at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.
At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.
nothinggg is more ilya than the tampa hotel room sequence where shane comes out, ilya acts like a dick while keeping himself physically as far from shane as possible, shane gets his feelings hurt and starts looking a little chin-wobbly, and ilya audibly GROANS and flings himself across the room to sit next to him on the bed. but heâs still not looking at shane or touching him because ilya is NOT here to comfort him or anything ok he just randomly and totally unrelatedly got tired of standing up at the exact moment that shaneâs big brown eyes started getting all wet and shiny with tears and the nearest place to sit down happened to be on the bed next to shane. do NOT read anything into this none of this means ANYTHING (in under two minutes he will be crying in shaneâs arms btw)
It's not r*pe, it's rape. It's not su*cide, it's suicide. Not unalive, dead. The backbone needs to be reintroduced en masse because softening the blow of these concepts with advertising language does absolutely nothing but allow people unaffected by them to feel not even a sting of what they can do, prompting inaction.
And it's been proven that on certain websites, you don't even face a repercussion for using the words as they are. People just started censoring themselves because they feared the potential lack of views and likes and followers which is so nasty itself.
I attended an anti-suicide seminar in college. One of the big takeaways from it was that stigmatizing suicide increases the rate of suicide, because people who are feeling suicidal feel like they can't ask for help. Every time I see babytalk garbage like 'unalive', I think of that.
it's very funny how people immediately forget a character is disabled as soon as their character arc stops orbiting around their disability. like he's missing a leg.
still thinking about ilya teaching shane how to fuck his girlfriend in this university au, and well.
* * *
âOh my god, Hollander, what are you doing?â
Hollander throws Ilya a dirty look and throws his free hand up. âIâm trying to finger my girlfriend,â he snaps. âLike you asked, asshole.â
Ilya bites his tongue so he doesnât grin, or worse, laugh. Hollanderâs irritation buzzes over his skin, making him giddy. âAre you? Because it looks like youâre trying to find your boring car keys in there.â
Out of the corner of his eyes, Ilya sees Jessica purse her lips until theyâre bloodless. Her hand twitches, as if to fly to her mouth, but instead, places it on Hollanderâs forearm.
âFuck you.â
Oh, a boy can dream. Maybe one day. Maybe soon.
Ilya traces the sullen, embarrassed look on Hollanderâs face and grins to himself when Hollander wonât meet his gaze, eyes skirting around. He shouldnât have pity, he normally doesnât have, or at least not with most people. But Hollander is...Hollander is so boring, itâs hard to not take pity on him.
Carefully, Ilya shifts. Hollanderâs eyes immediately zero in on his movement, tracking it warily, and itâs hilarious, really, but right now, Ilya does not want to spook him. Itâs important that he doesnât spook him.
Hollanderâs fingers have slipped out of his girlfriend and Ilya grabs his wrist. Hollander jolts as if Ilya has shocked him with a taser. As if heâs always taken by surprised to be touched. Touched by Ilya. Hollander isnât afraid of touch. Heâs not afraid of bodies crashing into him, checking him, pushing him.
And yet, he startles whenever Ilya touches him and his eyes drop to where theyâre connected.
Hollanderâs breath hitches a little. He turns his big brown eyes on Ilya. It makes his stomach do funny things, Hollanderâs attention. His naked wish to be guided. He regularly tells Ilya to fuck off and die, but itâs always so plainly in his eyes, his desire to be good for someone.
Ilya wonders if Hollander knows who he wants to be good for.
He guides Hollanderâs hand back to Jessicaâs pussy. âImagine youâre looking for new tape.â
As far as comparisons go, this isnât ideal, but then nothing hockey related works for trying to teach Hollander how to fuck his petite little girlfriend.
âWhat?â
âIâm tape now?â Jessica asks at the same time, head raised to look at him. Thereâs a grin on her face, though. She always surprises him.
âYes, now shhhh,â he tells her and she drops her head with a huff of laughter while Ilya focuses back on Hollander.
âWhy would I look for new tape?â he asks with a frown. His wrist is heavy in Ilyaâs hand. âI like the tape Iâm using.â
Ilya breathes through the raw urge to kiss him. âIs metaphor, Hollander, focus.â
Hollanderâs cheeks pink up so sweetly and he nods, mouthing okay.
âYouâre careful, yes? Getting a feel for it?â
Hollander scowls but it seems like heâs doing it to himself more than to anyone else. Gingerly, he pushes two fingers back into Jessicaâs cunt when Ilya nudges his fingers against it.
âSee how it feels and moves when you touch it,â Ilya continues. He lifts his gaze to look at Hollander and finds him already staring back at him.
Ilya watches his face, watches Hollanderâa eyes flick down to his lips and linger there. It sets off a buzzing in his head whenever he catches Hollander staring at him like this: lost in his own head and with a hunger in his eyes that looks like he has never even thought of sating. Ilya wets his lips unthinkingly.
Hollander blinks rapidly when he shakes himself out of it, eyes skittering away again, and he licks his lips, too.
Ilya shifts closer to him again, remembering why heâs here. With sure fingers, he grips Hollanderâs wrist and enjoys the full-body shudder that runs through him at the touch. Slowly, Ilya pulls his hand back.
âThe...lips are very sensitive, too,â he points out and draws Hollanderâs fingers over her pussy. Hollanderâs breath brushes over his cheek, little shallow shivery things that tickle the hair at Ilyaâs temple.
Ilya lifts his head again and Hollander jerks back, as if he suddenly realized how close heâs drifted.
âI can do it,â he mutters, pissy, and shakes Ilyaâs hand off. His hand looks huge against her cunt.
âYes, sure,â Ilya says and shrugs, curling his hand into the sheets. âYou donât need me at all.â
âFucking asshole.â Hollander looks deliciously flushed and angry.
âNo, we have to teach you how to fuck pussy first.â
âOh my god.â Jessica covers her face, trying to hide her laugh, but her body almost shakes with it.
Hollander has this look in his eyes like heâs considering murder while also looking utterly mortified. Ilya winks at him and ignores the way his stomach flutters at the way Hollanderâs flush deepens.
ok walk with me: hollanov university au wherein shane is full on no homo-ing his way through life. so far, it's only ever been about fantasies and looking at other men, he's not even kissed a guy, he's only thinking about it but thinking about it means nothing, no homo. he has a girlfriend (could be rose, though for this im picturing his book canon hs gf). the sex is. he's not crazy about it, she isn't crazy about it but it's fine, it works.
until one day his gf sits him down and is like, shane, babe, i know you're trying but you're not really good at this, and iâve heard a few other girls talk and this rozanov guy apparently is, like, making them see through time and space, and shane. shane. i want to see through time and space, too.
and shane is of course mortified and is like, you wanna fuck rozanov??? which he kinda gets but also rude. he thought he was doing okay!! he makes sure to get her off!! isn't that what sex is about? but anyway, his gf is like, no, silly, i want him to teach you.
shane blue screens for a whole minute while she keeps talking about how rozanov can show him and teach him and sheâll be there, so itâll be learning by doing which shane is best at, heâs a practical guy. and shane is. heâs. interested. because he wants to get better at sex, at pleasuring his gf, okay, that's what he's supposed to do, that's what straight guys do, it's what fucking rozanov does. shane definitely doesn't think about his infuriating smirk ad what way shane wants to kiss it off his face. and besides, it's not gay because his gf would be there, he's not doing anything with rozanov, so really, no homo.
which is how he ends up in his bedroom with his gf and rozanov, who, for whatever reason, agreed to do this. he's smirking at shane in that way of his that raises shane's hackles in a warm, shivery way. and rozanov seems entirely at ease as he tells shane to walk him through what he usually does and shane starts explaining (while his gf, standing behind him, undresses) and ilya snorts a little and just says, no, hollander, show me.
his gf climbs on the bed and she pulls shane in for a kiss, says, show him, and shane can barely keep up. it's awkward, even more so than usual, because he can't focus on what he needs to do to get her off, too aware of rozanov sitting on his bed, watching silently, and shane can't even see him out of the corner of his eye but despite the awkwardness does something to him, makes him feel all flushed and hot and dizzy, but it's just the embarrassment, right?
it takes him forever to get her off and finally, ilya looks at him with an indiscernible expression and then with pity at his gf, says, i see the problem, and shaneâs immediately defensive, muttering you're the problem under his breath, and gives them fucking homework to write down what they want to work on, what they do, how they do it (and he's looking at shane the whole time) and shane is quietly seething because what a fucking dick.
anyway, it turns into regular sessions and at first, rozanov is hands off, guiding shane with just his voice and shane tells himself he gets hard because he's turned on by his gf. and then, ilyaâs hand is on him, moving him just so, and shane almost comes. it escalates and escalates and escalates, and all the while, shane tells himself that it doesn't mean anything, it's not gay, his gf is there, he's fucking her, and rozanov touching him, holding him, its not gay.
all the while it's a physical threesome and an emotional twosome, and shane wants more and more and more, wants his gf not to be there, and it's not gay, right, because he's doing it for her and rozanov is showing him, making him feel things he's not felt before, this is how sex is supposed to feel like, and shane can use it to pass this feeling on, because now he knows.
except of course it doesn't feel like that at all with his gf. and meanwhile rozanov is out there fucking other people and shane is not jealous, he isn't. and rozanov isn't gay either, so. it's fine. it's fine it's fine it's fine.
