Eventually, they got there.

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@dearqueend
Eventually, they got there.
I love the idea of Shane’s chirps just being observations.
It started when he was a kid and he was trying to help everyone get better at hockey including the opposing teams players, he would say something like “your stick grip is weak” or “you’re slow on your right” (idk i don’t know hockey very well ESPECIALLY little kid hockey) but he says it totally deadpan because little Shanebug doesn’t understand tone yet.
This makes the other teams so mad! They try and fight him constantly! Little bitty baby hockey fights and then Yuna sits him down in middle school after the first fight that he actually gets hurt (black eye and bloody lip) and asks him what he is saying to make everyone fight him?
“Nothing mean I swear mom!!! I’m trying to be nice and help correct their form”
And suddenly Yuna gets it and explains to Shane that not everyone but especially not the opposing team likes to have their flaws pointed out to them even if it’s coming from a good place and how that could be seen as chirping.
So he stops for a while, then his coach for world juniors tells him to try and piss off Rozanov enough that they can draw a penalty. So Shane does what he does best and points out a flaw at each face off. Jokes on him though because Ilya is actively changing those things and getting better every face off because he is taking it for what it is, advice.
Which pisses Shane off, he thinks his chirping tactic won’t work now that he is older. So he points out at his first scrimmage at practice in Montreal that the center who has been there for years (who he is probably replacing) is favoring his left side is staying too far left to compensate (again I don’t know hockey so I am trying to translate things I know about soccer lol)
And the center loses it on him! Immediately yelling about the lack of respect and how a rookie makes it to the MLH and thinks they are hot shit.
So Shane realizes his chirping DOES work just not on rozanov and becomes a menace he studies game tape specifically to find holes in his opponents game and pre prepares chirps and it fucking works because all these men are so far up their own asses that they just get mad instead of using the advice.
Idk I just needed Shane Chirping but in a very Shane way. Like he really just wants to play hockey but chirping is part of hockey so he studies chirping but doesn’t want to do any of the “classic” chirps (your mom! Your wife! Your girlfriend! You’re gay! Type of stuff) so he invents his own chirps out of his amazing mind
🫰🏻🫰🏻🫰🏻
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a centaurs appreciation post bc I love these characters and this team with all my heart 💗
One thing I've been thinking about recently is that the Metros were holding Shane back. The Admirals holding Hunter back makes sense, in an oh shit he's going to kill this kid way. But the Metros holding Shane back? Shane who never fights? Shane who is a known peacemaker? Maybe the argument can be made they wanted to protect him from getting hurt/getting fined but, Shane is their captain, if he wants to fight, a fight there shall be.
Unless.
You consider that the Metros know that Shane absolutely does know how to fight. They've all done checking clinics with Shane. They've all wrestled and roughhoused with Shane. He's strong and he's fast and he wants to win.
The Metros understand that Shane doesn't fight, not because he can't, but because he's a little too good at it. And Shane generally doesn't even like violence. He likes to win by playing the game, not hurting the other team.
So when they see Shane, after the whistle, drop his gloves to Scott Hunter, there is a collective thought of oh shit he's going to kill Hunter and they have approximately 1.5 seconds to grab their captain and prevent him from getting arrested.
So one afternoon at the cottage, Ilya has been in and out of the lake all day, excited like a kid, splashing around and clowning and fascinated by the wildlife and showing off for Shane. And after they finally head back inside and shower off the lake smell, Shane settles on the couch with a book and Ilya flops down with him, stretched out with his head in Shane's lap and whining until Shane frees a hand to sink into his hair. And it's been such a nice full day and it's all warm dozy sunshine and the lovely earthy nature smell that's everywhere around the cottage and Ilya has his face tucked into Shane's stomach where he can breathe him in, the familiar scent of his detergent and body wash, and Shane's big warm hand is in his hair and Ilya's pleasantly tired and drowsy and so comfortable that he just... drifts off, the kind of wonderfully indulgent nap that he never really gets during the season and finds hard to justify when he's in Russia for the summer.
But this year he's not in Russia, and he slips into this warm syrupy slumber while Shane pets through his hair (incidentally making a disastrous mess of his curls) and reads his book. When Ilya eventually rouses, with a happy grumble of contentment, nuzzling closer into Shane's stomach, he can feels Shane laughing gently at him almost before he hears it.
"Did you sleep well?" Shane asks, and that sounds warm and syrupy too, and Ilya rolls over so he can smile at Shane and revel in the smile he gets in return.
And then Shane says, "Are you hungry? It's almost dinnertime," and Ilya realises he's been lying here, napping and pinning Shane to the couch and wasting both of their time, for hours, and he jackknifes upright so suddenly that Shane startles back.
"Fuck!" Ilya spits out. "I was--fuck, has been so long. Why didn't you wake me up?" already guilty because Shane had wanted to make some pasta thing that he was weirdly excited about and they'd talked about maybe playing more Chel but now the whole day's been napped away and--Ilya sneaks a look---Shane's book is lying closed on the couch, bookmark set neatly aside, so Shane had finished his book and not even been able to get up to go do something else.
And he's just smiling at Ilya, completely unconcerned that Ilya's been idle and asleep and... and... lazy, all afternoon, just glad Ilya had a good nap.
Shane's frowning in mild confusion at him. "Why?" he says, genuinely not seeing the problem. "You were napping, it was nice. I mean, if I'd needed to pee or something I'd have got up but I was fine." He reaches out and smoothes some of Ilya's hair down. "Oh, the pasta. We can do that tomorrow, we have all that salad from lunch and rolls and there's peaches if we want dessert."
Ilya must have responded somehow because Shane beams at him and says, "Cool, I'll go set the table if you want to go wash your face." He smirks and pokes at Ilya's cheek. "Got a little drool there." And then he smacks a kiss on Ilya's head, gets up, and trots over to the kitchen while Ilya just sits there reeling.
Anyway it's really important to me that Shane dismantles all of Ilya's awful self-talk about laziness.
My Shane is an enabler. He’s gonna roll his eyes and tell ilya to fuck himself, but he loves that shit. He’s icing Ilya injuries after a fight barely hiding the fact that he found it funny. He’s providing information for chirps. He’s joining in on the fun cause he loves his husband. Idk man I just don’t think Shane, who fell in love with the NHLs biggest asshole is gonna be annoyed when he’s being an asshole.
i do think there’s a world where ilya tells cliff marleau about the friendship plan and cliff is like “well if ur cover story is friendship than we need to make ur reputation with friends super gay king” and ilya is like “bro … you would do that … for us …” and cliff is like “no worries big dawg”. because like, hollander doesn’t do the gay for the homies thing naturally, but if roz has a reputation, it won’t be weird if he does it in public even if hollsy doesn’t reciprocate. cliff is a genius.
anyway, that’s how the internet spends a year speculating that ilya rozanov and cliff marleau have explored each others bodies. they are so all over each other and constantly tweeting gay shit about each other that ilya’s time with shane barely even gets a second glance. the first time ilya drags shane out to meet cliff, a photo gets posted on twitter and everyone is like “poor shane having to third wheel these two #ally”.
obviously shane is gnawing on furniture because he’s so jealous, but the plan does work. and when they get outed, cliff works it into his best man speech.
I do think that Shane gets a Russian language tutor. He sees that Ilya is always having to think, speak, and translate in his second language. And he knows that Ilya is fluent by this point, but if he's serious about forever with Ilya (which he is) he wants Ilya to be able to communicate with his boyfriend in his native language. He also saw how much his grandparents struggled with learning English as adults and how much more expressive and talkative they were when they spoke Japanese at home together.
So he gets a tutor. He meticulously researches her (she's from Moscow, so he'll learn from someone with Ilya's same accent). She's signed to more NDAs than he can count. She has 10 years of experience, she's certified to teach English and Russian, and she has 4.8 stars on MyTutor.
Shane pays her a frankly concerning amount of money to make house calls. Twice weekly, unless he's on the road, she arrives at his apartment to teach him foundational Russian. She gives him workbooks, Russia cartoon recommendation, podcasts for beginners, etc. He tells her he's learning because his boyfriend is Russian and she outlines a course that focuses on domestic language first (as opposed to travel or business). She even teaches him what she calls a 'culture course' with lessons on Russian music, food, and various traditions.
She's only a few years older than Shane and he actually finds himself looking forward to her visits. At this point, she's the only person other than his parents that knows he has a boyfriend.
About 4 months in, Shane finally feels comfortable enough to ask about what he'd been very excited about learning.
"You want me to teach you how to talk dirty to your boyfriend?" Ekaterina raised an eyebrow.
"Um," Shane blushed. Was this a little too far? Was this inappropriate to ask of a tutor? "Yes? If - If that's okay, I mean."
A slow smirk spread over her face. "This will be fun. Fun for me, now. Fun for you, later."
"I made a list," Shane admitted. He wasn't going to back out now, he put a lot of thought into his list. He turned to it in his Russian notebook and handed it to her.
She scanned over it indifferently. "You will use all this in one night?"
"Yeah, probably. Is it too much?"
"It is good you have a Russian man," Ekaterina said. "They have good stamina. Mostly, anyway."
And while it was a little embarrassing for Ekaterina to correct his pronunciation of please let me suck your cock, it helped that she seemed just as comfortable with that as there is tea on the stove.
Though, maybe he shouldn't have learned those phrases at the same time, because Ilya will never, for as long as they live, allow him to forget asking, while down on his knees and with excellent pronunciation, please let me suck your tea.
baby Ilya’s tiny angry Russian ranting when Irina won’t let him stay on the ice and his cheeks are all bright pink and his little nose is wet and he’s plopping down onto the ice and crossing his arms and yelling NYET NYET NYET.
Across the ocean at the exact same time, the exact same thing is happening to a very exhausted Yuna Hollander.
i just HAD to draw this
cliff marleau and ilya rozanov are best friends not because they’re teammates or marleau was assigned to look after roz when he first got to the raiders, but because, even though it takes so much alcohol to get him drunk, when ilya gets drunk he can only be described as white girl wasted and marly is the EXACT same way. they are in the mens bathroom in front of the mirror like “is my shirt unbuttoned enough for people to look at my tits?” “yeah man your boobs look GREAT! can you tell me if these jeans look good on my ass i think i saw a girl eying me” “marly your ass looks phenomenal and you can trust me on this as i am a well known ass man” “aw man rozzy you’re making me blush”
they share clothes all of the time, not even really on purpose, they just spend so much time hungover together that things get muddled. this isn't a problem until marley sees shane hollander, wearing his shirt??? obviously he immediately accuses ilya of cheating on him (partying without inviting him to join). shane is visibly devastated, ilya is frantically explaining, and thats how marley is the first person in the nhl to learn about hollanov
Vampire!Shane hiding the fact that he’s a vampire from Ilya. Vampires are known and able to live openly, but there’s still a lot of prejudice surrounding them. Shane is in love with Ilya and hides out of fear that Ilya will leave him. Shane is old enough that he can go out into the sun for long periods of time without issue. He tells Ilya he’s on an insanely strict diet to explain why he doesn’t really eat. Shane forces himself to breathe when he’s around Ilya. He goes to his witch friend, Rose, and she puts a spell on Shane to make it seem like he has a pulse and is warm to the touch. He covers all his bases and things are going great. One night they’re having sex. Ilya is fucking him so good that his concentration slips and his fangs drop. As his orgasm hits, he sinks his fangs into Ilya’s shoulder. Ilya’s blood hits his tongue and Shane’s moans at how deliciously perfect it is. He hears Ilya moan in his ear and that brings Shane back. He pulls back from Ilya’s shoulder and looks up at him. He stumbles over his words, trying to explain, but Ilya just grabs Shane’s chin and holds it to keep Shane’s mouth open. Ilya leans down to let his tongue lick across Shane’s fangs, “I fucking knew it.”
Lil illustration for a wonderful fic Change your win conditions
“I want to write a fic about this but I don’t think anybody will be interested in it” ummm hello excuse me ma’am what do you mean you don’t think anybody will be interested in it??? YOU. YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT???? write it because YOU are interested in it and YOU want to write about it. fanfic writing should always be first and foremost about YOUR enjoyment, not other people’s.
I see so many arguments over what is and isn't "good queer representation" that really just boil down to "y'all are actually arguing over matters of taste and genre preference, which is incredibly subjective and personal."
Worldbuilding where being queer is normalized and queerphobia has no impact on the plot? THAT'S FINE. Worldbuilding that includes queerphobia and tackles the effects of it as part of the story? THAT'S ALSO FINE.
Low-stakes queer romcom where the characters are fluffy and cute? THAT'S COOL. Messy queer drama with toxic people who fuck each other over and clash repeatedly? THAT'S ALSO COOL.
Stories that center the characters' queerness, show a trans character's transition, and are about the queerness as much as the rest of the plot? AWESOME. Stories where the characters' queerness isn't treated as a big deal, and have trans characters whose transition happened before the story entirely? ALSO AWESOME.
You may PREFER one thing or another, but it is actually good to have all these things. It's about variety. It's about queer characters being allowed to exist without censorship. It's about queer artists getting to make things without being told we're a "niche issue" or "adult content." It's about having as many goddamn cakes as the bakery can produce.
At the end of the day, I'd prefer a media landscape with fifty pieces of problematic queer representation over a media landscape with one single piece of queer representation that's trying (and usually failing) to be 100% perfect for everything and everyone.
The Centaurs, whenever someone from the press asks one of them to describe Ilya Rozanov.
does his fine plumage impress you?
Baby Shane playing imaginary hockey and then pausing to give imaginary press interviews where he just says things like "gotta put pucks in the net" in his tiny little 7 year old voice.