Just thinking about Ilya making the playoffs for the first time with the Cens and getting texts from Yuna and David about it.
Yuna's one is like, "HOLY SHIT THE CENTAURS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS! I never thought I'd be so excited to say that. 😂 This is such a huge achievement and I couldn't be more proud of you! This means I'm finally going to have to cave and by an Ottawa jersey. Don't tell David I told you, but he's still drying his eyes about it. Bubbly when you and Shane come over on Saturday for SURE, okay? Love you lots. SO proud."
And David's is like, "You did it, Cap! I know how hard you worked for this and it's paid off. We'll be cheering you on for every game. I am so unbelievably proud of you, kiddo. Love you lots - can't wait to see you and Shane on Saturday."
And Ilya just sits there unable to breathe because he's never had a text like this after making the playoffs except maybe from Svetlana. He replies to the messages, eyes blurry with tears, and spends the rest of the night opening them at random times, just overwhelmed by how loved he truly is.
Finished my TLG re-read and I've been seeing posts circulating coming to Shane's defense in that central conflict, and I am finding them interesting because there's often this tactic agreement in them that anyone else would have picked up that Ilya is going through it, but Shane doesn't because of [insert valid reason I usually agree with].
But...I actually don't think Shane is missing it. I think Ilya has built a pattern of lying about anything that isn't absolutely perfect about his life or interior state, from something as small as not sleeping well to as major as how much he would mind Shane sleeping with other people.
Shane in-text is aware that something is off with Ilya. It's very present in his thoughts that he's missing something, that something is going on with Ilya, that Ilya is withholding things and picking little fights but not saying what the issue is:
And what I think Shane doesn't get credit for is that he asks Ilya about it.
Shane doesn't just ruminate, or barrel on as if nothing is wrong. He tries to engage, he tries to do things to cheer Ilya up and plan things he knows Ilya enjoys. And when that doesn't work he asks, outright and directly, and Ilya shuts the conversation down, repeatedly.
Ilya is deflecting and avoiding the discussion through feigning ignorance, snark, purposefully misunderstanding Shane's words, trying to turn it into a fight, and outright telling Shane not to worry and that he's fine. And to Shane's thought there at the end, how is Shane supposed to force the issue, if Ilya doesn't want to talk about it? What does support in that moment look like, when Ilya won't share what's wrong?
And Ilya is actively aware that he's dodging conversation and withholding the information from Shane. He acknowledges it in both his internal monologue and out loud:
And it's clearly a deep-rooted habit of avoidance.
Ilya recognizes the specific face Shane makes when Ilya us using snark to deflect a serious conversation, aka, it happens so often that there's a recognizable and specific response it elicits. Shane yanks back that bid for connection and understanding the second Ilya doesn't meet it. It's such a habit that even after the plane incident, Ilya can't acknowledge that he might not be okay, when it would be wild to expect him to be okay in that situation (and when Shane clearly doesn't expect him to be).
Even in the Big Fight itself, we see the pattern playing out in how it starts. Ilya snarks and digs instead of saying why he's upset. Shane asks five (5!!) times for some type of help in understanding what is going on with Ilya. And Ilya rebuffs him with passive aggressiveness, snark, purposeful misunderstanding, and bad-faith interpretations of his words.
Ilya is trying to pick a fight to avoid the actual conversation about his emotional states and wants and needs, and he's resenting Shane for not understanding something that Ilya not only never told him about but worked to actively hide from him (something Ilya's own therapist points out isn't reasonable for him to expect of Shane, which. Many people seem to forget in their recollections of the book...)
And how does Shane respond when he learns the shape of what Ilya is upset about?
He feels terrible for not knowing Ilya's emotional state and that he'd been unhappy in their status quo, though he sets aside his own feelings in the name of supporting Ilya in the immediate moment.
And he arrows in on Ilya's self-sacrifice in the name of Shane's happiness as a problem that needs to be addressed, even with others in Shane's life don't seem to recognize it as a problem. Their relationship is foundationally one between equals. Shane doesn't want Ilya giving unequally into it. Ilya lashing out frames it as a balance of 'who has given more', but Shane doesn't want either of them to 'win' the who-can-sacrifice more-for-the-other-competition. He wants neither of them to be engaging in that competition in the first place!
The other piece I think that gets forgotten is that Shane is the one who initially introduces the idea of changing things. They have a plan together (that Ilya actively participated in making!), but Shane floats the idea that they could have another plan:
Ilya doesn't take him up on it, which is fair. But that's a sign for Ilya that Shane is ready to have that conversation (and the reader sees Shane's narration is full of chafing at hiding), one that Ilya misses in his assumption that Shane is perfectly happy in the status quo because Ilya hasn't actually asked:
And importantly, Ilya's stakes have changed. At the end of Heated Rivalry, he communicates that the consequences of being outed are fairly dire in terms of being an openly queer, famous Russian. Ilya through therapy is acknowledging (or coming to realize) that the stakes are different for him now.
But Ilya never tells Shane, who is still operating on 'dire impacts' assumptions in his drive to protect their relationship and keep it a secret. And so Shane doesn't tell Ilya that he is frustrated with aspects of needing to hide their relationship in turn, because that frustration feels like a small price to pay against Ilya's stakes.
They both proceed forward with incorrect understanding of each other, born out of trying to protect the other from their own unhappiness. And it's great, organic, character-driven setup for them both to learn and grow, individually and together within the space of their relationship, and come out the other end stronger.
I think Shane was a character who, soon as I read him, made all the sense to me. I felt immediately a kinship and an ownership over Shane. I was like, “I need to be the only person to tell this story. I get it. I want to be the person to be Shane and I want to spend time with him.” [x]
(sources below)
PANEL 1
Out
PANEL 2 (fear/desire)
The Permanent Rain Press
PANEL 3 (vegas bathroom)
Numero Netherlands
PANEL 4 (tears)
Harper's Bazaar
PANEL 5 (ilya inverse)
Teen Vogue
Image: [x]
PANEL 6 (additions) (4 gifs)
Numero Netherlands
Entertainment Weekly
I think its so unfair being in a relatively young fandom as my primary hyperfixation. Cause like my friends are obsessed with shows that have 14+ seasons, and a movie. With decades of interviews, and lore development to consume at rates, that in the larger context of the total volume of show, seems like chill grazing.
Whereas I'm a tenured fandom girlie who hasn't really had a proper obsession to this degree since phase 3 MCU, and I'm working with 6 episodes and 6 books of separate cannon.
There is no way for me to not look like a lunatic doing another full reheat just to count how many times their toes touch.
Harry Potter is trending at #1 on tumblr so I thought I’d take the opportunity to say fuck JKR, fuck transphobes, fuck her stupid books, her theme park, her endless landfill fodder merch slop, and her fucking castle on a hill. Read another book yall!! Read another book!!!!!!!
I got another spam comment today on AO3, and I want to share it as a PSA. But before I do, I want you to understand that you SHOULD NOT DO what this comment is asking. Ok? Ok.
See that bit at the bottom? Don't do that. Insert ParamedicGuy.gif going "Don't."
Other malicious spam comments I've gotten seemed designed to make an author question their writing, or outright encourage them to delete their stories from AO3. This one is different, in that it tries to get you to destroy the work on your own computer.
If you ran that command, it basically locates your Documents folder, then deletes everything in it, including all subfolders. It also does it without any prompt, so you have no chance to second guess your actions.
This is just fucking trolling.
Coincidentally, we just did training on a cyberattack similar to this, called a ClickFix attack. You can read about how that works here.
As a general rule, if ANYONE or ANY WEBSITE tells you unsolicited* to do anything in Powershell, CMD RUN, command prompt, shell command, or something similar, DON'T.
*There are legit reasons for running commands in PowerShell or the command prompt, but in those cases you are likely seeking out a solution to a problem you are already experiencing. Don't just run random commands on your computer as recommended by some unlogged-in guest on a fan fiction site.
Always think and consider before taking action, and get a second opinion from a trusted source. When I got this comment I was pretty sure what the command would do, and it took me about three seconds of googling to confirm it.
as an IT guy I can confirm that this command WILL delete all your shit. DO NOT DO IT.
Here's a bit of a further breakdown for the ones curious about what the hell this command does.
What you're basically telling your PC if you ran this is "go into this folder (Documents) and then Recursively (for all sub-folders) Remove (delete) all files therein Forcefully (without any user input and also if a file was locked)."
The little "Exclude *.archiveofourown" they tack in there is just honestly absolutely diabolical if you don't know what you're looking at.
As an inexperienced user, you'll think "oh of course, exclude ao3, that's what I want!"
*.archiveofourown is a file ending, including any file title.
There are not archiveofourown files.
This is telling your PC to ignore files that don't exist.
Honestly, the gall of these trolls is astounding.
DO NOT DO THIS.
And as a further alarm bell, even if a well-meaning anon came to your comments to warn you:
why has ao3 not put out this warning officially?
this command is for Windows users. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO USE MAC OR LINUX?
Hope my humble knowledge was informative to someone. Stay safe, everyone.
good morning today i’m thinking about ‘bolshe ilya bolshe bolshe bolshe’ vs ‘i want to relax with you’
i don’t want to bleed you dry and wring you out like an old tea towel and take whatever i can get and still demand more. i just want to exist near you. i want us both to be happy and chill and having a fun time. i’m excited to go to my favourite and most peaceful place and take you with me. i hope it brings peace for you too. when was the last time someone wanted peace for you ilya
izzy806
ellievsbear
