w

he/him

[i-fear-gritty]

if troy barrett’s first television introduction isn’t a straight shot of just his forehead because he’s too short to fit in the frame just bin it off i think

[i-fear-gritty]

guys can we circle back to troy barrett being canonically 5’9. in real nhl terms he is the same height as denver barkey. who is so undersized for a hockey player that there were major concerns playing him with the flyers

there is genuinely no way in hell that troy isn’t a Generational player for him to play in the nhl with his height disadvantage. in the books he is SHORTER THAN SHANE (who is shorter than tv shane because of rr’s size difference kink). that boy was 100% like a fifth round draft STEAL. and if we’re being realistic troy would not have gotten traded to ottawa he would have been just sent down a league to toronto’s ahl team.

like i know we’d want to picture him as like an average big hockey man but he’s like barely taller than i am irl. no wonder toronto wanted ryan price bro they have benjamin button on the team

[obligatory-hollanov-sideblog]

I know that Troy Barrett discourse is so 2 months ago here, but it is kind of crazy how the “advocated for women who had been raped by Dallas Kent” part of his storyline gets completely glossed over by the fandom

Like he isn’t just magically redeemed because he comes out, the redemption arc starts because he’s the only guy on the Guardians who believes Kents victims! In a sport where rapists and abusers regularly get away with it because the baseline assumption is that women is lie about sexual and domestic violence for money or spite, he actually spoke up about the accusations! Troy has done a lot wrong but that was a big deal!

[antisocial-burrito]

Y’all know the brief psychosis that some people went through regarding Shane’s thoughts on Troy? Why did y’all pick Shane to not love Troy and maybe hold a bit of a grudge when Ryan is right there? We see Troy bully Ryan in canon, while the stuff with Shane is a headcanon, just theory. While I want everyone to love Troy bc I love him, that’s not realistic, and I feel like it’s more like Troy and Ryan would have a slightly difficult relationship rather than Troy and Shane. Just a thought

[whobblywhale123]

I think its mainly because most of the discussions are lead by people that became show fans and are looking for more related content to the show, not the book series, so characters like Ryan arent as important to them?? so they mischaracterise Troy by expanding on the two sentences they know about him through fan content and use that to explore how Shane would deal with (racist) adversity, completely ignoring how in the books Shane either forgets about him or sees him as lifegoals for his successful coming out xdd.

it seems like Shane Hollander is a character to explore, while Troy Barrett is the narrative device through which Shane can learn to stand up for himself.

imo a lot of the other gamechangers characters seem like they only get explored through their similarities with Ilya and Shane and how hollanov influence their lives, and while Shane definitely has a ruthless streak, so much of Shane BAMF headcanons just seem like theyre reinventing Troy from first principles, ultimately kinda muddling both characters xdd.

Kinda funny tho, how RR is on record comparing Troy more to Ilya and hockey pests like Marchand, when in fandom Troy is more often than not interpreted through his similarities to Shane xd. That might just be the difference between Toronto Troy and Ottawa Troy, or on-ice Troy vs off-ice Troy tho...

[notenoughchiizu]

They have been plaguing my mind for the past couple of months so heres a big doodle dump of them.

I love them so much they feel like such a wholesome but inspiring couple. I am especially very drawn to Harris' communication!! Because he communicates so well it helps Troy communicate grahhh they help each other. Plus they just genuinely WANT to be around each other. Troy being so drawn to Harris confident nature is so good, giving Troy the confidence to be himself around himmmmmm and the team im gonna cry! The Ottawa Centaurs team is truly something special for both of them. I love a good redemption story with an under dog team finding their spark! You can't help but cheer for them every step of the way!!

It is my mission to draw Troy's smile.

[whobblywhale123]

Some more elaboration on my previous post. Disclaimer: I'm not an authority on Troy Barrett, I barely know the guy xdd.

Regarding Troy’s character development:

Troy’s story is advertised and set up as him hitting rock bottom and that serving as a wake up call to finally improve his life. To me, that always implied that a part of his story would be him struggling with internal biases and more importantly, having to overcome at least a set of more unsavory personality traits. Personality traits that lead him to being former best friends with Kent e.g., that come from only gravitating to and spending all of your formative years with people like Kent, his dad or his former teammates, but the actual book is imo a bit different from that.

Regarding internal biases, we see him learning to be open about his own sexuality and learning to be out and proud, leading to him coming out and getting together with Harris; that is what Role Model is all about.

Regarding his personality tho, there isn’t a real exploration, because most of that already happened off screen, before the events of Role Model even start. We meet Troy and his flaw isn’t that he actually believes any of the past things he stood for, it’s that he’s a coward who chose to act like a bigoted asshole mostly *inspite* of his believes.

In the story, he confronts his fears, starts his social media activism and makes an effort to apologize to the people he wronged, going above and beyond what many people would expect a cis white male in his position to do. He learns to no longer be a coward and hide behind people like Kent or his dad, not to no longer be an asshole.

And, most importantly regarding his past wrongdoings, it is never a question posed by the narrative whether he deserves any more punishment, because Troy has already fully internatized that he does not deserve good. His character arc is about deserving to move on by doing better and about learning to ask for good things; completely opposite to what a character advertised as Troy would usually need to learn.

Now, on paper a person like Troy could exist in real life, someone who is perfectly fine with being gay, believes women, knows all people around him are assholes, knows that an apology does not absolve him of past wrongdoing, but just doesn’t care enough to change anything about that. When we meet Troy in Role Model, he has already learned a lot of exactly these hard lessons (and a lot of self hatred because of it), but for seemingly no reason, while chronically offline and spending his whole life in an environment actively pushing against it.

He has good fundamentals to build his book redemption arc on, but no life that justifies any of that, if that makes sense?

His whole life has existed in toxic hockey culture and it has seemingly left his internal views mostly unaffected except for self hatred because of his sexuality. This makes him a good pov character, because we don’t have to grapple with the nuances that might come with internalized bigotry, but imo it makes him a very safe character, bordering on unrealistic? It is a lot of work unlearning internal biases (which he would 100% have from growing up with his dad), but Troy apparently already did allat years ago, while actively working on fitting in with Toronto at the same time?? (talk about multitasking xd)

I think people outside of hockey aren’t really aware of the depths of what views a person in Troy’s position might have (also with Troy’s tendency to not confront his problems/run away), simply because they haven’t had to challenge them and I would’ve loved for Troy’s story to reflect that a bit more. Just look at actual NHL players, some are chronically online and still believe in bluetooth conspiracy theories, zero original thought, only concussions. That is the league were trying to comment on xdd

When I say, I want Troy’s character development to be less linear that primarily means more relapses to former behavior and a longer timeframe. It means saying something out of pocket, without realizing and apologizing and learning to do better, because trying is better than not doing anything at all. It would potentially mean someone blowing up at him and him growing into a better person as a result, because nobody is perfect, just because they decide to be one day. It would be him starting to tell a funny story about him and his Toronto buddies and realizing halfway through that it isn’t actually all that funny and instead very insulting. An instinctual comment, chirp or joke that crosses the line, where someone might even have to explain to him, why what he said was wrong or hurtful.

Learning to do better includes learning to respect boundaries you didn't even know exist beforehand, sometimes through trial and error. Instead he already knows all of the boundaries perfectly, doesn't overstep anything, because through all of that he is still romance protagonist. He needs to get the guy, he doesn’t have time being actively morally grey xd.

Is it too much to wish he had a few minutes more?

Now for part two: reading comprehension

I’ve already posted my opinion on #thediscourse and my two cents on Shane/Troy interactions, the whole Troy tag is already flooded with ppls opinions, a lot of them more thoughtful than I ever could, a lot commenting with book excerpts that disprove a lot of popular Troy/Shane headcanons and characterizations in #thediscourse stemming from people just not having read the books/not having understood either character.

In short imo, a lot of headcanons about Shane blowing up at Troy require Shane to be ooc from the books, Troy to be ooc from the books and for the whole thought experiment to happen losely placed in the timeline, but without timeline consequences. That doesn’t really make a satisfying headcanon to me, since it doesn’t develop either character in a way that feels like an extension to the existing canon material. To me, the whole scenario can be very interesting, if it is more Shane reacting irrationally and letting out his frustrations on Troy and being in turn frustrated when that doesn’t do anything, because his issues aren’t with Troy, but with the system as a whole. That would be ignoring Shane and Troy agreeing to be chill in The Long Game, but seems still interesting/vaguely possible, if that makes sense? It would also not fill the „let Shane crash out as a treat“ mold a lot of people want to fill with #thediscourse.

It would be nice, if people actually read the Troy book, before trying to write thinkpieces on Troy as a character, just to know when their well intentioned head canon becomes bashing and to then tag accordingly. In the end tho, there aren’t any restrictions on posting, it is what it is, I don’t care enough to start beef.

[artemis-the-sinister]

What percent of the current troy barrett discourse do we think is currently being driven by people who have never actually read Role Model, do we think? 80%? 90%?

[whobblywhale123]

Every day I wish RR would've been braver to make Troy's character development less linear and then I remember #thediscourse and the sometimes astonishing lack of reading comprehension and think maybe it's for the better...

[bethnoir-fic]

One more thing regarding Role Model: there may come a time in your life when you meet someone who wants to do the work to be a better person. The question is do you want to help them be a better person or do you think that helping them is telling them they’re a piece of shit and healing should feel like shame all the time? Because the Catholics do the second one and historically it does not work.

Trust me. If someone takes the risk to open up and do the work, and if you have the marbles for it, it’s pretty great to help someone get better.

[masonshaws]

casting the hockey players of the game changers series with active nhlers

i love fancasting and i'm really good at it. not to toot my own horn. so i was like. what if i did the thing in the title of this post. and so i did

ground rules:

with one exception, all players are the same nationality as their characters, if specified in-book/show

skaters play skaters and goalies play goalies

criteria is a combo of varying degrees of importance of book description, show depiction if they have one, and vibes

dallas kent will not be cast so i don't get exploded by whoever i would end up casting's fans

aright let's do it to it

scott hunter – brady skjei

had the idea because god it would make ilya's jokes about how he's a million years old even funnier. all-american beefcake with kind eyes. considered marcus foligno here but he's got too much younger brother energy. too impish on a base level

carter vaughn – k'andre miller

the one that started this whole concept. truly the most intuitive casting on here, he really is the only black american player cool enough to be vaughnie

eric bennett – cam talbot

process for this one really was just looking up oldest goalies in the nhl. jonathan quick is actually older but he still has too much of that youthful verve. eric needs to be a bonafide dilf

shane hollander – jordan spence

much like the show, shane was cast before ilya. had a few japanese-canadian players to pick from, but sherwood is too beefy, which mostly leaves you between suzuki and spence and i just liked spence's vibes more for shane

ilya rozanov – danila yurov

with shane cast, you can start looking at the list of russian nhlers for possible ilyas. wanted someone of a similar age range to spence, and of that range, only yurov felt "sharp" enough. he doesn't smile much habitually but let's assume all these guys can act for this

hayden pike – cole caufield

here it is, the nationality exception rule. hayden is canadian and our boy cole is american, but i learned in looking up stuff in the game changers fan wiki that hayden pike is a short! king! ilya in the books is 6'3" and apparently hayd is seven inches shorter than that which puts him at 5'8". and there's only one man in the nhl who's that short, that charming, and that friend-shaped in the way show hayden is. he even plays for montreal!

jj boizieau – pierre-olivier joseph

looking for black quebeckers and the joseph brothers were the ones that stood out for jj! p.o. got the nod over mathieu, he just vibes slightly more to me, but i would accept either brother

cliff marlow – shane pinto

book marlow is actually younger than ilya, so i went for a closer age than show marlow who has grizzled vet vibes. he's a little bit of a wild child in the books also, which does make me wonder if there was some inspiration taken from bruins-era seguin. seguin's too old to do it now, though, and i don't know i'd take him here even if he wasn't. i love the show actor's huge eyebrows. pinto's aren't as big but he blends that vibe with that seguinesque devil-may-care attitude. this man could crash a frat party

ryan price – ross johnston

almost picked jonah gadjovich for this one but i really do think it's important for ryan to have that huge physical presence because it really informs his character and how he presents himself, and that three inches from 6'2" to 6'5" really make a difference for that. book ryan is 6'7" but i wasn't married to him having to be that tall. i did want him to be a fighter though, and kind of just a Guy-lookin dude. salt of the earth and all. was also considering jamie oleksiak but johnston won out

troy barrett – mitch marner

if he was american i would have cast jack hughes. alas he's a vancouver boy. anyways his description is black-haired (not blond, close enough), blue-eyed (yes), and boy band vibes so ding ding ding we have a winner! his dad even sucks!

wyatt hayes – logan thompson

wyatt has two physical descriptors: blond and dimples. i definitely ignored both of them for this (although maybe lt does have dimples, who knows? not me) because the vibe is more strongly established and more important here. had to be someone i would believe as a comic book nerd and as often the chillest guy on the team

zane boodram – anthony duclair

while neither bood's skin tone or race are explicitly mentioned, he is trinidadian which is a vast vast majority non-white country. i always envisioned him as black while reading. while nurse is actually trinidadian (fun fact), his vibes are All Wrong and duke's are All Right. this man would run a barbecue and haze his teammates with his delicious but extremely hot spice rubs

luca haas – jj moser

not a lot of young swiss fellows to choose from! moser happens to be both the youngest and closest to luca's physical description. if i had my druthers we'd unearth someone even babier because luca's got terminal baby face syndrome but moser will do just fine. we can style him to look younger it'll work out. i love that he has a big nose also

[riv3rboychaos]

also on the topic of shane hollander and troy barrett, i genuinely dont think troy was spouting shit to shane's face, or if he was i dont think it was at a level that was greater than any other hockey player, so it wouldnt make sense for shane's anger to be directed specifically at troy

my proof for this:

the fact that eric had to "assume" he was almost as gross as Dallas Kent implies that Troy was not known to actively spout shit on the ice, or at least not to the degree that Kent did. we do know that he said stuff around the team, which is why it makes a hell of a lot more sense for Ryan Price and possibly Wyatt Hayes to not forgive him (although wyatt hayes already did in role model so. moot point.) Shane is not going to waste his energy being pissed at someone who, at worst spouted the same amount of shit as any typical player in the league ( with people like carter vaughn, jj, hayden, bennet, and the 'gay avengers' ) being atypical in their decency (unfortunately). this passage makes it clear that any out of the ordinary grossnes of troy barrett happened within team only spaces, and was assumed by the public due to his closeness to dallas kent (while there is merit to the argument that having homophobic (or indeed any other form of oppression) friends makes you homophobic (/ said other form of oppression), shane is not going to hold a lifelong grudge over that when he was publicly "close" (aka the amount of close you would expect any hockey team to be) with the voyageurs between coming out and the ilya reveal so again moot point.

even without the added evidence that shane actively encourages ilya to give troy a chance when he moves to ottawa, this kinda shows that in canon character shane would not be holding a "lifelong" grudge / hatred of troy.

tldr: troy barrett was not any more homophobic than a 'typical' hockey player to anybody's face, hence shane is not going to waste energy being mad at him specifically.

also thank you @/liamismylight for finding the screenshot for me

[whobblywhale123]

In my head, Troy would always just give enough for ppl to not question the box, they put him in as asshole Dallas light, without actually acting anymore bigoted than a good portion of hockey players.

Just letting the image carry him, not his actions. Very much using Kent's proclivity to being the center of attention to just coast on what he is saying with only rarely initiating, mostly just saying the second most vile thing and nodding to the rest and letting that get drowned out by the rest Kent and gang spout.

Explains to me why so many people were willing to look past his past crimes, because it would make it comparatively easier to see his past actions in a different light, if it was mostly just image and smoke. That might also just be romance book magic tho and a more thorough exploration of Troy pre Centaurs in future canon might just easily disprove allat xdd

[liamismylight]

"We need more morally gray characters!"

*Morally gray character exists.*

"No, not like that."

Y'all about Troy Barrett right now.

The man spends half of his apology to Ryan Price saying he doesn't need to forgive him. Doesn't want Harris to get to close to him, because he genuinely believes that Harris is too good for him. Believes he deserves the hate he gets, he wasn't a good person, HE even hates himself.

What y'all actually want is quick punching bag. It's hard to punch homophobia (internal and exteral) in the face and people look down on punching old people (Crowell. I'm too much of a Trekkie, I keep calling him Cromwell). Y'all want to be able to dissect everything a character has done and throw back into their face. When that absolutely defeats the purpose.

Quick note. Reread or read the book. Some of y'all saying he would grovel for forgiveness. No he wouldn't.

[whobblywhale123]

The Troy Barrett discourse is weird to me, because Troy Barrett as a character seems specifically designed to not really facilitate the type of discussions that are currently had. He has already internalized that he should not be forgiven to an unhealthy degree. His character arc is more about learning to live with his guilt and moving forward and learning that he does in fact deserve nice things, even if he doesn't deserve forgiveness. It is about starting from the lowest and putting in full effort to change/be true to yourself and getting rewarded for it, even if you and others might not feel like you deserve it, because it is always better to be better. Even if it takes work and loses you everything you had.

So while it is on paper very interesting for one of the gay characters like e.g. Shane to actually confront him and openly not forgive him to add more depth/discussion on important issues, it runs into this really weird, icky narrative area.

Troy has already learned the lesson that he is not owed anything, so a confrontation does nothing for his character/story except set him back in his story arc. He does not learn anything, only that he is right that everyone hates him for good reason and that there is nothing he can ever do to fix that. That is not a good narrative/morale to have and the confrontation would be something he needs to overcome, not learn from.

Meanwhile, it puts Shane in a position to have to apologize to his past attacker, because bullies are also people and some are trying to change, which would be something new to his character, but feels really icky as the main morale of this arc to have. Troy has already apologized/done work to improve himself, so a full resolution of this story beat would mean Shane learning to at least partially forgive Troy, with Troy understanding Shane's point of view a bit better. This is Shane approaching Troy, not the other way around and would be really hard to properly pull off without feeling like talking down to minorities.

This is all because normally, for a reformed bully character like Troy learning to apologize and make it up to the people he hurt would be his main story arc. In Role Model tho, this gets mostly skipped, so he can be a sympathetic character to follow in a cute romance story. This makes his story easier to digest, because his character is so hard to use in actually hard conversations that someone like Shane and people seeing themselves in Shane might want to have.

Any confrontation is kathartic in the first moment and feels good, but doesn't really resolve well, because Troy Barrett is not even a good scapegoat. He is just really not the character for such an interaction, because he was designed to be mass palpable, not controversial.

[whobblywhale123]

Troy Barrett head canon: He would have a fight edit to Girly secret by Girly Girl Productions and it would go triple platinum on every possible occasion. He does not get the deal with it at all, but Harris always retweets it, so it just doesn't die. And if Harris likes it than it can't be that bad, right?

[bbyclnrbnsn]

Woke up one day and the fandom was like "we've decided your two favourite characters hate each other 🥰" and the tags are all full of it... Wtf?

They have soo much in common they're clearly parallels, there is no evidence of Shane hating Troy at all?? We see his POV of Troy and his friendship with Ilya in TLG and he's like,, a little confused about it at first and then slightly jealous because he's hot (and especially once he comes out) but that's it. If he hated him for being a huge racist that would have obviously been mentioned??

So it's all headcanon, which is fine obviously but it sucks that it's totally clogging the main tag 😭😭 (and personally I think it's a weird thing to want to see but whatever live and let live. but like. in a different tag maybe.)

[whobblywhale123]

I think ppl are projecting their own brand of hyper awareness of systemic issues on Troy and Shane and that just doesn't work imo. None of these ppl are chronically online enough to have the nuanced, thought out opinions you want them to have and that's okay, they are hockey players.

I really think it is just not that deep... would they mby have a talk about their past?? Probably. Would Shane passive aggressively ice Troy out of the team and reinforce the idea that he does. not. like. the guy, because he perpetuated toxic hockey culture in the past? Fuck nah, that guy just wants to win hockey.

Troy is just one guy on a hockey team Shane saw 3-4 times a year for 3 hours. Unless he said some really out of pocket shit, which we have no evidence for, Shane probably doesn't even remember a single thing Troy actually said to him apart from a general bad vibe.

Shane was on Montreal, he played with worse ppl than Troy every day for years.

[jahsontodd]

IF we have any significant part of Troy’s story in season 2 I think there are two very necessary changes that need to be made (now, I am all for others along with these, but I think that these two are the base that other changes are attached to)

1. Troy needs to witness something

I don’t think it serves the story at all for Troy to see something damming. In fact, Troy needs to not see something damming and still believe the victims. It’s the whole point. But I don’t think the book does very well explaining why Troy believes Dallas did this other than some hand waving “makes sense” type ruminations. The way I would see this played out is something like Troy noticing a detail in the posts that he realizes only someone who had been at Dallas’ house would know. Or Troy having an odd interaction with someone. If I reallllly had my choice, he would see something that seemed innocuous in the moment that ends up being a detail needed to be testified to in court in the case against Dallas. I think testifying against Dallas is a more satisfying move than the series of Instagram infographics. I mean if he does something like testify against Dallas, he can go back to his infographics, but I think it could be a good way for him to really shut the book on his old self and feel like he’s meaningfully contributing to these women getting justice.

2. Dallas needs to look like a good friend

I get the temptation to make Dallas awful all the time but if that happens it really cheapens Troy’s character. There needs to be a reason Troy likes Dallas. Because for many years he is more than just conveniently his friend, they are best friends. The bond needs to make sense. The difficulty of calling him out publicly needs to make sense. The viewer needs to see why the fuck Troy is friends with him. Dare I say, Dallas needs to be shown less homophobic. I think Troy should have an aspirational thought that maybe someday he could come out to Dallas. And sure, he’s heard Dallas say shit, but they are friends so maybe he would learn to accept that side of him. I think showing Dallas being a good friend would make their friendship seem more real and deepen the betrayal Troy feels realizing he’s done awful things and show how much it took for Troy to turn away from him.

[whobblywhale123]

to 1: I think it really makes sense from a story telling stand point in the series to include at least a short snippet of a Dallas Kent home rager, mby if they also allude to Tough Guy more?? It would just be really easy to include some easter egg type snippet that mby only Troy witnesses or more ppl for more impact. I also still think that at least some of the victims should be a bigger part of the story in a sense that we get a name mby or some background appearances, mby have Troy interact with them so his activism feels a bit more connected to the actual ppl hurt. Ig the main focus is still the romance part, but especially with the reality of the actual NHL it would be nice for show to not shy away from the darker topics Troy's story deals with.

to 2: I don't think a lot of it is really canon or explored a lot, but I always found it important for the whole Dallas Troy friendship that they really are a duo. Best friends of course, but everyone we meet thinks of Troy as the friend of Dallas Kent. With both of them probably high draft picks close together, tons of team and fan media and at least Troy being canonically conventionally attractive, they might be the closest the MLH has to a willmack type situation in terms of outreach from characters we know of. Obviously different personalities with more assholery on the ice and more giant house parties, but them as a duo would be huge and Troy publically disavowing Kent would be a big deal. With Harris as a social media manager and Troy's own social media activism the public in general will have to play a bigger part in the show and portraying things like that even in passing would make the whole series feel more fleshed out.