Burn the boats

she/her

[bysouthernsea]

my fics

[bysouthernsea]

falling from above

Post Heated Rivalry, closeted boyfriends era, depression, medication, erectil disfunction, angst, WIP 2/3

“There could be side effects. You might not be able to get an erection, or keep one, or have an orgasm. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but it could.”

Ilya nods and looks down at his hands, clasped together in a fist.

“Okay,” he says, and that’s it.

He takes the prescription, then pays someone to go to the pharmacy for him, the way he used to when he was a kid and needed morning-after pills for the girls he brought home.

When he finally has the box of pills in his hands, he opens it, swallows one, and puts the box on the bathroom cabinet shelf, right where it can be seen.

[bysouthernsea]

I'm writing the last chapter:). I'm very open to every kind of feedback and criticism because I really really want to improve my writing and I get so frustrated because I hate how I write at the moment lol.

[bysouthernsea]

I know the foundation of their relationship is basically sex and they both love it and enjoy it. But I never see anyone try to see this from another point of view and I do think it can be done. I think the reason behind is that everyone has this idea that having a looot of sex and having a huge sex drive etc means that you're actually really fucking in love. And that it's the only way a healthy relationship between two people who are crazy about each other can work. And I'm here to tell you that's not true and we all should be aware that putting sex as a benchmark of how in love you are, it's harmful, and it's not true, and you can love eachother more than anything and want to fuck once every two weeks and that doesn't mean your relationship sucks. People with low sex drives exist, sex is not everything and so many other things in life matter more than that. I know it's canon that they have high sex drives and love sex, but is it canon because there was a real thought behind it or because we just all see it as how sex works when you're in love?

[hollow-dweller]

i have to speak my truth but i really think #myshane and #mysvetlana would not get along at all. i think they would be petty and cruel and jealous of one another.

i think shane would resent their long friendship, her access to ilya's past and family life that he'll never share because no matter how much he coaxes out of ilya over the years, he Wasn't There and Svetlana was. i think he'd hate how easy and comfortable Svetlana and Ilya are with one another, paranoid over every conversation they have in russian. i think he'd gloat over "winning" Ilya, and i think he'd act superior about not just the Committed Relationship of it all but also the Hockey of it all. i think he'd dismiss Svetlana's hockey knowledge not just out of pettiness, but no small amount of misogyny. she can never Get Hockey because she doesn’t play professionally, and by virtue of that she can never Get Ilya the way Shane does.

conversely, i think Svetlana would be just as resentful and petty and bitter, most especially because Shane did, in fact, win. i think she'd try to be gracious about it at first, as we see her being in canon, but #mysvetlana is no martyr and i think she'd push back. especially with the Ottawa Plan of it all, in a very real sense i think she'd see it as Shane taking her best friend away, and Ilya throwing away his career for Shane's sake while Shane continues to thrive. i think she'd emphasize their history, lean into in-jokes and remember-when's, flaunt her ability to be flirty and affectionate with Ilya in public or in front of other people. after all, they're friends with History, so no one would blink twice about her throwing her legs over Ilya's lap in a group hangout, or dancing with him in a club, or hanging off his arm on the street. i think she'd use her knowledge of hockey, not just the game but also the culture, as a weapon, and make a point of ruthlessly pointing out the consequences of the Ottawa move on Ilya's career, his legacy, and his relationship with the fans.

and btw, all this is exacerbated by the canonical way #myilya wielded Svetlana as a weapon against Shane. i only think he was being intentionally cruel some of the time, and i don't think he meant to diminish Svetlana or her importance to him, but it is curious how his best friend, the person we see him most canonically close to, physically and emotionally, for the majority of the show, ends up just being "this girl i like very much" (said to push Shane into talking about his relationships with women and guage Shane's reaction to Ilya being with other people). or how he dismisses her feelings entirely, only an episode after she pretty plainly states she'd like to be with him but knows he's in love with someone else. telling Shane "We love each other but it's not like that between us" when what she ACTUALLY said was "You do [deserve me], but you don't want me. I hope Jane knows how lucky he is," which very much implies that Svetlana would LIKE to be with Ilya, but knows it's not in the cards for them. and Ilya at best is willfully ignorant to her feelings, at worst is deliberately dismissive of them. in the same episode, bringing up Svetlana as a marriage prospect not because i think he sincerely thinks it's the best path to citizenship (he is a professional athlete nearly a decade into his career in a foreign country, he's done more than a cursory google search about this), but because he cannot help himself but test Shane and push his emotional buttons. and Shane wants to be pushed, and we love 2 see some toxic possessiveness in #ourhollanov, but that doesn't make Svetlana less of a tool being used to prod along the romance, both in-universe by the characters and also by the narrative itself.

and of course i hope it goes without saying that i think they should all **** nasty about it

[bysouthernsea]

I've always had mixed feelings about Yuna stepping in as a mother figure for Ilya.

On the one hand, they're characters in a romance story, so the angst is limited, and the narrative is always moving toward a happy ending, not just for the main couple, but for the story as a whole. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, nor do I think it's completely unrealistic.

But on the other hand, Ilya did have a mother. She died because she killed herself, and that's not something that can be simply undone by Yuna entering his life when he's thirty. Maybe I'm projecting here, but even though I don't have a great relationship with my own dad, I would never want my boyfriend's father to step into that role, because it just wouldn't make sense to me. A mother and a father occupy very specific places in a person's life, and that dynamic isn't something you can easily recreate.

I absolutely believe that some people can develop wonderful relationships with parental figures they meet later in life, but I don't think that's the case for Ilya.

And honestly, I just find it weird when people talk about their children's boyfriends or girlfriends seeing them as another son or daughter. Like... what? I'm fucking your son. I'm not your daughter. 😭

So while I understand why that kind of relationship can be comforting or wholesome, and useful for a "found family" trope that I almost never enjoy, it can also come across as incredibly overbearing. Like no, you can't act as a parent for me without me explicitly telling you that's okay, even if you think you're doing something good. It can create such difficult and complex feelings.

[bysouthernsea]

falling from above

Post Heated Rivalry, closeted boyfriends era, depression, medication, erectil disfunction, angst, WIP 2/3

“There could be side effects. You might not be able to get an erection, or keep one, or have an orgasm. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but it could.”

Ilya nods and looks down at his hands, clasped together in a fist.

“Okay,” he says, and that’s it.

He takes the prescription, then pays someone to go to the pharmacy for him, the way he used to when he was a kid and needed morning-after pills for the girls he brought home.

When he finally has the box of pills in his hands, he opens it, swallows one, and puts the box on the bathroom cabinet shelf, right where it can be seen.

[cuppydogshane]

i like. dont feel bad for you if you got caught lying about using ai i just dont. you made your bed. all you had to do was Not Lie. sorry if thats mean.

[bysouthernsea]

The point isn't feeling bad that someone got caught, the point is feeling bad or not if someone gets harassed because they got caught. And if you can't feel empathy towards someone that did something like lie to strangers online about fanfic(which is not paid), then you really hold people at a moral standard that I don't think you necessarily fulfill yourself.

[bysouthernsea]

Against popular belief, I don't think they spend their honeymoon fucking like rabbits.

I think they spend it out in the sun together.

They join random strangers for beach volleyball. They stop for gelato at a little café, where Ilya somehow ends up chatting with an elderly Italian couple, and before they know it they're playing cards together for the rest of the afternoon.

They try kiteboarding and windsurfing, and Ilya finally discovers there's something Shane is actually bad at: water sports. (Obviously, he makes the joke and Shane just rolls his eyes, and goes bright red)

They go sightseeing. They refuse to book some ridiculously luxurious resort because they know they'd just end up staying there all day. Instead, they wander, they explore little towns, hike up hills to watch the sunset, duck into museums and tiny shops, make jokes, talk to strangers, and somehow end up having dinner with people they met that same afternoon.

They can do that now and they spend the whole honeymoon giggling about it.

[brokentoasterrr]

people often forget that characters lie all the time and while the concept of big dick ilya is fun and sexy, it is infinitely funnier to imagine shane, who is intimately familiar with ilya’s respectable six inch cock, pulling out a tape measure when he gets home after the infamous “nine inch dick” text exchange, measuring out nine inches, and just thinking to himself

this fucking guy

[jeffthemagicdragon]

@saltypendeja reaping what he sows... the conses of his quences

[bysouthernsea]

I would be scared of a 9 incher. Shane would be too. He would be like ah ah yes I can take it, and he cannot, and then he would ghost him.

[bysouthernsea]

I've just read someone cutting off their friend because they use AI. Of course they are American. 😭

[norobotsallowed]

AI Alternatives for Writers

People use generative AI for all kinds of things, not just generating text, but there's no good reason to use it for those purposes, either. The environmental impact and the moral implications of how it exploits labor (not just the works stolen for training sets, but the immense amounts of underpaid and exploited labor required to clean up the data and outputs to make the models work) just aren't worth it. For just about every use you can think of for genAI, we can guarantee there's an existing tool that uses a lot less water and processing power, and you don't have to worry about random lies and hallucinations.

Find and Replace

If you want to change a word in your fic to another word, you can use Find-And-Replace. This is available in all word processing programs.

Here is how to use it in Google Docs: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/62754

For Word, CTRL+H for Windows or CMD+H for Mac will bring up the Find and Replace dialog box. Make sure to click on the More button to check options like Match Case and Find Whole Words Only if you're trying to e.g. replace a character name that's a common word or fragment of a word, like Mark, or Ben.

Exporting into AO3-ready Format

Ellipsus does this with one click. https://ellipsus.com/ 

Google Docs has a variety of tools. There's AOYeet. There are a variety of plugins and scripts, but here's one of the most popular.

Word formats the text correctly (up to and including header styles), no export needed; just copy and paste your text into the AO3 Rich Text editor.

Spellcheck, Grammar Check and Thesauruses

There are many ways to check that you’ve used a word correctly, or to think of substitutes. Here are some tips:

Get a beta reader who is familiar with the language! You can ask a mutual on social media, put out a call for help in a relevant Discord server, or just check in with oomf!

English has dictionaries and thesauruses to help readers, available for free on the Internet. A dictionary defines words, while a thesaurus offers close words.

Dictionaries: Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) are all famous, reputable sources. (OED might require a subscription; if you have a library card, you might be able to get access to it for free. Check the Resources page on your library website.)

Thesauruses: Merriam-Webster has an extensive thesaurus as well; WordHippo is also an excellent resource. The r/ENGLISH subreddit is frequently helpful.

Do an internet search! Look up "how to use X in a sentence." Odds are pretty good other people had the same question.

Choose the word in your own language, use Google translate to translate to English, and then translate it back. If you get a different word on the reverse translation, then it’s probably not accurate. Google translate often offers multiple options, so try another variation, and work until you get the same word both translated into English and then translated back.

Checking English Acronyms

There are several ways to check that you’ve used a word correctly. Here are some tips:

Get a beta reader who is familiar with the language! You can ask a mutual on social media, put out a call for help in a relevant Discord server, or just check in with oomf!

Do an internet search! “What does ABC mean?” Odds are good that you’ll be able to find the source of the acronym.

Checking Setting Accuracy

There are several ways to check that you’ve been accurate with the setting of your story. Here are some tips:

Get a beta reader who is familiar with the setting! You can ask a mutual on social media, put out a call for help in a relevant Discord server, or just check in with oomf!

Do an internet search! “Do hockey players go to school?” Odds are good that you’ll be able to answer your own question. Reddit and StackOverflow can sometimes prove extremely helpful!

Do some research about the setting. Read a book of the history of the sport, watch a video of a rocket launch, listen to a podcast about deep sea fishing, or go visit the ballet in person.

GenAI is an exceptionally poor way to conduct research, because the models that power GenAI don't actually know anything. It basically predicts what the next word should be in a sequence. You can't trust it to be correct; everything it tells you needs to be fact-checked, at which point you might as well conduct the research already.

Checking English Phrases

There are many ways to check that a phrase is in common use. Here are some tips:

Put the phrase into Google ngrams and see how often it is used: https://books.google.com/ngrams/

Search the phrase in texts and see how people are using it in their own writing. You can do that here: https://archive.org/details/texts 

Search the phrase on the web with quotation marks around it and see how other people are discussing the phrase, e.g., “time of my life” meaning

Checking Word Frequency

Are you worried that you used the same word too much? 

Use your software's Find function to see all instances of the word.

Upgrade to Scrivener (you pay for the license, not a subscription!) for the built-in frequency checker.

Read your story aloud. You'll be surprised by how many things become evident (repetitions, awkward phrasing, missing words, etc.) when you hear words vs. seeing them on the page.

Use speech to text to have your text read aloud to you. Yes, the machine voice is grating, but it can help you spot errors.

Writing Character and Emotional Arcs

There are many sources of advice for writing romances or shippy fics that cover everything from basic romance beats to character development to how to develop conflict and tension. Here are some sources:

Tasha L. Harrison’s substack: Romance 101: Write Your Romance This Year

The Turning to Story podcast (link goes to Apple Podcast but obviously use your favorite podcast feed/app)

The Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast

The Writing Excuses podcast

Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels by Gwen Hayes

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints by Nancy Kress

The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great  by Donald Maass

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Honorable mention to the not-yet-published: Think, Write, Edit, Romance: The Romance Writer's Journey from Blank Page to Finished Novel by KJ Charles

The Emotion Thesaurus and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman 

https://onestopforwriters.com/, a huge database of everything related to writing craft, also by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman. 14-day free trial.

Our advice:

Read. Just read. Read attentively and critically. If an author does something you love, go back to that passage or scene and analyze it. What worked for you? Was there a particular rhythm you found pleasing? A style of building metaphor? How did the author build the tension, and then release it? What did the author do with the characters that captivated you?

Also useful (but probably less fun to do unless you're a sicko with a literature degree): analyze authors you don't like. Was there a way the author wrote that set your teeth on edge? Were there assumptions the author made about how the world works (or should work) that you didn't like? What about the sentences grated on your nerves? What about the characters fell flat?

Avoiding cliches

Again, the best way to avoid cliches is to read widely and deeply, especially in the genre in which you want to write. Read the classics, read the most popular books, and read the source material. Pay attention to what still sounds fresh, and what sounds dated and repetitive.

Get a beta reader who is familiar with the language! You can ask a mutual on social media, put out a call for help in a relevant Discord server, or just check in with oomf!

Do an internet search! “Is ABC a cliche?” Odds are good that you’ll be able to find an answer.

Scene-level pacing

How quickly does time pass in a scene? Is it sped up, slowed down, etc? This PDF is a helpful explanation of how to write pacing on a scene level.

For US Residents: Library Resources

Libraries are magical. Use them. Not only do you save money, but increased circulation and resource usage by members helps libraries maintain their budgets. Here are some free resources besides books provided by many libraries:

Streaming services, like hoopla or Kanopy, with music, movies, tv, etc.

Newspaper and magazine subscriptions

Academic journal databases

Historical databases

Online learning & instruction

Librarians. Seriously: talk to a librarian. If they don't know something off the top of their head, they're experts at finding obscure information and are more than happy to help.

Libraries that Allow Nonresident Cards (as of May 2026)

Fairfax County Public Library

Broward County Library

Queens Public Library

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

Orange County Library System

The Mercantile Library

Monroe County Library System

St. Louis Public Library

The Queer Liberation Library (anyone with a US mailing address can apply for a free membership)

reciprocard.com can tell you what library cards you’re eligible for, based on your location

We get why people use genAI for all these tasks. It's easy, it's right there, and it's free—by which we mean, it doesn't cost you immediate up-front cash. You are, however, paying for it in all sorts of other ways. Not just in terms of externalized costs, like the environmental impacts and the rising price of electricity and GPUs, but in the hit you're taking to your reading, writing, and thinking skills. If you were training for a marathon, secretly adding a motor to your shoes that moves for you instead of building your endurance would, rightly, be considered cheating. Why cheat yourself?

It's not just the skill decay, either; a lot of things people use AI for are things you can address by becoming part of a community. Need help with grammar or edits? Join a Discord server or fannish subreddit to meet some people; find some friends, find a beta. Want to discuss a niche topic? Whether it's details about hockey teams, the intricacies of etiquette and fashion in the 1830s, or the dynasties of the Indus Valley Civilization, etc., guaranteed some nerd out there is so excited to infodump on you, or at least help you and cheerlead as you fall down a series of research rabbit holes.

Engaging with fandom is a community act. Why circumvent that aspect by talking to an inherently unreliable robot instead of a person? Humans are fallible, sure, but at least along the way you make a friend.

If you want to learn something, learn it. If you want to do something, do it. The best way—in fact the only way—to get better at something is doing it, over and over and over again. Don't let a piece of software atrophy your skills, or deny you the chance to acquire it in the first place.

Is this all work? It sure is! But here's the other good news: if you're not having fun, you can stop. Writing fic is completely optional, and if you're not enjoying the activity, you don't have to do it! It's valid to just read fic, or post gif sets on Tumblr, or ramble on Twitter, or draw stick figures of your faves, or do whatever you DO enjoy!

Do art that brings you joy, and if you don't know what that is, try things until you find it! This whole enterprise was built because it was fun for humans, and bringing AI into that is pretty depressing.

[bysouthernsea]

I was just blocked by someone on here because I said that you can make fictional characters whatever the fuck you want🤣🤣. You can make them trans, cis, animals, robots, whatever the fuck you want, because they are not real.

And I was blocked. The internet is too fucking funny.

[linettesmth]

Ilya and Shane 🏒⛸️

[bysouthernsea]

Ilya is so mean to Shane when Shane joins the Centaurs. He makes fun of him for not being captain, takes little digs at him, and just seems weirdly unsupportive.

And if that had been a deliberate way of showing how mental struggles and depression can make you lash out at the people you love, I could have understood it. Sometimes that does happen. When you hate yourself, it can become very fucking hard to love other people properly. Pain doesn't always make people gentle, it doesn't always make you better, that's a romanticised version of it. Sometimes it makes you defensive, bitter, and cruel.

But it wasn't like that, it was just... there. It wasn't explored, it wasn't framed as part of Ilya's internal struggle, and it didn't seem to serve any larger narrative purpose. It wasn't a strategy to convey how depression was affecting him or his relationships. It was just behavior that felt disconnected from the character.

#MyIlya loves his Shane too much to not be there for him in every possible way in maybe the worst time of his life.

[bysouthernsea]

I want a switch game where you can have a love interest, a family, kids, you can parent and have a relationship etc etc. And I want it to cost like 5 dollars. They should all cost 5 dollars. Especially Nintendo games. You have no business being a huge company and making 70 dollars games. Get out of here.

[bysouthernsea]

Is always "Shane Hollander walks Ilya Rozanov like a dog" because Shane is a bottom and is engraved in our minds that being on the receiving end is borderline humiliating because it is something women usually are and making the one doing the fucking more in love or obsessed is a way to make things equal.

[verminpollute]

MORE heated rivalry fics that are conceptually clever or unsettling or thorough. or all of the above

not all of them are aus . many are under 15k hits

put my hand on the stove (and the cross) - unseemlyndisturbed

(beautiful eerie prose, the religiosity holds substance and is hypnotic. Load bearing fanfiction)

“And there.

Through a break in the trees, there is a house. Wooden, old, the pale white paint of it greyed with age and dampness.

"I—" His voice comes out level, at least.

The man has tilted his head. "What? You want to sleep in your car?" He pulls his chin toward the dark interior of the house, a small gesture. "No. Come in. Is no trouble."

God hasn’t abandoned him yet, ha.

Shane Hollander's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. The man who answers the door is charming, warm, and just his type. Ilya Rozanov is a very religious man. He has a lot to say about repentance.”

HOLLANDER VS ROZANOV I - gone_girl

(i know nothing about boxing, but this conveys the world so clearly. outsider pov in chapter 1. knowledgeable clever cool character study)

“After nearly a decade separated by weight class, Shane Hollander has given up his cruiserweight title to challenge undefeated heavyweight champion of the world Ilya Rozanov. The following is a presentation of HBO Boxing.”

A Side Door Into the Dark - magnetica

(climatology physics scientists in antarctica. includes citations at the end. in a short amount of words the sense of setting is sooo strong. very endearing and cold)

“Amundsen-Scott Station, Antarctica

—

In grad school the only flirting he had mastered was the strategic deployment of phrases like ‘oh, really?’ and ‘is that so?’ It was brought to his attention by one of his more regular hookups in the kitchen of his apartment while they were cooking dinner, and he had said whenever Shane wanted to fuck he started talking like a coastal elite college girl who’d never had to ask for it outright. Now, in this strange point of contact with Ilya where it was obvious something vaguely carnal had passed between them, he thought about emulating his particular brand of assured charm. Whatever ideas he’d concocted devolved rather quickly into his own unintentional directness, and he said, “Does it scare you?”

“Does climatology scare you?” Ilya’s face was measured and calm, his foot still pressed against the curved joint above Shane’s heel.

“Yeah,” the word came out like a laugh, “it does, actually. A lot.””

decadent stress chamber - garagepaperback

(every word is intentional. frenetic. load bearing wall of a fic! buzzy. anything by garagepaperback is immaculate)

“Rush week confirms a lot of things. Ambitions, fears. Where do I fit? What if I don’t fit anywhere? Nervous freshman bitten-lip shit. Being an active, a senior, means having answers. Shane has no further questions.

–

Or, Shane’s in a frat. Ilya rushes.”

i looked over it and i ached - IsvsWorld

(very very good character study and exploration of shane’s japanese canadian experience. doesn’t shy away from the harder realisms.)

““I don’t really think about stuff like that,” Shane replies in interviews, his lips wooden at the words.

---

Shane and being haafu, 2nd gen, and Asian.”

helpless, tender, open - makomoris

(sexy and sickly and loving..)

“Shane gets an annual cold, Ilya notices, when they start to officially date. It happens when they're both on the road, and he calls Shane from his shitty hotel and hears him sniffling, nose all blocked while he grumbles about having to sit out a game. Ilya lets him whine, says I know, I know, sweetie, it doesn't feel too good, I am sure. He's imagining Shane a little helpless in bed, unable to move, struck down with fever. It stirs something inside him, seeing Shane, usually so whip strong, fastest skater he's seen, laid away to waste by the simple common cold.

or Shane gets sick, and Ilya still wants.”

HOLLANDER & ROZANOV ARE DEAD - eurydicees

(buzzy and heartfelt and nosy)

It is December, and Scott has been out for long enough to pretend to be used to it, and things are not perfect but they’re fucking good, and Ilya Rozanov is at his apartment for dinner—has been for over an hour—and he’s still waiting so stupidly hopefully to introduce a boyfriend who very, very clearly isn’t coming.

(Or: studies on coming out, learning patience, one-sided conversations, and other absurdist waiting games.)

got milk? i mean, got yoghurt? - unseemlyndisturbed

(fascinating mixed media storytelling…chapter 2 ending we still think about you. read the tags but also it’s sick (like crazy?) but earnest and emotional. sexy and comedic too! :P Also really well researched and realistic which enhances the reading experience so much)

“There was a small recoil, nothing Shane would consciously register as a recoil, just a slight drawing-back of his head and a micro-expression crossing the bridge of his nose.

His brows pulled together for one second, and he pulled the carton away from his face, examining the opening.

Ilya Rozanov has seven cameras. Ilya Rozanov has a blog.

His gay roommate doesn't know about any of this”

hockeybot - hiljainen

(gratifying. mixed media)

“Here is what everyone thinks of you. It’s exactly what you feared. It might actually be worse.”

Thirsty Little Flower - anonymous

(like ok i guess we’re getting into the pervert section of the fic rec list. i really like the shane characterization and the representation of finding out you’re a freak on the family computer and running from it forever. very charming seriously.)

tag i love: “think of this like an erotic expansion pack. the base game has plenty of smut already.”

“Fuck, something was really wrong with him. It was one thing to jerk off in the shower thinking about a hot guy. So maybe it was kinda gay, whatever. It happens. It's really another thing to jerk off thinking about your rival. Who beat you in *two* competitions today. A guy who, in all likelihood, didn't even mean to brush your fingers like that. That's kinda pervy, right? But plenty of other guys are also kinda pervy.

It's really definitely not normal to jerk off thinking about a guy telling you to stay hydrated.

Fuck. Shane Hollander is a freak.”

welcome to the family - pressuretoparty

(so satisfying and makes me flinch. whole house mad❤️. really honest ottawa hollanov depiction.)

“"We are actually so fucking washed," Shane bitches. "I'm never getting better and you are stuck on a losing team that sucks. Everyone is going to forget about us."

"Don't make me trip you," Ilya says, calmly. "Let's do another lap."

"No," Shane barks. Ilya raises his eyebrows.

Shane refuses to accept this. This perpetual cycle of suck. When he invited Ilya to his cottage almost four years ago now, he didn't expect their relationship to turn into their fucking burial ground.

Shane finds himself grounded in Ottawa for the foreseeable future. With his newfound free time, he hangs out with his family, eats Costco Rotisserie chicken, and whips Ilya Rozanov back into a champion.”