[tothecottage]

i wish carter vaughn was shane's best friend instead of hayden

[flyingappa]

this is so stupid but my biggest pet peeve in fic/hcs is when montreal plays boston or ottawa in the stanley cup finals. "oh the rivalry ~ kiss after one beats the other for the cup" "oh they can rub it in the metros faces by kissing under the cup" "oh they can-" NO. THATS NOT HOW TOURNMENTS WORK. THEY'RE IN THE SAME DIVISION THEY HAVE TO BEAT EACH OTHER TO GET TO THE FINALS. FUCK

[miscelium]

reasons shane and ilya should be evenly matched in size, height, weight, build, strength, athleticism, etc. in canon and in fanon

i find it hot

they’re comparable generationally talented first line center professional hockey players

positioning shane as smaller/shorter/daintier than his white dom top boyfriend perpetuates racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes

i personally find it REALLY hot

when he chooses to, shane can physically overpower ilya (hockey, shoving ilya into walls i.e. vegas rooftop and stairwell scenes) but when he wants to submit in bed, he allows himself to be pushed, carried, held down, etc. because they both like it and want it

feminist scholar jane ward: "queer circuits of desire do not rely on the erotic encounter of opposites"

they can wear each other's clothes in a cozy boyfriend hoodie "give. i miss your boring laundry smell" "why the fuck are all your clothes dry clean hand wash only" long distance yearning way or post-game sweat damp base layer horny way or "gross now i have cum on my sweats i'm stealing yours" "okei yay ♥" fondly annoyed way

in conclusion have i mentioned i think it’s really hot

[flyingappa]

sports is so important because gay hockey boys are blowing up the internet bad bunny dominated the superbowl halftime performance alyssa liu had a crazy joyful comeback for figure skating gold ilia malinin and amber glenn addressed mental health and pressure in hauntingly beautiful performances usa women's hockey won the gold and left with an engaged lesbian couple and the first black woman to have a medal in hockey and suddenly i'm an optimist again

[flyingappa]

cartern vaughn, mhl's #1 ally, accidentally adopts ilya "gay guru" rozanov in sochi and together they guide all the poor closeted souls to undying happiness

[aphantasias]

"you think i am asshole" "i know you're an asshole" [tilts his head like that hurt] "i would not leave you like that" "no?" [dead fucking serious] "no"

it is actually devastating to me that ilya is being so sincere here and shane filters their interactions through the characters of rozanov and hollander The Rivals for SO LONG that it literally sets them back years.

this got. long so the rest is under the cut

between this and the vegas rooftop, it feels like ilya tries to connect with shane on a personal level several times from the beginning and just keeps getting curbed by shane's assumptions of who he is, so by the time the award show swings around he's like okay fine you clearly want Rozanov and have no interest in ilya so. i can be rozanov if i get to keep seeing you. cue bathroom scene where he's extra douchey and dominant, because he thinks this is what shane wants. so when shane comes to see him later, he tucks ilya away and rozanov fucks shane instead. it's why it feels so different from their other hookups. where did sweet loving ilya go? he buried that motherfucker. no one wants to see him. they want rozanov. his father, the fans, everyone, want rozanov. shane wants rozanov.

and he thinks he can keep it up to have a piece of shane at least, his little oasis in his horrifically vast desert, but he's. just a boy. and he's in love before he knows it, but he never forgets that shane only wants rozanov, so in boston at his place when he tries to connect again with shane personally without going too far out of character, trying to talk casually about girls and his experience with them because shane knows rozanov has a reputation, hoping that will interest shane into talking more or excite him or something, but shane is just weirded out and thinks ilya is nohomoing him, and then the phone rings and his family is ruining everything again, exposing ilya in front of shane when he's trying so fucking hard to be rozanov right now, and then he goes and fucks it by calling him shane instead of hollander when he cums, and then shane runs, reaffirming to ilya that shane doesn't want him, he wants rozanov.

so in florida when ilya says "you don't like me" he really means, you don't like me, you like rozanov. you want HIM, not ilya. ilya is a pathetic and broken thing. rozanov is confident and strong and a fantastic fuck. ilya is... nothing. you don't like ME.

so when shane sees him cry, sees his weakness, sees ilya despite how hard he's trying to keep rozanov in place, and holds him, ilya has to now reconcile with the fact that the main thing stopping him from falling into shane entirely and blowing up his fucking life to be with him, the assumption that shane wouldn't like the real him, may actually be entirely untrue

[gnawu]

[ficauthor]

I like to think that those Girls in ep 4 who asked Hayden to "hold Shane's baby" ended up posting their selfie on twitter with the caption "and thanks to the random guy nearby who held his baby for him!" and there was a very very brief twitter meltdown where people were trying to find the baby mama b4 Hayden Pike found the post and was like "That was my kid! i dragged Shane to the aquarium with my kids bc he's their fav uncle and suddenly twitter thinks my beautiful child belongs to my best friend"

Shane of course who never uses twitter missed all of this. Ilya however who lives there was clutching his phone for a very tense five hours trying to find out how bad this is

[believeripley13]

Normally Shane doesn't meet Ilya's eyes during their face-offs.

But in the last one he not only catches his eye but he *smiles* and Ilya fucking *melts*.

Ilya knows by this point eye contact does not come naturally to Shane so seeing him actively seek it out and seem so comfortable and relaxed probably made Ilya feel all warm and fuzzy.

[flyingappa]

taking a break from heated rivalry to say chhris evans back in marvel chris evans back in marvel chris evans back in marvel

[piouscoffeelover]

i miss you 2012 avengers. i miss you the avengers tower. i miss you irondad and spiderson. i miss you meme lord shuri and peter. i miss you loki lingering in the tower for no other reason than that he's the main love interest. i miss you poptart-eating thor. i miss you grumpy bucky barnes. i miss you old man, chronically offline steve rogers. i miss you clint in the vents. i miss you girls night with wanda and natasha. i miss you the rare bruce banner feature. i miss you sassy sam wilson. i miss you cheeky reader who always called fury by his first name. i miss you christmas avengers blurbs in the middle of the fanfiction written by an autistic 14 year old. i miss you 😔😔😔

[intergalacticmca]

Shane Hollander is lowkey the most heartbreaking character of all time and I’m glad Jacob Tierney recognized that because Rachel Reid certainly didn’t.

Shane’s comphet and compartmentalization of his sexuality and true self outside of a few frantic encounters with Ilya a few times a year is devastating. His refusal to tell anyone in his life - his teammates, his parents, friends he doesn’t have - what he truly wants because he can’t even admit it to himself.

Everything is hockey, everything is brand deals. No, he can’t have a glass of wine because he can’t do anything that’ll potentially impact his performanceon the ice. He can’t date because everything is about his career and when it’s the off season, he locks himself away at his cottage where he spends most of his time alone. Hayden is the closest thing he has to a friend, but if Shane can’t even admit to himself how he feels, how is he supposed to confide in Hayden?

He can have sex with Ilya behind closed doors without words exchanged, but the second it begins to resemble something real, when Ilya starts trying to figure out what Shane really wants, Shane panics and forces himself into a relationship with a woman, because what he has with Ilya doesn’t make sense or fit into any version of himself that he can foresee.

One of the best decisions Jacob Tierney made in the show was showing Shane be intimate with Rose and frame it as devastating and stomach churning. Shane’s performance of heterosexuality is painful. It actively holds him back from being his true self. The book glosses over it and mentions Shane has shitty sex with Rose a couple of times, and doesn’t go into any meaningful detail about how Shane, a gay man in love with another man, forcing himself to have sex with a woman to perform heterosexuality would be extremely difficult and unpleasant for him.

The scene in the show is unpleasant and heartbreaking. We see and feel how much Shane doesn’t want to be doing this, but he feels like he has to.

Shane’s break up with Rose is 10 tens more emotional and impactful in the show than it is in the book, because Shane’s clumsiness with women is not portrayed as a punchline. We see him processing in real time that he can’t just keep faking it. Shane thinks he is good at hiding and compartmentalizing, but it only took Rose two sexual encounters to figure him out. He’s forced to reckon with the fact that he can’t just keep ignoring who he really is and what he really wants.

The scene where we finally get a glimpse into just how painful everything is for Shane is another scene that’s not in the book - Shane’s conversation with Yuna outside.

“I tried. I tried really hard. I just can’t help it.”

Now that he’s finally starting to let go of the performance and separation he’s tried to maintain all of these years - Shane Hollander Hockey Player versus Shane Hollander The Person - he can admit that there’s nothing he can do to change who he is or how he feels, but that will never erase the pain of all those years of trying, of trying to be who his mother wanted him to be and who the MLH wanted him to be. He denied himself the ability to be fully human and fully himself for so long and he’ll never get that time back.

I never want to hear the words “Shane doesn’t have trauma” ever again.

[aslongasitsblack]

it does actually drive me crazy to think of Mr Asshole himself being a boyfriend for less than forty eight hours and already being “its scary. but you are brave. do you want to me to come with you? of course.” like he’s actually been dying to be this person for shane guys its not even funny he’s been fucking dying inside to be someone that only being with shane allows him to be

[flyingappa]

in the market for a rival

lost my last one. ik this probably isn't the best place to find runners but if anyone wants to shit talk each other respectfully while secretly being in awe of the other's athletic prowess pls lmk it could be cute i think

[flyingappa]

thinking about a fic where shane is drafted to boston and ilya to montreal but unfortunately this semester is completely fucking me over so i shall not have time to write it :(

[flyingappa]

nobody asked but i am in fact writing this instead of doing work

[cuteandtwisted]

Something that really gets to me about Ilya is how he doesn't let his traumatic upbringing make him any less kind to Shane. Shane objectively comes from a much better home environment and grew up with two loving parents, but Ilya never downplays his experiences or struggles or feelings. When David finds them in the cottage, Ilya immediately understands how horrific and nightmarish that is for Shane. And he does everything to support him and calm him down and be there for him, without ever downplaying Shane's experience or engaging in trauma olympics. And I think that's SO SO sweet and kind and so telling of his character.

[barbie-verse]

heated rivalry twitter (13/?) ft rose joining ilya in his shenanigans (she loves to dance, okay!)

bonus: