perceived by squirrels

He/Him. Formerly dormant alphabet mafia fanboy reawakened by Heated Rivalry. Adopted son of Shane Hollander and Harper Stern. Suffers weekly anxiety attacks from The Pitt. I recognize the divine right of the King of the Monsters.

[yuqis-ifty]

Ik we were talking about MILF Yuna Hollander and DILF David Hollander, but genuinely they were also both just THAT attractive even when they were younger, for reference:

Mind you these aren't even from that long ago. So yes, hot4hot strikes in the hr universe yet again.

[westernunionfrog]

Ultimately what disappoints me about Rachel Reid's approach to writing about how race affects Shane's characterization isn't it being nonexistent, because I actually wouldn't say it is completely. It's that she's the one responsible for pulling a bait and switch by dropping crumbs throughout the writing and laying a foundation for making HERSELF appear ready to explore the impacts of it on his character in depth, only to then completely ignore that aspect as if she never even touched on it. This isn't a cut case of readers pressuring her to address parts of his character that she never signed up for, this is something she herself alludes to being ready and equipped to delve into and then chooses not to.

For instance in Shane's first meeting with Commissioner Crowell in TLG it's not only directly detailed that Crowell is weaponizing Shane's tokenization in the league against him but also that Shane himself is fully aware of how he's being targeted.

Can y'all imagine my intrigue reading this scene, thinking how full circle TLG was coming and enthusiastically expecting further in the book how the institutional racism will finally be addressed and confronted as a part of Hollanov's and more specifically Shane's conflict with the league...only for Rachel to pretty much go '"who said that?" and it never be mentioned again?

I'm throwing a prayer circle around Unrivaled as we speak but I'm not holding out hope it gets the proper respect in that book either.

[shilyas]

And suddenly Ilya looked very blurry through Shane’s eyes. Shane swallowed down the urge to cry, and said, “Me too. Just one.” — Heated Rivalry (Chapter 26)

while Ilya is saying this matter-of-factly, it's also to reassure the Hollanders that he's serious about their son. but Shane is hearing this for the first time, too. he's now learned that he has been & is the only one for Ilya. his reaction is so precious. ♡

[westernunionfrog]

I think this is also the part that broke Yuna where she had to leave the table. To know your child kept not just someone they were seeing hidden from you but the literal one and only true love of their life and for nearly a decade. The thought of how much lying and denying they had to do not just to you but to themselves for all that time. Pretending to go along every time you talked shit about the man who loves him like a dog, recognizing that the relationship with Rose was a last ditch attempt to run away from himself, and realizing that the journey your child had of falling in love was not the euphoric rush of happiness that he deserved to have, but was one of deep fear, angst and shame that he didn't get to even enjoy for himself. I feel how deeply Yuna would be crushed as a parent in that moment.

When she says she's proud of Shane it's because she's proud he stopped denying himself of what he wanted and what he deserved, even in spite of the fact that she failed to be there to push him towards it.

[sosaneitsinsane]

Love, love is a verb Love is a doing word Fearless on my breath...

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[taiturner]

HEATED RIVALRY WEEK ● day 5: favorite character — SHANE HOLLANDER

[lesbianlandry]

shane "talking back" hollander

[unrivaledhollanov]

heated rivalry except you’re Ilya in episode with no gems 😔💎

[humani-dar-te]

look at this

it's a Reinassance painting.

THE POSE

LOOK AT THESE HANDS

i cannot make this up. they're so perfect

[sinmonger]

[swearphil]

You are in love, true love

[westernunionfrog]

Hey swifties y'all can thank me later for this find

[texasbama]

#I'm talkin bout innnn ittttt

[intergalacticmca]

Shane and Ilya cannot be trusted to be alone in a room together for 2 minutes without going at it in some capacity and that’s why Ilya had to keep so much physical and emotional distance between in Russia, a place he doesn’t consider safe.

They shared a single, brief, stilted conversation and Ilya was staring at Shane in the rafters while he was actively involved with a practice with his team at the International Prospect Cup.

At the draft, Ilya stares down at Shane from above and corners him in a public hotel gym to flirt with him.

At the CCM photoshoot, Ilya calls Shane pretty and cannot stop himself from giggling at his proximity to the cute boy who’s been consuming his thoughts since their first meeting. Afterward, in the shower, he touches himself next to Shane and they end up hooking up.

At the Nashville All-Star game, Ilya taps his foot against Shane’s in a room full of people, moves across the bench to flirt with him, and pointedly tells him his hotel room number as he skates by him in front of everyone. A few hours later, Ilya is throwing himself between Shane’s legs and begging to fuck him.

On the Vegas rooftop, which is accessible to anyone, they argue yet Ilya can’t help but push Shane against a wall and kiss him passionately.

At the Vegas award show, he holds Shane’s neck in the crowded room and sensually trails his hand down his back. In the bathroom, which is, again, public and accessible to everyone, Ilya can’t help but cross the small space to touch Shane, caress him, and kiss him, then text him in the middle of a crowded party his hotel room number.

In the episode 4 montage, Ilya doesn’t even make it to the bedroom in Shane’s apartment before he bends Shane over the couch, and in the same montage refuses to part his lips from Shane’s as the ascend the stairs in Shane’s apartment. When Shane comes to Ilya’s house, it’s barely a minute before Ilya’s mouth is on Shane’s and he has Shane up on the counter.

Contrast this to Sasha in the Russian bathroom in episode 2, someone who Ilya has been intimate with. He allows Sasha to crowd into his space, unaffected, and rejects him with ease because it’s disinterest motivating his rejection here more than fear.

Ilya does not trust himself around Shane because he knows he can’t resist being close to him, touching him, kissing him, holding him. Ilya tries to come off as cool and unaffected, which can lead to the shallow interpretation that he’s manipulating or using Shane, but the fact of the matter is he knows he can’t resist Shane. When Shane approaches him in Russia, Ilya barely looks at him because he knows there’s a chance he’ll crumble if he does, and that’s dangerous.

Ilya desires and loves Shane so much he’ll often behave recklessly just to be near him in places where he feels less threatened, but Russia is one place he knows he cannot do that, and his distance is to protect Shane as much as it is himself.

[westernunionfrog]

Of course my first post rejoining fandom on tumblr again for the first time in years is making myself almost cry over the realization that what makes Shane and Ilya's love so pure, raw and authentic, for me is its simplicity. Its basicness. Its intentionality in utilizing the maximum limit of love within the barest minimum it's allowed.

Shane and Ilya themselves, at surface level, are simple, emotionally uncomplicated guys for the most part. They don't adorn their love with the spectacle and pageantry of the grandest gestures of affection or boldest and most poetic declarations of devotion and commitment largely because they literally don't have the capability for it.

As two men not just falling in love with each other in hiding under the weight of their own mental and emotional demons but also as people mechanically molded since childhood into the biggest prodigies of one of the most toxic and homophobic sports cultures, they never had a template or language for what love between them could, should or would look like, or even something that was a possibility at all. From the beginning they were disarmed and excluded from accessing the idealized tools the rest of the world has been conditioned by heteronormative society to express love with.

But instead of running away from their desire for one another, an easy path commonly exercised by even hetero couples who fail to successfully navigate the idealized templates and languages of love already has established for them, Shane and Ilya create their own template and language that only they can follow.

Remembering the tiny details of their person in secrecy, like a can of ginger ale or Coke become the Shakespearean declarations of devotion that neither of them may not have ever even read. The lust of early physical encounters become imbued with the tenderness of confessing to your first crush. The limited vocabulary given to them by cultural and institutional masculinity meant to only be used towards other men as competitive insult or degradation become expressions of safety; "boring" becomes: you give me peace I never thought I'd find, "fuck you" and "asshole" become: you bring me out of my head to express multitudes I didn't know were inside me. 

The world set these boys up with so little tools for understanding each other and themselves, essentially nothing. And yet they took that 'nothing' and used it to instead defeat literally 'everything' this world could possibly throw at them to get them to quit choosing each other: their careers, families, cultural/language barriers, childhood trauma, self-hate, compulsory heterosexuality, misunderstood neurodivergence, the weight of consequences from whole ass countries recognized as global powers, etc. Because these two boys at 17 years old one day in Saskatchewan shook hands, saw freckles and finally felt for the first time they were enough. 

It's giving couple of all time.

[aslongasitsblack]

heated rivalry is a perfect show because you can think about the characters as these complex nuanced portrayals of intersections of race and masculinity and trauma and geopolitical conflict and how those traits play out within how the characters interact and you can also think shane hollander rides that thang like he’s being held at gunpoint but he’s holding the gun to his own head