a hardened and shameless tea drinker

I’m imagining her/maybe Shane playfully ribbing him about how he has no real financial manger or decent investments and what do you MEAN you just let a paycheck like that sit in your account while buying luxury cars every five minutes no wonder your net worth is shockingly low for your value, etc etc. and he’s not even offended he’s surprised and pleased that his new family is so invested in him and also enjoys watching where Shane gets some of his crazy. Like Ilya Mommy Issues Rozanov is “yes please ma’am optimize my finances and worry about my wellbeing harder” while he shovels whatever David made for dinner in his mouth.

But then at some point while she’s (lovingly) harping on his financial irresponsibility he just kind of quietly mentions that actually so much of his paycheck was going back home to his family when he was younger that he needed to blow shit on cars or whatever pretty quick if he didn’t want it to disappear. And she realizes that yeah he’s a little dummy who spent a concerning amount of money on VIP sections last year and thinks bank account interest is investing but he was also a child supporting his entire family in a foreign country with no one bothering to look out for his best interest or explain planning for a future.

David gets treated to impassioned rants every night about how “David I’m not convinced anyone even read that boy his contract in Russian”.

She starts managing him as well, obviously, and she’s kind of disturbed by how easily he just signs whatever she puts in front of him and doesn’t bother asking questions before agreeing to hand over all his management to her. He just seems thrilled she got him a Lamborghini partnership and an invite to fashion week.

The only time he puts up a fuss is when he realizes she’s not planning to take any significant cut of his money because “you’re family sweetheart” and he looks like he got smacked in the head with a shovel and has to go outside on the porch with Shane for a suspiciously long period of time.

The crowd is roaring, the commentators speculating, and then the second they get on the ice and skate towards one another, every sound cuts out.

It really adds to that feeling that on the ice and off, when these two are together- nothing else matters. They hone in on each other’s energy and operate on the same unspoken wavelength, even when aggressively competing.

Everything falls away and for a split second, no one is watching.

They’re alone, in this private, sordid little place they’ve created, where nothing can touch them but the other.

they were handsy 

HANDSY I SAY

they STARTED handsy 

they moved in together in like. ep one. 

What you need to know about The Sentinel is that the very first episode is about Jim Ellison acquiring mystical powers. YES I want to be clear, the way he acquires these powers is "problematical" and "not great, respecting indigenous cultures wise" but okay, so he's got these powers that make all of his senses amped up to dangeous levels. he can hear things no one else can hear, he can see things like he's fucking legolas, you get the deal.

so he goes to the doctor to be like "i feel weird" because of course, and Blair Sandberg, twink anthropologist to the stars, BREAKS SEVERAL LAWS to get in Jim's exam room and say—i know how to help you. i know what's wrong with you. i know how to make life better. and jim ellison looked at the little twink man and said yes....YES to love YES to life YES to living in a 1 bedroom LOFT apartment together. YES to being soulmates and life partners! YES I'LL MARRY YOU!!!!!!

This is the ORIGINAL big gruff german sheppard/lil yapping chihuahua pairing. And fandom looked at this show and said "this is good. i will build a kingdom upon this land. from now on, these are the two genders: big, angry, powerful, forced to their knees by circumstances beyond their control AND small, jokester, has skills INVALUABLE to Big, bad self worth. And then so the sentinel/guide aus RULED the pervert community, and everyone rejoiced.

But also, fannishly, so inventive! Some of the first vids I ever saw back before there were computers –VHS vids, wonderful ones. (Shout out to GloRo!) Great great fanfic and art. I still have gorgeous zines from this period. And the loft tape! Go to fanlore and look up the loft tape you guys!!

sees some incest mpreg

Like yes, Ilya logically knows that it’s not about him personally, not really. It’s about hockey. It’s about The Rivalry™️. It’s about the public persona of douchebaggery that he has specifically played up for years at this point to get under people’s skin and keep them at arm’s length. It’s the contrast between the golden boy of Canada and the big bad Russian. Like, duh, of course everyone thinks Rozanov isn’t worthy of Shane, but that’s not real.

But also, does he know that? Does he know that down to his bones, deep in the heart of himself? Does he know that when he’s on his own, without Shane by his side, when it’s late and he’s tired and he’s in bed in the dark on his own with just his own thoughts for company?

Or does he think of his father, and how he never missed an opportunity to remind him of his value or lack there of? How he constantly degraded and abused and mocked him for every failure until Ilya had internalised the truth of his own worthlessness, until winning was unremarkable and losing unthinkable? Does he think of his brother? Of how the only worthwhile thing about Ilya was his bank account ? How the closest to affection he could get from his own kin was always that he sent money and Alexei sent back insults, and he should be thankful because if he didn’t pay it would be even worse? Does he think of his mother? Who loved him, yes, of course she did, but still couldn’t stay for him? Who instead abandoned him to his fate at the hands of his father and brother even though she knew how bad things could get. Does he think it’s because she could see even then, even at twelve years old, that fundamentally Ilya wasn’t worth sticking around for?

Does he think about how even the people who brought him into this world couldn’t love him right, and so where does he get off thinking that someone like him would deserve to love and be loved by someone as good, as pure, as kind as Shane Hollander? Of course everyone else can see that, to the point that it’s the first thing they say. Of course it’s just a matter of time until Shane sees it too.

Do you think it’s death by a thousand cuts? That every shitty comment from Shane’s loved ones - Hayden and Yuna and J.J. and whoever else finds out about them - that whittles down to variations on the theme of “I can support being gay, but I draw the line at loving Ilya Rozanov?” in that same disbelieving tone cuts through to that miserable hidden core of himself he tries so hard to make up for and reminds him that other people see how worthless he is too?

What gets me is how god damned frustrating it would be to work somewhere that one of the Leverage crew supports. Nate would be okay, he’d just make small monthly gifts to ten million different organizations so that nobody thinks he’s worth very much (he doesn’t own his home and he gives such small amounts monthly that Development writes him off as an earnest but low-capacity donor who should get a thank-you card around the holidays). It’s probably a bigger inconvenience to him because he’s on every nonprofit mailing list known to man. He has so many address labels, guys. (I don’t want to be Nate but I am Nate. I have so many address labels.)

Sophie I imagine has an extravagant alias for every charity she supports; she gives outrageous amounts and in return demands only attention and adulation, tickets to all the galas, and to be in at least one photo in every annual report. We have a donor like this – she’s genuinely invested in our work, gives generously of her time and money, is never rude or demanding, but if she’s in the room all eyes must be on her at all times. I actually really like her but constant exposure could get…tiring. 

Eliot just sends enormous, anonymous checks once a year through a shell company or DAF, which while not unusual would be irritating in that they can’t ever reach out to thank him and/or steward him into a larger gift appealing to his interests. They can’t even send him dumb swag! He deserves a charity-branded bottle opener and keychain flashlight! (He has stolen all of Nate’s, but they don’t know that.) Still, they’ve probably got a fun nickname for him; I have a few people in my research files who are simply named after characters from Greek mythology because that’s all the data I have or am allowed to store. 

For a long time Hardison just dumped money into the bank accounts of his charities of choice, seamlessly, invisibly – it just APPEARED in the account, and he was cool with that until he checked back after a few years and found none of his money was being used because they couldn’t figure out where it was coming from and were worried it was a clerical error despite the bank assuring them otherwise. Now he still dumps money into the accounts but he entertains himself building an elaborate digital paper trail so that the accounting all works. Have you ever watched a Gift Processing office try to balance a nonprofit’s books? Sometimes they cry! Don’t be mean to them, Hardison. 

Parker, bless her heart, just leaves bags of money on the doorsteps of random employees with notes directing how, in general terms, it should be spent. If she’s particularly pleased with the climbability of their home, she leaves a donut for them, too. Generally if she mentions she’s done this to the crew, Eliot calls up the charity to assure them that the large bag of cash was a legitimate donation and is not some kind of money-laundering scam. (That was ONE TIME Eliot, and the IRS didn’t even NOTICE.) This happened to me once. A tiny old lady in a Cubs jacket showed up to our office with a backpack full of money and it was a very intense morning.