mordorboat

I need it.

You mean her hot hockey player that she pulled by knowing what the hell he was talking about when he talked about hockey games?

You mean her scrumptious husband whose edges were sharp enough to turn on a literal dime?

You mean the “secret weapon” of McGill’s team that lived in the shadows of the fast and the flashy by dint of keeping up and supporting all their spazzy madness in such a way that made it work instead of flop and humiliate the whole team?

You mean Professor Desult’s favorite student? The man who notably hates everyone and took great delight in failing students? His favorite Taxation and Business Tax Principals student, David Leigh Hollander?

This very same David Hollander who got selected for salutatorian because only a few of the right professors knew who he was that his grades and successes really were that genuinely good, and argued the case of this exceptional and frightfully bland student who was also a literal giant and a major support structure in every single thing he was a part of? From the hockey team to the party cleanup crew to the most pleasant lab-mate you could ask for? Literally “the guy” anyone wanted in their corner at a pinch, if they knew his name? Mister “has good grades on a hockey scholarship” himself?

The legendary “who’s that hockey player that’s always with Yuna?” that nobody can quite believe that the bombshell Yuna would be seen with?

That guy? Who looks like the hottest, most generic Canadian “Canada-man” to ever walk the earth? With his quiet smile and his reading glasses and his curls and his enormous arms?

The only boy in all of McGill that Theeeee Yuna ever seriously dated?

Obsessed.

She is obsessed with him.

Nobody believes her when she deigns to share some of his insights to life and living and Montreal’s upcoming draft opportunities. “You mean to tell me that David said that? The man who smiles and says three words on a good day?”

Not that she does this often, because that’s her man. Yuna does not share. And David is a little shy and he doesn’t love being talked about. Not so much she doesn’t “kiss and tell”, she doesn’t collect his deepest thoughts and considerations and opinions and tell them to anybody either. Those are special and precious and David entrusted them to her.

David lets her talk him into and out of things for the joy of learning how she thinks. (She never gets him to stop opening doors or carrying stuff though. He’s a very stubborn man and lines like “What? I got these arms for nothing?” are too silly out of his mouth as he flops his arms at his sides like a cartoon character to argue with seriously for long.)

They hike and skate and read and study and go to the movies and hockey games.

They argue over the correct way to sharpen skates and how choppy a power push can be before it’s straight up sloppy and not just fast and hard. They disagree over Pad Thai and go cheese shopping together for “gourmet grilled cheese” nights during finals. They skate and race and compete with grades and silent conversations and meaningful looks nobody else sees. They go around and around over what the meaning of life is and whether there could be aliens and Sasquatches out there in the unknowns.

David absolutely surprises Yuna with a ring and the question on a pretty night, on a pretty bridge, under a bright moon, after a very fun game at the Centre Bell.

(Wouldn’t you know? That was the last time Montreal would take the Lord Stanley for the next few decades.)

They get married and it seems like half the world comes to see Yuna marry that one guy from the hockey team, and twenty-seven new hockey fans are converted during the reception. The other half of the world comes because motherfuckin’ David the Goddamn Menace Hollander married the Hockey Lady of All Time and not a single man he ever hit the ice with wants to miss it.

If they ever have kids, they will be indoctrinated into hockey.

(Almost thirty years later, forty-nine grown men watching the 2009 NHL draft will curse, drain a beer, and buckle in for the best hockey they’ll ever see in their life over this new “Hollander #24” in Montreal blue and red. They have no idea what’s coming, all they know is that it will be good.)

Yuna get herself the pinnacle of the hockey boys at school. She got the man who held up the whole team while looking like it was no sweat at all. Like he wasn’t the steadiest and most consistent knife-booted gremlin in the whole team. (You can take your hot-head, inconsistent center who can’t hit the broad side of a barn twice in a row and shove it, Marsha. When your boy misses a game, nobody blinks. When my David is throwing up his spleen with the flu, the next four games are lost. There’s a difference.)

Except that Ilya and Svetlana have their own routine together, even outside of them hooking up prior. They grew up together, mamas taking pictures of them in the tub together, no boundaries between them bc that’s just how they are. It’s why they slept together in the first place. Who better to try stuff with than the person who’s grown up with you?

Shane thinks he’s prepared for this, knows Ilya in and out but the first time that Sveta picks spinach out of Ilyas teeth like it’s second nature, he feels like he should be jealous but he’s not. He laughs when Ilya barges into the bathroom while she’s showering just to piss because he’s too lazy to go upstairs. He can’t even be mad when he hears the shower door open and Ilya’s affronted scream when Sveta turns the shower on him to run him out. (She happily mops the water up afterwards anyways so the only victim is a damp Ilya who mopes about having to change clothes)

Shane doesn’t really fit into their dynamic naturally and he’s okay with it, has a weird sense of loss when he watches them but he’s so happy to see that childlike joy from them that it doesn’t even really matter to him.

Except Ilya is gone for a whole two days for a sponsorship photoshoot and Shane is left with Svetlana alone for the first time that isn’t a few hours or less. It’s easy at first, nothing new. Except that he wakes up to the sound of her sobbing the first night.

Shane bursts into her room, scared out of his mind and already halfway through calling Ilya when she tries to just tell him to leave. To let it go and that she’s just being stupid bc she’s in pain. Shane doesn’t let it go though, coaxes it out of her that she has chronic back issues, ones that are debilitating some days and she normally soaks in a hot bath but her stupid broken leg means she can’t and nothing is helping anymore. She tries to shoo him out, apologizes for waking him up but Shane stops her. Tells her he will be back before he digs the fancy Epsom salts out of his own stash.

He easily finds some tiny candles, a soft floral scent that’s similar to the perfume she always wears, and lights them in the bathroom before dimming the lights and running a nearly scalding bath. He grabs the plastic sheeting and waterproof tape they keep in every bathroom because they’re athletes and they have to be able to waterproof injuries at a moments notice. He takes it back to Svetlana who’s already trying to pretend she’s going back to sleep.

“Come on, I’ve got you.”

She tries to protest, says she doesn’t need someone babying her, to which Shane rolls his eyes and asks her if she wants him to call Ilya who will absolutely force her to let him help if he doesn’t try to fly home immediately.

She finally lets him tape her up, not really sure where it’s going but trusting Shane bc Ilya trusts him. She startles a bit when he scoops her out of bed like she weighs nothing. He brings her into the bathroom, setting her carefully on the edge of the bathtub. He’s gentle when he helps her out of her clothes, eyes carefully diverted even though she knows he’s never looking at her like that. There’s a little hammock on the edge of the bathtub, and when he helps her into the hot water he tucks her injured leg as much out of the water as possible.

The heat is incredible, and her eyes tear up with the relief her back feels. When he turns to leave she grabs his hand, voice low as she asks him to please stay. She can’t have Ilya right now, but Shane is willing to be there and no one else ever has outside of her Ilya. Shane smiles, rolls up his pant legs and sits himself on the edge of the tub. They talk about nothing and everything until the water is cold and her back has stopped spasming enough that her pain meds are gonna be able to kick in finally. Shane is as calculated as ever when he lifts her out, heated towels already set up for him to wrap around her. She dries herself off, and Shane helps her get dressed again before carrying her back to her room even though she insists she can get back with her crutches.

When he goes to leave after tucking her into bed, she tangles her fingers in his and offers him the other half of the bed.

“I hear you, moving around when he’s not home. I know it’s hard to sleep without him.”

Shane hesitates for a moment, but he slides into the bed with her anyways. He know Ilya doesn’t care. He’s found them tangled up asleep together countless times over the years, but it’s never just been just the two of them.

Ilya comes home early the next morning, expecting to surprise both of them but when he checks on Svetlana first and finds both of them tangled up together, his heart nearly bursts from his chest. He slides into next to Shane quietly (after taking 30 pictures of them)

It wakes Shane just a little bit but Ilya shushes him, kissing him quietly before wrapping his arms around Shane’s waist. He can hold hands with his Sveta this way too and even in her sleep she squeezes his fingers gently.

My less generous interpretation is that heated rivalry is so compelling *because* the love story is made more electric with bdsm, but it’s intentionally made more commercially successful through plausible deniability to not alienate/scandalize a wider audience. Dog whistling if you will, while cloaking some of the more misunderstood aspects of kink in scenes like the Vegas bathroom / penthouse with a level of emotional turmoil that gives viewers a way to opt out of (and in some cases, blame) the bdsm of it all.

So there’s one reading of those scenes where Ilya & Shane are roleplaying to artificially mask their true desire to be more emotionally vulnerable with each other. Like playing dress up to make things less intimate / real. It’s hot but it’s keeping their hearts safe. Reid’s Vegas bonus/blog chapter makes reading this scene a bit blurry, and I find it fascinating that she decided to include it/release it after the book was published — did she feel pressure to clarify that Ilya was actually acting out of fear in those scenes? Did that justify his particular flavor of sadism in that moment? I think that’s where the plausible deniability comes in.

Because for people who appreciate the sadism in those scenes, the way Ilya is acting feels more intimate than not. He’s trying to understand Shane and himself and the ways in which they are sparking this hunger thats gnawing gnashing growling inside them; when Ilya makes Shane pout and cry and Ilya hears the quiver in his voice when Shane’s shouting back at him, it’s Ilya’s way of finding the crack in the shields they’ve both been using to keep themselves safe. His sadism is getting them closer, and Shane’s submission to it is accepting that, rewarding that sharpness from Ilya with a softness he shares back. It’s not a crutch to avoid emotional intimacy, it IS their intimacy.

But it’s also tangled up in the emotionally devastating reality of their circumstances, they can barely get to know each other because they’re separated by the homophobia & racism & the injustices of their career, countries, families, and their respective traumas navigating all of that. So they’re bonding through sex without enough of Everything Else — communication, hanging out, casual mutual enjoyment — to fully support each other as much as they each need, and they hurt each other in the process. This is true whether or not sadism is the main driver of the scene, as evidenced by Ilya’s botched tunamelt-his-heart scheme, so it’s a bit of a double standard to say that ilyas sadism is less intimate / mature / loving than his “softer” side. But by giving the Vegas scenes an unhappy ending (Ilya not knowing how to ask for less emotionally charged pillow talk from Shane, Shane not knowing how to ask Ilya for a sweet kiss goodbye), there is an escape hatch for anyone viewing who doesn’t enjoy / want to enjoy their D/s dynamics.

The plausible deniability extends to how ilyas sadism is portrayed throughout his narrative arc as well. His demeanor during Shane’s first time anal is portrayed as gentle and encouraging and then he ghosts Shane for six months and the next time they fuck he’s big bad wolf-ing it, and Shane thumps his head on the elevator door and deletes his we didn’t even kiss text. It’s Good Ilya vs Bad Ilya and the bad Ilya is also kinkier. And then towards the end of the story, the domming and sadism become less stereotypical, which is refreshing for viewers who are enjoying the breadth of that portrayal, but can be more easily ignored by anyone who doesn’t want it. Ilya forcing giving Shane a blowjob while he’s on the phone with Hayden is crackling with sadistic electricity, but there’s giggling and the sun is pouring through the windows and they’re at the cottage they’re endgame they’re about to tell each other I Love You and anyone who isn’t looking for bdsm there doesn’t have to see it.

— youre right, it’s not a neutral act to ignore the kink. I guess what I was getting at is that it DOES feel anti-kink to ignore it and also the entity doing much of the work towards that action feels like the source material itself.

Like don’t get me wrong I love how the book and tv series are both very show-not-tell about the kink but ALSO the story is narratively putting scenes in an order that make it feel like there’s an emotional arc from bad kinky sad sex (vegas) to good nonkinky happy sex (the cottage). Vegas bathroom is my favorite scene of the show followed by Vegas penthouse but im in the minority in large part because it ends on a sour note. And the cottage has my third favorite scene with the phone call blow job. So to ME the arc does not feel like it goes from bad kinky sex to good nonkinky sex but again I think I’m in the minority with that read. At least what I’ve seen with mainstream interpretations of how the overall cottage vibes feel to most folks.

which is that so much of the For Those Who Have Eyes To See reading of this as a D/s love story, and most of why i am like, so genuinely emotionally invested in it is that the journey is not from more kink to less kink. it's a journey from less emotional connectedness to more emotional connectedness, as seen through the lens of crazy hot sex. it's not that there's less D/s as things progress between them, any more than there's less sex! but the D/s becomes emotional rather than exclusively sexual. it's no longer just "i'm gonna order you to beg to be touched in this bathroom," it's also "i'm going to pet you while you crouch at my feet." which is like, crazy! never seen before onscreen kink content! and for those of us who are knowledgeable about and perhaps personally invested in dominance and submission as a lifestyle and a cornerstone of relationships, the second thing is actually arguably kinkier because it's not sexual, because it explicitly shows that dominance and submission are simply part of how they relate to and love each other (everything is hollanov TPE)

but the average person i think has literally no idea that D/s even can be non-sexual and has never thought of waht it could potentially mean to people on an emotional level for someone to dominate and someone to submit. and so as the sex becomes warmer and the whole relationship including and maybe especially the kink becomes as much romantic as it is sexual, it's harder and harder to see it. and people are viscerally uncomfortable with power exchange, so they don't want to see it, and the show makes (and possibly has to make, given the constraints of the media ecosystem) room for a reading of their love story as this hayes-code-esque "and then they fell in love so they had normal sex forever instead of weird kinky sex, which is something only people who don't care about each other would do" as opposed to what i see, which is "and then they fell in love, in large part because ilya's dominance and shane's submission ultimately lead them to feel emotionally comfortable with and deeply connected to one another, and just like everything else about their relationship it no longer has to be sexual for them to allow themselves to have each other"

When they think of doms, for example, they think of Christian Grey and his literary clones. Or the faceless stone tops that many characters get reduced to in the most shameless AO3 porn (not that there's anything wrong with that). They don't necessarily realize that the cold, brooding, humorless, borderline or actual rapist characterization is part of the BDSM fantasy and not a realistic portrayal.

So when they see Ilya Rozanov - who is warm and funny, attentive and loving, with a complicated emotional life, they can't match it up with their idea of what a dom is.

Outside of erotica, the closest most folks come to BDSM is in police procedurals. In those cases, they're usually victims and suspects, and they're always at the most visually extreme end of the experience so the straight-laced detectives can react to it. So you'll get a lot of bondage gear and latex suits and dominatrices with whips and so on.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but it means that when these folks see Shane and Ilya, and their lack of bondage gear or whips or anything like that and they think "oh no, they're totally vanilla." (Logistically speaking, these are characters who get to meet up four times a year. They're not going to waste time on complicated bondage set ups. And anything like whips or toys would be something they'd have to pack which risks discovery in many ways

They don't pick up on "more", or Ilya's penchant for gripping the back of Shane's neck to ground him - which he does even at the dinner table with Shane's PARENTS. Or Ilya spitting in Shane's hand. Or the slamming into the sofa during the montage. They do generally pick up on Vegas, but they look at it like a one-time thing and then equate the unhappy reactions afterward to the "strange" sex as opposed to the lack of aftercare.