Writing By Tils

Yesterday I saw a mother with a baby carriage, being followed by a girl of about 4-6 years old on a bicycle. The kid started ringing her bike bell like RING RING RING RING RING RING RING, and the mother turned to look behind them to see whether they were being followed by a cyclist who desperately needs to pass them for the sake of everyone's safety.

And the little girl - who just rang the goddamn bell herself 5 seconds ago - also turned to look.

me and my brother later had a small discussion about whether that could happen randomly (conclusion: no, he probably had to file papers or something) and whether daniel should now be referred to as dad’s ex-husband (conclusion: yes but only to see the face he’ll make) but at no point did we find it like... alarming? the world is big and weird. we were used to it.

After Irina dies Ilya is maybe sent away. He looks too much like his mother, hes a sad pre-teen boy which manifests as anger. He's getting into fights and embarrassing his father and maybe the last step is getting caught at 14 with Sasha. So he gets sent away, maybe there was an invitation from an international hockey program right as he's caught and so he gets sent there. Maybe his dad says something to the coach, not outing Ilya but it convinces him that Ilya's going to be trouble.

Like, the Ilya we know uses his charm and charisma as a mask very effectively. But this is a sad, scared, and angry 14 year old boy who has been outed and banished to a foreign country.

So he starts the whole thing on his back foot, his coach giving him a lecture in front of the team that Ilya can barely understand about how he needs to get his shit together, he speaks English poorly, and he's so talented on the ice that the other boys are jealous.

Then Shane Hollander, quiet, mildly popular, acknowledged best player on the team and generally a well liked, if intense, kid sits next to Ilya as they're lacing up his skates. He compliments Ilya on his hockey, says it precisely and carefully but not condescendingly so Ilya understands.

Somehow this weird intense canadian keeps sitting next to Ilya, keeps pairing up with him on the ice, somehow becomes Ilya's best friend. The other boys leave him alone, well no but he only gets the same amount of hazing as Shane and the rest of the 14 year olds.

Spent way too long researching this before posting lol. but please, if something's wrong, tell me. i'd rather be corrected than spread misinformation.

⋆˙⟡ Doctors don't run. Almost ever. Running in a hospital is a safety hazard, knocks into patients and equipment, and signals panic to everyone who sees it, which is the opposite of what hospital staff want to project. In a true code blue situation, there is urgency, but it looks more like extremely fast, purposeful walking and a kind of controlled chaos where everyone knows their role. The sprinting attending dramatically sliding to a bedside is a TV invention.

⋆˙⟡ "She flatlined" does not mean what you think it means. A flatline (a straight line on a heart monitor) means asystole: the heart has stopped producing electrical activity. You don't shock a flatline. CPR, yes. Epinephrine, yes. But the dramatic defibrillator moment everyone loves? That's for ventricular fibrillation, which looks like chaotic scribble on the monitor, not a flat line. Shocking a flatline in real life does nothing. Your doctor character would know this. Your nurse would know this. Your paramedic absolutely knows this.

⋆˙⟡ Medical professionals have a dark, dry humor and it's a coping mechanism, not a character flaw. People who work in high-stress, high-death environments often develop humor that sounds brutal to outsiders. BUT It's not callousness, it's a pressure valve.

⋆˙⟡ Hospitals are obscenely loud and smell very specific. Writers default to clinical silence and "the sharp smell of antiseptic." Real hospitals smell like a combination of cleaning fluid, stale air, cafeteria food leaking through vents, and occasionally something you don't want to identify. They're also constantly noisy. Intercoms, rolling carts, the beep of a dozen different monitors all slightly out of sync with each other, people talking too loudly, visitors crying in hallways. The silence only comes in very specific moments, and it's jarring precisely because it's unusual.

⋆˙⟡ Waking up from a coma is not waking up from a nap. Someone who has been unconscious for more than a day or two will have profound muscle weakness, and they often can't hold their own head up. They'll be confused, possibly for days. They won't be able to speak normally if they had a breathing tube, because their throat will be raw and damaged. They won't recognize people immediately and then have a tearful reunion five minutes later. The brain coming back online is slow, strange, and disorienting in ways that aren't photogenic. Patients frequently don't remember the first several days of recovery at all.

⋆˙⟡ There's a specific hierarchy and it matters to the people inside it. Attending physician, fellow, resident, intern, these are not interchangeable words for "doctor." An intern on their third week is legally a doctor and can barely order a sandwich without second-guessing themselves. An attending has full clinical responsibility and has seen everything. A fellow is post-residency, specializing, somewhere in between. Nurses operate in their own parallel hierarchy that intersects with but is absolutely not subordinate to doctors in the way TV suggests. Experienced nurses regularly catch errors that residents make, and both parties know it.

⋆˙⟡ Patients are almost never alone in their room doing emotional things. Nurses check vitals. Phlebotomists come for blood draws at ungodly hours. Housekeeping rolls in. A different doctor than the one managing the case comes to consult. Meals appear. An orderly needs to take them to imaging. The room itself is rarely private for long. The idea of a character lying in a hospital bed having a long, uninterrupted emotional conversation is something that mostly happens in fiction. In reality, someone knocks and enters approximately every 40 minutes, sometimes more.

⋆˙⟡ Paperwork and insurance are a constant, grinding presence. Discharge doesn't happen because the patient is better. It happens when it's approved, when a bed is needed, when insurance says so. Patients are sometimes sent home earlier than feels safe because the system demands it. Doctors spend an enormous, demoralizing amount of time on documentation, estimates suggest 2 hours of paperwork for every hour of patient care. The administrative weight of hospital medicine is a slow-burn horror that almost no fiction touches, which means the moment you do, it feels startlingly real.

-> yes, hospitals are constantly and characteristically noisy but not necessarily "obscenely loud". Depending on your character: an anxious next-of-kin waiting for news from a loved one or med student on their first day might find it loud and scary, seasoned nurse will not (it's just background noise, unless you hear your name on the intercom or something is seriously wrong)

-> hospital hierarchies and specific terms for doctors/nurses vary, different countries and time periods have different systems (do your research to get it right for whatever country or era you're writing in). If you're writing in a made-up system (sci-fi etc.) you can make something up, but it's always there.

-> the doctor (or even the nurse) is never the person to push around beds in corridors. There's orderlies for that. In certain occasions (usually only with very critical/unstable patients) medical staff will come along, but not for a standard transfer from ward to theatre or whatever. If you're going into surgery, it's highly likely you won't even see your surgeon until after the procedure; the sandman (anaesthesisist) is the doctor there to meet you and has already done their job while the surgeon's still scrubbing in.

-> all in all, it's a team sport we're playing. Doctors and other healthcare workers tend to be highly specialised. We know that, and we rely upon each other. Lots of consultations with different specialisations. Having one single "master of all genius doc" treating the patient for everything at once isn't happening. Your neurosurgeon operating the MRI machine and standing by, nervously tapping their foot while results are processing isn't happening (that's the radiologist and/or rad tech's job, and the only person nervously tapping their foot will be the bed-pushing orderly who has another 25 patients to be wheeled from A to B on a tight schedule).

-> also, shifts exist. If a patient is in hospital long enough (longer than 12-24 hours-ish depending on the system), the team caring for them will inevitably change. No patient is so important, no case is that interesting, that anyone in their right mind would throw common sense and labour laws and all that out the window just because they "need to see they'll be fine" or some such bullshit. That's just not happening.

-> visitors, even and especially if they're next-of-kin, usually get kicked out for procedures, and especially emergency procedures. Doors, blinds and curtains exist for that reason (and most hospitals also have staff to ensure they stay out), the professionals need space to concentrate and do their work with minimal interference and there's also the patient's privacy and dignity to consider. The distraught loved one tearing through the door and clutching to the patient screaming "please save him doc!" might be very dramatic, but patently unrealistic.

-> "code blue" / CPR is actually one of the easiest things to do. Yes, it's super critical, and that's why we train for it the most (and in hospital settings, there's specialised teams who come in specifically for that). Very dramatic for patients and next-of-kin of course, not so much for medical professionals. You have strict algorithms to follow, something you've memorised by heart, it happens all the time and there's only two outcomes, it's not something you'd freak out about because it's so difficult and complicated and overwhelming.

-> much like the waking up from coma thing, ROSC (achieving a heartbeat again after CPR) isn't "spluttering awake OMG thank you for saving my life doc" either. More likely than not, the patient will still be intubated and – in laypeople's terms – "in a coma" after that, and probably for some time longer. We have lovely beepy machines to tell us the patient is better.

like shane likes the house colder because he hates getting too warm and would rather just wear some comfy layers and some thick socks, but ilya likes the house warmer because he likes having his tits out for his husband not wearing a shirt.

and i'm cackling about the idea of them fucking with the thermostat like. thirty times a day. trying to put it on the OTHER person's preferred temperature. because no YOU get to be the most comfy in our home. no!! YOU get to be at your most comfy temperature!!!

shit REALLY gets serious when shane has someone install a smart thermostat and now has control over it on his phone via app and refuses to give ilya the password and also changes the code on his phone because take THAT asshole. now he can LOCK the house to your best temperature. checkmate, motherfucker. >:)

they come into the locker room with like. OBVIOUS tension between them. and everyone is like oh?? a fight?? a married quarrel???

shane forgets because he's running late for a meeting one day and has to rush out of the door, and he then arrives at the studio for the photoshoot he has booked to see a text from ilya with three different headstone styles with "one of these, i think"

and is just "for?? what??"

"when i am dead from broken heart because my husband does not love me anymore and does not kiss me before i will not see him for twenty years"

"ilya, i will be home in like four hours"

Shane’s utterly confused turning his eyes to Ilya… for Ilya to go “we didn’t kiss” and no other explanation.

Shane even more confused races through his memories and can only come up with “in Vegas?”.

For Ilya to get even more huffy. “No this morning!”

Ruby backs him up “if my love forgot to kiss me one day, it wouldn’t be divorce, it’s be murder!”

In-sync Ilya and Shane turn to Ruby “no dating till you’re 30!”

Jackie walks in this very moment with an exasperated expression and a glass of wine. “Shane, I wish I was sorry but it’s your childish husband who weaponised my children. And Ruby stop giving your Uncle Ilya crazy ideas. Otherwise, one day it’s going to be you looking after this one-man Russian soap opera in a nursing home constantly hearing “remember when Shane” and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.

Ruby turns to Ilya “we can have wheel chair races down the corridor!”

Ilya just as excited “and steal extra jello cups from the nurses you’ll charm with those beautiful eyes and adorable freckles you get from your stunning Mum, not your gross ogre dad”.

Arthur silently walks over to Shane “can I be with you uncle Shane, we can put the legos in colour piles and watch the sharks on the screen all day. I promise I won’t tell anyone you sometimes eat the popcorn too.”

Jackie claps her hands “ok kids grab your stuff, dad’s got dinner ready, and I need you guys all feed and happily asleep so you can be up for school tomorrow.”

Shane bends down to Arthur giving him a cuddle. “We’ll have so much fun that Uncle Ilya and Ruby will be begging to join our blanket forte because we have cool shark facts and I think I might be able to sneak some gummy snakes past your Mum.” Smoothing his hand over Arthur “love you Buddy, see you next week”.

After letting go of Arthur, Ruby crashes into Shane “Don’t worry Uncle Shane you’ll be their too, someone’s going to have to cuddle his bruised heart better when I beat his arse in wheel chair races.”

Ilya’s head shoots up from Arthur’s shoulder “Ruby, who’s the super strong, talented athlete here?

Without even a pause Ruby fires back “Uncle Shane.. You take me to McDonald’s every Thursday”

Jackie pipes in “I thought that was just once Ilya, I’m trying to keep my child healthy.”

Shane rushes in “Ilya you promised me you stopped eating McDonald’s, remember the video I showed you about the chemicals, and the sugar Ilya “.

“She likes McDonalds, so do I, it’s simple. Good for our mental health, it’s not like I’m smoking Shane” Ilya takes delight in the way Shane’s nose crinkles and his eyes roll. Turning shyly back to Jackie “When you’re with Arthur for his Thursday appointments. I take Ruby to McDonalds, we gossip, she shows me memes, and I teach her about fun things like navigating friendship, relationships, mental health and so many other things. All age appropriate of course.”

Ruby pipes up “please mum, I promise we’re good we only have one ice cream while you’re gone and Uncle Ilya makes me eat a whole bag of apples first. It’s fun, and it’s the only time I get Uncle Ilya to myself. Please mum, he’s my best friend!”

Ilya heart fully pours out of its cage, melting all over the floor. “ Ruby you’re my best friend too. And Jackie she’s such an intelligent, beautiful and sweet person, just like you, because of you. Maybe forty-nine percent evil, and maybe that’s because of me. Sue me for wanting the very best for her. I want the best for you, and Pike is ok, fits into my standards by 0.000001% but trust me if wolf, not that wolf-bird Shane, real wolf came into your house I am glad Hayden has “muscles” as it makes him a taste treat while you and the kids run into the safety of my massive arms, and I heroically fight off huge, angry wolf!”

This is a Six Chapter + One Epilogue WIP that is going to be completed by the end of the weekend <3

The crew shows up totally unsure of what to expect, charmed but surprised when it's Ilya opening the door in a tank and sweats and dramatically sighing, "Is meal prep day."

They spend hours filming the couple navigating the kitchen, arguing over how much salt to put in their egg cups, talking about how they learned to cook together when they first made a real go of their relationship.

Shane keeps his hands busy and his eyes focused on his prep work, and that makes it easier to talk about the murky grey area between healthy food choices and disordered eating. Ilya just rubs his back and mocks how he's dicing the bell peppers and keeps calling what he's wearing his "unlucky sweatpants" until Shane hits him in the face with a spatula while mumbling something about tuna melts.

Surprising exactly no one, the video goes viral when it drops on YouTube. It explodes on socials, with thousands of people stitching together Ilya saying "is meal prep day" with videos of their own meal prep, their healthy habits, sharing their own journey to loving food and treating it as fuel and not punishment. They use the tag #eatlikehollanov and it trends immediately.

Ilya's favorite part is when fans start to battle over #eatlikehollanov - the food posts get overtaken with videos and photos of them out at social events, serving cunt and generally looking like top designers battle it out for who gets repped by The Gay Wonder Twins of Hockey (which they do, and stop calling us that, we're married you perverts).

Then Shane and Ilya are spotted at a bar making out in a dark corner and everyone remembers these two probably spend 30% of their waking hours eating each other alive, and suddenly it's #eatlikehollanov munch munch munch yum yum yum.

The Centaurs jump on the trend, sharing their own food prep videos with increasing innuendo. Luca Haas turning bright red while eating a glazed donut gets 3 million views, but Troy really breaks the internet by eating a banana while maintaining eye contact with the camera the whole time. Harris threatens to replace the Kiss Cam at games with #eatlikehollanov and Shane tries his hardest to crawl into a corner and die because he just wanted to share how he protein loads, you guys, why did you have to make it so weird.