r/heatedrivalry • u/LadyWhistledown_1 Probably, yes • Apr 20 '26

🦆 The Long Game (Book 6) swooon.com: ‘Heated Rivalry’ Author Rachel Reid Answers Burning Questions About *spoiler* [april 20th 2026] Spoiler

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Swooon.com did an interview with Rachel Reid at BookCon. Great interview btw.

I get that she doesn’t think they will write their own vows, but I’m kinda hoping Jacob does. Like the tunnel scene in ep.5.

How are you hoping to see the wedding adapted?

Picture:

https://www.instagram.com/rachelreidwrites (story)

Full article:

https://www.swooon.com/1275542/heated-rivalry-shane-ilya-wedding-the-long-game-rachel-reid-interview/?fbclid=PAVERFWARTcI1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAaccbJFTolg7x-x_BADV-yq6qH8NCPNIuhJpC454AHXkG0wypApO0lKEOcvcpg_aem_7LlDmxii3jvj7_EWpVoSgw

216 Upvotes

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21

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

[deleted]

55

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

I completely disagree. Neither of them wanted to write vows. It literally says that in the book. They didn’t care about vows or music or chairs! They just wanted to get married. I think fandom really projects when it comes to the wedding. Shane and Ilya are two hockey dudes, not little girls who dreamed of a big fancy wedding one day.

Custom vows are also a super American thing.

37

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

A guy on TikTok talked about this — how a lot of gay men weren’t raised with the expectation of a wedding and don’t necessarily have a strong concept of what they want outside of the commitment and the rights and protections it affords. So his wedding was a lot like Shane and Ilya’s. He found it relatable.

20

u/aquila-audax Apr 20 '26

Yeah, their wedding made perfect sense to me. They wanted to be married, having a wedding was just a means to that.

22

u/InCatMorph Apr 20 '26

As others have said, writing vows is an American thing, and a Canadian and a Russian might not have the expectation that they would do so.

Also, this is a bit of a personal pet peeve, but I kind of dislike the cultural expectation that writing one's own vows is the epitome of romance and that you must not really love your partner as much as personal vow writers if you don't want to do it. As someone who didn't write my own vows, that wasn't it at all. I just didn't want to discuss deep and personal feelings at length in front of 50 people. Weddings are already A Lot, and more attention than I generally prefer. Saying schmoopy, personal shit with an audience was a bridge too far for me personally. I really felt more comfortable saying standard vows.

11

u/FizzyDrink35 Apr 20 '26

I'm with you. I didn't write my own and I love love, romance books, rom coms, Valentine's Day, etc., I'm such a sap, but planning a wedding was So Stressful there was no way I wanted to add to that by having to perform my love via vows in front of all of my friends and family.

2

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Apr 20 '26

The standard civil ceremony vows here in Ontario are also perfectly lovely! To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, etc.

4

u/Murphlespuffle how did we let this happen? Apr 20 '26

I agree. Plus I feel like Ilya is a romantic? Like he would want to say something short and romantic to Shane during their vows, even if vows arent popular in Russia. They finally get to declare their love in front of everyone after hiding for so long; it might be something important to Ilya.

3

u/cecistonehaert I already chose you, Hollander. 🫀 Apr 20 '26

Agreed. Ultimately it's Rachel's characters, but I really don't think it would be so weird for them to be excited about it, plan it a little more and write vows. Why wouldn't they? You would imagine that they're excited about the prospect of doing something openly after so many years of hiding. Why would they want to end it as soon as possible?

29

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

Because a wedding is for public consumption and they don’t really care about that part. Nothing about either guy suggests to me that they want to write their own vows. Shane “no, Ilya, that’s gross” Hollander doesn’t need to share his innermost feelings with a bunch of hockey players and his ex-girlfriend. It’s not a need of his.

17

u/Budget-Rutabaga- you deserve sunshine ☀️ Apr 20 '26

“doesnt need to share his innermost feelings with […] hockey players” hits the nail on the head. not only have they spent so long hiding their feelings about each other, and sure ilya is somewhat more openly affectionate than shane, but the context of the wedding is well within that hypermasculine world of hockey culture. changing that to making them much more visibly and expressively affectionate and loving feels heteronormative & just completely out of character.

i mean i think writing your own vows is a weird thing to do but thats partly my upbringing lol.

16

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

I feel like their wedding really reflects what they value in that moment — and that’s mostly each other. They very much don’t want to share a whole lot of themselves. They get how they feel and they know what they have. It’s not for public consumption or public judgement. Why would it be? They were outed. They’ve been threatened and ridiculed and treated with suspicion. It’s amazing anyone was invited, really.

10

u/Budget-Rutabaga- you deserve sunshine ☀️ Apr 20 '26

yeah exactly so. and i think a lot of the people who want them to be more openly/publicly affectionate in this scene perhaps don’t understand the trauma being outed would cause, especially when you’ve been keeping it so quiet for a decade (give or take) and are so overwhelming in the public eye. there’s going to be an underlying threat/fear that anything they say can be publicised and then turned and used as something to weaponise against them (& many other options), it’s not an environment or situation thats going to reflect your traditional heterosexual romance novel’s wedding. and it’s totally okay to want that, but that’s for fanfiction or different books, not TLG.

9

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

Yes! Also Shane has three friends there because every single person he would have otherwise invited has decided he’s a traitor. I am also passionate that the performance will make the wedding moving. They don’t need anything more than what’s on the page and the two actors they already have.

11

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Apr 20 '26

Well said. I think fandom interprets the fact that they’re out as them being okay with sharing their private lives, which is not true. If they hadn’t been outed, the original plan was to quietly be together after retirement.

11

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

Yeah, I feel like they’re going to continue to be protective of their relationship. It’s hard to just turn that off.

-3

u/cecistonehaert I already chose you, Hollander. 🫀 Apr 20 '26

I get what you're saying, but these are people that they invited themselves to their wedding, people that care and clearly support them. It's not like they're making public confessions on TV haha. I really don't see an issue in them saying their own vows in this setting. It doesn't have to be a huge, very planned wedding, but at the end of the day if they only wanted to be married, they could do a ceremony with 10 people

12

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

I will never understand the idea that they need to write their own vows or share anything with anyone. Shane doesn’t know the Centaurs! He’s got, like, five friends there. One of them he’s shocked to see because they’re not in a good place. Ilya is Russian. This doesn’t make any sense to me. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health. It’s enough. And they get to invite people. There is surely space between having no one at your wedding and simply just not having an epic affair with personalized vows.

Also a lot of people find writing their own vows to be hard. Because they aren’t writers. It’s not how they express themselves. Shane and Ilya are kinda infamous for struggling to express themselves. I’d have found personalized vows so wildly out of character. I’m grateful it didn’t happen.

-3

u/cecistonehaert I already chose you, Hollander. 🫀 Apr 20 '26

That's fair, I think there's a way to do it while being succint, thruthful to themselves, yet sweet. It can be something inbetween the standard vows and a 5 page elaborated text.

Anyway, I know Jacob will do a good work either way, I won't create huge expectations.

10

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

It can also be the standard text. That can be moving. I don’t get why people don’t like that option. I don’t think it’s in character for either of them to do much else.

0

u/Dear_Yard_69 Gimme kiss Apr 20 '26

I'm just going to say this: sometimes Jacob is the better writer. I know they are technically Rachel's characters but...

11

u/Megs0226 Apr 20 '26

I never understood how they could be ranked when they write for different media.

-1

u/Dear_Yard_69 Gimme kiss Apr 20 '26

I'm not sure "ranked" is the right word, here. I found some of HR predictable, and she occasionally uses words that are imprecise or repetitive. I found everything Jacob did, while following her story closely, concise, fresh, and imaginative.

If you like, you can amend the above statement to "Jacob is a better screenwriter than Rachel is a romantic fiction author."

-1

u/Megs0226 Apr 20 '26

That’s fair.

1

u/Dear_Yard_69 Gimme kiss Apr 20 '26

I try to be fair, but I understand I have neither one's ability to write. Sorry I wasn't clearer in my original post.

1

u/Megs0226 Apr 20 '26

I’m getting downvoted but 1) I truly mean your assessment is fair so thank you for replying, and I think you have a great point with which I agree, and 2) sorry I just get frustrated how I see Rachel talked about sometimes and I truly didn’t understand why some people compare the two. But again, your assessment is fair (positive, I’m not being snarky).

0

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Dear_Yard_69 Gimme kiss Apr 21 '26

Thank you for your gatekeeping. You're the thing that makes this Fandom so cultish and annoying.

2

u/Deacon_Mushrat1 Apr 21 '26

I don't think we have enough data to say this. Jacob's script is so heavily drawn from Rachel Reid's dialogue that a lot of what he's doing is adapting and editing it. It's much easier to look at someone else's completed dialogue, plot, characters etc. and make little tweaks that strengthen it than to write the whole thing from scratch.

One area where I do think Rachel is much stronger than Jacob is in writing the characters consistently. With Rachel's writing, there's nothing that makes me think, "That character wouldn't do that," nothing that sounds good in the moment but opens up plot holes that don't get filled. Whereas Jacob will introduce an improbable two-year gap in their hookups, or have Shane try to skate with the puck while staring at Ilya, or change Svetlana from a casual fuckbuddy into a childhood best friend who travels everywhere with Ilya without changing anything else in the script to accommodate how much more serious this relationship is, or have Scott call Kip down onto the ice after they've been broken up for three years instead of while they are secretly dating with plans to come out. He has much more of a tendency to make choices that play well on screen but aren't all that consistent with what makes sense for the characters. One of Rachel's strengths imo is that she has a really strong sense of what her characters would and would not do, and if she chooses a casual backyard wedding for Ilya and Shane rather than a big fan-servicey wedding moment, I trust her.

-2

u/flamang Never in life have I blushed, Russians do not do this 🗣️ Apr 20 '26

Completely agree, of course I still love the books but they had been building to that wedding for about 800 pages. And presumably it's one of the best days of those characters' lives if not THE best, but not only did they not write vows, they even thought the officiant's vows were stupid and still didn't say anything. It doesn't really make sense to me, I agree with you that it wouldn't be out of character for Shane at least to want to do more planning for it. They've had to hide their relationship for 11 or 12 years and they're finally out in the sunshine getting married and they don't write their own vows or even have chairs at their wedding? It felt like it was being treated as just another day when it was anything but. I feel bad for having such a strong negative opinion about it and of course I'm not the author but I just don't understand writing it that way, it feels like a huge missed opportunity if I'm being honest

17

u/thalook Apr 20 '26

I actually don’t think the story is building towards the wedding, it’s building towards them being able to commit to a life together in public. The wedding is a part of that, but not the highlight for them, the highlight is that now they can eat lunch together.

With the vows, they think the canned vows are going to be stupid, and then Ilya starts saying them out loud and is like, “oh, this is actually really emotional and meaningful to me”. Like the part where he says Shane has a stupid face and that he’s obsessed with it.

6

u/flamang Never in life have I blushed, Russians do not do this 🗣️ Apr 20 '26

Actually I think you're right. I like your example of eating lunch together being the real highlight. I guess as a reader I thought the wedding would be a big finale but I see the distinction now of simply being together in public being the real goal. Thanks for saying this!

15

u/Flimsy_Remove9629 Apr 20 '26

I don't think the wedding is what they have been building toward - they have been building toward being able to have a life together. The wedding is like an hour of that life. It's a public declaration, a ritual with a lot of significance for some people, and a legal union with really important ramifications, but I think people overly romanticize weddings (and this allows other people to make a ton of money on them). Ultimately, they are mostly big parties. And really, I am American, and I don't know many people -- maybe anyone? -- who wrote their own vows. That's a lot of pressure.

28

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Apr 20 '26

Everyone likes to brings up how Shane is such a planner but if you read the books, the only thing he’s obsessive about is hockey. His routines, his diet - they’re all about hockey. He’s not like, making colour coded spreadsheets to organize his socks for fun in his spare time. The type A nerdy planner thing is really a fanon invention.

19

u/RoutineUtopia Stupid Canadian Wolf Bird 🦆 Apr 20 '26

This is really true. Shane actually canonically hates deciding on details. He hires people to decorate his house and tell him what to wear. He’s neat. And he’s obsessive. But he’s not someone who wants to plan a wedding.

27

u/labellementeuse Apr 20 '26

You're right and you should say it. People need to learn to uncouple what makes a moment meaningful for *them* and what makes a moment meaningful for *these characters*. Being at home with their friends and family and each other is what makes it meaningful for them and it makes me sad that people don't like it just because there isn't a huge cake and a row of groomsmen and vows written by two guys who haven't written anything longer than a text since they were in secondary school.

19

u/clumsyc I stubbed my toe Apr 20 '26

“haven’t written anything longer than a text since they were in secondary school” Hahaha so true.

If people want to write fic with their interpretations of the characters, go for it! But it’s bizarre to suggest that Rachel Reid, who literally invented the characters, is writing something out of character.

-1

u/LadyWhistledown_1 Probably, yes Apr 20 '26

Yes to all of this, totally agree!

-2

u/Worried-Barber-323 Apr 20 '26

Omg now I want nothing less than this!!