[bluegrasshole]

i think …. there is a misconception that shane is a goody two shoes rule follower because he likes the actual rules …. but my take is not that really or at least not just that, it’s more that he likes to follow rules because he’s afraid of what happens if he’s caught not following them. it’s less ‘we must follow the speed limit because safety is important’ and more ‘if i get caught speeding it will be in the news and people will think differently of me and label me as a trouble maker then no team will want me and i will be shuffled off to the farm team or worse so i must follow the speed limit exactly at all times’. he likes rules because they give him guidelines on how to act, not necessarily because he thinks they’re Just and Right. just maybe something to think about when writing shane as a tight ass rules follower who does nothing wrong ever !

[jewelcoatfish]

the first time shane called ilya baby he meant it in the “you big baby” sense. ilya was pouting and shane was smiling at him fondly saying “baby” but so much adoration was bleeding through his words it felt like it was delivered as a pet name. and ilya looked up at him awestruck and lovesick and looked like he could faint right then and there. so shane made it his mission to call ilya his baby all day every day

[ily-a]

Hollanov + text posts (part 1)

[sirens-scales]

We don’t talk about this enough. With all the big romantic gestures in The Long Game, this, to me, is one of the most romantic moments.

We know Ilya isn’t a fan of Shane’s restrictive diet. He teases him about it, but Ilya is an expert ragebaiter who knows how to tease the people he cares about when they feel safe and in ways that never really hurt.

Shane is “frantic” in this scene. Ilya has the perfect opening to say something about his diet, and he doesn’t take it. He sees that Shane is panicking, steps in and fixes it. He was looking at that menu thinking about Shane and Shane’s fuckass diet that Ilya doesn’t even like. But he knows this is important to Shane. He knows Shane is already nervous about being on a date with Ilya in public and being with another queer couple. So he meets Shane’s needs without Shane ever having to ask, and he does it quietly, without drawing any attention, so that Shane can save face.

Of course he’s gonna tease him about it a little bit later because that’s what they do. But he only does that AFTER Shane’s had a chance to catch his breath and feel safe again.

To be loved is to be known indeed.

[perlukafarinn]

I love an AU where Ilya seduces Shane away from an asshole boyfriend and I really want one where the boyfriend suggests opening the relationship and that's how Shane and Ilya first start fucking.

[perlukafarinn]

If they are still hockey players then the boyfriend is someone unaffiliated with hockey and Shane has been dating him probably since before he met Ilya.

Boyfriend is out and Shane is not (for obvious reasons) and while this doesn't necessarily make for an unhealthy relationship Boyfriend is, as established, an asshole. He's not shy about reminding Shane of how lucky he is that he puts up with the secrecy and how impossible it would be for Shane to find someone else in his situation.

They've also been together since they were teenagers so Boyfriend is the only guy Shane has ever been with and the only one who knows Shane is gay, which also means that Shane has no one to talk to about any misgivings he might have about the relationship.

The story is the same as in canon from Ilya's perspective until the CCM commercial when he hits on Shane in the shower and Shane, visibly into Ilya and fighting with himself internally, tells him he can't because he has a boyfriend. Then he panics about what he just told Ilya but Ilya promises not to tell anyone - they have the same secret, after all. Sure he's disappointed but he can always find other people to fuck (that hollow feeling in his chest feels like a lot more than just disappointment but Ilya ignores that).

Every time Shane and Ilya catch a moment alone over the next couple of years, Ilya asks Shane if he's still with the boyfriend and the answer is always yes. Around the third time, Shane is feeling vulnerable because they just had a fight the week before and Boyfriend has been ignoring him and he doesn't have anyone to talk to about how awful he feels, and he just kind of. Starts telling Ilya about it.

And Ilya listens and then tells Shane, "He sounds like an asshole."

Shane feels conflicted about this comment because on the one hand, it kind of confirms what he's been thinking, but on the other Ilya doesn't actually know Boyfriend and all he has is information from a very biased source.

"He's not," Shane finally says. "We just got into an argument. Couples fight."

Ilya wants very much to disagree, because Hollander sounds fucking miserable talking about this guy, but he wisely concludes that this would just make Shane dig his heels in further and refrains.

Despite Shane's protests, every time Ilya asks him about his boyfriend after that he looks more tired. This guy also clearly makes him insecure as hell and Ilya hates seeing the effect he has, making Shane fucking Hollander carry himself like he's two inches tall and trying to disappear.

Ilya is itching to tell Shane to dump Boyfriend, to find someone who'll treat him like he deserves. Whenever he indirectly broaches the topic though, Shane gets defensive, and Ilya doesn't want to push it because as much as he'd like to get Shane away from this guy (and into his own bed) he also doesn't want Shane to shut him out and isolate himself even further.

Then comes the day when Shane actually approaches Ilya first. He looks nervous but determined and at first, Ilya thinks this is it. He finally remembered that he's Shane fucking Hollander and kicked that guy to the curb.

What Shane tells him isn't quite that. Ilya still perks up, because he cannot believe that Boyfriend, this absolute piece of shit moron, suggested opening the relationship and delivered Shane to Ilya on a silver platter.

Because Shane's first instinct, upon getting permission to fuck other people, was to seek Ilya out. He looks cautious but hopeful when he asks if Ilya's still interested in hooking up, like the answer isn't obviously yes.

Yes, Ilya's still interested. But not just in hooking up. Not in being the side piece.

He's gonna seduce Shane right from underneath Boyfriend's stupid, ugly nose and treat him with the reverence and care he actually deserves.

[enyafans4communism]

fuck, marry, kill: the wound that won’t heal, the past you can’t undo, the ghost that keeps returning

[dailyflicks]

TEENAGE SEX & DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA 2026, dir. Jane Schoenbrun

[gaynehollander]

Shane has always been a big napper. When he was young, school really tired him out. So many different people around him for such an extended period of time, expectations of certain behaviour, having to socialise, having to pay attention, having to answer questions, the constant hum of fluorescent lights overhead. He came home exhausted and in need of a nap more often than not. There were also the panics. Sometimes they were big, sometimes they were small, but they usually left him feeling wrung out and he didn't really function well until he'd had a nap after one. Becoming a professional hockey player hasn't changed this, if anything it's made it a useful skill. A little post-practice nap is sometimes just the thing he needs and a pre-game nap can make all the difference to his play. With the constant travelling and endless timezone changes, napping becomes a necessity.

Ilya, however, never quite got the hang of it. He knows a lot of his teammates nap whenever and wherever, falling asleep before games in hotel rooms or resting up on the road, snores filling the team bus or plane, but Ilya can't quite get there. It's probably a remnant from childhood, from not feeling safe enough to let his guard down like that. He can't even imagine what the reaction would have been if his father had come home to find him asleep on the couch. He was certainly quick enough to accuse him of laziness without Ilya handing over additional ammunition for free.

But Ilya loves holding Shane when he naps. He loves how quickly his body grows lax, loves the gradual shift in the depth of his breaths, loves the warmth of his body pressed against him, loves his sleepy little sounds and scrunched little face when he wakes up, loves that Shane trusts him enough to be that vulnerable around him. Shane doesn't really know that Ilya doesn't nap, not with how often Ilya's the one to suggest one, not with the way Ilya makes sure to feign coming out of sleep as soon as he feels Shane shift in his arms in that particular way that suggests he's waking up. He doesn't want to risk Shane feeling like Ilya's doing him a favour with holding him through his naps, doesn't know whether he can admit how much he loves their naps even though they never include Ilya falling asleep. He likes the way things are. He doesn't want to risk it changing.

Eventually it does change though. Not because Shane discovers Ilya's secret of never actually falling asleep but because, a few years into their marriage, Ilya start... actually falling asleep. He never plans to. He loves getting to spend that time resting with Shane while staying alert enough to catalogue his every sleep-muddled sigh, his every shift. He just feels so warm, so full of love, so incredibly safe that one day he just... drifts off. After that it keeps happening. He has Shane in his arms, he's enjoying his breathing, he's loving this moment, he doesn't want to lose consciousness, he wants to stay in it, but his eyelids are drooping. He lets them shut, just for a minute, but then he wakes up to Shane's smiling face, his eyes soft and sleep-warm, his hands gentle as they cradle Ilya's face and run through his curls, and he can't be mad at himself for having missed out on those precious moments if this is what he gets to wake up to. Time is no longer a limited resource. Safety is no longer conditional on remaining alert. He has the rest of his life to enjoy this, to let himself be lulled to sleep by Shane's breathing and waking up to his soft touches. He can let his eyes drift shut and trust that Shane will still be there when he wakes.

[angelnumber27]

[darlingofdots]

let's think of some Bits in the Hollander-Rozanov household because every good relationship needs incomprehensible and insufferable Bits:

the random Russian nouns as pet names, obviously

turning to Anya to arbitrate who won the race/loads the dishwasher correctly/scored a sexier goal etc

Ilya. Ilyusha. Ilyushenka. Ilyushenkechka.

and who won Rookie of the Year????

"I have never said this in my life"

threatening to tell Yuna

"pass me the remote?" — "come and get it" — [wrestling]

butt slapping. at every opportunity.

"we will have to shoot you like lame horse" when one of them gets so much as a papercut

idioms translated literally into the wrong language

"this is not hall of fame behaviour"

"who should I bring as my plus one" and listing random people while the other pouts

[my-2nd-account]

18 yo Ilya on draft day not being able to sleep feeling so unsettled like his nerves are on fire he needs to get out of bed he needs to put his shoes on he needs to leave his room he needs to go down to the gym he needs to go there's something for him there there's something he should be doing there's someone he should be with nothing feels right his skin is itching his mind is racing his heart is pounding. Until the moment he steps inside the gym and his eyes land on a sweaty Shane Hollander on a bike. And suddenly he's never been more sure of what he wants.

[mymultifandomhell]

heated rivalry + text [21/?]

[ilyander]

thinking about "ilya fell for shane when he saw shane fold his clothes at the first hookup" as a concept and it's. really sweet actually

ilya, all of 18 years old, is a thrillseeker who is already habitually picking up women, already living so fast that the clubs and parties and people and bodies are blending together in his memory. there's a monotony developing there and he's itching to raise the stakes: to take bigger risks, claim bigger rewards. and what could be a bigger risk than hooking up with his golden-boy hockey rival? it would take effort, but the high he'd get from pulling this off just once (and of course it would only be once) would be unlike anything else.

so he puts in the effort. the leadup to his hookup with hollander is entirely off-script for him, a deviation from the patterns and routines he's developed around sex. he premeditates it, he thinks about how good it will feel if this works, fantasizes about what might happen, and plans the joint CCM shoot. the day arrives and he feels electric, takes a real risk in the showers, feels the rush of his risk paying off when hollander says "not here" instead of "no" and, later, offers his room number.

ilya shows up at room 1410 and immediately launches into seduction: this part is more on-script, more familiar to ilya, but still heightened because it's hollander, and heightened again when he confirms it's hollander's first time with a man, and again because it turns out hollander is starving for this, devouring ilya with his eyes and his hands, all intense and urgent and wanting. it's so heady. everything up to this point has already been enough to make this night live in ilya's memory forever. they move to the bed, he tells hollander to take his clothes off and he does -

and he takes the time to fold his clothes. in the middle of a hookup. what?

i love the laugh that connor storrie does in the show at that moment. just, his whole face lit up. ilya isn't bemused, he's not making fun of hollander for doing this. he's genuinely delighted.

because this. this is something that he's never seen before. it surprises him. he is hooking up with shane hollander and this is a uniquely shane hollander thing to do and it burns into his brain. its personal and intimate, it's terribly endearing. he already knows he will remember this moment specifically, will return to it when he thinks about this night in the future, like a bookmark placed in a well-loved book.

he had hoped to walk away from this experience feeling exhilarated and satisfied that he pulled off a hookup with the most dangerous person he could think of. he did not expect to walk away from this with a warm, fond memory of shane hollander - not just his hockey rival in that moment, but a real, knowable man who surprised him in a way that he liked.

i think the next time ilya has sex with someone and she carelessly drops her clothes on the floor, he thinks about hollander. thinks about how he would have never thought that was careless, before. maybe he smiles a little to himself and catches it, has to shake the memory off, feels a little bad for losing focus on the woman he's with. tells himself it won't happen again. but of course that's not how it works, and the memory only digs deeper into him. it happens again the next time, and the time after that.

he's not in control of when the memory comes to him and he ends up thinking about it more and more, thinking about shane more and more. and attention is the beginning of devotion. it's not love yet, but it's something like a crush, and it's more than he's thought about anyone in this way before. it's a crack in the persona he's been building, in his protective armor that keeps people away and keeps his heart safe. it's a step off an invisible cliff. it's inevitable that he falls after that.

[lavenderprose]

You know, I am GENUINELY unsure that I understood the Pining While Fucking trope before Heated Rivalry. I'm convinced that it's 80% of the absolute crack cocaine infused into Hollanov. The other 20% is the rivalry and the language barrier and the forbidden eroticism of it all but mostly it's the pining. A fucking masterclass of the trope. Rachel Reid really sat down to write the sequel to her coffee shop AU and cooked the literary equivalent of crystal meth.

[my-2nd-account]

It's so important to me that everyone who meets Ilya feels safe around him. Shane at age 19 trusting him with his body and his sexuality and his reputation therefore his whole career. Svetlana who left home and could've gone anywhere but chose to move to Boston because guess who also lives there. Every person he's ever hooked up with because that's 100+ of people trusting him and saying yes. Yuna and David who spent less than an hour around him (Ilyushka not Rozanov) and accepted him as Shane's boyfriend even though they've spent the last decade hating him on Shane's behalf. Jackie trusting him with her kids after only meeting him once. Harris's family inviting him over so many times. His neighbors' kids making it a habit to wish him good luck before games. Troy coming out to him when it's his first time saying it out loud. Luca asking him for advice because he's finding it hard to "meet people". Coach Wiebe coming out to him and telling him about the guy he was in love with.

He's the safe space he needed growing up. He's the comfort person he wished for when he felt like he had no one. He's the familiar warm presence who has so much love to give to make up for all the love that was taken away from him.

[pregnanthudsonwilliams]

shane would see their kids creepy drawings and be like wow, great job bud. you're so creative. meanwhile ilya is frantically googling is my child possessed and calling sveta asking her if the time they got 'cursed' by an old witch as kids was real because he thinks it skipped him and went to his kid and why doesn't shane see it

[victusinveritas]

Tired: Catholic President's will be beholden to the Pope

Wired: religious affiliation doesn't matter

Inspired: the Catholic Pope is the President