無標題

[unoqlo]

Yuna Aoki, Cirque De Soleil / 2026 Dreams On Ice (-)

[picsthatmakeyougohmm]

hmmm

[siegfriedandroy]

rachel reid doesn't care about our oceans otherwise she would have dedicated 50% of the long game to shane and ilya winning a hermit crab at the state fair and then going on a journey to provide it the perfect habitat including a chapter entirely dedicated to the care and keeping of the hermit crab

[wrc1294]

While I do think Reid can pay more attention to Shane’s race without changing the tone of heated rivalry as a smutty gay romance, a lot of fandom criticism can be boil down to “ Shane should act more Asian and looked more white” which also is not a good way to handle it.

[mixelation]

it's so weird to me when people genuinely think US american tourists are somehow uniquely and universally worse than any other type of tourist. i know it's likely just not having traveled much or just not having thought about it/actively observed it while on vacation, but my god. tourists are the worst example of any country's behavior. i am sorry to break the news but every single nationality is capable of producing asshole tourists

[bottomeyes]

was wondering why we call scott and kip "skip" instead of using their last names like we do for hollanov and then i realized it's because the alternative is grunter

[totearup]

There's little textual evidence for this, but I firmly believe that a lot of the Montreal team resented Shane's fame and notoriety as a generational talent.

There's one line in HR where Shane's thinking about why he chooses to live alone instead of with a teammate as a rookie, but I think there's got to be more than that.

When you have someone like that who is so far above you, talent wise, and so famous, of course resentment can fester. Especially when you are also highly competitive professional athletes. It's that Tall Poppy syndrome.

I bet there were so many resentful complaints about it, and people taking shots at Shane which he either didn't notice or just ignored. (Ilya probably also got these, but he's more apt to be like, yes I am better than you, obviously)

In the show the TV announcers say things like, "Shane Hollander and the Montreal Metros", and some of those guys were definitely like, what are we Hollander, your backup dancers? And I bet sometimes Shane apologized for it, like it's his fault that other people are saying that stuff.

I definitely believe that his coach would have been part of this too. Based on how he's portrayed in TLG, to me that guy really resents Shane's star power and how it 'pulls focus' from the team as a whole. And his own job as the coach. He coaches this team to back to back cups and all anyone talks about is that weird (asian) kid? How dare that kid take the attention that should be his.

I think this would be a really interesting aspect of Shane's relationship with Montreal to explore. Especially in contrast to the Centaurs, who are all horrified the first time Shane comes and apologizes to them after an announcer calls them "Hollanov and the Centaurs".

Okay, now I want to write a 5+1 times where Shane apologized for being himself and one time he was reminded he didn't have to.

[wrc1294]

I think this fandom can really benefit from not calling every unfavorable (or even just different) descriptions and interpretations of Shane bigotry.

[themoonandmyman]

Ilya at his father’s wake always reminds me of that one fleabag scene where she can’t get herself to look shit at her mother’s funeral and everyone keeps telling her she looks incredible. He was sad cold and wet but my god that cunty little turtleneck was carrying him through it

[deadgenerations]

in more pleasant news: this year is seeing the biggest humpback migration in Australian history, bigger than it was PRE whaling. That's right, there are more humpbacks migrating off the coast of Australia than there were BEFORE industrial whaling started.

A huge, fat W for environmentalists and Greenies. what an achievement

[lumsel]

we did it! we saved the fucking whales!!!!

[the-tao-of-fandom]

These whales were hunted to 150 individuals. Now there are 50,000 of them

Once hunted almost to extinction, the population of humpback whales currently migrating down Australia's east coast has bounced back and is

Further info for those interested

[pnwnativeplants]

Environmental activism works!!! If they tell you its hopeless they're lying and/or selling some shit!!!

[traegorn]

[fractally]

People talking about Shane's "assimilation" is really uhhhh uncomfortable to me as a wasian person myself who grew up in North America, and a now immigrant.

Shane never "assimilated." He already IS Canadian. He grew up in Ottawa. There is absolutely nothing about him that makes him culturally distinct from his Canadian peers---other than his race. He speaks both languages of Canada natively, he's lived there his entire life, he plays its national sport. His lifestyle is distinctly Canadian. Saying he's "assimilated" gives me some very serious ick. What about him is meaningfully non-Canadian that's being assimilated, exactly?

Now Ilya does assimilate. He becomes quite Canadian over the course of the books! He speaks English as his primary language at work and home; he adopts the cultural norms, legal logic, and lifestyle of his new country. Because Canada is not a monoculture, this doesn't mean completely abandoning his Russian identity, but it does mean living his life in a different manner to the way he would have back home in Russia.

[raccoonspew]

Somewhere in Ottawa right now Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are engaging in some slightly problematic landlord/tenant roleplay. Capitalism turns Shane on and that is something that we as a fandom have to accept I think.

[hollanovbiter]

I know we all know Ilya going to the scott hunter night at the gay club is canon, but i just went back and read the scene since I haven’t read this book since 2020 lmao

i forgot that ilya goes to the club ALONE. none of his fellow NHL teammates go with him. He knows scott hates him (or at least hates how he gets under his skin on the ice) but he goes to support him anyways.

obviously part of the reason why he goes is that he feels grateful that scott has sort of paved the way for others to be able to come out (and for him to subsequently be with shane), but I feel like that was still incredibly brave to do? alone?

[fractally]

There's so much shit happening in Ilya's POV in HR that's just brushed over because we only have Shane's POV or kind of implied it feels like bro was on a completely separate but just as detailed adventure

[themoonandmyman]

Ilya being in therapy is great but I fundamentally believe he’d still communicate things in his own obtuse Ilya Way and only use therapyspeak for the specific task of pissing Shane off

[ilyapasta]

I just want more people to get on board with the chaos of TV show scott and kip. Scott walks into a smoothie bar and sees a nice guy and thinks “oh this is what’s going to make my life worth living again, I’m forever changed” and then whisks this art historian away in what appears to be a month of love bombing (benevolent) and constant aching, emotionally vulnerable sex and he says “Can I be too intense?” And crucially. CRUCIALLY, Kip is like sure, “I’m at the exact moment in my life when I would accept this insanity” and says “yeah I’ll stay. I’ll stay for a fucking month actually and neglect everything except this man and my grad school apps.” A month later Scott is saying “i want to tell people you’re mine” and kip wants that too! He wants the chaos of the whole thing!

And even when Kip decides that Scott is asking too much, he needs to go home, he needs to see his dad, he needs to fucking regroup after whatever the hell that was, we can safely assume that they keep seeing each other because Kip is there watching the cup final fucking THREE YEARS LATER. What are they at this point? What have they done to each other? What has Kip given up and what has Scott sacrificed on the pyre to try to keep this man happy until he can come out?

You just have to get with them! Get on their level! Imagine if Hollanov had felt and admitted feelings from the beginning. Imagine how they could have destroyed each other! We don’t know the state of scott and kips relationship when they kiss on the ice, but imagine going from total secrecy to absolute ecstasy, followed by intense visibility for someone like kip who’s just a guy.

It’s chaos! Imagine if your hinge date said “i want you to be here when I get back.” Get. On. Their. Level.

[butimaficwriter]

And every time I go to watch this episode I tell myself "no, these two are too crazy, who does this???", and then we get here:

And the way Scott smiles when he sees Kip, and then his smile drops, like he's being washed over by this feeling of he stayed fuck he really stayed and he's here and he jumps Kip and they're so happy... I can't help rooting for them.

How lonely has Scott been that the simple act of having someone waiting for him at home can create such a strong reaction? It's supposed to be a cute joyful scene, and it is, but the layers beneath it make me tear up every time.

So it's chaos, but fuck I want Scott to always have Kip to come home to, and I want Kip to always have Scott lighting up like fireworks when he comes home to him. I want Scott to allow himself to love big and for Kip to be shown day after day he's worthy of all of it.

Both the show and the book have their fair bit of chaos, of too much too soon, and after rewatching and rereading so many times, I want them just like this. Jumping in head first, taking wild swings in the presence of much more reasonable and sensible options, because each of them deserves to have the one they love take those leaps for them.

[ilyapasta]

It’s about being in your thirties and thinking maybe my wants and desires are orderly and neat and maybe I’ll never actually be hungry for anyone or anything I’ll just subsist and endure and instead you meet someone who is just fucking game for it all.

I’ve said before that Scott is Shane if Shane never met Ilya. Desperate to feel, desperate to desire something after a lifetime of not allowing it.

[miscellaneousbullshit]

I see a lot of HR fans who hate Hayden Pike and I get it but I think what some people don't realise is the caricature that Hayden is supposed to represent. Hayden has a really important role in both the book AND the show and it goes beyond being Shane's best friend.

Hayden is the 'good guy' hockey player.

I don't mean that in a Hayden is The Best Guy ever kind of way-I like Hayden and even I can see he has some huge character flaws to work on. I mean it in the sense that Hayden in the real world everyman of hockey that Shane and Ilya and Scot Hunter aren't.

Hayden Pike has a good heart and he loves his wife and his kids while simultaneously good naturedly joking about Jackie being 'the ol' ball and chain' to his friends and not doing a lot of the heavy lifting of parenting. He'd punch anyone who dared talk about Jackie the way he talked about girls before Jackie. He goes out with boys and leaves her to do bedtime. He buys her flowers and takes her on dates. He never forgets an anniversary, but still forgets her college major. He's charming. He cares deeply for his friends. He can only do so in the broiest most macho hypermasculine way possible. He supports gay people but the worst thing you could accuse him of is being gay. He thinks rape is only when a girl gets attacked in some dark alley and not when one of his teammates gets a girl shitfaced and brings her back to his room. He's gonna put his daughters in figure skating and his sons in hockey. He'll shovel talk every boyfriend Ruby or Jade every have. He's gonna tell his sons to 'man up'. Sometimes he does the dishes to 'help out' around the house. Everyone likes him. He's a good husband. He loves his kids. He's a nice guy.

I grew up around hockey players and Hayden Pike is real. He's real in a way the main characters in the books aren't. Hayden Pike is what hockey culture twists decent guys into. He's not evil by any means. He loves deeply. His team and his friends and his family all mean the world to him and they're all one and the same. He's entirely a product of his toxic environment which he will never admit was toxic. His verbally abusive coach was just 'old school', his friends hazing and bullying of the new guy, or the black guy, or the gay guy was just 'teasing' or 'shop talk', don't you know boys will be boys? When one of his teammates gets arrested for a fight or a rape he never saw it coming, despite years worth of warning signs.

Hayden Pike is important to the story because he's real. He's what happens to the average guy who grows up a hockey player. He's what hockey really is, to offer contrast to Shane and Ilya and Scott who represent what hockey could be.

Hayden Pike is hockey. Love him or hate him that's just the truth.

[wrc1294]

Good news is I pass all my exam this semester, bad news is I have no idea why.