In the sochi outing au, does Montreal kinda turn into Ottawa due to the remodeling around shane? Like, they get hayes in the goal and because they need to think about cap space they get other underrated players like bood?
Also, do you think shane and ilya ever get to play on the same team or live in the same city during their careers? Because while the ending (or the entire book) of the long game makes me so angry I shake like a wet chihuahua, the outing au would allow for them to play together while maintaining their agency. But I do think that any move to play together would be both mocked and mean an extra later of scrutiny on top of the bonkers level of face they are already experiencing.
Realisticly, the only possible way for them to play together would mean that ilya goes to Montreal. They remodeled their team around shane. Shane can never leave Montreal. And canada would genuinely try to crown shane if ilya changed to a canadian team. On the other hand, ilya simply cannot leave the US if they stuck their neck out for him the way they must have. Which brings me to another, actually more important question. Do they ever even get to live in the same country or does ilya now have to stay in the US for the rest of his life?? What would be the fallout if, even after retirement, ilya got canadian citizenship to spend the rest of his life kissing his man under the canadian moonlight? Can ilya get both canadian and american citizenship during the outing? Canada also moved heaven and earth to get him out safe, does that mean they also get dibs?
Yeah, I don’t see Shane ever leaving Montreal in the Sochi Outing AU.
I feel like I’m one of like. Nine people in the heated rivalry fandom who wants Shane Hollander to retire with the Montreal Metros. Like, maybe I’m wrong in my assessment of how popular the idea is, I just feel like I don’t super see it a lot in this fandom with how hated the Metros are. Which. I hate what the Metros players did in canon too. But I personally would rather force out every single homophobic shithead and let Shane keep his team before saying the happy ending is to have Shane Go To The Land Of The Gays Where Twinks Can Frolic Free.
I dunno, I’m personally just so sick of narratives where the minority character gets forced out and rejected. I want the minority character to win for once. I want the discriminatory assholes to be the ones who have to leave.
I just hate the idea that the house always wins. The system can’t be fixed so don’t bother trying. Can’t beat ‘em, can’t join ‘em, but good news, we reinvented segregation for gay people and cordoned them all off in fucking Ottawa. The homophobes WILL get to keep the other teams and the accomplishments of the high achieving minority figure they pushed out. Live your truth. 🌈🏳️🌈✨
And I want to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t write a storyline dealing with a minority character suffering an unfair loss like Shane losing the Metros. You absolutely can and you can do it well. You should probably start by acknowledging that a bad thing just happened instead of fucking laughing at it and calling the most tragic thing to happen to any character in the entire fucking book series his Happily Ever After all capital letters Jesus fucking Christ. When I say I’m sick of them, I mean as a matter of personal preference. They’re just not my cup of tea, and that’s okay, not every story is for me. “This was written poorly” and “that’s not the kind of story I personally want to read” are two very different things and both apply to the long game and the first is a criticism and the second very much is not.
But for me, I want Shane to win. I want him to get his jersey hung in those rafters and his number retired with honor. I want him to win fuck-off Stanley Cups on the team he built and I want the pieces of shit who turned their backs on him to never touch that fucking thing again. So. We’re rebuilding in this one.
I really like the idea of underrated players like Hayes and Bood ending up in Montreal during the rebuild. I haven’t settled on which characters will actually end up there yet—like, I’m definitely considering them, it’s just that whenever I’m plotting fanfic specifically, where there’s already set personalities and backstories for the characters, I need to Rotate and Chew for a while so I can make sure a specific choice is Fulfilling For The Narrative and Fulfilling For The Individual Characters.
One of my rules of writing is that you sacrifice everything before you sacrifice characterization. I have killed so many cool fucking ideas because it would have lessened or cheapened a character’s arc. I’d like characters like Hayes and Bood in Montreal on the rebuild but I’m still Rotating and Chewing to make sure that’s Right For Their Characters. Like. I want them to have narratively fulfilling stories at the end of the day. I want to make sure that’s Montreal for them before I shuttle them anywhere. Usually you guys only find out about my silly little tales after they’re hammered out and I have better answers, but this one is happening in real time, so we’re still Rotating and Chewing. I’m not sure who exactly it’s gonna be.
But I have decided (currently, subject to change) the rebuild happens not long after Sochi. Shane returns to Montreal and the welcome is not a warm one. The coach is not fucking happy with Shane, and neither are several of the players.
But ownership immediately cleans fucking house.
I like the idea that the metros ownership for this one is just. A consummate capitalist. I find a certain amount of safety and protection in rainbow capitalism. Because the free hand of the market has landed heavily on Shane Hollander’s beautiful shoulder.
He’s the most hockey boy to ever gay and he’s in the worlds hockeyest, gayest city. Oh my god talk about catering to your target audience. He speaks French, which makes him even more appealing to the heavily French Canadian area he’s working in. The Asian-American and Asian-Canadian demographic turns out to support him every time. Now the queer community’s going to turn out for him because he could not have possibly been more gay on main. And they’re adding international shipping to the website because the parasocial relationship he’s in with his entire country has expanded to encompass half the fucking world. Yeah, he gay hockey Romeo & Juliet’d too hard where other people could see him and now multiple royal families know he exists.
And frankly like. If you are the unflinching embodiment of capitalism, you cannot get better than your hockey boy being so gay that it somehow turns your home games into diplomatic events. You cannot get better than multiple world leaders deciding that they’re suddenly fans of hockey and specifically your hockey boy because it’s now a political stunt to wear his jersey. The metros owner’s other businesses are all affected by the decisions those people make. Lobbyists commit federal crimes for half the fucking opportunity that the Metros’ owner just got courtesy of Shane Hollander’s irredeemable homosexuality.
Shane Hollander was already a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Then they found out there was a literal rainbow. Now he is a billion goddamn dollars.
The second the Metros’ owner finds out that some of his employees are hate criming his hockey boy, he has them out of there so fast that they may as well be cartoon characters yanked off stage by a comically large hook.
I’m still deciding how the Metros’ ownership finds out. Right now I’m toying with the idea that J.J. tips them off to what’s going on, but I’m less settled on that. We are still Chewing on several options.
I think Shane would struggle with filing a complaint himself, especially because in this au the discrimination would be far less egregious than it was in snapping birch. They can’t get away with the shit that they did in snapping birch. Obama will be called about it.
But Shane’s going to struggle with trying to report a hostile work environment. He has spent his whole life conforming so he can stay in the system. Canadian junior hockey is basically a training grounds for raising children to excuse their own abuse, and Shane was a poc in a system that’s very unkind to poc. Shane has very likely experienced abuse from coaches or teammates before this, and the system punishes people who speak up against it. It is engrained into the DNA of the Canadian youth hockey system to just fucking take it.
Now, J.J. is also a poc who experienced this system. He’s experienced very similar abuse and has been taught to keep his fucking mouth shut and not complain about it if he wants to get to stay. But I’m toying with the idea that this norm was materially challenged for J.J. by what happened in Sochi.
As much as I joke about the Ally Squad in Sochi, they were all traumatized as fuck by that experience. Absolutely no one walks out unscathed. They should all be in heavy counseling but they’re hockey players and men so we’re gonna see if they ever get there.
Like. They did not just get to be the Ally Squad without cost or fear. They all violate Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ promotion laws when they speak out for Shane and Ilya. In real life, Putin specifically warned visiting Olympics not to do exactly that. They all get a phone call after being #allies that amounts to “hey so we’ve got 20+ nations on a conference call right now because Putin wants to put you in actual Russian prison for that and every country with athletes here is freaking the fuck out because they want to set a precedent that you cannot fucking do that to a visiting country’s Olympians but please listen when we say shut the fuck up.” And they all make the hard decision to still do whatever it takes to get Ilya out of the country alive.
And, notably, that is not a decision their teammates join them in on. Everyone else keeps their heads down and listens to the delegation after Shane and Ilya are outed. Scott, J.J., Carter, Shane, and Ilya are the only ones who have to seriously worry about a stay in a Russian detention facility.
In my mind, Shane has a very hard conversation with J.J. before the semi final. I’m still deciding if Carter and Scott are there for it or if they find out later from J.J.
Shane still thinks this may turn into a long fight to get Ilya out. He has already decided that he’s going to refuse to leave without Ilya, which will almost definitely end with him in Russian immigration detention the second his visa expires. He tries to tell J.J. to just fucking leave him behind if it comes to that, and J.J. decides that he’s not leaving without Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, come hell or high water. I think Carter and Scott make the same decision. They’re fucking terrified, but they’re in this together.
Like. Shane + the Ally Squad’s entire play is to make themselves their own hostages. Ilya’s safety is the most circumspect right now. He is not a citizen of any of the countries whose goodwill they are relying on. He is the one who is the easiest to leave behind. The others are actively putting themselves in the line of fire and hoping that their countries will save Ilya in the process of saving them. Making that decision is fucking brutal.
Carter and J.J. have to call their family on a line that almost definitely has a wiretap and tell them that they may not be coming home after the Olympics and they cannot even speak freely with them during that incredibly hard conversation. It’s traumatizing for them and for their families.
The only person he wants to call is Kip. And he can’t. He can’t trust these phones.
This all happens when he and Kip are on a break. He doesn’t know what happens next if they actually get arrested. He may never get a chance to fix things with Kip.
They are all goddamn terrified. Their loved ones are terrified. And they all still have to compete in the fucking Olympics.
It’s just. An all-around traumatizing experience. I think they actually start crying when they’re on the flight home because they were all secretly afraid they wouldn’t get to leave. It’s just. It’s one of the worst things to happen to any of them.
And it does not end when they go home. They all get to go home and have a fun conversation that can be summed up as “So Putin hates you on a personal level now.”
All of those men have security details now. Russia’s fucking pissed at them, the CIA considers them active risks for Russian assassination plots, and also they’ve all unlocked a new level of fame called “You are the like. The hot adult hockey player version of baby Jessica stuck in a well.” Like. The entire world rallied around these men. The entire world is invested in what happens to them. It’s worst for Shane and Ilya, but none of them escape it completely. They are all fuck-off well known and have to deal with an even bigger level of fame and scrutiny than they already had.
But out of the entire Ally Squad, J.J. comes out of Russia struggling the most. Because J.J. was on the ice with Shane when he was attacked.
It happened very fast. J.J. saw Shane go down. He skated as fast as he could to get the guy away from Shane in time.
The guy kicks before J.J. gets there.
J.J. saw Shane’s arm go up. He saw the skate make contact in the area of Shane’s neck. And he saw all the blood.
He didn’t know if it hit Shane’s arm or his neck.
It all happened too fast. He was at a bad angle to see it clearly to begin with and didn’t have time to look closer. The guy was going in for a second kick. J.J. had to take him the fuck down. He did not know if Shane was bleeding out behind him.
There was a solid minute where J.J. had to live in a world where his best friend was dying on the ice because J.J. wasn’t fast enough. It fucks him up severely.
Everyone wants to interview him about that semi-final match. Because that match was big for J.J. and Shane. Shane takes the hit and gets up again. He scores the game winning goal. But J.J. is the one to take the attacker down. He’s the one to assist Shane on that final goal. And in the famous, Pulitzer-candidate photo that ends up becoming a huge source of Canadian national pride, it’s Shane and J.J. in it, embracing and shrouded in the flag.
It’s all anyone wants to talk about. The photo is everywhere. The internet is already fan-casting him in the inevitable goddamn movie about it. People are obsessed with that semi-final match.
But J.J. is haunted by it.
He’s trapped in the moment when he saw all that blood.
The entirety of Team Canada gets a huge amount of acclaim for how they lock the fuck in after Shane’s attack. And they lock in. They play their best fucking game of hockey ever, but also? No one comes near Shane Hollander again for the rest of the game. They body anyone who comes close to him into the goddamn boards so hard that their ancestors feel it. They protect Shane.
But they weren’t doing that before the attack.
The team was disjointed. The energy was weird. They weren’t playing well together after the news of Shane and Ilya became known. Shane wasn’t being covered. And that enabled the attack to happen.
And that fact doesn’t escape J.J.
That fact is one of the things haunting him.
J.J. simply cannot fucking ever do that again. Like, medically, he cannot. He cannot take feeling what he felt when he thought he was too late ever again. People in the league are pissed at Shane for being gay even if they can’t say it publicly. They’re targeting him on the ice. J.J. needs to know that he’s on a team that will actually fucking protect their teammates. And that’s not the current Metros.
So I think maybe when things start to sour with the Metros, J.J. gives them like, five minutes to get the fuck over themselves and then blows the whistle. He normally would be more cautious about the consequences he and Shane may face for this. Normally, this does not end well for the player who complained.
But he’s a little bit self-destructive right now. He’s so fucked up by what happened that he’s willing to gamble to make sure it won’t happen again. He’s scared and desperate and he is still in Sochi and seeing his best friend’s blood on the ice.
And the gamble pays off. The metros owner has the fucking Obamas joining him in his private box in a few weeks. He’s not fucking risking them finding out that they’re hate criming the hockey boy. He boots the coach and the worst of the players immediately and looks about rebuilding as quickly as he can.
I think Shane is made a fundamental part of the rebuild. He’s got a fuck-off good eye for hockey. His understanding of the game is molecular. The owner tells him to look at the AHL and possible trade candidates from other teams and decide which players have the skills they need to win the Stanley Cup and the Metros will go out and get them. And they vet their potentials to make sure it’s clear that you cannot play for Montreal if you can’t work with all of its players. Ownership invests enormously in Shane after Sochi.
It makes the team a much healthier and safer environment to be in, so Shane isn’t inclined to leave. And I think he would feel too indebted to the ownership to ever leave short of ownership doing something extreme. Like. They put all their chips on him. They scrapped the coach and the players who couldn’t work with him anymore. It’s not like they had to change out every player but it was far more than they’d normally be looking to change. Shane was already loyal to this team. Now he’s fucking married to it. He’s not the type to forget it when someone backs him. He’s staying at the Metros until he retires.
I don’t actually have strong opinions on Shane and Ilya ever playing for the same team in this au, because I don’t think this fic would get to that point.
I definitely agree that Ilya would be going to the Metros if they did want to play for the same team. Again, Metros ownership just went all in on Shane Hollander. If they’re looking for an team that’s like, safe for them to be openly gay on, the Metros has shown that they will protect them when it comes down to it. And Shane’s indebted to the team for backing him, so Shane would be extremely resistant to the idea of him retiring elsewhere. If they decide they want to play for the same team, Ilya would be looking at being a metro.
I think that in-universe a lot of people think Ilya will one day be a metro. It’s actually one of the things that makes Metros fans warm up to him—they’re campaigning to have the two best players in the league in their hockey dynasty. Ilya gets the shovel talk from what feels like the entire population of Quebec, but also a lot of comments about how good he’d look in Metros blue. A lot of people are eyeing him to be a Metro now that he’s publicly tied to Shane.
After Sochi, I don’t think either of them are considering being on the same team. But that’s more to do with the fact that they’re on such uncertain ground with each other.
They’re fresh into the pressure of the fake love story. They don’t know how the other person feels about it. And they’re both secretly terrified that they’ve trapped the other in a relationship they don’t want.
They need space. They need distance. People are watching them when they’re physically together. They need to be in separate cities in the immediate aftermath so they don’t feel like they’re constantly having to put on a show. They don’t have to be constantly paranoid that they’re pressuring the other into physical intimacy they don’t want. Being on different teams gives them the breathing room to figure out what they actually want and feel and lets them develop their relationship a little more naturally at a distance.
After the outing, they fall back on the fact that they’re both locked into contracts with their current teams whenever they’re asked about possibly one day playing together. No one’s getting traded, so the point is moot. Like. The Boston Raiders’ owner has all the same reasons to keep Ilya as the Metros’ owner has to keep Shane. He’s not fucking getting rid of his hockey boy. Like. He’s gonna get to share his box with Will & Kate because one of his players decided to go for second base with the League’s most eligible bachelor on a specific night in 2011.
It’s bought them time. There are some people maintaining a countdown until Ilya becomes a free agent (since his contract expires first) because they think that’s when Hollanov will finally share a line.
But Shane and Ilya aren’t planning for that post-Sochi. They have a lot to figure out before then. And I see this fic ending before any contract expires. Like. I see the plot I’ve been chewing on taking 2-3ish years post-Sochi. So them being on the same team isn’t necessarily something that needs to be resolved during the fic. I think it can be left open for the audience to decide what they want to happen, re: teams, and just Decide that’s what happens after the fic’s plot ends.
But I think they’re definitely going to live in the same country one day, even if that day is retirement. Ilya’s currently on the fastest track possible for American citizenship, he’s very much going to be an American after this, but I think a lot of people expect them to one day both be dual citizens. They figure Ilya will get Canadian citizenship and Shane may get American citizenship. But they’re not going to be dual citizens in the immediate aftermath of Sochi, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the politics of it all.
When you’re applying for citizenship, you typically have to be physically residing in that country while it’s being processed. Ilya is going to be an American citizen in the aftermath of Sochi because he plays for an American team and ergo needs to reside in America instead of Canada. If one or both of them goes after dual citizenship, then they’re going to do it after retirement, when they have the freedom to physically reside in the country they’re trying to be a citizen of long enough to meet the prerequisites.
I don’t see people being upset at Ilya for living in Canada post-retirement. Everyone sort of figures he’s going to be spending a lot of time in Canada if not living there full time one day because of Shane. People won’t care as much about where he is once his location isn’t tied to the success of a team. Some people may be bitter online about Ilya ditching America after it saved him, but I don’t think they’d be significant enough to even ping on Hollanov’s radar, and I also don’t see him permanently leaving America behind for Canada either. He likes America. He’s lived in America for a long time. He has friends in America. His relationship with America won’t end just because the kissing Shane Hollander in the Canadian moonlight. Ilya takes great delight in getting to kiss Shane Hollander in the American moonlight too. He plans to kiss Shane Hollander in the moonlight of as many countries as possible.
I think they’re going to do that rich person thing of just having multiple houses in multiple countries when they retire. They’re both fuck off wealthy and have more than earned the right to be hot and rich and retired together. They’ve got a house in Montreal. The cottage in Ottawa. A house in Boston. A nice chateau in the south of France where they go to whenever they want to terrorize the French with Shane’s Quebecois. An apartment in NYC where they go whenever they want to terrorize old man Hunter and his child bride and also see Vaughny, who they don’t terrorize, because they love that guy.
Ultimately, I see Shane and Ilya spending a lot of time in both America and Canada after they retire. They’ve got the time and the money to travel freely. They’ll still have obligations in both countries—Canada keeps inventing new reasons to give Shane Hollander an award or invite him in for a ceremony, and Ilya’s still America’s favorite adopted son who needs to come back so he can push the button setting off the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Too many people ask them for their opinions on American elections every four years and then get angry online about it because what do they know about American elections, neither of them are from America. Sometimes they still hang out with the Obamas.
They’ll be in whatever country they want to be in at the end of the day. They’ll be together. They’ll be happy.
