#does this mean... maybe... rookie award...??

[hollzy-baby]

breeding rights snippets #1

snippet #2

Shane’s reward for being the first and only omega to ever win Rookie of the Year is having to present it every year since.

“We all know praise means more coming from an omega, Shane, it’s a nice thing for the young alphas,” the Metros GM had said the last time he’d tried to wiggle out of it.

Which is how he ends up calling out Ilya Rozanov’s name and watching as the alpha bounds up the stairs to the stage. Rozanov doesn’t wait for him to extend the award, crowding in and grabbing it from him instead. Not quite enough to be obviously rude to the audience, but Shane has nipped his own teammates for less.

It’s Shane’s first time standing this close to him off the ice, the first time he smells Rozanov’s scent, the gentle smoke of burning wood shot through with a fresh, pure note of eucalyptus. It’s . . . pleasant he decides. Shane can’t help from turning his head towards Rozanov and inhaling deeply, hoping it’s not noticed.

A few quick photos and they’re ushered off the stage. Shane takes off through a side hallway, eager to sneak back to his hotel room before anyone can direct him back to the floor.

He can hear Rozanov behind him, but maybe the kid needs a break too, or maybe he’s lost. Shane starts to turn around to see what he needs when he’s suddenly checked into the wall.

Rozanov pins him in with his hips and presses Shane’s shoulders hard against the wall with his hands.

“What the absolute fuck, Rozanov?” Shane yells, bucking against his hold.

Rozanov grunts in response. Fuck, Shane thinks, he’s in rut, what a huge headache this is going to be.

“Mine,” Rozanov rumbles, and Shane can feel him, hard and huge against his hip. And it’s not that the temptation is not very much there, but Shane can’t imagine the gossip if he lets this young of an alpha fuck him.

“Shh, shh, yours - I’m yours,” Shane lets himself croon. Rozanov tilts his head studying Shane, his pupils are huge and his handsome face is flushed. Shane tilts back his head and Rozanov immediately crowds his face against Shane’s neck, licking and nipping at the exposed skin.

Shane lets himself go boneless, god, is he tempted, he’s so wet and Rozanov is grinding his hips into Shane’s.

“Mine, mine, mine,” Rozanov gasps and then shudders, coming in his pants, groaning into Shane’s shoulder as the aftershocks hit him.

Shane does not laugh but he can’t help from snorting. He takes advantage of Rozanov’s incapacitation and brings one of Rozanov’s surprisingly elegant hands to his mouth, sliding his lips down until he meets the inner wrist.

In one quick bite, Shane sinks his fangs in Rozanov’s skin and fills him with venom. Rozanov collapses and Shane gingerly shakes his foot loose from under one of his legs.

He pulls out his cell phone and scrolls until he sees Marleau’s number.

Shane: you need to pick up Rozanov

Shane: he’s in the hallway between the stage and the lobby - venom should wear off in an hour - sorry

[a-stray-thief]

In a world where Shane doesn't get hurt by Cliff Marleau and Ilya does manage to break it off with him, the Raiders defeat the Admirals in the Eastern Conference final. Ilya channels all of his anger and despair and this feeling of helplessness and loss of control when he looks at Shane into absolute control and dominance on the ice. He drags the Raiders to another Stanley Cup, Shane watches at home, once again torn between pride and jealousy. (Scott Hunter seriously contemplates retirement. He gave up Kip for hockey but hockey doesn't give back.)

The next season, the grief had time to settle and time hasn't healed anything. Shane and Ilya play the worst season of the their careers.

The first time they play each other is a repeat of the post Rose Landry game. The second time is a little better, they both get a goal each and it feels almost a little like it used to. So much so that Ilya texts Shane, just two simple words. Come over. 

Shane can't believe the audacity. (or maybe he actually can) 

We're not doing that anymore, he texts back. 

I know, Ilya writes. Come over. 

No. Shane gets a cab anyway. 

When Ilya opens the door he's smirking. “You came.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says and then flings himself at Ilya, gets his hands into his curls. 

Ilya reaches for Shane, there's a moment where they fight for control and then Shane gives and Ilya can fit his mouth against his neck, make him moan, and Shane drops to his knees right there, Ilya grappling for balance against the wall as Shane gives him the greediest, sloppiest, most perfect blowjob known to man. Ilya comes so hard he almost misses how Shane jerks himself off and comes as soon as Ilya's finished. They stand there, kneel there, panting for a moment, no thoughts just bliss, then Ilya pulls Shane up, goes to seek out his mouth, all plush and red and spitslick now but Shane stumbles back, doing up his pants and says “shit, what are we doing” and turns on his heels and flees out of Ilya's house and Ilya thinks fuck, of course again, and fuck, we didn't even kiss. 

The Raiders’ dream of defending the cup goes up in smoke. The Metros don't do much better and in the end the Raiders don't even make the playoffs and the Metros barely manage the wild card spot and get swept in the first round by fucking Buffalo of all teams. 

Shane and Ilya still meet at the MLH awards. Shane is nominated for the sportsmanship award, and despite the Raiders overall poor showing their rookie is nominated for the Calder and Ilya is being a good dutiful captain. 

They both seek out the roof, Ilya for a cigarette and Shane for peace and quiet. 

“This can't happen again,” Shane says. 

“What, you nagging about my smoking?”

“No. That neither of us is nominated for any of the trophies.” 

“You're nominated for nicest player.”

“You know that's not what I mean.”

And Shane looks at Ilya, really looks at him. “If we're giving this up, then it has to be worth it. What we had, it could be good. So good.” 

“If we were not who we are.” Ilya says bitterly. 

Shane nods. “So it's only worth it if we're the best of who we can be. Together at the top. Dominating the league. Building an unquestionably legacy. Future Hall of Famers.”

“And then?” Ilya asks. 

“Then we are beyond reproach. The greatest who ever played the game.”

“And then?” Ilya asks again.

“Then we can do whatever the fuck we want,” Shane says, calmly, evenly. 

He doesn't say what that is. He doesn't need to. All of these years, all of the risks, and they cannot stay away from each other.

Ilya nods. “Together at the top.”

Shane holds out a hand, just like he did all those years ago in Saskatchewan. 

“May the better man win.”

Ilya grips his hand tight. “I will beat you.” 

Shane grins. “That's not gonna happen.”

Letting go of Shane's hand is physically painful. 

“1410,” Ilya says. “For old time’s sake.”

Shane looks at him very seriously. “For old time’s sake.” 

They don't return to the party. It’s not even midnight. 

They have ten hours and they don't sleep for a minute. They gorge themselves on each other's bodies, they kiss and fuck and kiss. They hold each other and touch each other. They talk and they're quiet, they laugh and at one point in the darkness they cry. 

And in the morning they leave, flying back to their respective cities. 

(During the summer, Scott Hunter announces his retirement. He is grateful for hockey and for the Admirals, but he needs to focus on his personal life.)

At the beginning of the next season, Hollander and Rozanov return to the ice with a vengeance. Record breaking seasons, top of the division, top of the conference. They meet in the conference finals and over seven hard fought games, the Metros take the victory. It's Shane who lifts the cup that year. Who gets playoff MVP. 

At the MLH awards, Shane gets the Rocket and Ilya gets the Art Ross and Ilya is season MVP. Hollander and Rozanov are back, dominating the league like never before.

“1410,” Shane says to Ilya in passing. 

Ilya was so annoyed when he tried to book that specific room and it was already gone, he should have known. 

The next year, the Raiders take back the top spot. 

And round and round it goes. There are years when neither the Metros nor the Raiders win the cup of course. Hockey is a team sport and not even someone like Shane Hollander or Ilya Rozanov can win a cup by themselves. 

But they meet at the awards every year because they're nominated every year. Between them, there isn't a year where neither of them wins a trophy. 

Hollander and Rozanov, together at the top. 

The rivalry is as strong as ever. The tone of it changes though. They are less cutting, more complimentary in interviews. By unspoken agreement they start saying words like mutual respect, friends off the ice, challenging each other to be better. The media says they've matured. The league calls it sportsmanship. 

Ilya and Shane don't call it anything. But once a year, in Las Vegas, in room 1410, they spend a night truly together at the top.

And once they retire, the same number of cups to their name, the faces of their franchises, their numbers hanging in the rafters in Montreal and Boston, Ilya leading Shane in career goals but Shane beating Ilya in overall points, unrivaled trophy rooms, the league defining players for two decades, once that is all over, they meet at the MLH awards for one last time. 

“1410,” Ilya says who beat Shane to the reservation that year. One last victory.

In the morning, Shane hands him a piece of paper. An address. 

“I have a cottage,” he says, “where I spend my summers.”

Ilya does not admit how often he's watched the documentary about it.

“Come whenever you want.”

Ilya takes the piece of paper and he knows that this is the true victory. 

[hollanov-fics]

Hey!! Thank you for all that you do to maintain this archive, I wish I was joking when I say I check it daily lol do you have any recs for fics where they have been married since the start or much earlier in their relationship?

first thought was this gem:

The Game Plan

by FestiveFerret, pouringinsheets

Shane Hollander is the number two overall NHL draft pick and a newly minted Montreal Voyageur. He’s also laser focused on his goals: being the best by beating the best. For him, this means a continued rivalry with number one draft pick—and new Ottawa Centaur—Ilya Rozanov. But when a problem with Rozanov’s immigration paperwork threatens his future in the NHL, what does that mean for Shane’s own career? He can’t risk finding out…so they get married. Just for immigration. A fast, practical, mutually beneficial solution. No one will ever suspect, let alone find out, that the NHL’s greatest rivals are secretly married. And there’s certainly no risk of feelings getting involved. They have a game plan.

there's also this one:

Golden Affairs

by Agathawouldbeproud26

Ilya and Shane marry after Rookie season Due to Shane being a little more aware of himself thanks to Yuna, over-prepared mamma bear, explaining all types of sex/attraction to him from a young age (“He needs to be prepared for anything! I am not pigeonholing my son!”), Shane knowns he’s crushing on, if not falling for, Ilya. The butterfly effect occurs; this has only one outcome really. It’s a small thing. Tiny. When Ilya is not there for Shane’s Rookie of the Year award after-party, Shane is worried, needing to track down the other man, instead of slightly annoyed/upset that he would be without Yuna’s lessons. This in turn leads him to not doing shots with Scott Hunter. Which means only one thing: other than the whole ‘definitely being aware of falling for your rival’ tiny thing. It shouldn’t change much. He is not drunk on that balcony with Ilya. - Ilya Rozanov is married, everyone knows this. His wife, Jane, is strict, perfect, stunning, pretty, boring, and Canadian. She’s always too busy to meet the team. Shane Hollander is married; some people know this. He doesn’t speak about his wife Lily much, but he’s absolutely smitten with her. Lily is private, but they know she’s everything Shane isn’t, a smoker and Russian. Maybe they would think she isn’t the one for him, some do, but Shane never talks about her enough to be sure either way.

[darkstarknight03]

Ok but imagine an AU where Hollonov is just ten years older. Just ten years and it makes all the difference. Just all these little ways that being queer has gotten easier (and harder, in some ways) in the span of a decade alone.

Gay marriage isn't legalized anywhere in the world until the year 2000, right around the time they have their first few hookups before/during their Rookie year. Gay marriage isn't legalized anywhere in Canada until 2003, and it's legalized in both Quebec and Massachusetts (the first U.S. state) in 2004. It was made fully legal in Canada in 2005 and in the U.S. in 2015. Obviously they're not trying to get married two years into their relationship but it's a pretty good symbolic representation of where the world was comparatively at with The Gay Thing back then. Think about how this could effect their comfort levels with the idea of being queer!!!

On top of that is the timeline differences — they would get to participate in four Olympics throughout their careers, but these would serve as wildly different objects for the plot than in canon. The 2002 Olympics are in Utah and the 2006 Olympics are in Italy, but the 2010 Olympics are in Vancouver. Would Shane feel a lot of pressure with the Olympics in his country like Ilya, or not because he's always played Hockey in Canada? Depending on how closely to canon we follow, is Ilya still repping team Russia by 2010, after three years of a relationship with Shane? Regional anti-gay propaganda laws began popping up in Russia by 2006, and became federal in 2013. Would he even want to go to Sochi, if he and Shane are still in the closet at thirty-three? If they're somehow out by then, by some means other than a fanmail video (because those didn't exist) (but not because they came out on their own, because they never would have done that in 2011), would Shane still have gone to Sochi? It was actually a thing at the time that some countries sent queer athletes or representatives (mostly female) in protest, but would they feel safe sending Shane when they know his husband is the former Captain of Team Russia, making him sort of the ultimate enemy?

In this AU all the other Hockey Queers are the same age as before, so without the Skip Kiss, would it take Shane and Ilya longer to get their shit together? Would they keep pretending they aren't boyfriends even though neither of them have been able to sleep with other people since the 2007 All-Stars? How long would it take them to cut the crap? How much longer would it take for Shane to come out to his parents? Would he ever tell Hayden? He'd definitely never tell his team.

Would Ilya even transfer to Ottawa during the summer of 2008? Or would he stay in Boston, since he's still in denial? Maybe his new contract would be shorter, and he moves to Ottawa a few years later, when the distance becomes too much to bare. Maybe they do this instead of getting married in 2011. Maybe that's the most they can do at that time.

Would they stay in the closet, fully in the closet with nobody but each other (and eventually Rose and Svetlana and Shane's parents) until 2017 — after seventeen years of fights and heartbreak and trying to distance themselves for their own benefit and the horrible experience of being codependent with somebody you hardly see every week, much less every day — until Scott Hunter, practically a child compared to the two of them, kisses his boyfriend on the ice after winning the cup.

What do they do then? Do they come out? Do they decide it's better to wait it out, since they're so close to retirement anyway? Does Shane get down on one knee, right then and there, and finally propose to the love of his life at thirty-six years old?

In the end, do they still come out in 2021? Is it the day they retire? Is it at their last MLH Awards? At their hall of fame induction? Are they, just barely forty now, a little grey around the temples, a little tight around the eyes?

Have they been mentors to Scott? To Troy, the poor kid Ilya helps out in his last season, and the other one, Luca? To Ryan, who he played with back in Boston (or did he? Was he still in Boston in 2014)? Are they friends with Eric, now that they're closer in age? To Wiebe, who is only a year older than them. With those other two guys that were mentioned as offhand references in TLG, who were made to retire when they came out in the wake of the Skip Kiss? How many more people exist amongst the older generation of gays that never got a chance because they were there a decade too early?

Ugh just there are all these cultural things that truly do make THAT much of a difference in a decade, and also all of these current-events happenings that would totally effect their story.

[vincentlemaire]

I can’t stop thinking about a fic where Vincent Lemaire (the other rookie of the year nominee, plays for the Minnesota Nomads, has a mustache, that’s everything we know about him) and Koroygi (the third pick in the 2009 draft, plays for the Houston Drillers, his first name is literally never mentioned in the show) fall in love and want to be the Game Changing faces of gay hockey, but can’t because they’re constantly overshadowed by Hollanov’s bullshit.

Like imagine, you are two talented MLH players. You are in love. You have decided, together, bravely, to make A Statement. Not just a press release, but A Moment. For the culture. For every queer kid watching hockey. For history.

Vincent has been planning this for weeks. He’s going to score a hat trick (he’s a rookie of the year nominee, he’s good enough to just decide to do that shit) and then he’s going to rip off his jersey and show that he’s wearing a Koroygi jersey underneath. The crowd’s going to go wild. Sports media’s going to implode, everyone’s going to cry.

EXCEPT

It’s the same fucking day Shane Hollander gets into his first ever on-ice fight. With Scott Hunter. AFTER a game. Just hockey’s two Golden Boys throwing hands for reasons no one can fully explain. Of course ESPN loses its mind. And of course it’s like an hour before the Nomads are set to play.

So it’s back to the fucking drawing board.

And fine. Vincent’s a professional. He wants to give something important to queer fans who feel like they don’t belong. He and First Name can regroup. They’ll do it in the playoffs.

Now’s it’s 2017. Minnesota and Houston are both contenders for The Cup and it’s the perfect stage. The plan: when Vincent and First Name (obviously both centers) meet for the final face off, they’ll rip off their helmets and kiss right as the puck drops. It would be iconic! The SportsCenter thumbnail alone would win a GLAAD award!

EXCEPT

Just before the second intermission of the Nomads v Drillers game, everyone’s phones explode with alerts that Cliff Marlow fucking leveled Shane Hollander. Now the entire news cycle is “is Hollander okay” and “is Montreal’s cup run over” and “why wouldn’t Rozanov leave Hollander’s side on the ice” and “what does Rozanov’s face mean” and there are a million blurry screenshots of Rozanov looking devastated circulating on every platform.

And Vincent is standing at the bench in his helmet, mouth guard in, wanting to make history, and First Name is looking at him from the opposite bench and they both just know that The Moment is gone, absorbed into the black hole of Hollander and Rozanov content.

And what sucks so much is that Lemaire and Koroygi are good players! They have a genuine, beautiful, historic thing they’re trying to do. But their entire class of hockey exists in the shadow of these twice-in-a-generation talents who can’t stop generating headlines by accident that Vincent and First Name can’t generate on purpose.

It’s like trying to drop your debut album on the same day Beyonce surprise drops hers. It doesn’t matter how good your album is, you’re not getting any streams.

And then Scott Hunter comes out.

And Vincent like, okay, you know what? Good for him. Genuinely. At least it’s not Hollander and Rozanov stealing our thunder for once. The narrative has shifted. The door is open. Maybe now people will actually pay attention when—

And then Shane and Ilya get married.

Find it @ Solid Pick on AO3

[hitsdifferent-coz-itsyou]

I saw your request for heated rivalry fic prompts, and I had an idea I posted up in the Hollanov community a couple days ago that I don't trust myself to write.

The premise is basically, Hollanov actually understand that they've fallen in love with each other within their first year together. They get married sometime around the end of their rookie season, each spending the next decade of his career referencing his "wife" (the illusive Lily, for Shane because they're both very private, and Ilya's Jane about whom he is very vocal, but who's always too busy to meet the team). Shane uses "Lily" as a frequent excuse to not go out partying, and Ilya has to explain on more than one occasion that his 'wife" doesn't care what the media thinks he does because he always comes home to "her". Someone else added that Vermont is halfway between Montreal and Boston, and I looked it up, and Vermont legalized gay marriage in September of 09, so maybe they get married there? Or there and in Canada because it's been federally legal in Canada since 03 or 05? Either way, they get married young, they buy a house together in Vermont where they live as often as their carriers permit, and they spend all of season 1/Heated Rivalry (Game Changer Series) hiding their actual legal relationship instead of their hook-ups that eventually amount to something. The truth probably comes out to their friends/family a little sooner in this when Shane goes down on the ice and Ilya rushes Montreal General like, "Let me see my fucking husband!"

OH MY GODS

I am addicted to this

its late at night but i have begun the blurb at least, maybe you'll get a chapter by next week? Maybe the week after (sorry have another fic to finish but also work is kicking my ass right now!)

Wrote this in like 3 minutes sorry coz its a little shitty

Due to Shane being a little more aware of himself thanks to Yuna, over-prepared mamma bear, explaining all types of sex/attraction to him from a young age (“He needs to be prepared for anything! I am not pigeonholing my son!”), Shane knowns he’s crushing on, if not falling for, Ilya. The butterfly effect occurs; this has only one outcome really. It’s a small thing really. Tiny. When Ilya is not there for his MVP award, Shane is worried, needing to track down the other man, instead of slightly annoyed/upset. This in turn leads him to not doing shots with Scott Hunter. Which means one thing; He is not drunk on that balcony with Ilya. ```````` “I go home in three days.” Shane pauses his automatic response to such a statement, ‘must be nice’ coiling on his tongue. “Okay,” Comes out instead, calmer then he meant to, searching almost.

Hows this asker? I hope to get some done for it!

going to do so much POV outsider after the first chapter/after they marry tho, it will be so much fun to see them talk about "lily" and "jane" from an outside POV as their "wives" LMAO I love this!!

Maybe also a social media aspect????

YESSSSssssssssssssssssssssss

Anyway I need sleep now! Long day (sob) so hot here I'm having a shower lol

See you asker, hope this is what you wanted! You shall receive more soon!

(I'll tag you if you want?)

[wtf-is-hockey]

it's not that i hate the skip episode i simply haven't thought about it since watching it once and never again two months go, but now you made me think about how to include their story more naturally and i've come up with a way that works in my head (although i think it makes it way less accurate as an adaptation) and is veeeeeery minimal. i think you only need two scenes: one phone call early in their relationship where they talk about smoothies or whatever. in my head this is vegas where it cuts from ilya and shane schmoozing and texting their room number to a quiet hotel floor where he speaks to kip before shane passes by and he either abruptly changes the topic or ends the phone call, and the camera follows shane to ilya's hotel room. then maybe anther scene during tampa where we follow shane out of ilya's hotel room but he disappears into the background and the camera moves through the wall into a hotel room a few rooms down where scott is on the phone with kip again and they are fighting. he says something anout not coming out until retirement/being out of the league (maybe even "if i came out i'd never get a cup" or something to set up the Kiss). kip is clearly unhappy, and if you want, they could even break up, but that makes it harder to establish why he's at the game.

scott being established as a character and the Kiss stay exactly the same, and every relevant info regarding his career can be dropped via podcast voice over i think.

anyway as someone who doesn't care about skip and has never read game changer the book this seems like a workable method to get to the kiss but i assume it's also very different from the book (and i tried but i couldn't find a way to include the sock, which i find very cute). sorry for clogging your inbox with these half-formed thoughts but you reminded me that in my head only five episodes of hr exist bc i just deleted ep 3 from my memory

This is more or less what I've had in mind, and what I would have liked to see.

What I love about episode one is that even though Scott is a very minor side character, and we see very little of him, and only through Shane's pov, we can actually surmise quite a lot about him.

We know that he heard Ilya give his room number to Shane. We know that he not only heard this, but he specifically heard something that Ilya and Shane didn't mean for him to hear. We see the look on his face - wait a minute, what's going on here? We know he's thinking something (when I first watched, I assumed he was going to be queerphobic antagonist, because he so clearly visibly is connecting the dots in that moment). But the show continues, and nothing happens. So right away, we know 1) Scott knows (something, at least. He has an idea) and 2) he hasn't told anybody. That can only mean one thing in this environment. So, we have the means at that point in the show to already be considering, oh. Scott's gay too.

Then later, for the MVP awards (I don't if that's what they're actually called but you know what I mean) he walks up to Shane and asks, "Where's your boy, Rozanov?" Shane starts doth protesting too much, and acting weird. So does Scott a little. Again, we have this moment where we go, hmm. Scott knows.

They could have just continued to do this, you know? They could have just continued to convey to us what's going on through Scott. That's pretty much what you're outlining above - something already vastly preferable to what we got in the show.

But it could be even subtler. Imagine that instead of Ilya bumping into Shane's mom on his way to his first hookup with Shane - it's Kip. Now, we wouldn't know who Kip is. As far as we know, that's just some guy - but later, during the skip kiss, we would go, holy shit. That's the dude from the elevator. Oh my God. Scott has been with this guy since before Shane and Ilya's rookie season!

Then imagine that they actually make more use out Scott being right next door to Ilya's room outside of it being an excuse to put off their first time. What if Ilya and Shane had overheard two men's voices next door? Like you said - arguing, maybe, or maybe just talking. Not fucking - it's crucial that Ilya and Shane remain oblivious to Scott and Kip's relationship. But we, the viewer, would be connecting those dots, you know? It would also give us more context for the look of worry in Scott's eyes when he tells Shane that his room is right next door to Ilya's if at the time he tells Shane this, he knows Kip is going to visit him at his hotel later.

Then at the Olympics, instead of only showing us Shane's reaction to what Carter was saying in ep. 2, what if we got Scott's too? Instead of putting it off until the next episode? What if we saw the same look of fear in his eyes?

Then for episode three, I like the idea of keeping the fight with Shane. I would prefer to see it from Shane's pov. Prefer to see Ilya's reaction to it. And then, let's say Ilya texts Shane to tease him about the fight, and we see them talking for a bit - and they both talk about how something has been off about Scott that season. He's playing really badly, he's just not bringing his A game. What if, through what they say, maybe through what commentators at the game say - we surmise, uh oh. Scott has something bad going on in his personal life. Maybe we can even surmise, oh no. Scott and his boyfriend have broken up.

Episdoe 4 could have another something small happen like this. Something happening in the background, or for barely a moment, something so subtle, that it would make sense for Shane and Ilya to still not notice, but something we would notice. Some sign Scott is trying to get back together with his boyfriend.

Then come episode 5, and the skip kiss. Would we not still have all of the context we needed for that moment? Would we not still be rooting for Scott to have that moment with Kip? Would it not still be incredibly moving?

I think it would work literally just as well and it would avoid interrupting the flow of the story. It would also mean the Hollanov story gets the time it needs, and that we avoid some of the ickier details of the skip episode (the queerphobic trope, the creepiness of asking him to move in day 1). It would also hit harder, I think, because in this version, we know that Scott has been with Kip, or in love with Kip for years. And they had been having their own secret relationship and struggles for years. Then at his speech in ep. 5, he could mention any other remaining context that is useful us to know.

It just so obviously works so much better to me, and it was very doable. It's frustrating to me that this wasn't the approach, and again, I blame it on loyalty to the books. I've heard that Reid even wants Tierney to include more skip in season 2. I don't think Tierney is planning on it, but oh my God. Tierney. I beg you. Please stop using the books as a rulebook. They're a fucking prototype, not a rulebook.

Anyway, in essence, I entirely agree with you, and I would 1000% take your version over the one we got. If I personally approached doing it, I might make it even more subtle, but either way works waaay better.

[kalinara]

So I've been thinking about the first Vegas scene between Ilya and Shane - the rooftop, and I feel like my take on it is maybe different from a lot of folk. Possibly just because I'm a biased Shane fan.

There's so much discussion, for example, about the first rooftop Vegas scene that really gets into how "dismissive" or "minimizing" Shane's "must be nice" comment was when Ilya tries to open up to him.

The thing is though, even taking autism off the table, why SHOULD Shane interpret Ilya's "I go home in three days" as an attempt to open up? Why should he accept it?

From Shane's perspective, he's just won an award after a very close competition. He and Ilya have been going back and forth all year and he has every right to be happy that he won something really big! This is his time to celebrate!

From Shane's perspective, he and Ilya have been hitting it off really well, and maybe the relationship is primarily sex, but it's been nice sex, and expecting your situationship to be happy for you, and maybe spend a little time with you at the one opportunity you have to be together before the summer, is not unreasonable.

And of course, as the audience, we know why Ilya's upset. We know that Ilya has a miserable time at home. We know that Ilya's dad is going to be very critical of his performance and that this loss is probably going to be a part of that.

But Shane doesn't know that. All he knows is that he went up to the rooftop to find his new maybe-romantic-partner and got yelled at and humiliated for his trouble.

Maybe Ilya meant his "I go home in three days" as an apology and an olive branch. I can see it. But Shane isn't under any obligation to accept that apology.

And really, when you think about it, while they've known each other for more than a year or two at this point, they still haven't really substantially talked. WE know that Ilya's behavior is out of character, but Shane might not! For all he knows, this is Ilya showing what he's like when he's not trying to get into Shane's pants.

I've said in a different post that I didn't read "must be nice" as an intentional dismissal so much as a scripted clarification - i.e. Shane doesn't know why Ilya's saying this now so he's giving the standard pleasantry, but in a quizzical tone, looking for an explanation.

But maybe he DID mean it dismissively. Maybe Shane did hear Ilya's "I go home in three days" as an apology/explanation and thought "actually, that's not a good explanation for yelling at me. I'm hurt and humiliated and I don't want to talk about it or you anymore."

Personally, I don't lean toward that interpretation at all, but if that were the case, he'd have had every right to react that way.

The funny thing is, I've even seen fans blame Shane for the fact that rooftop scene doesn't end in a hookup. As though Ilya didn't respond to Shane's handshake attempt by shoving his tongue down his throat.

But it was Shane who broke away there, and I think his response is interesting: "we're in tuxedos, out in public." The first part feels unnecessary. What difference does it make what they're wearing? But maybe that is a part of it after all: a tuxedo is an outfit for a celebration and Shane's not really feeling very celebratory anymore. He won Rookie of the Year and his night's been ruined.

He could have said "not here" and Ilya would have, I suspect, been very happy to take this back to one of their hotel rooms for one last hurrah before going home.

But I don't blame Shane one bit for his reactions here. He did miss the opportunity for emotional connection and to get an actual explanation for Ilya's behavior, which is a shame. But it seems reasonable to me that Shane wasn't open to it at the time.

And really, he doesn't have to be. Just because the bad boy has a reason for his actions does not mean that the person he hurts has to be open to that explanation. (Admittedly, a couple of years of blue balls does seem maybe a bit disproportionate, but Ilya seemed to enjoy the chase anyway...)