Look at my cute lil' snake!

Meanwhile, Ilya: Woohoo boys let's play some fucking hockey [Timber by Pitbull blasting at full volume]

Cliff Marleau, probably: Hollander's gonna kill you in cold blood, man.

Ilya: Cliff. Cliff let me look in your eyes when I say this. I know. I will enjoy it very much. My night ends the same whether I win or lose, Marley. Anyway. [Song switches to Party Rock Anthem] LET'S MAKE THEM WORK FOR IT BOYS. WOO

Cliff: Dude what is this playlist.

and baby amber pike just sees him and SCREAMS before starting to cry because who is this STRANGER who is unca iya but NOT

and shane is just *pat pat pat on her back* "😔i know buddy, i feel the same way😔"

reblogging with my own tags because i'm CACKLING about this starting the habit of: ilya wearing a hat in amber's presence?? NOT allowed

if ilya shows up wearing a baseball hat, amber will let him pick her up, but she is IMMEDIATELY reaching that lil hand up to flick ilya's hat off by the brim. gotta confirm he's not pulling something suspicious again. and resistance?? futile. you will submit to losing your hat or you will submit to SCREM >:(

ilya wears a beanie around her one (1) time because she's still working out fine tuning the mechanics of hands, so she just grabs a fistful of beanie AND curls and YANKS. and now this massive hockey player is just "okay okay okay okay okay" as he is wincing and trying to unclench this UNREASONABLY strong baby fist from his hair so he can obey instructions and take his hat off, but amber is DUBIOUS. she needs this hat OFF, sir. *yank yank*

Now yes: penetration anxiety IS real and homophobes would absolutely be weird and obsessive and creepy about how Hollander/Rozanov are “taking it up the ass” or whatever. But I’m just saying it’s going to hit both of them, and not really be connected to the idea of sexual roles but rather the general concept that gay sex is inherently humiliating. And you don’t get to opt out of that by topping—one of my core memories of homophia in early life is a classmate tearing into a gay friend of mine for how “fucking disgusting” touching another man’s ass is

- Shane’s the GOAT and Ilya’s been nerfed. People import the hockey into the sex dynamic and imagine Shane as the stoic captain

- Ilya’s a popular woobie due to the popular fandom perception that he left Boston due to his mental health and the rumors of his very quiet and private life in Ottawa

- Ilya’s more rough persona makes him a popular target for fics where Shane exposes his vulnerabilities and makes him cry (on Shane’s dick)

Putting on lingerie for his man

This to me does not yell man with a plan. This to me says man who is so desperate to love and be loved that he is digging his nails into the only thing he wants and clinging to it. Desperate enough that he'll stay up until four in the morning with his heart rabbiting in his chest and his mind spinning faster than the earth itself trying to come up with something, ANYTHING that lets him. Fucking. Keep. This.

But on a normal day? He thrives on routine SPECIFICALLY so that he does not have to plan shit. Mr. I Hired A Stylist pays people and his MAMA to do that for him. For the things that don't involve hockey or his brand deals, Mr. A Designer Bought These Pillows just trundles along behind his husband and goes where he's told no questions asked. He fucking LOVES to wake up in the morning and have every aspect of his day prepared for him. He loves to wake up and scroll his color-coded calendar and know exactly what's on the docket. He's got a routine that he does not deviate from if he can POSSIBLY help it and it looks a little something like:

wake up when the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

If sex with Ilya: Shower (Unless the sex with Ilya was in the shower)

Smoothie

go on run when the alarm goes off.

Come home and drink exactly the amount of water in the bottle he prefilled before his jog

Do yoga until the alarm goes off

Shower

Meal prepped breakfast

Game Tape OR admin OR workout OR whatever Yuna's put on the schedule until the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Shower, if needed.

Meal prepped lunch

Pre-game nap

[INSERT HOCKEY HERE.]

Come home.

PROBABLY: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Eat meal prepped dinner.

Wind-down time until the alarm goes off.

SOMETIMES: Sex with Ilya. Whatever Ilya decides.

Bed

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

"but shane is a strict bottom"

It’s Ilya’s first season in Ottawa. He and Yuna are engaging in their favorite shared pastime: looking at Shane’s baby photos. Ilya starts to notice this grumpy little white boy in the background of all these adorable pictures of Shane. He’s like, “Yuna 🤨 Who is this boy glaring at our Shane?”

And Yuna’s like, “Oh, that’s Ricky, Shane’s cousin.” Ilya’s shocked. Shocked! He has a PhD in Shane Hollander and he hasn’t heard of any COUSIN. He says as much and Yuna sighs and is like, “Yeah, they’re not close. He picked on Shane a lot, you know, the shy, awkward, Japanese boy. It got even worse when they got a bit older because Ricky plays hockey too so of course he’s jealous of Shane.”

And Ilya’s like, “😡 I will kill this man! Where does he live?”

Yuna laughs and tells him that he still lives in Ottawa, actually. That he’s sort of a mess, always moving from one startup job to another. He cheated on his first wife and he somehow managed to lock down a second wife who’s gorgeous and way too good for him. Yuna shows Ilya photos from their recent wedding and they gossip about it (because gossip is another favorite shared pastime of theirs).

A few months later, Ilya’s out for lunch with some guys on the team and he sees a man at a nearby table who looks…familiar. He’s internally like, “Where do I know him from? 🤔 Did I have a threesome with them? No, I would never sleep with someone that ugly.” That’s when it hits him…it’s Shane’s loser cousin! And he’s out with a woman who is NOT his second beautiful wife.

Ilya starts watching them like a hawk. He ignores the Centaurs and is just staring at the two of them. The vibe between them is romantic, he can tell, but he’s waiting for definitive proof. Then, finally, they lean in for a kiss and Ilya snaps some pictures. It’s at this point that Bood’s like, “Uhhh wtf are you doing?”

But Ilya ignores Bood, puts his phone down, and keeps glaring at Ricky. The nerve of this man! How does he share any DNA with Shane? It’s unfathomable.

Ricky does eventually notice Ilya looking over, but he doesn’t think anything of it, of course. He has no idea that Ilya’s family. He actually uses it to impress his date. He says very loudly, “Oh look, that’s Ilya Rozanov. He’s rivals with my cousin Shane Hollander. Yeah, that Shane Hollander. Uh huh, we’re very close.”

Ilya’s fuming at this point. How dare he name drop Shane to impress this woman he’s cheating on his wife with? He tips their waitress $100 to slip her a note saying “he’s married” in case she doesn’t know. Then he leaves the restaurant (yes, the Cens are still sitting there, baffled) and drives straight to Yuna and David’s.

He storms inside (it’s the first time he lets himself in, but not the last) and right up to Yuna who takes one look at his face and says, “Wine. We need wine.”

The trade off of getting to play for the NHL is giving up their bodies, names, and likenesses. Their whole identities are used as a marketing tool and that’s part of their job. People are making a lot of money off of their rivalry. The NHL is getting more ticket and jersey sales from it. Fans are placing bets on their games. It really is that serious and people really are that invested.

That’s why the Irina Foundation plan is so smart. The rivalry is a narrative people are buying into, so Shane’s suggesting a new narrative. It gives the league a new marketing angle and it generates enough positive PR that people are kinda backed into a corner of letting the rivalry go. No one wants to be the guy saying a sports rivalry is more important than charity, kids, and mental health.

So no, Shane and Ilya are not stupid for feeling trapped by the stakes of this rivalry. They are trapped. They’re trapped in that tricky dissonance between the Hollander and Rozanov the media, league, and fans expect them to be and the Shane and Ilya they really are.

When Shane wakes Ilya up in the middle of the night with his plan, he’s saying: who we really are matters. What we have matters. I’m tired of giving up happiness to contort myself into the shape of who Shane Hollander is supposed to be. The real me wants you and chooses you and this is how we can make it happen.