throwing my roselana hollanov role swap au out into the wild. in which svetlana vetrova is a prodigal hockey player who secretly maintains an intricate web of female hockey players she sleeps with and rose landry is the girl-next-door american sweetheart hockey player who got swept into this career after overcorrecting from being a child actor. she thought she broke from the pressures/suffocation of showbiz but because she can’t make a good living playing hockey as a woman she takes so many modelling gigs and sponsorships that she is still held up as an idol/all american girl persona she was trying so hard to escape. she would be so much happier butch.
anyways the tension in the story comes not from the toxic hyper masculine locker room homophobia but rather the pressures on rose to be a wife/“role model” (read: straight, feminine, white) madonna whore complex figure in the american psyche. the other side of the tension is sveta’s great hockey polycule and rose being obsessed with being svetlana’s Special Girl and also svetlana’s obsession with her.
anyways publicly everyone thinks svetlana is dating noted model and bond villain actor ilya rozanov (yes he is typecast) and shane hollander is an ex-OHL player who either got injured or had a mental breakdown because of the intense racism/homophobia in the leagues and works in women’s hockey. he is also rose’s first gay boyfriend, and i think he is to rose what sveta is to ilya in canon, as like a hockey guru.
both rose and sveta have the same misunderstanding that the lesbian sex they’re both regularly having is just a fling/sex thing/fantasy for the other and the other will go back to their real boyfriends/future husband. lesbian comphet is about the expectation for women to be Wife so they’re both yearning like we will never be together For Real because my situationship will marry a man when she goes back to Real Life.
anyways shane is a little bit obsessed with svetlana because of how good she is at hockey and they probably know each other as colleagues and that’s how shane and ilya meet, and ilya is trying to get sveta to leverage her connection to meet with shane so to rose it looks like sveta wants to sleep with shane and ilya’s playboy persona makes it so shane thinks ilya wants to cheat on sveta with rose and ilya is also jealous of shane’s attention on sveta and maybe ilya has a photoshoot with rose that stokes their respective lover’s jealousy and so on and so forth. MESSY MESSY MESSY!!!!!
anyways this does not need to end in a monogamous roselana. sveta deserves her hockey girltoys AND her rose <3
I’m rec-ing The Chips Are Set To Fall by icopythefax on Ao3!! I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it- it’s in progress but it genuinely has one of the most interesting plots I’ve ever read and some of the best “holy crap” cliffhangers. Please give it a try it is fantastic
[36/?] The chips are set to fall
by icopythefax
At the 2017 All Star Weekend, Ilya takes fate into his own hands to produce at least one out MLH player by the end of the season. Thus begins his part-time side hustle as community organizer, mastermind, and Commander-in-Chief of the Gay Hockey Army.
As an older queer, allow me to say: the walls of the closet are load-bearing. It is our job as a community to stand in front of that door and tell everyone who wants to peek inside to fuck off.
There are so many reasons a person may choose not to come out and there is no reason a person would owe the public or a stranger that information. Certainly it's not owed simply because someone is famous.
We have fought for decades to make it safer for people to be open and authentic about themselves, but we are not yet there. And even if we were, the closet would still be something we need to maintain for those who are not ready to reveal that part of themselves.
Heated Rivalry AU where Ilya dips out early from a post-game party with Boston, and someone gets the idea to put on a Hollonov compilation as a joke.
The whole team settles in with rapt attention, ready to roast the shit out of Roz over it via group chat, only to see. Well. It's a series of interview clips over the years. It's made up exclusively of three things. One, clips of Hollander "stealing" linguistically challenging questions that the whole team knows Rozanov hates. Two, clips of Rozanov derailing questions that are about Hollander's "representation of his community," which gossip on the street says makes Hollander uncomfortable. Three, Hollander and Rozanov commenting individually on the rivalry, with vicious comments such as. "He's of course a great player, but he'll find us difficult to beat." Such fire in Rozanov's comments are especially damning, given his whole chirp-king-schtick.
The video editor, with all the obsession and perception of a true fangirl, makes sure to circle every instance where you can see the shadow of Hollander and Rozanov pressing their feet together - and in one instance holding hands - beneath the interview table. (You wouldn't see it unless you're looking for it - or unless someone circles it in red for you.)
The video finishes, and the team sits in a kind of shocked silence as the next video auto-plays. This one is a compilation of Rozanov chirping Hollander on the ice. Here, the editor has helpfully drawn an arrow to Hollander's face whenever he blushes. The editor has also inserted text overlays with comments like. "Look at how fiercely Rozanov insults his rival." And then puts smaller arrows pointing to Roz's body language, with helpful texts like "excited wiggle indicating absolute fury," and "besotted grin indicating deep hatred." The sarcasm is distressingly accurate in its point.
(Listen, the whole team knows what Roz looks like when he's chirping someone. This - this is not it. This is not it at all. This is him when he's being silly with people he really likes. What is going on.)
The video finishes, and this time someone has the presence of mind to stop the auto-play before another mind-breaking thing comes up.
Someone else, trying to lighten the silence with a joke, and maybe dismiss it all as a fever dream, says, "Montreal Jane? More like Montreal Shane, am I right?"
And. Well.
Once it's out there, there's no coming back from it.
Cliff asks aloud, to no one in particular, "Are we just stupid?"
@munsons-mutiny It is a crime to leave this in the tags. I would give my firstborn to see your ideas in fic form.
I think I may already owe you my soul just for getting to read your continuation of the idea. How does it feel to be better than someone on their own post?
i love Not to jump the gun here but with rozanov’s permission…? i think shane in that scene was feeling fiercely protective over another person for the first time in his life. so bowled over by the intensity of his own emotions that he stumbled back to his hotel room in a daze and immediately jerked off in the shower about it. “what if rozanov got arrested and i had to use my immense hockey wealth to bail him out of jail and it was winter in boston. so he had hypothermia. and he had to live with me while we sorted out the legal situation and i yelled at journalists for him and helped him with his paperwork and hired the best lawyer in the world and nursed him back to health and he was like “hollander……..you saved my life 🥺” and he fucked me soooo hard every night for stress relief (obviously he couldn’t fuck other people. due to the lawsuit) and we fell asleep in each other’s arms afterwards. because there’s only one bed in my apartment and he’s too tall for the couch” stuff like that. normal fantasies
• holding ilya’s hand while they cross a busy street full of hazards (potholes, roadworks, etc)
• rescuing ilya from kidnappers (he kicks down the door)
• rescuing ilya from a burning building (bridal carry)
• fighting in a gladiatorial ice hockey arena for ilya’s hand in marriage
• massaging ilya’s bad knee and ilya says with wonderment “wowww wow. shane you’re so good at this… you are better than every physical therapist on earth probably”
• saying “he asked for no pickles” to the mcdonalds cashier
• carrying ilya’s bags
• washing ilya’s hair
• applying o’keefes working hands cream to ilya’s calluses
Putting the term "male gaze" on top of the fridge until everyone remembers that it refers to a cinematographic trend and not the act of looking at things while being a man
The first time Shane and Ilya go to Ottawa pride, Shane doesn't really want to. But Harris has been talking about how its one of his favorite days for weeks and Ilya lights up like a little kid every time it comes up, so Shane is going.
So is Troy, who seems equally enthusiastic, so at least Shane isn't alone.
But he still worries when he sees Ilya all decked out in a rainbow tank top that has to be at least a size too small. He glances down at his own outfit, something he'd wear any other day, and asks,
"should I change?"
Ilya cocks his head and goes "do you want to?"
And Shane doesn't have to answer he very clearly does not want to.
"I just worry that-"
"that people will not know you are gay? I think I can help with that." Ilya smirks and grabs Shane's ass. Shane shoves him away but he's smiling.
They meet Harris and Troy in a parking garage a few blocks from the parade and Shane comes close to laughing because Harris is wearing a flag as a cape and Troy is wearing jeans and a centaurs t shirt.
"see?" Ilya says "you can wear whatever"
"I actually have something for you," Harris says, and hands both Shane and Troy a baseball cap with the terrible centaurs pride logo.
"they were a limited run and they didn't sell well," he explains. Shane gets why. But he likes the hat. It feels manageable.
The parade still doesn't quite feel manageable. He can already hear the crowd, and he knows, just KNOWS that in just a few minutes, for better or worse, all of their attention is going to be directed at HIM. That's where it always ends up.
"Shane?" He hadn't realized he was staring off into space until Ilya brings him back to earth. "We do not have to go"
"you really want to," Shane says.
"yes," Ilya shrugs, "but if you turn this around," he starts to turn Shane's baseball cap backwards, "I won't be able to resist taking you home and fucking you."
"Ilya! This is what does it for you?"
"You do it for me, Hollander"
Shane turns the cap backwards and grabs Ilya's hand. "Let's go see a parade"
"you are trying to kill me?"
"maybe!" Shane laughs.
They all walk down the parking garage stairs and it hits Shane that he's holding Ilya's hand. They're in his hometown, on the streets he grew up on, at a parade he never imagined he'd be able to attend. Ilya is beaming.
"it is not like this in Russia," he says when Shane asks a silent question. "If there was a parade for people like us, it would be called 'Shame,' not Pride." He offers a little laugh at his joke, but there is sadness behind his eyes. Shane kisses him, deep and insistent. Harris cheers. So do a few strangers.
There it is. Recognition. Finally. Shane breaks the kiss preparing himself for the conversation. But it doesn't happen, even when they pull apart and let the strangers see their faces. It's a couple teenagers. Shane wonders if they've ever seen a hockey game. He has to remind himself it's not sad if they haven't.
"saved by the nerds, huh?" Troy says, and Shane nearly chokes laughing.
They find a place to watch the parade and Shane ends up on the end of their row next to another teenager, maybe 16 or so. But he's not a nerd. He sees Shane and his eyes go wide with recognition.
"Shane Hollander?"
Shane nods, and behind him, Ilya leans over to look at the kid, tightening his grip on Shane's hand like he's daring the kid to say something stupid.
"I joined the baseball team," the kid says.
"that's great," Shane says. He's had weirder interactions with fans.
"I came out when I was 13 and kind of thought that meant I would never play sports again? But then we had you and Troy Barret, and I really missed baseball, and I know it's not always going to be easy, but you have it all, you know? Maybe I can too. Probably not, like, professionally because I'm terrible and I want to be a historian but it's really fun and I missed it a lot. So thank you."
Shane stammers for a second. He has a dozen media perfected answers for every possible question but no fucking clue what to say to this kid.
"I was the opposite," Ilya says over his shoulder. "I started playing hockey very young and thought that my sexuality would just stay in a box for the rest of my life. We are the same now though," he says to the kid, "Shane Hollander made me think maybe I could have everything."
"I'm glad you're playing baseball," Shane says around something he doesn't want to talk about in his throat.
"do you want a picture with them?" Harris asks. Shane forgot he was there.
They take a picture with the kid and sign the little flag he's holding and turn back towards the parade.
Ilya puts an arm around Shane's shoulders.
"this is why I wanted to come," he says. "I like these fans."
Shane does too.
He also doesn't mind knowing he's with the hottest person here. When the parade starts, Ilya dances along to the music. Shane lets himself get pulled into it, lets himself laugh when Ilya lifts up their arms to spin around, lets himself just be.
They go home having signed more autographs and taken more photos, but it didn't make Shane tired like it usually does. He thinks it's because he never stopped being himself to sign them. He didn't have to pause his personal life and stuff it down. These people were excited for all of him. Even the gay part. Hell, maybe ESPECIALLY the gay part.
Ilya kisses the back of his hand as he drives. "Now, we have to do something about that hat," he purrs.
"what are you going to do about it?" Shane smirks
"Shane! I will die before I can get home to fuck you if you keep teasing like this!"
Shane had been worried. But it turned out to be a pretty great day.
June 1st is TOMORROW. It means that GAY PEOPLE will exist, but only for ONE MONTH. Do not forget to buy your tickets to see them NOW, or else you will have to wait AN ENTIRE YEAR to be able to meet them AGAIN.
janainaart
areudirty
origamiaround
gummygunk
prguitarman
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
snowghoul
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
