4 actually really very good HR fics with under 11k hits
views are unpredictable, fics are great, sometimes something fantastic somehow misses the spotlight, bla-bla, anyway, I have read so many great fics, which are somehow not the talk of the fandom yet;
and here some of them, I do have enough material for parts 2,3 and 4 but I am also very very lazy, so who knows
"the lake house" by @theartoflabiomancy (30k words, non-hockey AU, E)
Fic summary: The following weekend, interrupting an argument about saving versus spending, Kip said for the first time, “Why do I lowkey feel like you guys are perfect for each other?”
There was a brief silence at the dinner table. Then Hollander started laughing. With his full chest, which Ilya had never heard. Ilya started laughing, too, and then everyone else joined in. “Good one,” Ilya said.
Random quote I liked:
“We all know it would never work. Roz is too busy sleeping his way through every single woman north of the river.”
“Excuse me,” Ilya said, irked. “Bisexual erasure, Hunter. I am sleeping my way through every single woman and man.”
Mix of thoughts and feelings: The whole cast is great (while, obviously, the focus is on Shane and Ilya), funny, light, reminds the best kind of romcom that you read or watch to be transported to the sunny and happy days and mindless hangouts with friends. I think I have reread it three or four times, just because it leaves this easy and happy aftertaste; the combination of nature, banter and romance with very clear and logical plot progression. Do you have any idea what it is about? Still no? Like, you know the cottage? It's a lake house now, and a group of friends meets there on the weekends. Guess who starts sleeping together.
"i looked over it and i ached" by @isvsworld (7k, a mindblowing Shane character study, no rating)
Fic summary:
“I don’t really think about stuff like that,” Shane replies in interviews, his lips wooden at the words.
---
Shane and being haafu, 2nd gen, and Asian.
Random quote I think about a lot:
“I grew up eating cake with spoon, in Russia. And you ate cake with fork like an American. And if the world was crazy, and you were better at Russian than me, I still have grown up eating cake with spoon, and you haven’t.” He nodded like he said something profound.
“What?” Shane replied.
Mix of thoughts and feelings:
just as a lot of people who write, I am very attracted to things which are written in the way I will never be able to replicate. This is an in-depth character study of Shane, managing to capture the identity and the omnipresent context of racism in the way, that it is difficult to look at the characters with the same eyes again. Absolutely groundbreaking, and honestly, should be a mandatory read. I do make the rules in this case but it's a good one, believe me.
I keep coming back to this one, the way dialogue is realistic to the extent that the heartbreak of the sharp words feels very real as well.
"car wash redhead, tube top R.E.M. concert, juror #6" by rockbound (2k words, character study)
Fic summary: The only trick is to have no fear, and even less fear than that the more trouble one is in. Ilya cannot teach that to a man who has directed his energies into becoming, not like a saint, but like a painting of a saint, all dripping in symbolism: the way the robe drapes here, yes, that is on purpose, and the angle of the light, the patron’s face in the crowd, the instrument of the martyrdom in his hand and the fruit in the bowl on the table, all arranged except when—
Random quote which should force you to read it immediately:
“Promise me that if you get rabies, you’ll bite me,” Shane tells him.
Mixed thoughts and feelings: very impressive how in the very small space of the text (less than 3k words!), there is enough place to completely open up Ilya's character and have a couple of absolutely banging and very very funny moments, and it's also sad as well?? I like to write 1k of words with just a person going from the room A to room B, how the hell this is possible?
I like the normal which is so organically clings to both Shane and Ilya in the text. Ilya having bad teeth and feeling insecure about it. Financial issues. Love. Just read it, ok, it's 2k words, it's really good.
"gens du pays" by @khafre (Ilya/Shane, Sasha/Shane, E, 5k)
Fic summary:
Shane wished there was someone to tell him what to do, because he didn’t know. There were no rules for this, no directions, no destination, no future. He felt like he was waiting for something to happen to him. He wondered if he was a bad person.
Or, Shane embarks on casual sex with yet another Russian.
Just a really good quote for you to understand how impeccable the style is:
"He didn’t like Alex, not really. He wouldn’t want to be seen with him in public. There was something about the way he moved. His hips, his hands, the tilt of his head—it all was so terribly revealing. When the guys in the locker room called each other “fairy” and “fag” and “cocksucker,” Shane laughed along and thought of Alex.
Shane wondered if Alex had ever tried to hide it, whether he was even capable. Surely he had. Everyone had at least tried to hide it growing up. Shane wondered if Alex had ever managed it convincingly. He thought Alex might have liked to be able to hide it better, but couldn’t, and so he leaned into it as if that’s what he’d meant to do all along. Shane was grateful it wasn’t so obvious in himself."
Thoughts/feelings: First of all, it is fantastic prose, I really struggled to pick an element from the text, which would confidently stand on it's own and won't ruin the experience of this thing as a whole. It is a very - very beautifully made and fully formed story, which is somehow is a love triangle. I am extremely intriguied by Sasha as a character, and he is absolutely fantastic and tragic and beautiful here, as a quiet opposite of Ilya.
Both relationships of Shane, both handled gently and movingly, also co-exist with - you guessed it - a character study, and everything just culminates in the very very very moving final scene.
I loved every bit of it, and wish I could have this but like in the form of 200k words novel. It's v good.
Irakl Khvedaguridze, 81, is the only licensed doctor across 386 sq miles of mountainous region, serving a dwindling community of Tush people in north-east Georgia. During the summer and early autumn, he gets to his patients on his white horse, Bichola. When the snow gets too deep, Khvedaguridze converts his shoes into skis using birch planks nailed with wide canvas. Once the snow rises above his knees, he can only travel on foot (x)
chapter 8/12
"Proof By Contradiction"
(Shane/Ilya, Academia-AU, currenty 45k words)
Summary of the work:
"Shane Hollander is leading the stressful but unspectacular life of a doctoral student in the small university town of Tübingen, Germany. His immediate plans include finishing his dissertation in Model Theory, teaching an introductory course in logic, and minding his own business.
Enter: an arrogant Machine Learning researcher, Ilya Rozanov. A disastrous one-night stand, academic rivalry, and so many misunderstandings follow.
A bold, Ali Hazelwood-esque academic AU set in a world where hockey, unfortunately, does not exist.
.
"You smoke?" a voice asked beside him. Shane turned around, realising he was not alone.
"No, sorry," Shane answered, feeling slightly foolish.
The man shrugged, without a smile, and turned away — an unlit cigarette between his fingers.
"Wait — I have a lighter," Shane corrected himself, now feeling more than foolish, fishing Hayden's lighter from his pocket.
"So you're a liar?" the stranger asked, amused.
"No — you made the wrong inference," Shane replied. "It doesn't follow that a person in possession of a lighter smokes."
