maladaptive daydreaming means i'm physically incapable of being bored,
prepare for heated rivalry world domination,
expect homeopathic doses of sci fi, cyberpunk and fantasy and whatever hazbin hotel/helluva boss are
i feel like an underdiscussed element of the locker room situation is also that shane had time to get fully dressed and still had to fuck around and pretend to be putting on his shoes to buy time and make an excuse for still being there by the time ilya came out, still wrapped in a towel
like i know my man's shower routine is not THAT fucking intense my GOD
which means that ilya fully 100% was deliberately giving shane time to get dressed and be gone if he wanted, which i find extremely sweet, honestly
MORE heated rivalry fics that are conceptually clever or unsettling or thorough. or all of the above
not all of them are aus . many are under 15k hits
put my hand on the stove (and the cross) - unseemlyndisturbed
(beautiful eerie prose, the religiosity holds substance and is hypnotic. Load bearing fanfiction)
“And there.
Through a break in the trees, there is a house. Wooden, old, the pale white paint of it greyed with age and dampness.
"I—" His voice comes out level, at least.
The man has tilted his head. "What? You want to sleep in your car?" He pulls his chin toward the dark interior of the house, a small gesture. "No. Come in. Is no trouble."
God hasn’t abandoned him yet, ha.
Shane Hollander's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. The man who answers the door is charming, warm, and just his type. Ilya Rozanov is a very religious man. He has a lot to say about repentance.”
HOLLANDER VS ROZANOV I - gone_girl
(i know nothing about boxing, but this conveys the world so clearly. outsider pov in chapter 1. knowledgeable clever cool character study)
“After nearly a decade separated by weight class, Shane Hollander has given up his cruiserweight title to challenge undefeated heavyweight champion of the world Ilya Rozanov. The following is a presentation of HBO Boxing.”
A Side Door Into the Dark - magnetica
(climatology physics scientists in antarctica. includes citations at the end. in a short amount of words the sense of setting is sooo strong. very endearing and cold)
“Amundsen-Scott Station, Antarctica
—
In grad school the only flirting he had mastered was the strategic deployment of phrases like ‘oh, really?’ and ‘is that so?’ It was brought to his attention by one of his more regular hookups in the kitchen of his apartment while they were cooking dinner, and he had said whenever Shane wanted to fuck he started talking like a coastal elite college girl who’d never had to ask for it outright. Now, in this strange point of contact with Ilya where it was obvious something vaguely carnal had passed between them, he thought about emulating his particular brand of assured charm. Whatever ideas he’d concocted devolved rather quickly into his own unintentional directness, and he said, “Does it scare you?”
“Does climatology scare you?” Ilya’s face was measured and calm, his foot still pressed against the curved joint above Shane’s heel.
“Yeah,” the word came out like a laugh, “it does, actually. A lot.””
decadent stress chamber - garagepaperback
(every word is intentional. frenetic. load bearing wall of a fic! buzzy. anything by garagepaperback is immaculate)
“Rush week confirms a lot of things. Ambitions, fears. Where do I fit? What if I don’t fit anywhere? Nervous freshman bitten-lip shit. Being an active, a senior, means having answers. Shane has no further questions.
–
Or, Shane’s in a frat. Ilya rushes.”
i looked over it and i ached - IsvsWorld
(very very good character study and exploration of shane’s japanese canadian experience. doesn’t shy away from the harder realisms.)
““I don’t really think about stuff like that,” Shane replies in interviews, his lips wooden at the words.
---
Shane and being haafu, 2nd gen, and Asian.”
helpless, tender, open - makomoris
(sexy and sickly and loving..)
“Shane gets an annual cold, Ilya notices, when they start to officially date. It happens when they're both on the road, and he calls Shane from his shitty hotel and hears him sniffling, nose all blocked while he grumbles about having to sit out a game. Ilya lets him whine, says I know, I know, sweetie, it doesn't feel too good, I am sure. He's imagining Shane a little helpless in bed, unable to move, struck down with fever. It stirs something inside him, seeing Shane, usually so whip strong, fastest skater he's seen, laid away to waste by the simple common cold.
or Shane gets sick, and Ilya still wants.”
HOLLANDER & ROZANOV ARE DEAD - eurydicees
(buzzy and heartfelt and nosy)
It is December, and Scott has been out for long enough to pretend to be used to it, and things are not perfect but they’re fucking good, and Ilya Rozanov is at his apartment for dinner—has been for over an hour—and he’s still waiting so stupidly hopefully to introduce a boyfriend who very, very clearly isn’t coming.
(Or: studies on coming out, learning patience, one-sided conversations, and other absurdist waiting games.)
got milk? i mean, got yoghurt? - unseemlyndisturbed
(fascinating mixed media storytelling…chapter 2 ending we still think about you. read the tags but also it’s sick (like crazy?) but earnest and emotional. sexy and comedic too! :P Also really well researched and realistic which enhances the reading experience so much)
“There was a small recoil, nothing Shane would consciously register as a recoil, just a slight drawing-back of his head and a micro-expression crossing the bridge of his nose.
His brows pulled together for one second, and he pulled the carton away from his face, examining the opening.
Ilya Rozanov has seven cameras. Ilya Rozanov has a blog.
His gay roommate doesn't know about any of this”
hockeybot - hiljainen
(gratifying. mixed media)
“Here is what everyone thinks of you. It’s exactly what you feared. It might actually be worse.”
Thirsty Little Flower - anonymous
(like ok i guess we’re getting into the pervert section of the fic rec list. i really like the shane characterization and the representation of finding out you’re a freak on the family computer and running from it forever. very charming seriously.)
tag i love: “think of this like an erotic expansion pack. the base game has plenty of smut already.”
“Fuck, something was really wrong with him. It was one thing to jerk off in the shower thinking about a hot guy. So maybe it was kinda gay, whatever. It happens. It's really another thing to jerk off thinking about your rival. Who beat you in *two* competitions today. A guy who, in all likelihood, didn't even mean to brush your fingers like that. That's kinda pervy, right? But plenty of other guys are also kinda pervy.
It's really definitely not normal to jerk off thinking about a guy telling you to stay hydrated.
Fuck. Shane Hollander is a freak.”
welcome to the family - pressuretoparty
(so satisfying and makes me flinch. whole house mad❤️. really honest ottawa hollanov depiction.)
“"We are actually so fucking washed," Shane bitches. "I'm never getting better and you are stuck on a losing team that sucks. Everyone is going to forget about us."
"Don't make me trip you," Ilya says, calmly. "Let's do another lap."
"No," Shane barks. Ilya raises his eyebrows.
Shane refuses to accept this. This perpetual cycle of suck. When he invited Ilya to his cottage almost four years ago now, he didn't expect their relationship to turn into their fucking burial ground.
Shane finds himself grounded in Ottawa for the foreseeable future. With his newfound free time, he hangs out with his family, eats Costco Rotisserie chicken, and whips Ilya Rozanov back into a champion.”
Ultimately, she spent 20 hours redoing the copy from scratch — and with her $100-per-hour rate, that meant her client was shelling out $2,000 for copy that likely would have ended up being far cheaper had a human just written it in the first place.
People are so weird about Hayden Pike. He is somehow the most divisive character out of everyone in the GC books, even though he is written almost totally flat. People that LOVE Hayden Pike and think he's super supportive and the best friend ever have read too much fanfiction and forgotten what's canon. People who HATE Hayden and think he's evil and disgusting and irredeemable are just being dramatic and need to re-read the books so they can remember how trivial some of the stuff they're complaining about is.
Hayden is mostly a plot device and a way to prevent Shane from being friendless. I think people forget that he is a straight, white, male professional hockey player. By the standards set by that group of people irl, Hayden is a total saint. However, him being good by comparison isn't an excuse and doesn't mean he's actually great, especially when the books include many much better characters. Still, Hayden's character is a great way for Rachel to show a realistic "good guy" in hockey in a sea of men who are probably more like Dallas Kent or Comeau. Also, many of the issues stem from the fact that Hayden and Shane are just not that close of friends. They are best friends, but they're not truly close, they just spend a lot of time together. They don't have much of a deep emotional bond and are not particularly vulnerable with each other or understanding of each other. Shane might fully understand Hayden, but that's only because the character doesn't have any depth. Hayden definitely doesn't come close to fully understanding Shane, but he still understands him better than any other Montreal player. The two definitely care about each other, but that doesn't mean they know each other all that well. They're kind of like brothers in that way.
The most egregious thing Hayden did was encourage JJ to set up Shane with his friend when Hayden knew about Shane's relationship with Ilya, and JJ didn't. Then, when Shane confronted him about it, he defended himself by basically telling Shane he should leave Ilya for someone better. Whom, according to him, is a random guy Shane's never even met.
This was horrible for two reasons.
1.) Hayden does not genuinely believe Shane is an unhealthy relationship that he needs to get out of. He knows Ilya loves Shane very much and treats him very well, and that his love is reciprocated by Shane. Hayden merely doesn't like Ilya, and that is not justification for encouraging Shane to cheat on him or break up with him for a random guy he doesn't know.
2.) Hayden knew JJ didn't know about Shane's relationship with Hayden, and still put Shane in a position that could compromise that secret. He forced Shane to either struggle to come up with an excuse as to why he wouldn't go out with the guy on the spot or he forced to reveal his relationship before he was ready. That is pretty fucked up for Hayden to do to him.
So, clearly, he's not the most amazing friend or the most considerate person; if you hate him based on this alone, I honestly think that's valid, but this incident isn't even one I see passionate Hayden haters bring up. It's always the general fact that he doesn't like Ilya. The thing is, Ilya also doesn't like him, and has made that clear. Also, Shane never corrects Hayden when he calls Ilya an asshole, he only says he wants them to get along or basically implies that it doesn't matter that he's an asshole because Shane loves him. In reality, Ilya is not an asshole. This is a misconception Hayden has due to the rivalry narrative that was built by the MLH and the fact that Ilya is cocky, even though that's very different from mean or rude. However, this misconception is only confirmed for Hayden when Ilya actually is kind of an asshole to him, although it was largely in response to it being clear Hayden did not like him or respect his relationship with Shane; from his perspective, Ilya started it.
I give Hayden like 2/5 stars. JJ is worse, but the whole Ottawa team is better.
Hollanov AU where Shane explodes into six tiny shanebugs 🐞🥹 Inspired by Connor's and Hudson's verizon and peloton ads respectively (i draw so slow that a lifetime has passed since those ads came out lmao)
Some people in this fandom are SO obsessed with the Power Imbalance. I wrote a whole fic where Rose is somewhat-ineptly psychoanalyzing Shane over the phone after their breakup, and is trying to help him make sense of the tuna meltdown, and the whole thesis of her argument in the fic was that Unnamed Mysterious Guy Whose Identity She Totally Can't Guess, Shane is not nearly as in-control as he thinks he is, and to proceed, Shane needs to take some responsibility and actually negotiate with him rather than passively allowing him to do whatever.
And this commenter was like yes! They have such a power imbalance it's time someone pointed it out! Ilya had so much power over him in Vegas!
and i'm like do you... think... ilya got what he wanted in Vegas?? do you think that went well for either of them??????????
People are just. So invested in Ilya being this mean daddy dom who's in control while poor woobie Shane is just helplessly being bullied. And like... WHERE??? They're putting each other MUTUALLY in saw traps because NEITHER of them knows what the fuck they're doing. it is really important to me that Ilya is also in the fucking saw trap. He's not some mastermind here!!! He has no idea what he is doing!! And crucially it is not going well for him!!!
argh. anyway. i just figured this fit in with your Takes, somewhat.
The ENTIRE THING i like about this pairing in the FIRST PLACE is that they're EQUALS rhrhaghasdgkhgarhgh
and like there's nothing wrong with people writing whatever they want with one hand down their pants or whatever, that's fine and i don't judge, but this was a comment on the thing i wrote! which like, really specifically was not that! so.
ok i'm normal now. promise. (no)
Oh drop the fic link, this sounds like my shit. I appreciate when someone is like hey, you know, you're an adult here, things aren't just happening to you you're also making choices.
But the biological determinism of sex roles strikes again....The one who puts it in is in control we all know this....it says so in the bible....
Sorry I'll stop being snarky. This is such a fandom thing, it's not unique to HR at all, and I never really found a good single word for it---something like infantilization, or vulnerability kink, or woobification---but it's this intense desire to turn a character into a hurt sink who is only ever wronged, and must be comforted and aided. (This is not just a fanfic thing: the masterclass on this in the literary world is A Little Life.)
(Sorry this next bit is such an aside from your post but I got going there)
It's really fascinating actually I'd love a psych / lit class on this entire nexus of tendencies. Because I think there's kind of a spectrum where you have like, woobification on one axis and then identification on the other. So as a super simple cut you get kind of a punnet square:
high identification / high woobification: hurt comfort, you get to imagine yourself as being this weak morally pure little waif receiving care
low identification / high woobification: whump, the fascination with pain and suffering in an object
high identification / low woobification: power fantasies, competence fantasies, being able to imagine yourself as this mensch that pain bounces off of
low identification / low woobification: I think this is mostly external forces that act on the story, like a villain you as the author don't identify with but also don't sympathize with
In this fandom people are often putting Shane deeeeep in that high/high corner. Less so here on tumblr for sure but I see a lot of it via twitter.
As for *why* Shane rather than Ilya (mostly)....well I do think a huge amount of it is just top/bottom stereotype stuff. But I also think people find Ilya harder to identify with because he's foreign, and even more avoidant than Shane, and Storrie portrays him with this coldness early on that makes it easy to project a lot of strength onto him, even though with access to his internal monologue we know that Ilya is grappling with *more* insecurity than Shane is.
I do suspect the tables are going turn SO FAST we're all going to get dizzy when S2 drops and Ilya is sad and lonely in Ottawa and Shane is this distant golden boy figure over in Montreal winning more cups. Woobie Ilya stocks are going to skyrocket, invest early
The basic reason my takes are the way they are is I don’t have a vulnerability kink, which a huuuuuge portion of fandom does
Like I enjoy things people call hurt comfort…sometimes. I like angst. I like conflict with a happy ending.
But stuff that’s just Concerned and Caring Partner/Family/Friends Takes Care of You While You Are so Weak and Small and Need Them is manifestly not my shit. I want to read about people who feel some sense of agency and control over their lives
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
annaxmalina
izzy806
stormborns
