#heated rivalry speculation

[livijoyann]

A timeline of Ilya and Shane's relationship as it goes public, so post-The Long Game. All of my "fake hollanov insta" posts here: anotherhraccount

[hollanovsgingermelt]

shane hollander: [gripping the sink so hard the porcelain is cracking and his eyes are bloodshot] im scared to tell my decade long situationship that i have gay sex with that im gay.

[honeyybrii]

after the break up, rose and hayden definitely fought over who gets the title of shane's best friend

[lierdumoa]

Chaotic of me but I would actually love it if the show swapped JJ and Hayden's book 2 roles. Let JJ be teachable and gave him a redemption arc and have him rise to the occasion. Let Hayden be the disappointment who has the shittier initial reaction to the relationship reveal and damages his relationship with Shane in the process.

Partly, I want this because I think it's ass that Reid wouldn't give Shane any decent non-white friends. It make Shane feel all the more tokenized.

I feel like it feeds into the completely false stereotype that black and brown communities are more queerphobic than white communities.

But mostly I want this role reversal because, from a narrative standpoint, it would also make *both* of those characters more interesting, if they each had individual character arcs that changed and evolved, instead of remaining the one-dimensional, too predictable cardboard cutouts they are in the books.

Like I don't want Hayden to be the villain. I do still want them to all reconcile and be friends in the end.

But just from a dramatic standpoint, having the guy you thought you could always rely on (temporarily) disappoint you, while also having the guy were never sure you could rely unexpectedly step up when you really need it, just adds an extra layer of nuance and depth that I think would make the story feel more well rounded.

I also feel like Shane and Ilya in the books forgave Hayden way too quickly and easily for fanmailgate.

[thedistantstorm]

Friends, I have found the soundtrack not for the emergency landing, but for the proposal.

Hear me out: The club scene is Ilya's version: the original tATu and Harrison fusion of "All the Things She Said." The WJM orchestra version is for Shane realizing he almost lost the most important person in his life and that this is not enough. It's for not being able to wait, for the realization that Ilya is more important to him than hockey.

[vamprozy]

Sorry to come and rant to you. Feel free to ignore.

People really piss me off with the constant how much Ilya sacrificed for Shane in tlg (wow its like being back when tlg got relased) like theres a post on twitter how Ilya giving up his car collection shows how much he sacrificed when he moved to Canada when in the books he states the cars didnt make him happy anymore and he still has a porsche and ducati.

Also somehow people fully ignore that in HR Ilya is one to first suggest switching to a Canadian team because he didn't want to in US or Russia and be a citizen of either of those countries :/

The way they talk about Ilya makes it seem like this guy has no agency on his own and hasn't chosen things for his own happiness.

No apologies needed - I love getting asks like this!

I completely understand this frustration. I think a huge factor to this discourse is the language being used too. What actually is sacrifice? If we’re talking strictly about something someone gives up for the sake of something else they deem more valuable, then in a sense Ilya does willingly sacrifice a lot because he views a romantic future with Shane as more valuable. Hence, he suggests leaving Boston for a Canadian team. The tragedy maybe isn’t that Ilya makes so many sacrifices, but instead that Ilya was stuck for so long in a life that was so unfulfilling and meaningless as to be easily sacrificed in his mind. So, he makes sacrifices for a plan that has a lot of holes in it. That’s where the real tension arises. But Ilya still very much has major components to his life that Shane is not a part of. What’s most interesting to me is that show!Ilya will also still have Svetlana in his life, a person tied to his roots and his homeland. That’s a bond Shane can’t replicate, so I’m curious to see how they’ll handle her continued involvement in Ilya’s life in season 2. But I digress.

I think there are these kind of biblical connotations to the word “sacrifice” that influence this discourse though. A lot of people really accentuate it as a loaded word tied to the martyr figure, which is interestingly how Ilya’s depression manifests in TLG. Depression as a mental illness presents as passivity, numbness, docility, and silent suffering or internalization. Ilya ticks ALL of these boxes. When he doesn’t tell Shane how he’s feeling, it’s not just because he’s naturally a bad communicator. His depression is squandering his ability to communicate too. But when you suffer in silence, you end up making yourself a martyr, and surprise! It’s not fun. However, people don’t always consider passive silence as actively harmful to others, only to yourself. But is is harmful to others. It does hurt Shane, and I don’t think people understand Shane as also being hurt by Ilya’s actions and committing self-destructive behaviours of his own. They only see him as a force that inflicts upon Ilya, not upon himself. So I think a successful season 2 (and 3?) to me will look like an exploration of Shane’s behaviours under that same lens to remind people of that. Jacob elaborating on Shane’s disordered eating would lend itself greatly to that, and I think in a way Ilya eating his words has the same self-harming quality to it as Shane not eating his food. To me, it’s just important that we see how both Ilya and Shane’s suffering is equally understandable and equally painful for the other to withstand.

And then the sports car thing is just really funny to me because as someone from Ottawa I can confirm that people in Ottawa still definitely own and drive fancy sports cars. He could have had his cars moved to Ottawa. They might take more work to maintain because of the snow and slush, but it is still very much possible, especially on a hockey budget. We have hella mansions with big driveways. If buddy gave the rest fo them up, he did it of his own damn free will lol.

[wubomei]

I keep seeing little posts that fall into two categories: Read the books, honey, and Did we watch the same show? And they're not what you expect. The first ones are people speculating about things they want to see in season 2, but those things are either in the books or the exact opposite of something in the books. The second category is people saying, I hope they include the scene with Hayden's kids, I hope the trophy room scene is in S2. You guys, those are load bearing scenes, they'll be there (barring a question of timing, in case doing Long Game and Role Model together splits into two seasons). Jacob did a really good job adaptating the first two books, the books aren't written in some difficult swirl of memory and dream, he's not going to leave out anything that furthers the plot.

The questions I have are for little things. How much family time will we get? Will we see Shane and Ilya cook together? Will we get the gym scene, cuz it's really only important for Ilya telling Shane he honestly thinks Shane is the better player (surely will be there but could be moved), and for the photo of the exercise ball. Will there be a pomegranate?

[momentov1vere]

since they probably have to change the centaurs’ team name for s2 i would like to throw an idea into the ring and suggest the ottawa archers

(i was trying to figure out ways chiron can keep his name and chiron in greek mythology was a good archer sooo yeah that’s all i’ve got)