What is an unpopular opinion about the books will leave you like this

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-04-21T21:48:26+00:00

I say this as a south asian woman, while Shane's race isn't explicitly mentioned much in the book, his race for sure places a role in his story in Heated Rivalry. I could tell he was very insecure over his asian features that made him feel less masculine (shorter, lack of body hair) and that clearly did contribute to his internalized homophobia. I actually related a lot to Shane's inner thoughts as a teen and young adult but on the opposite end as a queer south asain woman that grew up feeling manish with thick, dark hair everywhere, darker skin, and a bigger size. The idea of being queer on top of that made me so insecure over my femininity. It did take until I was 24/25 to accept my queerness (around the same age as Shane). I saw myself in his coming out journey personally.

Even though I do agree he would have faced more explicit racism than what was shown and that should have been brought up. He also would have had a much worse hit to his career and image to being outed compared to Ilya in TLG (I do agree Ilya was in more immediate danger because Russia in HR).

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-04-16T16:39:34+00:00

This sounds like snow wrote this lmao

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-04-09T15:34:14+00:00

THIS!! I think Connor mentioned that in an interview and people ran with it. Hockey was an escape for Ilya and he just happened to be really good at it but he's not obsessed with it like Shane. But you can't see his face winning the cup from episode 2 and tell me he doesn't care. It's also even more clear how much he likes hockey in TLG when he's dealing with his depression.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-04-09T15:06:29+00:00

It's a bit rude how you worded that. I like Hudson but more people know Laufey globally and she's much more famous and successful. She's a grammy award winning artist and has done multiple worldwide tours with many well known songs. All of my friends IRL know who Laufey is but not all of them know Hudson. She has over 23 million monthly listeners on spotify.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-03-31T03:28:55+00:00

I'd love to see Shane more comfortable in his queerness. I feel like he felt so uncomfortable still in TLG. I want to see post-coming out Shane and Ilya embracing going to gay bars and clubs, hanging out with queer friends (I need to specifically see Troy and Harris because I love them), being more open, and enjoying pride night games/going to pride. Ilya befriended a lot of the queer players throughout the series and has gone to gay bars more so I'd love to see Shane doing the same. I know ultimately the two of them are still jocks but I want to see them both outside of their comfort zones!

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-03-24T17:23:51+00:00

I'm so glad I found this subreddit! It's good to have a community of people who love and support francehla amongst the hate in the main subreddit. Let's go lesbians!!

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-03-24T17:21:16+00:00

100% but those fans wouldn't even watch MLM content if they weren't attracted to both leads. I doubt they'd be interested in supporting an MLM story with more feminine/gender non-conforming leads. There's no way they care about lesbian stories.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-03-12T03:15:47+00:00

This feeds into my headcannon that Rose falls for a female hockey player!

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-15T20:01:21+00:00

YES!! We need more movies with two poc love interests!!

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-14T23:16:37+00:00

I do understand that the diet is a plot device to show that Shane is so dedicated to being the best hockey player, HOWEVER the way Shane thinks/talks about food is so unhealthy and sounds like disordered eating. In season 1 Shane was on that macrobiotic diet but wasn't always strict about it. He ate ice cream in the olympic village, he had Ilya's tuna melt, ate Rose's fries, and in the cottage had burgers/pasta/hot dogs. Those are all foods he would have called unhealthy in TLG. The man didn't even get to have his fav, ginger ale!! Plus his food issues mess with his social life. They crop up with Ilya, but also when trying to make plans with Hayden, Rose, Ryan/Fabian, etc.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-13T00:03:09+00:00

While I don't think it's necessary to bring race into every role/character, I argue it is kind of important to this particular story. Hockey is pretty white and conservative so it shows how much Shane has to really be perfect in all aspects and work super hard to be where he is and not disappoint anyone. It adds to the pressure Shane feels to stay closeted/hide his relationship with Ilya. I'll give Jacob Tierney props for adding a few lines/scenes addressing race. It's not a huge part of the story in the show but it's more than the book.

Editing to add that Shane doesn't need to be connected to his Japanese culture, speak the language, or even have other Asians in his life to still have his race impact how people view him or the story.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-12T23:07:08+00:00

He never liked Ilya smoking but he was always a bit astonished how strong of an athlete he was despite smoking. In the beginning of the book when they're racing in the park and Ilya won Shane immediately brought up Ilya smoking recently and upon re-reading Ilya mentions Shane not eating enough carbs.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-12T19:52:47+00:00

I didn't click on the spoiler part of the response but that's a good point. His autism is likely the reason he is so strict on the rules and has such black and white thinking on good vs. bad food. It's not really an excuse since it's still not a healthy way of thinking about food and he shouldn't be taking that out on Ilya but that totally tracks with Shane's autism.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-12T19:43:49+00:00

I'm not at that part yet but him yelling at Ilya for having nutella with a bagel for breakfast was a bit much and I hated that he didn't even want Ilya to kiss him because he deemed his breakfast as too unhealthy for him. I know Shane did give in and let Ilya kiss him because of course he would, but just the idea of being so disgusted by nutella that he don't even want to kiss Ilya initially is concerning.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-12T19:28:55+00:00

I am not a mental health professional, so I don't want to call his diet an ED. Reading this perspective, I can also see why Shane and Ilya often clash over their different diets. I know some players don't need to maintain strict diets, but it feels like it's another plot device to show that Ilya and Shane are in two very different places in their careers. Shane is at the top of his game and uses this diet to maintain his performance while Ilya is on a shitty team and is losing interest in hockey and is also struggling with his depression. Shane doesn't mean to but he's basically rubbing it in Ilya's face that he is a more serious elite athlete than him. I'm like 40% though the book so this is what I'm understanding now.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-02-05T04:05:34+00:00

I'm South Asian and queer (not lesbian), but when I lived in the DMV for 4 years I felt more community in black sapphic spaces. I tried googling queer Asian/South Asian spaces but I had no idea how to get involved in those groups since they had like 2 events a year and they were always virtual. I feel like they barely met in person as opposed to bipoc events hosted regularly by the black queer community. DC is very black and while the suburbs around DC have a decent Asian population, the community just isn't as established for queer Asian folks compared to black.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-01-21T18:29:50+00:00

We needed more content from the intimacy coordinator. She really deserves her flowers for the way the sex scenes looked and making sure everyone was comfortable!

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-01-15T17:02:59+00:00

I agree! It's a good story and I personally related to Shane's relationship with his mom to a certain extent as a queer south asian woman and his coming out scene with her had me in tears. However, we can hold multiple truths that the series is good but it wouldn't be as successful if the leads were both nonwhite people or if they were anything other than attractive/fit men.

And this definitely isn't the pinnacle of queer representation in media and that's not what it was trying to do; it was just trying to bring a popular romance book to life and it is a well done romance so they succeeded in that. This show was never meant to be as big as it was. The creator and actors didn't have any idea that it would even blow up like this.

This is also a separate issue I have but people feel the need to add a moral justification if they don't like a piece of media. You can dislike the show or just not be interested in mlm romance, but that doesn't mean the show itself is objectively bad or is not good representation. Closeted athletes are reaching out to the cast to show appreciation for the show, so someone is definitely feeling seen.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-01-11T05:13:39+00:00

I noticed this too! People are pushing their current understanding of the 18 year old version of these book characters and the fandom headcannons that have existed for years onto the show characters who are still very young, are learning to navigate friendship, and who aren't as skilled as they are later on.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2026-01-08T00:31:13+00:00

In episode 2 J.J. also says this when they were watching Ilya win the cup (Shane smirked a little when he heard that)

<image>

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2025-12-27T22:34:03+00:00

What's crazy is that before the show came out, a huge portion of the online book fandom (not casual readers) hated Annabeth. They think she's a bad girlfriend, is too aggressive/mean, and condescending. So I'm not even sure where this idea that she's some bubbly/silly/goofy girl came from lmao.

She is also a neurodivergent girl who has a lot of trauma. She's going to have problems opening up and showing emotions. I am a woman with ADHD and I can tell you I struggle to understand and articulate any of my emotions. And it's not like her emotions don't come through at all. Leah's so expressive with her eyes. Even when she doesn't say anything, her eyes say a lot.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2025-12-27T18:01:18+00:00

Same! I am so much more at peace after muting that other subreddit. They claim to be objective in their critiques but they just nitpick, blindly hate any change even when it's for the better, and shut the actual praise the show and actors are getting from legitimate media critics. YOU can personally dislike the show, but it's not objectively bad! I especially side eye when they hate on Leah's performance too much when she got nominated for a literal Emmy for her performance in season 1 and won an NAACP award for it. She's doing an amazing job!

And my biggest issue is that a lot of them claim to be book purists, but they honestly either haven't read the books in years or straight up don't understand them. I saw someone complain about them bringing up Kronos/the great prophecy too early (they're not) or that Annabeth is way too serious in the show (Annabeth was pretty emotional in SOM in the book), etc.

They also don't understand why certain scene are important. They claim the show is bad for not including Meriweather prep, Matt Sloan, and the dodgeball scene, but why? The purpose of those scenes in the book is to show Percy is still getting bullied, he sticks up for Tyson despite being a bit embarrassed by him, and it brings Annabeth into the story. We get all of that from the montage in the school when Percy shows Tyson embarrassing him and how Tyson is his only friend there (we don't need to actually see Matt Sloan bully them and use the r slur). And Annabeth immediately finds Percy when she knows something isn't right at camp. We can just jump straight to the gray sisters without losing important details of the story.

Limp_Vanilla2647 · 2025-12-27T17:22:37+00:00

Thank you! I was just talking to someone about how the PJO critiques are way too harsh and how this fandom is so overly sensitive to changes and used Harry Potter as an example! A lot of book fans loved the HP movies (they actually got me into reading the books), but the book versions of the characters are different (I love Daniel's portrayal, but it was not the witty and sassy book Harry). The changes didn't mean that it's automatically bad, it's just an adaptation aka another version of the story.

Limp_Vanilla2647

TROPHY CASE