Another hyper fixation

Nat | Elder Millennial | Against my will this is now a Heated Rivalry account | But also Roswell NM | And once upon a time Klaine

[dailyhudsonwilliams]

Hudson for The New York Times in December 2025 (via hudconupdates_)

[comingatthecottage]

re: ilya's terrible therapist

okay i think i'm obligated to say that although i am a mental health professional very obviously nothing i post on my heated rivalry tumblr is professional advice nobody sue me or anything. i should also probably caveat that i am coming from a very specific perspective: i'm a relational psychoanalyst; i have adjunctive training in several behavioral modalities but i believe very, very strongly in relational psychodynamic work as being THE thing. for patients with complex relational trauma (aka mr. ilya rozanov), i don't believe anything else can create lasting change. i also don't believe in the medical model of mental health. these are things about which reasonable people can, of course, disagree, so i'll try to separate out things i think she does WRONG vs things i think are missed opportunities to do well/what i would do differently

[comingatthecottage]

THINGS THAT ARE WRONG the biggest and worst: patient presents for therapy for first time despite significant treatment barriers. patient discloses that he believes he is depressed. patient has a first-degree relative who died by suicide. your next question, your very next question, is "are you thinking of killing yourself". you don't beat around the bush, you don't imply it, you don't wait until the patient volunteers. you must ask directly and you must do so before the patient leaves your office, because there is a huge and immediate risk that this appointment is someone's last cry for help before an attempt, and the odds of a depressed patient with a trauma history related to the suicide of a parent attempting suicide is fucking staggering. it is in my opinion malpractice not to even screen for suicidal intent at this first appointment ANYWAY, i do this for all patients and to not do it for someone with ilya's history is outrageously dangerous. life-threateningly incompetent care. lack of treatment planning: doesn't take a history or anything at the first appointment. jumps directly into talking about a horrific trauma (finding his mother's dead body). sometimes people do come in to a first session in an escalated state and have to begin directly with discussing whatever is happening at that moment, and then you meet them where they're at, but ilya arrives in a calm if slightly nervous state. she should have started by laying out what therapy would look like and beginning to build rapport, not immediately being like "so how about your mom's corpse". the way she makes the diagnosis of depression is bizarre. “I think you are depressed”. she doesn't clarify whether or not she's actually diagnosing him with depression under the medical model, explain what that means, or ask what it means to him to hear that. it's also MONTHS in, after he came in suspecting depression, that she makes this diagnosis (in the US it has to be in the first session generally for insurance purposes, different, also bad). no actual screening for symptoms, no psychoeducation about what it means to have depression, no sense of prognosis which clearly upsets the patient. it is so important to contextualize a diagnosis, both what the particular diagnosis is and what the act of diagnosing means. no differential diagnosis. she knows that ilya has experienced at least one criterion A trauma for PTSD (his mother's death) but does nothing to screen for symptoms. she doesn't ask how old his sexual partners he had when he was fourteen were to screen for sexual abuse. she doesn't rule out bipolar which is a must when diagnosing depression. she doesn't ask any questions about substance use or screen for potential neurodivergence or any of a million other things. she doesn't refer to medical for potential physiological contributors for a guy whose career is "getting hit really hard in the head".

[comingatthecottage]

no clear treatment plan or goals, and no sense of how therapy is going to work besides… talking? the only goal ilya really sets is "be good enough for my boyfriend," and although she (rightly) pushes back on that she doesn't help him identify an alternate goal. she also doesn't explain what therapy is going to be like or how it works or help him get on board with what the project of therapy is going to be. she seems unshaken when he misses five appointments in a row (if i had a passively suicidal patient miss five appointments in a row i would not be brushing that off, we would be having a good chat about what the barriers to treatment were). culturally incompetent care: they're part of the same minority group (Russian immigrants) across one axis of identity, but Galina is not a queer hockey player (or as far as we know queer at all). she minimizes and dismisses the discrimination ilya is likely to face in his career from coming out, including the fact that he could get deported to Russia, jumping to a CBT technique that asks him to imagine the worst case scenario without engaging at all with how it feels to be in this position or validating his fears. mental health professionals have an ethical obligation to educate themselves about their patients' identities and to listen first. "I could lose my job and be deported and jailed because of my sexual identity" is not a cognitive distortion, it is a terrifying reality. perhaps an unlikely reality, but it exists. trying to use cognitive therapies to "reframe" real experiences of discrimination is, flat-out, therapeutic abuse. she also should have explicitly responded to his fear that she would out shane when he's afraid to say shane's name, not obliquely implied that she knows they're both hockey players: "i want to let you know that confidentiality extends to anything and everything you tell me, except (reiterate legal carveouts). there are no circumstances under which i would disclose your partner's identity to anyone. if you want to use his name, i won't repeat it to anyone except when we're in this room" THINGS THAT ARE POOR THERAPEUTIC STYLE IN MY OPINION AND WHAT I WOULD DO BETTER #MYNARCISSISM lack of curiosity: she does not prompt him to reflect emotionally, even when there are very obvious entry points to do so to do so. i.e. ilya says he's glad his father is dead, which is a huge emotional disclosure that is very risky for a patient to make, especially in a first appointment because he might expect judgment. and she just… asks a factual question about the timeline, rather than engaging with the emotional content in any way (as a relational analyst what i would do here is ask "what does it feel like to share that with me?", but i do not think any good therapist would like, change the subject away from the feeling)

[comingatthecottage]

she regularly offers direct opinions about/interpretations of things ilya says, very early in their therapeutic relationship. "that must have been very hard" in response to his father's expectations of him (which he interprets as being about sochi--he seems to hear 'it must have been hard for you to fail like that', which is, uh, bad!), "it's good that you had that," etc. in spite of the fact that he's already indicated a complex relationship with his family and himself that mean he might feel quite differently than someone else expects! was it good that he had hockey, or did it just create another burden on him and his relationship with his father, or is it somewhere in the middle? did his father's expectations feel hard? traumatizing? was he proud that so much was expected of him? when did he notice those feelings? just some questions i might ask. describing how ilya must feel about things closes off conversation. her affect and presentation in the session: ilya repeatedly notices her masking her reactions to things, like the fact that he became sexually active so young. i guess technically you're still allowed to be a blank slate style therapist, even though i don't know anyone who still does this. but if you're a blank slate, be a blank slate. don't let patients notice that you're hiding your reactions to things. so for instance i would approach that conversation by having whatever reaction i had and then saying, "you might notice i had a reaction to you saying that," and either asking the patient how they interpreted my reaction or asking them if they'd like to know what i'm thinking (and then how does it feel to know that i'm feeling concerned, etc, the relational field goes on forever). my way isn't the only way but if you're visibly swallowing reactions it's bad. she doesn't check in with ilya about how he's feeling about therapy and dismisses his fear that it's not working. tbh the only thing she says that i like is "i'm good, but i'm not that good," which IS something i might say. but she doesn't go from there, it becomes a way of dismissing his fears. i would have asked what it's like to have to tolerate such a slow and uncertain recovery process. does he think therapy can help? are there ways in which it has helped? how does it feel to talk about it? how does it feel to talk to me about it? bizarre attitude towards self-disclosure. she gives ilya next to no information about herself, which, again, is an old-fashioned but not per se wrong way to do it. just because i'm the relational yapper machine 3000 doesn't mean that every therapist needs to tell their patient anything about themselves. but she does self-disclose twice. she tells ilya that she's watching their season/is a hockey fan, and makes a weird comment that she also enjoys shopping as a coping mechanism but that bedsheets are more in her price range than sports cars. even though i'm the yappatron 3000 i would not choose to make these particular disclosures! admittedly if i had a famous patient and i knew about their career i would probably tell them that directly in the first session, i would not however make asides about it because now you're kind of creating a dual relationship. the bedsheets thing is weird bc you gotta keep a wiiiide birth around anything even quasi sexual, like don't invite a patient to imagine what your bed is like you weirdo. also finances are usually an inappropriate thing to self-disclose, because therapy is also a financial relationship! i would never joke about how a patient has more money than me (even though most of my patients have a lot more money than me), it seems likely to induce guilt and also to disturb the therapeutic frame around money which is hard to manage anyway

[comingatthecottage]

therapeutic interventions: i mean the biggest problem is that she doesn't really seem to have a consistent style or approach or anything. they just kind of chat. the things she does say are… weird. she directly gives advice about what he should do in his relationship with Shane repeatedly. She doesn’t otherwise tell ilya what to do, which would actually be more appropriate--there's a place for giving depressed patients clear instructions imo. but she doesn't do that, she tells him what to do with his boyfriend which is far riskier because she's never met shane! the worst bit is that she also directly predicts what the outcome of one of the conversations she tells him to have will be, which is… bad, because she does not know Shane, and this is like their fourth session, and she could be wrong. That’s how you destroy a therapeutic rapport forever btw, is make a promise you can’t keep. i have never in my career assured a patient that a conversation they were gonna have with someone else would turn out well, because i don't know that person. maybe shane is an abusive asshole who is going to say "well if you're depressed just kill yourself already". she doesn't know this man!

her ideas about how to treat depression seem limited to pills and exercise. which is crazy because the man is a professional athlete. and she's like "well maybe go on a bike ride." because rachel reid clearly doesn't know how therapy works or what the mechanism of action is! she doesn't lay out the many, many possibilities ("i recommend speaking to a psychiatrist, options might include ssris or snris, other antidepressants, mood stabilizers, etc. there are also interventional methods like intravenous ketamine, transcranial magnetic stimulation, or ECT. i mention those only so you understand that there are a lot of options, and a lot of hope). she doesn't actually offer psychoed about lifestyle interventions--why exercise? what does nutrition look like? sleep? she tells him he needs to come out to his friends but doesn't offer anything to help him actually understand how social isolation and depression interact. she doesn't look at any of his strengths, notably the fact that he has a partner who adores him, that he has survived a lifetime of immense trauma, that he has a brilliantly successful career, etc. there's a stab at one CBT exercise but otherwise no concrete skills (again not my thing but it would be something). and no information about different therapy modalities and how they could potentially help him. okay that's the end of my essay sorry to anyone who doesn't care and had to watch this get reblogged like 8 separate times becasue tumblr was mad abt how long it was if anyone wants to know My Case Formulation of fictional character Ilya Rozanov and how i would Fix Him let me know @stunkbug here is the essay!

[gaygoatshane]

imagine you are letting your boyfriend suck your dick while you're on the phone with your friend and then he tries to put his fingers in your mouth and when you slap his hand away, he slaps You in the face

[allstarrocks]

i wish vegas bathroom wasnt so early in their hook up era a more seasoned ilya wouldve known he couldve made shane get on his knees on that dirty bathroom floor and beg to suck ilyas dick

[allstarrocks]

its like, "maybe ask nicely"

and shane tries, he even tries to ask nicer and then ilya is humming in disapproval, touching his face and saying 'it would be nicer if u asked on your knees, yes?'

and shanes already gone, its muscle memory to get down on his knees for ilya at this point, he finds himself sinking down, tuxedo pants hitting the tile thats probably decently maintained but feels filthy to him now, because ilya said it was filthy, and thats playing in his mind and he barely manages out another plea for ilya to suck his dick, bc he was told to, and ilya laughs

'that is what you want?'

'uh, what? yes. Please.'

'you are the one on your knees, are you sure?' and ilya cups the side of his head and shane is swaying, barely succeeding in his effort to resist diving face first into ilyas crotch 'maybe you do want to suck my dick? you will still have to ask for it.'

and this position is all reflex for shane, hes salivating at the thought, fears of humiliation gone in favor of his desperate need to be good and he says 'please, rozanov? please can i suck your dick?'

And ilyas hand curls into a fist, gripping his hair unkindly and pulling his head back to look at his face, shane is flushed cheeks hooded eyes labored breaths, ilya is smiling, 'no.'

[mybloodstream-caffeine]

So yes yes yes the thing about Ilya's suicidality is that it is the crux of the entire situation. He's chasing cheap thrills maybe to feel something, sure, that's the old cliche and it would appeal to him. But also maybe because...well eventually it's gonna happen. He's going to get caught and there are going to be assumptions made and the heavy cudgel of the country of his birth is going to come down onto him because he's EMBARASSED them, because he has MADE A LAUGHING STOCK of the country of Russia by being caught this way and executing what to the outside observer would seem to be a real bait and switch (The women?? THE WOMEN?? Everyone is yelling, which is why it's crucial that Ilya be caught with the dick in his own mouth--it's one thing to be an equal opportunity penetrator (there is cultural stuff about this in Russia; you are Not As Gay if you are the one doing the penetrating) and a whole other thing to be caught in an alleyway with some delicate little thing's thing in your mouth.)

And yes he was high and yeah maybe he wouldn't have done that specific thing if he wasn't but honestly who knows. He wakes up to the news of his own outing and his first thought is Oh Okay It's Done. He's done it. He's signed his own death warrant. Maybe he doesn't have to go back to Russia today or tomorrow but someday he will and he knows what's waiting for him there. At the hands of state-sanctioned violence or a good old fashioned hate crime or maybe even fucking Alexei and whatever goons he can scrounge up. So he knows that's going to happen. No more wondering if or why. Now it's only when and how.

And then Shane fucking Hollander happens, as he always does. And Ilya, who is literally saying LET ME DIE HERE has to deal with the fact that he's not going to be allowed to so long as Shane Hollander has breath in his body. And then he's going to have to confront why that is. And then he's going to have to deal with his own suicidality for both of their sakes because if Shane is going to drag him back from the edge of his own personal bridge (The idea that he WILL die young and beautiful, just like Mama) then for fuck's sake he's gonna have to drag Shane back from his (The exquisite pain of self denial and flagellation, which Shane is using to hide from every aspect of his own life that might make it worth FUCKING LIVING) They are gonna hold onto each other and kick to the fucking surface and they are going to learn to want to live together.

Step one of the plan is secure Ilya's safety in North America step two is scream and cry and yell and step three is pin Shane to the bed and say his name 42 times in a row while fingering him until they both forget what it's like to want to stop existing. And somewhere along the way maybe Ilya will figure out that he's allowed to want to live even though his mother didn't and Shane will figure out that he's allowed to want to live even if he wants to live as a man who loves men.

(follow up of the accidental outing au)

THIS IS EVERYTHING TO MEEEE‼️‼️‼️‼️😭😭😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏💔💔💔💔💔

This part especially really is the heart of this au:

Step one of the plan is secure Ilya's safety in North America step two is scream and cry and yell and step three is pin Shane to the bed and say his name 42 times in a row while fingering him until they both forget what it's like to want to stop existing. And somewhere along the way maybe Ilya will figure out that he's allowed to want to live even though his mother didn't and Shane will figure out that he's allowed to want to live even if he wants to live as a man who loves men.

Like,,, Ilya waiting to die and Shane refusing to live,,, both indulging in their own kinds of passive suicide,,, except they can't let the other go, but the only way to pull them off the cliff's edge is if they climb off it with them,,, can you believe this started as an excuse to hear your thoughts on jealous make up sex,,, life is so beautiful 💕🌷🌸🌹🌺🌻🌼🏵️💐🌷🌸🌹🌺🌻🌼🏵️💐🏵️🌼🌻

And the thing is THE THING IS!!!!!! Part of the hurt on Shane's side is like,,, it was supposed to be HIM‼️‼️It was meant to be HIM getting caught in a compromising position with Ilya, not some fucking nameless stranger. What the hell???

For so long, Shane's biggest, most all encompassing fear was being outed, even before he could ever articulate his own desire he feared being found out for it. And being outed really is Shane's worst nightmare, the complete collapse of the image he's made of himself, the implosion of his life as he knows it. So Shane should be happy it wasn't him that got sucked into Ilya's undertow, right?? Wasn't this the risk he's been talking about before every hookup, the thing that he tried to convince himself wasn't worth risking?? Shouldn't he be heaving a sigh of relief that he was careful enough to avoid being collateral in Ilya's car crash of a life??

But he's not happy. He's not happy that ilya has to face the music alone. Because it was supposed to be HIMMMMMM‼️‼️‼️‼️ This was the fucking sword of Damocles hanging over Shanes head his entire life!!!! And when it came down, it was supposed to come down on him and Ilya TOGETHER. So why the FUCK is it falling on Ilya's head alone?? Ilya takes the fall and Shane comes out unscathed, his shiny golden boy veneer unstained??? FUCK THAT!!!!!

Which is why Shane flays himself for Ilya: he comes out to his parents (who aren't fucking morons, no one comes out in solidarity with a stranger), he aligns his image alongside Ilya's, he opens his entire life to scrutiny by choosing to help Ilya through this scandal.

And he does it all because it's what was always meant to be: Shane and Ilya, mentioned in the same breath, a matched set in everything forever. Even in this.

[lavenderprose]

I do wonder what would have happened to hollanov if Ilya got outed sometime during their situationship era, before the tuna meltdown, because Ilya got caught letting some svelte twink blow him in an alley or something. I wonder if this would drive Shane to the edge (because this ties into my hc that Shane tortured himself with the knowledge that Ilya was hooking up with women, but never once did it occur to him that he'd also be hooking up with other men)

(obviously this canon divergence would have dire consequences for Ilya, but I'm more interested in the 'driving Shane insane with apoplectic levels of jealousy' angle.)

I have been rotating this for a full 24 hours uhgggg

Okay so. I want to say that, if Ilya got outed, his own jealousy would not immediately be at the forefront of Shane's mind. It would be the pungeant Doritos nacho seasoning on top of the greater spiral that he would immediately enter into. The name of the initial spiral would be "I Have To Save Ilya" and it would, underneath the panic, be wish fulfillment of the highest order. Shane has always enjoyed fantasizing about saving Ilya. He loves to daydream about the rink catching fire and everyone gets out safely except WAIT where is Ilya Rozanov?? And it's Shane who has to run back into a burning building and use his Superior Knowledge of Ilya to find him and he's trapped under a beam or something (Shane read that article about the mom lifting the car off her kid like six times) and Shane pulls him out and then they limp triumphantly out of the rink together and everyone cheers and now Ilya has a reason to look at him like he personally put the moon and stars in the sky. In public even! Wow!

So Shane would immediately go into crisis management mode. If Ilya was outed, I truly believe that it would trigger a chain of events wherein Yuna Hollander woke up one morning to the news that Ilya Rozanov had been caught going down on some rockin' twink (I do think it needs to be Ilya both for the Shane Jealousy Potential and also because someone with short hair giving Ilya Rozanov head would come with almost too much plausible deniability versus the inalienable truth of Dick In Mouth) (An additional aside to this is that Ilya almost NEVER gives Shane head on his knees and it drives Shane crazy that he did that. He doesn't even want Ilya to do that TO HIM Shane loves their dynamic he's just like. Why?? Why did he do that?? The answer is molly) and by the end of the day Yuna's own son has come out to her and in the same breath told her that he needs her help to safe Ilya Rozanov. Because um. Solidarity.

So then it turns into a Whole Thing where the Hollanders are working behind the scenes welding NDAs like grenades to make sure that Ilya Rozanov does not get disappeared to Russia, never to be seen again. The NHL, of course, cannot weasel out of Ilya's contract (Even if they could, the people of Boston would riot--that's their homo and he won them the Cup) so he's protected by his employment status to an extent but the fact that Ilya Rozanov needs to Defect From Russia becomes immediately and poignantly apparent. So there are lots of closed-door meetings with NHL lawyers and immigration lawyers and the U.S. State Department and fucking?? Yuna Hollander?? And probably Farah since Ilya's agent is Russian and blocked his number.

And you know we're just spitballing here so I genuinely don't know what happens but I do know that at some point Shane and Ilya are standing alone in a hotel room in Los Angeles (I imagine this whole thing is taking place over the summer. I also imagine that they're in LA because Ilya is making a Tour of Bisexual Self-Flagellation where he makes various media appearances to drum up the sympathy of the American people and on this day Ilya has appeared on Ellen (Before she was evil) and he actually had a great time meeting Ellen (she wasn't evil yet) and Yuna Hollander was backstage like Dear God These People Are Not Treated Well (Ellen has been evil the whole time)) and in this Los Angeles hotel room Shane is coming down off of mild hear stroke because it is one million degrees in Los Angeles and he runs hot and he's laying on the bed in the cool and dark and just says from underneath his own arm, "I cannot fucking believe you did this."

Which triggers the anticipated argument. Oh sorry Hollander I know everything is always about you/shut the fuck up asshole you know that's not what I mean/okay so what do you/it was FUCKING IRRESPONSIBLE Rozanov/YOU DON'T THINK I--

Then there's a moment of angry silence and Shane scoffs and says, "And all of this for some fucking--slut--"

And Ilya grabs his jaw and says, "Oh, that's what this is about. Jealous Hollander."

"Shut the fuck up."

"So what, you think you're the only man I should fuck?"

"Maybe!" Shane yells. "I'm the only one who knows how to be fucking careful! Clearly, I'm the only one who cares! The only one who can keep you safe--"

And then Ilya gets on the bed and bullies his way between Shane's legs and says, "You just want me all to yourself. You are jealous," but his eyes are wild because it's been twelve years since anyone cared about keeping him safe. About keeping him.

And Shane says, "You know I am. Fuck, you make me so fucking jealous I can't even--"

And then they fuck. ☺️

[shanehollandergirl]

#hisholysuffering #hismartyrdom

[moonlightsonatah]

hang it in the louvre

pt 34/?

[sinmonger]

I could recognize him by touch alone

[mymoonandmyshane]

can we stop pretending that yuna hollander doesnt swear or like swearing. one of the first things she says about ilya is “fuck him. fuck him right up the butt.”

[jewelcoatfish]

my hc is shane’s grandparents do not swear at all. they are very proper and strict with their words, so whenever the family have dinner together ilya sees shane and yuna being very polite and did not swear at all the entire time. he shoots glances at david and david looks at him like we’ll debrief later. they get into the car after dinner and yuna and shane let out a string of fuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkk at the same time and david laughs and ilya’s face brightens with glee. they fill him in on how shane’s grandparents were so strict growing up that if they catch yuna swearing she’d be writing “i must not swear” 100 times. obviously that didn’t stop her

[myshippinglove]

This edit is so funny. Poor Ilya was going through it 😆

©️ in video

[ilya-rozanova]

shane x ilya's curls

[nhlportraits]

yellow sweater sketches

[butdarlingthestarrs]

Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov | Heated Rivalry | Season 1 Episode 1

[littlegirlinvisible]

HUDSON WILLIAMS & CONNOR STORRIE For the audio series “EMBER AND ICE,” out December 30 on Quinn.

[neeska3]

Ilya on his mind (maggots for brains playing in the background guys understand the vision)

[crossnecklace]

hollanov x pigpen - slothrust

[the incredulity of saint thomas, guercino // the divinity of purpose, eliran kantor // two partridges hanging, cornelis van lelienburgh // unknown // still life, bartolomeo arbotori // unknown]