the hush of holiness

Yuna and David are doing something (cooking dinner, out to the store, etc.) and Shane is giving Ilya the tour. An actual tour this time because they are at his parent's house.

Once Ilya sees the little practice rink, he lights up. The walls are splashed with Shane's youth trophies - snowplow sam badges in a case, tiny little baby skates, power-skating ribbons, pictures from his first tournaments, team jerseys from U8-16, his first hockey stick hanging on the wall, his first game winning puck on a shelf, his first tiny jersey. Ilya takes his time to comment on everything.

Then Ilya grabs a stick from the wall (one of the practice ones) and a puck from the bucket that hasn't been touched in a decade. Shane, never one to back down from a challenge, especially on home turf, grabs his own practice stick. There are no skates that fit either of them, so they just step on the synthetic ice with socks on.

And that's how Yuna and David find them, checking each other into the flimsy boards that are not meant for fully grown hockey players, firing shots into the little nets with enough force to knock them over, cursing at each other like there's a ref around to do something about it, etc.

they're both posting photos from their wedding day ofc. shane's post is a photo of their intertwined fingers, wedding bands pressed together -- shane's on his left and ilya's on his right hand as is russian orthodox tradition. the caption simply reads "Я тебя люблю" and that's it. tasteful and respectful. ilya's post is several pictures and a little more... well, more. he's posting a photo of them kissing at the ceremony first, ilya's hands buried in shane's hair and holding him close, their mouths locked together in a kiss that was probably too intense for the crowd of guests. the second photo in ilya's post is the wedding band photo and then the third is shane and ilya stood between yuna and david. so first three images are good but it goes downhill from there. the fourth image is an obviously drunk shane photo taken on a smartphone 0.5 lense and his face flushed and a silly smile on his face. the fifth image in boodram doing a handstand in the foreground and ilya chugging a bottle of moet and chandon in the background. the sixth image is ilya with his arm slung around a very pissed off looking hayden pike who is staring off into the distance with a scowl on his face and red ears and ilya is obviously midsentence. the seventh picture is a blurry photo -- courtesy of sveta -- of ilya in shane's lap on the grass and tugging on shane's cheeks cooing about his freckles. the eigth photo is a photo of shane curled up on the patio beside anya and giving her a cuddle as he naps, flushed and rumpled and obviously wiped out cold. and the ninth photo is shane the next morning at their kitchen island with sunglasses on and a frown and his wedding tux still kinda half on his body and his hair a mess and a very obvious bruise the shape of a mouth peeking out from the collar of his shirt. his caption reads "second best player (shane hollander) and best player in the league (ilya rozanov) got gay married!"

the honeymoon photos are tame in comparison. ilya got a talking to from their agent about image and branding and what would be best moving forward given the scandal of their outting whatever whatever. people want some sort of wholesome straight relationship vibe from them and ilya is rolling his eyes because 'whatever the fuck that means' but he's posting some borderline saucy photos anyway. fuck it. he's on honeymoon and his husband is hot. so he's posting a series of photos at the end of the trip, waiting in the airport for their connecting flight. the first is shane shirtless on a lounge chair by the pool, glasses on, reading a book looking stupid hot in ilya's opinion. the second is a selfie of ilya in the pool with shane is the background, still reading, and ilya grinning wide in the foreground. the third is a selfie of the two of them from a hike they took around the island one day with the sunset behind them and the two of them sweaty and flushed from the exercise. the fourth is a mirror selfie, ilya stood behind shane holding the phone, an arm wrapped around shane's waist, his head tilted so he is kissing shane's cheek. they are dressed to go to the club and shane isn't looking at the camera but at ilya's reflection and he is smiling fondly and the internet is dying bc his shirt is mesh and they can see his nips. the fifth picture is a photo of a massive plate of breakfast food from the hotel buffet. the sixth picture is ilya lying face down in the pool pretending to be dead. the seventh picture is another mirror selfie with ilya in the foreground doing his best blue steel shirtless in a pair of low hanging sweats and shane is on the bed in the background, also shirtless and in sweats with his hair all rumpled and his mouth all swollen and he's got the room service menu in his lap and the phone to his ear ordering. that picture sends everyone into a tailspin bc it is obviously a post-fuck selfie. the eigth photo is a photo of ilya with a drag queen in an ibiza nightclub. the drag queen is flexing her biceps and so is ilya and ilya looks totally wasted and also totally chuffed. the ninth photo is a screenshot of a facetime call between shaneilya and anya back home. and the tenth and final image is shane asleep at the airport, headphones on, hair a mess, mouth open and obviously snoring as he sleeps on ilya's shoulder. the caption is "honeymoon with the hubby 🤵🏻🥵🏖️❤️‍🔥" and shane says "ew no don't call me hubby". shane posts about their honeymoon too. the selfie of them on their hike, a photo of ilya in the waves at the beach all shirtless and tanned and big smiles and glistening abs, and then a photo of ilya asleep in the airport with his neck stretched way too far back over the back of a chair waiting for their flight to ibiza. his caption simply says "honeymoon".

not a post by ilya or shane but one by the cens introducing shane. a photo of shane in a cens cap and tshirt looking serious down the barrell of the camera. caption reads "welcome three-time stanley cup winner, rookie of the year, 2time mvp, olympic silver medalist (etc etc...) shane hollander to the centaurs!" and ilya is commenting "you forgot cosmopolitan's sexiest man in the nhl 2016 and 2017" and a fan is replying "dude what?" and ilya is responding "i married hottest man in league. i will not let anyone diminish this acomplishment".

as the season goes on and things continue to be weird in the media re the idea that shane threw the last playoff series in ilya's favour ilya is posting the photo of their CCM shoot and writing in the caption "since the summer before" and everyone is freaking the fuck out over what that means but ilya says nothing until farah is making him edit the caption. he leaves the photo up but removes the caption. when people ask about it after games and what it means ilya is just shrugging and saying "i have known hollander long time, yes? that's all i am saying". it's his one little way of biting back at people accusing them of throwing games for one another without getting into the timeline of them.

shane, tired of people questioning 'why rozanov?' or implying the question 'why rozanov?' has taken to posting sporadic images of ilya being the man he loves. so there's a recording of ilya talking very seriously to anya as he prepares her a very elaborate dinner full of chicken livers and bone broth and organic freezedried beef and egg yolks etc. ilya talking to anya saying "is important that you grow big and strong and live for long time, дорогой". then there's a post of ilya sitting in the airport with luca asleep on one shoulder and young asleep on the other. there's a post of ilya sitting at the dinning table with david and doing a puzzle. there's a photo of ilya coming off the ice after scoring a hat trick -- professionally taken at the rink -- and he's grinning wide and his face is sweaty. there's a post of ilya at the farmer's market with yuna, holding her grocery bags as she holds organic soaps to his nose and makes him sniff them. there's a photo of ilya asleep on the couch with anya asleep on his chest. there's a photo of ilya playing mario kart with the pikelets and a post of him playing mario kart at the children's hospital. there's a post of ilya wearing a children's plastic crown and drinking imaginary tea out of a princess tiana tea cup with amber pike beside him and a crowd of bears surrounding them with tea cups set in front of them and tiaras on their heads. there's a post of ilya in ibiza doing shots with a drag queen and a man dressed in leather and a hot woman in a bikini. there's a post of ilya at the gym, towel around his shoulders, sweaty and flexing and grinning past the camera obviously at shane. over the course of their first year of marriage shane posts a dozen photos of ilya with no caption and no explanation. a silent protest against people suggesting ilya rozanov is not good enough for shane hollander.

yuna is posting a bunch of secret photos she took of hollanov over the years. the two of them by the firepit at her and david's cottage, sitting close together with ilya's thigh slung over shane's knee and their hands intertwined in shane's lap. a photo of shane and ilya conked out on the couch, shane beneath ilya, ilya with his head underneath shane's sweater and curled on top of shane. a video of shane and ilya chasing each other and wrestling in the grass at shane's cottage -- the audio a bunch of laughter and chirping and bleeping that yuna carefully edited in. a photo of ilya asleep on the hollander's couch in ottawa wrapped in a blanket and with his cheek squished and his hair messy. a photo of shane and ilya on the dock at the cottage, ilya has shane is a headlock and is giving him a noogie. a photo from shane and ilya's wedding of shane and ilya slow dancing and staring at each other looking stupid in love. a photo of shane and ilya with anya in the backyard playing fetch. a photo of shane smiling at his phone dopily with the caption 'the ilya is calling smile' and that one goes viral. she is simultaneously helping their 'wholesome' couple image that her and farah agreed would be the best pr strategy for her boys going forward -- mkaing them as sexless as possible really to avoid people's discomfort -- but also enjoying getting to post her boys.

boodram is posting photos from team bbqs and team gatherings and people are playing 'spot hollanov making out' with all the photos. the first time someone spots it is blurry. in the background of a photo of zane with his wife someone draws a circle around two figures pressed tight together by the firepit -- it's obviously shane in ilya's lap on the grass by the bonfire and they're clearly kissing. after that people start stalking all the cens photos for potential hollanov making out in the background. one time they think they've caught hollanov but its actually harris and troy. but they find plenty. a group photo of hazy with holmberg and young and haas at Monks and there's shane and ilya in the booth behind them kissing, shane's hand on ilya's face and hiding their mouths but they are obviously kissing. a photo of dillon and dykstra at a team pool party and shane and ilya are in the distance wrapped up in each other pressing their laughing faces together and clearly ignoring everything around them. after about three incidents of being caught making out in the background the cens start double checking their posts before uploading and making sure the husbands are okay with it if they can be seen in the background. sometimes they ask to be cropped out. other times they aren't bothered. usually whatever they are doing is pretty tame and only lasted about one or two seconds anyway. they are not PDAing to the extreme. when zane -- or one of the others -- get asked about the 'excessive' PDA of their captain and his husband they are saying "no, they are not excessive. not any more excessive than me and my missus. in fact, they are usually a lot more aware of how they behave in public than me and cassie ever were when we were newlyweds".

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And they were "rivals."

But Elmo, after cheerfully surrendering his old toys, sees that the children who swapped toys with him are playing with his toys “wrong”! They’re imagining entirely different make believe scenarios! They’re pretending the football is a dinosaur egg instead of a rocket ship! Aaahhhhh!!!! And this is so distressing to poor Elmo that he does the unthinkable: He does swapsies-backsies and takes all his toys back!

This being Sesame Street, he learns that you can’t control how other people play pretend, but you can join in if you want to! And if you don’t want to, that’s ok, you can just play pretend your own way by yourself or with someone else who wants to play that way too. You can still be friends with people who play pretend differently than you (and aren’t being mean/harmful/etc, do not bad-faith-read this 🤨).

It was just Rose.

I could marry Svetlana.

tumblr is full of dimwitted reactionaries but ive also read a lot of things that have fundamentally changed how i think about justice, mental health, etc.

despite the best efforts of the site's staff and its manbaby ceo, there continues to be a contingent of people here who are committed to understanding things better, to doing better, and to changing the world for the better.

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".