For Sale: Fire Extinguisher, Never Used

Shane is half Japanese, and so he has to deal with stereotypes around Asian men being more effeminate and passive. People look at his skin color and decide that if anyone’s taking it, it’s him.

Ilya, meanwhile, has to grapple with the stereotypes around Russian men. Russian men are often stereotyped as extremely patriarchal, cold, brutish. People are assigning Ilya an exaggerated masculine role because of their preconceived notions around his ethnicity.

Ilya also has to deal with the fact that he’s the one the public believes is bisexual. I don’t see either of them coming out in terms of announcing a sexual orientation to the world at large. The world knows they both like men, and they know that Ilya has been photographed going home with women. Shane, meanwhile, has never been spotted going home with a woman. A lot of people just kind of assume that Ilya’s bi, which a lot of people translate to being sex obsessed. He’s often treated like he’s just been chasing tail all these years, which is more traditionally cast as a masculine trait. It’s the ol’ Boys Are Only After One Thing, whereas women have a Special Flower They Mustn’t Ever Part With Before Wedlock. Ilya’s stereotypes more often cast him in a masculine role, and so many people on the internet assume he is the “man.”

There’s this weird desire to force queer relationships into a framework of traditional gender roles. I won’t beat the dead horse here about how heated rivalry itself does that by forcing Ilya into the role of the “man” and Shane into the role of the “woman.” But when Shane and Ilya’s relationship is first revealed, people do not understand it. They try to make sense of it by assigning one of them to be the man and one to be the woman. Because of the aforementioned stereotyping, Ilya is more often assigned as the “man” and Shane as the “woman.”

There’s a lot of this desire to cram one of them into the male and one of them into the female role at play in snapping birch too. For example, there’s one tweet where someone posts something along the lines of “do you think they both suck on it or just Hollander.” That tweet comes from a very homophobic space, but it’s specifically coming from a desire to impose traditional gender roles onto a queer relationship.

There is an unfortunately popular debate centered around the fact that a lot of men expect oral sex but do not believe in returning the favor to their female partner. DJ Khaled really started shit with this debate when he said in an interview that he expects oral sex from his wife but does not return the favor because he’s “the king” and there are “different rules for men.” It caused this massive controversy and then fuckin. Dwayne the Rock Johnson hopped on Twitter like “I LOVE EATING WOMEN OUT AND AM GREAT AT IT” he didn’t exactly say this to be clear that was just the spirit of his tweet. It was a whole thing.

When that tweet unquestioningly assumes that Shane sucks Ilya off but wonders if Ilya returns the favor, that’s because the tweeter is casting Shane into a feminine role and Ilya into a masculine. Shane’s the one who needs to service his patriarch but maybe Ilya doesn’t return the favor. It’s based in the unnecessary imposition of traditional gender roles on a queer relationship.

I think Sochi outing Shane and Ilya have an even worse time of being crammed into traditional gender roles than snapping birch Shane and Ilya do.

Shane and Ilya are outed at the very begin of 2014. I don’t personally recall there being a huge media presence of openly queer celebrity relationships in the years leading up to them, and none in sports. The first active male professional athlete to come out as gay, Jason Collins, did so less than a year ago, and he didn’t disclose any relationships. He sure as hell didn’t disclose being in a relationship with another athlete.

This is also a time in history where the queer rights debate is very much at the forefront of the news. Gay marriage is still illegal in most of the United States, but more and more states are considering legalizing it. There’s a big push to get it legalized nationwide, and in 2013, national public approval for legalized gay marriage has for the first time ever crossed 50%. California has just banned conversion therapy. Part of the Defense of Marriage Act was just struck down by the Supreme Court. Utah just surprised everyone by deciding that actually, sure, gay people can get married. In fucking Utah. 2013 was very much a watershed year for the queer rights movement. This is a topic that is already at the forefront of public consciousness, and then Shane and Ilya’s love story in Sochi takes the public by storm.

Shane and Ilya have to put up with being Baby’s First Introduction to Visibly Gay Relationships. For a lot of people, seeing Hollanov together is there first time that they have to practically conceptualize an openly gay couple. They are what makes the debate no longer abstract for a lot of the public. Which means that they have to deal with the public’s learning curve.

Like. “No one is the woman in this relationship, we are both men” is too much for some people to grasp. Okay but like. One of you has to be the girl. Who is it.

And I think one of the things that really exacerbates that instinct is the fact that neither one of them is obviously feminine.

Again, they are stuck being Baby’s First Introduction To Having To Accept Gay People Exist In Practice. It is easier for a lot of people to swallow Two Men Can Be In Love If One Of Them Is Basically A Woman than “these 200lb hockey players are still fully attracted to each other and intimate with each other even though neither of them presents as feminine at all.” Like. There is not a fucking twink in sight. They are two very muscular and physically imposing men. It’s causing a lot of cognitive dissonance to people. They can’t kind of hedge their acceptance with the fact that one of those dudes is basically a woman anyway. Physically, they are both very masculine.

I personally believe people tend to fight their cognitive dissonance. They ignore what’s in front of their face to lean hard in the opposite direction. They need to feminize one of them to explain away the existence of this relationship to themselves.

And the general trend is to feminize Shane due to, again, aforementioned stereotypes. He Just Seems More Like The Woman Of The Pair. No, No, It’s Not Racist To Say That. He Just Seems Like The Woman. No I Don’t Need To Inspect Why I Think That.

But that’s just the general rule. Trends do shift based on current events and region.

Like. Fundamentally, these jokes are about degrading Shane and Ilya. It’s about laughing at them for their relationship and for being gay to begin with. People make these jokes because they think there is something inherently shameful about being gay and in particular about being on the receiving end of the sexual act. They make them because they think Shane and Ilya should be embarrassed. And so the person who has to be in the more embarrassing role, aka the “female” role, is whichever one of them the public is looking to shame more.

In my mind, Ilya is talked about taking it and bending over and being on his knees way more in Russian news and on Russian social media. Because Ilya betrayed them, and he needs to be punished for it. They are more inclined to treat him like a begging bitch for Canadian dick because they want to degrade and diminish the man who they view as a traitor.

Trends also do shift somewhat based off of who is generally viewed as more successful.

During the Sochi Olympics, Shane’s reputation is much higher than Ilya’s. He’s having these big inspiring moments of human resilience. People are more inclined to joke about how he walked right out of that semi-final match and throat fucked waiting damsel Ilya Rozanov because in that moment, Shane is viewed in a more masculine light.

But his fortune shifts, and he walks into the 2014 playoffs at an all time low. The Metros season was disastrous after his return. They went from a top cup contender to not even making the playoffs. The Olympics Committee has picked up on the rumors that Russia cut a back door deal to get Shane out of the fucking country before the finalist round, and they are fucking pissed. They are investigating as to whether Russia tampered with the results of the Olympics, which is, of course, exactly what happened. Shane’s got a new wave of people online talking about how he betrayed his country for dick, and that is also often construed as a feminine trait. Silly woman fucked so dumb that she turned traitor. Just needed a strong man to take her in hand and she crumbled. It’s the Pussy Galore of it all.

As a result, I think Shane’s also just been very publicly snubbed for the roster at Worlds.

There’s a yearly international ice hockey competition that coincides with the NHL playoffs. As a result, America and Canada’s teams are always made up of players whose teams don’t make the playoffs or get knocked out of the playoffs early. Which, fun fact, is one of the reasons why there was this kind of buzz around who was captaining Canada’s team at Worlds this year. The Sharks didn’t make the playoffs at all and Celebrini was named the C. Crosby joined the team late because the Penguins made the playoffs but got kicked out during the first round. Celebrini allegedly tried to fight to give Crosby the C out of respect for him, and Crosby fought for Celebrini to keep the C. Crosby ended up taking the A instead.

The Metros didn’t make the playoffs. He should be on the roster for Worlds. He should be the fucking captain at Worlds. But I think he gets snubbed entirely, and a Hockey Canada rep makes a sort of backhanded comment on prioritizing players who are fully dedicated to the team. He never names Shane specifically, but people absolutely run with that as a comment on his exclusion from the roster. He wasn’t loyal to Canada during the Olympics and now he doesn’t get to represent them moving forward. Between that and the increasing rumors that he ditched the Olympics to save Ilya, Shane’s reputation is just the media’s chew toy right now.

And that controversy is going to be exacerbated by two things.

One. While Shane gets snubbed, J.J. and Hayden are both picked. They both refuse to participate and decline to comment as to why, but the media correctly interprets that as a protest around Shane’s exclusion from the roster. But when Hayden refuses to be on the roster, one of Shane’s now-ex teammates is going to be tapped instead. He is happy to participate, and it’s going to fuel the rumors that the Metros fell apart because of Shane’s sexuality.

Two. Canada’s gonna wash out of Worlds early. And one of Shane’s former Team Canada teammates is gonna start some shit in the news.

There’s one universe hopping OC I’m set on for the Sochi outing au. It’s Jake Donahue. In snapping birch, he was the one who took the penalty to get Shane off the ice. In both aus, he was Shane’s former teammate and friend from major juniors.

I will edit details of a character and their backstories based off of the story, so like, to be clear, the details of Jake Donahue’s backstory has multiple differences in Sochi outing than it is in snapping birch. I just like using the same character base and shifting things around as to the details in part because I fucking hate naming characters

I mentioned this on the Vegas post, but Shane ended up as friends with one person on his major junior team. It was the guy who he went through hazing with, Jake. Jake was getting fucking dogpiled by the vets. He wasnt nearly as good as a player as Shane, and his vet wasn’t occasionally protecting him out of self interest the way Shane’s was. Shane ended up practicing in secret with Jake and they ended up with amazing chemistry on the ice, and eventually, Jake was the only other player on that team who people talked about like he was NHL bound.

Jake’s low key been crashing out since the Olympics. That man is not doing well. He carries a lot of guilt and trauma around how major juniors went, especially for the shit that went down after Shane’s vet turned on him. And that shame and guilt has been very theoretical and abstract for him for years. He’s heavily suspected some of the worst aspects of what happened for years but was able to live in somewhat denial because he lacked direct confirmation.

Shane ghosted every single person he knew in major juniors. He changed his phone number and he did not give the new one to any of them. And a lot of his old teammates insisted he thought he was too big a star for them now. But Jake didn’t think that. And he was always dogged with suspicions about why Shane ghosted everyone.

Jake’s career benefited greatly from his proximity to Shane Hollander. Like. To be clear, Jake’s an amazing player in his own right. He put in the fucking work to be as good as he is. But people who were watching Shane Hollander saw him if they looked slightly to the left. He ended up in the spotlight not because it landed on him but because of proximity. Career opportunities opened up. And it has never escaped him that the first opportunity that ever opened for him was in major juniors, when Shane started playing with just him in secret. It was his “natural” chemistry with Shane that got him moved onto Shane’s line. He’s always suspected that he wouldn’t have gone as high in the draft if he wasn’t Shane’s longtime linemate who had off the charts chemistry with him. And he suspects that’s also why he got picked for Team Canada at the Sochi Olympics.

When Shane’s outed, he just. Spirals. He tries to talk to Shane about major juniors and everything that happened there and Shane simply will not. Which Jake takes as confirmation of his longtime fears around some of the shit that went down, and he ends up low key in a like. Mild descent into madness.

He is crashing out. He’s asked by a reporter why they think Canada went so early at worlds and he just comes out the gate with a more media trained version of “uhhh, yeah, it’s because Hockey Canada is filled with homophobic and racist assholes who will leave our country’s best player off the roster if it makes them feel big. Yes this is about Shane Hollander getting snubbed. Are you fucking stupid? We clearly lost because the teams run by homophobic idiots who will make up bullshit as an excusing for leaving our best chances at home.” Like, again, he curates his words to be much cleaner than that, but his meaning is clear to everyone.

Meanwhile, Shane and J.J., who are trying to pull off a mental health journey around what happened in major juniors that’s secret from everyone including kind of themselves, like they are very much not good at the “admitting they need help” part or the “recovering” part, watching that shit from Ilya’s couch: :o :o

Like Jake starts some shit. Which knocks Shane into an even more controversial position. Fucking thanks, man.

People are angry at Shane during the 2014 playoffs—for being gay, for the Olympics, for challenging how they view the world. They want to make him less. So the joke that the Raiders’ cup run comes to you courtesy of Shane Hollander’s hole takes off like wildfire. A lot of the people who make the jokes are just angry at Shane and punishing him for it.

When the Metros knock the Raiders out of the playoffs, Ilya sees his own uptick in jokes about how he’s the one servicing his man all the way to the Stanley Cup. Especially after the Metros sweep the second round. There’s a lot of ribbing about how Ilya Rozanov took his job of bouncing on it seriously.

But, again, there’s still a racial and ethnic stereotyping that they have to grapple with. So even when it’s Ilya’s turn to be the Loyal Consort Keeping His Man Satisfied During His Stanley Cup Run, a lot of people still cast him in a masculine role. Some people talk about him like he’s a Sex God Fucking The Talent Right Into His Man. That being said, others do take the chance to run with jokes about how Shane must have kept Ilya on his back or on his knees for hours to sweep round 2. But the jokes are more divided with Ilya because racial and ethnic stereotypes are going to always have their finger on the scale.

Think of it like there’s a general trend that Shane is overall feminized more than Ilya by the public. During the 2014 playoffs, the unnecessary feminization split is heavily skewed towards Shane at like, 90% towards him and 10% towards Ilya. When Shane makes the playoffs a year later, that trend shifts to be more 60-40. Shane is the more successful one so he gets to be the “man” for a bit, but racial and ethnic stereotypes are still tipping the scale his direction, and also the public has just spent over a year casting him in the feminine role so people are still primed to think of him that way. And then Russia is most likely an exception where Ilya is the more feminized party—especially in state-run media—because he’s the one they are angriest at.

And this divide in public perception actually does come to a head in their 2014 summer argument. But it’s less about the fact that Shane’s bottoming and more centered on how the public talks about him bottoming.

One of the reasons why Shane is fundamentally opposed to joining the Raiders is because he knows he will never escape the jokes about how he’s letting the team run a train on him. Like. He is dreading the resurgence of that ol’ classic “every single person on the Boston Raiders talks about taking Shane Hollander in manful fashion against a wall except for Ilya Rozanov, who is straight.”

Shane is like. We absolutely cannot play on the same team. People are already saying that I’m blowing you between periods. What the fuck are they going to say if I’m actually sharing a locker room with you?

But Ilya’s fucking freaked about the idea of Shane getting attacked on the ice again. And he’s like. People are always going to be assholes and talk about us. We just need to learn to ignore it. Let them talk because it’s more important that you’re safe.

And Shane thinks that’s really easy for Ilya to say when he doesn’t have to be the guy who everyone talks about like a fucking cumdump.

One of the reasons why I think it’s important to maintain a clear distinction that Shane doesn’t have any issues bottoming for Ilya but does have issues with how people talk about it is because I think it’s important to highlight the distinction for the overarching point of the 2014 playoffs arc and how it relates to Shane’s uncomfortable sexual history.

I think I mentioned in another post that sex is sort of stressed during the 2014 playoffs arc. Shane and Ilya are having a lot of it, and the public is talking about it a lot with relation to them. And the way the narrative handles them having sex in practice is meant to foil how other people talk about them having sex. They are meant to be held up in contrast in a way that highlights one another.

The way the public approaches them is designed to be very insulting to both of them. Like. This is a relationship that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable. It is fucking 2014. The idea of gay relationships is very far from normalized. And Shane and Ilya just came out the goddamn gate as gay athletes in love with each other in a major professional sports league—and one heavily associated with aggression and masculinity.

Openly gay active male athletes is still relatively rare today. I can’t think of a single time where two gay athletes competing in the same league were dating each other. This is an absolute mindfuck for a lot of people and they are punishing Shane and Ilya by shaming them for what they view as the most embarrassing part—i.e., the sex.

The meme is born of the fact that Shane and Ilya do play noticeably better after they’ve been with each other. This is less because they have Magic Sex Powers and more because 1) they play better when happy and they make each other happy and 2) 90% of the time if they’ve been with the other it’s because they’re playing against each other and they go all out against each other in games because the other’s play style truly challenges and excites them. Like. They’re just competitive and happy and having fun with each other and it shows in the quality of their performance. But people saw the uptick in their stats and said “haha. Sex did that.”

But it spreads as far as it does because very toxic and very masculine spaces treat sex as an inherently shameful and degrading act and, again, they are punishing Shane and Ilya. Like. Look at how they talk about women in the junior hockey Bible. Think of how one of the go-to chirps amongst men and in particular athletes is about fucking the other guy’s mom. Think even about how Jeremy Lin had a record-breaking night and some sports columnist tweeted this racist fucking remark about how some lucky lady was about to experience a couple of inches of pain that night.

Sex is the low hanging fruit. It’s the first thing these spaces go to when they want to shame someone or treat someone as less. They want to treat Ilya and Shane as less, and so they go for the obvious. It makes the entire meme spiral out of control.

And it’s really insulting to both of them. Shane’s talked about like a lucky fleshlight and Ilya’s talked like some sex-obsessed horn dog who treats his partner like a blow up fuck doll. Like. That’s very insulting to both of them in different ways.

And that take on their relationship is repeatedly contrasted with how Shane and Ilya actually handle sex with each other.

I’ve said this before but like, the 2014 playoffs arc is just one big extended tuna melt where Shane can’t actually flee in panic without stopping to get his pants from Ilya’s bedroom floor. Like the tuna melt, Ilya is making his opening attempt at forming a deeper relationship with Shane. He wants to be with him in a way that’s more than just sex. And like in the tuna melt, he sort of uses sex as a way to get his foot in the door to more.

I think the way sex is used in the entire tuna melt interaction is really interesting because it’s utilized as this familiar territory that both Shane and Ilya constantly retreat to. Ilya very consistently uses sex to as a sort of pretext to soften his requests for more. He absolutely wants to talk to Shane—like, that man has been planning his attempt at getting Shane to stay with him for a full day and night, he pre-stocked his fridge with Shane’s favorite drink, he wants more than just sex out of this encounter—but he pushes off any talking until after they have sex. He doesn’t ask Shane to stay the night in advance—again, he waits until after they first have sex and then he frames the request itself as sexual. When Shane seems hesitant he says “I’m not done with you yet” and brings them back into a point of safety and familiarity. Sex is used in the scene as a source of reassurance. It’s something familiar being used as a crutch to ease them into the unfamiliar.

Ilya again uses sex to soften his overtures to Shane. He tells Shane that he likes women but he also likes Shane, and then he hedges the statement by retreating back into a sex joke. He likes Shane’s mouth, of course.

Shane himself brings them back into the familiar territory of sex by initiating sex when Ilya tries to cuddle him on the couch. And it’s only when Ilya uses his first name that Shane can’t keep retreating back into the safety of “it’s just sex.” He gets scared and he flees. Sex is a refuge and a security blanket all at once. They use it to ease the other into more and they are spooked when they realize that they’re leaving that dynamic’s safety.

Sex plays a similar role in the 2014 playoffs arc, to marginally more success in part because Shane can’t flee without stopping long enough to get his own pants. Ilya is not about to sit Shane down and have an open and honest talk about his desire for emotional intimacy and a real romantic relationship. Are you fucking kidding. Neither of them canonically developed those kinds of communication skills until 2017 at absolute earliest. No, Ilya’s plan is to fuck his man boneless and then start advancing like goddamn Napoleon while Shane’s still fuzzy with the afterglow. He’ll see how much emotional territory he can gain during the playoffs and how much Shane will let him keep in the long term.

I think that they each have separate rooms in the other’s house/apartment. They are stuck in There Was Only One Bed Land whenever they’re at an event outside of Boston or Montreal. People assume that they are sharing a hotel room and it would raise questions if they got separate rooms or a room with two beds. Like. They’re at the level of fame where they can’t risk a nosey receptionist or maid noticing the bookings and telling TMZ.

But they’re staying at each other’s homes during Montreal and Boston games and I think when they’re first figuring it out during the Sochi aftermath they give each other their own separate space. The relationship isn’t real and they’re both cautious of forcing the other into something out of obligation. Shane has his own room and his own bed at Ilya’s house.

And Ilya does not want him goddamn sleeping in it. He is harboring a secret addiction to waking up to Shane Hollander in his arms. He hasn’t gotten it since they finished their Thanks For Risking WWIII To Save Us Gratitude Tour and now somehow his most perverted fantasy of Shane is to wake up to the sight of his freckles in the golden light of the morn. Potentially two uninterrupted months with Shane is being dangled before his eyes with like, 40% of that being in hotel rooms with one bed for away games and Ilya knows the greed they wrote about in the bible. He wants to make a play for the full 100%. When Shane arrives to stay for the playoffs Ilya fucks him stupid and then asks him if he’d want to sleep in the same bed during the playoffs. For. Sexual convenience. And definitely not because Ilya is having depraved fantasies of gently running his fingers through Shane’s hair as he slumbers.

Shane, harboring an identical addiction and the same shameful fingers-running-through-hair fantasies, he is medically obsessed with Ilya’s curls: yeah sure man we could try that

The 2014 playoffs arc is also a time where their relationship is sort of immunized from the influence of outside opinions. Ilya’s offline the whole time. Shane goes offline right at the start of the playoffs when the jokes begin and he doesn’t find out about anything they’re saying until the final game. Even though they the internet is cracking every joke in the book about them, they’re for the most part not finding out about it.

For a couple of months, they’re an island together. Ilya’s spending almost all of his time that’s not dedicated to competing with Shane. It’s not like he can go out with his boys to party after victories—his security concerns are so logistically demanding that the Raiders management is entrenched in a nightmarish screening and security process trying to get a venue for Ilya to celebrate at if they win the whole championship. Ilya’s telling his boys to have a shot for him and going straight back to his home or his hotel room with Shane. They’re spending a lot of time together as a result.

The public spends this entire time laughing about how Ilya’s using Shane as a fucking sex-based power up and it’s constantly being contrasted with Ilya Rozanov’s 342 Step Plan To Convincing His Own Boyfriend To Hold His Hand Even When He Doesn’t Have To: Featuring Some Sex And The Entire Nation’s Supply Of Ginger Ale.

Like they actually do get some traction in their relationship. They’re happy together. They’re talking more. They’re finally starting lean on each other emotionally. Ilya’s fucking pissed that Shane got snubbed from Worlds and really tries to be there for him. Shane figures out that Ilya’s been having nightmares about the danger Svetlana’s still in and tries to comfort him. Ilya gears himself up enough to ask Shane to spend the summer with him and makes it clear that he’s not asking because they have to maintain appearances. He wants Shane to want to be there. And Shane says yes. Like. They’re both quietly just taking as much emotional intimacy as the other will give without explicitly defining what they want out of this. They’re kind of stumbling but they really are getting somewhere.

And yeah, the internet jokes are right that they’re fucking literally every single day of the Raiders’ cup run. The body language experts are devastatingly correct that hockey is the most attractive thing in the entire world to them. Ilya is having the run of his goddamn life and he has never been hotter to Shane. He is doing so so good at hockey and now his boyfriend wants him. The plan is working Boris. And Ilya’s coming straight off a high of adrenaline and victory and getting to go straight into extended periods of alone time with the most attractive man to ever live who also wants him so so badly because he is so so good at hockey. It is the best sex of their lives and they’re having a lot of it.

But it’s mutual and balanced and intimate. Shane’s not Ilya’s traveling fuck doll and Ilya wants so much more than just sex out of him. He is giggling like a schoolgirl at finally getting to the pillow talk stage of their relationship. Shane says the funniest bitchest things about other hockey players when they’re talking after games. Ilya is utterly obsessed with him. He wants to do things to that man’s body that have not been invented yet and also hear every single thought that has ever crossed his mind. He is the most spectacular man in the world to Ilya.