I know a lot of Canadian hockey boys and if there is one (1) thing I know about Canadian hockey boys is that they have an indoor basement rink. Realistically, it was probably at his parents' main house (which I believe they sold?), but let's consider it's at their cottage.
Yuna and David are doing something (cooking dinner, out to the store, etc.) and Shane is giving Ilya the tour. An actual tour this time because they are at his parent's house.
Once Ilya sees the little practice rink, he lights up. The walls are splashed with Shane's youth trophies - snowplow sam badges in a case, tiny little baby skates, power-skating ribbons, pictures from his first tournaments, team jerseys from U8-16, his first hockey stick hanging on the wall, his first game winning puck on a shelf, his first tiny jersey. Ilya takes his time to comment on everything.
Then Ilya grabs a stick from the wall (one of the practice ones) and a puck from the bucket that hasn't been touched in a decade. Shane, never one to back down from a challenge, especially on home turf, grabs his own practice stick. There are no skates that fit either of them, so they just step on the synthetic ice with socks on.
And that's how Yuna and David find them, checking each other into the flimsy boards that are not meant for fully grown hockey players, firing shots into the little nets with enough force to knock them over, cursing at each other like there's a ref around to do something about it, etc.
Yuna can't believe she ever thought Shane would let Ilya win anything.
ilya is definitely anya’s favorite, no doubt, if he’s at home she’s glued to his side, following him everywhere like his little shadow, but when it comes to walks? she wants shane, cus shane is always running and she loves to run. sometimes he even takes her on hikes and she goes absolutely crazy for it. she’s an adventurous girl for sure. and ilya walks is really just walk and he thinks anya likes to stop and smell everything around. so one day ilya’s going to take her for a walk. he puts her leash on and anya just takes it right out of his hand with her mouth, walks over to shane’s feet, drops it and lets out a little bark and ilya just stands there with his hands on his chest “i can’t believe this betrayal” and shane is cackling so hard he can barely breathe as he picks up the leash and goes “well i guess i’m the official walker now, let’s go girl” and just walks out the door with anya wagging her tail while ilya stands there questioning all his life choices
rewatching backrooms I realized that Clark and Mary foil eachother when it comes to processing their trauma.
Clark is addicted to his grief. His struggles fuel him and give him purpose, and embracing his flaws served as a rebirth for him (he’s literally remembered in the backrooms as a manifestation of anger, grief, and despair though Captain Clark.) without the rage, the complaining, and the alcohol Clark doesn’t exist— I think that’s what scares him so much.
Mary, on the other hand, is adverse to it. Despite being a therapist and basing her life around others, she can’t save them just as much as she can’t save herself. She runs. She spaces out when she sees mother-daughter relationships, she distances herself from areas that remind her of childhood, and in the face of the same trauma and anguish Clark craves— she runs for her life. Obviously part of it is because she wants to survive, but another layer to that is she can’t cope with her own feelings.
It even shows up in how these two talk with eachother! Clark is ego-centered, even in his more self-deprecating talk during his therapy sessions. Mary repeats phrases from her book because she’s detached from the emotional aspect of her job for reasons she may not even understand yet.
For Clark, the “Window from Within” was a way IN (deeper into his grief, into isolation). For Mary, it was a way OUT (out of her grief, out of her struggles.)
Not to mention it appears in their still lives!! As I mentioned before, Cap’n Clark is everything horrid about Clark; his drunkenness, his hostility, and the fear he brings to the people around him— he embodies Clark’s emotional complexity. In contrast, Mary’s still life is unmoving and seemingly catatonic. Her still life doesn’t feel anything. Doesn’t do anything. Like her regular self, she’s detached from feeling anything and everything!!!
flame me if you want for not getting this sooner,, sigh,, overall— I love this movie. Everyone go watch it again if you can.
It is objectively hilarious to think about the fact that Simon, Nikki and Mary all end their movies covered in blood and with completely altered perceptions of reality because magic is real I guess and I can't trust anyone actually, meanwhile Grace lives in a beach villa with his best friend visiting him every day, still teaching classes. Grace ends the movie surprisingly well-adjusted and everyone else is a final girl (+Simon, honorary final girl) that actually still doesn't get to be free. Like, these three have all killed people/creatures. Grace adopting three horror movie final girls is just objectively kind of a hilarious AU.
Something that I have seen mainly in the Heated Rivalry fandom, but that I know exists on a much larger scale including in real life, is that so many people dismiss the consent of the penetrating partner as less important.
In many ways I think this is partially due to the horribly misconstrued opinion that being on the bottom is inherently effeminate, which then gets mixed in with people’s widely held beliefs that women need to be protected more and that their consent matters more than men’s (I have seen this from both women and men, in both fandom and real life, and it is both misogynistic and incredibly creepy).
I will not name any fics specifically, but I have seen several fics that treat Ilya’s consent as less important than Shane’s and even actively overlooked it to go along with what Shane wants, which is seen as a good thing in the work.
One in particular was centered around the premise of Shane wanting Ilya to slap him during sex, when this was tried it made Ilya incredibly uncomfortable and he later said that he did not want to do it again. The work then proceeded to have them have a conversation which boiled down to (I am paraphrasing here) Shane saying that Ilya taking control in bed in a more violent manner was the only time Shane felt he could truly relax and that Ilya saying he did not want to hit Shane during sex felt like Ilya telling Shane that he wasn’t allowed to relax. The work ended with Ilya getting over it and everything being okay, because that’s how this type of fic always ends.
So in essence, it was Ilya being told that the fact that he was uncomfortable didn’t matter if it got in the way of Shane’s pleasure (Shane was in no way not enjoying their intimacy prior to this event).
Now these are fictional character in a fan work, and, let’s be honest, there are far stranger things in fan works, but what sets this apart is that those works actively recognise that the violation of consent they are depicting is in no way okay in real life, this one and others like it treat it as though it is perfectly justified.
What this is saying, is that if you are in a position of physical control during sex, your comfort and desires should then come second to the person you are with.
Ilya’s comfort is no less important because he is technically in a less physically vulnerable position.
Consent doesn’t care how you engage in sex, it only cares whether everyone actually wants to be there, doing what they are doing. The second someone decides they no longer want something, that’s it, it’s done. Sure, healthy conversations can be had to find ways to explore new things in a way that feels safe for all parties, but to say that someone else’s boundaries are actively taking away from your pleasure is manipulative and can easily lead to sexual assault.
This is not a commentary on Shane, Ilya, or heated Rivalry, rather it is just something I have noticed across media and in life, i just happened to use this as an example, since there was so much evidence readily available.
We all love Consent-King Ilya, let’s remember that his consent and the consent of everyone else in positions like his is just a vital as everyone else’s.
David Hollander is definitely the type of man to randomly put on a song and pull his wife up to dance with him, especially if she’s stressing about something, or worrying, or upset, or just because. She will usually lightly protest, honey, I need to finish this email, but she’ll happily go along nonetheless.
David does it for the first time in front of Ilya when the boys are visiting and Shane and Yuna are planning (arguing) about something new brand deal.
He puts a song on the record player (Yuna has given up teaching him the Alexa), and he takes Yuna’s hand without a word. She protests that they need to plan out these contract terms and how his son is being difficult about it.
Shane starts to protest at that, but doesn’t get far until Ilya pulls him up to dance, too. A very embarrassed Shane goes willingly. He’s watched his father do this for years but never thought he would be pulled up to dance one day. From the fond looks from his parents, they probably didn’t either.
Shane meets Ilya’s smile with a half-hearted glare, but can’t deny swaying to the music in his boyfriend’s arms feels much better than stressing about a brand deal. Ilya makes a note to ask David for anymore tips and tricks.
sam and dean being parallels to each other is actually so cool and interesting. i keep thinking about their individual experiences in hell (dean being a victim turned torturer and sam a victim) and how it affects them and how much they allow themselves to reveal what happened down there. dean doesn’t want to talk about it because he rather ignore these regrets than face them. i think him also having that mentality of always caring about others before himself, gives him that excuse to push that trauma aside. sam doesn’t talk about his experience at first, not because he wants to ignore it, in fact he is very well aware that he’s not okay, but he doesn’t want to 1/ worry people and 2/ him being seen as a "freak" his whole life, makes him want to escape that look people give him when they think he isn’t mentally well (which dean and bobby ultimately give him once it’s revealed that he has hallucinations of lucifer)
i don’t think shane would EVER reprimand ilya in front of their friends. there’s no “walking him like a dog” in the ottawa centaurs group. it’s the opposite, ilya is a spoiled little shit. shane only says no to him in the private and it’s rare. he’s an ilya’s enabler. he letting his husband do whatever and it’s not like is the worst cus not only ilya is an adult he’s very thoughtful, intelligent, respectful and professional. he knows there’s limits, he probably put it himself. so yeah fics with that tag is very funny is for hahas and hihis but i don’t think it would ever be canon
The thing is that kissing has always accompanied sex for them, so when hollanov are finally in a position where they have actual time that first summer at the cottage, they discover they really fucking love making out. I mean, sure they obviously love kissing each other; Shane thinks Ilya is the best kisser on the planet and Ilya gets weak in the knees for how Shane gives himself over to his mouth—but the opportunities for lazy makeouts have been few and far between.
And it’s funny, because they’d both been a little anxious about what to do with so much uninterrupted time, but it turns out that they can absolutely lose a couple hours while happily sucking face and cuddling on the couch. Not fucking—crucially, and strangely, sometimes they don’t have sex. They just… kiss. A lot. And then they cuddle and kiss some more. And then they talk and there’s more kissing. And then they tease and wrestle and yeah more kissing again and sure, things start getting hot and heavy but it’s kind of amazing not to have to rush, so they venture into heavy petting territory before settling down into yet more kisses.
They kiss fucking everywhere: in bed, on the couch, in the kitchen, against the counter, at the fire pit, on the dock, in the water, in the home gym, on the home rink, in the shower, seated at the table outside, rolling around on the grass.
There is, of course, fucking. So much fucking, so many different ways, but god the kissing is just… Shane sometimes almost looks forward to the kissing more than anything else. They do it so much he’s honestly kind of sore at points, which is embarrassing and really fucking hot all at once.
They don’t know how to be chaste about it, either. It’s like they’re making up for lost time and whenever one of them will give the other a peck, he is immediately pulled in for more. They’re greedy and unashamed and it’s fucking ridiculous. And amazing. But mostly ridiculous.
“We should get up. We should—I’m hungry. You’re hungry. We should. Mmph.”
castiel turning bad is a very interesting concept, because after centuries of blindly following orders he finally makes his own choices. but at the end of season 6 he takes people choice away to follow him or not.
now i haven’t seen season 7 yet, but from a post i read on twitter earlier today, his character in that season isn’t much appreciated. now is it due to him being a bad guy or being badly written ? idk, i hope it is the former though, because i know i’m about to start watching the "rough" seasons. at the very least, i would like to see an interesting villain.
so i’ve just finished season 6 and i’m left wondering if castiel is ever going to be friends with the winchesters again. imo and i say that with love, he needs to go 😭
David Hollander signs up for IG to post pictures of his hot wife but after Shane and Ilya are outted and married, his IG goes from being a Yuna Hollander fan page to a Yuna, Shane and Ilya fan page. He loves to post candid shots and videos of his three favorite people and his IG account blows up overnight. Millions of people follow his page to see the cute videos of them at brunch and a random photo of Shane carrying Ilya on his back. He turns down a number of brand deals because he just wants to keep the page about his family. He never tells Yuna that he turns down brand deals because he knows she’ll put him six feet under.
laughing about the idea of shane having hoodies that end up only being worn at home because they're stretched out as FUCK because he was lounging around on the couch or something looking soft and domestic and cozy and ilya's brain just !!!! and he on autopilot just fucking. laid down on top of him and crawled up under the edge of the hoodie to soak up being cozy and surrounded by Shane Smell And Shane Heartbeat Sound And Shane Warmth and it's kind of just ilya being silly as an outlet for the overwhelm of affection he was feeling but also it feels SO good so he also just. stays.
just very *chin in hands, kicking my feet* about the mental image of shane reading his book in one hand and the other just resting over the giant mountain of hockey player sharing this previously one person hoodie with him, with ilya's like. whole head and shoulders and most of his back covered.
shane wiggles around until he can get the collar near ilya's nose so he won't like. suffocate. but then he just leaves him to it and keeps reading.
I've seen some posts that are like, "wow, how was Shane undiagnosed? wouldn't yuna be right on top of that???" and to that i'm like...babes. A woman known to immediately hyper fixate on and obsess about the things she cares about and is kind of a perfectionist married a man who reads the new yorker for fun and works for the canadian treasury board, so he's most likely incredibly good at math. yuna and david watched shane grow and were like "awww, baby, it's your brain and my brain, combined! he's going to rule the world!" and they are right, shane hollander does rule the world