Hug now, escape later

I am back because I need more of the gay hockey show gifs in my life.

But what gets me is the people who are the most into that seem totally unaware that it is in fact a kink. It's like they bamboozle themselves into thinking it's canon in a way I don't see other kinksters doing.

Which is how we get the takes that Ilya *actually* did something wrong to Shane during Vegas and and needs to do a penance walk when....what we saw on screen was a hot, consensual sexual encounter. Shane's an adult, babes. If he wanted a kiss he could have just said so, or gone for one. That's how things between adults works. The idea of recrimination here makes it out like sex is something Ilya is doing *to* Shane which uhhh yeah. Not a fan

Lmaoo I looooove the drowned rats shot after Vegas they both just look so miserable. They're like ahh. Fuck. Shouldn't have done that, probably. Really good stuff

Yeah that's my take on the Shane kiss sentiment too. It's definitely explicitly that in the book, but I think it's true for show!Shane too. He's confused! He doesn't know what he wants and he's just been dicked down within an inch of his life by his rival---who beat him to the cup, that's also happening in the background of everything else---and neither of them are prepared to have any kind of conversation about it it's just really good.

Also this is an aside but I feel like in all these Vegas takes I rarely see people talk about how this is how Ilya chooses to spend the night after his MVP win. That's going to be burned into his brain forever. He chooses to spend it with Shane knowing that the memory of celebrating his first Stanley cup, winning his first Hart, it's always going to be intertwined with the memory of being with Shane that same night. That's a pretty crazy choice for Ilya to make! It's sort of like the sex condo---Ilya's maintaining this distance from Shane by making their sex into a game and trying to avoid kissing him etc, but at the same time he's making choices that sear Shane irrevocably onto his life.

He gets BOYFRIENDS, which is so much more than he’d hoped for. And they do relax together, and muck around, and spend time with Shane’s parents.

Still, they fuck. A lot, probably. Somewhere around day seven, when watching some movie with explosions turns into making out turns into a slow, sloppy blowjob for Ilya and by the end of it a frantic, messy handjob for Shane - well, Shane leans his head on Ilya’s shoulder and says “fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever come so much, or like, so often.”

Ilya: 🤨

Shane: what. You know I haven’t been with anyone I’d spend, like, a sex getaway with. *grumpy face*

Ilya: Me neither, but you said you’d never come so much, not you’d never fucked so much. Really? Not even when you were a horny teenager? Two or three times a day is not so much…

Meanwhile Shane had a taste of being Thoroughly Fucked Over Some Weeks last year and has had a year to adjust to the fact that that can happen and he wants it. He’s also been through the mortifying ordeal of learning to have phone/video sex, which involves Talking About What You Want. So the anxiety of “do we talk about that? If I ask / demand will that mess up our dynamic? Is this too much?” is dialled down a lot, he’s got a bank of things they already discussed wanting to do.

Ilya: I didn’t want to get airport flowers in case someone noticed & paid too much attention … so… *produces the Lego Botanicals Flower Wall kit* We can put it together together?

Shane, already unbuttoning Ilya’s fly: that’s really sweet and we will do that but I need your dick in my mouth immediately.

Now, maybe they have a half-joking but not-entirely “yes of course Shane, I am at your service. Stressed? You can suck my dick, any time, that always calms you down. Horny? How terrible for me, if my dick can’t keep up I will have to use my hands” agreement.

Ilya doesn’t want to back down from the challenge Handling Shane “let his self-control go for once” Hollander, but he brought flowers dammit!

And Shane knows they can’t actually do nothing BUT fuck, work out, eat, repeat for days.

And like, Ilya expected them to get stopped a little. He got recognized and stopped in Boston. But he wasn’t expecting to be recorded pretty much all day. Photos, video, the second anyone recognizes them - and everyone recognizes them - phones are out. Shane is repeatedly apologized to and told not to pay for a single thing all day. He leaves like a 300% tip on each of their purchases, but still. No one will let him pay for anything.

And everyone wants a picture. People are not shy about coming to him and asking for a picture or an autograph and Shane just - gives them whatever they want. Grown adults, teenagers, parents with small children… Shane and Ilya take a photo with each of the business owners to hang on their wall. The owner of the cafe almost cries when she sees him and gives him a big hug. She doesn’t need to ask for his order; she remembers it and she gives him a special energy breakfast ball thing she’s been perfecting with him in mind.

The bakery made his favourite cookie in the approximate shape and size of a puck because they heard he was in town and hoped he’d swing by.

“Hollander, you own a bar here?”

“Uh, nope, they just… changed it after I left. Used to be called Chez Serge. Hayden told me there’s a winebar called 2481 in the village now. Or maybe Saint Henri? I can’t remember.”

It’s fucking insane. And Ilya knew it was insane, but this… this is actually fucking crazy.

The only place that isn’t quite so bad is Schwartz’s. And after Ilya gets over the fact that Shane used to come here alone late sometimes (smoked meat sandwiches are NOT team dietician approved), he boggles over Shane having a casual chat with the guy making their sandwiches. It’s 11:30 at night. There’s a photo of Shane and this guy on the wall, and Shane’s grinning widely with two thumbs up because he is a dork. “Hey Ilya, c’mere I want you to meet someone.”

They get bagels after. They just - drive to the bagel place that is open 24h, get a dozen, take yet another photo, and pick at them on the way back to Pike’s. They’re so fresh they’re still steaming.

Ilya looks at Shane from across the console. He’s been doing this the whole time? Even with the added pressure of their whole thing before it was a thing? Christ. “It was always like this?”

Shane shrugs. “I mean, not always. This was pretty bad, but it was like this every year we made the playoffs. It was similar on years we didn’t do as well, just a little less, you know? I could at least go places without being stopped all the time. I’d still be filmed, but I think people were less proud to be seen with me? So less pictures with fans. But during the playoffs? Yeah, always like this. Why? It had to be similar for you in Boston.”

“Ah, no, Hollander. This is fucking crazy.”

“Yeah,” Shane shrugs. “Metros fans are passionate. The worst were the game day look paps. I always failed miserably at those.”

Ilya takes a breath.

Another shrewd acquisition from Meghan Duggan! Lila is a goalie who will certainly be an asset both on and off the ice as Hamilton establishes the culture of the dressing room. She loves to clean, whether that's keeping the net free of pucks or windowsills free of dust!

Note: I had no problem with the reparative side when I read it but I bristled at the way the “paranoid” mode was characterised, and I should NOW re-read with a better disability studies lens because YIKES “paranoid” is a terrible word here.

And assigned them positions, noted who’s most likely to move up or get traded during the season. Then built PP1 and PP2 and PK1 and PK2. (And noted who’s most likely to move around on those as well.)

victoire fans: "abby please don't leave. we can't lose you."

The ENTIRE THING i like about this pairing in the FIRST PLACE is that they're EQUALS rhrhaghasdgkhgarhgh

and like there's nothing wrong with people writing whatever they want with one hand down their pants or whatever, that's fine and i don't judge, but this was a comment on the thing i wrote! which like, really specifically was not that! so.

ok i'm normal now. promise. (no)

Oh drop the fic link, this sounds like my shit. I appreciate when someone is like hey, you know, you're an adult here, things aren't just happening to you you're also making choices.

But the biological determinism of sex roles strikes again....The one who puts it in is in control we all know this....it says so in the bible....

Sorry I'll stop being snarky. This is such a fandom thing, it's not unique to HR at all, and I never really found a good single word for it---something like infantilization, or vulnerability kink, or woobification---but it's this intense desire to turn a character into a hurt sink who is only ever wronged, and must be comforted and aided. (This is not just a fanfic thing: the masterclass on this in the literary world is A Little Life.)

(Sorry this next bit is such an aside from your post but I got going there)

It's really fascinating actually I'd love a psych / lit class on this entire nexus of tendencies. Because I think there's kind of a spectrum where you have like, woobification on one axis and then identification on the other. So as a super simple cut you get kind of a punnet square:

high identification / high woobification: hurt comfort, you get to imagine yourself as being this weak morally pure little waif receiving care

low identification / high woobification: whump, the fascination with pain and suffering in an object

high identification / low woobification: power fantasies, competence fantasies, being able to imagine yourself as this mensch that pain bounces off of

low identification / low woobification: I think this is mostly external forces that act on the story, like a villain you as the author don't identify with but also don't sympathize with

In this fandom people are often putting Shane deeeeep in that high/high corner. Less so here on tumblr for sure but I see a lot of it via twitter.

As for *why* Shane rather than Ilya (mostly)....well I do think a huge amount of it is just top/bottom stereotype stuff. But I also think people find Ilya harder to identify with because he's foreign, and even more avoidant than Shane, and Storrie portrays him with this coldness early on that makes it easy to project a lot of strength onto him, even though with access to his internal monologue we know that Ilya is grappling with *more* insecurity than Shane is.

But yeah, I agree, there's a lot of this kind of mapping that happens in fandoms-- not just in writing but in people's analysis and reactions to a show, they do a ton of mapping characters/archetypes/plots onto ideas they already have in their mind. And yeah, Shane is definitely pegged in a spot in that punnet square that I don't think Reid intended at all.

I think you've said elsewhere, and I've certainly thought, that actually Ilya is kind of Reid's woobie, but like. She's a pretty competent writer, so by that I mean he's her guy she likes to chew on. This doesn't mean she hates Shane! She made Shane a fantastic little bitchy guy who I love a lot, and I bet you anything the fandom would feel a lot differently if they'd found literally anyone but Hudson Williams to play him. Because Williams is beautiful, yes, and also has these beautiful wet eyes, yes. I do think he added a ton to the role, really added some nuance in some places, and I love his beautiful wet eyes and his perfectly transcendent pout. But. yeah. If they'd found someone who was less gorgeous I am certain people would have a very different read on the character.

World Record by yellobaby

Cherry (on top) by @intosnarkness

Whatever you need by Chrysanthemumzz (the intercrural is in the epilogue)

Not Worth The Risk by probablylily

Koet by Chavalala

Flushed by probablylily

Come real quick (get inside my mind) by coffeeinallcaps

I was raised out in the cold by @lavenderprose

Ten minutes for entering the crease and Two Minutes For Embellishment by hollanov/searchingforabiggersky

ain’t nothing but mammals by MilesbyMichah

a man of his word by @ilyapasta

And I must self-rec: Held Fast, Carried Away.

Please Please Me, I am informed, contains thigh-fucking.

I was not previously aware of it because a) yikes the pace of this fandom and b) it doesn’t have the “intercrural sex” tag or any tag that scrobbles to it.

I have not actually read this fic yet but the fact that it contains intercrural sex WITHOUT specifically tagging it bodes well. Like “frottage”, if this is a thing I specifically want to read I go to the tag, but some of the best examples are where the author didn’t tag it because uh… that’s just a logical and normal queer sex option?

He gets BOYFRIENDS, which is so much more than he’d hoped for. And they do relax together, and muck around, and spend time with Shane’s parents.

Still, they fuck. A lot, probably. Somewhere around day seven, when watching some movie with explosions turns into making out turns into a slow, sloppy blowjob for Ilya and by the end of it a frantic, messy handjob for Shane - well, Shane leans his head on Ilya’s shoulder and says “fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever come so much, or like, so often.”

Ilya: 🤨

Shane: what. You know I haven’t been with anyone I’d spend, like, a sex getaway with. *grumpy face*

Ilya: Me neither, but you said you’d never come so much, not you’d never fucked so much. Really? Not even when you were a horny teenager? Two or three times a day is not so much…

Meanwhile Shane had a taste of being Thoroughly Fucked Over Some Weeks last year and has had a year to adjust to the fact that that can happen and he wants it. He’s also been through the mortifying ordeal of learning to have phone/video sex, which involves Talking About What You Want. So the anxiety of “do we talk about that? If I ask / demand will that mess up our dynamic? Is this too much?” is dialled down a lot, he’s got a bank of things they already discussed wanting to do.

Ilya: I didn’t want to get airport flowers in case someone noticed & paid too much attention … so… *produces the Lego Botanicals Flower Wall kit* We can put it together together?

Shane, already unbuttoning Ilya’s fly: that’s really sweet and we will do that but I need your dick in my mouth immediately.

He gets BOYFRIENDS, which is so much more than he’d hoped for. And they do relax together, and muck around, and spend time with Shane’s parents.

Still, they fuck. A lot, probably. Somewhere around day seven, when watching some movie with explosions turns into making out turns into a slow, sloppy blowjob for Ilya and by the end of it a frantic, messy handjob for Shane - well, Shane leans his head on Ilya’s shoulder and says “fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever come so much, or like, so often.”

Ilya: 🤨

Shane: what. You know I haven’t been with anyone I’d spend, like, a sex getaway with. *grumpy face*

Ilya: Me neither, but you said you’d never come so much, not you’d never fucked so much. Really? Not even when you were a horny teenager? Two or three times a day is not so much…