the desert, and you, and me.

HEATED RIVALRY (2025-) 1.02 "Olympians"

source

Loyalty (1869)

— by Briton Rivière

Loyalty (2025)

similarly, i love that ilya never teases or laughs at shane when he misses obvious conversational cues (re: ilya asking shane four times in florida if he is still seeing rose). he obviously finds it endearing mostly but even when he starts to get frustrated and just asks outright he never makes shane feel lesser or aware of his misstep. he’s endlessly patient with it

Mel nods, happy with the positive feedback

It started when he was a kid and he was trying to help everyone get better at hockey including the opposing teams players, he would say something like “your stick grip is weak” or “you’re slow on your right” (idk i don’t know hockey very well ESPECIALLY little kid hockey) but he says it totally deadpan because little Shanebug doesn’t understand tone yet.

This makes the other teams so mad! They try and fight him constantly! Little bitty baby hockey fights and then Yuna sits him down in middle school after the first fight that he actually gets hurt (black eye and bloody lip) and asks him what he is saying to make everyone fight him?

“Nothing mean I swear mom!!! I’m trying to be nice and help correct their form”

And suddenly Yuna gets it and explains to Shane that not everyone but especially not the opposing team likes to have their flaws pointed out to them even if it’s coming from a good place and how that could be seen as chirping.

So he stops for a while, then his coach for world juniors tells him to try and piss off Rozanov enough that they can draw a penalty. So Shane does what he does best and points out a flaw at each face off. Jokes on him though because Ilya is actively changing those things and getting better every face off because he is taking it for what it is, advice.

Which pisses Shane off, he thinks his chirping tactic won’t work now that he is older. So he points out at his first scrimmage at practice in Montreal that the center who has been there for years (who he is probably replacing) is favoring his left side is staying too far left to compensate (again I don’t know hockey so I am trying to translate things I know about soccer lol)

And the center loses it on him! Immediately yelling about the lack of respect and how a rookie makes it to the MLH and thinks they are hot shit.

So Shane realizes his chirping DOES work just not on rozanov and becomes a menace he studies game tape specifically to find holes in his opponents game and pre prepares chirps and it fucking works because all these men are so far up their own asses that they just get mad instead of using the advice.

If Shane ignored him I do think I believe that Ilya would start saying increasing sexual things, things that would emotionally scar any of their teammates for sure.

Further I do think there's a point at which if Shane did continue to ignore him Ilya would instead start apologising. "I wanted to message you but I thought I was doing the right thing." "I'm sorry." "Talk to me Hollander." "Hollander I said I am sorry is this enough? I mean it." "Fuck you don't ignore me Hollander."

It would shift again for sure. "Please I am sorry Hollander, I should not have ignored you." "Hollander please, I am begging."

"Hollander. Hollander. Please." "Shane please." "Shane is not because I don't like you, is because I like you too much yes? Please Shane."