pity you're a tad too angry for them

Feel awkward about people maybe thinking you’re queer but still want to clearly signal “queers are okay with me”? SURE. LOVE IT. HERE’S YOUR WEIRD FLAG.

Don’t fucking at me about allies right now, they are ALSO actually getting fucking killed over us. Take your puri-gay shitty tent somewhere else mine is great with people’s cishet friends and relatives showing up to have our backs.

during the literal YEARS of not knowing he could potentially kill shane? NO

THE ALLERGIES WAITED UNTIL HE FELT SAFE

he had fries or something while he was out at a bar with the team and didn't think about it because he didn't order them and was just absentmindedly grazing from the plate that got shared, but he goes home to shane, kiss kiss, starting to strip, and then shane just *increasingly frequent pauses to try and clear his throat* *realization about what's happening*

GOD post-outing but pre-knowing about shane's allergies, the team just assumes oh?? the bar must have said something homophobic or something??? cap must have been the only one who heard it?? and they're now like well FUCK that place >:( and start refusing to go there, too.

fucking TEARS IN MY EYES laughing at this but also filled with so much real sympathy for this fake man.

i'm just picturing a long montage of rodney just fucking. looking at the pictures and sighing. looking out the window and sighing. looking at the table the cens usually sit at and sighing.

IF HE HAD TO BE OTTAWANDA TO KEEP THE CENS AT HIS BAR, HE WOULD BE OTTAWANDA TO KEEP THE CENS AT HIS BAR.

i also love the idea of this older man who wasn't a homophobe but also wasn't like. an active outspoken queer ally because it just didn't occur to him as something to be. who is now AGGRESSIVELY inclusive in this bar. if you don't like it? get OUT. he lost the cens once, and it will NOT happen again. not on his watch! not while he lives!!! for every shitty comment, five new rainbow flags go up!! keep pushing him!!!

and the kids aren't, like...judging. but they are going to tanya and being like, "uuuuh, mom? is dad...trying to come out? in like. a really weird sideways way?"

the idea of shane who denies himself SO MUCH and optimizes SO MUCH OF HIS LIFE and is SO focused and SO dedicated

but who cannot resist the siren call of Forbidden Mangoes

it ends up being his end of season treat

he did a whole season, he did a great job, he stayed focused and On It the whole year. other people celebrate with champagne. shane celebrates with an allergen.

shane who has one last photoshoot to knock out before he's free and is just oh no :) it conflicts with my husband's schedule :) guess that means ilya can't go with me :) so sad :)

why are you so happy

i'm not :)

then he does the photoshoot and has knocked out the last thing he has to do in front of a camera for a while.

now it is Mango Time.

he facetimes ilya with the lights down WAY low later and ilya just ?? shane??? i can barely see you, malysh. turn a light on.

uuuhh, no thanks. it's sexier like this.

what? i want to se-

...

shane is it the fucking mangoes

...no

SHANE

YOU GET TO SMOKE SOMETIMES. I GET TO EAT MANGOES.

ARE YOU FORGETTING PART WHERE ALLERGIES CAN GET WORSE WITH EXPOSURE?

THEN I SHOULD ENJOY THEM WHILE I CAN

And then they win the cup together, for the first time.

They've won and carried the cup and the loved ones have entered the locker room and everyone has been drinking out of the cup already, everyone at least tipsy if not completely drunk, sogging wet from champagne and beer and what else, and it's time for the the media to do their round of questions! Not a whole interview, of course, but some quick questions to get the winners fresh reaction and capture that victorious feeling, you know?

And they're happy, they're in love, they won their first cup together just now, they're tipsy and everything is lovely and wonderful! And Shane feels so fucking proud. Of Ilya, of his team, of himself. He's so proud of himself. He adapted to his new team and truly contributed to this win, especially the last two rounds of the playoffs where they did a series and a half with Ilya playing with bruised ribs, and Shane's line had to pick up the slack and increase their already long ice time minutes... Shane is proud. Shane feels like he truly earned this. He earned this happiness and the wonderful summer he's about to have. He earned anything and everything he might want.

And then the media comes and the questions come and Shane's so fucking happy and thirsty and hot, and it's summer and they've been playing this last series against LA, six games and three of them in hot California.

And they ask "Hollander, you just won, what's the first thing you're gonna do?"

And he says "I'm gonna eat some mangoes"

And Ilya is answering his own set of questions a few feet to the right but he heard him, and he turns on his feet so fast he almost looses his balance and screams "YOU WILL NOT"

And the reporter who asked the question in the first place was already confused, all of them were, really, because eating mangoes? That's the first thing he would do? What kind of celebration is that? But then Rozanov is making that angry sound and Hollander responds with a very, very offended face and what is this about, that's juicy, so they all shut up and let them bicker.

And Shane goes, mullishly "I will eat as many mangoes as I want!"

"Absolutely not! Why are you like this? It's not good for you!"

"Neither is smoking, neither is alcohol, or the absolute trash junk food you have all the time!"

"I quit smoking! And I'm not allergic to fucking McGriddles"

"But I'm sure is worse! You have them all the time! I can have mangoes one time! I just won the cup!"

"Allergies get worse with exposure Shane, you CAN'T have mangoes one time! It's a bad idea!"

"YOU WERE A BAD IDEA"

"What thE FUCK DO YOU-"

"I KNOW I'M ALLERGIC TO MANGOES. I ALWAYS KNEW I WAS ALLERGIC TO MANGOES. IF I WASN'T THE PERSON WHO KNEW MANGOES WERE BAD FOR ME AND ATE THEM ANYWAYS I WOULDN'T BE THE ONE WHO SLEPT WITH YOU AT NINETEEN"

"Shane, lyubimyy, are you comparing ME TO MANGOES?"

"Yes!"

"They are bad for you!"

"Well I still love them! And you! TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT"

Anyway, I'm just imagining Ilya with this meticulous presentation, codesigned with his mother-in-law the executive manager of his charity Yuna Hollander.

And once Shane IS at team events (between the outing and officially joining the Cens), Ilya lets them know WHY this is a big thing for him...

So the first Cens event Shane attends, he bears witness to an all-out ARGUMENT between like five of his future teammates over whether the cake has any airborne allergens that means it needs putting in the specially designated 'SHANE DO NOT GO HERE' area, or if it's just a problem if Shane ingests it...

Crucially, this argument started BEFORE he and Ilya arrived. Just the Cens standing there having this argument as Shane and Ilya walk into the room, overtaken by every emotion all at once that their team are being THIS accommodating before even OFFICIALLY meeting Shane.

i see this and raise you that ilya didn't actually tell them it was for shane specifically. they know that allergies are apparently Very Important to ilya so yeah, sure, buddy. maybe this is important to him in his family or something. whatever. doesn't matter. sure the peanut butter cookies can remain in a sealed container away from everything else. why not.

which means that shane arrives to this event to find five grown men arguing about whether this cake is A Bad Cake and needs to go to jail or not, and shane fully thinks he's having a stroke for a second. he knows all of those words but NOT in that order. and he's like ?? um?? and the guys fucking GRAB HIM and are like, "you are married to roz. you would know. he would want this cake to go in jail, right? it has hazelnuts in it." and shane is just "i don't even know what you're asking me." and gets the explanation that team events have sections for food and the main one is no common allergens and then there's "hey, if you're allergic, stay tf away" in another area, and it's just a team bit to call it jail now. so if someone forgets and is like, "this has lemon in it," they can get a verdict on jail or not jail.

and shane is?? oddly touched??? yeah, send the cake to jail for sure. :)

Pen came into my DMs to call me out for it :P

...

this fresh-faced 18 year old kid who was already bracing himself to have to explain his food allergies, yes they're serious, yes he's sure, no he can't have even a little, no it's fine he can bring his own food, only to find out he gets to not have to explain ANY of that AND he gets to have MULTIPLE safe options at every team event now

john at home:

Hudcon Week 2026 | Day 7: Free Choice

he and ilya are hanging out in the yard and some bees are buzzing around because some watermelon juice spilled on the ground earlier and shane suggests they go inside or rinse the juice off the patio and ilya teases him about being scared of little bees and shane SO nonchalantly just, "no, but i am allergic and you don't know where my epipen is"

and ilya

reblogging with my own tags because i'm also CACKLING imagining the implications of this not being specific to ilya, either. they're having a barbeque at hayden and jackie's house and hayden is good-naturedly encouraging shane to try a piece of coffee cake or something and ilya just goes, "no, bad for you"

and hayden IMMEDIATELY is on the defensive because what? you get to tell him what to eat now? where do you get o-

"no, bad for him because it has walnuts in it, pike. you want him to die? this is what you want?"

"what are you talking about?"

shane: "i'm allergic"

"??? since WHEN??"

"since always??"

"you've eaten over at my house HOW many times?? and never brought this up? the fuck, dude?"

"jackie knows"

the idea of ilya on instagram accidentally pressing like while DEEP in allergy mommy blogging territory and natalie from That Allergy Mama DMing him to be like "hi, my husband wants me to tell you he says hi and that he's a big fan and also that call against you against san francisco was bullshit." "hello, husband of natalie. also do you have any suggestions for substituting peanuts in this recipe?"

"hayden, honey, you've HEARD ME tell shane what things were for him"

"yeah! but i thought that was just a diet thing!"

"well, yeah, it is."

"but i didn't think it was a "this will kill him or not" diet!"

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.

It’s pretty likely that it’s a four digit number, and as there are four digits chosen there, that means that there cannot be any repetition. This mean that there are:

No, no, no. Don’t base your deductions of psychology. Let’s talk chemistry. When you first press a button, there’s more of the natural oils on your skin, and therefore it wears down the numbers on the keys faster. Obviously 0 is the first one, then. Try 0791 first.

The light is green.

Yuna's one is like, "HOLY SHIT THE CENTAURS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS! I never thought I'd be so excited to say that. 😂 This is such a huge achievement and I couldn't be more proud of you! This means I'm finally going to have to cave and by an Ottawa jersey. Don't tell David I told you, but he's still drying his eyes about it. Bubbly when you and Shane come over on Saturday for SURE, okay? Love you lots. SO proud."

And David's is like, "You did it, Cap! I know how hard you worked for this and it's paid off. We'll be cheering you on for every game. I am so unbelievably proud of you, kiddo. Love you lots - can't wait to see you and Shane on Saturday."