Ok I’ve fallen a bit into the heated rivalry fandom(still only watched the show so idk how much it differs from the books), but anyway, has anyone really explored the relationship between between Shane being gay and him being Asian? Him being Asian isn’t really brought up past that mention during the draft for diversity and that minor moment w Rose iirc, and I guess I was just wondering if anyone else had their headcanons about it. Apologies in advance bc this whole post is going to be disjointed af bc I have a lot of thoughts but none of them are connecting right in my head to write about it eloquently enough.
Like, admittedly idk how different it is being wasian, and I can imagine being a guy in sports made it pro difficulty mode for Shane even without the whole Asian thing, especially being an Asian man, but me being East Asian was definitely a reason why it took me years longer than all my queer friends in high school that I was queer too. Yeah, this also depends on upbringing and compared to my conservative parents Shane seems to have progressive accepting parents, but still, it totally could’ve been a factor of why it took him so long to figure out.
Also, when i read fics where hollonov deals with getting outed/coming out. Shane being Asian rarely gets mentioned. But i feel like it’d be interesting to explore. As an Asian man, Shane is already going to be viewed as less masculine and even “weaker” by assholes, being out as gay too would be so much worse. Add on the model minority myth and the higher standards Shane is placed on in part because of that…idk I don’t have anything concrete but I’ve been thinking about it.
Then there’s the representation aspect because I won’t lie, a big reason I even figured out I could be queer is because Eugene Lee Yang posted his coming out vid and one of my first thoughts after I watched it was “oh, east asians can be gay too? People like me can be out and queer?” Like there really was a big difference for me seeing a queer Asian person rather than a queer white person. Until then, somehow it felt like being Asian I couldn’t be gay, like it was just a white person thing(yeah younger me was stupid af, but hey this is why representation matters lol).
And so my thought there is basically how would Shane handle being representation for not just being an Asian pro hockey player, but the only out gay Asian pro hockey player in the league. Sure, it shouldn’t be a bigger deal compared to Ilya, Scott, and Troy, and yet it definitely would be.
Idk where I’m even going with this but like are y’all getting the idea of what I mean? Let me know if there are posts out there that talk about this and stuff, or let me know what you think. Like color me curious.
