`*Fandom Barf*`

like yes downright bigotry is never okay i am not defending that but the whole reason these characters are interesting is because they have to navigate queerness and unpack their internalized toxicity in a space where, for all intents and purposes, they're The First Gay Person Ever

My credentials: 2 graduate degrees researching multilingualism & second language phonology. Plus copyediting a book written by a first language speaker of Russian & Ukrainian after being her coworker for a decade <3

1. Pronoun drop: e.g. "is good". It is common with second language speakers, but I'm gonna support Luula's analysis of this as based on a mis-hearing of 'It's good' in a Russian accent - Russian has palatalized stops and the frication makes listeners reclassify them as fricatives. t^j -> s

2. Article issues: most common error, even amongst very fluent speakers. Includes mixing up indefinite (a/an) and definite (the) articles, dropping articles (e.g. 'I was going to store'), and hypercorrection (inserting unnecessary articles, e.g., 'I am going to the home').

3. Copula deletion: Russian has a null copula (when you can replace 'to be' with an =, that's the copula) so copula drop can happen in English (e.g., "I a teacher"). This one is drilled really hard for Russian learners so it doesn't come up as often as you would think. I can't think of canon examples of Ilya doing this.

4. Unfamiliarity with vocab: non-Russian fic writers - try checking a Russian/English dictionary because there are lots of English loanwords in Russian (or other Latinate loans) that share a common root. Luula's anon brought this up, but as an example, 'autism' in Russian is 'аутизм' and is basically pronounced the same - they are cognates. Ilya would have a very good guess of what this word means, along with other loanwords.

In my experience, idioms are some of the hardest/last vocab items to grasp because the words are common (so English speakers don't expect there to be a problem) but the meaning is non-obvious. Lots of English speakers won't even say the whole idiom, just expect people to understand from a partial recital. E.g. "When you assume..." ; "the best laid plans..." ; "speak of the devil" ; "when in Rome" etc.

5. Word order: English is pretty strict about word order, Russian has more free order (supported by their very robust case system + grammatical gender). This mostly comes up with subordinate clause order. For one example, I've noticed that English writers tend to put clarifying phrases before, Russian speakers after. (E.g., a Russian speaker might have written the previous sentence with 'as one example' at the end). These re-phrasings aren't necessarily ungrammatical in English, but they may come off as confusing (for very complex sentences) or the overall pattern across multiple sentences comes off as unnatural.

6. Question tags: fanfic writers love to give Ilya simple question tags as a vocab quirk (e.g. 'it's special, no?' ; 'You like this, yes?'. I haven't memorably experienced this from the Russian first language speakers I know, but Russian does have question tags like this (e.g., I understand that так is used pretty similarly to Canadian English 'eh?')

7. W vs V: I definitely exit out of fics if they give Ilya a use of "w" like Chekov from Star Trek. This is made up & fake.

8. Avoiding Do / Don't: English is weird about the verb 'to do' and lots of the time you can leave it out (even if native speakers would use it). Using question tags for yes/no questions is one way of avoiding constructions with 'do', another is using the target verb rather than replacing with do. E.g. 'Do you like to row?' An English native might reply 'yes, I do' while an ESL speaker might be more likely to use 'yes, I like to row' or 'yes, I like rowing'. Again, not incorrect but when it builds up as a pattern of speech it sounds less natural to a native speaker.

9. Skipping contractions: very common amongst all kinds of ESL speakers. English speakers will throw in a "had'nt've" and always use "doesn’t" over "does not". But lots of ESL speakers just pronounce each word always - especially if there is an auxiliary verb. It can be difficult to remember combinations like - is "I've not" or "I haven't" more natural (& the answer is different for different English varieties).

10. Verbs & nouns paired with prepositions: it's just really common to select the wrong preposition or drop it altogether. E.g., "baked with hands" instead of "baked by hand"; 'compliment about' vs. 'compliment on', etc.

I'll add that not knowing a cognate can make sense in some situations. Like, if you've never used that word in English before, you don't necessarily know if it's the same in both without looking it up. But there are categories of words where it's reasonably assumed: science, medicine, academic studies. For those categories, you can generally say your word in an English accent, which might not be quite exact. For example, Ilya might guess 'hypertonia' instead of 'hypertension.'

mind you, ilya's canonical best friend is an explicit, known bigot who actively made players like shane feel unsafe (idc if he's gay, he was exactly the kind of guy shane was afraid of pre-coming out + by context and social circle was 1000% racist, reid just dgaf about poc)

disclaimer: i believe in redemption, but even if troy changes, as someone who's been in shane's shoes my partner being friends with them so openly without any personal apology or consideration would crush me

I like to think that Shane was given the nickname by David. When he was a toddler Shane was obsessed with any and every type of bug. He’d make David and Yuna take him in the garden all the time to dig for worms or look at the flowers to see if there were any bees. But his absolute favourite were ladybugs leading David to coin the nickname Shanebug.

Obviously once hockey took over his life Shane kind of forgot about his bug obsession. But once he gets settled living in Ottawa with Ilya he starts to pick it back up.

When Shane and Ilya went round to his parents for dinner he offhandedly mentioned that he was planning on adding some plants to the garden so more insects and bugs would visit. And David goes suddenly silent and starts to get teary.

David: Oh Shanebug is back

Ilya: Shanebug, what is a Shanebug?

This leads to Yuna getting out all Shane’s toddler pictures showcasing him holding a ladybug in his hands, him covered in mud pointing at a worm with the biggest grin on his face and him cross eyed as a butterfly lands on his nose. Ilya’s favourite though is a photo of Shane dressed up as a ladybug for his third birthday, antennas and all, that he gushes over.

I think about how Ilya has had to make his way through life mostly on his own since he was twelve years old, about the, how he moved to a new country as a teenager and was immediately thrust in front of a camera without knowing the language or how to cope with his newfound fame. I think about the preconceived notions of Russians and how, in the absence of being able to accurately communicate (both because of the language barrier and his repressive upbringing), Ilya decided to or was forced to lean into that stereotype. I think about how soft Ilya allows himself to be with Shane, about how he takes care of him, about how silly and goofy he can be, how he's sometimes just a grown kid, how other times he's the only person who can shut Shane's brain of. I think about how kind he is, how caring, how deeply he feels, how incredibly empathetic he is. I think about how wildly Shane loves him. How there literally never could have been anyone else. I think about how incredibly hurtful it is that no one trusts Shane to make his own decisions about his own fucking life and how much it hurts seeing the coldness the world regards his partner with. I think about Shane getting home and walking straight into Ilya's arms, after having to (once again) justify his love for the best man he's ever known, allowing himself to take comfort in his warm embrace, even when it feels to Shane like he should be the one providing both comfort and shelter.

But the thing is, people DO throw themselves at Shane left and right, he just doesn’t realize it.

The Voyagers are at a club and girls are eyeing him like the last steak in a tiger enclosure, but Hayden is about to bang his head on the table because Shane is in his usual Captain mode and paying zero attention to the girls. A few of the bolder ones approach him but he’s like “Hi, can I help you?” and “oh sorry, I’m on duty right now, I can’t leave my team” and Hayden gives up, he just can’t anymore. Jackie will need to step up and find this man a girl cuz Shane ain’t gonna do it on his own.

At brunch with Rose, the waiter is checking him out hardcore and smiling flirtatiously. Rose teases him about it, and Shane is like “???? He’s just doing his job? Isn’t it his job to be friendly?”

Years later, Hayden and Rose are trading war stories of Shane being oblivious to human attraction and Ilya’s just like, *shrug* you just need to be clear and direct with him, and Rose and Hayden both stare at him like “what do you mean?”