#hr masc

[parcai]

I’m loving all your hockey takes on Hollanov so so much - if I could pick your brain - what’s your HC on how they both are with rookies and how that would have changed over time and by the time they are both on the Centaurs?

AHH i’m having so much fun with this :) i did not think ppl would care abt hockey in HR this much but here we are. just a quick shameless plug first since ppl DO seem to b interested: if y'all want an actual deep dive into hockey culture/masculinity/hollanov, fic series boys will be boys is literally built around this, shane-centric but full timeline.

OK ANYWAY, thoughts (many), going roughly timeline style for clarity:

hockey culture baseline

first thing that matters: ilya & shane are NOT outsiders to hockey culture, they're formed by it. elite pipelines (ohl/cska juniors etc) where rookie treatment runs from annoying traditions → genuinely fucked-up hazing that mostly gets cleaned up by nhl level. the stuff people think of as “hockey hazing horror stories”...that’s mostly juniors. by pro level it gets image-managed, so it becomes

expensive rookie dinners

gear carrying / errands

dumb initiation rituals

chirping & embarrassment-as-bonding

same hierarchy, just sanitized. so both of them start with this baseline assumption of “yeah this is just what happens. it’s brotherhood.” & that matters bc it means neither of them is judging it from the outside when they're inside it

early career

ilya is never really the hazing guy, even when he participates in it imo. he's not cruel, he reads rooms/people in a way that's almost predatory but like warm abt it. he clocks what a rookie can take before they even know it themselves, just a great people person.

so in boston-era ilya, the dynamic around rookies is more like

he’s adjacent to the culture, not driving it imo. prob hands a beer to the kid if something goes too far/doesn't bring it up again. esp in his first ~2 yrs before being captain. once he’s captain, that shifts things further. if ilya’s not doing heavy bullshit, no one is. he’s well-liked, funny, good speech guy, very big brother energy in a normal hockey way, taking rooks out to clubs, messing around with them, but not breaking them

shane is in same environment, but he internalizes it differently, i think he sees rookies as systems tied to performance...i also do think his juniors experience w ohl was worse than ilya's by nature of being japanese canadian, mayb even some autistic traits that make it hard for him to connect w the other guys (all issues that r WAY bigger in juniors/won't matter once he's the franchise rebuilder/center of the metros, they will love shane the rook from day 1). so my early metros captain shane is not cruel, just absent socially mostly, only enough to keep up w expectations. unless it affects winning, he doesn’t register it

so rookies experience him like terrifyingly intense, emotionally unreadable, not personal which somehow makes it worse lol, “he’s not mad at you, he’s mad at the mistake" (but it feels the same). he runs a tight ship: efficient, blunt, zero wasted emotional energy. he’ll absolutely tear apart a shift and not look up lmao

as his relationship w ilya deepens, i think the closet pressure, montreal dynasty expectations, paranoia about image gets to him more, EVEN BEFORE cottage/tampa. so he gets even more rigid. anything that reads soft or exposed gets cut immediately. so it’s not that rookies are being treated poorly by him, but their captain is a locked door

ottawa ilya/last years of metros shane

to me, here's where the contrast gets a bit sharper.

ilya is on a losing team, rebuilding years ALL OVER AGAIN after doing it for boston, mentally not great at first w the depression/shane of it all/isolation. but as we see in tlg, chemistry on losing teams is survival, so that actually forces connection w vets and older players, and i do think that eventually trickles down to rooks.

he learns rookies' names before they've done anything notable, notices when someone's off without making it weird, etc. less big brother than he was in boston, not quite team dad yet either. rookies don't just respect him, but they orbit him :) climb him like a fucking tree. and he absolutely pretends he's above it while loving every second. helps that by this point ottawa's finally getting good too w the rebuilding coming to a close, playoff runs, real momentum, happy rookies instead of rebuilding misery!!

for shane, i think this era is psychologically brutal in a totally different way. he's watching ilya losing games, losing status, getting clowned by fans/media, becoming the punchline. add in the pressure of their now-exclusive relationship & shane's existing paranoia and i honestly think these become his most shut-off years. he's maintaining a machine here w all his energy. he wins a third cup in 2020, so obviously the room still respects him, but the intensity that's always been there is getting worse. rooks don't even know the guy

ottawa together

once shane gets to ottawa...oh boy. he's not the 1c/the face of the franchise. there r rookies who grew up idolizing him and he barely even notices bc he's too busy having an identity crisis...he's dealing with 11 years of metros identity collapse, the "hollander ran to his husband because he couldn't hack it" narrative, loss of control, humiliation, all of it. so instead of opening up, he goes further inward #tome.

first-year ottawa shane is honestly just...gone. buried in tape, systems, structure. not even hard on the rookies bc he's not their captain. and everyone def feels it, rooks included, esp the ones who worshipped him growing up. shell of a guy what r we looking at. meanwhile ilya's holding court & half the team is hanging off him, so everyone's kind of looking at him like ??? this is your husband???

and ilya knows something is Wrong. bc from the outside shane got everything he was supposed to want w his marriage & living together etc. but in shane's head it's just this isn't my jersey this isn't my team i didn't choose this i didn't choose i didn't choose i didn't-

the diff is that ilya already did most of his emotional processing in ottawa (TLG) all of that changed him. for shane it's delayed, this first yr is shane's TLG, but hopefully w more support than ilya had. turning 30 (so some mental growing up automatically), finally admitting to ilya that he's miserable in ways he feels guilty about because everyone expected him to be happy.

& once he gets through that, i think they almost converge. ilya stays the warmer guy. he'll explain something through a story, a joke, a conversation. shane becomes the guy you go to when you want the truth. weird locker room situation? weird interview? don't know if something crossed a line? ask shane. he'll give you the answer in four sentences, clap you on the shoulder, and go back to tape. :)

and weirdly, that becomes its own kind of safety. eventually i think shane becomes something like safe authority. still terrifying on the ice, demanding, uncompromising...but he's no longer protecting an image or managing insecurity through control. he doesn't need rookies to not embarrass him anymore

later-centaurs hollanov to me is just:

picking rookies up after bad nights

quietly handling hospital/chaos situations

giving blunt advice with zero judgment

showing up in small ways instead of performative ones

lowkey team dads, basically :') and we all cheered!!!!

tldr

ilya processes outward → becomes an emotionally present captain early. those are HIS rooks

shane processes inward → becomes a distant captain first, then slowly grows into someone steadier, kinder, & weirdly one of the safest guys in the room

same hockey culture, same pipeline, completely different psychological survival strategies. and somehow they end up in almost the same place :) 🏆

[parcai]

svetlana would be a nice friend for shane. it would probably be awkward at first but then they'd start talking hockey strategy and who's overrated and which coaches suck and ilya will be lying in shane's lap delighted and cozy, occasionally interjecting with his own comments and just so happy his favorite people are there. she also gives amazing extensive run downs on the european and russian leagues, ilya doesn't care for them (we're better than them anyways!) but shane loves hockey everywhere and svetlana can go in detail in english about the khl, something that's not common at all.

for those just joining us, we're talking abt who should b shane's closest friends in unrivaled going forward (my take is jj & bood).

sveta is an interesting choice & i'm actually going to push back on this, as cute as it could be. i don't think they're ever going to be friends, more like a somewhat tenuous alliance based off both loving ilya & not wanting to upset him. shane hollander is not friends w women unfortunately #mytruth, he's an openly gay man deeply entrenched in nhl/hockey culture, & w a mother like yuna hollander, he doesn't really have much narrative space or inclination to meaningfully connect w women as friends. rose is the obvious counterpoint people bring up, but to me she was a catalyst for shane more than a sustained relationship; even if she frames it as staying close, that doesn't automatically translate to shane's characterization or what he actually maintains long-term

i've written abt this more deeply but with sveta specifically, i think shane's jealousy is a key obstruction in his relationship w ilya. she's a terrible influence on ilya (& ilya is a terrible influence back) & while i do think their friendship is important & mostly good for ilya, there r a loooot of issues there, and the whole ilya x sveta x sasha trio comes from this shared, formative dysfunction where none of them really outgrew their circumstances, just adapted to them. a big part of ilya's arc is him pulling away from that old life and actually choosing something different instead of repeating it

and i think shane resents her for that in a few overlapping ways: for what she represents in ilya’s past, for her proximity to ilya’s “old life" (that he'll never get to have) and also for being everything shane feels like he can’t fully be—one of ilya’s women, publicly legible, deeply feminine, loved, competent in hockey, and unashamed in ways shane has always had to carefully manage. especially during their situationship era when they were (in his head) competing for ilya, that comparison is always there. and because sveta hasn’t really had the same turning point or “growth moment” ilya has in the long game, she’s still reckless in a way that makes shane question whether ilya would’ve been better off staying in that orbit (no need for outing/leaving russia/his family behind) (but also no bc ilya is his) / if ilya would've been happier w her.

shane is deeply insecure canonically & does not handle it well (ESP in the long game), & i cannot see him ever quite getting over it. by the same vein, sveta can b quite possessive of ilya too/thinking she knows best overall. sveta & shane have VERY similar personalities, & do think that's where they butt heads forever. however, as i mentioned, it will always be fairly diplomatic, bc i do not see her being an outright asshole as ilya's expense the way hayden is w ilya--GUNSHOT..also shane is not hurting for ppl who have deep hockey knowledge to talk abt. yuna & ilya r right there, plus i'm sure on the centaurs wyatt etc can really get into it too.

but that's just my opinion 🫡

[parcai]

shane is deeply possessive over ilya so shane would want to talk to svetlana because otherwise it would be ilya speaking to svetlana when she's around, shane doesn't want to leave them alone for too long. i think you're right in that svetlana wouldn't become a close friend of shane's but he would be comfortable with her in a casual way, enough to talk hockey. svetlana gives very strong "i'm not like other girls, i grew up talking hockey with my star goalie father" vibes and that's very much in shane's comfort zone, talking hockey. i don't think shane has any close female friends but he's not really close to more than a few guys anyways.

ok for those joining now: why i dont think shane/sveta would be friends

HEAVY on shane has to shinvestigate himself first, ur so right w that. also not wanting to leave them alone, that's our insecure guy fr. #canonshane

she is SOOOO rich girl, deeply internally misogynistic fr. she does unfortunately think the world revolves around her & canonically her dad even supports that lol like she tells ilya at one point he thinks i'm a princess who should get whatever i want, etc. like crucially this is my sveta/ilya/sasha to me. also @ellisonwongparty has a great list of things that i do feel really align w sveta's character as well.

i do think shane is def polite enough that he would talk hockey w her surface lvl the few times they meet, again bc neither of them wants to upset ilya & it's like the only thing they have in common lol. im p sure they'd argue abt it by the end if it went on for too long bc neither of them can take criticism, but some things would get them going just bc of the Knowledge They Both Have, which is nice just talk without having to explain like that

shane is def very picky about who he chooses to be friends with (which is why ive been talking abt bood/jj for the past two days lol), & i also think it's extremely important to recognize that being both a gay man and a hockey player socially sanctions him to not really have to know women or see them as full people!! hockey players do not see mothers as real women either! his world is overwhelmingly male, his closest relationships are overwhelmingly male, and there isn't much social pressure for him to cultivate close friendships with women in the first place!

[parcai]

totally understand if you dont answer this considering the recent controversies (is that the right term?) surrounding this topic but why would you want ilya to love shane if shanes the kind of person who doesnt see women as people? that thinks his own best friend is a slut? that feels like a reasonable dealbreaker in any relationship. i get you also think that sveta and ilya have their own misogynies, but they are a lot more mild compared to yourshane, who seemingly would never grow out of this mindset and would continue to see women as something less than himself. personally would rather die than tie myself to someone that hateful but then again im also a women with no tie to hockey lol

no i dont mind talking abt it if the question is in good faith.

i very pointedly do not think Ilya sees women as full people either. they're either saints or victims to be protected etc, which entirely infantilizes women & strips them of their autonomy. i think people seeing that as "mild" are sort of assigning their own feelings abt what they themselves will accept more readily in misogyny rather than realizing this is still very, very weird and bad. it's not even just Svetlana/Irina either. it's very much Jackie Pike too, for example, with the way Ilya interacts with her canonically.

he's always preemptively jumping out to protect her from her own husband who...she very clearly married and does not seem to have an issue with the way he is. i personally have a problem with Hayden the way he is lol.....i think he's the quintessential man-child, irresponsible, etc. but at the end of the day Jackie is also not a child who needs saving. she does not appear to be in any obvious distress, does not seem to be being abused or anything actually deeply nefarious, and Ilya should maybe consider why he feels so strongly compelled to preemptively save her like that.

i also think it's very important to note that all of Shane's feelings/thoughts on the subject are internal for myshane. they're thoughts and judgements that are passing, unfavorable, and sometimes cruel, but not anything he would deliberately act on or even say aloud. as i've mentioned before, i do not see either of them as actively causing harm just bc they have less-than-enlightened worldviews on women.

Ilya would prob just think "wow, shane is a little judgy of svetlana...maybe just jealous" and leave it there. Shane would never say anything, esp abt Svetlana, bc i do not think he'd want to wound Ilya that way. also importantly, specifically with the Shane/Svetlana dynamic, i do not think Svetlana likes him either. that has less to do with my takes on misogyny in hockey men and more to do with headcanons about how i think Svetlana's character could be interpreted given her upbringing + a few offhand comments about her in canon. obviously she canonically likes Shane's play/skills, but i don't really see them being friends regardless. i think they just keep the peace so as not to cause problems for Ilya.

also, regarding never growing out of this.....i've explicitly said before this is not to say they can't grow as people. i just think there's a limit to that growth (aka i don't think either of them will ever become activist-type, hyper-enlightened feminist king icons or whatever fanon sometimes wants them to be). who knows...maybe a few years down the line Rose has some insane experience that forces Shane to start shedding some of his ignorance regarding this idea that the world is really easy/simple for women. or somehow he'll make a new friend who's a women which is really important to his own growth of perception. or i've always liked the idea that if Hollanov has children, they're mostly daughters. i'm sure that would have some impact.

saying they will never achieve total enlightenment the way fanon likes to imagine them ≠ saying they will never grow. where it stands canonically, i just don't see Shane ever really having to grapple with any of this. he's been very safely insulated from really knowing women. but they're also still pretty young with a lot more life left to live so

finally, regarding the dealbreaker thing....i don't think people realize just how much of hockey culture has survived through the sheer existence of complacency.

maybe not all guys are bad guys. they're certainly not all cartoon villains the way fanon (or even Rachel herself sometimes) likes them to be (though that was more related to homophobia with Rachel specifically).

a lot of it looks much more like players just saying "i don't know" and doing nothing. letting things slide from more extreme people and going "i don't know"...while also thinking "that has nothing to do with me so IDC." a lot of this is passively happening, which is what i've really tried to emphasize, but people keep missing that point (which is why i grow frustrated at being repeatedly misconstrued almost obtusely/purposefully and then put on blast anonymously lol....but that's a diff story).

ilya probably wouldn't think of it as a dealbreaker bc, again, a) he's part of the in-culture/problem and b) none of this is actively vicious or harmful. these are just some beliefs Shane holds that, in truth, are not all that far from Ilya's own beliefs. these kinds of cultures can only persist for decades through exactly this sort of rampant apathy and complacency. and bc of their lifestyles, their circles, their families.....it's difficult to imagine many scenarios where either of them would be forced to confront any of this in a meaningful way.

like...some of this really is just watching hockey, knowing hockey, loving hockey (unfortunately). that's what it comes down to. which is why, no matter how much i say it's fine that not all HR fans watch/care abt hockey (and i really do mean that! i genuinely think that's fine and i'm not interested in shaming anyone!!), i also think the canonical story's hockey context is LOAD-BEARING, especially in the first book more than the second (TLG has a lot of issues w its use of hockey but that's a separate convo). this story fundamentally could not have happened the way it did in anything but men's hockey.

so that's why, when people—especially hockey fans, i've noticed—point out some probable yet unfavorable truths about fictional characters, it gets exhausting when people are so hellbent on misconstruing it or taking personal offense to it

& not everyone has to like these headcanons or even accept them!! i'm just saying i think they're a pretty realistic outcome regardless. so all/any questions about it should be approached in good faith, and i'll extend that same attitude in return. hope this helps man.

& then as i've mentioned before, i've started using the #hr masc tag. i still haven't finished backtracking through all my old posts, but i'm trying to tag everything so u can either avoid my ramblings abt hr & masculinity altogether or find it all in one place for ur convenience 👍

[parcai]

can i ask why you think shane in particular would be so misogynistic when theres no evidence of that in canon? he most certainly is ignorant and has been surrounded by misogyny his entire life just by being a hockey player, but to actively hate women in the way you suggest I think takes things too far. in the books he describes sex with women as bad for him, but he makes the conscious effort to reciprocate because he doesnt want them to "feel disrespected". theres nothing to suggest, in the show nor the book, that he feels better than svetlana/ilyas other hookups or that he even feels contempt for them, especially once ilya and he are together. nor do i think yuna can be lumped in with other "hockey moms" when the crucial thing is that she can never be one of those moms. this sport has a long sexist history, yes, but also a long racist one. i think a young japanese girl who loved a sport that hated her for being both a women and not-white would raise her son with a bit more sense than what you suggest. i actually think she and svetlana would have a lot in common, being woc who could never play the sport they know more than anyone about and seeing their son/bsf excelling at it

i could see your ilya thoughts being true, but i definetely feel, as someone who has male slavic friends, that his feelings would be more complicated then that. i could maybe see him holding irina and sveta on a pedestal compared to his female hookups, but again theres no basis for this in the show or the book. in the book ilya has no personal female connections and its actually implied that he seeks svetlana out because she speaks russian and she looks nothing like shane

this is not hate at all btw, i just dont agree with making the poc character out to be a women hater, whereas the russian man is just misunderstood in his attempt to help women. i dont think this was your intention, but its something my race is always accused of being while white men get the benefit of the doubt so im def sensitive to this topic lol. again this was never meant to be hate, i just wanted to understand a diff perspective

no not taking it as hate at all!! always happy to explain my pov, i just think there might be some misunderstanding here 🫡 def not my intention considering i'm asian as well lol

these r def some good points, but i do think we gotta start from the perspective that like...90% of the things we say on tumblr r headcanons/assumptions the books will never actually explore. shane/ilya's povs toward women is one of those things. so a lot of my thought process comes from playing hockey myself, watching hockey, & knowing elite men's hockey culture specifically v intimately through friends at that level

i don't think shane is more misogynistic than anyone else on his team or that he's uniquely The Problem. i think fanon just tends to absolve him of a lot of traits ppl raised in those environments usually have bc they want him to be this perfect idealized queer activist/icon.....when he's really just some guy. esp one who realistically stopped taking education seriously around age 14 to prep for ohl/juniors.

in tlg he's shown to be incredibly insecure in a lot of ways abt his & ilya's relationship...ilya talking to galina "instead" of him is one example off the top of my head, & then also ilya's prev hookups when he asks how many people he's slept with. that deep insecurity combined w the environment he was raised in imo pretty logically concludes in resentment toward someone like svetlana, who not only had ilya sexually/intimately but also knew the ilya from before the nhl.....a version of him shane never got to know & realistically never will bc he simply wasn't there, & bc ilya isn't really the type to talk abt that part of his life much anyway.

as for yuna she comes off as v pro-assimilation to me. she's always pushing for shane to act a certain way that's more palatable toward the rest of the white male league (which is fair, she's just trying to set him up for success but.), there's the watching hockey on saturdays to "learn" to be canadian, & then just a lot of little offhand comments that suggest she's deeply ingrained in hockey culture. the "fuck him up the butt" comment abt rozanov at lunch, shane always talking abt how she was the biggest metros fan, the fact that shane was specifically worried abt his mom when it came to coming out.

this isn't to say she's a bad mom ofc, just that i think it's complicated to hold all these things at once. while it's absolutely true she can never truly be one of Those Hockey Moms, i don't think that stopped her from adopting the culture, even if it's in a different way. honestly i think that might even be more painful for shane long-term...the fact that it's so intrinsically part of her, & not reliant on her being part of a group of hockey moms. & notably i've actually said before that i think sveta & yuna would get along GREAT lol.

i think shane is kind of the odd one out there. while i do think he probably has more understanding of race bc of his upbringing, yuna's determination to be part of the in-culture is what pushes me away from thinking shane would've ended up massively more enlightened than his teammates. the race thing? surely, given juniors/ohl culture. the sexism...i'm much less convinced. & then shane being gay is sort of the final nail in the coffin for me. he has no real obligation to build close relationships w women or get to know them as people in the same way a straight guy in that envrionment eventually might have

for ilya ig it's harder for me to address bc i'm not completely sure what you've read on my blog so far! but tldr i've mostly talked abt him as a benevolent patriarch & crucially just as misogynistic as shane, just a different flavor :)

while it's true book ilya doesn't really have female friendships, sveta included, i do think there's basis for his pedestal-of-women habit. he praises his mother constantly without a single word of criticism & basically sanctifies her, freezing her thru the perspective he had at age 12, despite the fact that if we step back a little...yes she suffered immensely, but she also left her kids with their abuser. she never seems to have tried to leave (afaik), she appears to favor ilya over alexei, even if part of that is bc grigori got to alexei first. obviously this is all filtered through ilya's pov, & he's an unreliable narrator at times, so we don't know the full picture. but irina wasn't a saint just bc ilya sees her that way......no parent really is. their family dynamic was incredibly toxic, & a lot of people, even victims, can end up perpetuating those dynamics in different ways. i think that's where ilya's view of women starts for me

anyway idk if this answered ur questions?? if not pls feel free to send a follow-up!! i'd also recommend going thru my hr masc tag. i'm still backtracking & tagging older posts, but i've started gathering most of my posts abt masculinity (esp w hockey context added) there so it's easier to follow my overall thought process. & not to self plug lol but my fic reward is always measured is basically a much deeper dive into my thoughts on shane's misogyny, his relationship w hockey culture, & some of my thoughts on him being asian canadian within elite hockey. hope this helped!!

[parcai]

heyy its the same girl with the shane misogyny ask from earlier. i ended up reading more of your blog and i really agree with most of your points, its just the way shane would display any misogyny he has i disagree with

i agree he would feel insecure of the women in ilyas life (sveta, galina, his old hookups) but i dont think he would ever assume svetlana slept her way to the top or used ilya in that way. shane is insecure but he is never shown to have this level of vitriol towards anyone. the worst he is in tlg is a little bitchy and mean towards troy, but again he never thinks of ilyas old hookups as sluts or implies such. i also think the statement "then shane being gay is sort of the final nail in the coffin for me. he has no real obligation to build close relationships w women or get to know them as people in the same way a straight guy in that envrionment eventually might have" is false. straight men famously dont think of women as people at all, especially straight white men. women are nothing more than sexual objects to the majority of the straight male population. shane being gay in no way makes him less likely to foster relationships with women, its just that rr didnt care about centering women in this series. in the show he even scolds hayden for saying "hit that" regarding his high school ex. he has no so called obligation to her, but he clearly doesnt stand for misogynistic comments.

ilya having stronger female connections is entirely added by the show. in fact i think with ilya putting svetlana on a pedestal he would fall vicitm to this as well. he would end up relying on her for emotional and physical needs, and thinking hes doing a good job because hes not treating her poorly like other men, but well hes not really seeing her for her is he? hes seeing an ideal sveta that shes projecting, but does he actually know her? does she even really know him? (sorry i kinda got off topic here)

as for yuna she definetely is pro-assimilation, at least partially. some of it is due to the fact that her parents (assuming they came to canada) were the wave of japanese immigrants post ww2. theres posts on here that explain this better than me but that need to feel canadian probably resulted from that. despite that she clearly wants shane to be representation for asian kids, which to me implies that she doesnt just want shane to be palatable. she wants shanes career to be proof that hockey isnt just a white mans game. we dont see her thoughts on women at all, but she never tries to force shane to or away from a relationship. we see her feeling things out in the show, and in the book she was excited about rose. she wanted her son to have more than hockey, she just didnt know how to go about it. hockey is very much a part of her, but i think its more interesting for her to wrestle with the fact that she loves the sport itself so much (i hc that she played until she was "too old" to be messing around like a boy) but the culture will never accept her or her son. those hockey moms would never accept her or her son. so fuck the culture. i think david (being a white man who actually played hockey) would be more so to blame, if we were going with shanes parents being the reason for his misogyny. i dont think its fair to try to pin it on yuna.

i think both shane and ilya would have misgynistic tendancies, but it wouldnt be as explicit since that would just override their canon characterization. again no hate, just sharing my thoughts

for anyone who wants to catch up: the og post

straight men def don't think of women as people either, that part was more implied to me. i think ppl just famously give gay men a pass in this regard when they can honestly be some of the most vicious toward women, using queerness as a shield against accusations of misogyny. combined w the nhl/his social circle, that is what i meant w the final nail in the coffin for me.....he doesn't even really have to interact w women in the first place, let alone interrogate his own assumptions abt them. at least his teammates are talking to women bc they're chasing after them (which isn't great either lol), but that was more where i was coming from. def not in defense of straight men...often sickos....i also do think a lot of these things abt ilya's women is v internal. he is not saying any of this shit aloud but i do think he's a big jump to conclusion guy in tlg, and i can see it extending this way. it's not perfect, but. neither is he

as for the "hit that" thing w jessica, i always read it more as shane's inherent embarrassment at being perceived as a sexual person in the slightest than concern for jessica herself. one of the biggest themes of his character is repression & his fear of showing desire at all, plus trying to maintain the golden boy image yuna's built around him. but again that's just my interpretation! if u read that scene through more of a feminist lens that's totally fair too

nono i actually like that point abt ilya a lot bc i think he absolutely falls victim to that too. the whole "i don't deserve you" thing & all this...while sveta's just kinda like ??? i also think their relationship is pretty surface level in a lot of ways for exactly the reasons u described. ofc it's also just not her story which could contribute to the shallowness so we don't really know

for yuna i think i sort of hold both those ideas at once. i think she's very aware of shane's status as an asian man & wants him to be palatable because she wants younger asian kids to be palatable/accepted too. i also hard agree on the post-ww2 japanese immigration point. i think she gets excited abt rose more so bc shane has never really...done anything LOL he's always been head down, hockey helmet on, so seeing him have any social life outside of basic team stuff & hayden dinners is exciting to her. esp bc shane is just as emotionally closed off w his parents as he is everyone else. we unfortunately never get to see her react to him actually dating someone or bringing a girl around, even a girl who's a friend, so this part is 100% headcanon, but i do imagine her as very momager/boy mom adjacent in that sense. there's not much evidence one way or the other...it's mostly conjecture based on ppl i've known exactly like shane, including one in the ncaa whose mom is...fascinating 😭 (i like her well enough but wow)

i'd actually be way more willing to pin it on david than yuna if david wasn't famously so much "softer" than what we'd expect from a white guy who played hockey like that. he's the one going "yuna! honestly!" after the "fuck him up the butt" comment abt rozanov, he's the one cooking, bringing yuna wine, etc. their marriage doesn't really follow traditional gender roles in that sense. but i also think it's important that david is a white cishet man.. he has a freedom to be "soft" that shane never really gets, both bc of his own privileges & bc of yuna's relationship to him

it's why i always end up saying i think shane learned how to be a man through his mother more than his father.....which is always such a chewy idea to me oaugh

so yeah i think we honestly agree more than we disagree!! i don't think either shane or ilya are uniquely misogynistic or out here actively making women's lives miserable. i think they're both products of the environments that shaped them, & a lot of what i'm talking abt is passive, internal, or shows up in subtle ways rather than explicit hatred. to me that doesn't override their canon characterizations at all...it just adds another layer to them. thank u for sharing ur thoughts tho!! i genuinely don't mind disagreeing when ppl are respectful like this 🫡🫡

[parcai]

On the topic of hollanov misogyny... rather than Ilya feeling annoyed at Yuna for micromanaging Shane's life, he becomes resentful at David for not being better at "controlling his woman" Ilya has a madonna-whore complex from Hell courtesy of his religious mother who he idolized. Women are either precious and He Has To Protect Them (svetlana, irina) or lustful agents to fufill his desires (hook-ups he doesn't bother to learn their names he just calls them baby and has them saved in his phone as either their insta handle or their location). Honestly, I headcanon shane much less misogynistic than you do. With all the ads he did growing up (marketing is a field dominated by women) where he would have seen women in power, making decisions about him and his brand, and I think Shane respects anyone at the top of their game. And then the base level internalized feminism to be willing to 1) Be filmed doing yoga in 2015/2014, the height of the white girl yoga craze 2) be penetrated by your #1 rival and still have a positive self-concept suggests there's some kind of respect there imo. In my opinion Shane feels very Carney-esque Liberal party. Don't talk about discrimination, We Have Already Solved Discrimination In Canada! Abortion, same-sex marriage, free healthcare, women in power in the government—all good things. We are not like the United States, we don't do that crazy bible-thunmping, hyper-individualistic stuff here. (Although I think that Shane would totally fall for inflammatory anti DEI narratives.) Shane is definetely the gay guy going "omg can you believe what bat-shit thing is going on in the us?! So happy I was born in Canada because that could never happen here! :)" One of my more incendiary opinions is that one of the reasons why Shane is more respectful of woman than many of his peers is in large part because Yuna was super controlling of who he was around, who he was messaging, and would use old adages like "women weaken legs" as a way to associate demeaning attitudes towards women with bad hockey. Whenever she would figure out that one of Shane's teammates pulled some shit with a woman she would go "you would never do that, right my love? Because you're actually good at hockey! They are just doing that to compensate for their small dicks and lack of natural talent! Boys who are actually good at hockey don't do that or think that!" And that this is what she was apologizing for at the end of the series: planting and engraving in Shane's mind that Boys That Are Actually Good At Hockey are like knights: respectful, chivalrous, aspire to one day have a successful female partner to start a family, and are happy to be good representation and a positive role-model. Straight is an assumption.

But also I'm sorry, the PWHL headcanons are cute but Shane couldn't care less about women's sports except for gymnastics. The only female athlete he follows is Simone Biles.

hmmmm thanks for the ask :) as we all know i am the world’s biggest #hollanovmisogyny truther. that said, i don’t necessarily agree w all these interpretations (which is fine lol <3)

as i’ve talked abt before, i think hollanov’s misogyny manifests in diff ways. shane's is very much derived from a place of resentment, unexamined jealousy, & a whole lot of assumptions abt women having things easier bc of his upbringing/hockey culture/eventual gay identity/mother/lack of reason to really see women as people to begin with. for ilya it’s always been more of a benevolent patriarch thing: women need to b protected & saved & helped (even if they insist otherwise…) and then ofc the same general indifference as all hockey men, like shane/other friends & teammates.

so for the ilya-david thing i honestly cannot see him ever wanting ANYTHING related to "control your woman," esp after having a father like grigori. he's more benevolent patriarch to me. if anything i think the madonna-whore complex is WAYYY more associated w shane’s line of thinking (see rose vs svetlana/ilya’s women imo). even if he’s not in love with hookups, to me i’m sure they’re just less precious to him. not sveta/irina levels of sanctification, & while he certainly commodifies them, i could still see him being like you should leave your shitbag boyfriend & i’ll punch him for you. can’t you see i’m so righteous and good, no woman will suffer like irina again, look at me doing such a service partially bc he couldn't save his mother

i def think shane respects anyone at the top of their game, but again i think of this the same way i think of yuna. these few people aren’t real...women...to him. like wow you’re doing all this, you’re the same kind of gunner as me, excellent. he would def praise women for more traditionally perceived "masculine" traits (she cares abt her career first) but only if it's palatable ofc (which is why sveta car girl doesn't matter bc he's convinced she slept her way to it/used ilya or her dad's rep for it). as for the yoga thing, that’s not as big of a deal to me when u think abt football players doing ballet training and stuff. sports r just diff, esp hockey. not to mention he's hollander hockey jesus. if he says yoga is good, his whole team is joining. as for being penetrated, notably he does have a lot of very complicated feelings abt it in the books, esp HR!! he’s always calling himself a slut and stuff for it (and not necessarily in a kink way), just bc of his desperation to be filled and all that. there’s def a disconnect there that he recognizes, but his overwhelming desire overrides it every time.

i do agree shane prob thinks abt canada vs the world like that, but you’d b shocked how many people in general have that mentality. so for a relatively uneducated guy who stopped taking school seriously around 14/15 (bc of juniors/ohl pipeline to the nhl), it’s not shocking that that’s where his thoughts end.

crucially to me yuna is IN on the culture. all hockey mothers are imo. you do not raise a son—and esp in yuna’s case practically hand-prime him for it—and not know abt all that. i do think she prob does that to a certain extent. i don’t think she’s out here thinking/condoning her son doing actually rly devastating crimes to women, just bc of the way her marriage is w david, but she’s a hockey fan first & foremost, so all the sexual assault type of hazing within the guys themselves or whatever...she don’t gaf. she’s prob proud of shane for enduring it/being strong abt it. i also talk abt this frequently but to ME shane learned to be a man thru his mother, NOT his father. david is soft in a way shane could never afford to be. but yes on yuna being controlling/women weaken legs/prioritizing his sport & career first.

HARD agree on pwhl. if shane got asked to name a woman in sports or whatever (which i fucking hate that trend & can’t even get into it lmfao), he’s just gonna say like. Serena Williams or whatever. i don’t think he even cares abt gymnastics tbh. the only women in sports he would know are the most famous of the famous, & even then he doesn’t watch their stuff/follow them/care. if his teammate has a sister in sports, he might know her too.

fascinating takes tho!! luv other people’s perspectives on such stuff :)

[parcai]

hiii i just wanted to say (about some recent anons i saw about misogyny) that i agree with what i’ve seen of your takes so wholeheartedly - about shane's vs ilya’s misogyny, shane’s reaction to “hit that” not being a feminist appeal but due to his sexual repression and internalised homophobia, and also about misogyny in gay men. obvs straight men don’t engage women in good faith (and instead do so for their own ends) but nevertheless, being heterosexual gives them reason to engage with women whereas gay men don’t. that doesn’t make straight men not misogynist, and certainly they will weaponise pseudo-feminist rhetoric to get what they want from women, but i agree with you that misogyny amongst gay men is a huge problem that is often overlooked and downplayed!

i’m also begging people to understand that benevolent sexism IS STILL SEXISM. in the headcanon/interpretation that Ilya’s misogyny presents itself as viewing women as either saints or victims… this is still very much misogyny, and is very damaging to women. i really, truly hope people understand the harms in those kinds of views!!!! especially because this kind of misogyny is far more insidious and some women might endorse/perpetuate it because it seems "positive"

overall tho i kind of hope people realise it’s okay to love fictional characters who are flawed and non-feminist and who may perpetuate (including through lack of awareness/exposure to women’s issues) misogyny! obviously it’s okay to also headcanon hollanov as feminists but that’s very idealistic and (imo) kind of boring because it takes away nuance in who they are as people, leaves them with less room to grow, and importantly!! it reduces the inherent harms of the environments they were raised in, work in, and largely socialise in.

also your takes about yuna vs david were so interesting, thank you! i look forward to reading your other previous posts.

ahhh thank u 😭😭 i'm really glad my posts resonated!! also y'all r gonna make me cry fr lol. it’s just really nice to see people being normal about this, finally lol :)

and YES on benevolent sexism. people calling it somehow “milder” or less harmful just because it looks protective or positive on the surface...that framing usually comes from mapping it onto what they personally recognize as sexism, rather than recognizing how limiting it still is for women’s autonomy and personhood.

on the straight men point—someone did point this out to me after my original post!! and looking back i agree i didn’t communicate it clearly enough lol. i meant it to be implied, but i should’ve been more explicit. i addressed it a little bit later in a follow-up clarifying that heterosexuality does change the context in which men engage with women, even if it obviously doesn’t make straight men any less capable of misogyny. so thanks for pointing that out as well! totally right on that, and my oversight in wording.

and re: headcanons vs interpretation, i don’t think there’s anything wrong with people headcanoning hollanov as feminists at all either! fandom is fandom, even tho i agree it's a bit more boring to have perfection like that. i just tend to be talking about what feels consistent with their environment, upbringing, and the culture they’re embedded in, which is a slightly different question. i like to keep a bit of realism in the mix as we all know by now considering how much i enjoy the hockey of it all <3

also thank u for mentioning the yuna vs david bits 🥹 i’m always pleasantly surprised when people actually read my long rambling meta LOL & that was so deep in there.....mwah

so yeah lol idek what i'm saying rn i just really really appreciate this take & the open-mindedness. i think sometimes people forget you don’t have to personally relate to a character to engage with them meaningfully, and that not all media analysis has to be about moral alignment or “correctness” in the characters. anyway, appreciate you 🫶