Hug now, escape later

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

But Ilya wins and that’s not what happens!

From a show verse perspective I don’t think we consider enough the possibility that Ilya did not expect to win or at least didn’t make a controlled sex bet based on his possible win. The risk he COULD take was “if you win, Hollander, I’ll do whatever YOU want”. Then he could justify anything - he lost a bet.

But he’s not PREPARED to offer a counter “you do anything I want”, in this bathroom. That’s where he ends up, but in this bathroom, after basically domming Shane into trying to dom HIM re the “get on your knees in this filthy bathroom and suck my dick” bit, he… doesn’t have an answer to “if you win”. So he kisses Shane as both an assertion of control and a way to dodge the question.

But from an audience perspective and maybe from Shane’s: is that an answer? If Ilya wins, kissing?

The Vegas penthouse scene is _deliberately_ failing expectations for both Shane and the audience, but the audience expectations have been set by this kiss in particular. Unlike in a deep 3p romance novel we have no access to internal monologue for either of them, which means there is no definitive canon on How Ilya Thought About This (but fandom really rather under-considers Character Lying To Themself Or Forming Wrong Conclusions Based On Incomplete Data anyway).

Hence I return to turn-taking, which is a concept I learned about in Shakespeare studies. Turn-taking conveys a lot about character dynamics on the stage. I knew a guy who studied interruption in Shakespeare: that was mainly about hierarchy. Interruption serves a different function in Rozenzencrantz and Gildernstern Are Dead, and multiple functions in Oscar Wilde. Hell, if I was trying to explain this concept to zoomers and Gen A I’d probably use the “we finish each other’s / sandwiches” duet from Frozen - the level of interruption and fast turn-taking is a deliberate contrast to Do You Wanna Build A Snow Man. Along with music and animation choices, it creates a sense of synchronicity and alignment- right up to the final “finish each others / sandwiches” line.

Turn-taking in conversation is MAINLY analysed in terms of verbal exchange, for a bunch of reasons. But we all know that Gesture can be a statement, right? Not saying anything at all can be a power move . Giving the middle finger is as much a conversational turn as saying “fuck you”.

There is a significant difference between the book and the show in that scene. In the book, Ilya answers “If you win?” with “I will let you know,” and only AFTER that does he kiss Shane. Shane’s pov provides very little insight into how Shane is processing this OR what he thinks Ilya is on about. I actually think this conveys a combination of “what the fuck I don’t know what’s going on” and “avoiding thinking about one’s OWN motivations” quite well!

I actually have sympathy with the small group of people who prefer the Ilya POV deep 3p narration “we didn’t even kiss” post Vegas Penthouse over the unsent text.”

I am not disappointed because the “if you win?” / “kiss” exchange hits the key character point for me, ESPECIALLY combined with how quickly he responds to “I need… you”. Shane didn’t send the “we didn’t even kiss” text, Ilya didn’t initiate more kisses - but “if you win?/KISS” and “we didn’t even kiss are so clearly bookends.

It doesn’t matter if Ilya KNOWS that - at a watsonian level, if this guy is telling himself he doesn’t want, he doesn’t even want SHANE to suck his dick he wants Shane to beg him to sick his… obviously his internal narration is not going to say “If I win, I will kiss this man so much”. But he breaks and just kisses him.

From an audience level that sets an expectation.

Shane, idek. Watsonian level he’s mad and confused and the book scene is deliberately sparse.

Doylist, structural: in both texts, that kiss and the “we didn’t even kiss” line are foils.

Given that Shane never sent that text in the show, and show!Ilya didn’t say the Mr Sex Knower line “I’ll let you know”… I really like the show version. It’s hot to me, sure, but it’s also a really good adaptation. The actual conversation/interaction turns are different because key dynamics are compressed and because TV show needs to be more explicit in some respects than a book, but can also be more ambiguous.

At the end of summer, when Covid numbers were at a lower point, I took the risk to visit her in her new apartment and I quickly realized that, unlike when I’d spent the night at her house before, the couch wasn’t made up like a bed. She explained that since her new couch was so fancy and pink, I couldn’t possibly sleep on it, and so I needed to sleep in the bed with her. You know, out of necessity. I woke up with her snuggled around me in the middle of the night.

We’re dating now, and I genuinely think I’m going to marry her. Just the other day, though, I mentioned that if she hadn’t been weird about her fancy couch, I probably never would have like confessed my feelings. AND THEN she stood up, took the cushions off the fancy couch, UNFOLDED IT INTO A HIDE-A-BED, and said “I KNOW.”

there was only one bed

ilya and wyatt instantly clock him but everyone else is confused and asks luca which president/how did he even steal the laces/why would the president have themed hockey laces

bonus (at night, in bed):

troy: *shifts to face harris as if he forgot to tell him something important* hey did you know haas stole a president’s shoelaces once? but he ran out before we could get the details out of him

harris: don’t worry about it troy *yawns* i’m sure he was just too flustered to come up with anything else, now let’s go to sleep we have an early day tomorrow

i forgot that ilya goes to the club ALONE. none of his fellow NHL teammates go with him. He knows scott hates him (or at least hates how he gets under his skin on the ice) but he goes to support him anyways.

If they gave Tough Guy a chance they migbt really fall in love with Ryan Price! No shade meant I love Ryan lol

Ahahahaahahha I mean you said it not me anon. There is a post that goes around sometimes that's basically to this affect, it's something like "just as a desert fox cannot conceive of the ocean fandom cannot conceive of truly confident individual"

I'll be a bit less mean and just say that it's very hard for anyone to imagine the experience of a person who's as singular as both Shane and Ilya are, especially if you're a bit young and haven't embarked on a career yet. Over the course of my career I've met a decent number of prodigies and star academics and field leaders, and I think seeing that kind of thing up close does make you really understand what kind of personality is required. It's not people who are paralyzed by self doubt, I'll say that much.

(Same with Rose btw. At some point you kind of have to accept that the sort of person who becomes a mega movie star is probably not someone you'd want to hang out with)

This is the same man who basically said "come to my cottage, I'll show you the best time and we can fall in love for real," he's no stranger to romance, to wooing, he literally wants to do it right, because Shane doesn't do anything in half-measures.

Okay okay, now the sex. After Ilya says yes, Shane starts to move it into steamier territory with the very emotionally driven need to feel Ilya's heart beat under his shirt after the near-death experience. Ilya wants to show Shane he's alive because Shane is feeling anguish over the thought of almost losing him, and Ilya is like 'Ah I will fuck him about it and that will feel good." But then they literally start tearing the clothes off of each other while they growl possessive shit at each other like "yours" and "mine" and then Ilya lays Shane out on the carpet and they just fall into each other. Importantly, up until now, Ilya has been very focused on fucking Shane "properly" or whatever that means, wanting to give Shane the sex he wants and be the perfect boyfriend of Shane's dreams. He's also trying to numb his own issues with sex. He doesn't want to waste their precious time together talking about his depression, he wants to do the thing they're both really good at, which is having great sex.

I think it's important here, during the proposal, that they don't do anything elaborate. This is contrasting the other sex scenes in the book where they're both using sex as a way to show love, yes, but also as a way to avoid communication. This is sex, but here the vulnerability and openness of their hearts is literally the point. No crazy positioning, no dirty talk, they are literally just grinding on each other and seeking pleasure from each other's bodies. At one point in Ilya's inner monologue he thinks: "This wasn't frantic rutting—this was Shane loving Ilya with his body. Careful, steady thrusts that matched the rhythm of their pounding hearts." Ilya also thinks about how he wants it to last forever, but realizes that they will have moments like this for the rest of their lives. He doesn't have to cling to this moment more than any other, he doesn’t have to make it the best they’ve ever had, they'll have more, they'll have everything together.

I'm not saying that their rough, athletic sex is in some way inauthentic, it's not at all, they both love it, but Ilya's journey in the book is one towards self-actualization, where he can be himself while also being open about his emotions and needs. It's an important moment in Ilya's journey to openly communicating with Shane because Ilya realizes that Shane loves him for exactly who he is, not for what he gives him. Their aligned sexual needs don't mean that Ilya has to suppress his emotions in order to be something that he thinks Shane wants to see.

This part gets me good, every time, showing how the straight-forward prose brings the emotions and meaning to the forefront:

Hunting for some coochie

Wrote a G up on his belt

So to me this is the quintessential patchy beard:

Shark legend Joe Thornton is way off on the other end of the spectrum:

But for a more normal but full beard I'd actually cite Oscar Isaac as the peak specimen here