my books cartoon for this week's Guardian Books.
Peter Solarz
Cosmic Funnies
Keni
NASA
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
todays bird
dirt enthusiast
ojovivo

JBB: An Artblog!
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

No title available

JVL
Jules of Nature
Monterey Bay Aquarium
KIROKAZE

if i look back, i am lost

tannertan36
we're not kids anymore.
Sade Olutola
d e v o n

seen from Türkiye

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Hungary
seen from Spain

seen from Australia

seen from Chile
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seen from United Kingdom

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seen from Malaysia
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seen from United States
@canarysings
my books cartoon for this week's Guardian Books.
AU where Shane and Ilya don't hook up or have a decades-long secret. They don't really know each other at all, except to play each other.
Shane comes out of the closet sometime after Scott does, and in some random, lighthearted interview, they ask him what he's looking for in a man. And Shane's just, off-hand like, "Well, he'd have to have at least one Stanley Cup. Obviously." And when he gets a good reaction from that, he keeps going, like "Needs to be amazing at hockey. Definitely needs to be at least an All-Star, if not a captain. Hot too. If he can't bench-press me, I'm not interested."
And it's all in fun, except two days after the interview prints, Ilya Rozanov shows up at his door like "knock, knock. I am here to apply for boyfriend position. Do you need resume? I brought my Stanley Cup ring, just in case."
Op’s tags
I love the idea of Shane being not just good at hockey but good at all sports, to the point where it fascinates and infuriates the other Centaurs
Because what do you mean they went to the batting cages for some silly fun to watch everyone flail at an unfamiliar sport, only for Shane to need three practice swings before figuring out the force and timing needed to start hitting every single pitch? What do you mean he sets the course record at the mini golf place they have the Pike twins birthday at? What do you mean he learned how to play cricket over a long weekend in the UK? What do you MEAN your Canadian ass that grew up on a calm, tiny lake went to visit Rose in LA and just learned to surf from “some guy” one of the days she was busy??
Shane doesn’t get why they all think it’s so crazy. He’s a professional athlete, he’s good at full body and mind control as well as adaptability and hand-eye coordination, and he’s so used to being the best in the world at hockey that he views being mundanely good at anything else as barely noticeable. He argues with Troy over whether he counts as being good at basketball just because he killed them all at the basketball shooting game at a Dave and Buster’s
They all start making bets to see who can find a sport Hollander isn’t good at. Harris is convinced he’ll win with figure skating because Shane’s muscle memory will want to work against him with a technique that’s so similar but also so different, only for Shane to come out of an afternoon learning from his old friend who was at the Olympics with the ability to do simple jumps and spins and is insisting the whole team learn so they can incorporate it into plays. Harris is not allowed to make suggestions after that
Ilya just sits back and lustily watches his husband destroy their friends at volley ball, wrestling, tennis, broom ball, and ultimate frisbee. Shane participates in an all pro athlete Ninja Warrior event to raise money for charity and Ilya can’t watch the clips of Shane flying through the course like a bat out of hell unless he is able to fuck Shane immediately after it ends
i rly like how many electronic devices you can turn off by holding the power button down. its very intuitive to kill a thing by choking it
the first time shane & ilya spend ilya’s birthday together i think the vibe really is ‘saying all of my dog’s favorite words in the same sentence’ because shane wants to make sure its ilya’s best birthday ever & doesn’t know how to do anything by half . shanevoice ilya pay attention i have a plan (nooo hollanderrrrr i want to fuck you NOW is my birthday :((((( how could u be so cruel to me) ok we’re taking the ferrari to mcdonald’s for mcgriddles (ilya visibly perking up) you are allowed to go 125 km/h but only if the coast is clear (imaginary tail beginning to wag) & you have to slow down if you want road head . when we get home we are taking a pot gummy & going swimming & i am grilling for lunch (ilya, his eyes huge, in the apron i bought for you?) yes ilya in the meat daddy apron . then shower, nap, one beer, dinner at my parents’ house, home by 6, and then i’ll give you your birthday present 🙂 does that sound good ? ilya, crying, shane this is my best birthday ever (shanevoice ilya it’s 9 am we haven’t even done any of it yet) MY BEST BIRTHDAY EVER WITH MY BOYFRIEND WHO I LOVE . & after they fuck (because obviously that was the first thing on the agenda shane just likes when ilya whines & begs for it & ilya does too) shane is back-to-business rustling around the bedroom putting their clothes out & talking about nothing while ilya watches from the bed w the big dopey smile of a man enamored with the bus that just ran him over
right right right so they have a set joke together where they say "hello wife" to each other in russian right right
(1983)
2016
2025
guys when shane and his parents bring out the birthday cake for ilya he genuinely doesn’t know how to react at first.
they're all sitting around the table after dinner, talking and laughing, and then the lights flick off. a moment later, shane's mother appears carrying a cake covered in candles.
for a second he honestly thinks they must be celebrating someone else.
and then he realizes they’re looking at him.
the cake is for him.
they did all of this for him.
for one impossible moment, he's back in a different kitchen years ago.
his mother used to bake a cake for him every year.
he remembers his last birthday with her.
the kitchen smelled like vanilla frosting. she had gotten up early baking and decorating the cake because she wanted it to be perfect. he remembers pretending to complain when she sang to him in front of everyone, remembers her laughing and doing it anyway.
he remembers thinking there would be another birthday with her after that.
but there wasn't.
his father never bothered. his brother never cared. years passed with barely any acknowledgment at all. no phone call. no card. not even a text.
sometimes he'd spend the entire day checking his phone anyway, despite knowing better. telling himself he didn't care.
somewhere along the way, ilya stopped expecting anything.
but now he’s sitting at shane’s parents’ dining table while everyone smiles at him and sings and there are candles flickering on a cake that somebody took the time to make specifically for him.
yuna sets the cake down in front of him with the same careful pride his mother used to wear.
by the time the song ends, tears are already sliding down his face.
“oh, sweetheart,” yuna says immediately.
ilya laughs through a choked sob and wipes at his eyes.
“sorry.”
“don’t apologize,” shane says, reaching for his hand beneath the table.
when he finally leans forward to blow out the candles, he’s smiling through tears.
and suddenly he feels a little like that little boy his mother used to bake for, standing in front of glowing candles and feeling loved.
I know that Heated Rivalry is one of those pieces of media where COVID never happens but what if it did? Imagine the lockdown shenanigans.
Shane and Ilya are obviously hunkering down at the cottage together. There's no hockey, but they don't know for how long, so they're still training all the time. They're doing interviews and having to make it look like they're in completely different places. Ilya has to keep being reminded that he's supposed to still be back in Ottawa.
Ilya's teammates keep asking if they can be in a lockdown bubble together and he's gotta be like "No, can't do that. I'm not taking any chances." But now they're worried because he hasn't seen or been around another human being in months and they've noticed that even before lockdown he made more jokes about killing himself than the average person, so they're stressed to their eyeballs about his mental health.
Meanwhile Ilya's living the kind of domestic fantasy with his man that he didn't think they were going to get until retirement. For the first time ever most days he can truly pretend that he and Shane are the only people in the world. Sometimes David and Yuna come over for dinner because they are also isolating at their cottage. But most of the time it's just endless hours of just the two of them and neither of them could be happier. Their biggest decision every day is when and where to fuck. Some people are getting into sourdough – Shane and Ilya have committed to learning one new sexual position every day.
I just think that lockdown would have been the ideal codependent situation for Hollanov.
yes but ALSO when lockdown ends and they have to go back to living apart they (especially Ilya) have the biggest crash out you can imagine
Omg @scunthotter you can't hide this in the tags 😄
#okay but them coming out to Ilya's team because like his team is concerned and maybe Shane and Ilya go back to Ilya’s ottawa house to get a#grocery delivery that they can't get out at the cottage and the doorbell rings and Shane goes to get it and its bood and hayes standing 6#feet from the door with like a care package for ilya and they're like “ilya said he was isolating alone” and shane is there in boxers and a#raiders 81 sweater like “....um....”
Ilya appears behind him, also in boxers and Shane's Canada fleece, and he looks over to where Bood and Hayes' jaws are practically on the floor, and flashes them an apologetic smile. But internally he's also like fuck, fuck, fuck, Shane doesn't want to come out or be out yet fuck they've fucked it. So he starts like, "So however weird your lockdown stories are, it can't be as weird as ours."
And Shane puts a hand on his arm to stop him, and is like "You can tell them the truth about us, baby, it's okay."
And Bood and Hayes are both like ".... BABY???"
Ilya reminiscing about the time he snorted cocaine off of a naked mime and now he’s 35 and stood in the kitchen making his own trail mix for a hike where Shane wants to go birdwatching
Happy Birthday to Russia’s greatest fuckmachine <3
Connor Storrie | Vogue Adria
And it turned out Connor is the joy the industry is missing. You can see the joy in his eyes, in his smile, in his jumps, in his approach to everything he does - he does it because it brings him joy. - Nenad Janjatovic, Vogue Adria
Golden Girls | 2.15 - "Before and After"
Whale talk… a mother and her calf/baby. The best sound you can hear while diving close to whales. Mesmerizing.
evil great lakes
lake inferior
lake normal
lake offtario
lake hurton
lake michigan
Ilya drunk off his ass one night begs Svetlana to give him a stick and poke tattoo of #24 on his hip. When she asks why he would want his rivals number on his skin forever he just slurs something about remembering his enemy always.
Sveta does not let him go through with it but when she tells Shane about it years later he goes cross-eyed and drives Ilya to the nearest tattoo parlor to get them both inked immediately.
Now they each have the others number on their hips just above the waistline. Ilya is obsessed with 'making them kiss' which just means getting into Shane’s personal space and bumping/rubbing their hips together until Shane is all hot and bothered, then fucking him on the couch while pressing down on the tattoo like he can make it a g-spot through sheer willpower alone.