Hug now, escape later

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

Recently, Nigel Farage (the Member of Parliament for Clacton, and the frog-faced leader of right-wing fascist party Reform UK) has come under scrutiny for receiving a £5 million "gift" from a crypto billionare, and being unable to give a consistent answer for why. He has denied any wrongdoing, he has threatened reporters for asking questions about the matter, and he is currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commission.

If the Standards Commission finds Farage in breach of conduct, he will likely face a recall election in his district in September. He is unhappy with this possibility, so he has decided to "resign" and trigger a special election now. I say "resign" in quotes because he is standing in said election, and intends to remain in Parliament. Theoretically, winning this election will demonstrate that he has a mandate from the people in his district to continue representing them in spite of the allegations against him.

This is idiotic for several reasons. First, resigning now does not permanently shut down the Standards Commission investigation; if he is re-elected, the Commission can still find against him later on and still force him to face a recall election, meaning the Clacton constituency might have to hold two elections in the space of a few months.

The other problem for Farage is that essentially nobody else is bothering to entertain this farce. No major party is running a candidate against him, arguing that Farage is throwing a tantrum and wasting public money in the process. Only one opponent of note has put their name forward: intergalactic space warrior and perennial satirical candidate Count Binface.

The above image gallery is, at time of writing, the entire slate of candidates for this election.

This gambit has backfired spectacularly on Farage. He thrives on media attention, but with no serious candidates standing, this campaign won't receive any. No journalist who does cover it will bother asking him policy questions, so they will have to ask him about the £5m "gift" instead, which he hates discussing. He cannot run his usual shtick of presenting himself as the "anti-establishment voice", because the only thing more absurd than running against a comedian with a dustbin on his head is referring to said dustbin comedian as an "establishment politician". He cannot even attack Binface for not being local to the district because, to quote Binface himself, Farage "spends more time in America than in Clacton". The whole process will humiliate Farage --doubly so if Binface (as the sole protest candidate) garners a significant portion of the vote -- and one of the few things that fascist politicians cannot stand is humiliation.

One thing about me is I will come into any fandom and make it about emotionally significant handjobs.

Thinking about it, there has to be a first time for that. Well, there was, it was the TunaMeltdown. Because they didn’t do hat: previously, if they didn’t have the time or energy to fuck, they’d be sucking each other off. Both of them love giving head, love taking the other person to pieces with their mouth.

So there has to be a first time after the big love confessions and everything. Maybe it’s while they’re at Shane’s cottage. Maybe, like that time in Boston, it’s a “round two” situation- maybe Shane climbs into Ilya’s lap, teasing him about something and then they’re kissing and whoops guess they’re going at it again. Maybe they only realise the parallel when they’re both close to the edge and then they’re coming in an incoherent chain of “I love you so much”. And then they’re sticky and there’s come on someone’s shorts but they fall lengthwise on the couch, wrapped completely around each other, and stay like that for a while.

But maybe it’s not that. There’s the scene from the book, where Ilya’s jerking Shane off on the dock (and Shane’s phone is ringing and they’re ignoring it). That one’s an emotionally significant handjob because they’re sharing fantasies while they do it. Shane telling Ilya he’s been thinking for “so long” about Ilya fucking him outside; Ilya yes-and-ing and coming up with more specific versions. They’re thinking about penetrative sex but the sex they’re having is simple, a handjob and Ilya rubbing off on Shane. Neither of them planned it: they’re both a bit “what just happened?” afterwards; what makes it hot is the intimacy of sharing the fantasy.

But maybe it’s not that either. Maybe it’s four or five days in to Ilya’s stay. They’ve been fucking at least once a day, and the night before Shane had winced a bit and said something about his asshole being, um, a bit chafed maybe. He’d been embarrassed to admit it, which made Ilya’s heart do something squirmy. So they agreed they’d go easy today. They don’t have to be having elaborate athletic sex all the time, and Ilya really doesn’t want his boyfriend to think Ilya expects him to be, you know, fuckable at all times or anything like that.

But they are twenty-seven and horny and Shane in particular is just… lighting up with the security of being allowed to have, allowed to want. Maybe this is the day that one of my favourite things to contemplate happens: Shane hard in his sleep, shifting his hips against Ilya. Maybe Ilya fucking loves that, actually; maybe he kisses Shane awake and gets a hand around him and doesn’t give Shane a moment to feel embarrassed about wanting so much, just kisses him and kisses him and whether Ilya comes or not is irrelevant, either way they’re in the warm cocoon of Shane’s bed that smells like both of them, morning sun warm on their skin and they get to do this now. They get to be easy together.

But then I’m thinking of Ilya and how even years on, in TLG, he kinda feels like he needs to be Good At Sex, that’s what he has to offer, that’s why Shane kept coming back to him. So maybe the emotionally significant handjob is one-sided. Later, during the season, they’ll compare wanking habits and Ilya will be surprised to learn that Shane’s baseline libido is lower than his - (canonically Ilya jerks off at least once a day sometimes more, whereas Shane can often go three days without bothering). This is a surprise to Ilya because when they’re together in Shane’s safe cottage space, Ilya can barely keep up with Shane. It’s a good thing Ilya’s good with his mouth because his dick needs a break every now and again, you know?

Maybe the emotionally significant handjob happens after Ilya has already fucked Shane and eaten him out afterwards. Maybe they shower together and Shane washes Ilya’s hair. Maybe Shane works his fingers in Ilya’s hair, massaging his scalp and the spot at the nape of his neck where he carries tension, and Ilya’s moan is so hot to Shane - honestly Ilya’s everything is so hot to Shane - that before he’s done with Ilya’s hair, Shane is hard again.

Maybe Ilya’s embarrassed because he’s not ready to go again, and maybe Shane apologies, says it’s not a big deal, he’ll just- ignore it, it’ll go away. But maybe the suds dripping down Ilya’s back draw Shane’s attention to Ilya’s ass, the perfect curve of it, and maybe Ilya sees Shane looking and flexes his glutes, laughing at Shane for being so easy from the start. Maybe Ilya never wants Shane to ignore being into Ilya. Maybe Ilya turns Shane around and wraps his arms around him and jerks him off.

Maybe he spins a fantasy about that day in Toronto. Or maybe he gets Shane to admit to having jerked off in this shower, thinking about Ilya. As recently as last week, yes, knowing Ilya was coming here, knowing Ilya would be here for Shane to touch, here to fuck him, yours, yours to have and love, Shane, you thought about that, tell me you did. Or maybe Ilya’s dismissive - last week, yes, you were horny with anticipation. What about before that? What about last summer, what about the summer before that, what about all the summers before? Maybe Shane comes babbling something about all the way back to the draft, he jerked off in the hotel shower after the draft thinking of Ilya, and maybe Ilya sucks a bruise into Shane’s neck because that’s the only way he know to express how feral he is about that.

And it pissed me off so badly that I spent the ENTIRE WORK DAY today compiling evidence from every project my team has ever done for her, pulling past emails she’d sent us, putting together an entire case proving that she had been the problem all along. That she got projects mixed up, that she’d made requests that were nonsensical, literally everything you could possibly imagine. Screenshots of emails, reports we’d submitted, EVERYTHING.

This woman in particular has been terrorizing my team for years, her name is almost a slur in my office, I had simply had ENOUGH of her.

I put all of this evidence together and sent it to all of my bosses at 4:30pm. Then I took a long break to eat a sweet treat and drink some tea.

After my break, my bosses all called in an emergency meeting with me and they said they read my report and fucking loved it. And I sat on a teams call with my boss’ boss as she wrote my nemesis the scathing email I had always fantasized about sending, using the evidence I’d compiled, and hit send.

insane headline to pair with the actual photo of the beastie itself

In the book, the 2014 Vegas scene is allll about Shane taking control of the moment. Ilya is being bossy and pushy and telling Shane what to do but Shane almost immediately realises that he can push right back. By having Shane act out his fantasy, Ilya is making himself vulnerable to having that fantasy enacted upon him; he's too into it, he's too affected by the image of Shane Hollander naked in his bed, "putting on a show" for him to keep up the arrogant, icy demeanour.

And Shane is so fucking into it. He was uncomfortable at first because Ilya set him up to be vulnerable and exposed but as soon as he realises that he can provoke Rozanov into breaking character, he leans all the way in. Shane wants but when he says "get it for me :)" he's confronting Ilya with his own want and Ilya breaks basically immediately! He wants so badly that he can't stop his wanting being known!

The whole thing is a back-and-forth, forcing each other to admit to their desires. Shane is initially humiliated to hear himself beg (because he still hates how much he wants gay sex in general and Ilya specifically) but then he also understands, maybe for the first time, that begging is not just an act of submission. By begging, he is exerting power over Ilya, who, after all, wants to give exactly what Shane wants. By pushing at the limits of Ilya's self-control, Shane is claiming control for himself because he has the power to affect Ilya so strongly. This is an empowering scene for Shane!

It's also notable that afterwards they kind of collapse onto the bed together and share a moment of "Jesus, dude, that was hot" until Ilya kicks Shane out (right after Shane asked about Russia, mind you! stuck his finger right in that festering wound!). Shane doesn't leave that scene feeling weird or uncomfortable or humiliated by what they did, but he does leave suddenly aware that he craves a tenderness (kissing) that he isn't entitled to under the usual rules of their relationship, and that's what makes him uncomfortable:

And the kiss thing—it’s not subdrop, at least not in how it’s usually understood. It’s not Shane being overcome or overwhelmed by the rush of everything that happened, it’s him wishing the sex had played out differently. And in my opinion I think he’s judging his own actions here as much as Ilya’s—he also doesn’t go for a kiss, he’s too wrapped up in how hot their power struggle is to reach for any tenderness. And that’s what freaks him out.

Okay, but we don’t talk enough about how exactly this transpired. Feel like there are three most likely scenarios for why Shane asked Scott for gay vacation recommendations and they are all pretty funny:

(1) At some point in the four years prior, Scott's gay vacation sexcapades became public knowledge because his hookups talked, basically @gurlsrool's ten out of ten on a sped-up timeline.

(2) At some point in the four years prior, Scott dropped the dime on HIMSELF talking about his tortured closeted life in a sad wet dog interview that Shane read with a mixture of revulsion for Scott's weak ass and a longing that he did not care to investigate further.

As for why Shane asked I think its gotta be #3. I think Shane was just like. This is the only out gay man I know with money. Because I think Shane "forgot Troy Barrett is gay" Hollander wouldn't remember Scott Hunter's gaycation past even if he did hear about it somehow, nor connect it to his own honeymoon. Shane just doesn't care about other people's experiences that way.