rambling librarian

Yes! And he then finds out the intricacies of Eridian portraiture.

They carve everything. It's a good representation of character!

little rant down here vvv

he just needs some time to adjust LAKSDJKLADJ

I think it depends.

If the democrats successfully codify gay marriage into federal law which they still haven’t managed in the real world even though you should not be relying on goddamn Obergefell to protect gay marriage but whatever and name the bill after Shane/Ilya because their “love story” was a huge part of the political push to get the bill passed, then I think there’d be a lot of pressure to get married under the law that’s literally named for them. But if they don’t personally change the landscape of gay rights in America with the power of their situationship, then I think that they’d be a lot freer to get married wherever.

Like. It’s gonna be a political spectacle. If they get married in this universe then they have to invite the Obamas to their wedding. Like. You cannot jilt the former POTUS who endangered global diplomatic relations for your relationship. Obama is at that wedding. He gets to sit in the front row where the immediate family gets to sit. He can bring his dog if he wants. He can officiate if he wants.

But I also don’t like the idea of their wedding being a political spectacle even though it’s likely in this scenario. I put my characters through hell and put them in situations beyond their control and take away their autonomy but I always like to give it back to them at the end. Like. Practically speaking, they are never escaping the global political theatre. But that doesn’t mean they have to have their entire lives happen on stage.

I like the idea that they get married in a small, private ceremony before they have the “real” wedding. It doesn’t matter where they have it. There’s no official paperwork involved. They’re not married on paper after. But they walk down the aisle and say their vows and the promises they make matter more to them than any sheet of paper ever did. They invite 0 diplomats. The only people who are there to see them be married are the people who they actually want there.

It would be global. At a minimum, every country that has an athlete at those games as well as every country that cares about LGBTQ+ human rights would be expected to respond in some way, even if it was just a motherhood statement about the Olympics being a time to celebrate the bonds of friendship between nations while also respecting the human rights of all participants.

In capitals around the world, the junior officers on the Russia desk and the human rights desk are in the office at midnight drafting tweets and talking points for the foreign minister/leader. Half the legal division are also there churning out analysis of the translated text of Russia's laws to see exactly how bad this can get and what their FM/leader can say about it. They could also be spinning up possible sanctions regimes, travel bans and other mechanisms to put on the table.

The trade division is reviewing stats and agreements with Russia to see if they have any leverage. They will also want to quantify how much damage any statements/actions could do to their bilateral trade - can we find an alternate market for commodity X if Russia will no longer buy it from us after we disparage them publicly and, in Russia's view, "interfere in our internal affairs, maliciously influence Russia's legal processes with its own citizen and impinge on Russia's sovereignty"?

The senior officials are trying to synthesise all this information to make their pitch to the FM's office in 30 minutes on why this is important, what we should say and do publicly, what we should say and do behind the scenes and how this is going to impact our relationships, our reputation and the safety of our nationals in Russia.

At the foreign embassies and consulates in Russia, the political teams are working around the clock, feeding information into capital while trying to pull on every local lead and connection they have. Sending out sitreps at regular intervals, with frequency determined by exactly how fucked they are if this goes wrong. The cable traffic is insane.

The FVEYS+EU Ambassadors are meeting as privately as they can in Sochi, Moscow or other Russian cities, knowing that they are being surveilled and that their phones are monitored. Deals about safe flight paths and airspace are being negotiated and joint statements prepared. Way too much time is spent debating whether they are "seriously" or "gravely" concerned about this matter.

I am guessing that countries like the US and Canada would have had consular teams attached to their delegations from capital and/or drawn from Moscow/European posts. Jeanette, the 58 year-old career Canadian consular officer who is on her seventh posting, has over twenty crisis responses under her belt, and has seen and done more than you can imagine has GOT THIS. She will get these boys out of Russia and she will sleep once they are safe on Canadian soil and not a second before. She is later awarded an Order of Canada for her work repatriating national treasure Shane Hollander.

Staff in Ottawa and Washington DC as the capitals of the two countries with the most interest in the outcome would be operating on another level. This isn't even touching on what would be going on a multilateral posts like UN New York or Geneva (they are a whole different and scary world).

Ottawa itself would be insane - that's Shane Hollander's home town! His dad literally works at the Treasury Board office across the road from Confederation Park. Leonie from DFATD's development programs team was in a meeting with Dave Hollander just last week about expanding funding for their Pacific programs. He's such a nice guy - hope he's doing okay.

And quietly, in the background, sports diplomacy and public diplomacy officers around the world are crying because the content they spent months preparing is now all completely useless in the wake of this much bigger and more serious issue.

See, I absolutely love this because it really puts into perspective just how absolutely crushing the pressure would be on this relationship in the aftermath. Like. This is the kind of international incident that would result in hundreds of people working around the clock. There is emergency briefing on the desk of every world leader about the fact that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have biblical knowledge of one another. It would potentially cost millions of dollars—both in labor hours, and in the potential trade effects of Russia was hit with tariffs or other economic sanctions.

And the entire time Shane would most likely have to be purposefully escalating matters.

Ilya is not a citizen of any country they’d be relying on for rescue efforts. That’s going to make it so much harder for him to get any kind of serious assistance in the immediate aftermath, because he’s simply not any other country’s problem. The number one thing that would work in his favor would be Canada’s Sweetheart Shane Hollander latching onto him like a mollusk and saying that he is not leaving this fucking country without him.

It’s not just that the world decide to rally around Ilya by happenstance. They would have to purposefully lean into their “relationship” to try to solicit aid. And it’s not something that would just go away after.

They don’t just get to come home quietly. They have to be received by the White House. They have to be received by the Canadian prime minister. There would be press conferences. Interviews. They would have to sit in front of a camera and hold each other’s hands and talk about how fucking grateful they are that the entire world rallied to keep them together.

There is no drifting apart and letting the situationship develop into a relationship naturally. Their wagons are fucking hitched, for better or for worse.

And it would constantly be dredged up again. Their first games after the rescue? The President of the United States is in attendance with his whole family. There are protesters outside the stadium. They are in attendance for each other’s first games back if it’s not a Boston v Montreal game and they don’t also have a game scheduled for that same night. Like. If Ilya comes back to a game against fuckin Anaheim and the metros aren’t also schedule to play? Shane Hollander is sitting in a box with the fucking Obamas, probably in a Rozanov jersey. The press presence would be suffocating.

There’s documentaries being made about the event. Endless political commentary. Ted Cruz has personally made a homophobic comment about their relationship. Ilya had to be physically restrained from clapping back and starting shit with the state of Texas.

And even if it started to die even a little bit, something would resurrect it. Each anniversary would spark a new wave of interest. If the democrats introduce a bill to legalize gay marriage and increase protections for same-sex relationships? Guess who may need to come testify to fucking congress. God help them when Obergefell drops. And when Jeanette gets her Order of Canada, they are honored fucking guests at that ceremony.

The fascinating thing about the Sochi outing to me is less about getting Ilya out of the country and more about the absolutely crushing pressure and scrutiny their relationship would be under after. They just turned the gears of nations to save Ilya—and it was a very purposeful turning on their parts. This didn’t just happen. They leveraged every single fucking ounce of public goodwill they had to force world leaders to get Ilya out of Russia alive.

do the cup wins still go as followed in canon? (boston win after sochi and then two back to back montreal (the montreal team does fuckin fall apart at shanes gayness in the story i think but then they did not have world leaders' opinions)) . if they do, i feel like every cup win wiuld have to have commentary on their relationship. and god forbid if the last match was between boston and montreal ! no one would be normal.

I don’t think even Crowell can touch them at this point. The United States and Canada, aka the two governments of the countries the NHL is fucking located in, just moved heaven and earth to get Shane and Ilya out of Russia. The United States specifically did it because they’re trying to use the story and ride the hype to force LGBTQ+ friendly legislation through the House and Senate. If Crowell goes after Shane and Ilya, he is going to get a very angry call from the President of the United States asking why the fuck he’s trying to screw the happy ending of a multi-nation rescue effort.

Like. Crowell just simply cannot afford to touch them. No one is investigating them. No one is making smarmy press releases about supporting traditional family values in the wake of this. Because the eyes of the world are suddenly turned in their direction, and the US specifically wants to make this into the part of a romance movie where the two love interests get to ride off happily into the sunset. If the NHL breaks from that narrative to investigate Shane and Ilya, it becomes increasingly likely that someone decides to turn around and investigate them.

The NHL is frankly a cesspit of systemic abuse. Like. The more I learn about it, the more horrifying it becomes. There was a case in the 90s where a couple of employees of the Toronto Maple Leaves were using their position to sexually abuse children in the stadium. One person eventually broke an NDA the Maple Leaves got him to sign about it and went public, and more than 100 people called the police to say the exact same thing happened to them. Some of them claimed that they’d been calling the Maple leaves for years telling them what had happened and that those employees should not be anywhere near children and they were just. Not investigating. And letting it continue. For years.

The NHL just. Routinely mishandles reports of abuse—verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse. At most, people get slaps on the wrist before they’re reinstated a few years later, which is exactly what happened to a GM who covered up the fact that a Chicago Blackhawks coach was sexually assault one of his own players. He had to step down and was reinstated three years later, and he was immediately rehired by another team. The same bad actors never leave.

And it mishandles other reports too. Multiple players died from complications arising from CTE, a condition that arises from repeat blunt force head trauma, and the NHL purposefully elected not to investigate the condition so they could keep sending players back out post head trauma. Their favorite thing to do is to turn a blind eye.

There are just too many skeletons in the NHL’s closet, and if they piss off multiple world governments, then suddenly those same world governments may get very interested in investigating why their closet doors are always locked. They are gritting their goddamn teeth and shipping Hollanov or they risk sinking the entire boat.

For similar reasons, the Metros cannot get rid of Shane Hollander. They cannot hate crime Shane Hollander. The parasocial relationship he’s in with the entire country has now expanded to encompass an alarming percentage of the human population. The Metros owner is personally attending almost every home game now because every time a visiting dignitary that even vaguely supports queer rights is in the country, they attend a metros game to get a photo op with Shane Hollander. Members of multiple royal families have decided to attend a Metros game. You do not just fucking pass that kind of networking up.

Most people/megacorps that own hockey teams do not exclusively own a hockey team. Sports teams are the billionaire version of an investment property. Their fingers tend to be in many other pies.

Fuck off wealthy businessmen would absolutely kill for the opportunity to rub elbows with world leaders and major politicians that do shit like pass the legislation that affects their other business enterprises. No one on the metros is touching a hair on Shane Hollander’s billion dollar head. Ownership is not letting anything risk this for them.

I think the Metros still struggle in the wake of this. Some of the players are just straight up homophobic. The coach is straight up homophobic. His ass is immediately fired the second it gets back to the owner that he called Shane Hollander a faggot in the locker rooms upon his he return. Players who start shit or who stop playing well with Shane are offloaded. They are traded or sent down to the goddamn AHL.

The Metros cannot afford otherwise. The President of the United States is personally invested in Shane Hollander being one of the faces of gay rights, and they do not want that face to be “even in the best case scenario you will still be ✨hate crimed✨.” The liberal political party in both America and Canada share that investment.

Even beyond politics, the viewership on their broadcast just fucking skyrocketed from already-high numbers to a fuck-off record breaking high because all of those random people who’d never heard of the Metros before the Olympics are tuning in to see their boy again. And also the team is located in goddamn Montreal.

Again, Montreal is one of the most queer-friendly cities in North America, and it has been for a very long time. It has the oldest queer business on the fucking continent. Its gay village is the largest on the continent. And that is a city that loves to fucking riot. When Shane Hollander was outed as gay while in fucking Russia, the prime minister had to go on tv and beg the people of Montreal to not fly to Russia and try to take the riot to Putin because so many of them immediately bought fucking plane tickets to do exactly that. There were an alarming number of middle aged hockey dads who were convinced they were the key to Bringing Their Man Home.

Shane and Ilya went back to Montreal together as part of their Haha Thank You World For Saving Our Lives tour that they have to white knuckle their way through following their return and you would have thought it was goddamn pride month. Montreal was so so ready to embrace its gay hockey boy. They have never loved him more, and they already loved him to an alarming degree. Ilya makes it three days there getting the shovel talk from what feels like the entire population of Quebec before he’s like. Shane. You are being stalked by the entire city that you live in. And Shane’s like. Stalking is a very strong word. And Ilya’s like. Shane. There are shrines to you on what feels like every street in this city. You are like the gay hockey pope to them. And Shane like. Not loving the use of the word “pope” in that sentence. But. Sort of. Yeah.

The metros have no option but to pull the plug on anyone who is not willing to work with Shane after this. He is just worth too much money to them. The entire team would be rebuilt around them if needs must.

I think the cups go the same way they do in canon. Ilya still wins his immediately after Sochi. He would feel like he needed to prove himself more than ever. He just got driven out of his home country. Multiple world leaders had to intervene to get him out alive. Shane Hollander had to set his own life on fire to get him out, and if we go the route that I mentioned in the tags of the last post and say it was the Vegas rooftop kiss that did them in, then Ilya would be blaming himself because he initiated that kiss to begin with. And if you say the Metros had to be rebuilt around Shane because some of them were homophobic to him after, he would feel even worse about it, because he would feel like he had concrete proof that helping him made Shane’s life worse.

Ilya would need that goddamn win. He would want to prove to himself and to the rest of the world that he wasn’t just the guy whose country washed out at the Olympics and then immediately tried to kill him after. He’d want the cup to prove to himself and everyone else that he was worth the effort that went into saving him.

The next year, Shane would be the one that would need the win more than ever. His team just had to be rebuilt around him because he was too gay for some of them to work with him. He is someone who has always changed himself to conform with hockey. This is the first time ever that hockey conformed to fit him, and there would be a lot of people criticizing the team’s performance while it was still being rebuilt and saying he was not worth the effort they put into it. He’d be desperate to prove that he could still do this even though he was gay and with Ilya. So I think he still gets his back-to-back Stanley Cup wins.

I don’t think Shane and Ilya face each other in the playoffs immediately after Sochi. I think Shane’s team washes out because the coaching staff and multiple players had to be suddenly replaced mid-season. And there would be an agonizing amount of commentary around that fact. The blame for the metros suddenly failing would be placed squarely at Shane’s feet. His leadership and his ability to play would be questioned endlessly.

The Big Gay Hockey Kiss happens three years early but with Hollanov (and, y’know, without the shock value because 99% of the human population already knows about those gay hockey guys)

AND Shane getting his historic non-goalie goalie goal that you wrote in Snapping Birch in 2015 except in this universe there was a private box with like. Will & Kate and future president Sanders

I am absolutely fucking dying at the mental image of Shane’s non-goalie goal happening in the Sochi outing au where everyone already knows about Hollanov. Like. There are so many different layers of humor to it.

Instead of people looking at Ilya staring at Shane in the aftermath like “look at the hate in his eyes” the unanimous opinion would be “oh he’s gonna fuck that man. he is putting him clean through the goddamn mattress tonight. oh my god.” There would be public outcry from metros fans who were worried that Ilya Rozanov was about to take out their beloved captain with his dick. whore climb OFF of him he still needs to win the Stanley cup 

And like. You don’t just get to dip from the stadium post-game. They’d have to do post-game interviews. They would have to meet with the future heads of state who came specifically to see their game. Shane and Ilya would be fighting for their goddamn lives.

Shane has just done the hottest thing to ever happen on NHL ice. Medically, Ilya cannot be normal about this. His pupils are the size of dimes. He is trembling like a drowned rat. He is in that post game interview like “yes yes I did not score the game winning goal. I will practice scoring very hard so it is different next year. I will start right now if we can fucking wrap this up—”

Shane is marshaling every ounce of willpower in his body and it is still not enough. He is waging the internal war of a man who knows he’s about to be railed within an inch of his goddamn life but needs to not be visibly hard while shaking a princess’s hand and he is fucking losing it. He has no goddamn clue how he and Ilya are going to hold it together long enough to get home without crashing the fucking car. Hayden has already told him that he is killing himself if they try to make him drive them. J.J. put his life on the line to get them out of Russia which means they can never ask him to do anything else ever again, especially if it’s this. They can’t ask a Raider because Shane has already seen them fist bump Ilya 37 times since the goal and if he sees even one more he’s murder-suiciding this shit.

Shane and Ilya are fucking white knuckling their way through an invitation to meet the literal Queen and at every possible opportunity Ilya is pulling Shane into a corner like “I think we left the stove on. And also all of the sinks, all of them. And I clogged the drains before leaving as part of a new pre game superstition that I never mentioned before now. House is flooding and on fire. It is an emergency we have to leave right now I am so serious—”

Also i think the Skip kiss is even funnier in this universe. Because just imagine you’re a homophobic hockey fan in this universe. Hockey players in gay love have been inescapable since goddamn 2014. A Hollanov kiss has happened in front of every single Stanley cup for three years running. When they both were finally knocked out of the playoffs, those assholes would be fucking cheering at finally getting a Stanley cup finals without that gay shit happening where they have to see it.

And then Scott Hunter pulls Kip Grady onto center ice.

The famous photos and ESPECIALLY Ilya trying to get Shane in the car do so much for Ilya and Shane’s images and generally establishing the Hollanov love story.

And ilya isn't dead. ...what happens now?

Ilya has a life of playing hockey alongside his new True Love to look forward to and a lie to live. In some ways, it's sort of the opposite of the summer crash out au. Ilya knows exactly what's in his future. He was given so much that he wanted on a silver platter, and he didn't even realized he was giving up so much that mattered -- his life and loved ones in Russia, his control over his own life, shane's ability to CHOOSE to be with him -- until all of a sudden it happened. I find it to be terrifying in the complete opposite way that rose and shane plunging into the abyss is.

Like, one day you will have to live with the consequences of your actions for the choices you barely realized you were making, for the choices that you were forced to make. That day is today. Good luck!

Also, it cracks me up that your version of a fake dating au involves international stakes and rpf of major political figures.

Ilya does not think Shane’s plan is going to work until the plane is taking off.

OKAY I'm glad you said this bc I was starting to feel a little insane about it lol, this blog is responsible for 98% of my understanding of HR sooo my perspective may be skewed in your favor, but I just FEEL like Shane and Ilya would never be happy being on the same team. Like where's the competition. Where's the back-and-forth. Idk having them end up in the same team just feels like painfully uninteresting even beyond the whole "hubby's readymade friend group" thing like you said. Shane would be so bored. He and Ilya together would destroy every team without trying, that's barely even playing hockey at that point, which is the thing that he loves.

Honestly I feel like getting to psychosexually torture each other with hockey is a huge source of their attraction to each other.

Here, Pike's frustration with the Everlight is an ongoing plot thread rather than a tacked on "I prayed in my backstory sometimes, don't ask me for details, and nothing happened, so the gods are BAD for not saving me." Unlike the Ruby Vanguard, the cult of Vecna is appealing to a genuine pain among many people of Exandria - they have lost loved ones to the attacks of the Chroma Conclave, and are still losing more to the lingering effects thereof. Resurrection is a rare thing and not available to most, and its cost is quite dear, and the idea that someone could find a way to transcend death for everyone is incredibly appealing. Compare, again, to Ludinus's mealy-mouthed empty statements "freedom" without any details of how people are in fact under the thumb of the gods (and also consider that Vecna wisely showed up in Exandria as a humble folk preacher, rather than a long-time enforcer of Dwendalian imperialism). As a viewer, even if I know Vecna is full of shit, and that the Everlight is likely simply leaving the choice up to Pike rather than failing to answer, Pike doesn't! This has been the ongoing story of Pike's crises of faith, that she is looking for very clear instructions in an uncertain and turbulent world, and Vecna comes in and says "your god isn't telling you exactly what to do! because she doesn't love you. Listen to me and do exactly as I say in order to have free will." Which is how cults actually work! They are really good at preying on people frustrated with uncertainty, even though uncertainty is often the most honest and correct answer. The reason people fall for fake cancer cures is because real cancer treatments are often painful, laborious, expensive, and do not have a 100% guarantee, and an honest medical team will say that. A scammer will promise certainty and success. And on top of that, Pike is grieving her entire family and is told that this will bring one of them back - there is a gain to be had, vs just petty and punitive motivations. Again, compare to the abstract nonsense the Vanguard promised.

I would also add that the Matron comes off as opaque but ultimately correct - the blight is the key to defeating Vecna, and saves Vox Machina in Thar Amphala. The characters have doubts about the gods - as they did in Campaign 1 itself, which is a good thing! - but the story does not. This was another key problem in Campaign 3; the story kept trying to reshape itself to the characters, except it had just enough of an end destination that it couldn't entirely, and the characters weren't a good fit for that destination, which meant everything turned into a pile of indecisive goo. In TLOVM, the characters can respond dynamically to a clearly established world. In the closest to an objective sense, the Prime Deities are flawed and even frustrating but have the best interests of their devotees and mortaldom at large at heart, but Pike has space to be sufficiently hurt and frustrated to briefly side with Vecna, and Keyleth has space to resent the deal Vax made with the Raven Queen and attempt to defy it. But in the end, the gods matter little; Grog says as much to Pike. Vecna's killing too many people, and he's making Pike abandon everyone else for him, which isn't what someone with good intentions would do, and you don't need the Everlight's answer to figure that out.