#he really did seem happier away from chelsea but kept coming back 😭

[kvaradonaa]

what is ur most controversial headcanon

I mentioned that one a couple of times, but never really detailed or explicit, and I already got anon hate for it. I think it stems from the belief that many people have (but not many admit they do): that fanfiction is not real writing. And that there's possibly no other reason to write fanfiction apart from short-lived emotional gratification over your "blorbos". Funnily enough, same people will enjoy The Crown or other "published" RPF without thinking that it's blind glorification just because it portrays someone.

Under the cut for lenght + R*ssian oligarch talk

Anyway, I do imagine that Sheva had an intimate relationship with former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. Perhaps even a sexual one. Obviously, it's just RPF, something that I use to make my RPF Sheva's backstory more dramatic and complicated. But, in real life, their alleged friendship did attract a lot of unwanted attention from media. At some point they even asked Sheva whether he lived in Abramovich’s apartment. The level of rumours was truly ridiculous.

Okay, but what does that mean? Obviously, I don't imagine such relationships as healthy and loving. I imagine Sheva as a victim of his former employer's abusive obsession. By his Chelsea teammates, he was described as unusually quiet, isolated, someone who believed that others were against him. Between his general struggles to accommodate and constant accusations of only being in Chelsea due to favouritism, it definitely wasn't the best moment of his career. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those media attacks came from intentional leaks, as multiple clubs are still known to use that tactics (hello FC Barcelona). One can imagine that feelings of being misunderstood would only push Sheva closer towards his boss.

Unfortunately, this vile manipulation seemed to work for a while. Almost every time Sheva did speak of Abramovich, it came off as so naive you can't help but feel actually sad. Describing him as a "simple person" who "didn't flaunt his wealth"? Going on like a teenager with a crush that he "liked everything about him"? Saying, uhh, this:

In 2021? A worry you still carried with you after so many years? My God, I want to go back in time and shake Sheva violently. He didn’t love you! I know that your ideas of love might have been skewed, but that wasn't it.

On top of clear power imbalance and elaborate manipulation, there's some vibe of like, constantly pushing on Sheva's boundaries. He didn’t want people to speculate, he turned down multiple job offers post-retirement. Even his transfer to Chelsea as a player included Abramovich personally texting him for almost three years. Not surprising that a man who built his wealth on crime and was used to buying his way into anything, couldn't take "no" for an answer. Do whatever you want with that.

I usually do not include wider context when talking about these two, because I simply don't feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough, and I do believe that it's still mostly about Sheva's personal bad decisions. But it's there. This is why I often feel bad about such headcanon.

But in all honesty? Why should I feel bad for imagining a fictional backstory for a very much real life friendship? Quite often, it's mostly based on real things (or at least things that were publicly said or done) with imagined emotions/trauma/dialogue etc. He should have known better than to keep such relationship for 19 years in the first place. You might think it's inappropriate, insensitive even, but do not attribute to me an agenda that I would never in a million years agree with (like one anon already did).