That Girl in the Deerstalker

"I'm a pretty bad reference." You joke one day during meal time, picking at your tray. "I'm autistic. That's already going to throw off your studies."

"Yes, but you're still human." Kyle insists, studying you with his eyes. You weren't sure where his eyes were, but you could feel them on you. "Humans are predators. My species are prey, and so is Simon." Simon lets out a sharp grunt, his form resembling what a snake looked like on your planet.

Only much larger.

"We are not prey. Ambush predator." Simon insists as he coils around your shoulders. He liked soaking up your body heat like a snake, too.

"Humans are endurance hunters. We're pretty far removed from using our instincts because of modern evolution, industrial revolution, all that. But they are still there." You explain as you finish your food, pushing your tray away.

"How can you be an endurance predator? You don't run." Johnny teases his fungal flower spiral opening and closing slightly. You'd learned quickly that his fungal growths worked almost independently of him, expressing his emotions for him.

"Want to see?"

Simon was fucking exhausted. The ship had two places for you that mimicked a human atmosphere. Your room and one that looked like a small forest with a lake. You hadn't run once, but every time Simon thought he had shaken you off, you would find him again. And again and again. For hours, he had tried to evade you.

He wound his way up a tree, high enough that he was sure you couldn't climb up and find him. He needed to sleep just for a few minutes, and then he would move. He woke to a soft rustling in the leaves beside him, body stiffening as he slowly opened his eyes.

GOD and the thing is that shane COULD make it for himself. he totally could. he's a totally competent adult. he's been living on his own since he was 18 and doing fine.

but he's also grown up with the understanding of, "oh, i don't get to have the fun stuff everyone else does."

(which uuuuuuh is the way he also thinks of a lot of things he. probably should not.)

and at a certain point for him, it was easier to just go, "food is just the thing that fuels me. it doesn't have to be fun or good or enjoyable. its function is 'make me good at hockey.' and it's fine. and i don't care."

Ilya is delighted and even does the whole hand-waving choreography for "I would like a ring, a diamond ring" part in Shane's face as he blushes. He does this with his non-dominant hand of course, because they have been holding hands the whole video. (Shane will buy Ilya 7 different high-end diamond rings on Newbury Street the next day for him to pick from. Ilya like a good Slavic trophy spouse will pick all of them.)

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

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?"

he gets filmed for a what i eat in a day/day in the life type video and is so used to thinking about substitutes at this point that he doesn't even think about it when he mentions them in passing. they keep an allergy friendly household so the stuff he mentions is compliant, but it's paired with comments like, "and then i add some wowbutter, which is soybeans and not peanuts. we also sometimes have sunflower seed butter, but the texture for this is better with the wowbutter. i have also tried this, what is it called-shane: the gross paste with beans" *shane, offscreen from the living room*: "chickpea butter?" "yes, this." "it's nasty" "yes, not good. their jar says it is, but it is not. anyway-"

A. the idea of ilya being lowkey stressed about shane surprising him and potentially being exposed to allergens is so fucking funny. ilya who ends up also keeping an allergy-friendly household PURELY because it's just less stressful that way. meanwhile the motherfucker WITH the allergies is SO fucking casual about it that it wouldn't even occur to him to ask ilya to do that.

B. when they're pushing the friendship cover, ilya gets nudge nudge jokes about trying to copy what hollander's doing, and he's not going to share information shane didn't greenlight to get out, so he just plays along. and now there's like. at least three other players lowkey accidentally following an allergy diet because they don't know it's an allergy diet. why do hollander and now rozanov not eat tree nuts? unclear, but they're also the best two players in the entire industry so it's worth a shot to copy them.

@lucky-santangelo ilya only getting five seconds of feeling smug and holier than thou before shane puts him on blast is KILLING me XD

shane groaning SO loud when ilya first breaks out the allergy cards because GOD ilya it's NOT that serious this is embarass-

oh? is this more or less embarassing than having allergic reaction in the middle of a restaurant and needing your epipen? hm? shut up and take the fucking shiny cards, hollander.

and riFUCKINGp to the restaurant that lied about not using peanut oil in their fryer as an angry, stressed ilya is stuck in a hospital lobby with wifi and a lot of energy that has nowhere to go until he's allowed to be back with his husband. you're DONE FOR.

GOD the psychic damage ilya takes the day he finds out body products can have allergens in them. his body wash company is getting a SCATHING email about fucking around with their formula when there are PEOPLE with ALLERGIES who RELY ON-

shane growing up who always got, "oh, you poor thing" from well-intentioned adults as a kid and then, "damn, i could NEVER live like that" from same-age peers when older whenever he had to explain his allergies, and it was both annoying and also felt like failing at something when he had to decline a piece of birthday cake or a slice of pizza because it wasn't safe for him.

but if he frames it as a performance diet, then suddenly! admiration! he gets some teasing obviously, but there's also an air of "good for you, man" that lands a lot easier than pity.

@riddlemaster101

i feel like shane would reliably tell medical people because this is a Rule for medical settings so yes of course he'll go into detail

David spots them at the cottage and they go over, Shane's cottage is obviously allergen free and the shopping he did is all safe for him. Yuna and David know to cook safely, the chicken parm is all good and fine but they say "the croutons aren't safe for you, but you don't like those anyway" just in passing as a matter of habit and Ilya who JUST learned about bananas and latex and bees is like "oh wow! More allergies?? I need a list. Haha" and then they have the meal and the panic attack and they become boyfriends. Before they leave Yuna makes him a copy of her list of all the known allergens and Shane's common reactions to them, it's the first time he hugs her. He looks her in the eye and says "thank you for letting me take care of him. I will be careful."

It's a relief, to know he cares to try. But at the end of the day they JUST met this man. So they cross their fingers and try not to feel the same way they did every time Shane went to somebody's house for a birthday party or a sleepover.

And then they are over at the cottage some night and they decide to order in for dinner. Ilya takes everybody's orders and goes to the kitchen to call it in for them and it's taking *forever* so Yuna goes to see if he needs any help. She finds him sitting with two copies of the list, hers and one translated into Russian for his easy reference. He has the phone on speaker and says "thank you for checking the dressing ingredients, I know is weird request, but sometimes Caesar dressing is safe, sometimes not safe, but he likes it so much is worth checking. Yes, I'll hold again."

They've ordered from this place a dozen times, their recipe for Caesar dressing is safe, YUNA knows that, SHANE knows that, that's why he ordered it. But *Ilya* doesn't. So he's checking. Because Shane wants the dressing and Ilya want him *safe* and *happy*. And isn't that all a parent wants? For their kid to be with someone who is just as invested in their happiness and safety as they are? For somebody who will wait on hold while they check the fry oil and the dressing ingredients and whatever else?

also cackling about the idea of ilya using the group chat with them to be mad about brands changing their ingredients so things that were SAFE are now NOT 😤 it started just as a "hey, those crackers aren't safe anymore" as a collective fyi thing, but it ends up being ilya just mad about safe things not being safe anymore

First these were obviously gay teens, the choppy dyed hair, the piercings, the giggling and demeanors, the all-of-it being shepherded by the most Canadian looking dad ever. A true fan too, Harris clocked the older Centaur logo on the older man’s cap. 

Second was the “jerseys”. They were not jerseys so much as white t-shirts scribbled on with sharpies and creatively cut and pinned with buttons. Each had one of the starting line-up of the Centaurs written on their back with their number, but also some very artistic interpretations of the Centaur’s logo. Also so many hearts and stars and hand-drawn hockey sticks. They were so cute he could die. 

He pushed through the crowd and reached them, only a bit out of breath in his rush.

“Excuse me” he said to the dad, holding out his hand “My name is Harris Drover, I’m with the Centaurs social media” 

“Hello Mr. Drover, oh goodness, please don’t be too hard on the kids, they’re so excited about their shirts, it’s all just for fun.” the man responded, shaking it immediately. 

“No no no, I’m not here about copyright, I just wanted to talk to you, maybe an interview for the team’s channels?”

“Holy crap, dad! We have too! This is so cool!” a petite teen with scraggly goatee and eyes that matched his father exclaimed.

“Well, I don’t know if your mother would be ok with it or any of your parents” he said looking at his son then the group. In a whisper, he leaned towards them and continued, “And I know it hasn’t been too easy for you kids online, with all those real jerks”

Jesus Christ, Harris’s heart just broke on the spot as the teens looked at each other in dismay. These kids were so brave and beautiful he almost forgot to think of the cruel world outside. He should know better, he lived it and now monitored the comments of the Centaurs TikTok, Insta, Facebook and ect. 

“Wait a minute coach, maybe you could talk with Mr. Drover?” a girl with a grown-out pink bob and wearing her shirt Billie Eilish big piped up.

“Yeah dad, you’ve been a fan forever”

“Well yes swe-Aspen, my whole life as proper Ottawan should.”

Now that was an idea. The man, Jimmy McDunnigan, bashfully agreed after some very spirited encouragement from his son and his friends. Harris pulled the group to a quieter corner of the stadium with good lighting he knew about. He got photos of all the jerseys from the back and one great shot of the teens all posing and flexing faced away with Jimmy facing him with a double-thumbs up. He switched his work phone to video and turned it to the man of the hour.

“Now Coach McDunnigan, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

“Well first up, I should mention, I’m not a coach, my ….  son and his friends just started calling me that after I taught them the ropes of hockey before this game” he responded with an awkward pause of a man trying to remember a new word. He could see Jimmy take a quick glance at Aspen standing just out of shot and Aspen’s reassuring and proud smile back. “It’s also the same night the kids made their jerseys”

“The jerseys are beyond adorable, tell me more about them.”

“Oh gosh, is it ok if I start from the beginning?” Harris nods vigorously while making sure not to jiggle his hands. 

Jimmy takes a deep breath in and says, “I’m just so proud of my son. I’m a season-ticket holder and have been for years, it’s the only reason I was able to get these tickets and I was so happy when Shane Hollander, good gosh, THE Shane Hollander joined our teams, though I know it wasn’t the best of circumstances. Rozanov is good, great even, but Hollander? Holy cow. Aspen here was really excited about hockey for the first time too and I was so happy we could share this. I promised him a Hollander jersey, if we could find one. Hollander has been such an inspiration for my son. He’s always been such a responsible young man and just one of the best players and now he’s gay too? It’s wonderful. Aspen has been showing me all of his old clips and I get to laugh and say, yeah I remember that one when it happened!”

God, Harris could just cry, it was all just so sweet.

“Well then Aspen went to school the next day and came home and said ‘hey dad, can we talk?’. I was worried but it was good news. He asked if instead of tracking down a Hollander Centaur’s jersey, the prices have just been getting so high, I could get another ticket for a friend of his from the Queer Agenda” Jimmy pauses. “That’s the LGBT and plus club at their school” he adds as an aside. 

“The club and his friends there have gotten him through some tough times and he really wanted to pay it forward and at least have one other member come, they’ve all been so excited about Hollander playing for THEIR team”Jimmy chuckles at his own joke here, but continues 

“And I thought, I can do better than that! So I asked some of my friends, other long-suffering fans with transferable seats, and the parents of these fine young kids and we scrounged up enough tickets for every member of the club! Now these kids know everything about music, the internet, politics and just everything except hockey” The teens outside the frame grin at this assessment.

“So Aspen and I plan a sleepover and I put together some slides. We learned the rules, the history and the kids all know Hollander and Rozanov, but the Centaurs have other really good players too! So I show them our starting line. I was half-way through when Jake pulled up Wyatt Hayes’s instagram and says ‘this is so me!’. Oh man I really felt like a teacher, all the kids pulled out their phones and started googling the players and deciding who was each one. And well, a six-pack of Hanes t-shirts and a raid of the Mrs’s crafts closet later, that is how we got the jerseys.”

Ilya wins his first awards and hes got nobody he really wants to thank after his team and coach cause he he hates his family but he knows his speech is too short so on impulse he goes "And I want to thank Shane Hollander for being slightly worse than me this season". Everyone knows it was going to one of those two, so everyone thinks hes an asshole to say that but whats new so it works for him. But from then on it then becomes a bit for both of them to thank each other in their speeches in a snide way as a reason they won.

Shane winning the Art Ross Trophy (Awarded to the player who leads the league in total points at the end of the regular season). and going "special thanks to Rozanov for missing at least 5 shots this season, he was a huge help"

Ilya winning the Conn Smythe Trophy (Awarded to the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs.) "Just want to give a quick shout out to Hollander for getting knocked out in the second round this season. Must hate to see me up here."