A "Nice Dork" @gottalovethatstark - Tumblr Blog

I think about the faceless boston raiders owner ALL the time. the way he watches an eighteen year old kid who is at the top of his game be put down by his father like it's nothing. the way he's genuinely taken aback by it. the way he immediately tries to dismiss the comment as best he can. do you think he went home and looked at his own kid(s) and wondered how a father could do that? do you think he started complimenting ilya for his hard work whenever he saw him? do you think he asked to be there when they made ilya captain and put his hand on his shoulder and said "we believe in you"? do you think after boston wins the cups he tells ilya "fucking knew you could do it kid"? do you think when ilyas father dies he thinks good riddance and pours himself a drink to mourn the kid who's never gonna get the approval he deserved? do you think when ilya leaves he wonders if he did enough to make him know how valued he was? do you think after the fanmail leaks he's one of the first to come out in support of them? do you think someday he goes to some event and sees ilya talking to david hollander, a small proud smile on his face and he thinks "yeah he's gonna be alright"?

willyoucometomycottagehollanov

I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING

livinglavidalesbian

i firmly believe that cliff is ilya's best friend and not troy because although the narrative forgot about him, I DIDN'T, and i think that he's in general kind of a better dude than troy. there is a plague of men like troy who are treated as though prior jerkishness is excused by internalized homophobia (as if we don't have multiple examples of other queer hockey players within the series who weren't doing all that.) i think ilya and troy would be close but i heavily doubt shane would ever fully come around to him and ilya, Wife Guy he is, probably would understand and respect why (and maybe begin to think similarly- i think he'd hold a lot more grudges if his sense of self worth was stronger, same goes for shane.) cliff, on the other hand, has nothing canonically to suggest that he was a total jerkface (in fact, ilya's friendship with him would suggest the opposite) at any point in his career. besides, cliff plays an important role in ilya's life: in the book, he's like the annoying little brother that helps ilya feel more welcome in a foreign country he knows jackall about, and in the show he's like the annoying older brother that helps ilya feel more welcome in a foreign country he knows jackall about. troy is a chill dude (during the time we know him) but i think his past is definitely something to consider when you're writing ilya or shane's relationships with him because rachel reid is an accomplice to the aforementioned plague so at times critical thought falls upon the audience

lavenderprose

New interpretation of Tuna Meltdown that I'm rotating is that Shane heard Ilya say Shane, thought oh thank God this is real, said Ilya, remembered that Ilya just sat on this same couch and talked about women for ten minutes, realized that he fucked it up AGAIN, just like Vegas 1.0 and just like Sochi, and immediately decided that he had to yeet himself completely out of the room before Ilya started saying We Are Not Anything Hollander again. For a third time. Oops sorry about that but I know better! I will see MYSELF out! And then following the established pattern he just assumes that there will be anywhere between six months and two years of radio silence. And he copes with that by hurting himself with heterosexuality. Nobody's ever done it the way Shane Hollander is doing it (Badly)

perlukafarinn

The thing is that even with people who are cool (or mostly cool) about the gay thing, the Rozanov thing is always a bridge too far. This bothers Shane, more than he lets himself admit, because it's inevitable, isn't it? He's always gonna have to defend his boyfriend against the people he loves, like Ilya's not the kindest, strongest, most beautiful person he knows. Like he's not the love of Shane's life.

It doesn't even occur to Shane that this conversation could go any better than it went with his parents, who had an impossibly quick turnaround on Ilya all things considered, until he's telling Rose and instead of her response being some variation of "why him?" she goes, "You're kidding me, Ilya Rozanov? He is so hot!"

And Shane freezes, the automatic defense sticking at the tip of his tongue. He tries to recalculate, but in the moment all he can manage is a flustered, "I- yeah. I mean he's - yeah, he is."

Something softens in Rose's expression, and then she's pulling at his arm, urging him to come sit down on the couch next to her. "You need to tell me everything, Shane! All the details, the dirtier, the better."

Shane sits, the relief flooding him enough to make his knees weak. His face feels warm but it's not embarrassment or shame coloring his cheeks - or maybe it's a little bit of embarrassment, because some of the details are really dirty, but mostly it's joy. It's pride, even.

"I'm not gonna do that," he laughs.

Rose raises her eyebrows expectantly. 'You, Mr. I-prefer-being-the-hole,' she seems to be silently saying. 'You don't want to share?'

"Okay, maybe some of the details," Shane concedes. He can't stop smiling.

"Fuck, yes," Rose squeals. She puts her hand on Shane's shoulder, standing. "Hold on, I need to get the rosé for this."

"You are such a cliché."

Rose waves her hand, an 'I know, I know' gesture.

The conversation lasts a couple of hours and Shane shares more about Ilya than he's shared with anyone. More than he even means to, so the rosé was definitely the right call. He can't stop himself because Rose is so happy, so excited for him. She gasps at all the right moments, giggles when Shane's blush gets impossibly brighter, leans in when Shane shows her pictures of Ilya and gives her gushing approval.

"Of course you landed the only hockey player who's even remotely as hot as you," she sighs. "You overachiever."

Shane laughs. "He's much hotter than I am!"

"Mm, agree to disagree."

And that, too, feels pretty good.

rainbow-femme

The book does not hit nearly hard enough with how bad things are for Shane after they’re outed and I need season 2 to crank it up to 11 (like book Shane’s rock bottom is he’s upset enough that he ate a snickers bar)

And not just that, I want it to tear Ilya apart that for months he’s been getting mad and snapping at Shane for fearing this. I want him to see Shane have everything cruelly ripped away while knowing the biggest fight they ever had was Ilya being mad about how afraid Shane was of this and how much he wanted to avoid it, especially with how supportive Ilya’s coach and team are in comparison

Of course Ilya didn’t think it would be so bad, his whole team is behind him as well as his coach

But Shane has his team immediately turn against him, his coach acts furious and disgusted with him, and the immediate punishment is that Shane Hollander, who lives and breathes hockey, who sees his entire identity and worth as a person being his skill in hockey, is told he is indefinitely barred from playing

This man has been told from day one that he has to be perfect, that he cannot ever fuck up, that he cannot be anything less than what is demanded of him every second of the day. And as soon as he’s not what he should be he takes a fucking sledgehammer to the chest made of every fear he ever had made real

This needs to be the thing that finally shatters him and makes him actually cry and stop holding everything in. I don’t want Shane sighing over the phone to show he’s upset, I need this to be viscerally heart breaking and soul crushing for Shane

It is very important to me that Shane was bone deep terrified of this and he was right.

And I want Ilya to sit there helplessly with every comment of “I think it would be fine, I think you’re the one with the problem” playing in his head. I want to see hockey homophobia manifest physically into human form and rip Shane’s heart from his chest while Ilya has to stand there and watch it happen

This is not anti Ilya, I love him, but I want this moment to be for him what it was for Shane to realize all Ilya had sacrificed to move to Ottawa. I want them to both have a moment where they’re horrified by what they’ve asked of the other while acting like it was nothing

For it to hit home just how meaningful it is for Shane to choose Ilya, we need to see him have everything torn away and still declare Ilya is worth it

giveemhales

I am a big defender of Shane not wanting to come out and one of the biggest reasons that I haven’t seen discussed much is how much worse it is to come out as a Gay Asian Bottom compared to coming out as a bisexual (white) man who is already regarded as a sex machine. Like Asian men are already overly feminized in the west. Shane’s general demeanor is subdued, he doesn’t drink or party often, and he abides by strict rules and a diet that already makes him an outsider. He doesn’t sleep around and has only has one public relationship with a woman under his belt, which ended very quickly. He’s the exact opposite of Ilya in all these ways and it puts him at a disadvantage. He has a “soft” image he spends his whole life actively opposing. His image is working against him; him being gay contributes to it and worsens it. Ilya’s image is working in his favor; being with a man is an anomaly OR further proof of his sexual prowess. And bc of Ilya’s well known history of sleeping around and generally aggressive attitude, it will be assumed he would be the top. Through a heteronormative lens, which is obviously the norm in hockey, that makes him the “man” in the relationship. If anything, his ability to “dominate” another man may bolster his image, make him even more of an “alpha male”. But being a bottom is seen as inherently demeaning and effeminate, thanks to misogyny, homophobia, and rape culture. The less bulky, quiet, shy man with a shocking lack of experience with woman is obviously the bottom (and this is even worse if they have the height and body differences canon to the books). Shane will be seen as weaker (and what could be worse than that in a contact sport like hockey). He’ll be viewed as the “woman” in the relationship, which is to say he will be viewed as inherently inferior. And draws further attention to the parts of him he’s tried to hide (aka autism symptoms) which will now be treated as further evidence of his sensitivity and otherness. Everything he does now is gay. But being with Shane is the only gay thing Ilya does. Without the threat of Russia, Shane has far more to lose from coming out imo. And his team’s reaction proves that. He deserves some grace.

shaneposting

made myself sad thinking about a post canon fic idea where it’s just all of ilya’s loneliness and depression slowly transferring to shane once they’re both in ottawa

bc this time ilya’s the one who’s part of a pre-established team dynamic. and shane’s the one who’s new. and he doesn’t just get to come in as shane hollander, new centaurs player, he has to come in as shane hollander, ilya’s husband and former montreal great, after leaving his previous team on horrible terms

and this time ilya’s the one with the support network (see the previously established team dynamic) and the therapist and the progress he’s made on recovering from some of the damage done to him by his family. and shane’s support network becomes increasingly stretched. yes he’s closer to his parents, but maybe that becomes smothering really quick, and he finds that relationship much harder than when they were separated a bit more. yes he’s got rose, but she’s busier these days and she assumes everything is perfect now he’s living with ilya properly and it Should be like that but it isn’t. yes he’s got hayden and jj, but he barely sees them now, and when he does they’re a constant reminder of how the metros treated him, and maybe having a bit of distance away from hayden (and some time to mull over how the consequences of the fanmail video played out) makes shane realise that hayden wasn’t ever as good of a friend to shane as shane was to him

and this time shane’s the one who’s just quietly suffering because everything he wanted has become real and it turns out it’s somehow worse than before and he can’t say that. not after the stuff ilya has been through. not after how much they’ve both sacrificed to have this. not after they’ve chosen this because they chose each other

and maybe for the first time ever in his life shane gets that first whisper of the stomach churning ‘shit. so it’s just this? forever? this is all it’s ever going to be until i die?’ pessimism that can wrap around a (relatively. don’t have time to unpack further) healthy brain and turn it into a sad depressed apathetic one in record time

giveemhales

And I think seeing how well the Centaurs treat Ilya makes it so much worse (which he hates about himself). Because it’s a direct contrast to how his team treated him- even before he was outed. And then he comes and joins the Centaurs and he doesn’t get the love and respect they give Ilya (because they don’t even know him). So then the issue isn’t being in a relationship with your rival. It’s him. And his parents joke that Ilya is their favorite son. And Boston is still friendly with Ilya when they see him. Nobody on the metros is friendly with Shane except Hayden and J.J. but even they keep their distance because they still have to deal with the metros. And Ilya is frustrated if Shane isn’t social/friendly enough with the team, because it brings up his own insecurities.

And all Shane can think is that he is the common denominator. He’s the problem. And as someone so desperate to control every part of his life, it kills him that there is no formula for getting love and respect. He can regulate his diet and spend hours longer on the ice than anyone else and map out every contingency and all it ever does is make people view him as even weirder. This is a problem he doesn’t know how to fix, because he doesn’t know what the problem is except that he’s him and that’s bad. He’s the best in the league and he’s with his husband and he has a family and a home and it fixes nothing. He’s finally the authentic self he hid for so long and the world hates him for it.

It’s hard to be anything but depressed when it feels like you’re the root cause of all your problems.

onlythebravest

joining in on the troy & shane relationship. because i have Thoughts™. i am fully on board with the Shane shouldn't forgive Troy, and he should not like him. he should hate him even! i do sadly think Shane would feel bad about hating him so he wouldn't, but he should!

i've said a lot in the tags of all the posts i've reblogged, and this will be repeating some of it.

first off, Shane is so valid for being surprised that Ilya chose Troy to come out to on his team, and even more so valid that he was worried that Troy knew about him and Ilya. because, imagine the material that is giving Troy to use against him on the ice. like, Shane's already heared every slur under the sun and then some, having his relationship with Ilya thrown into his face on top of that? hearing slurs in relation to Ilya? he doesn't want that. he's terrified of that, not only for himself but for Ilya. imagine other players overhearing that, figuring out him and Ilya are together. even if Reid forgot Russia is an issue, Shane wouldn't. and, who wants to hear shit about their relationship when they're at work? not Shane, that's for sure even though he already gets it

and just bc Troy is a changed man, bc he's changed his ways, what's that got to do with Shane? just bc Troy isn't saying shit to Shane now doesn't erase all the times he's done it. how many years have Troy been in the league by this point? idk. and all those years he's been calling Shane slurs both where he could and couldn't hear him.

and, not to get too personal, but when i was around 11-12 y/o, my best friend turned into bully and i got bullied by her (and others) for about two years, it was the most traumatic bullying I've experienced and I still struggle with it today almost two decades later. about 4 years later, we were still classmates, and we had this befriend a classmate thing. and she had the guts to come up to me and ask if I wanted to work with her. like, come on!! obviously, no. I don't want to talk to her half a second more than I need to. I was civil with her, I had no choice, but voluntarily teaming up? no way. and I said no. I said no and then I turned away and walked away, finding another classmate. and I felt so powerful in that moment, I felt so strong and so proud of myself for doing that for me.

and that was from being bullied by her for about two years. Shane has been technically bullied, been called slurs, for years. years! he should get to experience that feeling that I did. he can be civil with his coworker, he can be professional with his teammate, but he doesn't have to like him. please, don't like him. he can say no, and walk away. he can avoid any one-on-one interaction with Troy. he can leave the room if it seems like Troy wants to have a conversation. he should be angry at Troy, he shouldn't like Troy.

and like several others have said too. Troy got a happy ending. he got to be an asshole, call people every slur he could think of, pick up some more from his teammates and use them too, then he got to come out on his own terms, in the way he himself wanted, he got to have a relationship he didn't have to hide for more than a few months, and it was okay. everything was fine for him, the majority of people accepted him and his relationship. Shane, on the other hand? Shane was as perfect as he could be, he was disciplined, he did everything and more for his team and his teammates. he hid his relationship for 4 years, had been scared of having a relationship due to assholes like Troy for 7 before that. he got outed against his will, he got threatened by Crowell (for a second time!), his team turned on him and everyone said he was cheating. how is that fair? that alone carries resentment for Troy. even if Troy hadn't said the slurs he could resent Troy, that would be misplaced, but seeing as Troy is Troy it placed perfectly. and that's so unfair there's not enough words to describe it

Shane should be mad at Troy, he shouldn't forgive Troy, and Troy should have to face that and be okay with that. he might be able to blame his homophobic slurs due to internalized homophobia and being scared of getting outed, but that does not explain any of the racism

clytemnestraaa

wait ppl think ilya thinks shane and rose are like so happy together? i don't think ilya thinks that. i think ilya knows damn well shane is gay and having a terrible time. what's causing the crash-and-burn isn't ilya thinking "shane is so happy with this other person," it's ilya thinking "i am so worthless and have so little to offer that shane would rather spend his life being miserable with than be with me"

wannabetonthat

I just almost reblogged this with this long ass well put together idea and accidentally deleted the draft kill me now

I do think that you are right about what Ilya is thinking about himself, but I disagree about one think. I don't think Ilya knows Shane is gay. That he suspects? Sure. I bet he does. But he doesn't know. He doesn't know because he can't know.

That's to me one of Ilya's biggest insecurities regarding Shane, that he both knows him better than most people in his life but also doesn't know much about him.

Ilya has two ways of learning things about Shane:

Via Shane himself. This is how he learns how Shane acts and reacts, how he likes to be treated, what he enjoys to do in bed, how he interacts with Ilya, both on the ice and out of it. Ilya learns a lot about Shane's personality and character here, but he doesn't learn almost anything about Shane's life.

Via hearsay. This is how he gets most of the information he has about Shane's day to day, ordinary likes and dislikes. It's how he learns about him liking ginger ale, and his parents going to his games, how he spends his summers and a lot of small tidbits of information that he wouldn't learn otherwise because Shane and Ilya don't talk. This is the way of media interviews, of the cottage documentary, of the good old MLH rumor mill. Ilya is reliant in this avenue of information and we see it both in the books and the show, how he collects this information that he gets from secondhand sources.

The important thing to me it's that the first avenue of information is not available and the second is not reliable.

Asking Shane things about him isn't an option for Ilya, because of the distance both of them have intentionally kept the whole relationship.

And anything he hears about Shane could be easily identifiable as right/wrong or something Impossible to truly confirm. If Shane is in a interview and they ask him a stupid "what's your favorite color" question, Ilya has to take the answer given and won't know if it was honest or just a way for Shane to get the interaction over with. How much is Shane, how much is a brand, etc, etc...

Ilya may not think Shane is a good liar (debatable, for another post) but he sure as hell must think he's hard to get to know. (Which is a given, Ilya, it's not like you've been volunteering information)

And Shane has kept what they have a secret from his loved ones for more than six years at that point. People truly close to Shane, and they don't suspect a thing. Shane has made sure of it.

So when the tuna melt scene happens, Ilya tries to talk to Shane more than one time. He starts with a simple probe but it's stonewalled.

The conversation has this flow, like Ilya is trying to get a read on Shane, and to me it feels like Ilya doesn't know what he's fishing for exactly.

I don't think this is Ilya trying to talk to Shane about him being gay, I think this is a much more broad search for information. This is Ilya who doesn't really know what Shane thinks about women (or other people) in the context of relationships. In the same conversation he's not talking about women in general too, he's talking about having regular girls he hooks up with.

When he asks Shane if he likes girls, and Shane says "sure", he can tell he's uncomfortable and evasive. He can tell Shane doesn't want to talk about this, and would prefer a subject change.

What Ilya doesn't know and has no way of knowing is why.

It could be because Shane is gay, of course, but it could also be because Shane doesn't share. He doesn't share about private things in his life. If he doesn't share to his close loved ones, who says he would share with Ilya?

No one knows about Ilya in Shane's life, and Ilya in turn doesn't know about Shane's life outside of Ilya. This is about that.

Shane might not be a liar, but he's private. They see each other a couple times a year, they don't talk, no one knows. It both makes it easy to hide and also makes it so that Ilya doesn't see him enough to notice anything.

Ilya's dalliances with women are overall public knowledge.

If Shane has something going on with someone else, would it be public knowledge? Or would it be the same as what he has with Ilya? Would it be something that Ilya has no way of learning about?

Even if he were sleeping or dating women, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Shane would just be private about that too.

"Never heard about you with girls" because the only way Ilya has of learning anything about Shane is hearing about it.

And yes, I think Ilya highly suspects that Shane is just gay, but I also think he doesn't know, not for sure. And I think that torments Ilya, the fact that he can't know.

He doesn't know this about Shane the same way he doesn't know about his real apartment, or his life. He hasn't been invited in. He's been shown a very small window into who Shane is, and that's all he gets. And when he probes for more, Shane runs.

So when Rose Landry happens, I think he won't stop suspecting that Shane is gay and he won't be satisfied with her, but because he doesn't, cannot know for sure, he lives in a very particular kind of hell.

For all he knows, all he assumes to be true of Shane Hollander could be wrong. Every interview and documentary and think piece he collected, every rumor about him or absence of one, it could all be wrong.

Ilya is once again faced with the fact that he might know him, but he doesn't know anything about him.

hollanovices

shane: i'm gay (i tried so hard, mom, i tried so hard to not be this way, i tried to like rose in the way i should but i can't and i'm not the golden boy everyone wants me to be)

ilya: hm. what makes you think that? (my brother in christ we have been having gay sex for close to a decade now. wtf are u on about)

shane: fuck you! you aren't gay! (you have the choice. you can be with a woman and it won't be a lie to yourself. you wouldn't be in agony every second of your life. you can live the way the world wants you to and it won't be a lie)

ilya: no, not completely (yeah, i'm attracted to men and women both, but what does it fucking matter? whether i am completely gay or not, the fact that i like men is enough to alienate me from the place that birthed me)

shane: well i think i am! completely. (i'm not perfect anymore. i've realised that i cannot be with a woman. i lie in bed with a woman and it feels like a punishment. i have to think of you to feel even the slightest pleasure despite having a girlfriend men would kill for.)

ilya: why are you telling me this? (why does your being gay or not gay matter? a label means nothing when it doesn't change the secrecy, the wrongness, the inevitability of this, of us both.)

shane: who else am i going to tell? (this is an important moment for me. i have to come out to someone. you're the only safe option. you already know this, you have the same secret. let me have this moment with someone who isn't literally the one telling me i'm gay.)

giveemhales

Everyone is getting into the Shane and Troy of it all so I am jumping in to add my own headcanon. I think Shane HATES Troy. And I think he actually hates him even more after he comes out. Like I think he always hated Troy the way he hated Dallas Kent and the dozens of other players who spewed slurs at him on the ice. But that was hatred bordering on indifference. He knew he was better than them and the slurs were just a desperate attempt to get under his skin because they couldn’t beat him with skill alone. Troy and those other players are nuances that he does not spare a thought about off the ice.

But once Troy joins the centaurs and becomes Ilya’s friend and then has then has the audacity to come out? As if that erases everything he’s done? Watching people accept and forgive him when Shane was the one taking the brunt of Troy’s treatment? Watching Troy come out at a pride night and celebrate with his team and fall in love when Shane has put himself (and Ilya) through hell remaining in the closet for nearly a decade because of the pieces of shit like Troy? Is still actively going through that hell?

And then when Troy actually becomes best friends with Ilya and Shane joins the team and Shane is expected to be friendly with him? Oh he is fuming. He does not give a fuck that Troy is a better person now and it was his own fears/internalized homophobia making him behave that way. Shane was gay and in an actively hostile environment and you know how often he said slurs in his career? Never. Ilya is in a closeted relationship and from a country where homosexuality is criminalized and you know how often he said slurs? Never. Same with Scott Hunter.

And what about the non-homophobic slurs? What about the racism and misogyny? Shane is supposed to be chill about that because it came from someone who is gay? The fact Troy was gay the whole time makes it a betrayal. Troy knew what it was like to be othered, and that didn’t stop him.

Shane is so tired of having to bear these responsibilities he never asked for. He’s so tired of taking the blame for his own pain. He’s tired of being the Asian role model who doesn’t get to get angry. Who has to grin and bear it. He never had the option to behave like Troy, so all his internalized homophobia was only ever pointed inward. Troy took the easy way out and he still got the happy ending Shane fought tooth and nail for. It’s not fair.

And now Shane is finally out. He’s finally on a team with his husband with players who support him. But fucking Troy Barrett is there. And he just has to grin and bear it.

blanklier

getting onto the troy and shane dynamics train and it's like. i think shane especially gets angry because he can't be angry. like oh wow, you dealt with your queerness by projecting as a bigot and saying homophobic and racist shit on the ice. you got angry at everyone and said whatever you felt like you needed to say and nobody ever questioned you for it. and then when you felt like it was enough you just... walked away.

and here's shane, who is never. never. allowed to be angry. has to be perfect, has to pull his weight and more, has to push the team forward even when they're saying the same shit behind his back; has to ignore the slurs on the ice and grit his teeth and push forward. and he can never leave it behind. for all his life, he's going to be the gay asian hockey player. there's no out for what's hurting him. he just has to stand there and take it when he's outed, when the sport itself tries to threaten him, when he's not allowed to have anything just for himself. and he's not allowed to be angry about it.

sabotage-on-mercury

ryan price is the only person who can understand shane's resentment towards troy barret and there is so much potential in ryan becoming a confidant for shane.

they definitely had did not the same experience, of course, and especially the facts that troy got his perfect coming out while shane got punished + the racism shane probably was confronted with by troy are unique for shane. ryan on the other hand experienced mobbing and downright emotional abuse.

but they both share the fact experience of having to watch troy being absolved for all the shit he did and yes they see that troy changed for the better, that he wants to make a difference, he apologizes he wants to make amends, he takes responsibility (even tho there is still a lot of room for processing all the shit he did just saying) and that is all great.

but there is still this lingering resentment both shane and ryan feel towards him. maybe they don't hate him anymore, but that doesn't mean they feel comfortable around him, that there isnt anger or jealousy (especially on shane's part). they have no reason to trust troy, to like or forgive them, and yet because they are teammates / colleagues for the summer camp they have to find a way to be polite. 'why wouldn't they want to spend time with a funny and loyal person like troy?' for ilya and the cens, troy is a good friend and while they rationally know about his past and they had never were his victims, it was very easy for them to forgive. It's fucking unfair to shane and also for ryan that everyone suddenly expects they get along perfectly with the reformed bad guy when they are stuck in this goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. epecially shane has to be the bigger person if he doesn't wants be the ones being alienated or the reason the team spirit suffers. shane is pretty alone with his feelings, and yes, ilya will be supportive as he can, but the only who could understand would be ryan. he put some healthy distance between himself and pro hockey and being with fabian definitely sped up ryan's healing journey so probably he has made his peace already, but he is an empathic person. and I would love to see him giving advice to shane (and also I think shane spending more time with Ryan and Fabian wouldn help shane through his internalised homophobia)

shut-up-gwen

Ilya: this guy is cute, I should start a stationary bike race so he knows I want to get sweaty together

Ilya: that didn’t quite work. Maybe I should just give him the eye? While I tell him I hope he likes his new city?

Ilya: okay. But surely if I make him drink from my water bottle and brush his fingers when passing it over…?

Ilya: call him pretty. To his face. No way he can miss that

Ilya: desperate measures, I’ll have to tell him I orchestrated this whole ad campaign just so I could see him again

Ilya: WHAT IF I STARTED JERKING OFF IN THESE COMUNAL SHOWERS?

deja-b00

somehow it comes up that troy had a crush on shane and was going to ask for his number. and after troy gets ribbed by his teammates and ilya makes a big scene, shane is like, “well i never would’ve gone out with you lol.”

and troy smiles, “right, because you were with roz the whole time.”

“i mean, yes, but also because you and dallas kent spent years calling me and jj ‘rush hour’ and asking hayden if his wife was his beard to cover up for his big gay relationship with me.”

the rest of the centaurs blink. harris puts his head in his hands and groans.

and troy’s like, “oh. right. sorry about that :/“

jewelcoatfish

i also read a post that the cens being awkward and cold to shane at first bc they think he’s the reason ilya’s sad and withdrawn from the team, so i’d love for these both to come into play where the cens have to face the truth that not only was shane suffering from a lot more than they can imagine, one of their beloved teammates was the direct instigator and cause for him being afraid of coming out.

i think it would be harris, during one of the cens get together, when they’re all a bit tipsy and harris asks is troy awkward around shane because he used to have a crush on shane, and after wooing and teasing sounds this scene occurs.

it was wyatt, iirc, that played with troy and saw how he behaved, and it really put into perspective to him if that the environment was making troy, a gay person, behave like a bigoted asshole, so how would it treat shane, who is not only a poc but also closeted and in a relationship with his rival for 3 years.

i don’t think ilya knows the extent of bad treatment shane underwent either, because for the first 7 years of them involved they didn’t talk about feelings, and the next 3 they were under so much pressure of keeping everything up and running there was just too much to pinpoint a specific instance, and so at that point he was like, hmph, maybe shane not wanting me to come out to troy before made sense.

hollanovhaunting

I need someone to write a fic where

1) Shane is moving to the Cens and it actually IS very awkward and the Cens are not lovely and wholesome right off the bat because

2) there is a widespread misunderstanding when Shane and Ilya get outed where the Cens, missing ALL of the context, are assuming that Shane must’ve been a shit partner with how rough Ilya was doing this past season and assume that Shane was *forcing* Ilya to stay closeted because he’s *ashamed* of Ilya and their relationship

3) Shane is actually pretty hurt by the Cens being cold and distant with him but doesn’t complain about it because literally everyone else ever has behaved like that towards him in his life except for Ilya, Rose, and the Pikes. He’s very much like “well well look who’s inside again” about it.

4) Ilya doesn’t realize the Cens are thinking Shane is BadTM because he’s wrapped up in how happy he is to have Shane around now. He actually does not realize any of this is happening until their first week of practice as a new team and he sees his team icing his husband out

5) Ilya tries to talk to Shane about it but Shane is very much like “don’t worry Ilya this is normal and I’m fine cause I have you” and it makes Ilya want to kill the Metros three times over

6) Shane also agrees with the Cens about himself being a shitty husband when he hears the reasoning behind their behavior. So he just decides to work hard at being a husband and a teammate and keep his head down.

7) Ilya doesn’t know what to do. Shane is adamant that he doesn’t want Ilya to confront the team and that he can’t control what others think about him and he doesn’t want it to be a big deal. But Ilya is also seeing Shane be as sad and withdrawn as he was last season and is actively getting worse- being more strict than ever about his diet, constantly working out and straining himself, being first on the ice and last to leave

8) some of the Cens slowly start realizing that they have Shane wrong over more time with him- mainly Luca, Troy, Harris, Wyatt, and Bood. But they have put walls up that they don’t know how to tear down without spooking Shane.

9) The rest of the team don’t realize how shitty this must be for Shane until the Cens go up against the Metros and they realize that they’ve been treating Shane the same way his old and terrible teams did- they watch as Shane takes scathing insults with a blank face, gets back up without a word after being smashed against the boards, gives a polite smile (the same smile he’s given them when they’re being passive aggressive) when receiving glares and threats from his ex teammates.

10) idk it can go many ways from here- Shane gets hurt and has to leave the ice and the teams finds him genuinely upset and they all have a confrontation- or the Metros target Ilya and the Cens see Shane lose his shit and how in love and protective he is- or the Cens stop icing him out after this and slowly start to actually get to know him and maybe apologize. Idk. The world is your oyster or whatever. I just want Protective Cens but it Backfires Pretty Badly.

11) Bonus points if Ilya eventually confronts them and then, when he hears their reasoning, is very much like “you??? Hurt my husband??? For me??? He wasn’t a bad partner??? I have depression??? Is chemical imbalance not abuse???????” And is absolutely pissed lmao

gingerpolyglot

Someone commented on @giveemhales great fic about Ilya pushing Shane to be friends with Troy and it backfiring that Ilya should be respecting Shane's boundaries about Troy, and it got me thinking about the delicious potential parallels between Troy and Hayden

(This isn't Troy OR Hayden hate, I just think these dynamics are super juicy to play with)

Here we have two men with a history of hating their best friends partner. I've seen a hell of a lot of (justified) fic and meta about Shane telling Hayden off for how he talks to/about Ilya, but it is juicy to put that next to Troy

Hayden hates Ilya specifically for his intentionally obnoxious persona on the ice, whereas Shane bore a lot of Troy's homophobia (and probably racism) before he Reformed, and I think there's some really interesting depths to be plumbed around who is asked to hold who accountable and when/why

Especially given that while Hayden's comments are out of line, Shane is essentially fully isolated except for him and JJ, who also reacts terribly about Ilya, which would absolutely make Shane reluctant to put his foot down and risk losing his only allies in the locker room. For all that Ilya feels alone in Ottawa, Troy isn't actually his literal only option for friendship.

hollanovhaunting

I do think this is incredibly interesting, especially with all of the separate lived experiences interacting here! Like Shane is at the Top of the game, but essentially the bottom of the social ladder among this group. He’s Asian, gay, and autistic- that’s a hell if a lot of social baggage that weighs down the views others have of him. He is VERY aware that JJ and Hayden are his only real supports and he cannot risk losing the only dependable foundation he has in Montreal.

Meanwhile, Hayden is white, cis and straight, and neurotypical (I’m assuming). Yet he is the one who is probably the most aware of how wrongly Shane has been treated because he’s actually /seen/ it. He knows Shane is treated differently by the others and goes out of his way to be a support for Shane because of it. His dislike of Ilya is born of ignorance of Ilya’s 1) own lived experiences with abuse and how targeted queer people are in his home country and 2) Ilya’s own outsider identity due to his nationality in the US along with his PTSD and depression.

Then there’s Ilya who has those aforementioned experiences but ultimately lacks insight into the actual racism and discrimination Shane faced among his teammates because Shane has been taught to keep it to himself. So he knows Shane was treated poorly, but not to what extent. And he knows that Hayden is Shane’s main support, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he felt that Hayden didn’t do enough for Shane in that locker room since Ilya wasn’t there to protect him himself. Plus there’s the possible resentment for the trauma that came with Ilya and Shane being outed so publicly.

And lastly there’s Troy, who is likely tied with Hayden in terms of social privilege (or he was until he came out), but he didn’t tie himself to someone as vastly different as Shane. In fact, Troy was deeply tied to someone who had a high amount of social power before he ended up on the Centaurs and Reformed. Troy knows how othered he is partly because he’s been on the top of the social ladder and has a comparison for how differently he’s treated first hand. But he still is ignorant to how different his own experiences with discrimination are in comparison to Shane’s.

People with higher social privilege tend to misread their own discriminatory behavior because a lot of it is socialized into them- they’re not always acting with the formed thought of “im going to hurt them because they are worth less socially than I am”. A lot of it is done with the idea that it’s just “normal”- and a lot of what Troy did was camouflage to assimilate in with the socially “superior” group as a survival tactic- so now he’s wrestling with the guilt of what he’s said and done, but he still is lacking the knowledge of just how much pain his words and actions have affected others, especially in terms of racism and ableism.

So Troy looks at Shane and sees someone he has hurt on , from his POV, a surface level that has caused harm to his best friend. This leaves a lot of room for misunderstandings to develop between Shane and Troy, especially since Troy is lacking the context for basically everything. Which can lead to Ilya being frustrated at Troy for imposing his own POV onto his and Shane’s relationship. Or it can lead to Shane feeling even more insecure in himself and his place in Ilya’s life.

Meanwhile Shane looks at Troy and sees someone who has, from his POV, actively targeted him and harmed him and sees him as worth less due to his race. Someone who is best friends with the person he loves most- which leaves Shane conflicted and upset because how can Ilya be friends with him and also because he doesn’t want to cause Ilya pain by not being on okay terms with Troy. There’s a lot of opportunity here for resentment aimed at both Troy and Ilya and also for Shane to minimize and disregard his own comfort and security.

And Hayden is looking at Ilya and seeing someone who, again, from his own POV, has always gone out of his way to make Hayden and others (including Shane in his mind) feel uncomfortable. Hayden lacks the context of what Ilya has been through and how this has caused him to develop a mask as a coping mechanism. Hayden sees someone so different than Shane and he cannot bring himself to believe that there’s anything the two have in common- which can also create issues with resentment and frustration. This might make Hayden resent and even dismiss Shane’s feelings because he’s convinced Shane is the one who is misunderstanding the situation- which can also just lead to Shane feeling ignored and infantilized.

And Ilya looks at Hayden and sees someone who did not protect Shane enough on the Metros. Someone who has been a vocal antagonist to Ilya and Shane’s relationship since he found out. Someone who can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be on the outside looking in. Which could make Ilya even worse with his mask of obnoxious disregard as a protective measure against someone he knows will never approve.

Every single one of them is a complex and fully formed individual and yet they’re all trying to see each other in black and white. They’re a mess. 😭

gingerpolyglot

YES YES YES Exactly all of this!!! I think the resentment is the biggest piece of it for me, because I do think Shane knows Ilya still really doesn't get the racism aspect but it's also such background radiation that he doesn't really let himself think about it too long, certainly not long enough to explain it to Ilya, and when he does think about it there's definitely some bitterness over the way Ilya treated Shane's in retrospect 100% justified concerns about coming out, which were absolutely informed by that racism, even if Shane knows that if he wants Ilya to understand he does have to explain it (and even so there's the very understandable frustration that he has to be the one to explain)

And then for Ilya to latch onto Troy of all people, Shane definitely feels like he can't say anything about it after keeping Ilya in the closet so long - he doesn't want to go from preventing Ilya from coming out about them to controlling who he's friends with, but the resentment about Ilya being frankly pretty dismissive of his fears and simultaneously becoming besties with one of the people who made Shane afraid of coming out would eat Shane alive if he ever let himself think about it.

And to come back to the Hayden piece, I can definitely see an argument where Ilya brings up the way Hayden treats him and while YMMV on how good a friend Hayden actually is, it does start to feel like a false equivalence between "guy who can't see behind the public mask to the good person underneath being overprotective of his best friend in a way that tips over to condescending and problematic" and "former active bigot and person he was actively bigoted to" but to your very excellent point, Ilya, like Troy and Hayden, has enough social capital that he doesn't see the full damage that Shane just had to absorb

At the same time I do think Shane gives Hayden more of a pass than he maybe deserves, which Ilya sees, but it's not JUST because if he loses Hayden and JJ he loses his only friends on the team. It's that if there's dysfunction in the locker room bad enough to spill onto the ice, that gives Montreal and excuse to get rid of him (which again, he's proven right about) and so keeping the peace with Hayden and JJ isn't just about their personal relationships, it's also about hockey - it's a professional necessity at that point, regardless of how he feels about it personally, which yet again is something Ilya and Hayden have no frame of reference for and Troy has the wrong frame of reference for (cozying up to Kent put him on the other side of this)

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