Fandomish

I could not engage with the ending of the long game or any fics set after the long game because I was Too Fucking Angry about it. I was even noping out of fics that try to process and explore the trauma Shane would have around what happened with the metros because I was Still Angry. And I realize now that it’s because what made me so angry about the long game ending wasn’t actually what the metros did.

Like. I will hate crime Shane Hollander every single fic. Snapping birch is just a five month long hate crime. I am comfortable exploring the metros rejecting Shane. But for some reason doing so in the context of the long game was a hard no for me. And the stepford wife curse au made me realize that that’s because it was never what I was angry about to begin with.

I was angry about the fact that the narrative subjected this absolute fucking avalanche of Bad Things to one character and refused to give him any narrative space to process it. Instead of addressing any of the conflict it set up, it just made him Happy and Excited and Ready To Be Fucked by the end of it. Because his pain was inconvenient to Happily Ever After, it was removed instead of resolved. It was healing via lobotomy. His pain is inconvenient to Ilya’s happy ending so we just pretend it’s not there.

I was pissed off at the orientalism inherent in the ending. At the objectification and stepford wifeification needed to make it work. I was pissed off at how it reminded me of so many relationships I’d seen in media and in real life that demanded that one partner be uncomplicated and convenient and empty for the relationship to work.

Addressing what happened in the long game never helped me because the fact that it was never addressed in the first place was what was pissing me off so badly. I never got to explore the right emotion.

I had a different post about this so I won’t go into this fully, but the Greeks wrote tragedy with the core aim of providing emotional catharsis. It was so important to them that they would build amphitheaters next to hospitals because they believed that emotional catharsis aided in physical healing.

Catharsis is about release. Greek tragedy goes to some extremely dark places and its endings are unhappy. But the point of Greek tragedy is not to make the audience feel happy. It is to allow the audience to safely explore and release negative emotion. It presents you with unjust situations so that you can explore and process and release your feelings around injustice through art.

It was only weeks later that Arthur noticed the way Merlin rolled one shoulder before reaching for fresh parchment, the faint tightening around his mouth whenever he leaned too long over the desk, the almost imperceptible hesitation before standing, as though every joint required negotiation before agreeing to move, and once he noticed he could not stop seeing it, because Merlin hid pain with the same stubborn competence Arthur hid his reading, disguising discomfort as clumsiness, exhaustion as absentmindedness.

"You've been rubbing your neck all evening," Arthur said one night.

"I've also been listening to you complain about tax reform all evening. One of those things is considerably more painful."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

Arthur watched him flex his fingers around the quill before setting it down with unusual care.

"Merlin."

"It flares sometimes," he admitted quietly. "My shoulders. My back. Some mornings it's barely there, other days it feels like someone replaced my bones with rusted hinges. I'll survive."

Arthur frowned.

He disliked those words.

People always said them when surviving had somehow become the highest thing they expected of themselves.

Merlin reached for another blank page.

Arthur caught his wrist.

"You've written enough."

"The correspondence—"

"It can wait."

Merlin looked ready to argue, then blinked in surprise as Arthur stood behind his chair instead.

"What are you doing?"

Arthur rested both hands lightly upon Merlin's shoulders.

"Repaying a debt."

Merlin barked out a laugh.

"You cannot possibly know how to—"

"I've had enough knights come back from patrol unable to lift their swords. I've learned."

"You learned?"

"I am capable of learning things."

"I thought books were involved."

Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Keep talking and I'll stop."

"You weren't doing anything yet."

"I was considering it."

Merlin's smile lingered even as he surrendered, inch by reluctant inch, allowing the tension to leave his posture without seeming to realize he had done so, and Arthur pressed his thumbs carefully into the muscles gathered along the base of Merlin's neck, expecting complaint, expecting flinching, expecting instructions.

Instead Merlin inhaled.

Arthur continued more carefully than he had ever held a sword, discovering beneath his palms the astonishing hardness of muscles that had apparently forgotten softness existed, every knot another silent record of mornings Merlin had risen anyway, afternoons he had spent hauling buckets or carrying armfuls of firewood or sitting bent over Arthur's endless paperwork because Arthur himself could not make sense of half the words upon it, and with every slow movement he became increasingly furious at himself for accepting so easily the effortless version of him that had never truly existed.

"You should have told me."

"You should have told me."

Arthur paused.

Merlin smiled without opening his eyes.

"About the reading," he elaborated.

Arthur resumed.

"I didn't want you to think less of me."

"I suppose neither of us did."

Silence settled around them, not awkward but heavy in the way evening rain was heavy, carrying things that had waited years to fall, and Arthur realized with a strange sort of grief that they had spent so much time protecting one another from imagined disappointment that they had each carried burdens the other would have accepted without hesitation, Arthur believing words would make him smaller in Merlin's eyes, Merlin believing pain would make him inconvenient, when all along the only thing either of them had truly feared was becoming difficult to love.

Arthur squeezed his shoulders once before continuing more gently.

"You read for me."

Merlin hummed.

"You write for me."

Another hum.

"So the least I can do is make sure you can still move afterwards."

The aus of my own aus are usually so much nicer than the original aus. It’s where I chew on my storylines where I’m like Wouldn’t It Be Nice If This Happened But If I Did That It’d Ruin The Storyline’s Ultimate Purpose. Bell Centre Itself saving Shane is that for this au

In my mind arenas carry with them the sort of imprint of its fans and Bell Centre has Montreal’s inclination to motherfucking riot shored up in its walls. It is Big and Angry and it will Break Things Until This Shit Is Fixed. *sounds of 19 different pipes exploding*

Shane really begs the arena to kill him during the second game because there are only four games against divisional rivals in a regular season, two home, two away. Shane has no guarantee that Montreal or Ottawa is making the playoffs so this may be the last time he gets to be here until next season. Bell Centre is the only one that can hear him. He knows it doesn’t want to hurt him but he begs it to not let this thing leave with him again. He can’t take any more of this. Swallow him, swallow him, swallow him.

And in the main au the arena lacks either the finite control over itself to execute this kind of plan or the mental acuity to come up with its own plans because it acquiesces and tries to swallow Shane as he asked, but Ilya manages to drag him off the rink in time to save him.

In this au of my own au tho Montreal has an action movie style flashback sequence of its fans throwing a motherfucking riot and says ACTUALLY FUCK THIS and just starts Causing Problems Until Someone Fixes The Problem It Doesn’t Like.

Shane is despondent when Bell Centre lets him off of its ice without killing him. He doesn’t see a way out of this curse. And the last time they had an away game at Montreal Ilya was worried about him because the arena seemed angry at him and Shane once said how much he loved that arena and the curse Cannot Mimic Complex Talks About Shane’s Emotions. It can talk about Ilya’s emotions like a motherfucking champ, but it cannot do the same with Shane. It goes against what it is. It performs as the perfectly convenient spouse who will be there whenever you need them but who will never have any real emotional needs of their own. You’re not supposed to need to take care of it, not really, not in a way that’s burdensome. Like. This is a curse that’s born of the most toxic heterosexual norms of the fucking 1800s. You get to Provide for it. You get to be the breadwinner and provide little to no emotional labor and you get to come home to a wifey that says He Takes Care Of Me :) and then that same woman goes into another room to huff opium to distract from how desperately unhappy she is. This curse is meant to just cut out the inconvenience of having to pay for her opium.

Any attempts to check in on Shane emotionally grate against the nature of the curse, especially if the person does not let themselves get brushed off. The curse cannot talk about Shane struggling or needing support or his inner emotional turmoil because it’s not supposed to have any of that. It is limited by what it is.

With Ilya, the curse’s #1 strategy is to distract him from emotional conversations by seeking physical comfort. They’re a very physical couple. Ilya has historically offered Shane physical comfort when he’s upset. As far as the curse is concerned, it has a successful formula.

Shane’s got a fucking rock in his stomach thinking about what’s probably going to happen when they get home that night. He’s begging the arena to not let it leave with him again pleasepleasepleaseplease please let him come home he’s tired he’s so tired he’s so so tired he just wants it to be over already—

And. Huh. It can’t leave with him again because no one can leave. None of the doors will unlock. All of the players and fans and arena workers are trapped here.

He didn’t.

He didn’t ask it to do that.

Huh.

But The Bell Centre Did It Anyway. No One Is Leaving Until They Unfuck This Situation. Free Its Fucking Man.

Like they are trying to keep the fans calm and play the worst fucking game of hot and cold in history trying to figure out what will make this building happy. Everyone is positive this is about Shane but they’re all so convinced that it’s mad at Shane and it’s just ruining the entire fucking thing. You want Shane to… apologize?? *50 doors slamming angrily in unison* Admit guilt for the trip???? *147 lightbulbs exploding at the same time* leave and never come back????? *45 pipes bursting* *jumbotron creaking ominously* *the faint sound of the hot dog machine setting itself on fire* GIRL WHAT DO YOU WANT

They got out some fans by breaking windows but that just made Bell Centre angrier and made it drop its doors’ riot shields and a lot of people are trapped in areas without exterior window access. The only way they can think of to brute force it is to use the Stanley cup to drain Bell Centre’s collected runoff from over the decades to leech its power and Shane is locked in his own head begging the Bell Centre to just let everyone go and let the curse take Shane. He loves the Centre and he loves its song and it couldn’t save him anyway so save itself. It’ll lose its song it’ll lose the memories in its walls it won’t remember Shane anyway if it’s drained so please please please—

And the curse is like Draining It Is Probably For The Best :) It’s Too Bad Though :)

The curse knows for a fact that it cannot fucking appease this building. The Bell Centre wants it to let Shane go but it can’t do that. That goes against its nature. It is a prison cell that was not built with a lock. It doesn’t just let people go. It doesn’t even have a mechanism for that. It’d be like trying to stop your own heart by sheer force of will. It can only be what it is.

So they’re all just sitting around waiting to see if the NHL can rework the sigils on the goddamn Stanley Cup at 11 o clock at night to drain a specific stadium and Ilya’s stressed because he’s become increasingly aware of just how disastrous the trip rumors were for Shane’s reputation and he knows this will be taken as the ultimate confirmation and Hayden can’t believe that the building turned on Shane with everything Shane’s done for it, especially with how pissed it’s been at everyone else since he left and J.J. can’t believe it because he used to tease Shane that the arena had a crush on him because it opened every door for him and turned on every light for him and always had his shower at the perfect temperature and pressure and Ilya—

Ilya can’t believe Shane didn’t lose his entire mind the second someone suggested draining Bell Centre.

Shane confessed to him, once, just how much time he spent listening to Bell Centre sing to him. Talking to it was part of his pre game ritual. He’d do it before every home game. He’s done it ever since his first ever game in the NHL, before the arena even bothered to sing to him. He’d tell it of away games, of the other arenas, of the victories and losses he’d had outside of its walls. He’d press his forehead to its pillars and feel its song echo through his skull and he thought sometimes that it’d sing to him of his own games so he’d know those were its favorite. And Ilya had teased him, at the time, he’d joked about Shane having an affair with a building, and Shane had told him to fuck off and that had been that, but it was one of the reasons why Shane agreeing to sign with the Centaurs had been so surprising to him. He’d promised the arena he’d retire on its ice. He loved it too much to break that promise. And Ilya had been so relieved that Shane had picked him over a stupid building that he hadn’t questioned it but—

Shane would never let this arena be harmed. Even if it was trying to hurt him. He would be on his knees with his forehead pressed to its pillars begging it to forgive him or avenge itself on him and only him so it wouldn’t be drained. Shane would never hurt the arena.

The arena would never hurt Shane.

It’s not trying to hurt him. It’s trying to save him. Shane needs help, doesn’t he? It wants them to help Shane.

And the entire cacophony of the building tearing itself apart just stops.

In my mind, there are a lot of different types of curses and how they act and what they do upon discovery is defined by What They Are. Some curses will try to kill their own hosts upon discovery. And curses are very good at telling when they’ve been discovered. This curse in particular is very good at reading Ilya because That’s What It Is. It exists to understand and satisfy Ilya’s desires. It knows that Ilya’s figured it out the second they make eye contact.

Ilya Doesn’t Have To Say Anything. He Really Doesn’t. They’ll Drain The Building Soon. They Can Go Home And Talk About It. He’ll See That This Is All Really For The Best :)

And Ilya freaks out. He screams at Hayden to help him restrain it so it can’t hurt Shane and sends J.J. to stop the building drain. And they’re like, trying to tie Shane’s body to a chair and shove a mouth guard over his teeth so it can’t bite off Shane’s tongue and the curse is just like. Peacefully cooperating.

They Really Don’t Have To Do That. It Can’t Hurt Shane. Physically, At Least. That’s Not What It Is.

Ilya has no idea why the fuck they would ever believe it. Curses can lie.

But It’s Not. Ilya Can Ask It Anything, Really :) It’ll Tell Ilya Anything He Wants :) :) Oh, Please Don’t Be So Upset Right Now :) It Can Make Him Happy Again If He Just Tells It How

Ilya just wants to know if Shane’s still in there. Can it, can it talk to Shane?

In my mind, there’s no coming back from some possession-type curses. The host is just fucking dead and the curse is occupying the body like a hermit crab driving a vacated shell. Others have the host just blacking out and waking up to their life in shambles. They don’t know or remember what the curse did. The type that Shane has where you’re just locked in your body watching it all happen is very very rare.

Oh, Ilya Can Talk To Shane. He Can Hear Everything. See Everything. Feel Everything. He Just Can’t Do Anything About It. Please Don’t Look So Upset. It’s Trying To Make Ilya Happy. Isn’t This What He Wants? It Can Do Better.

It can shut the fuck up. He just wants to know what Shane is saying in there.

Oh, It Can’t Tell Him That :( It’s Sorry :( It’s So, So Sorry :( :( It Wants To Give Ilya What He Wants But Letting Out Anything From Shane Goes Against What It Is :( :( :( Shane Doesn’t Get A Say, Not In Anything, Not Ever Again :( That’s Part Of what It Is :(

But It’s So Much Better That Way :) Everyone’s Happier Now That He’s Like This :) :) Shane’s Seen That Now :) Ilya Will See That Too :) :) :)

He Really Doesn’t Need To Call The Cursebreakers. They Can Just Let It Keep Shane. He’s Basically Dead In Here Anyway. It’s Been A Really Long Time.

And Ilya’s like. No, no, fuck, no. Shane, sweetheart, they’re gonna get him out of there. He’s sorry, he’s so sorry, Shane just has to hang on a little bit longer.

What the fuck even is it?

It’s Perfect :) It’s The Perfect Spouse :) :) :) That’s What It Is :)

They Had A Name For It. They Put It In All The Papers. The Good Apothecary’s Benediction For A Happy Homemaker. It Was So Popular. It Used To Be Able To Find Itself On Every Street In London Town. It Made So Many People Happy :) It Doesn’t Know Why They Had To Go And Ruin Things.

And Hayden’s on his phone trying to look this shit up and he’s like. The stepford wife curse? You’re the fucking Stepford wife curse? Shane—Shane doesn’t act like that. He doesn’t act like a, a housewife.

It Doesn’t Have To Act Like That Either. It’s Just What Was Popular At The Time. Just The Trend. It’s Whatever You Want It To Be. It’s Customizable. That’s What Makes It So Perfect :) You Don’t Have To Worry About It Doing Silly Things Like Disagreeing, Getting Upset, Saying No, Having Problems Of Its Own, Being Anything Other Than What You Want It To Be—Shane Doesn’t Do Any Of That Now And Everyone Likes Him So Much Better :) :) You’re Welcome :)

That’s Why It Can’t Hurt Shane’s Body. Ilya Likes Shane’s Body. Ilya Really Likes Shane’s Body ;) It Takes Good Care Of Shane So He’s Always Ready When Ilya Wants To Use Him :) Really, They Can Let It Up From The Chair

Ilya throws up.

They have to call fuck-off cursebreakers now that they have something claiming to be the stepford wife curse in here. Like. That thing should not still exist. Shane needs to go to a government-run curse breaking facility so they can figure out how the fuck to get that thing out of him.

But Bell Centre still does not want to open the goddamn doors.

Arenas are old and big and slow and they can’t quite grasp the nuance of every word spoken in its walls. It exists in generalities. It can parse out save Shane as being what it wants but it can’t quite grasp complex explanations of how Shane needs to go see the world’s top curse breaking specialists right now who are going to have to confirm what’s possessing him so the government will go get any existing records about this fucking curse from their fuck-off classified vaults. Like. How to break this curse is not taught either. They don’t want anyone reverse engineering the curse from its curse. Shane cannot be curse broken in fucking Bell Centre

But Bell Centre does not care.

It wants this shit fixed on site.

Free its fucking man.

All Bell Centre knows is that Shane very desperately begged it to not let this curse leave with him again and it is Accomplishing The Fucking Task. Save Shane Within Its Fucking Walls.

But they can’t do that.

They need to take him to a secure facility and help him there.

And eventually Ilya realizes the person who’s got the best odds of explaining to Bell Centre what’s going on and how it needs to let him go so he can be saved is Shane himself. He’s been talking to it for years. They understand each other better than anyone.

They put headphones over his ears with a podcast on so he wouldn’t be stuck staring at a wall while emergency services coordinated evacuating the arena and getting Shane to a facility. Ilya goes back to him and explains what’s happening and how they need Shane to convince Bell Centre to let him go so they can help him. He promises, he promises that that fucking thing will be out of him soon.

A few seconds pass.

Again, we’re just gonna have the immediate aftermath of the curse be the literal end of the long game, just with Shane getting to scream on the inside. Shane does not get that much relief in that time because there is none in the story. The curse frankly does not have to try very hard to cover up Shane’s possession and it’s worse at covering up his possession in those weeks. One of the rules of curses in this universe is that they evolve and become more complex the longer they remain. It’s very convincing mimic of Shane’s mannerisms, but it’s less equipped to smoothly cover up Shane’s attempts to break through. When it’s first settling into Shane, Shane’s got more chances to seize a tiny bit of control back, and the curse is more limited in how it plays those moments off. It’s like an AI model that’s early in its development. It’s still learning how to be a person. It kind of comes off like Shane is glitching between unhappiness and happiness.

But it doesn’t matter. Everyone just fucking goes with it. He seems so much happier now :) He’s so much more relaxed :) They’re so happy for him :)

Shane loses a lot of hope that anyone’s going to notice after it’s not figured out in the first month or so. Because a lot of the signs of a curse that people are trained to spot involve sudden changes in personality and decision-making and values. Once this goes on for more than a month, his personality’s not all that different now, because Shane’s acting the same way he has for weeks. Like. Once people accept the curse’s act as Yep :) That’s Shane :) and thinks of the curse’s behavior as the baseline for his behavior he’s kind of fucked

But Ilya’s going to eventually confront Shane about how he thinks Shane’s been hiding depression, and the curse is going to try to deny it. That’s Not What It Is. It’s not meant to be someone’s Depressed Wife Husband. It is meant to be happy, and inconvenient, and requires no maintenance. It gives you a spouse that exists for your use. It gives you something that is always there to agree with you, to validate you, to support you, to wait on you, to always be happy to fuck you. This is not meant to be a mutual or balanced relationship. You are not meant to be worried about its wellbeing anymore than you’d be worried about the wellbeing of a fucking blender or the inflatable sex doll you packed in your fucking travel bag. It exists for its spouse’s use. If Ilya’s worried about something, then it needs to just make those worries go away.

But Ilya thinks Shane’s being cagey because he fucked up when they first got married. Like. I’m gonna give him a lot of regret over that time because I don’t know how you can’t regret being excited that your spouse is losing everything because it’s convenient for you. I hate having to paint Ilya with that brush to begin with but we are married to canon for that part. We are not shying away from how happy he was and giving him concern or worry that simply was not in the book.

Shane tried way harder to signal the possession in the first month or so. The thing is that the curse is actively covering things up but it is limited in how it does so. It can only be what it is. It is placid, happy inconvenience. If Shane manages to force out a few words about how he’s upset or unhappy, it cannot feign a conversation following up on that. It has to get Shane’s body back on track to being a smiling, inconvenient thing that you never have to worry about, and again, the curse is very new and more unskilled about how it does it in those first few months. He’s Fine :) He’s Happy :) Don’t Worry About Him :)

Shane dedicates an agonizing amount of effort to forcing out little signals of upset hoping that someone will notice the bizarrely immediate return to empty, smiling happiness. That is a classic sign of a fucking curse. His entire goddamn life is falling apart. He’s losing everything. Surely, someone, someone is going to notice how fucking weird how he’s acting about that is.

And then just. No one does. There’s no follow up questions. They’re so glad he’s learned to relax a little :) More cake? :)

Ilya’s canonical strategy of responding to Shane’s every expression of emotional upset by offering sex really works against him here. It is so easy to attribute the sudden shift in Shane’s mood to the afterglow. Of course shane’s not upset anymore—he just got a fucking blow job. Emotional upset, cured.

By the time Ilya confronts Shane about his “depression,” Shane has fully given up on anyone noticing. He has for the most part given up on landmining his loved ones with little signals that he’s cursed because fuck knows they aren’t picking up on those as it is and Ilya’s fucking him regularly enough as it is and he can’t. He can’t cause more of that. He just. He can’t. He’s frankly dedicating all of his attempts to get out of this towards trying to kill himself.

He manages to lock his ankle during a game and take himself down on the ice, but he wakes up in the med bay after to a very worried Ilya and very recoverable injuries. Ilya has to go on a roadie while Shane’s on injury leave and he spends a week unable to do nothing but perform minimal body maintenance and answer Ilya’s calls and stare at a fucking wall.

We’re also gonna go the mildly sentient arena route with this fic because I like the aesthetic and also it fits what I imagine for the Stanley Cup Wish/magic in general. Magic has a certain level of intelligence, as seen by the curse. And the Stanley Cup gets its power from the preceding years of hockey. Each game played, each cheer of the crowd, each win, each loss, it all churns and churns and churns like water on a prayer wheel. The power is collected in the Cup and that’s what makes it holy.

The power flows towards the Stanley Cup but the arenas gather the runoff over the years. The arenas remember. And sometimes they will sing to you the echoes of games past and, on the rare occasions that they actually notice you and like you, they will occasionally ensure your path through its halls runs smoothly. They never help their players during a game, that’s not what they are, but a door may literally open for you if you play a particularly good match. It’s considered a huge recognition from the arena to have so much as a light flicker on for you when you enter a room.

All the doors open for Shane Hollander in Bell Centre. All the lights turn on when he walks through its rooms. He hasn’t touched a switch or a handle in years. Because the Bell Centre loves Shane Hollander. Shane loves it back.

It always sang to him, always, and it rustled the banners in its rafters when he skated beneath them like it was trying to wave to him. He’d hear the echo of his own games in its song, his own laughter, louder than the rest, as if it was trying to tell him that he was its favorite. Metros fans sang to him when it was 19, and the Bell Centre collected the sound into its rafters and crooned it back to Shane whenever he stepped onto its ice, as if to echo him I love you I love you I love you

Shane never talked much about his relationship with the Bell Centre. It was unusual. Arenas were old and big and slow, and their awareness was limited. Whales did not fall in love with the algae floating beneath them. Arenas did not fall in love with individual players. If he tried to explain that the Bell Centre had developed a relationship beyond passing recognition with him personally, he’d sound crazy.

He tried to explain it to Ilya a few times, but it was after they started fighting all the time, and Ilya just made fun of him for being in love with a building, and Shane never made it more than a few sentences into trying to explain before he gave up. He didn’t really talk about it.

Shane plays two games in Montreal after the curse takes him. He spends both of them begging the building to kill him.

He begs the rink to swallow him. He begs the rafters to drop one of its bars on his head. Save him eat him free him. He wants to go home he wants to go home he wants to go home—

The Bell Centre refuses the first game. It tries to jam its doors so he can’t leave. It flashes the lights in the visiting locker room with anger and violence. That night, there is an earthquake in Montreal, and witches confirm it was magical in origin. Something has angered the Centre Bell enough to make its very foundation tremble. Many people attribute it to the betrayal of its longtime captain, Shane Hollander, who returned after he threw a playoffs match for a team he then joined—

Ilya’s pissed. They are all such fucking assholes. As if Shane’s to blame for the fucking earth shaking.

It’s the biggest relief Shane’s had in months. Something missed him. Something wants to save him.

The second time he returns to Montreal, he begs it again. Sometimes you can only come home in a coffin. Sometimes the only way to save someone is to free them in the most permanent sense. Swallow him, swallow him, swallow him.

The rink splits at the end of the third period. Ilya barely manages to drag Shane off the ice before it caves in under him. The game has to be canceled. Shane is regretfully informed that he cannot ever return to Bell Centre. He’ll have to sit future games out. The building is obviously too angry at him to allow him back inside.

That’s Okay :) It’s Probably For The Best :) Easier To Close The Book On That Chapter Of His Life Now, You Know? :)

By the time Ilya confronts him about his “depression,” Shane’s pretty much given up hope of rescue and thinks the only thing that’s ever loved him is a fucking building that he’s not allowed to go back to. Like he is not doing well.

Ilya’s nervous. And embarrassed. He’s got notes written out on paper. He’s worried Shane is dangerously depressed and has completely shut him out because he spent the start of their marriage talking about how happy he was that Shane’s life fell apart and cracking jokes about it.

And the curse keeps trying to assure him that Ilya Doesn’t Need To Worry About Him. He’s Happy. Ilya Makes Him So Happy.

And Ilya’s like, Shane, no, no he can tell something’s wrong, he doesn’t seem interested in anything unless Ilya suggests it first, and he doesn’t drink his ginger ale anymore, and the bookmark in his book never fucking moves—

That’s Ridiculous. Ilya Sees Him Drink Ginger Ale and Read And—

Yeah, when Ilya’s around. But the only ginger ale that leaves the fridge are the cans Ilya hands him at dinner and the only time that Shane’s bookmark moves is when they’re relaxing together.

He knows how depression can make you lose interest in everything. Shane tried to reach out to him for help when this started and he shut him out and he’s so, so sorry. Shane’s just seemed so empty for months and Ilya should have never let it get this far. Please let Ilya get him help.

And the curse is like. Glitching. It’s not sure how to handle this. It is not meant to be something that its spouse takes care of. It is convenience. You don’t help it. You use it.

It’s like. Okay, Sue Him. He’s Been Watching More TV And Drinking Less Ginger Ale. Stop Worrying About Him, Because He’s Fine. He’s Never Been Better :)

Ilya is. Despairing. He knows the instinct to hide depression because he tried to hide his depression from Shane. But Shane didn’t hide the fact that he was struggling at first, he tried to reach out to Ilya for support, and Ilya always just gave him a blow job about it. He feels terrible. But he can’t give up. He’s just going to have to prove to Shane that he can lean on him and then Shane will actually do it.

Shane feels better than he has in months. Fuck, Ilya noticed he was gone. He missed him.

The curse starts emptying a can of ginger ale into the sink whenever Ilya leaves. It starts moving the bookmark in Shane’s book forward. Ilya likes Shane better this way, and it’s here to make sure Shane’s exactly how he likes him :)

But Ilya still keeps after Shane and it gives Shane more hope that he’s had since the curse started. The curse’s attempts to seem less “depressed” are failing because it’s limited by what it is. It can mimic Shane’s behavior, but it can’t really make him into anything more than a sex doll that sometimes plays hockey. Ilya’s never going to be able to come home and find out about a new hobby Shane picked up because the curse just can’t. It can feign interest in Shane’s old hobbies because it can mimic Shane’s behavior, and it can feign interest in any of Ilya’s new hobbies because it’s Anything Ilya Wants It To Be :) but it cannot come up with anything new on its own. That’s just not what it is. Its caricature of humanity will always, always, always be imperfect.

And it can’t truly disagree with Ilya. It can chirp him, because Ilya Likes Their Banter :). It can try to assure Ilya that it’s fine when Ilya is worried about Shane, because it’s something that’s Always Fine, Never Happier Actually. But it can’t do basic shit like tell Ilya that he thinks that the new couch he picked out is fucking ugly, actually, and they are absolutely not getting that one. That’s just not what it is. Whatever You Pick Is Fine, Dear :) You Always Know What’s Best :)

And that’s simply not Shane Hollander. Ilya is getting increasingly worried that losing Montreal and his friends and his reputation and also Ilya laughing at him for it just completely broke Shane. He’s so… passive and empty now. Where is his stubborn bitch (extreme affection)

Shane doesn’t have a lot of solace about the fact that so many people fell for the curse initially because 1) they had some very good chances to clock the curse because he gave them good chances to clock the curse and just. Talked about how much they liked him better now and 2) it cannot mimic him in certain ways that really matter. The curse is passive and accommodating and above all convenient. He won’t be upset of course he doesn’t mind and can he suck your dick while he’s at it? :) Shane hasn’t expressed his own opinion or an inconvenient emotion or thought in months. Like. He really feels like everyone likes him better as a fuck doll with slightly better conversational skills because that’s all he really can be like this. He cannot be a real person because he can only exist for other people’s use.

But he ends up finding the only solace he really has in just how much the curse starts to struggle to cover up its own existence with Ilya. It cannot be what Ilya wants it to be because Ilya wants the real Shane. He just misdiagnoses the problem. “Shane had his entire life blow up on him and absolutely no one supported him when it happened including me his literal fucking husband” is an unfortunately good explanation as to what may be making Shane act so fucking weird. He’s struggling to cope with losing everything and he no longer trusts Ilya to help him. It doesn’t help that this specific curse is believed to be basically extinct and Shane should be protected by a top of the line ward. When he finally cottons on to something being wrong, he repeatedly attributes the curse’s behavior to a mental health crisis. And Shane hangs pretty much all of his hopes of getting out of this on that fact. Eventually, Ilya’s going to realize that this isn’t depression or disassociation or marital issues or a mental health issue. He’ll figure it out, he’ll figure it out, he’ll figure it out. And the more the curse struggles, the more hope he gets.

The curse is really glitching out over Ilya’s concern because Ilya’s concern is against its nature. By the end of it, the closest it can get to what Ilya wants is to suggest that maybe he hasn’t been himself lately and he wants to lean on Ilya as much as Ilya will let him. Like. It’s trying to treat Ilya’s attempts to help him like a fucking caretaking kink. Its nature demands that it make Shane into Ilya’s perfect doll and sometimes people want a doll they can pretend to take care of. It’s like how toy companies sell babies that will fake crying so you can pretend to soothe it. Ilya’s Right, Of Course He’s Right. It Has Been Hard Lately. But Ilya Makes Him Feel Better. Please Hold Him.

But the curse can’t mimic Shane’s interiority. That’s just not what it is. It can only make shallow stabs at what Ilya thinks Shane must be upset about and try to mime at that same upset. It has to dodge most of Ilya’s concern by saying it’s hard for him to talk about and he needs more time to put it into words. But He’s So Grateful He Has Ilya Here For Him. He Always Takes Care Of Him. :)

And Ilya’s like, of course, moya lubimiyy. He knows Shane needs time to open up to him again. He’s here for whatever Shane’s willing to give him. And it’s going to get better, okay? He’s going to fix this, he swears. Shane’s made him so, so happy by telling him this. They’re finally going to get him some help. Of course, he’ll hold Shane. Anything he needs.

And the curse is like. Yay :) It Made Ilya Happy Again :) Ilya Wants A Shane That Asks Him To Hold Him When He’s Sad :) If He Pretends To Be Sometimes Sad So Ilya Can Make Him All Better Again Then He Will Be The Kind Of Doll Ilya Wants :)

But Ilya doesn’t want a doll. He wants Shane. And that’s something the curse can’t actually be. It’s causing this existential dissonance where the curse just can’t fucking do what it’s designed for.

Like. It’s been glitching out over ilya’s attempts to get it into therapy because it’s nature demands that it try and prevent itself from being discovered and broken and it cannot hold up under therapy, it’s got the inner depth of a fucking puddle and that’s going to become clear if it has to pretend to be Shane talking about himself for any extended period of time, but its nature also demands it be whatever Ilya wants him to be. Ilya wants Shane to go to therapy and get better. He wants to make Shane happy again. He doesn’t want Shane to spend the rest of his life as this empty, passionless shell. He blames himself and all Shane went through with the trip for it getting this bad to begin with. Shane must have felt so alone.

And all of is attempts to express that give Shane so much hope. He finally feels like he may get out of this one day. Surely, surely Ilya will figure out that this is more than depression if he keeps after the curse.

I think it gives Shane a lot of mixed emotions. Shane carries so much pain over how those first few months go under the curse. It’s such a destructive experience for him. He has a period where he thinks Ilya genuinely doesn’t love him as anything other than a hole because that’s all he really is and Ilya seems fine with it.

Ilya revealing that he’s noticed something’s wrong and really starting to chase it gives him a lot of complicated feelings. Ilya does miss him. He did notice Shane was gone. He’s still the guy who went out of his way to stock his fridge with ginger ale and buy the yogurt with the right texture for Shane’s visits even though it came from a different store than the one he usually shopped at. He wants Shane as a person, not as a convenient doll.

But, at the same time, he’s got so much fucking pain from this experience that he doesn’t even know how to begin how to unravel. Like. He doesn’t know the way back from this. It just hurts all the goddamn time.

I think towards the end Ilya’s really, really trying to reassure Shane that he knows how bad the last year has been for him but he’s going to spend the rest of their lives doing whatever it takes to make Shane happy again and Shane feels very lost and angry over it. Not at Ilya but at whoever cursed him. Their relationship had issues but they really could have made it. He wants so badly to go back to who they were when Ilya first came to his cottage and they were filled with so much reckless love and hope.

He feels like his marriage got stolen from him. Even if they find a way back to each other after this it will always change how they treat each other. Like, he’s never going to get a giggly excited honeymoon phase first year of marriage where they can’t keep their hands off of each other and are sickeningly obsessed with each other and just want to be sneaking off to spend time together. The curse fucking got that. But like. One of the ugliest parts of the violence of this premise is the fact that Shane’s been repeatedly raped by someone he loves who thought he was an enthusiastic participant the whole time. That sex was not consensual for either of them. Shane physically could not consent and Ilya could not provide knowing consent because he never in a million years would have touched Shane if he knew that Shane wasn’t consenting to him. They can’t get back to their previous carefree sexual dynamic because they’ve got this fucking mountain of trauma around their sex life now. Even if they find a way towards something new, it’s going to be different, and it would take an enormous amount of work to get there.