As a white Slavic person myself who dated an Asian man for several years, I feel like I have some very specific Hollanov headcanons I would like to share
1. Jokes about being mistaken for relatives, anyone who has ever been in an interracial relationships knows what I’m talking about. Some white Centaurs player is complaining about his white girlfriend being mistaken for his sister, and Ilya’s annoying ass cuts in like “omg this happens to Shane and I alllll the time sooo annoying”, the sarcastic jokes that they get mistaken for siblings/twins/cousins never stop
2. Communism jokes whenever Ilya wants to share something that Shane has, “Shane it’s OUR personal space, this is how it is in Russia 🙄” then whenever Ilya complains about Shane’s boring car, Shane hits him with the “oh I thought it was OUR car huh🤨”
3. The STRONG mutual agreement that cold water is bad for indigestion and highly preferring room temp drinking water, and yes, this does get them some side eyes from teammates when they always refuse ice in their water. On the flip side, they both drink their tea scorching hot, and anything less than boiling is not hot enough.
4. They may avoid The Question since they’re both famous, but I feel like it’s likely that Ilya still sometimes gets the heavily disguised “oh and where is your husband from…no no I mean where is he ‘originally’ from” and every time he gives a straight faced “Ottawa😐”
5. I know in the show we see Shane and Ilya wearing shoes in the house a few times and I’m here to say this is FAKE NEWS. Both of our boys are strict no outdoor shoes in the house, and they only wear house slippers when at home.
6. Whenever they are drunk or just delirious with sleep in the late hours, one or both of them starts a sentence in a different language without even realizing. Just to clarify, multilingual people do not “forget to switch” but the wires can get crossed when the brain is impaired. Shane hears Ilya getting up at 3am for water and tries to ask where he’s going, but it comes out in French and Ilya’s standing there in the dark like “…I don’t know what that means Shane”
7. An unanticipated struggle of hiding their relationship in their early days was just their different hair types. Hayden is hanging out at Shane’s place and sees strands of blonde curly hair on the couch and spots curly hair products in the bathroom…suspicious. They’re constantly finding each other’s hair in their beds, their clothes, their OWN hair, Shane one time finds a strand of Ilya’s hair in his meal prep and gives him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day.
8. Obligatory jokes about throwing in a “oh what because I’m Asian?” in an arbitrary conversation. Ilya and Shane are obviously immune to these from each other over time but it never fails to turn their teammates into fumbling messes. A Boston teammate asks Ilya if he knows about a niche American political topic (he doesn’t) but Ilya just responds with “oh you assume I do not know bc I am immigrant, this is so xenophobic of you” and he watches with glee as this guy backpedals harder than ever before in his life
I kinda thought of these off the top of my head, I would love to hear other peoples thoughts about this 😋😋
