, but it feels like a huge blind spot in the books. troy was not canonically racist, nor was dallas kent. as far as i know the only canonically racist people in the gcu are troy’s father and roger crowell. but I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to suppose that the homophobic, misogynistic, r*pist was also racist. and that troy was, at the very least, a lacky to laugh at the racist things kent said.
so in a world where hockey has all the real-world problems (racism, homophobia, sexual assault, etc), i unfortunately think dallas kent and troy were probably just a drop in the bucket of the racist stuff bood and shane heard on the ice and in locker rooms. remember too, these are millennial men who grew up on 'the office' humor. like they were also hearing this stuff normalized on TV, movies, etc. bood is canonically fairly friendly to troy, as opposed to shane who has minimal to no interaction with troy in the books. so supposing troy was at least complicit in some racism, while also trying not to ignore canon, bood’s either not too affected by troy’s part in it or very forgiving. or a combination of both.
and for the record, i don’t think shane is that affected by troy’s past either, at least that he’s consciously aware of. he actually commends troy for standing up to kent and expresses hatred for only kent in the long game. however, just because shane may not hate troy for his past words and may even forgive him before he joins the centaurs, does not mean he would forget. and it definitely does not mean that he would ever entertain going out with troy, making it sorta WILD for troy to even THINK about asking for shane's number. like yeah you're out of the closet now but did you forget that you sucked?? that’s what i was getting at in my original post. others added fascinating ideas to explore about the possible dynamic between troy and shane. i don’t know if canon supports their ideas, but then again, canon doesn’t necessarily support my original post either.
ANYWAY all this to say that i don’t think that bood would be strictly professional with troy as perhaps shane would (as explored in the tags and comments of my post). BUT i adore the idea of shane and bood finding camaraderie with one another as, at least as described, the only two poc on the centaurs. i think it would be inevitable for them to hear Very White TM things said by their teammates, and i would love to see shane in a place where he can commiserate and complain about it. i would also love to see them bond over both being in interracial relationships, as that is not really explored in canon. i personally think that shane would be closest to wyatt bc he's kinda weird and possibly neurodivergent, but would love to see bood as a close second.
i loved your take on it too though! hope this answered your great question. sorry for all the yaps!
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