That's My Book @thatsmybook - Tumblr Blog

My favourite Young Adult mlm reads to celebrate London Pride and Omar's new music video Talk.

It is about fucking time a major media outlet actually writes about the smear campaign against Hudson. Not to give EW many props but it’s more than most have done.

#MekishanaPierre #it took a Black woman journalist to write this understand the nuance and who the intended victim is who doesn't need to be held accountable #hudson williams #simu liu #the silence from others is deafening

polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup

The rumblings the hockey insiders must have had about the metros locker room must have been insane. They don't even need anything substantial, but the tension must have been widely known even if they publicly didn't say anything. The metros org must run a really tight ship for nothing to have come out.

Weirdly, Theriault was the biggest factor keeping what was going on behind the scenes on lockdown.

I wonder if show only watches know that Ilya's been with men other than Sasha & Shane? That he had way more encounters with other genders after Sasha, less with men because it was dangerous, but also during those 6 months he wasn't talking to Shane after Sochi. The only time he goes a long time with no sex is between Tampa & the Cottage, which puts a grin on Shane's face😉 Sasha is the point at which he realises he's really into Shane & likely turned one down because of thoughts of the other.

I only mention it because people either discount the women we see Ilya with or say that the bathroom convo with Sasha was him saying he's already 'taken'. Ilya's not taken (ew at taken, people aren't possessions), he's not committed even in his own mind to Shane and vice versa. Neither of them make that commitment even mentally for another three years.

#heated rivalry #heated rivalry spoilers #ilya rozanov #shane hollander

Consider that Shane Hollander cares a lot about being a Role Model to non white kids in the sport. He talks about doing interviews he hates because he remembers as a kid, looking forward to seeing his favourite players talk after their games. He decides on a hockey school for kids as a charity because that combines things both him and Ilya are interested in.

His name may not be Asian but he very visibly is Asian. His sponsorship deals put him on screens everywhere and often (we see him on TV screens everywhere in the show). Sponsors mean reputation and visibility, and it's why Yuna puts so much importance in it. It's not just the money. He would have experienced racist and homophobic abuse in locker rooms and on the ice worse as an adult than as a kid, but his good reputation can somewhat protect those kids like him, those who are compared to him. Those who are so proud to see him on their screens.

Coming out as gay and still showing his skill and winning cups is also a way to be a role model. Showing that nothing changes even now that he's gay, he's still Shane Hollander.

However, when he's accused of cheating by the hockey media and his team, who he's played closely with for a decade, now those kids compared to him are looked at differently. Now that comparison does not protect them, imply integrity, or open doors for them. Shane Hollander's reputation casts a long shadow, more than the queer white players in the sport. How all players perceive Shane carries weight more than for his own and Ilya's life.

Selfish, only child, self-absorbed Shane, is not a Shane I know.

#shane hollander #role model #heated rivalry spoilers #the long game spoilers #heated rivalry #the long game #lgbtqia

Rachel has said that she wanted to explore toxic masculinity culture in Ice Hockey, to critique it and imagine characters who navigate it to a place where they can overcome it. The key thing though is, the culture is external, and the queer characters are subject to it.

Ilya is not affected by it at all because he is characterised as being secure in his sexuality and masculinity. He is subject to homophobic pressure by his country, but as he is perceived as a womaniser and a white jock bro, he is never the brunt of toxic masculinity directly in the sport.

Fabian has grown up alongside very blatant toxic masculinity from the sport and has been subject to it in his own home. His arc is partly to realise that Ryan is not like those homophobic hockey players but a victim himself of the toxically masculine expectations on him because of his physicality. The neglect of his injuries and the mental health strain on players like him is to highlight the culture that pushes that 'real men' put up with physical and mental injury. Fabian and Ryan together work to leave behind the Tough Guy image, in Fabian's mind and externally for Ryan.

Like Fabian, Shane has grown up alongside very blatant toxic masculinity and has been subject to it in his own locker room and on the ice via chirping from other teams. Unlike Fabian, he wasn't able to escape it because the sport is also his passion. So he's been in it longer. It's led to his anxiety (not diagnosed like Ryan's is, just coped with on his own until Ilya helps in HR). Like Ryan, there are toxic masculine expectations on him but not based on his size, based on his race. The chirping (pretty) and homophobic slurs about him in the other GC books lead to his view of his own masculinity. So even when he is secure in his sexuality helped by Rose, he is very aware that he is already perceived in a misogynistic way. He has internalised a lot of that and his self worth is wrapped up in it. Unlike Ilya, he's always been directly subject to toxic masculinity on one side, and perceived as a Role Model of Asian male players in the sport on the other side. Racists too, often perceive racialised players with suspicion, so he has tried to ensure that his integrity is never called into question, by trying to be perfect. All these things would be ramped up once he comes out, and once he's out with Ilya, the smear campaign begins that he's been cheating to benefit Ilya (even though HE'S won three cups and Ilya's just won the one). Ilya is not accused of the same thing by the think pieces written because, once again, he's never been subject to the toxic masculinity that Shane has. Free of Russia and his family, hockey is a respite from that mentality for Ilya.

But we're told, by Rachel, that Shane is selfish in how he copes with these pressures. That Shane's selfishness was essential to create conflict. (The world she'd built outside their relationship not being enough conflict, apparently).

The books give sympathy to Ryan's mental health under these pressures, to Ilya's mental health under his family pressures, but Shane's mental health, is used for laughs, minimised, easily overcome at the end of the story. That shows that his coping mechanisms have been self-absorption the whole time, and putting aside his selfish ways makes both him and his boyfriend happy.

#heated rivalry spoilers #tough guy spoilers #game changers series #the long game spoilers #fabian salah #ryan price #ilya rozanov #shane hollander #the culture of toxic masculinity racism and homophobia being external seemed to not matter once it got to Shane Hollander #Shane's arc is about atonement for not being a Tough Guy #heated rivalry #hollanov

penandinkprincess

i do love and respect the idea of the world at large being stunned at finding out how long ilya and shane have been together, but i truly think that under NO circumstances would shane ever choose to offer ANY personal details about himself or their relationship willingly.

which combined with ilya loving just making things up and saying them (as seen in the "yes, the rumors are true-" scene) offers the very funny idea that ilya actively tries to offer as much privacy as possible by just throwing out stories about them at random so there IS no central story for people to hound shane about.

assorted backstories a la "ilya just started talking and found out with everyone else where he was going with this":

they got snowed in at all stars one year (b-but wasn't that year in florida?) and decided there was nothing better to do

it started as a bit and neither is willing to give up first

they paired off to combine forces like nato

they paired off to limit how many kids they could have in the future to make sure hockey stayed fair

ilya lost a bet six years ago

shane lost a bet three years ago

ilya got tired of remembering phone numbers for his hookups and shane's is easy

ilya got tired of having to look things up in english and french when talking to other people and decide to marry someone who speaks two languages to save time

shane is gifted enough (wink wink wink) that other people are cowards and only ilya was brave enough to rise to the challenge (this one gets him in trouble on the phone later but it also gets him laid that night at home and also confuses the online speculation about who tops and bottoms, so net positive tbh)

yuna hollander is the best manager in the business and a political marriage was the best way to secure her services longterm

with the end result that all shane has to do is shrug and "my husband has already told our story a thousand times by this point. no point in repeating it and boring people." in interviews to get out of people trying to dig into things he doesn't want to tell them.

#heated rivalry

gaynehollander

My biggest problem (in a long line of problems) with the outing plotline in The Long Game is Ilya's reaction to the video leaking. It feels so out of character that I literally cannot reconcile it with how I see Ilya's character.

So, Hayden breaks the news that Shane and Ilya kissing has now become public property to anyone with an internet connection and the insight we receive into Shane's reaction to this news through his POV is that "Shane's stomach plummeted. […] Shane couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t swallow. He was going to die from choking on his own saliva. [...] He was choking on rage and fear and humiliation, and trying to remember how to swallow." So, essentially, a pretty classic panic response.

May I remind you that Shane has been terrified of coming out for the entirety of the book? And, sure, he and Ilya have decided that they will do it this summer but that's still months away and we haven't really seen him work through is actual feelings on that - which I know is because Rachel isn't interested in exploring that but I can justify it internally with Shane pushing back his processing because it's a problem for a later date - Only, now they're out. No two ways about it. And once again, he didn't get the chance to tell people on his own terms. Once again, he was forced into it through circumstances outside of his control.

And Ilya's reaction to this is to reassure Hayden that it's okay, that they were going to come out anyway soon enough "but now [they] do not have to", and that it was their own fault for not having been more careful. Now, that last part is what really gets me because I read Shane as being entirely too prone to self-blame and here Ilya is, not only failing to help Shane through his worst nightmare becoming a reality but actively saying it's his fault that they're in this situation (their joint fault but still, there is no way Shane doesn't internalise that).

Hayden tells them "the video is fucking everywhere," that people's reactions are "mostly, like, 'what the fuck?' or 'holy fucking shit' or 'is this a fucking joke?'" That there are people who think Shane should not be allowed to attend practice with the team and, presumably, think he should be benched or dropped. That their teammates reactions are along the same lines, and that "practice is going to be weird this afternoon", if he's even allowed to attend it. At no point during that conversation does Ilya attempt to check in with Shane emotionally.

Even after Hayden leaves, he still doesn't ask how Shane feels or try to provide him with comfort. Instead he pulls up the video and laughs about it. I get that Rachel was trying to get him to diffuse the situation with humour and, supposedly, he succeeds at that since Ilya manages to get Shane to laugh too, but if that's going to be the approach then you need to give it more conscious thought and be more deliberate in engaging Shane in seeing the funny side of the situation. As is, his laughter here reads, to me, as a slightly hysterical panic response or him trying to mimic Ilya because he feels that's the "correct reaction" to have.

Ilya suggests calling their agent and Shane ends that call feeling "numb" at which point this conversation occurs, with absolutely no pacing, immediately after the phone call ends: Ilya: “Farah will help.” Shane: “I’m worried she can’t.” Ilya: “I know. I have to go back to Ottawa now. Our plane leaves in a few hours.” Ilya asks if Shane will be okay, he says no, he'll be "a fucking mess", he asks if Shane thinks his team will be okay with the news and Shane tells him "Probably not at first. I don’t think Coach is going to be okay with it. Or management. Or, like, anyone."

Ilya has no words of encouragement, no moment where he allows Shane to freak out about this, no actual check in over the fact that Shane's life has imploded and he's now left to sort out the debris. He just kisses his hand, tells him "one thing at a time," and then he leaves.

There is literally no way for me to read that as anything other than callous and insensitive and I just don't buy it, not from my Ilya. My Ilya has more emotional intelligence than that. My Ilya recognises Shane's anxiety and knows how to support him through it. My Ilya would never fucking downplay the dumpster fire of the leak to this degree and then just leave Shane to deal with the fallout which, crucially, Ilya knows will be worse for Shane than for him. He doesn't actually anticipate any problems with his own team, he says so himself.

It genuinely makes me furious whenever I think about it.

thatsmybook

#all of this #i've ranted a lot about this reblog on threads already so i was glad to see I wasn’t alone #also op brings up an incident i hadn't even considered and now i'm mad fir extra reasons #heated rivalry #shane hollander #ilya rozanov #the long game

hothockey

okay, so what we're NOT gonna do as white folks in fandom is say: 'it's easy to avoid racism, just filter it out' or 'people who think fandom/creator is racist are just deliberately looking for racist content.' we're not gonna do that !!!!!! because we are thoughtful anti-racist adults here. so what we ARE gonna do is call out racism and know that racism is embedded in our spaces and we must continuously push back against it and relearn our approach to dismantling it and check ourselves and others, and recognize that fans of color cannot escape racism -- it isn't possible to """"filter it out"""" when you are fucking experiencing it -- and we WILL always protect the right of fans of color to continue to critique the way several white people wrote an asian character however goddamn long they please. that's what we're gonna do, right. right ??????????

#this #heated rivalry #anti racism

deja-b00

somehow it comes up that troy had a crush on shane and was going to ask for his number. and after troy gets ribbed by his teammates and ilya makes a big scene, shane is like, “well i never would’ve gone out with you lol.”

and troy smiles, “right, because you were with roz the whole time.”

“i mean, yes, but also because you and dallas kent spent years calling me and jj ‘rush hour’ and asking hayden if his wife was his beard to cover up his big gay relationship with me.”

the rest of the centaurs blink. harris puts his head in his hands and groans.

and troy’s like, “oh. right. sorry about that :/“

#role model #sometimes i think we forget troy suckedddd #troy barrett #shane hollander #ilya rozanov #ottawa centaurs

hudsonswilliams

for @ilya-roza

#when the story said both #they meant both #hudson williams #connor storrie

hollandar

Hudson Williams, #1 Shane Understander

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)