#fandom rants

[neptune-scythe]

shout out to repulsed aces and aros who have no safe spaces in fandom because it's just everywhere you turn and it's in all the fanarts and all the fanfics and all the posts except for like ... 5% TOPS.

shout out for enduring the horrors every day for the few rare posts that have nothing to do with sex or romance

[ravenbytes]

Probably a hot take and I’m not expecting people to agree with me, but I think we as a fandom really need to ease off the “Shane Hollander is the best hockey player to have ever lived ever in the entire world ever” thing before we irrevocably capsize this ship and the narrative with it. Guys, they’re rivals. What are we even doing here if they’re not equals? What is the point of any of this if there are no stakes to their competition? What is the appeal of destroying the premise of the story you supposedly love? I’m genuinely baffled. I get that RR started it (if unintentionally), and I have theories as to why/how which I’ll get into, but I can’t understand why the fandom just…accepts that interpretation? Uncritically??

The entire foundation of their attraction and relationship is built off the essential truth that they are in a league of THEIR own. That for each, the other is the only one that can keep up with them on the ice and the only one that can truly understand the pressure and the thrill of standing otherwise lonely at the top. That doesn’t mean Shane can’t be number 1 ig by whatever in-story metric some analyst might use to define that, but it matters that Ilya challenges that notion. It matters that the answer to “who is number one” is not indisputable despite what RR’s clunky writing and popular fanon interpretation might suggest. The balance of their relationship and the characters own psyches literally depends on it. And this is borne out in TLG in which I would argue it is one of the central threads for narrative criticism of this novel even where RR seems at least partly oblivious to it.

This is about to get very long so I’m going to try to break this up into semi-digestible parts over probably several posts to try to cover both watsonian and doylist angles. For now, I’ll start with the Shane of it all.

Part 1: WHY SHANE NEEDS THE RIVALRY

The rivalry is load bearing; it’s the literal foundation of their story and dismantling it is therefore akin to dropping a 5 ton boulder through the floorboards from a mile up. It might as well be a bomb at that point. And this is true both for the relationship itself and for the characters as individuals, though it may surprise you to see me argue this is true for SHANE most of all.

Let’s consider what we know of Shane Hollander (book and show, though I will be favouring show where there’s disagreement). We know he’s autistic, which means that from early childhood, he would have experienced that pervasive cloud of otherness to which so many of us here can relate and which is only partially navigable via masking. We know that in conjunction with his additional othering qualities as a queer and half-Asian kid, his default coping mechanism became one of perfectionism and his Mask a soul-crushing amalgam of Best Hockey Player and Model Minority under which the rest of his personality (and sexuality) could only cower.

I think it’s important to note that neither of these classifications are achievable for more than a flickering moment in public perception. And even if one could earn them for a heartbeat or a season, they are certainly not immutable characteristics. Just like any other of its nature, Shane’s mask requires constant adamantine effort to even hold its shape. It’s not a trophy that can be won and then sat gleaming on the mantle to shine over you for eternity. The real Shane is not his Mask; he is the striving for it. It’s exhausting. It’s painful. And he never gets to stop because Perfect is not a fixed or measurable endpoint.

But by far the most fascinating thing to me about Shane Hollander is that I don’t even think he wants to stop. He’s not the guy that would decide the endless competition is too much and he’d like to take a break please. He wants to win always, but to do that first requires a real opponent. It’s only the futility of it all without one that torments him. Solve that bit, and he actually kind of lives for it.

So why am I talking about this? What does this have to do with the rivalry? Glad you asked.

There’s a relief Shane finds in the existence of Ilya Rozanov that is more than just the salve to his perpetual loneliness at the top. As his true equal, and the only player actually capable of besting him even half the time, Ilya becomes the metric by which Shane can determine himself Best. Ilya at his most exceptional thus functionally replaces the nebulous shifting goalpost of perceived “perfection” and suddenly in Shane’s tortured psyche remoulds that self-cannibalising beast of unwinnable constant struggle into a contest of two. It becomes a game with real visible wins and losses. Of course it’s also sexual. As others like @thepoisonroom have previously pointed out in this post, the hockey is the sex is the hockey, but it’s also just Character. And, honestly, it’s why I think so many of us relate to him so deeply. The way Hudson plays him, he’s just so fucking Real.

Shane knows he has to earn his masking superlatives over and over again every minute of every day, and he doesn’t (can’t) always succeed. Sometimes he fails, but the defeat only makes the victory mean something. There are stakes to it. He actually gets to win! It’s a challenge, but that just means there’s something to strive against that isn’t the grief and tragedy of his own disappointment. Imagine the relief of saying “I lost to Ilya” vs. “I lost to the concept of perfection” when your entire psychological makeup bends towards the need to win. It’s the difference between “I lost *this* time” and “I will lose always” when you’re pathologically incapable of accepting defeat. That doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t affect him. Of course it does. But notably, it’s only got real teeth when his playmate falters and the former becomes statistically insignificant. Without Ilya standing equally as golden and shining beside him, what does he have to compare himself to but the Horrors of his perfectionist’s invention? This is the saw trap of TLG for Shane Hollander. He’s won the rivalry and lost the Game in his victory.

What I haven’t seen talked about much in HR meta are the ways in which his internal arc in the second book is characterised by his attempts to recapture the magic of the first. His orthorexia and obsessive training are (literally, textually) about self-implementing discipline (leaning into non-sexual d/s would be so therapeutic for this man honestly, as again others such as @creamsiclemelt have noted) but also an attempt to conquer the bodily realities of aging and time. To win against the standards set by his own past self…and Ilya’s.

He trains Ilya’s trick shot and favoured skills contest at all stars (speed in the book but idk what they’ll do in the show) because competition is the root of their relationship and emotional co-regulation. Neither of them knows how to function without it, and it is not only Ilya that is suffering for it. Much has been and should continue to be said about Ilya’s depression in this book and its direct ties to the nosedive of his career and the loss of “good hockey”, but I’d argue Shane is grieving it just as deeply.

The resentment we see build up towards Ilya in his (inconsistent and jarring) inner monologue this book stems from this (or could be argued to do so if one first rejects the fallacy of probable authorial intention anyway). I headcanon Shane as alexithymic as from my own experience this can look like the sudden emergence of strong but confusing emotions without clear label or source. He simply knows he’s miserable and he misses competing with Ilya. And while Ilya himself is suicidally depressed over the same loss, he’s determined to pretend he’s totally fine actually. Don’t even worry about it, baby. So while it may be unfair and painful to the readers’ view, it’s not so insane Shane’s grief and misery would manifest as (psychosexual) frustration with Ilya’s professional downswing. Even if that means taking it out somewhat on Ilya himself in the privacy of his own thoughts (the proverbial ick if you will)

**and no I have not forgotten about The Ottawa Plan of it all. We will get there, trust me. But digging into the mess of that is going to need its own post. Probably more than one

Shane doesn’t want to be alone at the top in a league of his own as number one best hockey player to ever live. Ilya was meant to be there beside him. He WANTS Ilya right there beside him. And I would argue RR is at least partly aware of this, even if she’s mostly using it to vilify/scapegoat Shane and deflect from her own poor writing choices (and conflict avoidance) via simmering resentments on both sides, only one of which is justified by the narrative. We see this in the dramatic disparity b/w their current career trajectories, but it is equally clear when perceived at a doylist remove that this, too, is primarily to do with framing. In addition to the Cup dynasty of it all, she has Ilya declare Shane the better player (implicitly ending the rivalry in the eyes of the fandom) only once explicitly.

With the added context that this scene takes place following Ilya’s insistence that the .13 seconds by which Shane had beaten him in the skills contest amounted to a tie and Shane’s gloating “I smoked you” in response earlier that chapter, coupled with Ilya’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Shane Hollander’s kinky neurosis, I invite you to consider the possibility that Shane’s “It’s a tie” was in fact the goal of this exercise. That perhaps this was Ilya using sex to win an argument rather than an honest statement of objective fact. I’d argue too that it means something that Shane’s response was not “well, yeah, obviously” in the manner of his fanon counterpart. Something to consider.

The other scene sometimes pointed to for evidence is, of course, the trophy room scene, in which Ilya sets out to remind Shane “You are Shane fucking Hollander” post outing (the Metros of it all…post for another time). But while he points to Shane’s “many accomplishments” and dirty talk takes a turn to “Do you know how powerful it feels, fucking a king in his throne room?”, at no point here does he actually call Shane the better player. And, perhaps even more important to my point wrt the rivalry, we have reason to believe he wouldn’t actually want him to.

Part Two will be Ilya’s version of this post, so look out for that or whatever

[zombiee-clowneryy]

It's so funny (and honestly really telling of the fandom...) how Jack and Maddie have screamed from the roof tops on multiple occasions something along the lines of "We love our sweetest most precious most smartest baby boy Danny!!" Or "WE WILL BE VERY UPSET IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO OUR PRECIOUS CHILDREN!" And the fandom will still have the audacity to say how Jack and Maddie don't actually care about their children, how they actually hate Danny and would experiment on him if they ever found out about the fact that he's half ghost.

Even though on the multiple occasions throughout all the seasons and all the comics whenever they have found out about Danny being half ghost/Danny comes out to them about being half ghost they have always been extremely accepting of him and extremely proud of him. Most of the times they feel remorseful about the fact that they've been hunting Danny Phantom

Yet the same exact fandom will turn around woobify and dumb down Incel ass Vald "Nice guys always finish last" Masters, who on multiple occasions has acted as though he is entitled to Maddy/Maddy's affection and to Danny seeing him as a father. He has manipulated/tried to manipulate (dare I say groomed *not romanticly/sexualy obv*) multiple of the characters (Danny, Valerie, etc). He also has smacked the shit out of Danny multiple times.

(But it's excusable because hes hot or whatever)

Sometimes (Key word is sometimes) I see people acting as if he'd somehow be a better parent than Jack and Maddie.

Jack and Maddie vobviously aren't the most perfect parents. They're oblivious as fuck and they let their obsession w/ ghosts get in the way of a lot of things, like communicating w/and listening to their children. Even though they mean well doesnt mean their obsession w/ ghosts impacts their children any less but they're no where near as bad, evil and abusive as the fandom describes them.

I get that part of the fun of being in the Danny phantom fandom is ignoring canon, but theres a difference between ignoring dumb shit Bitch Hartman says/the show going against its own canon/phantom planet (I am all for that btw) and mischaracterizing characters.

[bakedcrossaintt]

lowkey i'd rather be friends with a fandom person who's a little problematic but minds their own business than someone who dedicates their entire time to picking out and eradicating/deplatforming people in the fandom who they think don't belong, i don't fuck with that kind of attitude

[mochi-colors]

TADC Fandom: Criticizes Pommi for having empathy for a trash character like Jax

Also TADC Fandom: HOW DARE THEY HATING ON POMMI! We can fix Jax!

You can like Jax and Jax x Pommi all you want, but least have the DECENCY to respect the ones who doesn't like him or the ship.

The show inself gives us reasons why some people despised Jax and feel Pommi could do better than empathized with that piece of trash. Jax himself says he sees everyone as "play things"

I do NOT give a FUCK if he may have a sob story, IT DOES NOT FUCKING EXCUSE HIS SHITTINESS.

Just the typical male worship, fix hims, and pick mes in this fandom just like the same shit i've deal with in other fandoms for YEARS.

No show is NOT free from criticism. People can criticized the characters all they want.

Criticized =/= Hate

Get the FUCK over it.

[pfeiffer-cipher]

This may just be my delusional Stucky ass but I am not looking forward to seeing Steve in Doomsday. I hope he's a minor character at least, I don't want him taking the spotlight away from the new heroes (and I'm sure he will but whatever). But considering there's a BABY in one of the screenshots I really fucking hope his relationship with Peggy isn't, like, his driving factor the whole movie. I know Bucky and Steve have been apart for years at this point but I don't think I can handle their relationship being ignored again, and we all know it will be 😭

[yourfandompersn]

Controversial opinion #23:I HATE the new Metalocalypse fans. I'm not exactly an oldgen (I joined in February 2024), but all the new fans are AWFUL PEOPLE. Why is there people I'm having to constantly block in the big metalocalypse server because they are the worst people on earth. ⬇️

Why are you making sexual jokes towards someone you met online in a public server? What makes you think it's okay to draw lolisho and not get any repercussions? What do you mean you exist only to "explain the real meaning of proshipping to people" ? Are you all actually fucking serious? The new fandom has a serious problem and it's embarrassing

I know proshippers are always going to be there much to the disdain of every single normal person around them, but it gets to a serious point and it's getting ridiculous. What do you mean you're TCC? What do you mean you purposely ship Seth x Pickles? Like??

ACTUALLY WHERE IS THIS INFLUX OF ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE PEOPLE COMING FROM AND WHY IS NOBODY CALLING THEM OUT FOR IT

PEOPLE HAVE NO PROBLEM CALLING OUT A TEENAGER FOR MAKING LIKE ONE MISTAKE AND RUINING THEIR FUCKING LIFE FOR LIKE THREE WORDS AND PEOPLE ARE OUT HERE DOING THE MOST ILLEGAL SHIT KNOWN TO MAN AND NOBODY CARES