Me

I wanna see the unbridled joy on the faces of human schoolchildren who get to meet the first Eridians who come to visit Earth. I wanna see the Eridian ambassadors insisting to the humans that they get a chance to meet their schoolchildren, because they themselves were schoolchildren when a human teacher came to their planet and inspired them to become astronauts.

I wanna see humans getting permission to set up a small embassy somewhere in the Eridani System, possibly even giving a very elderly Grace a chance to see humans again. I wanna see how surprised the humans are that he doesnt want to come home to Earth, but also see them quickly realize just how amazing it is to live, study and teach on an alien world.

I wanna see Humans & Eridians joining forces and creating a massive space program with the goal of inoculating every star in the Milky Way that has been infected with the astrophage. I want to hear them say "the fact that there are three Systems with life this close to each other implies that the whole Galaxy is likely teeming with life- probably even whole civilizations. And none of them deserve to go through what we went through. Screw any ideas about a 'prime directive.' We CAN help, and we WILL help. Lets spend the next 1000 generations saving the galaxy, together."

I wanna see more of this world, generations after these two planets were saved by a pair of alien scientists who became best friends, and who each risked everything to make absolutely certain that the other's world was just as safe as their own. I wanna see these two great peoples coming out of this horrible generational trauma, coming together to celebrate the life that they all get to live with their newly-found cosmic neighbors.

On one side is an Eridian over the course of their life, on the other side is characters of a human line of ancestors and descendants, a family involved in spaceflight and Erid, one each generation for eight or nine generations, all friends with this one Eridian watching over their family for centuries.

I love you all, but these hockey boys do not fly commercial. They don't check luggage, look for parking at the airport, wait in first class lounges, or swap tickets so they can sit next to each other. Their Delta app does not send them cancelled flight notifications. They don't sigh about an airline meal. But the reality that they fly charter is awesome, you get so much better fic possibilities this way. They cross the tarmac and board the plane looking fly.

If they're good on the plane they might get a cookie.

On the plane itself, everyone has their own routines, playing videogames, watching tv, and some tables are arranged for long, ongoing card games.

You can watch Connor Clifton bravely try to interview everyone about their habits here (go on girls, give us nothing).

Here is a video about how the Pens travel as an organisation. Bonus fun fact: in Pittsburgh the Pens park their cars at the charter hangar alongside the planes, leading to an incredible story of Evgeni Malkin deciding to open up his new Porsche at 120mph on the runway one day.

Never change, Geno.

An NHL team will have it all pre-set-up and laid out and branded: here's a plane done for the Calgary Flames

Need Unrivaled to name them pls god, just describe one of them JUST ONE are they a band of blondes, brunettes, does Holmberg have golden tips, does LaPointe have ghost roots, does young activate his bob before games.

Luca Haas. He's Swiss, from Zurich. He has short blond hair, is relatively pale and blushes easily. (I would assume he's imagined to have a germanic-peoples look to his features.) Has a bit of a babyface, he's 20 in 2020 but he almost looks like a mid-teen. Tends to blush and smile and look 'adorable'. Off-ice he wears glasses.

His English is near-perfect (probably a bit too perfect in the way that sometimes ESL speakers never learnt to be lazy with the language) but he has a distinct Swiss-German accent.

Fine, what about her? Could she do wrong?

Okay, will you respect them now

Look at this

The general pro-car cultural movement ended up filtering from America to Australia and most cities ripped theirs up. We were lucky enough where I live in Melbourne to be one of the few English-speaking-world cities that didn't pull out their extensive tram network, thankfully. This map's a little out of date now, but from a few years ago, to scale:

And we didn't used to be the biggest in the country! Sydney had a bigger one, ripped it out totally, and is now awkwardly trying to install a few new lines again.

Shane's canonically kind of a selfish guy! Not in a terrible way, he just doesn't really care about stuff outside of his direct sphere. He only gets into philanthropy when there's a direct benefit to him (laundering his relationship). He loves his friends but he's not super caring of them or all that invested in their lives (forgetting Hayden's baby's name is peak). Some of that is he's too wrapped up in his own shit and his secrets but I think a lot of it is just his personality. Shane's not selfish to the degree of it being a personality flaw (see: Shane giving up a day with Ilya to babysit Hayden's kids. I wouldn't have) but he's more selfish than selfless.

We don't hear about him sending signed pucks to sick kids or doing charity with the Voyageurs or that sort of thing. Maybe he's doing it in the background idk. Most likely he's got some assistant in charge of it. But that's not something he spends a lot of mental energy on.

He's not rude or cruel to people, but internally he's a bit judgemental. He sells himself pretty ruthlessly. He’s wealthier than anyone on this website can even comprehend. He’s a landlord.

To get to three cups in a decade Shane’s also got to be very locked in as captain. Like Theriault is this fandom villain (fair) but it just doesn’t make sense to have Shane constantly clashing with him and the Voyageurs and still winning over and over. We see Shane let homophobic comments slide in the locker room and I have to assume that’s his general approach to dealing with things in Montreal. Winning comes first.

Hudson imbued Shane with a lot of gentleness, and the series centring the romance means we see a lot less of Shane when he isn't Ilyamaxxing but book!Shane is incredibly cutthroat. He's impatient, he might not ~showboat~ as much as Ilya does (and he judges him for it constantly) but he's just as much of an attention whore. He isn't just admired because he's Shane Motherfucking Hollander; he's genuinely a bro, he's inaccessible because of his routine and his diet (which gives him major 'you can't sit with us' vibes that he does precious little to counteract, both because he's too wrapped up in his Everything to notice, and he wouldn't care enough if he did).

He's the ice queen, not Ilya. As far as the league, and even his team, is concerned, all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work. Ilya and Scott Hunter get the time of day because they're good. Hayden is his friend and Assistant Captain. JJ is a teammate and is sort of the glue of the Voyagers. Rookies get Captain Hollander because he's responsible for them. That's all.

I really like you pointing out how distant and inaccessible Shane is. He lives alone immediately, which is very unusual in hockey, being housed by older players during your rookie contract is almost seen as a guardianship or part of your training. The older players teach the younger guys how to sleep properly and cook good meals and such. Shane doesn't need any of that, he's already locked in. And he's very aware of the distance his talent and routines and diets creates between him and his teammates:

"all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work"

Yeah, exactly. Shane is so transactional---he thinks about his diet and routines as input / output. He doesn't eat red meat so that he skates better. He doesn't drink so that his muscle control is tighter. He's obviously an endorsement whore---and in the book it's HIM doing this, not his mom. He wants to be THE Shane Hollander, hockey phenom, and he sees this as a thing he can buy with his effort, his restriction, his repression, and his body. He didn't trip his way into being the greatest of all time, he planned it, piece by piece, and worked his ass off:

And yeah as to the friendships with Hayden and JJ, man. I don't know. I really feel like Ilya is the only person on the planet who gets Shane's platonic intimacy until very late into TLG, when Shane has a sweet moment with JJ. But like even his TLG convos with Hayden are very stilted. Shane makes a super rare vulnerability bid by admitting how he's thought about how tough it would be for him and Ilya to have kids and it flies right over Hayden's head.

These guys are friends because Hayden's his winger and because Hayden doesn't have much of a hockey ego and doesn't get insecure around Shane. That's what's happening there.

People adding in nicknames for Hollander is always funny to me because it feels very deliberate that they don't exist in the book. I think the fans call him all sorts of things, but I don't think a single person in that locker room is calling Shane Hollander by a nickname.

Shane is naturally a more closed off person, and he tends to withhold emotional intimacy from people in general. Even his parents, who he absolutely loves, seem to struggle to be genuinely close to him unless they work for it, which is part of what I believe drives Yuna’s mom-ager approach; it’s how she can connect with her son.

It’s also part of why Shane is able to be so integrated into Hayden’s life & yet keep such major parts of himself locked away. I do believe that Shane actually cares about Hayden. I think they are genuinely friends. BUT I think that because of the way Shane approaches relationships, he doesn’t believe that he owes anyone any kind of intimacy with him, so anything he shares with others is a gift. It’s a sign that he likes & respects them. But it’s never something owed.

And I believe there is a part of Shane, even if it’s subconscious, that is as invested in his relationship with Hayden as he is because to him their relationship is exactly that: an investment. He’s putting in the work & energy to build this friendship to maximize how it will benefit him. And for a long time, sharing his relationship with Ilya was just not even a consideration, because he could not fathom how it could benefit him for Hayden to know about it.

It’s also part of why Hayden is so shocked about the Rozanov reveal, because he doesn’t perceive their relationship this way and cannot comprehend how Shane could keep this from him.

That said, because Shane engages in relationships in this way, he is capable of having a very close friend who he also keeps massive secrets from. Couple that with the fact that Shane is deeply repressed & doesn’t even acknowledge he’s gay until his breakup with Rose and it’s easy to see how he just doesn’t find it necessary to come out.

Meanwhile, Ilya is basically the opposite of Shane in these regards. First, he approaches relationships in a much more collaborative and reciprocal way. He works to build trust with people he cares about and understands that in order to be truly close to people, he needs to be open and vulnerable with them. His relationship with Troy is a great example of this, and his coming out to Svetlana in TLG also demonstrates this concept. When he’s unable to be open with people, it creates barriers to intimacy and causes him to feel isolated.

The problem then is that unlike Shane, Ilya isn’t repressed. He’s closeted.

Ilya knows exactly who he is and what he wants and who he likes, and he isn’t ashamed of it. He only hides those parts of himself because he has to for his own safety. His queerness isn’t just an aspect of his identity. It is a fundamental part of who he is, especially after he gets serious with Shane. There’s no real way to understand Ilya without understanding his connection with Shane.

This means that so long as he is closeted, he can never feel truly close to the people he cares about, because he’s deeply aware of the parts of himself that he’s withholding from them. It’s why he wasn’t able to develop deeper connections with his teammates in Boston and why he was so ok with leaving that team behind for Shane. It’s not just about his romantic relationship. Shane is also literally Ilya’s best friend and the person he is closest and most himself with. Ilya wants to be with Shane because Shane is the one person he can fully be himself with.

It’s also why he struggles so much in Ottawa with hiding and why their fight centers around Ilya’s desire to share more with his team… Ilya is DEEPLY lonely, in large part because he is so aware of all the ways in which he isn’t able to be fully himself. So long as he remains in the closet, he has no chance at a truly authentic connection with someone.

I think your analysis on Shane's relationships and approach to intimacy is dead-on. I always think about how it must be low-key kind of terrifying for Hayden and JJ (not to say anything about the rest of the team) to find out about Ilya. Just the concept of someone you're that close to---Hayden roomed with Shane for years---never mentioning such a massive part of their life is honestly a bit unnerving.

But for Shane it just doesn't work like that, especially since he's cleaved his gay sex life and identity (once he accepts it) and his relationship so completely from the rest of his person. He's SO withholding. I think in Shane's head these things are so completely separate from Captain Shane Hollander the idea that he would need to share them with his friends to have true platonic intimacy is like---well first of all, he'd say, what the fuck is platonic intimacy and why is it distinct from standing next to someone for eleven years.

I love the conversation Shane has with JJ in TLG so much because JJ says this directly to him:

And Shane plays it off but. Yeah. Who IS that guy. Does anyone even know? Can the real Shane Hollander please stand up?

Also when it comes to Ilya I do like how he is able to relationship build but he has to be therapized into it. It doesn't come naturally to him, I know people love to make the Bears into a big happy family but the book canon at least implies that Ilya had shallow, mostly about partying and hooking up esque friendships with those guys. He didn't keep in contact with any of them after moving to Ottawa.

Book!Ilya, who doesn't have childhood friend Svetlana, just has no fucking clue how to have a friend at all. His therapist basically has to walk him through it and he manages to stumble his way into friendship with Troy Barrett and then later book!Svetlana. I think Ilya is also helped by the other Centaurs modeling healthy platonic dynamics around him.

But then yeah, I like what you said about Shane being repressed and Ilya closeted. Because while Ilya has to be trained into how to be a friend, he does feel the absence of platonic intimacy in his life even before going to Galina. He notices something's wrong, even if he doesn't know what to do about it.

Well yeah but that's not unique to Shane's particular situation and repression and messed up way of handling things, it's just a bog-standard part of any long-term closeted queer person's experience with close friends they weren't out to. Hi, I've been terrified hiding a core part of my self and identity and a fundamental part of who I am (and in many cases my long term partner) from you for years, decades maybe, and you didn't have a clue and it's been crushing me every moment of every day, how's it going. \o/

Shane's canonically kind of a selfish guy! Not in a terrible way, he just doesn't really care about stuff outside of his direct sphere. He only gets into philanthropy when there's a direct benefit to him (laundering his relationship). He loves his friends but he's not super caring of them or all that invested in their lives (forgetting Hayden's baby's name is peak). Some of that is he's too wrapped up in his own shit and his secrets but I think a lot of it is just his personality. Shane's not selfish to the degree of it being a personality flaw (see: Shane giving up a day with Ilya to babysit Hayden's kids. I wouldn't have) but he's more selfish than selfless.

We don't hear about him sending signed pucks to sick kids or doing charity with the Voyageurs or that sort of thing. Maybe he's doing it in the background idk. Most likely he's got some assistant in charge of it. But that's not something he spends a lot of mental energy on.

He's not rude or cruel to people, but internally he's a bit judgemental. He sells himself pretty ruthlessly. He’s wealthier than anyone on this website can even comprehend. He’s a landlord.

To get to three cups in a decade Shane’s also got to be very locked in as captain. Like Theriault is this fandom villain (fair) but it just doesn’t make sense to have Shane constantly clashing with him and the Voyageurs and still winning over and over. We see Shane let homophobic comments slide in the locker room and I have to assume that’s his general approach to dealing with things in Montreal. Winning comes first.

Hudson imbued Shane with a lot of gentleness, and the series centring the romance means we see a lot less of Shane when he isn't Ilyamaxxing but book!Shane is incredibly cutthroat. He's impatient, he might not ~showboat~ as much as Ilya does (and he judges him for it constantly) but he's just as much of an attention whore. He isn't just admired because he's Shane Motherfucking Hollander; he's genuinely a bro, he's inaccessible because of his routine and his diet (which gives him major 'you can't sit with us' vibes that he does precious little to counteract, both because he's too wrapped up in his Everything to notice, and he wouldn't care enough if he did).

He's the ice queen, not Ilya. As far as the league, and even his team, is concerned, all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work. Ilya and Scott Hunter get the time of day because they're good. Hayden is his friend and Assistant Captain. JJ is a teammate and is sort of the glue of the Voyagers. Rookies get Captain Hollander because he's responsible for them. That's all.

I really like you pointing out how distant and inaccessible Shane is. He lives alone immediately, which is very unusual in hockey, being housed by older players during your rookie contract is almost seen as a guardianship or part of your training. The older players teach the younger guys how to sleep properly and cook good meals and such. Shane doesn't need any of that, he's already locked in. And he's very aware of the distance his talent and routines and diets creates between him and his teammates:

"all routes to Shane Hollander are through excellence, proximity, or work"

Yeah, exactly. Shane is so transactional---he thinks about his diet and routines as input / output. He doesn't eat red meat so that he skates better. He doesn't drink so that his muscle control is tighter. He's obviously an endorsement whore---and in the book it's HIM doing this, not his mom. He wants to be THE Shane Hollander, hockey phenom, and he sees this as a thing he can buy with his effort, his restriction, his repression, and his body. He didn't trip his way into being the greatest of all time, he planned it, piece by piece, and worked his ass off:

And yeah as to the friendships with Hayden and JJ, man. I don't know. I really feel like Ilya is the only person on the planet who gets Shane's platonic intimacy until very late into TLG, when Shane has a sweet moment with JJ. But like even his TLG convos with Hayden are very stilted. Shane makes a super rare vulnerability bid by admitting how he's thought about how tough it would be for him and Ilya to have kids and it flies right over Hayden's head.

These guys are friends because Hayden's his winger and because Hayden doesn't have much of a hockey ego and doesn't get insecure around Shane. That's what's happening there.

People adding in nicknames for Hollander is always funny to me because it feels very deliberate that they don't exist in the book. I think the fans call him all sorts of things, but I don't think a single person in that locker room is calling Shane Hollander by a nickname.

Male Klingons have a pair of penii (DSC: "Will You Take My Hand"), which took the concept of Klingons having redundant organs (TNG: "Ethics", VOY: "Macrocosm"), to it's logical conclusion.

Furthermore, SFA: "The Life of the Stars" mentions Klingon "quadri-testicles" which, accepting the above, makes sense. Two dicks and four balls.

That brings to the question of Klingon women.

Discovery implied one Klingschlong above the other, so perhaps unlike the very very rare human female side-by-side vaginal arrangement, they may have a matching arrangement of above and below. But! Klingons only have one mouth. So perhaps only one aft torpedo tube?👀

It could be one tube that breaks off into two separate canals?

Mouth wise, we use it for other ~functions~ but it's not the primary activity beyond eating so it makes sense if Klingons have only one mouth.

Also, Klingons have found ways to be with humans so the possibility is there regardless. Might just take some extra work.

On a more serious note, is there an implication involved by having the "warrior" species have two sets of testes and therefore more testosterone? Feeding into the myth related to testosterone and aggression?

In the majority of multiple penis setups on Earth there's only one receptive organ for the female.

if you don’t have a car your alternate form of transport can count too !! please tell me your bike’s name

Yeah, Ilya played wing as a stunt at the All-Star Game, but most of the time he and Shane are centres. It's what they're best at. And their team needs depth and consistency.

These days the average NHL shift length is 45 seconds. Yep, seconds. Get out there, bust your fucking ass, trade off before your performance noticeably slackens. Wait and rest and get back out there again.

So if all your star forwards are on one shift, the other team just has keep up the defense and wait for them to rotate off before going on the attack with their own best offense. It leaves a natural weakness in your strategy.

But by having great players spread across different shifts, there's no good time for them to let up. There's nobody they can relax for. When one monster trades off, another one hits the ice.

(And if the centres on the team are madly competitive with each other, they get to keep trying to top the other one's last shift)