An Eccentric

I AM NOT ASKING TO BE LOVED I WANT TO LOVE she/her

[deletiaclementine]

Something I eat up in fic every time is when Shane calls Ilya pretty or hot or beautiful and it stops Ilya and his low self esteem in his tracks to ask “do you really think so?” because Shane never says it and poor autistic blueberry Shane is like “I figured he knew on account of all the very enthusiastic sluttery we engage in together”

[queenhaggis]

i could actually talk for hours about how important it is that shane proposed to ilya instead of the other way around because ilya needs to feel wanted and chosen unconditionally whereas shane needs to finally take control of his freedom and happiness with how he lives his own life

[honeyybrii]

shane effortlessly defying ilya's internal self deprecation with the most blunt, heartstopping, to the point sincerity is such an important part of their dynamic to me

"but you know me, i'm lazy, so." "i don't know that side of you at all."

"is that what we are going to do? relax?" "i hope so. i would like to relax with you. for once."

"because you like to be bad." "hey, that's not what this is. you and me. maybe it was at first but, not now, and not for a long time."

to the point where it even usurps other peoples interpretations of ilya before he gets the chance to internalize them -

"but, you hate him." "no. i mean, i get that. but no. i love him."

and ilya has that exact same subtly gobsmacked expression every time he does it

[snowsmoked]

Shane notices that Ilya always has to be doing something. At first, he thinks its sweet, attentive.

"Is your blanket warm enough? I'll go get another one."

"I will carry plates, go sit."

"Practice is optional for players, Shane, not captain."

And, look, Shane isn't one to lay about. He's up for morning runs, he attends almost every optional practice, he's meticulous about his work out routines. He's a top athlete and so is Ilya, they both work incredibly hard to stay at the top. Still, Shane doesn't have a problem with a lazy afternoon reading in bed, or a free weekend spent at his cottage, or a summer relaxing.

He notices that sometimes Ilya will startle, just a little bit, if Shane walks into the room when he's laying on the couch, scrolling through his phone. If Shane makes even the slightest request, Ilya is jumping to get it done there and then. He's the first one at practice and the last one to leave.

He will take naps with Shane, but he's always up before Shane, working out in the gym, doing their monthly calendar, adding things Shane likes to their shopping list that he wouldn't add, etc.

"Just sit with me," Shane catches Ilya's arm on his latest trip to the kitchen."

"I know, I will," Ilya covers his hand. "I just want to wipe down counters before your parents get here."

"They won't care," Shane scrunches up his face. "They won't even notice. Come sit down."

"Okay," Ilya says, but looks a little torn. "We are suppose to be hosting, not lazing around."

"Ilya," Shane sat up more. "You cleaned the whole house like twice today. I cooked. We aren't lazing around."

"Yes, I know, but..."

"Ilya, you aren't lazy," Shane said directly. He doesn't know exactly why that word seems difficult for Ilya, but he has his suspicions. "And even if you were lazy sometimes, I wouldn't care. I would like it, probably."

Ilya softened. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Shane tugs him and Ilya finally lets himself be pulled into Shane's lap. "Just come be lazy with me."

"Hm," Ilya adjusts himself to better snuggle into his boyfriend. "That does not sound so bad."

[ticklefighthockey]

I’m still intrigued by the idea that shane has a harder time adjusting to ilya’s captaincy style in ottawa than he expects. I feel like the metros vs. raiders locker rooms were probably soooo different. I imagine shane as the kind of captain who runs an extremely tight ship with very high standards for professionalism but maybe, uh, not as much room for fun or goofing off or all the casual bonding stuff that makes guys feel like Brothers In Arms. it’s a good place to work in that you can expect everyone to work hard and excel but it also feels very much like a workplace where you are sort of tacitly expected to leave your personal life at the door. like shane is going to treat you well as a colleague but unless you’re hayden he’s probably not going to remember your wife’s name or your kids’ ages and favorite sports at school. and if you’ve got personal life stuff going on outside of work like… you’re at work? he’s got personal life stuff going on outside of work too (see: messy secret gay situationship with a disaster bisexual) and he’s not letting it affect his game.

whereas I think ilya as a captain is one of those people who seem to be running an extremely loose ship (it’s noisy it’s chaotic guys are roughhousing during practice people prank guys other all the time everyone’s out a little later than they should be at the bar together etc etc) but actually the second something starts souring in the atmosphere it becomes obvious that ilya has his finger on the pulse of the room and absolutely nothing escapes his notice. and he has a knack for fixing things or smoothing things over without it actually seeming like he’s intervening at all, just by saying the right thing to the right guy at the right moment or giving someone a little nudge or taking some of the guys out drinking and by the end of the night it’s somehow all resolved even though no one can remember what happened or how he did it.

ANYWAY I think when shane comes into that cens locker room it would be fun for him to be initially silently appalled by how cavalier ilya seems be about his leadership position. like shane has no problem not wearing the C on his new team but is ANYONE wearing the C here??? and I think it would be funnnn for them to have some friction about it at first where shane’s being silently judgy about it but refusing to come out and say anything and ilya’s getting annoyed but also like a little wounded by it because it’s the same attitude his dad always had about his leadership style. and ALSO in his secret heart of hearts he sort of feels like… his raiders, to a man, would have died for him and still loved him even after he left boston in the lurch with zero explanation, whereas shane’s metros threw him under the bus the second he came out… and then when they finally have a big blowout fight about this & that last part surfaces it’s very hurtful to shane because of course everyone loves ilya that’s because people are so EASY for ilya!!!! ilya doesn’t even have to work for it he just shows up and winks at people and cracks a few jokes and everyone is falling all over themselves to make him happy!!!! and maybe shane isn’t good at people but he’s good at being a fucking professional and that’s why he has three cups to ilya’s one!!!! anyway it gets messy and everyone storms off to lick their wounds and then they make up later and eventually ilya admits that OKAY maybe he could stand to be a little more of an hardass when guys are slacking off in practice or whatever and then shane admits that OKAY maybe remembering stuff about your teammates’ families or knowing when a guy’s in the throes of an ugly divorce and needs a little bit of grace is important to helping guys click with each other and feel emotionally invested in what you’re building together, and also it’s kind of hot when ilya makes crazy scoring bets with the guys and then comes back to collect. and then of course having resolved all of this they fuck about it

[luna-azzurra]

If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.

[maswartz]

[fractally]

This has been my main argument against "AI" from the very beginning.

OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.

And worse, they're trying to destroy the free sources that they stole from. It's destruction of human knowledge on an unprecedented scale. The burning of the library of Alexandria has nothing on this.

[bepreparedforachange]

Youre asking me an awful lot of questions about my very self-explanatory "I DESERVED IT" shirt

[skunkstripe]

(via)

[themoonandmyman]

Ilya Rozanov in TLG headlines

[elucubrare]

i wish my brain were not full of gludge. i would like to be using it & because of the gludge i cannot do that.

[podcastwizard]

literally drinking a beer by the lake and still opened tumblr. some of us are beyond saving

[lavenderprose]

I do actually truly believe that there is nothing that Shane Hollander hates more than having to plan things. It takes him the whole night sitting there in the dark to come up with the objectively pretty bare bones and lackluster plan of 1. Ilya plays for Ottawa 2. Start a charity 3. ???? 4. Be Together Someday. For real.

This to me does not yell man with a plan. This to me says man who is so desperate to love and be loved that he is digging his nails into the only thing he wants and clinging to it. Desperate enough that he'll stay up until four in the morning with his heart rabbiting in his chest and his mind spinning faster than the earth itself trying to come up with something, ANYTHING that lets him. Fucking. Keep. This.

But on a normal day? He thrives on routine SPECIFICALLY so that he does not have to plan shit. Mr. I Hired A Stylist pays people and his MAMA to do that for him. For the things that don't involve hockey or his brand deals, Mr. A Designer Bought These Pillows just trundles along behind his husband and goes where he's told no questions asked. He fucking LOVES to wake up in the morning and have every aspect of his day prepared for him. He loves to wake up and scroll his color-coded calendar and know exactly what's on the docket. He's got a routine that he does not deviate from if he can POSSIBLY help it and it looks a little something like:

wake up when the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

If sex with Ilya: Shower (Unless the sex with Ilya was in the shower)

Smoothie

go on run when the alarm goes off.

Come home and drink exactly the amount of water in the bottle he prefilled before his jog

Do yoga until the alarm goes off

Shower

Meal prepped breakfast

Game Tape OR admin OR workout OR whatever Yuna's put on the schedule until the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Shower, if needed.

Meal prepped lunch

Pre-game nap

[INSERT HOCKEY HERE.]

Come home.

PROBABLY: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Eat meal prepped dinner.

Wind-down time until the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Bed

He does not want to think about where he's going or what he's doing, he wants to follow his husband around like a duckling and go play whatever hockey game he's supposed to and lay on his back when his husband wants and be told with 2-4 days' notice if something is going to be Weird on Wednesday.

[luna-azzurra]

Real thing that changed how i write: I started asking "what does this character think is wrong with them" and separately "what is actually wrong with them." Those two things are almost never the same. She thinks she's too much. She's actually terrified of being too little. He thinks he's bad at commitment. He's actually just never met someone he trusted enough. The gap between their diagnosis of themselves and the real thing, that's your character arc right there. you don't have to explain it. just write both.

[heavensghost]

[heartcellar]

you didn't see my valentine.

tw: self-harm mention, flashing

[rainbow-femme]

Various thoughts on The Hospital Scene

-Ilya just lost his father to an illness affecting the brain and the person he loves most just got a brain injury and he doesn’t yet know how severe

-Ilya has been made to feel unwelcome by his family for years and probably isn’t sure if Shane will be mad that he’s there, tell him to leave, be embarrassed that he’s there, or laugh at him for thinking he wants him there

-It’s also notable that this is one of the few times they’ve interacted where hooking up isn’t an option, and when it wasn’t an option in Russia Ilya reacted coldly to Shane and told him to leave, and doesn’t know how Shane will react to a situation now where the only thing he has to offer is his presence

-And Shane’s reaction is unbridled delight at seeing Ilya and he makes grabby hands until Ilya comes close enough to hold hands with him

-Ilya’s family have never had problems showing how they feel about him, which is usually insults and contempt. Shane is affectionate with him but clearly has emotional walls up a lot of the time. This is the first time Ilya has interacted with Shane where he has no inhibitions blocking how he treats Ilya, and he treats him with so much delight and love and affection, showing that the only thing he’s been holding back is just how much he cares, rather than any judgements

-When Shane asks Ilya to come to the cottage he doesn’t say “We could have so much sex” but “We could have so much fun”. Showing that Ilya is not just a hookup but someone whose company he enjoys just as a person

-Shane mentions that he was already planning to ask this. Meaning it’s not a spur of the moment impulse because he’s high on pain medication, sober Shane was going to ask Ilya to come be with him as well