#lucethinks

hes the best hockey player in the world and has been excellent since he was a child. no one can compare. he has always been simultaneously resented and revered by his coaches and teammates and peers.

hes half asian, half white. too asian for the white kids, too white for the asian kids. the white kids and coaches didnt think he belonged, and the asian kids resented his proximity to whiteness and the opportunities that gave him. hes still too asian for the mlh.

hes autistic and doesnt know it. everyone else seems to have gotten a script for how to be a person and somehow shane never got a copy. he doesnt always get jokes quick enough or make conversation or go out with people. everyone thinks hes weird and uncomfortable to talk to so they avoid him.

hes gay but doesnt realize that for most of his life. whenever his teammates talked about girls he was bored and never had anything to contribute. when he realizes it, he cant talk to anyone about what that means or even simple things like his type or first crush.

for ilya, its rooted in his mental illness and his trauma with his family where he was only tolerated so long as he was useful, ie paying for everything. his dad and brother hated him, and even though his mom liked him it wasnt enough for her to stay (and he feels like maybe she wouldnt like the version of him today). with sasha and his team, it was like his family where his worth was measured by how much he could do for them (sex, winning). he has sveta but i think he has doubts that she truly enjoys him, even if logically he knows thats false.

for shane, its rooted in his childhood trauma (bc yes shane hollander as a gay autistic poc has trauma) from being bullied and ostracized for any number of reason (he was too weird, too good, too foreign). to shane, his presence is one that people have to tolerate. he believes most people just find him to be annoying and not worth actually getting to know. his worth as a person comes from what he can do for others, just like ilya. even though he’s awkward and annoying as long as he’s winning people will tolerate him.

so the idea of someone genuinely liking spending time with them is simultaneously a blissful joy and a stressful nightmare. how much can they reveal their true selves before they scare someone off? how much is this person actually enjoying their company versus just being polite? surely no one would simply want to hang out with them without an ulterior motive or expectations. surely their neediness, their particularness, their personhood is too much for most to handle.

im imagining theyre doing drills and shane’s like: your speed’s good but you could be sharper when turning

and ilya goes: okay thanks for the feedback, you could be more aggressive during a board battle for the puck

shane: will do, thank you

all the centaurs internally: fuckkkk theyre saying “thank you” to each other for correcting their hockey, do we need a marriage counselor?

maybe it started young where he grew up in an environment that was confusing and frustrating and layered in misleading social cues. he hit daniel because he kept scratching his pencil case and the sound made him want to simultaneously crawl out of his skeleton and collapse into a form so dense he became a black hole but the grown ups didnt understand and just told him to use his words. so when he got in trouble for telling ashley that she was playing jumprope wrong and no one explained to him why in a way that made sense he got mad. but hitting people is bad and apparently so is telling them that theyre wrong so he just did nothing. daniel kept scratching his pencil case and ashley kept playing jumprope wrong but he couldnt do anything so the anger just sat quietly underneath his skin.

he started getting more serious about hockey, with it similar and new angers began to emerge. during his early years, he got on a teammates case about a rule he broke and even though he’s not supposed to tell people theyre wrong, he thought it would be okay because its a game with rules that need to be followed, but his teammates scoffed and skated away even though he was trying to help. whenever a teammate did something against the rules or performed poorly in a game, he learned to keep his mouth shut even though the fury of seeing his favorite game being played wrong and bad threatened to melt his face.

he noticed other things too, like the muttered slurs he heard from both his teammates and their parents, who couldnt believe a nonwhite kid could excell at “their” sport. when he was 13 his coach passed him up for captain in favor of archie who’s shot accuracy and speed were mediocre at best in shane’s eyes but archie was well liked and white and shane was realizing he was neither. coach was supposed to always be right but shane couldnt make sense of his decision and he learned he couldnt speak up without sounding ungrateful or arrogant. it became more and more clear to him that because he didnt look like everyone else, something he had no control over, he was never going to be treated like he belonged. it didnt matter that he was the best, the sport he loved would never love him back, not really. the anger festered.

these patterns of exclusion and vitriol continued and became more apparent as he grew older and learned more about the world and his place in it. it seemed like no matter what he did, the world was hell bent on pissing him off and he wasnt allowed to do anything about it lest he rock the boat and give people even more of a reason to oust him.

but he was angry.

because it wasnt fair. it wasnt fair that his peers got mad at him when he corrected them or set a boundary they thought was weird. it wasnt fair that he was automatically overlooked in his opinions and skill simply because he was asian. it wasnt fair that he risked losing everything for love, something most of his teammates took for granted by cheating and hooking up with women as they please only to toss them aside like used condoms.

i dont think this is like only something shane would want either. ilya would definitely be more comfortable, but he is well aware of their position in the hockey world. theyve both heard the slurs casually tossed around all their lives, seen the fan comments, watched as their reputations were entirely destroyed and rewritten.

theyre definitely more comfortable around their team but even then i feel like outside of their closest friends they’d feel the need to be “professional”. im sure theres also a lot of residual fear and trauma they hold that leads them to instinctually steer clear of obvious pda.

they post romantic stuff on main very rarely, like for anniversaries and winning their first cup together. the comments are heavily moderated and they have to get off of social media for a while afterwards. because the hate will no go away quietly, especially in a male sports fanbase. however this doesnt mean they dont tweet the occasional snarky takedown of a homophobe who questions them (ilya is particularly guilty of this). and i know harris has them do joint videos for the centaurs’ socials (im thinking a “how well do you know your teammate” challenge). but in general, they try to keep their relationship private and safe. their relationship cant be hated if they dont give the ammo.