the widening gyre

Insurance and real estate companies red-lined areas with high concentrations of gay people (similar to how they treated POC and Jewish people) and either refused to do business or charged exorbitant rates. Gay men and women were prevented from naming same-sex partners as beneficiaries and wills were often overturned in court, if they could find a lawyer to draft them. Being accepted by the financial and economic community is a necessity to survival.

Ilya is so lucky that Shane proposed. Ilya would have been a nervous fucking wreck for the entire day beforehand. Wake up in the morning. Look in the mirror. Today's the day. Sob. Breathe. Okay I'm good! Turn around and Shane's hair is all in his face, still asleep on Ilya's pillow. I am NOT good. Cold shower. Breakfast that Ilya does not eat. Morning jog wherein Ilya runs like someone is chasing him. Lunch that Ilya does not eat. Drive out to the cottage. Make Shane pull over because Ilya needs to dry heave on the side of the road. "Baby we don't have to drive out today if you're not feeling well." "NO WE HAVE TO." Get to the cottage. Immediately send Shane on some kind of extended fool's errand. Shane wants to stay because Ilya is SHAKING and he is so worried. "No my love I'm fine it's just the breeze off the lake haha." It's thirty fuckig degrees Celsius. Shane finally gtfo's. Yuna, David, Rose FUCKING Landry all descend to help Ilya set up. Well. Ilya is supposed to be helping but he is standing on the deck fully dissociating. Yuna brings him tea. "Are you going to throw up the tea?" "Yes probably." Yuna takes away the tea. 800 electronic tea lights on the deck. In a parallel Ilya has no way of understanding, he both puts on and takes off a suit. Yuna fixes his curls into the hockey boy quasi-mullet that magnetizes Shane's fingers to Ilya's hair and says, "Oh, you're so handsome!" Ilya cries big fat tears. David tells a story about how his proposal to Yuna almost didn't happen because David went to the hospital for heart palpitations that morning. Thank You David That Does Not Help Even Remotely. Ilya slav squats on the lawn for twenty minutes. Shane's car pulls up in the driveway and everyone hides while Ilya vibrates in the entryway. Shane has no less than thirty grocery bags hanging from his arms, still complaining about why the grocery service cancelled their delivery last minute. Ilya leads Shane and all thirty of his grocery bags onto the deck. Shane is doing his favorite thing (bitching) and his second favorite thing (Follow Ilya) so he doesn't notice his own mother tiptoing behind him collecting the grocery bags he drops like breadcrumbs. There is an Oscar-winning actress hiding under his sofa and Shane does not notice because Ilya takes him on the deck and drops to his knees and Shane is like, "Haha, right now?" and then he sees that Ilya has a look on his face like he's just been told the sun is never coming up again and he has his hands on Shane's knees and he is saying, "Shane. Please?" and Shane puts his hands on his head and says "Oh my God baby what's happening to you" as Ilya melts and melts and then from the depths of the cottage someone who sounds a lot like Shane's very own father is whispering "The ring the ring" and when he looks back down Ilya is fumbling a ring box out of his pocket. The first picture of their proposal is Shane glaring into the middle distance with a hand cradling Ilya's curls like a baby while Ilya ugly sobs into his knee.

anyway good morning a crucial tenet of hollanov’s relationship is that they’re equals and they’re the only people in the world who could ever be each other’s equal. they were supposed to stand alone at the top but they’re there together. shane does not view ilya as a lazy useless inconvenience. ilya does not view shane as a nagging killjoy. they are equals and they both think the other is the best thing since sliced bread and they love each other but more importantly they LIKE each other. stop making them not like each other!

I firmly believe that pre Outing, there was a 20-minute long "Ilya Rozanov being homoerotic??" youtube compilation that was 97% him interacting with Cliff