It's A Leap Of Faith

screaming internally and externally eternally. Covinskystan --> Adhd-Finn

[mr-stump-sir]

This is something I've thought about for weeks, and I'm going to explain it as best as I can:

Shane Hollander is fantastic autistic representation in general, but something that I really appreciate is the fact that Heated Rivalry is probably the first time in mainstream media that I personally have ever seen an autistic character portrayed as being sexual.

I think, as an autistic person, I've only ever seen autistic characters being portrayed as sexless, because non-autistic people assume we're all like that. Asexual autistics exist and they are my siblings and I love them deeply; that's not the problem. The problem is automatically being perceived that way by non-autistics. It's a stereotype rooted in the long history of autistic people (and disabled people in general) being infantalised.

So to have Shane Hollander, who is not only sexually active, but also (and this is a compliment) a freaky little slut is so refreshing. I love that Shane is an autistic freaky little slut. Because, yes! Autistic people can have sex! Shocking!

And what's better is that even though Shane is submissive, he's always treated both by Ilya and the narrative as an adult. He loves to be bossed about by Ilya and he loves to be gently bullied, but throughout it all, he's always respected and treated fairly. He is treated like an adult.

I think, in the beginning, that was likely one of the appeals to Shane about Ilya. At the start of the story, the two people he's closest to are his parents, and while David and Yuna are great, they're his parents, they still see him as their little boy, even as he's drafted into the NHL (sorry, the "MLH"). Yuna also doubles as Shane's manager, and she's obviously very protective of him. They never baby him in any way, but there's always that underlining... y'know, he's their baby, right?

With Ilya? He's just Shane. Being around Ilya was likely the first time Shane got to be someone outside of his parents' baby boy (and of course Mr. Canadian Hockey Dream Star).

There's something really empowering about seeing an autistic character being sexually active and being sexy and not having his autism being portrayed as detrimental to his sexual appeal!

[dracaelus]

After hollanov is outed and shane becomes a centaur some random fan admits that back in 2008 they paid an etsy witch to make the ottawa centaurs the best team in the league and at first they thought they had been scammed but now they realize that this created the domino effect that had shane hollander and ilya rozanov falling in love and then eventually joining the team and winning them back to back stanley cups

[shaneposting]

'he would not fucking say that' maybe he would if he knew he was starring in his very own porn fic for the sole purpose of delighting some freaks on archive of our own dot org. maybe he'd play it up for the cameras. ever consider that

[asieybarbie]

AIKA x ZIRA! From Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl by @kianamaiart! Go support her series y'all!!

[yenvengerberg]

"It is quite something to spend your entire life feeling like you are somehow out of place. And then to meet somehow who understands you before you even say a word. Someone whose singular qualities match your own. Whose kindness makes you feel warm. Who can read your mind from across a whole room. John was more than my husband, he was my truest friend. And I may ache at present, but... the good John brought into my life, that bond, that understanding, love, far outweighs any pain I feel right now. I would not change it. For anything. To my husband."

[sunriseverse]

can’t go wrong with pining while fucking as a trope. truly it has it all. pining. awkward sexual situations. weapons grade insecurity for all parties involved. the desperation as they inevitably fall further and further while hating themselves for being unable to stick to the contract of no strings attached. etc. you understand

[iysure]

couldn't be happier!

[ficauthor]

[georgecuntanza]

love books. because it’s like what if something happened

[cloudabserk]

WARNING do NOT start reading books and comics or watching movies or looking at art!!! you will start wanting to create art yourself. or god forbid. writing.

[wordfather]

i love that almost everyone has their own unique bedrooms thats such a cute human thing

[wordfather]

no bedroom looks the same just like no human is the same. are you getting what im putting down here

[wordfather]

you walk into someones room and its like walking into a part of their soul This is so special to me <3

[fluffycity]

this reminds me of a series of photographs documenting how different people live in identical base apartments

[wordfather]

ao3 is down can someone tell me a bedtime story about my two favorite fictional men kissing? with tongue

[ghost-of-hollanov]

[kyokyeo]

you attack my heart

[flower-of-the-desert]

I LOVE the fact that Shane is boring and stays home to read his books while Ilya parties like your typical fuckboi and then by the end of that montage Ilya is dying of boredom in the middle of the club and blowing off a hot woman to scroll on his phone (checking on Shane).

I LOVE the fact that Ilya genuinely loses interest in his wild lifestyle because he falls in love with Shane's boring self and he loooooves it. He WILL spend his nights at home doing the dishes probably and touching toes with Shane on the couch like the world's most boring old couple instead of knocking back shots at the club with gorgeous women wrapped around him. And he's SO happy about that.

[intergalacticmca]

Shane Hollander is lowkey the most heartbreaking character of all time and I’m glad Jacob Tierney recognized that because Rachel Reid certainly didn’t.

Shane’s comphet and compartmentalization of his sexuality and true self outside of a few frantic encounters with Ilya a few times a year is devastating. His refusal to tell anyone in his life - his teammates, his parents, friends he doesn’t have - what he truly wants because he can’t even admit it to himself.

Everything is hockey, everything is brand deals. No, he can’t have a glass of wine because he can’t do anything that’ll potentially impact his performanceon the ice. He can’t date because everything is about his career and when it’s the off season, he locks himself away at his cottage where he spends most of his time alone. Hayden is the closest thing he has to a friend, but if Shane can’t even admit to himself how he feels, how is he supposed to confide in Hayden?

He can have sex with Ilya behind closed doors without words exchanged, but the second it begins to resemble something real, when Ilya starts trying to figure out what Shane really wants, Shane panics and forces himself into a relationship with a woman, because what he has with Ilya doesn’t make sense or fit into any version of himself that he can foresee.

One of the best decisions Jacob Tierney made in the show was showing Shane be intimate with Rose and frame it as devastating and stomach churning. Shane’s performance of heterosexuality is painful. It actively holds him back from being his true self. The book glosses over it and mentions Shane has shitty sex with Rose a couple of times, and doesn’t go into any meaningful detail about how Shane, a gay man in love with another man, forcing himself to have sex with a woman to perform heterosexuality would be extremely difficult and unpleasant for him.

The scene in the show is unpleasant and heartbreaking. We see and feel how much Shane doesn’t want to be doing this, but he feels like he has to.

Shane’s break up with Rose is 10 tens more emotional and impactful in the show than it is in the book, because Shane’s clumsiness with women is not portrayed as a punchline. We see him processing in real time that he can’t just keep faking it. Shane thinks he is good at hiding and compartmentalizing, but it only took Rose two sexual encounters to figure him out. He’s forced to reckon with the fact that he can’t just keep ignoring who he really is and what he really wants.

The scene where we finally get a glimpse into just how painful everything is for Shane is another scene that’s not in the book - Shane’s conversation with Yuna outside.

“I tried. I tried really hard. I just can’t help it.”

Now that he’s finally starting to let go of the performance and separation he’s tried to maintain all of these years - Shane Hollander Hockey Player versus Shane Hollander The Person - he can admit that there’s nothing he can do to change who he is or how he feels, but that will never erase the pain of all those years of trying, of trying to be who his mother wanted him to be and who the MLH wanted him to be. He denied himself the ability to be fully human and fully himself for so long and he’ll never get that time back.

I never want to hear the words “Shane doesn’t have trauma” ever again.

[bloominflowers]

i guess i like these guys a lot 💆‍♀️