actively obsessing over your fic and Im having such a lovely time in this slow burn. do you have any specific brand you are referencing for ilyas post it note cookies? I also saw albanese gummy bears is what you referenced but still was curious on if there's any specific food brands for all the references (tea, cookies, etc)?
Hello!!!
Sorry to put this under a read more, but I started talking about tea and that is a sure fire way to get me to ramble.
So for the tea specifically:
the Japanese green blend, there’s no real brand. I think about this tea house inside the Japanese grocery store in San Diego that had a literal barrel in the back that they scooped tea out of and that’s what I ordered every time I went in for a hot tea and they bagged it up in little plastic baggies and sold it by weight. BUT when Shane is sick and Ilya comes over with tea, they have toasted rice tea which is maybe MAYBE my favorite green tea. I’ve never had a toasted rice green tea that I did not enjoy. It’s my big tea splurge. I love a toasted rice green tea.
For the Russian black tea, I really am thinking about what US Americans would consider a Caravan blend. You can buy it at any tea shop likely, but it has a Smoky underbite to it and I think it’s LOVELY with a little jam.
I want to call out that because Russia and china are so “close” (only using quotations because Russia is fucking HUGE ya know. Like some of it is very not close to china) that a lot of tea culture is shared. I am thinking of Lapsang Souchong tea which is very smoky in flavor and was likely shared in Russia and you see where I’m going with this.
And my big tea covet is an old samovar. I want a big decorative one to put on a shelf and never use and look at.
Anyway, I love tea and I love tea culture and I’m here to talk about tea all the time.
The cookies are a buttery kind of shortbreads cookie with nuts in them and covered in powdered sugar. In the US, you can find a version of them under Mexican wedding cookies which are virtually the same as the European recipes with minor adjustments. If you can manage to get your hands on some from an import store, and do a taste test, you can see that they’re virtually identical.
Which is honestly one of my favorite things about cultural food! I can get very hype about this.
Im trying to think of other little bits of food I snuck in…Shane gets candied lemon peels with ginger when he’s ill because they’re delicious and medicinal and if you twist them into candied ginger, that’s medicinal in other cultures! See see! How cool!
I was thinking about "I have only two emotions (careful fear and dead devotion)" this morning and daydreaming about them, and started thinking about Ilya renting a rink during the off season so he can play with Shane, and inviting all the Centaurs who are still around for the summer and Shane's fav guys from the beer league to have a "fun" competition. But Ilya and Shane captain opposite teams and get super into it, so everyone else is having a fun, chill time but they're treating it like a playoff game.
And also, any of the Cens who don't already know, now fully understand why Ilya is always calling Shane the best hockey player (Wyatt especially knows this now in brutal clarity because damn is Shane ever hard to goalie against! Slippery bastard (affectionate)).
I just think it would be fun and silly and both the boys would LOVE it and maybe it becomes a yearly tradition because Ilya is obsessed with playing with Shane.
And anyways, it's not really a question. But I thought you might enjoy it, to know your version of the boys are living rent free in my head and having cute sweet hockey adventures. 😘
Wow, do I have some information for youuuuuuuu.
In the middle of writing this fic, I made the choice to shift some of my original plot points and one of the things I shifted was a charity story line.
In the OG plot, Ilya finds out that Montreal/Ottawa used to play a yearly charity game but that stopped a few years back for reasons that no one can really tell him and as a result, Ilya cooks up a charity match/social media campaign in which Shane’s beer league and the Ottawa players (+ some Montreal players that are friendly and vetted and the Boston Boys) do a draft and practice together for a few days and then play. It was very much like a mini all-stars format and all money would go to the children’s hospital in Ottawa.
At some point I realized I had too much plot and not enough chapters, so I scrapped this sub-plot and made Yuna’s job in charity work so that I could still have Ilya participate. I think that’s such an important aspect of his character in the books and wanted to make sure I honor that.
It’s genuinely so out of character that I’ve not smashed Shane and Ilya into Texas via fanfic yet but I need everyone to know I’ve thought about it every single day since I read these books and I’m being soooooooo normal about it.
Charles Leclerc was maybe one of the biggest pop stars in the world until he burned it all down.
One year of sobriety means that the label wants their album - an album he can't write - and the answer might just reside inside his not quite ex-boyfriend that is a fantastic song writer and producer.
The first of the Carly Rae fics is complete!!! This particular fic is inspired by the song Joshua Tree and the vibes are flirty and fun and sexy (and a splash of angst) but it all works out in the end.
Eclipse (Coachella fic) is here.
The Spotify playlist is here.
This was so fun to write! Perhaps I will see you again 😉
oh no how dare ella hakkinen profit off the fact she's related to a former f1 driver, something no one has done before except for damon hill, jacques villeneuve, nico rosberg, mick schumacher, max verstappen, kevin magnussen, bruno senna, nelson piquet jr, mario andretti, christian fittipaldi, etc.
Very likely not posting a chapter of I have only two emotions this weekend but because I am out of town with my family for spring break and not because of internet trolls