The common take seems to be that Shane's sin in TLG is not paying enough attention to Ilya or caring about hockey too much but I disagree. I do think Shane isn't being a great partner but it's more about him believing that Ilya truly doesn't give a shit about the losses in Ottawa and getting jealous over Troy when Ilya is trying to build a support system.
I think the thing is Ilya presented this persona for so long, this hyper-confident, hyper-sexual winner. A guy who doesn't get lonely, doesn't feel insecure, and doesn't need comfort and care. And Shane bought into that! We see it in HR where Ilya's fishing for compliments because Shane never compliments him (he thinks his attraction to Ilya goes unstated, and Ilya knows how hot he is, right?)
Shane is genuinely shocked by how lonely and sad Ilya is because he has never imagined Ilya that way. I think it's important to remember they've known each other for over a decade. A decade of Shane watching Ilya front for the cameras, a decade of them circling each other trying not to slip up and reveal too much. Vulnerability is a foreign language in this relationship.
To me the relationship sin in TLG is that they both start to have deeply misaligned views of the other. Shane's imagining Ilya as having a blast in Ottawa with his cool new team, hosting parties and going to gay bars with Troy fucking Barrett, the asshole who's been giving him shit on the ice for years. He's imagining that Ilya doesn't give a fuck about hockey anymore, the thing that always tied the two of them together. Meanwhile Ilya is imagining Shane as only caring about hockey, to the point that he'd cut Ilya loose if it was convenient for him. He's imagining Shane as this almost Machiavellian figure who's arranged his neat and perfect life and Ilya is just this piece that doesn't fit. He's imagining he's about twenty times more in love with Shane than Shane is with him.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Irina Rozanova. And I know we know so very little about her but I just. I dunno. I feel like she must have been so scared all the time? She married an abusive older man who she didn’t love, and whatever the original reason for their marriage was (money? likely money) I personally headcanon is that she was a trophy.
So she marries this man because she needs stability or whatever, and she thinks she can handle it. But it turns out the Grigori Rozanov is meaner behind closed doors. He pushes, he hits, he ices her out and gives her the silent treatment and criticizes her at home and in front of his peers. She gets pregnant almost immediately after they get married, which is a disaster; her husband is gentler with her physical body but an absolute nightmare emotionally. She once spends too long talking to one of his friends alone at some dinner party and he doesn’t talk to her for six weeks.
Grigori doesn’t care that she has morning sickness, or that she’s exhausted; he married her to be beautiful and hang off his arm and that’s what he expects she’ll do. So she does. She spends most of Alexei’s pregnancy freaking out about what the fuck is going to happen to this child once it’s entered the world. There’s a lot of losing hours sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space. A lot of the cook/housekeeper leaving food that goes uneaten. At one point, she actually almost loses Alexei because she’s so depressed and malnourished, and there is a not insignificant part of her that is upset when they both pull through because what kind of life will she be giving this boy? She doesn’t know that she can protect him.
And in fact, she can’t. Alexei is dumped on her for childcare and they have someone watch him when she’s needed for a function, but Grigori is surprisingly involved in the life of his first son. It becomes very clear very quickly that he wants Alexei to follow in his own footsteps; he gets angry when she mothers him, he disciplines him from the moment he is old enough to understand what that means.
Irina has no idea what the fuck she’s doing. There are a lot of meltdowns that end with her curled up on the floor, clutching her son to her chest and sobbing with him: “I don’t know what you want I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
Irina has Ilya three years later. By that time, Alexei is his father’s son. He is a baby, still (three years old? four?), but toddlers learn quick, and he is steadily being carved into a creature that is sharp and angry and hard. It breaks Irina’s heart, and so she vows that this next child will not succumb to the same fate. She will protect this one better. Her pregnancy and Ilya’s arrival bring her back from the numbness that follows her everywhere these days, but she realizes very quickly that in order to save Ilya she needs to sacrifice Alexei. Which she does. Painfully. She knows Alexei resents her for it. She resents herself, too.
But Ilya is such a happy child; always smiling and laughing, so clever and curious about the world around him and oh so very sweet. He loves to bury into her side, to play with her hair. She tucks him to her chest and carries him everywhere when he’s an infant and that closeness persists—Ilya is her purpose, her world, her everything. He is her best and only friend in this big house and she will protect and care for and love him enough to make up for all her past failures or she will die trying.
Grigori is not happy. No son of his will become some simpering, weak fool who needs his mother. He puts him in hockey as soon as he can fucking walk and Ilya takes to it immediately. Irina spends all her time tempering the lessons her husband tries to teach her child, but it’s difficult. When Ilya is old enough to attend formal events, dressed in a tiny suit and told to be quiet and follow his parents around, he spends so much time bugging his mama, Mama look at this picture! Can we go play? Mamaaaa that Grigori hits her in full view of Ilya when they get home, and informs him that this is his fault; she is my wife before she is your mother, and you are too old for playing games. He’s eight.
But a father’s approval is a heady thing; when Ilya comes home roughed up from an on-ice scuffle, he is yelled at for allowing the other boy to draw blood before Grigori gives his bloodied knuckles an appraising look. “I was starting to think your mother had given me a daughter, Ilya.” And he gives Ilya a little smile and pats his cheek.
This got way longer than I intended, but there’s just something about Irina sacrificing Alexei to form a codependent relationship with Ilya that has me by the throat. I think it gives depth to his idolizing of her in really interesting ways, and also provides further depth to Ilya’s issues with his father and with Alexei. Sure, yes, there is this unspoken hatred and tension due to Ilya’s queerness, but I feel like it would be so much more interesting if there there was also some serious resentment and jealousy there.
And I think Irina herself was trying her best, but was ultimately a very young woman who was terrified and abused and had serious clinical depression. She wasn’t a great cook. She didn’t clean. She was a good mom under the circumstances but the circumstances were fucked; she was practically a child herself when she had Alexei and by the time Ilya came around she was in her early twenties and only marginally wiser. This puts her at early- to mid-thirties for when she commits suicide because she just can’t do it anymore. Everything is too hard, she is too sad, and she can no longer protect, care for, and love Ilya in the way she promised herself she would years ago. Whether directly or indirectly, she keeps hurting him. She’s too numb.
So Irina leaves Ilya her cross and takes herself off the board. She did try, but he’ll be better off without her.
The way the line "Shane Hollander can have whatever he wants here" delivered after refusing to serve him a ginger ale without a side of attitude absolutely infuriates me.
Shane is such a Protector and Provider. He’s the one who carries the suitcase. He’s the one with the sensible car for safety and comfort. He’s the one with the big house where they can go. He knows how & builds the campfire. He’s the one who buys the food and cooks the meals - even if he could’ve cut the recipe in half. Yes, he’s the world’s biggest bottom and he lovesss to get fucked, but he doesn’t fall into the stereotypes of bottom = feminine at all.
When you think about it, Shane being the Provider is a big part of his whole life. He’s the team Captain and provides the wins & $$$. His mother is his manager, and he’s her only client. His salary & brand deals are the income for both of them. His dad works for the govt. He’s the one footing the bill for that Chablis at the nice restaurant. He’s the one whose name gets them in and pays for things like a Wimbledon trip. He doesn’t resent it, but he does feel the weight of it. But not with Ilya.
Protecting and providing for Ilya is easy for Shane. It comes naturally. This is important for Ilya, who has been the Provider for his own family — which is exploited and abused repeatedly over many years. He feels like he’s always giving so much (bolshe bolshe bolshe) and not only is it thankless, it’s completely unreciprocated by anyone except Svetlana. No one provides anything for Ilya, emotional or material, and CERTAINLY no one protects him.
It makes you wonder about how vulnerable Ilya was when he was younger & unprotected. When his mother died and he was persuaded to lie by the person who was hardest on her, who was also the hardest on him. When he was acting out, engaging in risky sex and looking for trouble. When that didn’t get him the attention or care that he sought. When his own brother hated him, and he knew why. When he was never good enough, always “lazy,” not winning when he was supposed to even though he won a LOT.
Ilya was still the Provider, even then. He still looked out for his father who he could tell was ailing. He still gave his brother money. He still set aside a trust for his niece. No one was providing anything for him in return. So is it any wonder when Mr Hey Heyyy Will You Come to my Cottage offers him ANY solace, even a SHRED of comfort, Ilya is putty in his hands? “Are you hungry? The drive is 2 hrs” “How are your ribs?” Of course, Shane is actually offering a LOT of comfort & security.
“Here,” Shane offers easily. “Here is a place where you can be safe. Where you can be vulnerable. Where you can be fully held for the first time since you were 12. You can be honest about what you’re thinking & feeling. You can be warm by this fire. I’ll protect you from that noise that scared you. You don’t need to be scared. I’ll rub your shoulder & pet your hair & hold your hand while you tell me about the worst thing that ever happened to you.
I’ll sit over you and watch out. You don’t need to spend money. You don’t need to look for trouble to get my attention. You have it. I want this with you. I’ll make a plan for the future so you can be safe & secure. I’ll kiss you even when you’re cold from the lake. What food do you want for lunch?” It leaves room for Ilya to protect and provide back on his own terms, to fulfill what his sweetheart needs - but that’s the subject of a different emotional post.
Reheating yet again and I’m crying at new places? Like, tuna melt couch scene. After Ilya speaks to his father and comes back to the couch and Shane is so earnest asking about how Ilya’s dad is and Ilya pulls him to his chest and you can SEE how enamoured Ilya is because it hits him how kind and caring Shane is with him and he doesn’t have anything like that in his life that is so pure and just honest to fucking god, genuinely GOOD. And then we can see Shane is so fucking enamoured with Ilya as he holds him close, carding his fingers through his hair and pressing his lips to the crown of his head and he’s so overwhelmed by how much he FEELS for Ilya that he NEEDS to feel him in that moment, needs to be as close as he possibly can so he initiates and they’re so fucking lost in each other and the first names slip out. And then Shane’s brain short circuits and he has his full on gay crisis because it finally hits him that he’s falling love with Ilya fucking Rozanov and he can’t turn back so he runs. And you can literally see Ilya’s heart breaking and the way he says « Hollander » like he’s pleading with him not to do this to him, not to leave. And then Shane fucking LEAVES OH MY GOD ITS SO FUCKING SAD.
i don't fucking understand how someone can watch this show and not have their brain chemistry permanently altered. like what do you mean you watched heated rivalry and you thought it was good. that was it? that was IT???????? because i'm out here going INSANE i'm diving into character analyses like i'm getting PAID i'm rewatching a scene 500 times just to focus on shane's tiny microexpression i'm fantasizing about shane and ilya's future together like it's my OWN. i'm like is this not normal???? this is the only logical outcome to me. i'm like what do you mean i'm not normal. YOU'RE not normal
Honestly? Honestly the idea of Ilya Rozanov sitting himself down at twelve years old and saying I have GOT to get out of this country. It killed my mother. It's going to kill me. And then growing up a little bit and realizing some Things about himself and saying I have GOT to get out of this country. I have tried and tried and for some reason people keep Knowing What I Am. Ilya, young bisexual man with an apparently pretty clocky affect to his speaking voice. A strong young man with a natural and lovely flamboyance in him, a sweetness he tries to smother and the ability to play hockey like it was bestowed upon him by GOD. I've GOT to get out of here, he thinks to himself. And then he leaves (but not really) does some more growing up and he falls in love only he can't let himself be in love because the lead weight of this country is still tied to him and he thinks I have GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE. Then his father dies and the man he loves says "Come with me" and Ilya says I am NEVER going back!! I will wear my mother's cross and I will think of her every day and she will forgive me for never visiting her grave because her beautiful boy got OUT. I will go to a place where I am loved by a man A MAN who I love more than I ever thought I was allowed. Who holds my face and my hands and my heart. I will find a home for myself in his arms. I will never go fucking back.
The miscommunication in Heated Rivalry is because they're living in different romance types to begin with:
Shane: In some sort of Austen-esque existence where hjs ill-advised flirtation with a notorious rake goes too far. Scandalised by the intimate use of first names he flees, concerned what society and his goodly parents will think, his reputation at stake. He tries to find a proper marriage prospect but alas his heart is lost to the rake! But he finally follows his heart and invites Ilya into his home too (and accepts first name usage!)
Ilya: Smoldering in mirrors and out of windows and getting emotionally wuthered screaming Shane's name on a moor. My man is byronically going through it gothic style
I actually love Shane being shit with kids. I think he’s fine with babies because they don’t talk back and ask questions he doesn’t know how to answer in a Normal Human way but the second you put a 5 year old in front of him and they say something weird he’s like ‘oh…… okay. Nice’ and god forbid the kid starts crying
Whereas Ilya would be the fucking best with kids. Tea party? He’s putting on a tutu and tiara and eating imaginary biscuits with the stuffed animal guests, asking whether Mr. Fluff Bunny takes cream or sugar with his tea. Imaginary play? He’s letting the kids put makeup on him and paint his nails and dress him up in a sheet so he can play the evil queen. Go fish? He’s acting like he’s going to beat them all but then he’s constantly letting the kids win and being so dramatic about losing, making the little ones burst in giggle fits every time. And Shane just watches in awe, feeling conflicted because watching Ilya be good with kids triggers a carnal need to have children with him yet simultaneously terrifies him because how the fuck would he ever be able to raise a child?
Shane would always be very incesure about the fact that he feels that at a core level he really isn't nearly as good at reading Ilya the way Ilya is at reading Shane, and he has no place to put this incesurity, he doesn't know how to help it and it only grows in the first few months they are finally living together after being outed, because Shane feels like sometimes he can't even tell what type of day Ilya is having, whether he actually enjoys something they're doing together that Shane likes or not, whether he's getting more and more tired of Shane and the rules he sets about their home. He wants to believe that this is all just another thing his minds made up to scare him, because he knows Ilya is trying so hard and doing so well at communicating with him, that he genuinely savours all the time they spend together even if he doesn't have to anymore, and that he really likes to make Shane happy. But the feeling is unshakable, he knows how good Ilya is at masking his emotions, he knows he's pretending, and more than anything he's well aware of his inability to pick on certain things that people leave out for him. The memories of Ilya trying to imply how he wasn't happy going back to Russia and Shane not catching tre subject still haunts him, and he's just so upset with himself no matter how much he tries to rationalize this in his head.
And then there's Ilya, very much noticing that Shane is heavily upset and all Ilya can deduce is that its generally related to him in some way. He sees that every time he confides in Shane about having a bad day while they were out, which Shane obviously talks him through and goes through any and all of the things Galina, Ilya's therapist has recommended, Shane seems visibly distraught a couple hours later almost invariably. He wants to believe it's just Shane processing the fact that his husband has depression and is just worried about Ilya, in his own Shane Hollander way, but when it keeps happening Ilya, not matter how much he wants to can't stop himself from thinking that Shane's bothered by him, that he's burdened by having to constantly support a man who had seemed to be fine up till now. He sees the way Shane's starting to hesitate in telling him things sometimes, and it's breaking his heart but he physically can't bring himself to ask Shane about it. Can't bring himself to ask Shane about it only to risk getting his husband, the man he's been pining and waiting for for 13 years to tell him that he's a burden, just like everyone else he used to call family.
So, in all conventional hollanov fashion, this continues for an ungodly amount of time before Ilya says something under his breath about Shane not needing to help him and that he knows hes getting tired, Shane to interrogate him about this because how dare Ilya ever say that he wouldn't do something for the man he loves more than himself, and then proceeds to breakdown sobbing Ilya tells him what he thought had been happening, and how both of them had been spiralling over absolutely nothing.
Maybe I’m late to this party, but is it just me or does Shane’s response of « oh my god » to Ilya finally saying « I love you » in English after saying it in Russian several times happen because he realizes he’s heard Ilya say it before, on the phone when he was in Moscow but he didn’t know what it meant. But now he knows, and he’s floored because it means Ilya said I love you weeks ago and this whole time he’s been trying not to come on too strong but also head over heels wanting to plan the rest of their lives together and ILYA ALREADY FUCKING SAID I LOVE YOU.
I think my favorite thing about hollanov is absolutely how they're perceived versus who they are around each other. Shane and Ilya's rivalry makes them out to be lions vs hyenas but alone they're a cheetah and its therapy labrador retriever
i honestly fucking love this too. this is one of my favourite things about hollanov.
because shane and ilya are superstars, they don't have the luxury for people to form impressions of them based on personal interactions, like us. so, to the majority of the world, they are a specific portrayal that has been entirely and externally created without their involvement. that's not who they really are. and who they really are, is a person that only the other person knows.
everyone looks at shane hollander and immediately associates him with "best player in the league, highest hockey IQ" because that's what's he's best at. then the second thought about him is probably a hard-working golden boy, also kind of awkward and not sociable. good captain.
but underneath him, there's layers. he's closeted and struggling from being a minority and autistic. no one knows that. he's also a sex freak and a slut with an oral fixation. no one probably thought about that either. he also secretly loves bad boys (or just one). don't think anyone fucking clocked that!
and then with ilya, he's a ruthless player on the ice. top asshole in the league, but charming and witty. has a tough skin, known as a fuckboy.
but they don't know that he found his mom dead at 12. the person who made him feel loved the most. they don't know that all ilya wants to do is care for the people he loves, but all he has is an abusive family who takes and takes from him. they don't know that he's queer and fears for his life in russia. they probably think that his ideal partner is a blonde wag who lives for the fast life, but actually, all he wants is stability and honesty and earnestness. he wants someone like shane. he wants to escape in the sun with shane. and they don't know that, either.
is it just me or does every new piece of connor media give you so much gender envy that you spiral further into a depression? like what do you mean there is a new ethereal connor storrie video with him wearing a mustard yellow turtleneck holding a flower and dancing breathtakingly to odessa by caribou??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN???
To add onto this post and this post by @wtf-is-hockey, the thing about Ilya Rozanov and the plausability of men’s awareness of sexism and women’s suffering is that like… my Trump-supporting, Andrew Tate-loving, Ben Shapiro-listening male cousin in his mid-twenties saw how his mother and my mother were treated in the family and within typical South Asian sexist abusive hierarchical family dynamics and when we discussed it, he made comments about how it always comes down harder on the women than the men in the family and how unfair that is.
So it is extremely plausible to me that men who aren’t the awful Trump-supporting, Andrew Tate-loving, Ben Shapiro-listening type assholes are “feminist” in some way, and that the violence and sexism they witness the women in their lives go through is a large factor in how aware and critical they are of women’s oppression.
Especially when they have women in their lives who probably are feminists, and it’s likely that these women’s female rage and rants about the sexism they experience positively influenced them. Which I think would absolutely apply to Svetlana.
Ilya is shown being enraged by the violence inflicted on the two central women in his life by the men in his family. His brother calling him a faggot gets no reaction from him but he completely loses it when Alexei calls Svetlana a whore. BUT - and this is a very important point - he doesn’t let his rage and his feelings take over and become that priority. So often, a man taking revenge against another man on behalf of a woman becomes about that man’s own righteous rage and toxic masculine ideas about women’s honor and needing to be the white knight who protects and defends the helpless woman, and often turns into a sort of pissing contest with the man he’s fighting, rather than about the woman’s feelings. But that doesn’t happen with Ilya at all - when Svetlana tells him to stop, he immediately listens, he doesn’t draw it out.
His admiration of his mother extending to how he sees other women is also highly plausible - and in fact his words about the women he sleeps with directly echo his words about his mother (which… very Freudian lol) “She was so beautiful and funny” “And they’re so sexy and fun”.
His opinion about his mother goes further - “I don’t want you to think she was weak” when women are so often called weak and there is so little empathy for their mental health struggles (another great post by @wtf-is-hockey about Ilya’s empathy for Irina.) He also calls his father traditional - it’s probable that extended to women's role in the household and Irina being responsible for domestic labor and the way she was abused by his father having a distinctly misogynistic flavor to it, which also would’ve affected Ilya’s perspective.
Another telling example is that we see Ilya's very extreme jealousy over Rose, yet he never makes even a single derogatory comment about her (hilariously, his actual most notable comment about her as a person is apparently agreeing with Svetlana that Rose has great style and assuming she dressed Shane). If Ilya was going to be misogynistic at any point, that would have done it, but he does not direct any vitriol at Rose herself.
As we see with Shane, he also cares deeply about consent and comfort of his sexual partner, which of course would've also applied to his hook ups with women. And you just know he absolutely loves to make women cum and makes sure they have a good time. You can see that in the way he jokes about leaving Shane without getting him off during their first hook up before going “you think I am asshole?”
I think sometimes people see men’s attraction to women and casual sex as inherently threatening, but there is no evidence that Ilya was a fuckboy or a dick to the women he slept with (a good post by @themoonandmyman about this).
Not that all of this means he’s immune to sexism! I’m sure he has his casually sexist moments. (I also definitely don’t think he goes around calling himself a feminist or anything). But that is far superseded by his admiration of women, considerate treatment of them, and rage at the violence and prejudice aimed towards them. And it’s notable that this exists while he’s in the most toxically masculine atmosphere possible with men’s sports.
Anyways, tl;dr Ilya Rozanov is drinking that Respect Women juice at all times and that is Very Important to me.
My headcanon of the day is that Ilya is not used to getting calls from family members unless they need something from him. Nobody ever calls him (maybe apart from Shane) to just simply check up on him. So the first time David calls him on a random day of the week, asks him about his day, hands the phone to Yuna to do the same—Ilya is a little confused as to why these people are just randomly calling him. He even texts David after they've hung up to confirm if they needed something and have just forgotten to mention it. When David texts back "no son we just wanted to check up on you" Ilya sits and stares at that text until he feels his throat close up and there's an odd sting in his eyes.
