does make me think extremely chewy thoughts about how fucking complicated this has to be for ilya. like obviously things with his father are SO fucking complex and layered and there's so much pain there, but also what emotional potential of being the only person he consistently remembers. even ilya's older brother gets forgotten, but when he's distressed, ilya is the one he calls? he ALWAYS seems to know ilya?????
it adds to the guilt also that he's the only one who can calm his father down or at least handle him when he's like this and yet he's the one on a whole different continent, but also what a twisted wreck of feelings it has to be to be the only one their father consistently remembers. like there HAS to be love in there, doesn't there? if i'm the one he remembers when he forgets everything else? i'm at least THAT important to him? i have to be, don't i? even if everything else is gone, i'm still in there. that HAS to mean something, doesn't it?
but also what fucking guilt to know that alexei almost certainly feels resentment about this as confirmation that ilya is their father's favorite and always has been and always will be. and like from ilya's pov, it didn't save him AT ALL, but also how fucking complex to be the younger sibling and yet be the only one their father consistently remembers.
okay but anecdotes about other people accidentally having other people's service dogs task for them because dog just went "oh you are doing thing i am meant to fix" has me laughing imagining shane just having a high anxiety day for some reason and someone's anxiety service dog (maybe still in training, so a lil confused still) continuing to try and approach and task, but shane is just CONVINCED that it's ilya somehow trying to get this dog to keep coming over, and he's already on edge anyway, so people noticing that this dog keeps trying to come closer just keeps winding him up more, which just makes the dog try to come back over, which just makes him tell ilya to knock it off again, which makes ilya say he's not doing anything, which makes-
and finally whoever the handler is just "sorry, she's still in training." and ilya is just "ah, a professional in training. what a smart girl." "yeah, she's training to be an anxiety service dog. :)"
and ilya just looks RIGHT at shane, who is suddenly
oh my GOD, they had been fighting about getting another dog because ilya wanted anya to have a sibling and shane wanted to call it at one dog because what if the next one ISN'T good and now they're going to have two dogs AND one is a problem-
so they're already miffed at each other, and shane is convinced ilya keeps somehow signaling this dog to come over because he's being an asshole about their fight about dogs, the exchange about her being an anxiety service dog happens, shane avoids eye contact COMPLETELY and manages to fully escape standing next to ilya
but then ends up retreating to an empty conference room that the dog and handler also happen to go to as a break place for the dog, and the handler is like no worries if not it's okay but do you mind letting her practice tasking? it's really okay if not but she seems really eager-
and what is shane going to do? say no i won't help out with training this dog? no.
but now he's laying down under the very reassuring pressure of this dog, totally physically relaxed, but just sighs and goes "...goddamnit" because he knows ilya is going to find out about this SOMEHOW and then they're going to end up with a second fucking dog
in their household, she is dogtor rosie because she has a degree even if she doesn't use it (ilya made it, it hangs on the fridge), and when shane tries to appeal to ilya to help him call rosie off when she's tasking, ilya shakes his head and refuses
dogtor rosie is SO good at this! she's a little angel (and sometimes menace), and i adore her.
i can also maybe picture anya picking up the basics of some of these moves/behaviors after the two dogs have spent some time together and she's seen rosie receive positive attention/praise for doing so. (ilya is for sure providing that, even if shane himself is more unsure at first)
all of a sudden, anya is also now fetching things With Purpose when she senses that someone is upset/anxious. she doesn't have rosie's discernment or training, so she's not grabbing water bottles or prescriptions (even if they are for the wrong person), but she is bringing whatever random item feels right in the moment. she has the spirit!!!
it's very hard for shane to stay in his anxiety spiral for long with two concerned dogs insistently handing him ilya's medication and.... the tv remote? and well, if rosie is going to press herself across shane's lap, anya is going to do it too!!! she won't be left out of the cuddle pile when a packmate is in distress! and if rosie is going to be licking and nudging shane's hands every time he goes to pull at his hair, redirecting him, anya is doing the same—she's not going to miss out on any opportunity to be pet, either!
ANYA DOING HER RESIDENCY UNDER SUPERVISING PAWSICIAN DOGTOR ROSIE
also the idea of anya frantically looking around for an item to give shane when rosie goes to grab the empty pill bottle from the counter because she WILL go looking for it if they don't leave it there for her is SO cute and funny to me. incomplete list of items anya has prescribed shane to make him feel better:
his sunglasses
ilya's keys
yuna's purse
a pair of tongs for the grill
her leash AND rosie's leash
a pillow from their bedroom
her stuffed hockey stick toy
the empty pill bottle when she got there first, prompting an annoyed rosie to try and take it from her because that's HER item!! give it!! meaning it actually did work because shane is now having to ref a sibling squabble over helping him with an empty bottle of medication that wasn't even his to start with
and @hardlyhinged adding your tags here because Best Wiggly Girl hopping the boards and getting carried off with a puck in her mouth is SO delightful to me
Sports photographer Shane Hollander captures the exact moment Boston Bear Ilya Rozanov briefly looks up from the ice to thank his mother after scoring a buzzer beating goal that brings the Stanley Cup home to Boston for the first time in far too long
The photo is in the front page of every newspaper the next morning, the public has never seen the Russian Terror look so soft, so human, they’re eating it up with a spoon, it results in a wave of positive PR that kind of embarrasses him but he’s ultimately thankful for
The photo is the centerpiece of a limited exhibition honoring the team’s firecracker of a season staged on the route of their victory parade. The photographer is invited to the opening as a last minute thing, fuck it fly the guy down here Roz can thank him in person for the extra sponsorship $$$ this pic is earning him
Sports photographer Shane Hollander arrives to the event a recently single freelancer and leaves with the heart of a bisexual terminator and a conditional offer of permanent employment with the Bears organization
Crack canon divergent AU where the Montreal Metros become super queer friendly sometime around 2015. I'm picturing one of the players having a brother who gets engaged to a man and only finding out about his sexuality then. When he asks his brother about it, the brother tells him he wasn't sure he'd take it well what with being a hockey player and using slurs and all.
This unnamed player - let's call him Fred, just because - is devastated. He used to be so close to his brother when they were young and now he's finding out this is what's been driving a wedge between them for all these years and he can't even be angry about it because his brother was right to be careful.
Fred brings this up to the other Metros and most of them give a halfhearted "that sucks dude" but he digs his heels in and says no, this needs to change, some of you probably also have gay relatives or friends who do not trust you. "In fact," Fred says, "I looked it up and something like 1 in 10 people are gay so there's probably a gay guy or two on this team and he or they don't feel safe to come out!"
And the others immediately protest, like gay guys don't play hockey don't be stupid!! And if they did, what the fuck, why wouldn't he tell us, he's probably watching us in the showers!! And Fred goes this is why he wouldn't tell us.
(Shane's listening to all of this quietly disassociating, wishing he were anywhere else.)
Anyway there's a lot of arguing and stupid comments, but eventually most of them concede that yeah if there's a gay guy on the team, he's got good reasons not to come out and maybe we should make this a more comfortable space because that kind of stress can't be good for our hypothetically gay teammate's playing.
(Shane's playing is fine, thank you very fucking much.)
It takes a few weeks but with Fred pushing and a few more open-minded and well meaning Metros joining in, the team culture starts to slowly change. One of them tells his majoring-in-gender-studies girlfriend about the effort and she super excitedly puts together a beginner friendly power point presentation to introduce them to some queer history and lingo.
Then someone has the bright idea to do "gay activities" once a month together, like watching Brokeback Mountain and going to drag brunch and of course, eventually, inevitably, a gay bar.
Shane gets himself out of every single event because sitting around with his straight teammates doing gay shit sounds like a fucking nightmare like he just wants to play hockey and suck cock, not have to learn about whatever the hell tucking is.
His teammates notice Shane's reluctance to join and it comes to a head while they're in Boston and want to hit a gay bar after a game for their monthly mandatory gay outing because of fucking course they do. Shane refuses to join and one of the Metros goes "Well maybe our gay teammate hasn't come out yet because he knows his Captain won't support him??" So now Shane has to go or he is officially labeled a homophobe.
He lets Ilya know he can't come over to fuck because he has to go to a gay bar with his team. And Ilya, who has heard about the Metros' gay initiative and thinks it's hilarious how annoyed Shane is with the whole thing, suggests to the Raiders that they join the Metros to show that they're gay friendly too and his teammates are a little weirded out but ultimately surprisingly cool with it.
Of course Shane is pissed once Ilya shows up with his buddies looking so self-satisfied and smug and gorgeous, and this is Shane's one chance to get fucked for the next two months and instead he has to spend the evening watching Drapeau and Olsson do unicorn shots??
He gets up to leave and his teammates start protesting like "come on man, you promised you'd be cool" and "wow you're actually a homophobe, aren't you? smh we thought you were better". And Ilya and the other Raiders are watching the whole thing go down and Shane fucking snaps.
"You all talk a big game but would you actually be okay with a gay guy in the locker room?"
And his teammates are outraged like yes obviously!!
"A guy who gets fucked other guys? Could you look at him and know he's sucked cock and still respect him the same as your straight teammates?"
And maybe this question would have made the Metros uncomfortable earlier in the year but they are enlightened now and offended that Shane would even ask! Honestly, you're looking more and more homophobic dude (Hayden is on the verge of tears).
"Okay, what if he was hooking up with a player on another team? 'Cause that would never be an issue with a straight player."
And the Metros would have to take a moment to think because yeah, that's a possibility they hadn't considered. But! one of them points out, guys play against their brothers and friends all the time, and no one has an issue with that. If a gay player had to play against his lover (Shane's eye twitches dangerously), he wouldn't let that affect his game any more than straight players do playing against their loved ones.
In fact, there's something kinda romantic about it now that they think about it. Like Romeo and Juliet with hockey!
Now Shane glances at Ilya, who no longer looks amused.
"So you guys really are fine with all of that?"
The Metros agree enthusiastically, fired up and proud at what good allies they're being.
"Okay. Well. I'm gay, and I've been hooking up with a player on another team since rookie year."
The group falls silent. Shane stares them down, silently freaking out, because did he just annoyed into coming out??
"Who?" one of the Metros finally asks. Another elbows him.
"Dude, you can't ask that."
"But you don't like any gay stuff!" another Metro protests.
"I like sucking cock," Shane deadpans. "Is that gay enough for you?"
And fair enough, the Metros have to admit, that is pretty gay.
No one stops Shane when he tries to leave this time, though Hayden does chase him outside to tell him how proud he is of him, and Shane just gives a flat okay and jumps into the nearest taxi.
(And if none of the Metros or Raiders notice Ilya disappear pretty quickly after that, well, they're not the smartest.)
I think Shane was a character who, soon as I read him, made all the sense to me. I felt immediately a kinship and an ownership over Shane. I was like, “I need to be the only person to tell this story. I get it. I want to be the person to be Shane and I want to spend time with him.” [x]
(sources below)
PANEL 1
Out
PANEL 2 (fear/desire)
The Permanent Rain Press
PANEL 3 (vegas bathroom)
Numero Netherlands
PANEL 4 (tears)
Harper's Bazaar
PANEL 5 (ilya inverse)
Teen Vogue
Image: [x]
PANEL 6 (additions) (4 gifs)
Numero Netherlands
Entertainment Weekly
just walk with me for a second. imagine you play hockey in university right. and your captain is so kind and friendly and welcoming. he’s so normal. so wholesome. you somehow stumble into something that’s more than just friendship. something intimate. you don’t tell anyone, of course, because this is Back Then when the threat of violence and the stigma of aids reigned supreme. when gay marriage wasn’t even legal in canada yet. but it’s okay. it’s your secret. it’s precious and quiet and yours and his only. and you’ve never felt this way about anyone before. this is what love must be, you realize, when you understand you can’t sleep without him and you light up when he walks in the room and only feel safe if you know exactly where he is.
you say it out loud on accident. he doesn’t say it back. he runs away.
when he comes back around, it’s with a woman on his arm. she’s gorgeous and brilliant and witty and cutthroat. she takes no shit. she scares you. she’s perfect for him in every way. he looks at her the way he used to only look at you. and you can’t take it. you drop out. you do everything you can do make the draft that season and you never see him again.
and then it’s twenty years later. you’re at the draft for the year chatting with teams and owners trying to find a coaching job. and the name you’ve been running from for three decades is blaring at you from all sides. hollander. hollander. hollander.
the draft picks are announced. second overall goes to montreal - the city where you buried your innocence forever. the screens fill up with faces and you can’t breathe.
he has the stunning woman’s eyes. her dark hair. her smooth skin. but he has his father’s nose. his stubborn chin and perfectly angled jaw. and there she is, that stunning woman that still strikes fear into your heart, clapping and dabbing tears from her eyes as her son heads up to accept his jersey. and beside her…
you never let yourself think about what he would look like, twenty years removed from the last time you saw him. but he looks like his father - a man you met once when he brought you home for christmas because you couldn’t afford a ticket back home and he didn’t want you to be alone. he doesn’t have the hard edges of the other man, though. and his eyes are still the same piercing blue. his smile is still wide and easy and genuine.
you watch their son step into the league. you watch him instantly dominate the sport in a way you never could. he’s perfect. it had to happen this way, you realize, or else he wouldn’t exist. you keep hearing the name over the years, keep seeing the face as you take your first coaching job with the worst team in the league. you want to hate him, but you can’t. you wanted to hate his father, too, when he didn’t say those three words back, but your heart simply won’t allow you to.
then one day, your team doesn’t suck anymore. suddenly, you’re rich with talent. you’re winning. you’re going to the fucking playoffs. and just when things look perfect, a video surfaces online.
two men tangled in each other’s arms. smiling between deep, loving kisses. a moment never meant to be seen, let alone recorded and blasted to the world. you feel stripped to the bone when you see it. despite how sick and sad it makes you, you can’t help but notice that he laughs just like his father.
you brace for the worst. you confide in the other man in the video, tell him your secret in as few words as possible. you name no names. you had a thing with a teammate. it didn’t end well. you, too, are bisexual. you see him. you support him. but still, you’ve seen how this story ends. you already know what comes next. you wait for one of them to run away. for them to break each other’s hearts. because that’s what happens to loves like these. loves like yours.
except they don’t run away. they don’t fly apart. they stay together. they make it through. they get married.
and when the dust settles and the season ends, the boy with his mother’s eyes and his father’s laugh signs to your team. he becomes your responsibility. you love him at once, because you are damned to know only love for anyone with the name hollander.
you finally see the man who broke your heart again, now thirty years later.
you promise to take care of his son, his only son, his shining paragon of a legacy. you promise to take care of both of them. to do whatever you can to protect their right to love each other as loudly as they want.
if only you and he hadn’t been born too early. if only you hadn’t loved each other too soon. the world you needed to grow that love in safely didn’t exist yet.
but at least you get to watch as his boys bring that world into reality.
Ilya Rozanov’s Impact As Representation of Queer Russians
alright here we go
this isn’t really structured as an essay, but is a detailed analysis
first of all, i need to establish that a lot of my points come directly from personal experience — i am a mixed race kid born in kazakhstan, half-russian and half-kazakh, raised primarily in russia. i am also queer myself, although i was raised as a woman (i am now agender). this analysis will heavily focus on cultural elements, because they are crucial for understanding the depth of ilya’s character and why he acts the way he does.
i was quite apprehensive about ilya initially — western film loves to portray russian people as a caricature and use them for tasteless gags without really examining anything in depth (I’m looking at you stranger things, yes, you). i was concerned heated rivalry would remain surface-level about ilya’s background and portray him as a stereotypical, cold-hearted russian dude. i was also concerned about his accent being too caricatural, concerned about the potential dialogue in russian (as a linguist, russian dialogue in western film is infamously stiff and unnatural. looking at you again, stranger things), so you can imagine my surprise and delight when all of those concerns ended up being unfounded.
to be completely fair here, ilya does sport some stereotypical character traits — he’s brash, confident, distant and unafraid to offend others. but in contrast to other russian characters in western film, ilya has a warm flirtatiousness that i haven’t really seen before. and most importantly, his characterisation doesn’t end there.
at first glance, it seems that ilya doesn’t face any struggles with his sexuality at all. he is experienced, confident, the leading man to shane’s anxious discovery of himself. in reality, ilya’s understanding of his sexuality is directly tied to his personal conflict with his family and his culture.
said conflict is introduced in the very first episode of the show. during the scene where he is being drafted as the new all-star player for the boston raiders, he is being watched over by his father, grigori rozanov. grigori is portrayed by an older actor, and sports a number of medals attached to his suit, which likely implies that he is a war veteran. it is also established later on that he is ‘police’, which, culturally, means that he’s very friendly with some big heads in the government, not that he is literally a police officer. it is a man with trauma, powerful and influential. even without external cultural context, you can already see the toxic and abusive power dynamic this creates between him and ilya.
in the scene, ilya’s facial expression is one of discomfort — he’s smiling very awkwardly, chewing at his lip, his eyes are darting around. this immediately stops as soon as his father speaks; he puts on a cold, serious mask. grigori dismisses his son’s achievements and insists that he needs a lot of discipline, otherwise he will become ‘lazy’ (he means this in a ‘he’ll start slacking off’ kind of way). afterwards, he addresses ilya directly, in russian, using a very condescending tone of voice, and instructs him to listen closely to what he’s being told. the exact phrasing he uses is best translated as ‘understood?’, which might sound more neutral in english but in russian has a slightly aggressive connotation. i’ve seen quite a few people expressing surprise when reacting to this scene and being confused as to why ilya’s father isn’t showing any pride. i regret to inform you that this dynamic is, unfortunately, very common for the culture, especially between a father and a son.
to explain it further, i’ll have to talk about the way i was raised a little bit. russian (or post-USSR region) parents are typically very strict, demanding and authoritative. they are often emotionally distant, neglectful or even outright abusive. i will require you to put your nuance caps on here, because this behaviour is not necessarily a product of malice, and more a product of cultural norms. showing emotion, whether positive or negative, is seen as a weakness. more so for men, but for women as well. you are taught very young that you have to keep your emotions to yourself — nobody wants to see it. i was scolded and punished very frequently for intense emotional displays as a child. Mother and Father would scold me for crying. Grandmother would scold me for laughing too loudly. looking too happy. your parents are your caretakers, perhaps, providing food and shelter, but you definitely aren’t expected to lean on them for more than that. in my experience, it wasn’t very common. what you are expected to do, however, is be productive. be successful. provide. this is your duty as a son or a daughter, and if you fail, you are no longer of any worth to these people. it is your duty to take care of your parents and siblings, not the other way around. because of that expectation, whether you are achieving something grand or not doesn’t matter — after all, you’re just fulfilling your duty as a human being. no matter how hard i worked, i don’t think my parents ever genuinely said they were proud of me. because there is nothing to be proud of, really. it’s what you have to do.
with this cultural context, grigori rozanov’s characterisation immediately lands as extremely accurate. all of those norms and expectations are expressed in a few sentences and we are immediately shown the way they impact ilya.
ilya is desperate for his father’s love and acceptance, but he knows he will never get it. because they do not exist.
i have more to say about grigori, but now, let’s focus a bit on ilya’s queerness.
ilya is initially portrayed to be very at ease with his sexuality — he leads shane during their encounters, he’s not afraid to flirt and come on strong. but there’s a lot of pain and repression lurking underneath, only it’s not as obvious to the naked eye.
despite what the russian government will have you believe, there are, of course, plenty of queer people in russia. how dangerous it is to be queer there has fluctuated over the years, but it has never been truly safe. it’s a part of yourself you’re forced to hide for years, if not forever. the physical aspects of queer sexuality are often discovered early on — boys fooling around with boys and girls fooling around with girls — (ik this is a little contrived but just for the sake of the point) but later on dismissed as one grows up. even if there is no shame, there’s an unspoken understanding that it can never become something more. you’d never be able to emotionally commit to each other, because it’s not simply dangerous, it’s life-threatening. it can only be this — heat and bodies and mouths clashing.
we learn in the first episode, first hand from ilya, that back in russia, he was regularly sleeping with his hockey coach’s son. he brushes it off as nothing serious when explaining to shane, but most likely, he treats most of his sexual encounters with other men as such. because how is he supposed to know that it could be something more? i find it really intriguing that he establishes this to shane, because it implies ilya is so drawn to him he almost unconsciously considers pursuing him more seriously. otherwise, he wouldn’t have said anything and proceeded with the hook-up regularly. there’s nothing to explain, because it can never be real, can it?
a lot of ilya’s emotional avoidance later on in the series is rooted in this unspoken belief. he runs from shane not because he doesn’t love him, but because he believes it can never be real. that they can never be a couple. this is something people do behind closed doors, in secluded corners, in secret. it’s not something to commit to, not a real, tangible possibility.
ilya is in the closet not because he’s necessarily afraid, but because he doesn’t expect to have other options. in russia, there weren’t any other options.
in addition to this, ilya is also emotionally repressed because of the way he was raised. there are many things on the table that he cannot knowingly treat as real possibilities, including expressing his true emotions, which makes it very difficult for him to be vulnerable with shane. the intimate and genuine side of him comes out mostly during sex, especially at the beginning, because it is the only time that it can.
this is why ilya only accepts shane’s invitation to the cottage after witnessing scott hunter kiss kip on national television — he is actively being shown that there are other options.
all of these feelings are incredibly familiar to me, as a queer person who grew up in russia. a lot of my own repression wasn’t always rooted in shame, but hopelessness. the knowledge that this was something you could never really have. it took years to deconstruct, the same way it took ilya years to be brave enough to chase after something he really wanted.
now, I’d like to talk about the concept of ‘duty’ that i introduced earlier some more. for this section, queerness and ilya’s personal trauma will overlap.
in russian culture, the concept of ‘duty’ doesn’t simply involve your family. it involves your entire being — your duty as a citizen of russia, your devotion to the country, to the collective entity. an example of it is the scene at the end of episode 1, where grigori tells ilya to ‘apologise to russia’ after losing his game. i’ve seen quite a lot of people say that this moment was exaggerated, but once again, i regret to inform you it is a very common phrase. because of the concept of duty that overlaps our entire lives, our personal failures are deemed as overarching disappointments to the country. we are not good enough to serve it, therefore we should apologise to it.
this abstract concept of duty affects multiple areas of ilya’s life. he feels obligated to keep giving money to alexei, because it is his duty to provide for his family. i’ve seen many reactors be confused as to why ilya was even entertaining him, but this is the piece of context they were missing. it is unthinkable to cut him off. you’d be betraying yourself, more than anything. ilya unquestioningly obeys his father (at least in his presence) because of the same sense of duty. he avoids his feelings for shane out of the same sense of duty — he couldn’t possibly leave russia to be with shane. he’d be betraying himself and his duty.
in episode 5, when shane attempts to have an open discussion about their feelings for each other, ilya is dismissive. he doesn’t want to be, but he sees no other way to go about it — duty, hopelessness and fear are all crushing him. shane, however, is able to reach through to him and ilya allows himself to be vulnerable. this marks the definite shift in their relationship, because shane’s love and gentleness overpower, if temporarily, every cultural bias poisoning ilya’s life and preventing him from reaching for his own happiness.
the scene of grigori’s funeral that comes later in the same episode cements that shift and is absolutely masterful. there is a lingering shot of grigori’s numerous medals, from ilya’s POV. the medals are a very clear representation of duty, and now, with the man supposed to be wearing them gone, the duty is as well. this allows ilya to consider never coming back to russia, because there is no longer any duty to uphold. alexei’s behaviour later on only drives him further to cut ties — the abstract duty has lost its meaning and no longer holds weight for ilya. he can pursue something he really wants, even if he’s terrified. svetlana’s reassurance also helps this a lot.
i don’t think ilya was genuinely considering committing to shane then and there. after all, you can’t just shed years of your upbringing in one day. but the seeds are all planted in that scene, and masterfully so.
ilya’s russian monologue to shane is my favourite scene in the whole show. I’ve written about it before on this blog, saying how the composition of the shot reminded me a lot of the subway station tunnels near my home in moscow. he’s encased by walls covered in graffiti, laying his heart out in what is essentially a box made of concrete. the overhead lights are reddish in tint (they’re usually bright clinical white), painting the scene with a sense of danger and tension. ilya can only confess his feelings to shane in a language he doesn’t understand because he is still scared and has little hope. he looks out at the scrap of city in the distance before gathering his courage to even say it in russian and we see a brief flare of a police car’s siren — doing this is still incredibly dangerous. but he goes through with it. other things ilya says in this monologue also directly correlate with my previous points — he talks about his duty for his family choking him, draining him. he gave them everything, like he was supposed to, but there was never any gratitude, never any warmth. because there wasn’t supposed to be. he feels guilt for betraying his duty by not being able to take care of his father on his deathbed. and it kills him. he wishes things were different. he wishes for genuine connection. but it was never going to be found there. that feeling, i know all too well…an incredible, character-defining scene for ilya. I cry every time I see it.
in the finale, ilya’s character development is incredibly cathartic and powerful. I cried (again) when I heard him confess first, whispering ‘ya tebya lyublyu’ into shane’s skin. for context, ‘i love you’ is not something we say very often. i don’t remember my parents saying it to me much, if at all. ‘i love you’ is reserved for extreme situations. it must have taken such strength of character for ilya to say it then and it hit me really hard. ultimately, what made him be able to express his genuine feelings was shane talking about plans for the future — together — something ilya previously thought impossible. hearing and seeing shane be willing to commit to him must have been so grand. did I already say i sobbed my eyes out for this?
in conclusion, i absolutely adore the way ilya’s character was portrayed in the show. his cultural background was respected and directly influenced his character’s choices. his conflict with his family was layered, complex and realistic. i really saw myself in him. he wasn’t at all a caricature. he had tangible growth and was able to leave behind the harmful biases of post-soviet culture. i’ve already seen a couple of people in the russian fandom express gratitude and satisfaction with ilya’s portrayal, and i couldn’t agree more. i didn’t expect it at all, but it was masterfully done.
if anyone has further questions, please leave them in the comments, i will gladly answer.
tagging you bc u said u wanted to read about it @torntrianglesleeves @two4dashow @voidcrumbs
hi everyone! i originally typed this up in response to an ask, but it ended up being so ridiculously long i had to make a separate post.
in case this reaches people outside of the heated rivalry fandom, i want to say that this list is first and foremost intended as an assist for fic writers and hollanov fans who are looking to make their writing more culturally/linguistically accurate for ilya. this will be tagged with hr fandom tags to reach that audience specifically.
disclaimer: although i am half-russian, a native russian speaker who grew up in russia and have a degree in both russian and english linguistics, please keep in mind that this is MY linguistic experience and MY linguistic interpretation of the words in this list. this is not in any way intended to be serious academic analysis. other natives might disagree on the semantics and use of the words featured, but if this happens to be the case, i ask you to express your disagreement kindly and respectfully so that we can have a civil discussion. additionally, i do not care about the dictionary and what academic linguistic spaces have to say. i am a linguist that firmly rejects the rigidity of language and base my interpretation on active, living use from speakers of various ages and from various russian-speaking regions. i do not care what is correct, i care about how people actually speak.
apologies if the notes on certain words are a bit scattered, this took me forever. anyone is free to ask further questions in the comments.
the words featured are in russian alphabetical order. there will be transliterations, but no phonetic transcriptions because i find people don’t care much for those.
булочка (bulochka) = little bun/pastry. used to express how cute/adorable someone is. ex: ‘он такая булочка!’ (on takaya bulochka) = 'he’s such a little bun!' sometimes used in conjunction with the adjective 'сладкая' (sladkaya), which is fem. for sweet. this might just be my impression, but i feel like this word is used online more often than in real life, although i have heard some people refer to their partners as such. not strictly romantic, can be used by friends or family.
бусинка (businka) = little bead (?). this one is hard to give a literal translation for. etymologically, it is the affectionate form of the word 'бусина' (busina), which refers to an individual bead on a necklace (usually pearl necklace). semantically, this word is used to refer to someone who is sweet/cute/adorable. because of its association with jewellery, it can also imply that the person you are describing is precious in some way. possibly applicable to romantic partners, but i have mostly heard this used by women to refer to young women (daughter, sister, relative).
дорогой (dorogoy) = dear/darling. pretty self explanatory. the other meaning of this word is ‘expensive’, which creates the additional connotation that the person you are using it on is very important/precious to you. mostly used between romantic partners, but there are contextually determined exceptions that i don’t feel the need to get into here.
детка (detka) = baby. regarded as the direct translation of the english word. this is how it’s translated in song lyrics, for example. has a slightly sexual connotation. mostly used in a playful/unserious manner. usually only applicable to women, but because this word is not often used seriously in romantic relationships, i will not examine the social implications of that lol.
душа моя (dusha moya) = my soul. note that the first-person possessive pronoun comes after the noun. doing the reverse is not grammatically incorrect, but i find this sounds more natural. honestly this is more than a little old-fashioned, and an expression you might hear in period pieces, but i find it so beautiful and romantic that I decided to include it. not exclusively romantic, like most russian petnames. possible to hear from family or a very close friend, but romantic use is more common in this case, i’d say.
драгоценный (dragotsennyi) = precious. etymologically refers to jewels and metals. rarely used on its own, usually with a first-person possessive pronoun (moy). in this case, i would place it before, though, because it is an adjective. also more than a little old-fashioned, but i, personally, like to use it when i’m trying to play up how important someone is to me. i perceive this word as exclusively romantic.
ёжик (yozhik) = little hedgehog. my childhood nickname. there are multiple animal-derived petnames in russian, and they are often attributed based on a person’s similarities to a given animal. used commonly by family, friends and romantic partners alike. i’m including this one because i think it suits shane beautifully.
золотой (zolotoy) = golden/precious. 'золото' (zoloto) is gold, therefore 'zolotoy' is, effectively ‘made of gold’. a more serviceable translation would be ‘precious’. the semantic use in this case is the same as in english. i wouldn’t say this word is exactly old-fashioned, but i’ve mostly heard this being used as a term of endearment from older women towards children. it is still possible to encounter in romantic contexts. i don’t think this is used much amongst young people nowadays, but i really like it, so here, it’s included.
золотце (zolotse) = little golden/precious one. basically the noun form of the previous word. i mostly hear this used to refer to children, but there are other possibilities, and i personally think it can be turned romantic.
зай/зая/зайка/зайчик (zay/zaya/zayka/zaychik) = bunny/little bunny. all of these are variations of the same word, with 'zay' and 'zaya' being shortened forms. one of the most common petnames in use. both platonic (among friends) and romantic. i’d also like to add that 'zay' and 'zaya' are platonic terms of endearment primarily used by women to refer to other women. because of that, sometimes the words ‘zay’ and ‘zaya’ are looked down upon, but i hear it so often i find it important to affirm that there’s nothing wrong with them at all, and dismissing them is a product of misogyny. men also use these words, but only to refer to a romantic interest.
зайчонок (zaichonok) = little bunny. just another common form of the previous word. this one is more strictly romantic, in my opinion.
котёнок (kotenok) = little kitten. exclusively romantic. i don’t know if everyone would agree on this, but because this is one of the most common petnames used in romantic relationships, i feel like it immediately implies a desire/expectation for romantic commitment. when i see this being used by ilya in hollanov fanfic im always like huh he’s so in love isn’t he…
крольчонок (krol’chonok) = little bunny. just a variation. comes from the word 'кролик' (krolik), which is rabbit, rather than bunny. i get the impression this one is a lot more rare than 'zaychik' and its variants.
крошка/кроха (kroshka/kroha) = baby/little one. i hear this mostly in straight relationships which is why it kinda gives me a bad vibe, but i decided to include it just for the sake of it. 'kroshka' can come across as cringe, especially to younger people, so i wouldn’t personally recommend to use this. just know it exists.
любимый (lyubimy) = beloved. i am immensely satisfied whenever i see this used for hollanov, because it is by far the best word for romantic partners. not only is it beautiful, but it also implies deep commitment to the person you’re saying it to. very very common in use. i would say it’s a bit strange to use this word for pre-relationship hollanov, because you will likely only say it when you’re officially a couple. even if you’re trying to show that ilya is already gone for shane, this word is so intimate i would advise to pick a different petname for such scenarios.
лапочка/лапушка/лапуля (lapochka/lapushka/lapulya) = doesn’t have a literal translation, but the closest thing is sweethear or cutie. refers to someone who is sweet/cute/adorable/pretty/charming. i use this word a lot when trying to express that i find someone to be charming or endearing. semantically, this word is most comparable to the use of ‘cutie’ in english.
любовь моя (lyubov’ moya) = my love. comes across as a little dramatic, but i think it would work well for ilya specifically. sounds best with the first-person possessive pronoun following the noun.
милый (milyi) = sweetheart. used interchangeably with darling (дорогой) and beloved (любимый).
малыш (malysh) = baby. unlike 'detka', this is actually commonly used in romantic relationships. i mostly hear this amongst younger people, therefore some might say it has a childish connotation (like a word used exclusively in teenage relationships), but i don’t necessarily agree. it’s also gender neutral.
маленький (malen’kyi) = little one. works best with possessive pronouns, in both positions. i hear this used most often when trying to offer comfort to a partner, like after a long day, for example. can also be used to refer to a child.
мышонок (myshonok) = little mouse.
нежный (nezhnyi) = soft/gentle one. works best with possessive pronouns, but nowadays, people also use it as a stand-alone compliment. because of this semantic shift, it can also mean things like beautiful, gorgeous, etc. in this context, can be used platonically. for example, one of my best friends calls me ‘нежная конфетка’ (nezhnaya konfetka), which is soft/gentle/pretty little candy. now, normally, this wouldn’t work, but with the current semantic shift, it does. in romantic contexts, i find it to be very intimate. describes your partner as someone infinitely tender.
пупсик (pupsik) = little one/baby. oof this one is hard to explain. the word ‘пупс’ (pups) usually refers to newborn baby dolls (im sorry, i have no idea what they’re called in english), but can also designate an actual living baby. 'pupsik' is the affectionate form of said word. i would say that semantically, this describes someone who is either adorable like a baby, or pretty like a doll, or both. sometimes used in romantic relationships, but i’ve heard many people find it embarrassing. personally, i find the word can be playful, and often use it when talking about someone i am attracted to. because the grammatical gender of the word is masculine, i mostly use it towards men, but it’s not impossible to use it to refer to a woman.
рыбка (rybka) = little fish. a little old-fashioned, i mostly hear this from older women towards children. one of my grandmothers used to call me this, often with a possessive pronoun (рыбка моя = my little fish).
радость моя (radost’ moya) = my joy. some natives might say this is old-fashioned and overly dramatic and to be fair, it is, but i actually don’t care. it works well to express when you feel deeply committed and attached to someone. not exclusively romantic, can be used by family and very close friends.
родной (rodnoy) = my blood/my home/my own. this really doesn’t have an english equivalent, unfortunately, so the best thing to do would be to explain it semantically. this word designates someone you feel such kinship and closeness with they’ve become part of you — your blood, your family, someone that your heart calls to. this can be used for family, but the meaning is especially powerful when referring to friends or a romantic partner — by using this word, you’re indicating to the person that they’re an incredibly important part of you and you are intrinsically linked. kind of like soulmates? fairly common in use, especially in committed romantic relationships.
сладкий (sladkiy) = sweet/sweetheart. i mentioned this adjective at the beginning of the list, but it can also function as a stand-alone petname, both with and without possessive pronouns. has slightly flirtatious undertones and refers to someone you find deeply attractive.
солнце/солнышко (solntse/solnyshko) = sun/little sun. one of the most common petnames in use, with ‘solnyshko’ being the affectionate form of ‘solntse’. can be used by anyone: friends, family, romantic partners. i use ‘solntse’ or ‘solnyshko’ to refer to almost all of my close friends, it’s a pretty general term of endearment. because ‘solntse’ doesn’t necessarily imply romantic commitment, like ‘lyubimyi’ does, for instance, i think this is the best petname to use for early hollanov. some people might disagree, but this is just how i see it. ‘solnyshko’ is a little more emotionally intimate, and also often used by mothers to refer to their children.
умница/умничка (umnitsa/umnichka) = smart one. very common in use, but very hard to translate/adapt into english. you would usually say this to a patner/friend/family member after they’ve successfully accomplished a task or after a day of hard work. something like ‘good job’, but expressed in a single word.
мой хороший (moy horoshyi) = my good one/my darling. very general term of endearment. can be used without the possessive pronoun when talking about someone who isn’t present or when giving a compliment (to a celebrity, for example). honestly, it can mean anything: pretty, attractive, smart, charming, etc. really depends on the context and who you’re talking to/about. in romantic contexts, i often hear this used with the interjection ‘ути’ (ooti), which is kind of like the english ‘aww’. can be used to comfort.
чудо (chudo) = miracle. works best with possessive pronouns or in sentences like ‘ты моё чудо’ (ty moe chudo = you’re my miracle). doesn’t have to be exclusively romantic, can be used to express gratitude similarly to how we use ‘you’re an angel’ in english. in romantic contexts, i find it can be very intimate.
there you go! this list is not exhaustive by far, i simply included words that i have heard used around me or words that i personally use.
cw: disordered eating, cw: eating disorders, cw: food, cw: eating, cw: orthorexia. spoilers for The Long Game.
I... would like to talk about "disordered eating" Shane.
Firstly: as much joy as this general narrative and the show have brought me, I think it may be helpful to acknowledge at the start that these books are just not that well written, in the sense that most characterization questions and most complex issues are not fully explored, and so we're all (as transformative works people do) pulling at strings as we try to find and make meaning in this text. I should also say that if I’d written some fun romance novels and then people started deep-diving as if I’d been intending to write Ulysses, the way I mean to do now, I’d find it pretty fucking rough, so I also accept that. But I think these things are important, and a lot of people have written really intelligently on the shallowness of both Shane’s and Ilya’s characterizations, particularly as it relates to their racial and ethnic identities. Here is one such person!
With this context: I should also say that if you are reading this and your own absolute sense is that Shane is struggling with disordered eating—hey, not to kick it back to the 60s, but death of the author, man. We've created different meanings as readers while engaging with this text, and I respect that.
I personally, however, do not really believe this. And this is not a hill I would die or even comment on, except that I think this question intersects with two other things about the books that are worth exploring or are challenging/worth challenging (I will resist using the word 'problematic' not because I'm being wishy-washy but because I think that word is expected to do an awful lot of heavy lifting these days, which can make it unclear). I think considering these things more deeply can help flesh out how we understand the book, the narrative, the question of Shane's relationship to eating, and Shane himself. This is helpful for writing, I think! Or at least it has been for me.
These two things are:
1. Limited understanding of/interest in portraying certain aspects of hockey and a life in professional sports, which is tied to the (logical) choice to structure the books entirely around the Ilya-Shane relationship (it's romance!) and the way in which there is (I think) a general expectation on Reid's part that you will suspend your disbelief on these matters for enjoyment's sake.
2. More importantly, the limited and restricted (and restricting) ways in which Shane is conceived of and presented as an Asian, gay character by Reid, and how he is perceived by us, the readers.
Okie dokes, here we go!
Let's start with limited/partial portrayals of hockey, and limited interest in portraying certain aspects of hockey and professional sports in more detail. This is relevant because a “performance diet” is one of these aspects.
Firstly: valid to do this. Most people come for the HEA, not to find out at which angle you need to flex your stick against the ice or how you want to shift your weight for a good slapshot.
The books portray all kinds of things—road travel, the NHL awards show, the All Star Game—in a pretty loose and fun way that is often not overly concerned with accuracy, but rather seeks to propel the romance forward. These depictions are good enough for government work, but often do not represent either the events/games/circumstances or the way the average NHL player would approach them super accurately. This is mostly in service of the romantic narrative. (The show does this too! I promise you on my life no hockey player would ever turn his head the way Shane does to smile at Ilya while handling the puck. I PROMISE YOU. But that look is also a great moment (one that is, incidentally, more realistically portrayed in the books)).
Here's one example of what this under-exploration of hockey and athletes looks like in the books: Shane and Ilya are drafted #1 and #2 in summer 2009, play in World Juniors that Dec-next Jan, and then join their professional teams for the 2010-2011 season.
Sometimes people are drafted and return to junior leagues or foreign leagues before going to their teams. Sometimes they go to the AHL to develop. But it's highly unlikely that this would be the case for the #1 and #2 picks, who are picked first and second because they are exhibiting a level of play that means that the expectation is that they can go into an NHL team and start producing meaningfully, immediately, and will do so unless they're having issues getting out of their KHL contract (it happened to Evgeni Malkin and could happen to you!).
So where the heck are Shane and Ilya in 2009-2010? Is Ilya playing for the KHL? Is Shane in the OHL? After being drafted?? Why? How? As for World Juniors, teams holding contracts think carefully about whether they will allow players to participate in international events at which they could get injured, perhaps seriously, while not even securing points for the team that is paying them/has invested in them. This is always a conversation. Where are the Bears/Raiders and the Voyageurs/Metros organizations in this, given that Shane and Ilya are already drafted? Who the hell is in charge of these two soon-to-be-multi-million-dollar-players? (What capitalist is making the calculations about investment versus risk when it comes to these humans??)
I'm not saying Reid doesn't have answers to these questions; I am saying that they're not in the book, probably so that people wouldn't fall asleep. But because nothing about the book's narrative suggests to the reader that there is any information missing or that anything is unusual, it's easy to read Reid's portrayals of all of these things as comprehensive or representative when they're not, or to take her writerly bias, or the things that help keep her narrative moving—guys really care about presenting at (or even going to) the NHL awards, really!—as fact. This is particularly true if you came to Heated Rivalry without caring about hockey beforehand (hello! Welcome! We are so so so so glad you are here!)
There are many other examples of this phenomenon in the books, but I'll move on to the relevant one for the question of disordered eating: Shane's performance diet, which is referred to using that specific term three times in The Long Game. Even though it's referred to this way—this term has an established meaning in sports!—the way Shane and others talk about it is very unusual (more on this later). It's like everyone keeps saying "performance diet" in scare quotes, except that... a performance diet is a thing? It's not a "thing." It's a thing athletes do!
I hate everything about this! This is the 2020-2021 season! We are living in a post-Tom Brady world! Why is Shane awkwardly explaining, "For, like, performance"? NOTED ACTOR Rose Landry knows what a performance/occupation-focused diet is—as she implies in the line immediately below this. Why is Shane saying it sheepishly? Why is he embarrassed? Why is he calling them "forbidden foods," like there's a moral element to this, instead of “foods not on my nutrition plan”? (On another note: Rose eats tacos all the time? Get out of here, Pizza Jennifer Lawrence!)
I get that for many people, the obvious answer is "because he’s struggling with disordered eating," but gentlepeople of the jury, given that Reid says that he doesn’t, I want to propose that this is just sloppy writing, and that Shane is being portrayed this way because he is generally portrayed in ways that set him apart from other NHL players in the books, in ways that consistently Other him or exoticize him, in ways that Reid herself sometimes doesn’t seem to perceive.
I think Reid writes Shane engaging with a performance diet badly for the same reason we learn he is hairless or short or half-Japanese even though the only thing we know about Shane being half-Japanese is that... he's half-Japanese. I think she’s trying to write a guy who has a complex but healthy athlete-specific relationship to food and who is also neurodiverse and uncomfortable with change or deviation, but because of the biases she has, she ended up writing him like he’s a hot mess around food (“hot mess” not meant to be dismissive of disordered eating here—I’m talking about the inconsistencies in how he relates to it). To my mind, this is supported by the fact that no one he interacts with seems to be worried about it; they seem either annoyed that he makes getting dinner difficult or eager to tease him.
Here's more of why I think this:
In 2020-2021, Shane is in his tenth season in the NHL. He's almost 30. He's had a concussion and a broken collarbone that we know of, but if he's anything like the player he is loosely based on, Sidney Crosby, I guarantee he's had a lot more and possibly a lot worse. He has been, essentially, a high-value target for other players on the ice, in a contact sport, for almost twenty years, ten of them playing against the best players in the world. Ilya plays with bruised ribs in the book, showing just how much you're expected to push through this pain and damage throughout your career, and let me give you a real-life example of what that looks like: Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins once played in the playoffs with a punctured lung. That’s right: he played with a hole in the thing you use to draw oxygen into your body. People hold sticks and shoot with broken hands (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, looking at you) and high-grade separated shoulders, when their ligaments have been severely damaged or even torn, and this is glorified. Reason: playoffs gonna playoff.
It’s important to understand the damage a hockey body takes, because it means that by the time you are 30, the end of your career could be around the corner. Many players retire in their late 20s or early 30s. A star player, and his team, are doing everything possible to extend that player's career. This very often includes a stricter diet and shifting conditioning and maintenance regimes to make longevity possible. In The Long Game, Ilya tells us "Shane only ate extremely healthy food now" (my emphasis), suggesting that this is a change that took place later in his career, as it often can for competitive athletes, as they age and their bodies deteriorate and they have to fight harder to remain elite.
I mentioned Noted White Man Tom Brady earlier because he was famous for attempting to extend his playing career by fine-tuning his routine, his sleep, all kinds of other stuff, and his diet, including by drinking 25 glasses of water a day and avoiding, among other things, condiments. I'm obviously making fun of him—it's Tom Brady—but my point is: this is an established thing. Tom Brady famously worked with nutritionists and researchers at universities to try to engineer an anti-aging-decline advantage for himself. And Tom Brady played a contact sport that had 16 regular season games and 4 playoff games. Hockey has 82 regular season games and potentially as many as 28 playoff games, played nearly back-to-back.
How big of an edge did Brady create for himself with the “patented TB12 method"? Who knows! People used to ask this question on sports shows: does any of this even work? (The answer was often "I guess yes," because Tom Brady kept playing and playing and winning Super Bowls.) It's the same with Shane! Ilya tells us he "wanted to say something obnoxious about how all of Shane's food restrictions and self-sacrifice translated to exactly point one three seconds' worth of athletic supremacy" when Shane wins the fastest skater competition at the ASG in 2021. And yet Shane is the fastest skater in the NHL at 30 and an incredible player, so... hey, maybe it's working, kind of, maybe? Shrug kaomoji.
I would argue that a lot of these performance diets definitely involve disordered eating or are even synonymous with it, by the way. But I think when people in our spaces say Shane has disordered eating they don't mean, "Wow, he's engaging in a highly sophisticated, team-approved kind-of-alchemical exercise to boost his performance, and that shit is disordered!" but rather, simply, "Shane has disordered eating." In fic, I’ve seen depictions of Shane as fragile or helpless, unable to care for himself. And these are two very different things when it comes to understanding/writing Shane, so I think it matters which we think it is.
A final (and key) thing to say about this Tom Brady comparison is that in the real world, when people were asking these questions of a straight white dude's eating choices and routines, no one wondered if Tom Brady had disordered eating in the latter of the two senses I outline above, and very few people even discussed the first. That was not a conversation. I think it is... quite interesting that the way Reid has presented this makes it impossible for us not to wonder this when the athlete making these choices is a gay Asian man. We'll come back to this!
I also mention the Tom Brady real-world example because it helps us see that the likelihood that Shane has established his own diet is VERY LOW. A team nutritionist/doctor/trainer/all of them is/are supervising and fine-tuning this with him. He's being weighed and he's having blood tests. He's eating many meals with the team, in the company (and, indirectly, supervision) of his teammates and coaching/training staff.
Hockey takes so much energy. That's why shifts are short (30-60 seconds normally)! Propelling yourself around the ice, generating enough speed and force to check while continually pushing off and redirecting yourself on a frictionless surface, uses so many large muscle groups in your body. (This is why Hockey Ass.) When a guy can't get to the bench because of what's happening in the game and he's been out there 100 seconds, the commentators will say, "Hockey McHockerson really looking rough out there! Man's been out there an eternity!" Hockey takes it the fuck outta ya.
This is to say: I promise you Shane Hollander is eating carbohydrates. And that Shane Hollander is eating 5000 calories a day! That he's eating farro and quinoa and whole grains instead of Ilya's sausage McMuffin, I do not doubt (that he doesn’t eat pasta, as Reid seems to think is possible, I do doubt).
But Shane Hollander is not starving himself, or eating fewer than twice the calories of the average man per day, because if he were, it would be obvious in his play, and I guaranfuckingtee someone on the Voyageurs/Metros would be all over that.
There's a scene in The Long Game when Ilya, whose approach to nutrition is... laxer, shall we say? finds a recipe for something they can cook together that fits Shane's diet:
I... also hate everything about this!
"This is not bad," suggests not that Ilya is surprised that this is enough food for Shane or for him, or that it's nutritionally appropriate and sufficient, but rather that he, as written by Reid, is kind of a man-child who does not like vegetables (with a BEAR for RUSSIA tattooed on his CHEST and a voice like a CARTOON VILLAIN).
The way Reid chooses to write the scene above, with the dreamy list of delicious fats and carbs followed by the stark, "But garlic bread wasn't important. Winning was important. Playing in the NHL for as long as possible was important," can definitely be read as Shane being overly fixed in his thinking about food/orthorexic/disordered: I absolutely get this. And Shane is under a huge amount of stress from being closeted and anxious about his game and about Ilya and about a million things. The elements are there.
AND YET Red has also been explicit that she did not intend to write Shane as having an "eating disorder."
Now, maybe Reid didn't mean to write disordered eating and accidentally did. But what I actually think is this: Reid knows performance diets are a thing, and she wrote one in. Firstly, I'm not sure she entirely understands what that would look like for a hockey player, just as a matter of factual knowledge (she might! I don’t know; the book doesn’t give me that impression). Secondly and much more importantly, however, we know her characterization of Shane is sort of... shallow and skewed all over, and always oriented toward furthering his romance with Ilya (again, valid). I think the way she wrote him engaging with the performance diet is another example of that, and not of an intention to portray him as struggling with disordered eating. This is a little bit of Reid telling on herself, in my view.
The things Shane does in the book are not out of line with what many professional athletes do, at all. There's a version of this scene in which Shane does the same thing and then thinks something like:
"I have anywhere between none (if I'm injured) and ten years left to play this game. I have, as yet, developed no other skills in my life, making retirement terrifying. I know many guys who have lost their shit when the time comes to make the shift, and are super depressed, and I can kind-of-recognize that I am even more in love with hockey and more fixated on it than the average player, which means it might be even harder for me. I therefore want my career to last as long as it can possibly last, because I want to do this thing I love as long as I can. Because I LOVE IT! So I'm making trade-offs every day, and by GOD I wish I could eat a burger, but for now, I'm going to prioritize the thing that science says may extend my career, because (some) data suggests this may give me an edge."
(Shane is not that well adjusted or self-aware, I know: what I’m trying to say is that there is a way to write this in a way that doesn’t make it sound like Shane is the only athlete in the NHL for whom a performance diet is a tragic life circumstance.)
Reid has chosen not to go that route. Her writing choices, the things she has Shane think, the language she has him (and others) use: these all actually do lend themselves to the interpretation that Shane may be engaging in disordered eating. So if she wasn't intending to write someone struggling with disordered eating, then what's up? And how might we make sense of this on our own terms, as we figure out how to write Shane?
Ordered along the spectrum from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil:
The differences in their approaches to eating, conditioning, and the sport are part of the "odd couple" dynamic that Reid has set up for these two men in the romance context. Ilya SMOKES! Shane won't EAT BREAD! How will they EVER LIKE EACH OTHER?
Reid has stated she has a preference for writing Ilya, and it shows: in The Long Game, Ilya is undergoing a relatively complex emotional journey, healing from trauma and depression and learning to assert himself in his relationships with loved ones to get what he deserves. Shane is... apparently almost totally unaware that the man he is in love with is in crisis. And... he’s not eating bread. Before they are outed, that's it. That's Shane's journey. No awareness and no bread. (I am partly exaggerating for effect, but I think Reid’s preference means Shane suffers as a character, that he is more outline than man.)
Quite frankly, I think that this is yet another example of the way Reid's bias shows in her portrayal of Shane as a gay Asian man. Here's the thing, folks: I bet Scott Hunter is on a performance diet. Scott Hunter is going to drink warm milk out of the Stanley Cup, and he is 100,000 years old. THAT MAN HAS A PERFORMANCE DIET, but that man is based on Steve Rogers, and when dudes like Steve Rogers have performance diets, we just call them performance diets, and we don't linger over it, and we don't talk about them like they're on the cover of a 90s tabloid and we're wondering if they are TOO THIN or TOO WORRIED about eating donuts.
I also think it's really important that we as a fandom grapple with this same thing. Are we more likely to pathologize these behaviors in Shane because we also do not think of him—partly as the result of Reid's portrayal—as the "average" hockey player, but rather as someone different and apart? Because gay woobies can't have a performance diet that isn't tragic? Because he's small, hairless, more likely to have weird hangups?
Because the thing is, we're doing this independently of Reid, too: if I come across one more fic in the wild where Shane Hollander, three-time Cup champion and NHL/MLH captain, doesn't eat for two days, I'ma LOSE MY GODDAMNED MIND.
Shane could be trying to figure out and grapple with the intersection of all kinds of things: the stress of being closeted; figuring out how to treat a neurodiverse brain with as much kindness as possible while having a lot of his movement through the world defined by that neurodiversity; trying to figure out what ‘discipline’ means to him or why it feels good (Rose Landry actually directly makes the joke that maybe Shane enjoys discipline on his plate and in the bedroom, and Shane then thinks about how he does like it in the bedroom); fear of the end of his career and the uncertainty that engenders.
I’m not saying what is going on isn’t complex. I just think “he has disordered eating” doesn’t dig deep enough, and I think we gain something when we really interrogate how Reid’s bias plays a role here. I also think there are more interesting ways to explore this, in a way that would have enriched rather than diminished our sense of who Shane is. Reid could have had him have a performance diet that included no rice and could have told us about whether rice was a staple in his home as someone with East Asian heritage in a culture that traditionally treats rice as a staple. Yea or nay? If so, what does he make of that? We could have found out things about him!
To recap and clarify some final points that I think are important:
-I wholeheartedly believe it's possible to struggle with disordered eating as a professional athlete, and as a person of any identity. Disordered eating can affect anyone. I am not saying otherwise.
-You can eat a perfect amount of calories (which are fake, by the way) and a great combination of nutrients and still have disordered eating. I do not dispute this either.
-Many of Reid's writing choices suggest that Shane is struggling with disordered eating.
-But Reid has said he does not, and that she did not intend to write him as having disordered eating.
-If we accept the two points above as true, we're forced to ask: what the heck is going on?
-What's going on is sloppy writing, which is fine; we have all done some sloppy writing in pursuit of a happy ending. This is not a crime.
YES TO THAT LAST, AND:
-Understanding more about hockey and athletic performance diets may help us contextualize what we see in the books and/or challenge certain interpretations of the books
-Most importantly, some of the sloppiness is really important to think about, particularly as it relates to Shane's identity and Reid's portrayal of him and that identity, which has real issues, as well as when it comes to interrogating our own biases
-Thinking about these things has been helpful to me, which is why I wrote this long post
-Transformative works are about doing transformative things, so if exploring Shane's disordered eating is what calls to your creative spark, may you live long and prosper, and if the fic is well written, I may have to eat some of these words (absolutely no pun intended).
But perhaps this post may inspire you to write fic about how Shane’s two nutritionists and his personal phlebotomist figure out he’s with Ilya before anybody else because of his meal requests and how far up his butt they are about that diet (which is not the result of disordered eating). Reader, I’d read it.
Because there's always more than one way of interpreting a text, and that's what makes it fun.
