spin around in a circle and make an animal sound

For those who, like me, when they like a character they need to read every single comic the character appears in, I have compiled a list of all of Tim Drake’s appearances from his debut up to the 2011 Flashpoint reboot (not including New 52 continuity).

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

this is so sweet thank you!! i'm really glad you enjoyed the WIP rec list :)) i'll use this as an opportunity to share the love on more fics! again, no particular order and varying vibes hah

so you must like me for me by @alasse9 (36k)

shane is outed before the draft, and ends up 7th pick going to ottawa. ilya/shane in this make me feel sooo many things, this is an absolutely gorgeous friends to lovers

Everything is fine by Tamystardust (33k)

after the fight on boxing day, but before the plane incident, shane joins a centaurs bbq. unfortunately, said bbq is a bit overshadowed by some massive metros homophobia. but shane is fine, really, everything is fine.

this home on ice by @corvidcordelia (23k)

i don't know where to start with this one but it's a gorgeous mixed media fic - there's texting, internet research, an 'am i gay' quiz, and so much more. some angst but also a lot of fluff, this is a comfort fic for me

black dog by delagauchetiere (68k)

ilya/shane are neighbors and ilya loooves shane's dog... i don't want to say more bc spoilers but this was gorgeously written and incredibly good

"Tell me everything, Shane Hollander's ex-girlfriend Jessica" by doctor_roc_roger (17k)

in the 2-year period where ilya is #chasingthathole, he runs into jessica and gets some intel to help him #getthathole. this turns into an ilya/jessica friendship that i absolutely adoreeee this was so funny and fun

anybody like you by plonk (50k)

shane reconnects with his figure skating buddy joe at the olympics and ends up... making real friends!! this is such a beautiful shane character study and i fell in love with every character (also features figure skater ilya)

Heaven is a bedroom by @thomasmomwell / Charlotte_Stant (18k)

au where shane is a mormon missionary and ilya wants to smash... fair warning if you have religious trauma but this was SO GOOD and if you're worried pls see tag "better living through enthusiastic gay sex"

A Mean Boy From Boston by @willowmckinley (15k)

yuna walks in on ilya/shane, and ilya is not afraid to be the bad guy. featuring some very firm boundary setting, and both ilya/shane being menaces

World on Your Shoulders by Latigra (15k)

this and also the only difference between fanfic writers and writers who sell their own original works as careers is that fanfics aren’t monetized. that’s all.

being a “professional” writer doesn’t mean your works are inherently better than fanfics. I’ve read so many fics that are more professionally written than some published books.

Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I'm also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I'm in the seventh year (I'm seventeen). I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

And this is the opening page of a bestselling novel:

Batfam head turn around

Full image under cut

This is for @citrusses, who asked for HR recs. These are not new recs, quite the contrary, these are all older stories that I've downloaded to my Kindle for frequent re-reading because I love them so much.

1) and i spit out the seed . AU, of the canon divergence kind. Basically Ilya and Shane get outed much earlier than in canon. Amazing characterisation and dialogue. The first HR fic I read basically.

2)Now, I normally don't care for AUs where they boys have a different profession, because despite how relatively little hockey there is in canon, the world of pro hockey is so much part of who Ilya and Shane are, and their dynamic, that I feel taking it away would make them unrecognisable...This fic here is the one exception so far. Ilya is still a hockey player, Shane is a surgeon. And it makes so much sense! Please give it a chance, you won't regret it.

clear to a hedgehog . 12 K

Every Boston Raider knows that although their captain has a girl in every port, he’s got a soft spot for the one in Montreal. Dr. Shane Hollander knows it’s better to have a semi-regular source of casual sex than try to make a relationship work during residency. Ilya Rozanov knows that the doctor he’s fucking in Montreal is unaware that he plays hockey, and in fact probably thinks he’s Bratva.

3)english as a second language | 7.1K | set post 1.06, at the cottage | Shane's been fucking Ilya Rozanov for a decade and yet somehow the more time they spend together the more he realizes how little he actually knows about Ilya, like, as a person. As a partner. Again, he wishes he spoke Russian. That they had any shared native language besides sex and hockey.| This is one of my all-time favourite fic in this fandom. And I have read A LOT of fic, not literally all of it, but surely it is not for lack of trying. This is absolutely perfect Shane POV. And it features a lovely reflection on language and what it means. I teach English as a foreign language, so any story that focuses on this will always have a special place in my heart.

4)Too ripe not to split | 2.6K | Ilya rocks his hips up. “No, Hollander. Keep up. I want to meet your dildo.” He enjoys enunciating the word. Tries to give it a bit of a whiny Canadian inflection. “You remember? You told me about him, back in Vegas.”| Hot, hot, hot. Supernova hot. Perfect character voices too.

5)A Dozen Forget-Me-Nots | 6K | Hayden doesn't have hanahaki and if he does, it's purely platonic and if it's not, nobody ever has to know. Especially not Shane| This is Shane/Ilya but also Shane/Pike and Pike/Jackie. But you should read it! Like, I didn't even know this fandom trope, hanahaki diseases, before reading a couple in HR fandom, and it's not something that would appeal to me, but I love a good Hayden POV and also pining/unrequited love, and Pike can be such a moron, but he's a loyal moron. This was lovely.

6) Home Ice Advantage | 51K | Shane gets traded to Boston AU | One of the best AUs of the canon divergence kind out there, because it is plotty but not drawn out. I've already read it a few times and I fervently hope the author will continue the series.

7)black dog | 68 K | Ilya is not going to steal Shane Hollander's dog. That would be illegal. And wrong. And someone would probably find out and make Ilya give him back.| Magical realism. Sucked me in, took me by surprise and blew me away. I'm not saying more because it totally pays to go into this completely unspoiled, just know that I normally can't stand magic realism and I'm so glad this story wasn't tagged as such, otherwise I'd have never given it a chance and I would have seriously missed out. 

8) Torture Me (With All I’ve Wanted) | 7K| Regina to Edmonton was nine hours by bus if the weather was decent; it took a bit longer if — for example — your bus lost power on Highway 11 just past Dundurn, Saskatchewan. | AU, canon divergence. During the World Junior CHampionship, the Team Russia bus breaks down and players get split up on the other buses. Guess where Ilya ends up? Amazing, amazing fic. Toomuchplor is probably one of the most talented writers in this fandom. This really captures well that liminal, dreamlike quality of nighttime driving, and our two heroes are believable teenagers. 

9) Change Your Win Conditions | 102K | Sometimes life came at you with a clenched fist and Ilya had never figured out how to duck. So here he was, twenty-eight years old, single, dealing with the fallout from injuries given to him by the game he loved, and the second youngest assistant coach in the league to one of the worst teams. Stability was hard to come by, but he was managing. Then along came Shane Hollander to knock him on his ass, one more time.| My obsession with AUs in the fandom stems probably from the fact that canon is so perfect as it is and there's only a certain amount of missing scenes/fill-in-the-gaps I can take. But taking out characters, changing their context/giving them a new challenge and seeing how the consequences spins out and yet they find their way to each other is the most interesting kind of intellectual exercise, to me. Mostly because it comes with all the feels! And this story is a stunning example of all that. What a journey.

10) Drop the Gloves | 8.4K | Shane has been trying to figure out how to ask Ilya to stop using condoms. He finally works up the courage the night Boston eliminates Montreal from the playoffs.| mcshrug writes some of the hottest sex in this fandom (and the bar is quite high). I don't think I need to say more than this. :D

11)i know where to draw the line | 61K | “Hollander’s Metros have had a challenging few years, with back-to-back knee injuries and a concussion keeping the two-time Stanley Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist off the ice for three consecutive postseason runs. Hollander is apparently back to fighting trim, but everyone’s wondering if that will still be true come April. The Metros have promised that they’re behind their franchise star one hundred percent, but there are signs they might be hedging their bets. The Metros announced last week that they have penned a deal with San Francisco’s dynamic young Russian star, center Ilya Rozanov. The move has sent shockwaves through MLH, as San Francisco was widely expected to sign a contract extension with Rozanov, who became a restricted free agent in June.” OR the 2016-2017 MLH season in a world where Shane was born three years earlier and Ilya was born three years later.| magneticwave is an amazing writer. Their other AU (clear to the hedgehog) was quite possibly my all-time fave AU in this fandom - and I have a thing for AUs!...until this one came along. I love how the age gap and Shane's maturity change their dynamic in some ways but also not fundamentally. This is SO well-written and engrossing. And there's so much hockey! And it's central to the story. I'm running out of superlative adjectives to describe this story. It's pathetic.  

12)A Well-Organized Life by @409-conflict 11.8K | Shane Hollander is a man who thrives on structure, routine, the solid ground of a ten-year plan. Ilya likes that about him, likes the embracing squeeze of having a life organized in tandem with Shane. No one would call Ilya a man who thrives on structure. But it’s there, if not in his DNA then in the patterns of his brain. A call-and-response of: they do this, I do that. When Ilya’s life is flayed open for the world to dissect, how will they push-and-pull their way back towards what was once a well-organized life?| I normally don't rec WIPs, I'm making an exception for this because I was familiar with the author from The Pitt fandom, they are extremely talented, and I love their characterisation of Ilya especially here, it's so full of details, and his voice is perfect. I think this fic needs way more kudos and comments than it currently has. Go forth and make the author feel the love!

13)the art of long-term cohabitation | 5.5K | “Sometimes, I wish he was a worse person,” Ilya admits one night, while he and Yuna are doing the dishes. Shane and Ilya had come over for chicken parmesan, and it had been a lovely dinner, right up until David, clearing the plates, mentioned that he had met a guy at the store the other day who was a big fan of Shane’s, had a kid who idolized him. David asked if Shane could sign a piece of merchandise for him, maybe record a video. Shane said yes, because he had a rule, about doing things for child fans. Now, Shane was off shooting a video while Ilya did the dishes, and Ilya already knew the way it would require Shane to drag his public face up from the depths of his stomach, the work it would take him to shed it afterwards, the way it would taint this evening.| The summary doesn't really do justice to what I feel is the strength of this piece: it delves into the negative side of being in a committed relationship, the fighting, the difficulty in adjusting to being with another person who is, fundamentally, very different from you, and also how clinical depression might factor in from both sides. I'm making it sound boring and/or sad, when it's not. It's just so real and thought-provoking. And it has great characterisation. This anonymous author has such an excellent grasp on how Shane and Ilya work.

14)Alligator Bites Never Heal by @flawlessassholes| 72K | Remember when Sidney Crosby caught a puck with his jaw? That doesn't happen to Shane. That happens to Ilya.| One of my fave AUs is finally complete! Definitely on a par with 'Concussion Protocol'. Superb! I'm sure you all know it already, judging from the number of hits, kudos and bookmarks.

15) anybody like you | 50K | It gets lonely at the top. In Sochi, unrivaled generational hockey talent Shane Hollander reconnects with his old skate training buddy, Joe.| This is an AU in which Ilya is a figure-skater, while Shane is still Shane. It is, quite simply, one of the best character studies for Shane out there. And what I love the most about it that tit shows us how toxic hockey culture is, how much of a fish out of water Shane is most of the time, and how it shouldn't have to be this way. And the author does it by giving Shane...friends. Non-hockey friends. And they are some of the most glorious OCs out there. There's of course, a fantastic slow-burn Shane/Ilya, but that is not the main draw here. It's, like, the cherry on top of an already awesome cake. This has been downloaded and gone to my absolute favourite collection on my Kindle.

16)Carrion Comfort| Flight 771 shouldn't have been any different than any of the hundreds of other flights that Shane has taken over the course of his career, aside from the fact that it was taking him towards his lifelong dream—towards the Olympics.| You know I normally don't rec WiPs but if you like survival stories, you HAVE TO go read this story and leave a comment every chapter, because it's seriously amazing. Mind the tags, as it is a serious and obviously well-researched story that is not afraid of going dark places. The characterisation is just perfect. And as a language nerd, I just love how Russian is used in this story (yeah, I don't unbderstand a single word of it, but that's what makes it great, that's how we're supposed to feel and the author trusts their readers!). This author deserves all the kudos and comments.

Shane very confidently puts on the playlist of songs he's heard and knows are supposed to be Songs For This Situation, not imagining anything could go wrong.

But when it starts with "I'll Make Love to You" by Boys II Men, then goes into "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith, then "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye, Shane can tell that Ilya is fighting not to laugh. By the time it gets to "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion, Ilya can't take it anymore. He collapses against Shane's chest laughing so hard he's crying.

"What? What the fuck is so funny?" says Shane, a little annoyed but fighting a giggle himself because Ilya's laugh is so contagious.

"You, My Shane," he says, barely managing to press a clumsy kiss to Shane's lips through his laughter. "Only you, my beautiful boyfriend, would have this as your sex playlist."

"They're love songs," he says defensively, folding his arms. "This is literally what they're for."

"Yes, maybe if you were born in 1965," he says, wiping his eyes. "Do you even like any of these songs?"

"I mean, I don't hate the Celine Dion one."

And Ilya's full on laughing again as he kisses Shane. "Oh my god, solnyshko, I just love you so fucking much."

"Fuck... You... Rozanov," says Shane, in between kisses. "That's the last time I try to do something romantic for us. From now on you choose the music." He picks up the remote from his nightstand and hands it to Ilya. But Ilya shakes his head.

"No, no, I like it now," he says, stifling his laugh and grinding against Shane's thigh to emphasize his point. "I feel now like I will never again be able to get hard without the help from this song from Top Gun."

HEATED RIVALRY — FILMING DAYS

HW: Our show was kind of unusually block shot. It was shot like a giant movie, which means we're shooting parts of episode 5 in the beginning, parts of episode 4 early on. In the same day we're going from multiple scripts. We had to hold the entire story and then go in on command to these different points that these characters are at.

(sources and disclaimers below)

Ilya Rozanov week: Day two Favorite look(s): His love for Adidas as a brand