OK, heated rivalry AU
I posted about this before, but it lives in my brain rent free so we’re going to expand upon it
Rival PTA moms
This is a full gender bend
We have Ilya- Russian mail order bride. Found her self pregnant at 19 scared and in abusive home, great at sports and in college but the situation was dire. married a rich Canadian guy who she didn’t give any kind of shit about just so she could get out of Russia. He thinks the kids his but had her on birth control so she never had a second. Love loves her kid. And puts all of her time and effort into blowing this guy’s money and making her general issues, Everyone else’s problem. Openly cheats on her husband. He does not care because he cheats on her to and she is just that hot young trophy wife and he just wanted the arm candy to take to whatever CEO Dr. bullshit convention he goes to. She is super aware of the parallels to her and her own mother. And is in a lot of denial about that and overcompensate a lot. PTA was just a thing she was told to do until she met the young fit mother of two in her kids preschool parents group with freckles and deep brown eyes.
Shane- former college athlete, less of an internalized homophobia but definitely living out Good luck, babe. Had experiences with girls in college but compartmentalized the shit out of it and her mom really wanted grandkids and she thought well, This is what you do, you get married to a man and you have kids and she likes her husband but feels generally unfulfilled in her life because of 1 the lesbianism of it all and 2 never really finding an outlet for that competitive 100% sports energy. After Colgate sports she tries to do the whole high-powered job thing. She get into law school and they’re working as a paralegal but she just couldn’t handle the pressure anymore and decided fuck it - got pregnant with twins and made that her whole life. PTA isn’t just a job to them. It is the thing keeping them going right now.
These two women have been budding heads since the first grade bake sale confrontation and they’ve been having an affair since the great after school snack wars of peewee soccer legend.
They go back-and-forth between this is just blowing off steam and this is just sex to actively communicating about parenting and talking to each other and bitching about the other moms. Shane’s afraid to leave her husband because of how it would look, she’s built a reputation an image of the perfect mother perfect wife and her parents are so proud of her, even though she’s not living any of the dreams that she thought she was going to be. Ilya is afraid for her citizenship. Marriage in Canada doesn’t guarantee anything and she still has a couple years of residency to go before her permanent residency and citizenship is approved. She’s also terrified that if she gets divorced, she’ll lose her kid as well as her sponsorship.
The whole thing comes to ahead when they have this messy conversation about their children, and Shane tries to make it with her husband (rose area) one more time really commit to it only to realize that nothing is holding her there anymore. She applies to finish her her law degree online and starts plannning how her and Ilya can make this work. Spends years setting a case for the divorce to make sure Ilya keeps her kid and walks away with good income and can stay in the country. All while in a silent separation with her own husband.
Anyway yeah this is living in my brain
Let me know if this inspires anyone becuse I can’t write more but it’s eating me alive
I’m just going to keep adding to this as things come to me.
Shane is not married to Hayden. I thought about it and I think it’s important that Hayden is Shane’s best friend and also the perfect example of the type of heterosexual Shane is trying to present. This is a mother who loves her husband (jack) loves her kids , loves being a stay at home mom. And, like Shane, was once a student athlete but has no regrets giving that up.
Shane was to soon for the PWHL but did play for the 2010 Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team (if you know the Canadians won gold that year) and made the decision to go to law school after undergrad and decided they couldn’t do both that and hockey (lies) then gets pregnant and doesn’t finish law school.
The first time Ilya and Shane hook up Shane freaks out talking about how she loves her husband (is legit a close friend) and this is wrong and when she asks Ilya “don’t you love you husband” Ilya gives a non answer.
At some point while they are hooking up Shane admits she never wanted to be a mom and that she was angry and sacred when she found herself pregnant and that she hates herself for it. She loves her kids so much but also never forgave herself for those ealry days of resentment about the situation. Ilya constantly tells her she’s a good mom… though not as good as her 😉
Shane never changed her last name so it is Hollander. It’s really anoying when people constantly call her Mrs.——— and she has to correct them. She honestly stoped after a while especially with her kids friends. But the fact that Ilya calls her Hollander or holly is super important to them.
Shane loves babysitting Hayden’s kids so her and jack can go on date nights and get away to reconnect. Hayden always offers to return the favor but Shane doesn’t want that. She loves her husband but she had twins when she was a young mom she was in an intense major and a student athlete so she was able to use all that to avoid intimacy for prolonged periods of time. She is honestly afraid of being alone with him because of the expectations associated with it and does everything she can to be busy and tired and have kids around as a buffer.
Ilya has a secret bank account she has been putting money in for years. Her husband gives her an allowance and her kid has a college fund trust fund and a joint family card. But Ilya will go on shopping sprees wear the cloths once, never take the tags out and resell them and put the cash in her private account. Her husband never ask what happens to the things she buys and never wears and she has a crash count incase she needs to run. Though she is to terrified of losing her kid to truly do it.
Both Ilya and Shane are very young moms (21-22) and move to the same WASPy town at the same time. They might be PTA rivals but they hooked up before they made any other friends or knew any of the house wife politics of the town. (The whole time)
Their names are not lily and Jane. Lily is not a Russian name and Jane is to boring. Shane is a normal name but not to normal. Popular in the 80s but not top tier showing that the Hollanders where trying. It’s also an Irish name so Shannan would be a better female version. Though Shane is technically gender neutral. I do think she went by holly in college. There is not a simple change over for Ilya . There is irena which is a form of irina but I don’t think that would be likely.
I really wish I could write this but till then I can always spew it here
