Ilya meeting Shane's parents must be insane for them like. Mr Ilya "The Terminator" Rozanov, terror on ice and menace in bed, politely stands there. Your very shy son admonishes him for using the word "lovers" and Russia's Greatest Rage Machine just takes it.
You ask when this started and Mister Dickhead makes sure Shane is accurate about when they started this. How dare you stave off half a year of us, Shane?
You ask if they talked to Scott Hunter and Ra Ra Rasputin says that he, famous asshole extraordinaire went to talk to Patron Saint of Hockey Gays to offer him congratulations.
You ask if he has no loyalty to Boston and Mr Fucking Fuck San Francisco is like. Nyet
Your son is having a panic attack and Miike Snow Genghis Khan calls them "boyfriends" and it's your own extremely shy and sensitive and loving son that is like MY WHAT
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Itâs just that the tuna meltdown makes so much sense to me (autistic, usually okay at parties) because if Iâm Shane, the only things I know to be true straight from Ilyaâs mouth are that âwe are not anythingâ and literal silence to the ep 1 âI thought we wereâŚâ when theyâre on the rooftop. I know that was a long time ago, but I for one, would be reliving my crush/coworker emotionally suplexing me through the goddamn floor on probably a nightly basis. If I thought I misinterpreted a relationship that badly t w i c e with the same person Iâd never assume anything about them again, i would only trust the words leaving their mouth, and thatâs literally the thing you cannot do with ilya!! Shaneâs head is probably a fucking war room discussing each grenade of a question ilya is hurling at Shane âdo you like girls?â Is literally a mortar to the cottage of Shaneâs mind
"I like you" isn't just a stepping stone to "I love you" - it is a distinct narrative beat in its own right.
As the audience, we already know that Ilya loves Shane because we heard him say it in Russian. But we also know that love is not enough - Shane loves Rose but they weren't compatible. Sometimes love isn't enough, for a variety of reasons.
This is why Shane and Ilya are terrified of coming to the cottage. Because we still don't know if they're compatible beyond the incredibly hot sex and psychic level hockey passes. The tuna melt date was nice before Shane crashed out, but that was just one afternoon.
"I like you" is the missing piece in their relationship. I know that I love you and I desire you and we play good hockey together, but do I like you?
The cottage scenes answer: yes. I like playing with you and I like cooking with you and I like talking to you and I like sharing space with you and I like sleeping next to you and I like waking up with you. I like you.
I like you and I love you and I still have no idea how we can possibly make this work but I really want to figure it out.
Trying to parse through all of my feelings about Hayden Pike bc on one hand if I didnât know everything I know about Ilya and Shane and their relationship, I would probably be pretty suspicious of Ilya (I wouldnât say as much unless I had something actually concrete to complain about, but I would be worried about it)
BUT
On the other hand, we can tell that his feelings about Ilya arenât just a concern about what Ilya would be like as a romantic partner and more a discomfort about what their relationship implies about Shane.
Shane is his friend and team captain; he admires and respects him. He wants Shane to have the same sort of relationship with his partner that he has with Jackie- in which one partner does the majority of the domestic labour and child rearing and the other person works and travels. He doesnât mind Shane having a boyfriend who is less financially successful and famous than him, someone who can support Shaneâs ambitions and lifestyle and who will quietly sacrifice their own careers for him.
Shane and Ilya are as close to equals as it is possible to be within their industry and Ilya is dominant and aggressive. Standing next to each other a clueless straight person would not assume that Shane is âthey guyâ in the relationship.
The reveal of who Shane is dating and the relationship dynamics this implies changes the way that Hayden understands Shane as a person. In addition, because Hayden has built so much of his identity around Shane, it threatens the way that Hayden thinks about himself.
So, on booktok and other simmilar spaces there has been a consensus for a while (in certain circles) that miscommunication is a boring trope which robs characters of their agency and makes them look stupid. As a general rule I try not to dismiss any trope or convention outright, because I always feel that even if it appears to be stupid, there is someone else out there who can find a creative use for it which will reframe how you think about it. Miscommunication in particular feels like a crazy trope to single out. It is the beating heart of comedy, where would Shakespeare be without miscommunication? It is also a fundamental aspect of life- how are we ever supposed to understand one another perfectly when we are trying to communicate the entire spectrum of human experience through crude sounds, symbols and gestures?
I really appreciate that Heated Rivalry has helped to shift the conversation surrounding this trope in those spaces. In particular I think that it has helped to highlight how this type of conflict has a particular resonance in queer media. Once the show came out people immediately started using popular slang and conventional terms to categorise their relationship. I really enjoy the âsituationship from hellâ jokes, the âfuckbuddiesâ and the more sentimental âhigh school sweetheartsâ. Shane and Ilya do not use any of these terms in the books or in the show, they are afraid of trying to define their relationship to each other in case they disagree. If one person thinks that they are something more serious than the other, they would leave themselves vulnerable and they might chase the other away. Leaving things ambiguous, never giving their relationship a name allows them to pretend it is as important or insignificant as they want depending on what suits them in that momment.
It also allows for some plausible deniability. For Shane, as long as he and Ilya are not in a relationship he can pretend that what they are doing is just an extension of their rivalry, nothing serious, just two guys âblowing off steamâ, which allows him to burry his head in the sand about his sexuality. For Ilya it means that he does not have to admit to caring about Shane or wanting more emotional intimacy. They do not put a label on things until the final episode and we watch them struggle with which finding a way to explain their relationship to Shaneâs parents when they have never put what they are into words before. Shane rejects âloversâ because it has sexual connotations which he is not comfortable acknowledging to his parents. Ilya is less embarrassed about the sexual aspects of their relationship, and as English is his second language he understands the word very literally. It seems funny to Ilya that Shane is surprised to be called his boyfriend, but it illustrates just how little they have understood each otherâs feelings so far and how easily one word bridged that gap.
Shane and Ilya literally donât have the language to explain how they feel. They are too frightened to apply conventional heteronormative labels to their relationship, and those labels cannot entirely encompass the enormous complexity of their circumstances. Is it a situationship if your interactions are limited by institutional homophobia instead of personal preference? Are you just fuckbuddies if you also interact in the workplace and you understand each other in ways that no one else possibly can? Are you high school sweethearts if you beat the shit out of each other for entertainment? There are not terms designed to define a relationship like that, except for the awkward and clunky âheated rivalryâ.
I think that the reaction to the public reaction to the Tunameltdown really drives this home. There were people who seemed to understand Ilya intuitively, they thought that although his argument was clumsy his meaning was obvious and they dismissed Shaneâs confusion as a symptom of his autism. I donât want to ignore how being autistic might have made this conversation difficult for Shane to navigate, but I also donât think that Ilya was being as clear as these people believe.
On the other side of things there are people who were just completely baffled by everything that Ilya said or did. I saw essays, I saw breakdowns, I saw frame by frame analysis of everything he said as people tried to understand what the hell he was doing. We can guess based on what we know about him that Ilya is trying to figure out if Shane is bi/gay, if he is seeing anyone else and if he is interested in a more serious relationship, but everything he says is really open to interpretation!
I saw people confused about why Shane left like that, and why Ilya brought up all of his previous hook ups. Communication is not that simple because people are not that simple! Even when we are privy to a lot of Shane and Ilyaâs personal experiences that we normally could not know about we still disagree about what they are trying to say!
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ilya at a club in late 2016, upset because Kesha's "die young" is playing and "oh what a shame that you came here with someone" is hitting too close to home: this sucks, let's get the fuck out of here
marleau, who has been violently flashing back to his time as a saxon warrior since "i hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums": aye, let us anon to taco bell
we see a lot of how the people around shane really egg on the hollanov rivalry, whether itâs his teammates or his mom or the media, but we rarely ever see this with ilya. there is one instance when he is on the phone with his dad, who says, âyou will not lose to himâ so we know that itâs happening but to ilya, the rivalry is completely inconsequential. shane, on the other hand, internalizes everyoneâs expectations of him and itâs as if so much of his career and his reputation revolves around their rivalry, which is why he knows he has so much to lose if theyâre found out.
crucial to the shane&hayden dynamic is that shane is secretly a pretty bad friend. like ilya is constantly making fun of hayden behind his back for his hair and his face and his mannerisms and his intelligence, and shane is like babe be nice >:| but then ilya says something particularly cutting about how hayden walks and shane is like ohhhh my god hayden does do that doesn't he, and they're both cackling
look the reason i know rose is like ti west levels of insane is because she is best friends with shane. like you need to understand that to me rose is fully a polar bear apex predator. she is standing in the bathroom in front of the full length mirror at 3am fully nude not blinking and practicing her tremulous teary oscars acceptance gasp-and-smile over and over and over. she's the 25 step skincare patrick bateman.
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does anyone know any natural hand positions for when you're a guest at someone's house and they won't let you help with something so you have to sit there and watch them and also you're gay and it's your situationship and you've never been to his house before and he's leaving you alone in the room and he definitely will know if your hand position is weird or gay or weird and gay? time sensitive. asking for a friend.
So, on booktok and other simmilar spaces there has been a consensus for a while (in certain circles) that miscommunication is a boring trope which robs characters of their agency and makes them look stupid. As a general rule I try not to dismiss any trope or convention outright, because I always feel that even if it appears to be stupid, there is someone else out there who can find a creative use for it which will reframe how you think about it. Miscommunication in particular feels like a crazy trope to single out. It is the beating heart of comedy, where would Shakespeare be without miscommunication? It is also a fundamental aspect of life- how are we ever supposed to understand one another perfectly when we are trying to communicate the entire spectrum of human experience through crude sounds, symbols and gestures?
I really appreciate that Heated Rivalry has helped to shift the conversation surrounding this trope in those spaces. In particular I think that it has helped to highlight how this type of conflict has a particular resonance in queer media. Once the show came out people immediately started using popular slang and conventional terms to categorise their relationship. I really enjoy the âsituationship from hellâ jokes, the âfuckbuddiesâ and the more sentimental âhigh school sweetheartsâ. Shane and Ilya do not use any of these terms in the books or in the show, they are afraid of trying to define their relationship to each other in case they disagree. If one person thinks that they are something more serious than the other, they would leave themselves vulnerable and they might chase the other away. Leaving things ambiguous, never giving their relationship a name allows them to pretend it is as important or insignificant as they want depending on what suits them in that momment.
It also allows for some plausible deniability. For Shane, as long as he and Ilya are not in a relationship he can pretend that what they are doing is just an extension of their rivalry, nothing serious, just two guys âblowing off steamâ, which allows him to burry his head in the sand about his sexuality. For Ilya it means that he does not have to admit to caring about Shane or wanting more emotional intimacy. They do not put a label on things until the final episode and we watch them struggle with which finding a way to explain their relationship to Shaneâs parents when they have never put what they are into words before. Shane rejects âloversâ because it has sexual connotations which he is not comfortable acknowledging to his parents. Ilya is less embarrassed about the sexual aspects of their relationship, and as English is his second language he understands the word very literally. It seems funny to Ilya that Shane is surprised to be called his boyfriend, but it illustrates just how little they have understood each otherâs feelings so far and how easily one word bridged that gap.
Shane and Ilya literally donât have the language to explain how they feel. They are too frightened to apply conventional heteronormative labels to their relationship, and those labels cannot entirely encompass the enormous complexity of their circumstances. Is it a situationship if your interactions are limited by institutional homophobia instead of personal preference? Are you just fuckbuddies if you also interact in the workplace and you understand each other in ways that no one else possibly can? Are you high school sweethearts if you beat the shit out of each other for entertainment? There are not terms designed to define a relationship like that, except for the awkward and clunky âheated rivalryâ.
Can't stop thinking about how much of a relief it must have been for Ilya to realise how insanely predictable Shane is. Like, he's lived his whole life with a mother who had horrible mental illness, a father who was unstable and always angry, a brother who couldn't even hold down a job. He's had to keep secrets and lie and read between the lines just to survive.
And here's Shane. Shane who folds his clothes before sex. Shane who will always be happy with a cold ginger beer. Shane who has a stylist and an interior decorator because he likes things to look objectively nice.
Shane who answers "How many times can you cum in an hour?" completely literally. Shane who has no filter and comments on the bed being dirty within 0.2 seconds of cumming all over it. Shane who comes out to Ilya the moment he figures it out himself, and who tells him point blank that it's not just sex, because he never ever expects Ilya to read his mind.
Their relationship is far from simple, but it's probably one of the most predictable things in Ilya's world. Shane is a safe harbour throughout the years, even while the hurricane around Ilya only gets more and more destructive.
Commentators on my activity page: yes sorry people WOULD actually be wondering if Ilya Rozanov, scorer of 67 goals in his rookie season, Hart winner, Cup winner, etc was having a mental breakdown if he walked away from Boston and signed with Ottawa during the first year of his free agency.
Ilya's not just good he's generational. Both he and Shane are supposed to be SO absurdly good compared to the rest of the league that they can drag their teams to cups with ~3-4 years after signing. They're not fucking Tavares man they're like Crosby and Ovechkin but better because fiction.
Anyway a guy like that, moving to a team he has no connection to, in a city that's not appealing for any obvious reason, that he seemingly has never even visited other than for game nights? And he's not explaining why? It's not TJ going back home, it's Rozanov going to a random fuck off city in Canada.
So yeah, no, I legitimately think people would actually wonder if it's some kind of mental break. Like he just couldn't handle the pressure in Boston and picked the worst team in the league deliberately to take himself out of contention for future cups.
I don't even think people would assume he had a partner in Ottawa because literally unless he was dating fucking Justin Trudeau or some other high ranking Canadian government official why wouldn't they just move to Boston, or why wouldn't he just split his time, he has the money to charter flights, like it makes no sense.
Actually I wonder if that would end up being the most popular conspiracy. Ilya Rozanov is dating a high ranking Canadian governmental official and that's why he won't talk about it and also why he has to live in Ottawa. Rozanov x Trudeau fanfiction starts soaring on AO3. Rozaneau. Truzanov
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A lot of people ignore the absolutely radioactive levels of frat boy coming from Shane Hollander because itâs inconvenient to their hyper feminized bottom stereotyping
Shane Hollander is part of this phenomenon which I have only ever seen from the outside, which is: Really nice, normal guy who hangs out with a big group of guys who you would cross the street to avoid.
I saw it mostly in high school but it also crops up in pubs and in the workplace. He is this guy who seems normal but they actually tend to be very outgoing and charismatic. In school all the teachers like him, at work he gets on with the manager and the customers. He has integrated himself into this big, nightmare group of guys who all somehow accept him even though he never speaks or behaves in the same way they do.
You work with him on a project or pass him in the halls on your own and he seems so genuinely nice that you forget why you have never talked to him before and then you remember that when he is hanging out with his friends the girls have to move in packs to pass by them. He never says anything to disagree with them but he seems obviously less toxic then they are and from time to time you find yourself wondering what it must be like to live like that?
Is he just better at pretending to be normal than they are? Does he agree with them in private? Or is he in some sort of faustian bargain where they don't hurt him but he has to spend time listening to their shitty jokes?
Someone (I canât remember who) has already pointed out that according to romance conventions Ilya is a Rake. Rakes are of course a long-standing character archetype which appear frequently in many different conventions, including contemporary romance. The definition seems pretty broad, so a lot of âbad boyâ love interests fall under this umbrella, and they seem to be a pretty common choice of love interest.
That being said, I really enjoy how the strict social norms which we associate with regency romances actually translate really well to Heated Rivalry because of the socially taboo nature of the relationship. In the same way that a Duke might have to arrange a ball as an excuse to invite his love interest so that they might talk and dance, Ilya arranges for he and Shane to do the CCM photo shoot. While Darcy hurries over to help Elizabeth into the carriage so that he can hold her ungloved hand, Ilya slams Shane into the boards so that he can whisper in his ear.
Rakes are not always necessarily men, there are a subcategory of âRakessesâ who also appear occasionally in romance novels, but it is a traditionally more gendered term. In a classic regency romance a lot of the tension comes from the inherent power unbalance between the male Rake and his female love interest. It is not inherently wrong for him to be sexually active, but in reality as a (typically wealthy and white) man in regency England there are few consequences for his actions, whilst his love interest and other previous partners could all experience social ostracization and destitution for themselves and possibly their families if they were to be found out. There is an underlying tension between the two romantic leads as they try to understand each other and negotiate a relationship in which one party will always have significantly more power over the other.
In Heated Rivalry, both Shane and Ilya face similar, if not the same possible consequences if their relationship were to be found out. The tension is not that one party is being taken advantage of by the other, but that they are both as close to equals as two people can be and their dynamic does not align with a traditional heteronormative idea of romance, in which one side is automatically more powerful than the other. This is what makes their relationship so uncomfortable to the outside world, one of them cannot be assumed to be subordinate to the other in the way that people like to assume with straight couples. It should not be possible by the logic of a hierarchical society for two people to be perfect equals without a struggle for one to be the clear leader. They should be Rivals.
In regency romances Rakes are often paired with âblue-stockingsâ or âwallflowersâ who are intellectual, shy and socially awkward (usually women). The contrast with the more outgoing and irresponsible Rake makes for a fun dynamic and you cold to some extent fit Shane into this category. HOWEVER!
I would like to suggest that instead, Shane fits a more âMr Darcyâ sort of archetype. I apologise here, because I am sure there must be a technical term for this type of character, but I am not familiar enough with this genre to know it. I essentially mean that Shane is the fantastically wealthy but aloof love interest who upholds the (nobles oblige) social norms and chivalric values of his culture. He is cool and unapproachable, but over time his charismatic and outgoing love interest challenges his view of the world and encourage him to break his patterns.
I like the idea of Shane and Ilya both embodying different romance archetypes typically assigned to love interests for women, but who fall in love with each other instead of the women which the genre would typically assign to them. If anyone knows more about these genre conventions that might be applicable please feel free to add on!
