the wug is in

my name is a mystery but you can call me wug / if you want to chat i am always happy to meet new people! i hoard minor characters

[wugblogs]

we can criticize ilya's behavior in TLG without implying that it's actually not a big deal that ilya has 0 people he is out to because of shane's fears, actually. these are not mutually exclusive.

[mcsryaoihell]

my bonnies

[wugblogs]

extremely belated realization that in the exclusivity argument referenced in TLG where ilya says he "doesn't believe in cheating" proooobably has something to do with the fact that his dad "always thought she (Irina) was cheating on him."

do the opposite of grigori is a good theory but maybe not always the exact opposite

[wugblogs]

i think people massively overestimate how much a single hockey player on another team affects each character on average like. you have to see this specific guy about 4 times a year plus maybe 7 if you have a playoff series against each other, plus maybe like all stars and awards and similar depending on talent level.

yes this is about troy but also dallas kent and also in general like. imagine you play 82 games a year where, typically, some opposing players are homophobic to varying levels. you play This Specific Guy like 4 times because you're in the same conference. even if he is really awful he is probably not super high on your priority list, unless you have some other social connection.

[wugblogs]

people keep arguing about in TLG, ilya is bad at communicating, or shane isn't noticing what's wrong, etc etc, but the thing is that the problem is completely different depending on whether you're talking about ilya's depression or the closet

ilya IS deliberately keeping his depression from shane, and shane IS noticing and trying to help and getting nowhere. this is pretty straightforward.

the closet part of it is much messier. ilya keeps bringing it up, very mildly, like "maybe we could tell wyatt", "maybe some people would not care", always something pretty small-scale. shane instantly disagrees every time ilya tries this; sometimes he notices ilya is unhappy with his response and sometimes he doesn't. is ilya communicating? well... he's not sticking to his guns and just telling shane he's unhappy with things, but he also has pretty obviously figured out that even if he does, shane will not want to expand the circle of people who already know. even after the boxing day fight, shane talks to his mom and to ilya and thinks about things like ottawa and hockey... but doesn't once touch on the idea about confiding in anyone else, positively or negatively. he doesn't even think about it in the narration. and he doesn't change his mind about secrecy until the plane incident. which brings me to my second point, which is that shane doesn't seem to notice... except really it's more like he is trying so hard not to even think about it.

shane does notice sometimes how ilya reacts poorly, right when they are talking about secrecy, and always goes, hmmm, that's strange, and never tries to figure it out further. shane right before the boxing day fight notices ilya's reaction to shane saying he will take the photo to the cottage, and thinks: he felt the need to explain why it would be risky to display in his Montreal home, and then thinks that's ridiculous, ilya already knows. because he knows what ilya wants, and has the instinct to be defensive about it, but even within his own head would rather pretend it was just a silly thought. and then he ends on: "like there was something important that wasn't being said, and they were both waiting for the other person to say it, but neither of them knew what it was."

he is half correct. they are both waiting for this fight to finally happen. except both of them know exactly what it is, it's just that for ilya it's conscious and for shane it's subconscious.

[wugblogs]

with much love to all the ao3 authors who ask their work not be fed into AI: you have posted this publicly. on one of the most obvious and easily scraped websites. the only way to ensure your work is kept from AI is to not publish at all. yes this is unfair. it's just also the reality of the situation and you're going to have to make your peace with it.

[wugblogs]

like if you were going to say that IRL a white fat person is worse off than a black person, yeah no. but specifically movies or TV? can you seriously name more fat actors than black ones?

[wugblogs]

cynic time: hot fat people is way more likely to turn off viewers than a black love interest, and i find casting a skinny actor to be more cowardly than any points earned for racial representation.

[hothockey]

i know i am probably the most vocal objector to the OutrageouslyUnrealisticEpisodeFiveLookBackInjury, so this comes as no great shock to my hothockituents to say, bUT, i think it would have been so much more powerful to have the injury be a bad case of Being Boarded.

not just for the fact that noted hockey legend shane hollander has never 'gotten his bell rung' before in his entire life of playing hockey and he would Not be turning around in the neutral zone while in possession of the puck bc clearly, he knows how to skate. he's wicked fast with stickhandling and would be so used to avoiding targeted hits from his uhm, entire career of people targeting him.

but ALSO for the fact that we know from the fuck montage/rose game contrast that boarding is foreplay to shane and ilya. their preferred on ice bodily interaction actually. and the Lusty Implications of shane getting fucked up by ilya's bestie via hollanov's preferred on-ice foreplay AND shane potentially having to work through some post-injury somatic confusion of big hits against the boards, are sooooooooo juicy 🥭💦 like show me what happens their first game after that when ilya boards shane. and shane sorta makes this wrangled wrenched deep sound and ilya jerks his head over to look at shane bc ilya has Sexily Cataloged all the Hurt Shane Sounds that exist and this is new and shane is like. simultaneously having a lil somatic flashyback and exhaling through it, same as he's done w other injuries, and also shane is thinking. god, that kinda scared me what the fuck and i am so fucking horny what the fuck why was that so fucking hot 🫯🥴🔥

[wugblogs]

For the record, this is the book version:

[penandinkprincess]

you have two options for the post-meltdown Christmas in Hit Or Miss.

the first option is to have Shane, Ilya, and Rose at Hollander Christmas, in a big miserable cringefest while Shane’s relatives are awkward around Rose and Ilya fumes in the corner.

OR, you could have Shane going to Landry Christmas, where everything’s allergy-friendly, and her parents love him, and her brothers love him, and it’s everything he ever wanted. A girlfriend, and in-laws, a comfortable house where nothing has to be explained and he and Rose are put in the same bedroom without question, no need to sneak around. And yet…he’s miserable. He’d rather be setting an early alarm to sneak out of Ilya’s bed in his parents’ house.

Ilya, meanwhile, is in Ottawa with David and Yuna, keeping them company while Shane is in Michigan. “At least we still have you, Ilya,” David says, and they’ve made his favorite cookies and there’s presents for him under the tree, but the house is quieter without Shane, and his bed is cold, and when Grandma Hollander pinches his cheeks and slips him $20 just like she does with the 10 year old grandkids he feels like he doesn’t deserve it.

shane at landry christmas is DIABOLICAL

[wugblogs]

I know we're being angsty here but I think Ilya would also be so relieved to have confirmation that he's allowed to be Hollander Family even without Shane. like he's still fucked up about it but he's also happy he hasn't actually lost David and Yuna. also, David and Yuna taking family pictures where Ilya does look happy and sending them to Shane because why wouldn't they??

[wugblogs]

the old ways have been forgotten... in my youth, we had a saying, "don't feed the trolls"

[wugblogs]

ok genuine question do we know that troy barrett was specifically a dick to shane (to his face). because on one hand, there are plenty of reasons to assume yes. on the other hand, shane is a fucking babe. sometimes awful people act nice to people they think are hot. (in troy's case that might also make it worse.)

anyway. do we have any of shane's thoughts about troy beyond his general reputation? he says troy "seemed like a homophobic douchebag" but that's pretty vague.

[laylahkhan]

This is one scene from Tough Guy where we see Troys homophobia. Troy specifically steers the locker room towards a homophobic discussion , like why idk . We only see Shane thinking about racism after Crowell threatens him after him coming out to the Metros in the Long Game, RR doesn’t mention his race beyond physical descriptions

[wugblogs]

Ah yeah, this one. It's not exactly what I was looking for (Shane wouldn't know what's happening in the Toronto locker room) but it probably does raise the likelihood Troy would say something to his face if he's bringing that up unprompted.

[wugblogs]

sidenote about forgiving troy: for ilya it's like. this is the guy who kept sending his brother thousands of dollars while his brother called him slurs. how does it feel to watch someone try to change themselves for the better while you cut off your family because they never do. idk.

[wugblogs]

ok genuine question do we know that troy barrett was specifically a dick to shane (to his face). because on one hand, there are plenty of reasons to assume yes. on the other hand, shane is a fucking babe. sometimes awful people act nice to people they think are hot. (in troy's case that might also make it worse.)

anyway. do we have any of shane's thoughts about troy beyond his general reputation? he says troy "seemed like a homophobic douchebag" but that's pretty vague.

[wugblogs]

whenever i see a fic based on a misunderstanding because shane or ilya is in the tabloids with a girl or something like that and whichever one who sees it doesn't even ask before acting like it's definitely true i'm like. you are also famous. don't you know how tabloids work???

[wugblogs]

sometimes i think "you could not pay me to [x]" about something stupid (watch a shitty tv show, etc) and then i remember how much money is in my bank account

someone please pay me to do stupid shit actually

[wugblogs]

thing I have learned today from fanfic: The Hospital for Sick Children is the extremely literal name of an actual Toronto hospital. and the short version of the name is SickKids.

...that was REALLY the best they could come up with???