liking a ship but disliking the distinct set of stock fanon that they have been assigned is like one of those punishments dante came up with when he wrote the worldbuilding for hell in inferno
Forever thinking about “Boston is nice too?” and wanting to throw up about it. Just sitting on the floor of a gym across from the stranger who would be the Shane of his existence like.
I am so far away from home. I am so afraid but I cannot show it. I’m going to be all on my own out there and people are not kind to me. I’ve always been alone, but never this kind of alone before. I don’t really know you, but you seemed kind. And earnest. You would not lie to me. Is it safe? Will I be happy there and safe? Boston is nice too?
Ougghhhhgg. My brave little bug I’mgping to be sick
Somewhere in sochi au a teenage Joseph Bainbridge is like. Going through several confusing sexuality crisis about whether it is or isn't gay to want to bang Shane Hollander
pssssshhhhhhh minor oc Joseph Bainbridge gets to universe hop across the fics I’m obsessed
one of my favourite things about the sochi au is that 100% they both think that they have trapped the other person. they are both absolutely convinced for a While that, given the chance, the other person would NOT be doing this, like "he would be better with Literally Anyone Else, oh no i am such a terrible awful person for shackling this man to me and for secretly kind of enjoying that he is shackled to me because i like him, which makes me even worse!!!!"
also if jj and hayden are in Crisis, how are the bears taking it? because personally i'm imagining marlow tweeting about "oh hell yeah brother this makes so much sense!!! of course your montreal jane is hollander!" because his boy deserves only the best. his tweets about this and how the best is obviously Hockey Superstar And Noted Model, Shane Hollander go viral.
In the immediate aftermath of this, the Boston Raiders try to I Am Spartacus their boy’s sexuality. It goes. Poorly.
Fundamentally, the issue is that they just get in front of a camera and let Cliff Marleau speak for them without first planning what they’re going to say.
The thing is, they are made immediately aware of the fact that Ilya Rozanov being gay in Russia endangers #theirboy’s continued existence and also his ability to return to their muscular embrace. They cannot abide by this. Free their man.
They decide to take the hard stance that Ilya Rozanov is NOT gay. They are aware that there is video proof that he shoved Shane Hollander against a wall and then also his tongue down Shane Hollander’s throat. It was NOT in a gay kind of way. How. How could that not be in a gay kind of way. Well. You see. That’s because it was Shane Hollander. It is NOT gay if it’s for Shane Hollander. You DO NOT have to be gay to be down for Shane Hollander. That is still a totally straight experience. They’ve all thought about it. All of them. Isn’t. Isn’t that right boys?
The Boston Raiders feel this is a large demand to ask of their brotherhood but are willing to commit nevertheless. They. They sure have thought of that. All. All of them. They’ve all thought about shoving Shane Hollander against the wall and kissing him with tongue. And that’s a normal, straight person experience. The whole NHL thinks that, even.
If, if anything, it’s their fault the kiss happened. Because Ilya does not want to kiss Shane Hollander. He wants to kiss Shane Hollander the least out of all of them, because. Rivals. But he, he was obviously drunk as shit when this happened, and they’ve. Talked.
About it.
Around him.
They. They totally talk about wanting to take Shane Hollander manfully against a wall to and around Ilya. They do that all the time. And Ilya is not into it. Because he is straight and. Rivalry. They, the Boston Raiders, they just. Talked about wanting to kiss and. Do other things. To Shane Hollander so, so much around Ilya that it. It just totally confused his drunken mind. Maybe one of them even dared him to do it. Carmichael thinks that maybe. Maybe he can remember daring him to do that.
Anyway uh. If there’s anyone who’s gay for Shane Hollander, it’s, it’s them, and not Ilya Rozanov, who is 100% straight. So uh. Shane Hollander if you’re ever, ever thinking about exploring some things about yourself, maybe. Give the Boston Raiders a call. They’re. They’re ready for you, stallion. But uh. Not Ilya Rozanov. Because he is straight.
Free their man.
Thank you for your time.
This does not fucking help quell the international attention suddenly focused on them. It does not fucking do that at all. The Boston Raiders announcing that Shane Hollander is a source of shared and lustful fixation for the entire team bar Ilya Rozanov, who is straight, is televised in more than 30 countries.
Shane and Ilya see this several hours after it happens when they’ve fully committed to the narrative that they’re in gay love with each other and have finally managed to battle their way into the Canadian embassy. And it’s just.
Shane: *face buried in his own hands*
Ilya: those fucking idiots
And yessss, that’s the entire dynamic that underpins the agony of this fic. They both feel like they’ve trapped the other. They both want a relationship and they feel so, so guilty about that fact because the other person doesn’t actually was them, they’re just trapped with no other options because of what the other did. Ilya feels the guilt of being the person whose benefit this was for. Shane feels the guilt of the person who actually committed them to this narrative. And they both think the other would rather be with anyone else. It’s agony.
Hi I'm thinking about JJ and Hayden in the Sochi Outing AU and how different their roles would DEFINITELY be, right?
Because JJ is literally Shane's roommate at the Olympics, also playing for Team Canada, there are international reporters sticking microphones in his face for a quote IMMEDIATELY, he's gotta publically be a ride-or-die and he's gotta be one now
Meanwhile Hayden is safe at home with Jackie & the twins, and obviously he calls Shane the second Shane's back on Canadian soil to let him know he's his best friend no matter what, even questionable taste in men, and Shane's like "thanks for the support man love you too but uhhh you should not be seen in public with me except at the rink for a very long while because there are crazy people and Russian assassins and crazy Russian assassins who definitely want me dead, and I don't want to share any of that attention with you or Jackie or the kids"
The dynamics would be sooo different in the Sochi Outing AU.
In my mind, J.J. locks the fuck in early, hard, and fast. Like does he love this relationship? Absolutely not. Did he sort of assume that Ilya had just forced a kiss on Shane during Vegas and Shane was faking an entire gay romance to get this asshole out of Russia alive because he was Just That Good Of A Person until Shane accidentally drops the lore to him that they do in fact have biblical knowledge of one another? Yes. Does he think Shane can do better?
Unequivocally.
But that is his fucking boy and J.J. is NOT leaving him in Russia. Shane isn’t leaving without Ilya? Well J.J. isn’t leaving without Shane so Canada’s about to have two Olympians who play for the team with the least normal fanbase (affectionate) on the entire fucking continent die in Russian immigration detention unless this shit gets figured out. Your move, diplomats.
The diplomats really need all of their Olympians to shut the fuck up while they sort this. But they. Are not doing this. It’s just:
J.J., did not get a chance to figure out a story with Shane in advance, has decided the move is to vaguely imply that he Knew The Whole Time without directly confirming either way: *struggling to keep a straight face* it has been the honor of my life to see their love blossom
Carter “Ally” Vaughn, has very suddenly discovered his allyship demands more than just like. Going to watch men’s figure skating: you know when I, when I see them together, I believe in love
J.J., fighting his own gag reflex: the magnetism between them is just. Undeniable.
Scott Hunter, has had WWII air raid sirens going off in his head since this entire mess started: *nodding along* that was really beautifully said
Meanwhile in Canada Hayden Pike is in crisis. His best buddy in the whole world is trying to throw down the gauntlet with fucking Putin for the sake of some Awful Fucking Man. Who he is??? In love with???? Hayden cannot tell if this is a serious relationship or just Shane faking an entire gay romance to get some asshole who forced a kiss on him out of Russia alive because he’s Just That Good Of A Person. Is Shane gay like, for real? Is he gay for Ilya Rozanov?
Did he.
Did he tell J.J. instead of Hayden?
Does Hayden not look like an ally?? Does his buddy think he’s too homophobic to tell him about his star-crossed gay love???? Hayden is in tears. He just wants Shane to be happy and fulfilled and if that means Ilya Rozanov then Hayden can come to terms with that, eventually, he thinks, probably after heavy therapy. Does Shane not know how much he loves him? Because he thought that Shane knew that and if he didn’t know that then Hayden needs him to know that. Hayden is taking his own pulse.
Jackie has to point out five times a day that the Shane’s phone almost definitely has a wiretap by the Russian state and that Hayden absolutely cannot call him crashing out about the state of their bromance until he’s back on Canadian soil. She is. Tired.
sochi obaming au - it woul be kinda funny considering thr metros probably. like no matter how homophobic they are now like a degree away from the prime minister of canada and obama and idk other world officials except on twitter . do you think crowells going to be like heyyy keep ur gay shit out of hockey bc i dont think he can say that to the person whos going to get dinner at the white house on thursday . i feel like there cant be speculation about them throwing games when political parties r invested in the targic star crossed innocent victim couple but i guess that angle can also be taken by their opponents. idk this is so fun i love ur au and i know nothing about international affairs
do the cup wins still go as followed in canon? (boston win after sochi and then two back to back montreal (the montreal team does fuckin fall apart at shanes gayness in the story i think but then they did not have world leaders' opinions)) . if they do, i feel like every cup win wiuld have to have commentary on their relationship. and god forbid if the last match was between boston and montreal ! no one would be normal.
I don’t think even Crowell can touch them at this point. The United States and Canada, aka the two governments of the countries the NHL is fucking located in, just moved heaven and earth to get Shane and Ilya out of Russia. The United States specifically did it because they’re trying to use the story and ride the hype to force LGBTQ+ friendly legislation through the House and Senate. If Crowell goes after Shane and Ilya, he is going to get a very angry call from the President of the United States asking why the fuck he’s trying to screw the happy ending of a multi-nation rescue effort.
Like. Crowell just simply cannot afford to touch them. No one is investigating them. No one is making smarmy press releases about supporting traditional family values in the wake of this. Because the eyes of the world are suddenly turned in their direction, and the US specifically wants to make this into the part of a romance movie where the two love interests get to ride off happily into the sunset. If the NHL breaks from that narrative to investigate Shane and Ilya, it becomes increasingly likely that someone decides to turn around and investigate them.
The NHL is frankly a cesspit of systemic abuse. Like. The more I learn about it, the more horrifying it becomes. There was a case in the 90s where a couple of employees of the Toronto Maple Leaves were using their position to sexually abuse children in the stadium. One person eventually broke an NDA the Maple Leaves got him to sign about it and went public, and more than 100 people called the police to say the exact same thing happened to them. Some of them claimed that they’d been calling the Maple leaves for years telling them what had happened and that those employees should not be anywhere near children and they were just. Not investigating. And letting it continue. For years.
The NHL just. Routinely mishandles reports of abuse—verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse. At most, people get slaps on the wrist before they’re reinstated a few years later, which is exactly what happened to a GM who covered up the fact that a Chicago Blackhawks coach was sexually assault one of his own players. He had to step down and was reinstated three years later, and he was immediately rehired by another team. The same bad actors never leave.
And it mishandles other reports too. Multiple players died from complications arising from CTE, a condition that arises from repeat blunt force head trauma, and the NHL purposefully elected not to investigate the condition so they could keep sending players back out post head trauma. Their favorite thing to do is to turn a blind eye.
There are just too many skeletons in the NHL’s closet, and if they piss off multiple world governments, then suddenly those same world governments may get very interested in investigating why their closet doors are always locked. They are gritting their goddamn teeth and shipping Hollanov or they risk sinking the entire boat.
For similar reasons, the Metros cannot get rid of Shane Hollander. They cannot hate crime Shane Hollander. The parasocial relationship he’s in with the entire country has now expanded to encompass an alarming percentage of the human population. The Metros owner is personally attending almost every home game now because every time a visiting dignitary that even vaguely supports queer rights is in the country, they attend a metros game to get a photo op with Shane Hollander. Members of multiple royal families have decided to attend a Metros game. You do not just fucking pass that kind of networking up.
Most people/megacorps that own hockey teams do not exclusively own a hockey team. Sports teams are the billionaire version of an investment property. Their fingers tend to be in many other pies.
Fuck off wealthy businessmen would absolutely kill for the opportunity to rub elbows with world leaders and major politicians that do shit like pass the legislation that affects their other business enterprises. No one on the metros is touching a hair on Shane Hollander’s billion dollar head. Ownership is not letting anything risk this for them.
I think the Metros still struggle in the wake of this. Some of the players are just straight up homophobic. The coach is straight up homophobic. His ass is immediately fired the second it gets back to the owner that he called Shane Hollander a faggot in the locker rooms upon his he return. Players who start shit or who stop playing well with Shane are offloaded. They are traded or sent down to the goddamn AHL.
The Metros cannot afford otherwise. The President of the United States is personally invested in Shane Hollander being one of the faces of gay rights, and they do not want that face to be “even in the best case scenario you will still be ✨hate crimed✨.” The liberal political party in both America and Canada share that investment.
Even beyond politics, the viewership on their broadcast just fucking skyrocketed from already-high numbers to a fuck-off record breaking high because all of those random people who’d never heard of the Metros before the Olympics are tuning in to see their boy again. And also the team is located in goddamn Montreal.
Again, Montreal is one of the most queer-friendly cities in North America, and it has been for a very long time. It has the oldest queer business on the fucking continent. Its gay village is the largest on the continent. And that is a city that loves to fucking riot. When Shane Hollander was outed as gay while in fucking Russia, the prime minister had to go on tv and beg the people of Montreal to not fly to Russia and try to take the riot to Putin because so many of them immediately bought fucking plane tickets to do exactly that. There were an alarming number of middle aged hockey dads who were convinced they were the key to Bringing Their Man Home.
Shane and Ilya went back to Montreal together as part of their Haha Thank You World For Saving Our Lives tour that they have to white knuckle their way through following their return and you would have thought it was goddamn pride month. Montreal was so so ready to embrace its gay hockey boy. They have never loved him more, and they already loved him to an alarming degree. Ilya makes it three days there getting the shovel talk from what feels like the entire population of Quebec before he’s like. Shane. You are being stalked by the entire city that you live in. And Shane’s like. Stalking is a very strong word. And Ilya’s like. Shane. There are shrines to you on what feels like every street in this city. You are like the gay hockey pope to them. And Shane like. Not loving the use of the word “pope” in that sentence. But. Sort of. Yeah.
The metros have no option but to pull the plug on anyone who is not willing to work with Shane after this. He is just worth too much money to them. The entire team would be rebuilt around them if needs must.
I think the cups go the same way they do in canon. Ilya still wins his immediately after Sochi. He would feel like he needed to prove himself more than ever. He just got driven out of his home country. Multiple world leaders had to intervene to get him out alive. Shane Hollander had to set his own life on fire to get him out, and if we go the route that I mentioned in the tags of the last post and say it was the Vegas rooftop kiss that did them in, then Ilya would be blaming himself because he initiated that kiss to begin with. And if you say the Metros had to be rebuilt around Shane because some of them were homophobic to him after, he would feel even worse about it, because he would feel like he had concrete proof that helping him made Shane’s life worse.
Ilya would need that goddamn win. He would want to prove to himself and to the rest of the world that he wasn’t just the guy whose country washed out at the Olympics and then immediately tried to kill him after. He’d want the cup to prove to himself and everyone else that he was worth the effort that went into saving him.
The next year, Shane would be the one that would need the win more than ever. His team just had to be rebuilt around him because he was too gay for some of them to work with him. He is someone who has always changed himself to conform with hockey. This is the first time ever that hockey conformed to fit him, and there would be a lot of people criticizing the team’s performance while it was still being rebuilt and saying he was not worth the effort they put into it. He’d be desperate to prove that he could still do this even though he was gay and with Ilya. So I think he still gets his back-to-back Stanley Cup wins.
I don’t think Shane and Ilya face each other in the playoffs immediately after Sochi. I think Shane’s team washes out because the coaching staff and multiple players had to be suddenly replaced mid-season. And there would be an agonizing amount of commentary around that fact. The blame for the metros suddenly failing would be placed squarely at Shane’s feet. His leadership and his ability to play would be questioned endlessly.
That being said, every game they played post-Sochi—and especially any playoffs games—would be the source of endless speculation and commentary about whether they were truly competing against each other or if their performance was compromised because of their relationship. The pressure would be simply insane.
For the Sochi Outing AU, in addition to all the big political moves the public sees, my mind is on all the working level diplomats and government officials who are SCRAMBLING to respond to this. Sorry, this got super long because the more I thought about it, the more I had to say!
It would be global. At a minimum, every country that has an athlete at those games as well as every country that cares about LGBTQ+ human rights would be expected to respond in some way, even if it was just a motherhood statement about the Olympics being a time to celebrate the bonds of friendship between nations while also respecting the human rights of all participants.
In capitals around the world, the junior officers on the Russia desk and the human rights desk are in the office at midnight drafting tweets and talking points for the foreign minister/leader. Half the legal division are also there churning out analysis of the translated text of Russia's laws to see exactly how bad this can get and what their FM/leader can say about it. They could also be spinning up possible sanctions regimes, travel bans and other mechanisms to put on the table.
The trade division is reviewing stats and agreements with Russia to see if they have any leverage. They will also want to quantify how much damage any statements/actions could do to their bilateral trade - can we find an alternate market for commodity X if Russia will no longer buy it from us after we disparage them publicly and, in Russia's view, "interfere in our internal affairs, maliciously influence Russia's legal processes with its own citizen and impinge on Russia's sovereignty"?
The senior officials are trying to synthesise all this information to make their pitch to the FM's office in 30 minutes on why this is important, what we should say and do publicly, what we should say and do behind the scenes and how this is going to impact our relationships, our reputation and the safety of our nationals in Russia.
At the foreign embassies and consulates in Russia, the political teams are working around the clock, feeding information into capital while trying to pull on every local lead and connection they have. Sending out sitreps at regular intervals, with frequency determined by exactly how fucked they are if this goes wrong. The cable traffic is insane.
The FVEYS+EU Ambassadors are meeting as privately as they can in Sochi, Moscow or other Russian cities, knowing that they are being surveilled and that their phones are monitored. Deals about safe flight paths and airspace are being negotiated and joint statements prepared. Way too much time is spent debating whether they are "seriously" or "gravely" concerned about this matter.
I am guessing that countries like the US and Canada would have had consular teams attached to their delegations from capital and/or drawn from Moscow/European posts. Jeanette, the 58 year-old career Canadian consular officer who is on her seventh posting, has over twenty crisis responses under her belt, and has seen and done more than you can imagine has GOT THIS. She will get these boys out of Russia and she will sleep once they are safe on Canadian soil and not a second before. She is later awarded an Order of Canada for her work repatriating national treasure Shane Hollander.
Staff in Ottawa and Washington DC as the capitals of the two countries with the most interest in the outcome would be operating on another level. This isn't even touching on what would be going on a multilateral posts like UN New York or Geneva (they are a whole different and scary world).
Ottawa itself would be insane - that's Shane Hollander's home town! His dad literally works at the Treasury Board office across the road from Confederation Park. Leonie from DFATD's development programs team was in a meeting with Dave Hollander just last week about expanding funding for their Pacific programs. He's such a nice guy - hope he's doing okay.
And quietly, in the background, sports diplomacy and public diplomacy officers around the world are crying because the content they spent months preparing is now all completely useless in the wake of this much bigger and more serious issue.
See, I absolutely love this because it really puts into perspective just how absolutely crushing the pressure would be on this relationship in the aftermath. Like. This is the kind of international incident that would result in hundreds of people working around the clock. There is emergency briefing on the desk of every world leader about the fact that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have biblical knowledge of one another. It would potentially cost millions of dollars—both in labor hours, and in the potential trade effects of Russia was hit with tariffs or other economic sanctions.
And the entire time Shane would most likely have to be purposefully escalating matters.
Ilya is not a citizen of any country they’d be relying on for rescue efforts. That’s going to make it so much harder for him to get any kind of serious assistance in the immediate aftermath, because he’s simply not any other country’s problem. The number one thing that would work in his favor would be Canada’s Sweetheart Shane Hollander latching onto him like a mollusk and saying that he is not leaving this fucking country without him.
It’s not just that the world decide to rally around Ilya by happenstance. They would have to purposefully lean into their “relationship” to try to solicit aid. And it’s not something that would just go away after.
They don’t just get to come home quietly. They have to be received by the White House. They have to be received by the Canadian prime minister. There would be press conferences. Interviews. They would have to sit in front of a camera and hold each other’s hands and talk about how fucking grateful they are that the entire world rallied to keep them together.
There is no drifting apart and letting the situationship develop into a relationship naturally. Their wagons are fucking hitched, for better or for worse.
And it would constantly be dredged up again. Their first games after the rescue? The President of the United States is in attendance with his whole family. There are protesters outside the stadium. They are in attendance for each other’s first games back if it’s not a Boston v Montreal game and they don’t also have a game scheduled for that same night. Like. If Ilya comes back to a game against fuckin Anaheim and the metros aren’t also schedule to play? Shane Hollander is sitting in a box with the fucking Obamas, probably in a Rozanov jersey. The press presence would be suffocating.
There’s documentaries being made about the event. Endless political commentary. Ted Cruz has personally made a homophobic comment about their relationship. Ilya had to be physically restrained from clapping back and starting shit with the state of Texas.
And even if it started to die even a little bit, something would resurrect it. Each anniversary would spark a new wave of interest. If the democrats introduce a bill to legalize gay marriage and increase protections for same-sex relationships? Guess who may need to come testify to fucking congress. God help them when Obergefell drops. And when Jeanette gets her Order of Canada, they are honored fucking guests at that ceremony.
The fascinating thing about the Sochi outing to me is less about getting Ilya out of the country and more about the absolutely crushing pressure and scrutiny their relationship would be under after. They just turned the gears of nations to save Ilya—and it was a very purposeful turning on their parts. This didn’t just happen. They leveraged every single fucking ounce of public goodwill they had to force world leaders to get Ilya out of Russia alive.
There is an inherent cost to that. They would have to pay the piper after. They would need to make their relationship work, and they would need to do it at a time when they were at their most uncertain. The dynamic would be fascinating.
Now it has A Name. It has A Tag. It is Real. I cannot believe it. The memes have Killed Me. This is going to be child star crash out summer au pt. 2, and with that I mean an INCREDIBLE mix of angst and fun.
But about those two AUs, would they be both completely social media fics like SB? Or with also real scenes?
They'd both be so interesting either way but don't overstress syn! I can't imagine writing three things at the same time so take care of yourself if you're gonna do it < 3
Thank you for giving so much of your time to answer so many asks
Both would be written with a mix of real scenes and social media. I have a fic that I’ve already written in the style that I’d use for both of those, pez dispenser debris. Both would use that kind of hybrid format.
I’m glad that you like them! I don’t plan on starting any more heated rivalry fics on my ao3 until snapping birch is done. I’m trying to bang through that one and close it out. And then we’ll see what happens after snapping birch. I make no promises
if hollanov got outed in sochi would they get married in canada or the U.S? politically (also wait svetlana wouldnt be able to be there probably thats so sad :( )
I think it depends.
If the democrats successfully codify gay marriage into federal law which they still haven’t managed in the real world even though you should not be relying on goddamn Obergefell to protect gay marriage but whatever and name the bill after Shane/Ilya because their “love story” was a huge part of the political push to get the bill passed, then I think there’d be a lot of pressure to get married under the law that’s literally named for them. But if they don’t personally change the landscape of gay rights in America with the power of their situationship, then I think that they’d be a lot freer to get married wherever.
Like. It’s gonna be a political spectacle. If they get married in this universe then they have to invite the Obamas to their wedding. Like. You cannot jilt the former POTUS who endangered global diplomatic relations for your relationship. Obama is at that wedding. He gets to sit in the front row where the immediate family gets to sit. He can bring his dog if he wants. He can officiate if he wants.
But I also don’t like the idea of their wedding being a political spectacle even though it’s likely in this scenario. I put my characters through hell and put them in situations beyond their control and take away their autonomy but I always like to give it back to them at the end. Like. Practically speaking, they are never escaping the global political theatre. But that doesn’t mean they have to have their entire lives happen on stage.
I like the idea that they get married in a small, private ceremony before they have the “real” wedding. It doesn’t matter where they have it. There’s no official paperwork involved. They’re not married on paper after. But they walk down the aisle and say their vows and the promises they make matter more to them than any sheet of paper ever did. They invite 0 diplomats. The only people who are there to see them be married are the people who they actually want there.
In my mind, they’d be married in secret for a while before they had the “real” wedding. At least a year. I think they’d just want that time for just themselves before having to go through to the entire show of the formal wedding. It’d be something just for them.
Ok time for me to talk about one of my favourite unexplored areas in heated rivalry. And that is the specific Experience that Shane has of being the kind of player he is, as in being THE best and bringing in multiple cups, and playing for Montreal. Like. Like I cannot express to those who have never been near it what the hockey culture in Montreal is like. If you think Sidney Crosby is Canadas Beloved Darling, if he had done for Montreal what he did for Pittsburgh he genuinely would be a god. Like I’m not even kidding Montreal would start a new fucking religion if a hockey player ever did what Shane did for them in the books. THREE CUPS? Two of them back to back? After an over 15 year drought? They have the best hockey player in the world on their team? yeah statues are going up shrines are going up like he would be the fucking Pope of Montreal. Actually no he would be the goddamn Beyoncé of Montreal. Like I need you guys to go look up what the bell centre looks like when the habs play a home game. I need you to look up what it looks like when they play an away game and EVERYONE GOES AND WATCHES IN THE EMPTY ARENA. And they’re so loud it registers as a MINI EARTHQUAKE. The hockey fan culture in Montreal is truly unique in that it’s uniquely fucking insane and I would LOVE to see how that affects Shane seeing as he would be basically viewed as their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Like to Montreal he is the (hockey) messiah come again.
I read your meta posta about Russia and the anon who suggested there would be a lot of jokes online about the relationship between Putin and Ilya, and I felt like that was so true there was something missing that we don't have any. So I made some. The goal here wasn't neccesarily "funny" as much as "the ones I most thought would have been made". They all work as in-universe memes for snapping birch, and some also for the short "what if they we're revealed in sochi" you wrote yesterday.
Also, on the off-chance anyone else wants to use my shitty edited-on Ilya-faces for memes
(Sidebar, but Putin is so physical with Ovechkin!)
Can I ask why you decided to make Hayden a bad player? This isn't a dissertation at all I'm genuinely curious because you seem to know your hockey but Hayden's referred to as a unremarkable player except for his friendship with Shane and I'm wondering why because in my mind he has to be a top scoring player if he plays on a line with Shane. I guess it could be a throwaway line but you seem to have so many detail in your fic so I'm really curious why! I love the fic 💗
He’s not a bad player. He’s an excellent player. He’s a first line wing for one of the top teams in the entire League. Of course he’s excellent.
Hayden’s referred to as an unremarkable player because the person who wrote that article is participating in a smear campaign.
I explain it first in this post, but I am lying to you constantly in snapping birch. Snapping birch is meant to simulate two competing PR campaigns. The NHL camp is lying to you. The Hollanov camp is lying to you. A lot of the information you receive is going to be inaccurate, biased, or misrepresented in some way. Because this is a fic about the internet, and that is what the internet is like.
A lot of the news sources in snapping birch are very biased in favor of the NHL. Because those news sources all have press passes that the NHL commissioner’s office can and will revoke if they don’t play nice. Or because they’re owned by a megacorp that also owns a fucking hockey team. Or because they’re just a conservative sports blog who’s just pissed that the hockey boys turned out gay. A lot of news sources have reasons to mislead you and they will do so shamelessly. And those news sources all have reasons to rush into the fray early and set the tone. But Camp Hollanov does not have a fucking newspaper at their disposal. They cannot put pressure on the news to report in their favor early, and the most unbiased news sources would be more careful about conducting an investigation in the immediate aftermath. They would be more thorough and follow up on sources because they don’t want to fuck around with a defamation suit from the goddamn NHL. As a result, a lot of the official news articles you see at the beginning of the fic display a heavy bias against Shane, Ilya, and Co.
When you’re reading the news articles in particular, don’t believe everything they tell you, especially if what they’re sharing can be construed as someone’s subjective opinion. Subjective opinions can’t really form the basis of a defamation suit—you need more objective falsehoods for that. “Hayden pike is an unremarkable player” is a subjective opinion. They can get away with saying it even if it’s not really true.
Inspect the language each article uses carefully. Does the author exhibit a bias towards one side? What language do they tend towards using? Is it inflammatory?
What would they have to gain by misleading you?
The article that line is found in is interesting. Because it’s a biased source interviewing an unbiased source. Most of that article is just them quoting a historian who’s spewing straight statistics and historical facts. There’s not much bias in what he’s doing, so the article appears mostly unbiased. But if you look at the scant few paragraphs that aren’t just quotes from the interview, that article displays a heavy bias towards the NHL.
Here’s the opening paragraph from that article:
The hockey world took another blow this morning when the NHL’s first openly gay player, Scott Hunter, seemingly attempted to kickstart a strike on the NHL in response to its investigation into fellow gay athletes Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. Hollander and Rozanov, who have long marketed themselves as bitter rivals, have been accused of concealing a homosexual affair to rig games against each other.
Immediately, the opening sentence should raise red flags of bias. The strike is framed as a “blow” to the hockey world. It’s framing Scott’s actions and the strike as negative from the outset. It wants you to favor the NHL.
The writer displays an implicit skepticism towards the strike. They’re trying to make the reader doubt its legitimacy and likelihood of success from the jump. Scott Hunter “seemingly attempted to kickstart a strike.” Like. Buddy, there’s no seeming about it. He said straight up “I am not playing until they are allowed to play” in conjunction with another player. The intention’s pretty clear.
But the writer wants you to be sitting there thinking how half-asses this attempt is. Look, we can’t even tell what they’re doing. Meanwhile, the NHL’s actions are framed with a neutral “investigation.” It gets none of the added negative commentary that Scott’s actions get.
Lastly, that first sentence implies the conclusion that it wants readers to draw. First gay player does this for his fellow gay players. Oh, okay. So this is just the alphabet mafia ganging up together.
There’s other descriptors that Scott, Shane, and Ilya have in common. They’re all top NHL players. They’re all NHL captains. They’re all recent Stanley cup winners. But the article doesn’t headline that. They want you to think of this “a gay man is here to back whatever the hell his fellow gays have done.” They want you to doubt the genuineness of Scott from the start.
Then go to the next sentence. The bias is again clear. The writer says that Hollander and Rozanov have marketed themselves as bitter rivals. They did this. It was their choice. It wasn’t their teams, who, you know, are in charge of most of the marketing when it comes to them in their official capacity. It wasn’t the NHL that modeled All stars weekend around their “rivalry” and just sort of told those two 19 year olds to show up to it. No, this was a lie that was personally marketed to you by Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. Lie the blame at their feet.
Then you get to the end of the sentence. Shane and Ilya are not in a committed relationship of eight years, no. They’re concealing a homosexual affair to rig games.
The language is purposefully evocative of scandal. It’s not a relationship, it’s an affair. It’s not private, it’s concealed. It is meant to set you against shane and Ilya. From the first paragraph, you should doubt every opinion the writer of that article is sharing with you.
Now jump down to the sentence where Hayden is called unremarkable:
To date, only one player in the League has decided to answer Hunter’s call to action: Hayden Pike, a mostly unremarkable left-wing for the Montreal Metros whose most noteworthy attribute appears to be his friendship with the scandal-plagued Shane Hollander, joined the strike within an hour of Hunter’s declaration.
Again, huge bias from the jump. “To date, only one player in the League has decided to answer Hunter’s call to action—”
Like Jesus Christ, what do you mean to date? This happened today. This happened five hours ago. You probably wrote that paragraph twenty minutes after Hayden joined the boycott. Some NHL players haven’t even woken up yet.
But the article doesn’t frame it like, “This is an unexpected and fast-developing situation. We are waiting to see how the League’s players respond to Hunter’s call to action.” No, it frames it as “oh my oh me, even now, we only have one person and he’s not even that good. Nothing remarkable about him, no. No, no, don’t think about how he’s alternate captain for the team that won back to back Stanley cups not that long ago. The only remarkable thing about him is that he’s friends with Shane Hollander. He’s only in this for his friend.”
Because the strike suddenly looks a lot better if you frame it as, “In a three-hour span this morning, the NHL lost three captains and one alternate captain from its three most recent Stanley Cup winning teams after it launched a hasty investigation into its two most decorated players.”
The words you pick matter. The impressions you leave the reader with matter. The writer of that article wants you to think it’s not a big deal if Hayden Pike strikes because he’s not even that good to begin with, and also he’s only doing this to help his scandal-plagued best friend.
Shane Hollander is not fucking scandal plagued. He’s got the cleanest reputation in the fucking league. This is one of the only scandals he’s ever been in. But they don’t want you thinking “fuck, hollander’s reputation is stellar, could he really do something like this?” No. They want all of those people who didn’t really watch hockey before this and who don’t already have an impression of Shane Hollander to walk away with the idea in their head that Shane Hollander is constantly finding himself in the middle of a scandal, so maybe there’s something to this one.
Hayden’s a good player. Great even. The writer of that article called him an unremarkable player to mislead you about his worth. It’s a smear campaign. They’re lying to you.
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