Your Shane listens to white noise and whale song and downtempo. And thereâs nothing wrong with that, the last is probably even show canon.
However! My Shane listens to a lot of heavy metal music. Now maybe youâre asking yourself: what the fuck is this girl yapping about? Which is fair I only know Shane Hollander from 3.5 episodes and like maybe 7 chapters and the fan posts and fanfiction that crosses my dash, but HEAR ME OUT!!!
Iâm someone who gets over stimulated and has auditory processing issues. White noise is actually HELL to me. I will wear noise cancelling headphones phones in an empty room because the ambient noise is being too ambient. It feels like itâs burrowing into my skull and trying to eat my brain (especially when itâs very repetitive/consistent). Sometimes downtempo music is okay, but something about the rythem of a lot of this type of music can make me want to crawl out of my skin. SO⊠what always works and is my favorite background noise when Iâm over stimulated?
HEAVY METAL! There is often a guitar and/or drum anchor to focus on through out the song and the words can blend with the instruments. Itâs actually so satisfying to regulate to.
Yes this idea is me projecting onto Shane Hollander, but itâs also has so much potential
He gets into Russian Heavy Metal once him and Ilya start meeting up because itâs actually better to not understand the words and sometimes the accents remind him of Ilya (in a totally casual way).
At first Shane thinks nothing of it, and he has very few conversations about music taste so what does it matter. Except someone on the voyagers hears Shaneâs music or Shane mentions a song and the guy is like ??!!?!?? âDude are you okay?â Do you need someone to talk to? Youâre not alone youâve got the team behind you!â Which of course weirds Shane out so much that he never lets another soul know his music preferences.
Except after theyâre married both Shane and Ilya want to work out together. Theyâre a little codependent, but theyâve got so much lost time to make up. And their home gym is fitted with a state of the art sound system so it doesnât make sense to listen to music separately (and Ilya also just really wants to know what Shane listens to because every time he asks Shaneâs just shrugs and says the normal stuff and then Ilya just has to tease him about being boring, but Ilya is starting to realize Shaneâs never put music on he hasnât already heard Ilya play).
The first couple of times working out together Ilya puts on his playlists, doesnât want to shake Shaneâs routine up too much. When he suggests Shane play something, Shane gets a little cagey and says âhe doesnât care what they listen toâ. Ilya tries to appeal to fairness and bribery, but nothing works.
Until Ilya tells to Shane that he seems a little off his game when they only listen to Ilyaâs music and since the season is approaching maybe itâs time to return to routine. It works Shane cues up his favorite workout playlist and starts his warm ups refusing to make eye contact with Ilya.
Ilya is accosted with just a wall of sound: thereâs drums, guitars, a flute, at one point he thinks he hears bag pipes. All with some guy screaming about death and starvation. Shane just keeps stretching like everything is fine and Ilya has to reorient his entire world view because WHAT?!
First Ilya thinks Shane only listens to get pumped for work outs, until one day he finds Shane curled up on the outdoor couch at the cottage with his headphones on. When Ilya lifts on side (half expecting whale noises) he is greeted with the roaring growl of a screaming man.
Ilya gets used to it, even starts to like it (the intensity of the music actually fits his husband very well). He even ends up adding a few of the songs to his rotation because they remind him of Shane and you can understand about 3/5s of the words. And then it becomes just another facet of their life they both cherish listening to each-others music and enjoying the company.
Then one day the centaurs start talking about favorite songs and genres or maybe Harris is trying to make a socials post with everyoneâs favorite songs. Inevitably they start asking Shane (who none of them remembers ever even mentioning music) Shane of course deflects, shrugs and says he âdoesnât really like musicâ.
Of course no one is satisfied with that answer, so they keep asking, ealize Shane is never going to tell and then start asking Ilya. Ilya, who can never pass up an opportunity for antics tells them the same thing every time: ĐĐ”Đ»Đ°ĐœĐžĐ” (Desire) by My Autumn (which does happen to be a song Shane plays a lot). They wonder of Ilya is messing with them (it just all seemed too easy so the centaurs play the song. And then theyâre sure Ilya is messing with them. They keep asking and keep wondering what kind of music Shane listens to, and Ilya always gives the same answer. So the Centaurs and Harris hatch a plan: they make a new rule that every practice the warm up music is chosen by one person on the team. They donât push Shane into right away, but theyâre only so patient. Finally! On Shaneâs day Ilya is smirking and Shane keeps offering to let others choose (no one takes him up on it, but a rookie gets yelled at for seemingly thinking about the offer for too long). So Shane turns on his warm up playlist, syncs it to the overhead Bluetooth and heads to the ice. Ilya gets to watch as the color drains from the centaurs faces as the opening begins to play. He gets to watch the pure confusion as they watch Shane doing warm up skates to the tones of a chaotic instruments and a seemingly very angry screaming man.
Still they only really believe when they catch Shane on the bench mouthing the words to one of the more coherent songs.
