queen bee

bee. she/her.

[space-feminist]

people who feel the need to chime in on posts about not supporting hp because of jkr with AND THE BOOKS ARE AWFUL AND HORRIBLY BIGOTED TOO are so completely missing the point it's insane. the content of harry potter does not MATTER!!!! if it was the most perfectly unproblematic piece of media ever it would still be supporting jkr and her bigotry and that would be enough of a reason not to support it!!!! all you're doing is continuing to treat harry potter as something worthy of discussion instead of trying to kill its cultural relevance!!!! you are not an ally and i do not trust you!!!!

[space-feminist]

good omens is by and large a very good book with positive messages but i stopped posting about it after the neil gaiman stuff came to light bc the quality of the content doesn't fucking matter when we're talking about materially supporting people who wield their power & influence to harm others

[ragehangover]

so i mentioned it in the tags of this post but i want to elaborate on this line in particular:

because rachel reid uses ‘bitchy’ or ‘bitchiness’ as a descriptor of shane’s behaviour in the long game, both by shane himself and ilya. what i find bizarre about it — considering that it is a derogatory gendered term — is that it is always used to imply shane is being unreasonable. shane is tone policing himself, even though his response to this situation (ilya telling him that he’s now close with troy barrett, someone shane knows as outwardly homophobic) is logical, and predicated on ilya’s repeated failure to communicate. ilya replies ‘i might be busy having sex with troy’ and then hangs up. despite his tone, despite what he says, he is only described as speaking ‘tightly,’ rather than ‘bitchily.’

to be clear, ilya and shane are both men, but ilya’s behaviour is never described this way, even when he also acts petty, unkind, or bitchy. as another example:

ilya pokes fun at shane’s diet, even after shane tells him to stop. shane loses his patience and reacts to something ilya started, but shane’s behaviour is what is described as bitchy, not ilya’s. shane is reacting unreasonably.

in the same scene — shane describes himself as an absolute bitch. shane is acting unreasonably. and again:

why is shane described this way? or more specifically — why is shane the only one described this way in the book? ilya is jealous of shane interacting with a reporter in a professional setting and shoots a puck at them from behind glass, something shane describes as humiliating, but reid doesn’t describe this action as bitchiness. ilya antagonises shane, but shane responding is what is considered bitchy.

like i said, we cannot extricate ‘bitch’ from its origin as a gendered pejorative, but we also cannot ignore that it is racialised — reid exclusively uses it to describe the gay asian character (who is also a bottom) responding to antagonism. does that make sense? why are you using this particular language to deride shane’s actions in this way, and why is it always utilised in scenes where ilya is an instigator? not to get heteronormative about it, but this dynamic feels like a reflection of the happy husband / nagging bitch wife dynamic. it is that deep.

it is important to consider the language we use to tell a story. reid’s depiction of shane is not magically unaffected by her own, obvious biases around race and sexuality. the fetishisation of his race, his feminisation, her use of ableist language all informs how she chooses to have him react and, in turn, how she chooses to describe his reaction. this is not meaningful commentary about shane’s understanding of gender or his own queerness or his struggle to find community in a toxically masculine environment. he is not calling himself a bitch as an interrogation of shane’s role as a professional athlete intersecting with his sexuality, or even how shane personally views women, it is more indicative of how reid views women. she codifies that shane and ilya fulfil gendered stereotypes in their relationship. ilya is tall and masculine and shane small and hairless. ilya is intelligent and shane is not. ilya is right and shane is wrong. ilya is a cocky asshole and shane is a bitch.

[spotchka]

reblog to give your mutuals a djungelskog

[ilyannarozanova]

"Ilya wasn't acting like himself in tlg because he's depressed! That's why he wasn't the best boyfriend!" Okay well that would be interesting to explore if not for the narrative treating his behavior as justified and normal and righteous compared to Shane's. Who btw DOES communicate and DOES care and DOES try. But because Ilya is white and has dead parents and depression he can do no wrong while Shane is the worst person alive for being scared of the very real consequences of being a gay Asian man in an incredibly homophobic racist sport. Anyway. Fuck tlg lmfao

[mr-raindrop-13]

Thinking about how Ilya’s career achievements are tied to his personal narrative while Shane’s just … are. Like, there’s nothing wrong with either of these approaches but using one for each lead only feeds into the inherent bias the book has towards Ilya.

Ilya losing rookie of the year is tied to angst about going home, going out early at the olympics is tied to angst about being home, and therefore his cup win that year feels like a victorious and deserved comeback after that failure. Doing badly with the cens is part of his sacrifice for love and a factor of his depression.

Then with Shane, winning rookie of the year gets made into a moment of him being unaware of Ilya’s struggles, a good amount of the fandom don’t even know if he won gold or silver medal, and his back to back cup wins are glossed over, as is his third one.

It is only natural then, that Ilya arrives at his happy ending alongside arriving at a good place in his career. He can be out and his mental health is doing better while his team becomes competitive and he gets to play with his husband. The audience is meant to feel happy for him for both, and meant to feel like his hockey achievements are deserved and earned because they come with his development as a character.

Shane on the other hand arrives at this ending through being professionally humiliated. He loses his reputation, his team’s respect, and he’s basically forced to move from the team he created a dynasty with and take a big pay cut. But because the romantic plot takes precedence over hockey, Shane’s career being so narratively disconnected from his personal life means this isn’t addressed or treated as the serious loss it is.

Instead, the simultaneous professional success of Ilya and failure of Shane is wrapped in the same ending. And ultimately the audience is meant to view this as happy without taking time for what Shane has lost, because the book is only set up to create empathy and connection with Ilya’s career.

[yeuziu]

"That is enough sharing for tonight, Barrett."

[floormusic]

I think what saddens me the most about the ending of The Long Game is that Shane is a character that when given the agency to choose, doesn’t choose what’s easy. He didn’t have to invite Ilya to the cottage but he did. He didn’t have to approach him at All Stars but he did. He didn’t have to try and strike up a conversation on the Vegas balcony in an attempt to have a friendship after a rookie year that had cemented their rivalry into the history of hockey but he DID.

Even when he’s put in a situation where something happens against his will, he chooses to be vulnerable when he could lie/keep information to himself. He didn’t have to tell Rose in addition to their conversation about being gay that he prefers to bottom but he did. He didn’t have to tell his parents that on top of fucking Ilya Rozanov he loves him and wants to build a life with him but he did.

Ilya has a lot of doubts and fears during The Long Game about if Shane really would choose him, and Shane would. He is eager to move up their timeline because it would make Ilya happy and it would make him happy too. He stands up to the commissioner on behalf of their relationship. The problem people have with The Long Game isn’t the fact that Shane goes through growth where he realizes that he doesn’t have to suffer and shouldn’t have to suffer for hockey, something that has over his entire life been something that he loves.

Shane just led Montreal to another cup the previous season, and they cast him out like nothing. Okay, fine, let’s say Montreal decides that it’s not a culturally compatible fit for Shane to be gay with Ilya Rozanov. He takes a pay cut to be in Ottawa, and they don’t even offer him the A.

Shane spends the entire book dieting and worrying about what he eats, says himself that he likes the feeling of discipline maybe more than he likes the diet itself. Develops an aversion to sugar strong enough that he feels bad about kissing Ilya after he drinks lemonade. It ends with him just deciding whatever I guess that was stupid.

Shane spends the whole book fearing ostracism and the collapse of life as he knows it. He faces it, and it’s bad enough to uproot everything, stops his team that he’s led to three cups from fighting for him to resign with them because they don’t give a fuck about him that bad, and he still doesn’t understand the dark side of hockey.

Shane is happy to do it because it makes Ilya happy. All of the resolutions of his problems are rooted in Ilya’s life being structured in a way that makes Ilya happier. Ilya gets the dignity of multiple avenues of resolution for his problems (growing closer with his team and learning how to captain them, his individual relationship and dynamic between bood/wyatt/luca giving him perspective, going to therapy with a therapist that is Russian so we as the audience understand that there’s a cultural component to his depression).

Shane gets to move to Ilya and marry Ilya and play on Ilya’s team.

Rachel could have made the exact same narrative choices, but given Shane the dignity to be able to feel varied and complex emotions behind them. In fact, that would have honoured the sentiment of the book even deeper — look, we broke the cycle by not assuming proximity will fix everything. Look, I’m Ilya, characterized as insightful and an attentive partner, and I see that Shane, who I love, is going through a major life shift. That shift will be good and bring us closer together, but proximity didn’t fix my depression, and I want him to have the support and the space to feel complicatedly about this as he processes this uprooting of everything that happened to him. We have a strong partnership that will place more importance on being open with what we feel because we struggle with that going forward.

We get NONE of that! Shane gets none of that! His problems are trivialized by the narrative by the people that love him. How is that fair to him in the story? How is that justice for the characters that in the story we are supposed to believe truly care for him?

[theghostofashton]

something i feel like is missing from conversations about shane's internalized homophobia is the fact that he is already hypervisible. he is already a man of color in a very white sport. people are already looking at him, comparing him to tiger woods and serena williams, people have already thrust all of that expectation and visibility on him that he never asked for.

that makes it so much more difficult (and so much more understandable, imo) that he struggles with coming out. there's already a target on his back, already so many eyes on him, and it's been that way his whole career. he's never been able to change that, he's just had to take it. and it gets exhausting, having that forced on you for so many years, and then being faced with doubling it. not white and also gay. it's not the same for him as it would be for the other white queer players, nor is it the same for him as it would be for the straight players of color.

it's such a lonely thing for shane to have to navigate (as far as i'm aware there are no queer players of color mentioned in this universe?). and tbh i don't think it's possible to have a meaningful conversation about shane's issues with being out and his perception of his queerness without considering this, because it is a fundamentally different experience than any white queer player would have.

[chemdoodles]

1x04. the truth of who Shane Hollander is

[sergiocanavero]

"hollander" (this doesn't have to change, we can go back, we can just be hollander and rozanov and ignore the strings, we can pretend it's nothing more and never talk about it and I'll never say shane again, I'll never ask for more if this is all i can get) "hollander" (there's nothing I can say to keep this from crumbling but i'm begging you)

[duckduckhonk]

[sloanegabe]

my ilyapie <3

[cloudabserk]

the wicked succubus ilya

[from3am]

One of the most infuriating narratives for me is the idea that the problem montreal had was with Shane dating his rival and not homophobia. I know this is supported by the narrative. i know Shane comes out to them, it goes okayish, but him being with Ilya is the thing that sends it crashing down. I can understand all of that and think it creates a narrative which is totally inconsistent with the experiences of queer people at best, and at worst creates a veil of comfort so it can sing the song of homophobia without really dealing with the issue.

This storyline is so often framed as ‘the REAL reason they can’t come out is because of the rivalry. We already solved homophobia!’ and it just makes me want to scream You Don’t Get It! Homophobia is not a binary yes/no switch and doesn’t get instantly solved upon coming out.

People are generally aware that pointing at a gay man and screaming a slur is socially frowned upon but they do become uncomfortable in little ways and search for excuses to justify that discomfort. Sometimes coming out can go well but the minute that you start actually doing gay things (like getting into a relationship) it meets a very different reaction. Sometimes people are comfortable with someone being gay in theory but not in practice and they go searching for reasons to justify their homophobia.

Anyways, so no I don’t believe in any world that the team’s reaction was only about Ilya and had nothing to do with homophobia. In fact, i think no matter who Shane dated there would have been hostility to the highest level manageable while remaining socially acceptable. Ilya being his rival gave them an out whether we want to acknowledge it or not. It opened the door to be hostile and point towards reasons other than homophobia as justification. Framing it as being about their rivalry because homophobia apparently just disappears after coming out just completely ignores the complexity of the issue and treats coming out as a singular conflict to be overcome in a narrative.

[ragehangover]

so discussion about shane’s captaincy is generally pretty pointless — in part because of reid’s complete lack of interest in shane’s professional accomplishments, and partially because how people tend to interpret sexual dynamics as his only character trait regardless of context — but tbc. shane being a bad captain and / or not wanting the captaincy is not supported in canon. in fact, we know is that shane was happy to be named captain over ilya at the all star game. in my mind it is hard to rectify the image of shane hollander the hockey player, known perfectionist and devout student of the ice, sincerely hating being captain. he is factually a more successful captain than ilya, even before ilya goes to ottawa. we know he loves his team. we know he loves montreal. we know he loves the voyagers. i find it really lazy when people defend his loss of a letter with insisting that shane hates being a captain and would enjoy just playing hockey more and trusting ilya to take care of things for him. i find it reductive. it’s boring. sorry but i think that the gay autistic asian character having meaningful authority in an extremely conservative major sports league is a lot more interesting than him happily taking the backseat for his white partner. even ignoring that ilya is allowed to actually engage with and lead his team on page — while shane’s cup wins and eventual professional implosion is relegated to summary paragraphs — what shane represents is more important, especially given that he was publicly humiliated! shane is constructed out of blunt, unintentional stereotypes about his race and sexuality, something that him being a successful captain clearly subverts. and by that token, it is once again incredibly tone deaf that the original, intended ending for this series was shane being called a prima donna by his husband after losing his captaincy. ur trying to find an explanation for a decision that was just ill conceived and shitty

[philcollinsenjoyer]

and i get a little bit jughead (alternate universe where genghis khan is called jughead)

[softgrlfriend]

I have been nothing but elusive and difficult to you and this is how you treat me

[boitterfly]