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Shane Hollander has consumed me—mind, body, and soul. I’ve spent hours DAYS trying to put into words how much he means to me. If Ilya Rozanov is the version of myself I let the world see, Shane is the version I keep buried behind reinforced steel and armed guards. Seeing that reflected on screen hit me like a brick.

It is both easier and more rage-inducing to see a character with your exact flaws make mistakes that are so obvious when you have context. But Shane never has the context. He operates on a need-to-know basis. Why? Because if he knows something, he feels he has to control it, manage it, fix it—and he would try to carry the burden alone. he is already at his absolute limit for how much of his life he can manage without snapping.

Shane’s whole life is a performance. He isn’t just a hockey player; he is a product of media training and immense family sacrifice. as an Asian kid in a sport that constantly "others" you, he learned early that any wrong move would get him ridiculed, so he becomes the best. so no one could say he didn't belong in the room or on the ice.

Even seeing another Asian kid on his youth team didn't help because the disconnect was already there, shane has a western last name. When you feel too "other" to fit into any circle, it changes you. You stop trying to belong and start trying to be perfect. He was raised in a vacuum of locker room talk; he repressed his identity until it was second nature to the point that when he is drafted, he doesn't know who he is outside of hockey. which is why so many people, including ilya, say he is boring. he's not he's just at his fucking limit. so when he does get a chance to be brave and sleep with his 'rival' OFC he took it. it was probably the most exciting thing he felt since he was a kid and if anyone knew what he was going through it would be ilya.

in episode 2, when shane realizes sex isn’t a drill he’s "failing" at but something actually fun, the weight leaves his chest. For a moment, his emotions aren't scripted. He falls in love because Ilya—despite his own nerves—makes him feel safe and seen in a way he's never known before. and then ilya, recognizing shane is falling hard and fast, pushes him away. and shane's heart breaks but he can't let it show.

After they reconnect, Shane tries to stay "super totally casual." He's accepted that he's mostly in love with ilya but he’s white-knuckling everything, he can't lose ilya and he can't lose hockey and if anyone found out he would lose both. Then Ilya starts changing. He texts shane more, he invited shane over before a game instead of after. He calls him Shane during sex. He makes him a tuna melt and buys him ginger ale, begs him to stay the night.

This is Shane’s nightmare. Domestic intimacy is a threat, all the feelings shane has worked to hide, bubbling up to the surface. Ilya starts to talk like he might actually want more then just sex it rocks the entire foundation of Shane's survival strategy. He scrambles to stabilize by dating Rose, not because he wants to, but because he thinks he should. He wants the "easy" path to save his career and his parents’ sacrifices. But Rose sees through him and gives him the one thing he couldn't give himself: permission to exist.

it wasn't Rose's permission that changed something inside shane but she definitely helped foster his own self-acceptance and because he's shane and can't do things 1/2 way (8 hamburgers) he went all in and invited ilya to the cottage. and Ilya does the unthinkable, mentions a future together. so naturally, Shane stays up all night coming up with ways to keep him. Now that he has the first person to truly see him—not "Shane Hollander #24"—he would die before letting him slip away again.

This is cemented after his dad catches them. Ilya gives him the space to panic while reminding him that they will get through it together. It’s no longer Shane against his own brain; it’s the two of them against the world.

I spend so much time analyzing Shane’s "neuroticisms" because i recognize the frantic, suffocating need to be perfect enough to stay. I see the "boring" mask and I know it’s actually a high-performance engine running at 200mph just to keep a neutral face. But the tragedy of Shane Hollander isn't that he was closeted; it’s that he spent his whole life believing his only value was his performance. Ilya Rozanov didn't just break into the fortress he knocked it down and made way for shane to build a home where he doesn't ever need to hide ever again. Shane didn't just find a boyfriend; he found the only person in the world who made being "just a person" feel like a promotion. He isn't boring. He’s finally, for the first time in his life, free.

[ilya rozanov voice] okei

meanwhile the irony of all the speculation and pressure around the heated rivalry actors’ sexualities is not at all lost on me. like you have a book series and then a tv show adaptation where “coming out is an active threat to your livelihood, which is precarious on the best of days and you will realistically only have said livelihood for like twenty years if everything goes ridiculously well” AND “even if you personally as a public figure are comfortable and willing to take the risk of coming out, you have to consider the impact of that kind of pressure and speculation on your loved ones, including your partner, who will have little shot of anonymity or privacy ever again, before you take that step” are MAJOR THEMES and people take that and go “so why aren’t these public figures who just want to do their jobs telling me every detail of the private lives??” Well, see, you’re not gonna believe this but

The thing is that Ilya has no fucking clue what autism is. He probably read the word when some twitter user called Shane autistic and wanted to look it up but got distracted by a post about Shane's tits or smth.

What he does know though is that Shane folds his clothes before sex. And he smiles at him with adoration when he does it and doesn't rush him or make fun of him for it. He knows Shane doesn't always pick up on his jokes and sarcasm "That's French, Ilya" but he doesn't mind it and would never make Shane feel bad about it or dismiss his response "Yeah I know, Shane". He knows Shane has a PhD in The Arts of Overthinking "Now the bed's all dirty" so he playfully chases his worries away and closes all those open tabs in Shane's brain "What? Shut up". He knows Shane will not rest until he has everything in his life under control so he grumbles when Shane wakes him up in the middle of the night to tell him how they can make it all work but still listens intently to his plan. He knows Shane feels overwhelmed and anxious when stuff doesn't go down as planned "This is my actual fucking nightmare, Ilya" "I'm okay I'm just freaking out I'll be okay in a second" so he softly comforts him and supports him through it "Then maybe it's time to wake up, yes?" "We're good here, your family's here, you're boyfriend's here, we're good here, ok?" He knows Shane has to hear it to believe it "My boyfriend?" so he gently goes "I mean yes, I think so, probably".

He doesn't know Shane is autistic but he knows Shane and he loves Shane and Shane happens to be autistic

I think acting like heated rivalry is cringe and unimportant is in and of itself cringe and i think acting like you're cool for not watching a tv show is even cringier

the popularity of the show forcing an extremely conservative sports league to talk about gay issues en masse + the celebration of gay love and gay sex in a political moment where both of those things are increasingly (once again) under attack in a very public way is cool and i won't be made to pretend otherwise

obviously we know connor storrie language work insane etc etc but possibly my favourite choice he's made so far is ilya in the later parts of the timeline noticeably codeswitching his accent to sound a little more north american at times when he's talking to his teammates, to strangers at the pool, etc. and as far as i've watched he's been comfortable enough to never do this around shane

quick thing for laerryn😌😌 just finished calamity, im obsessed.

THE GUGGENHEIM??? (x)

I want the world to know that in Iran, we are not protesting the Islamic Republic just because of the currency collapse or economic problems. Every part of our lives has been destroyed by the Islamic clerical regime. All we ever wanted was a normal life.

So

Woman, Life, Freedom forever.

تا ابد زن زندگی آزادی

Thee coolest to ever do it

rise and shine to lesbians and bi women😍😍😍 stay hydrated and stay sexy 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 everyone else….😒 good morning i guess…. 😐

for @birdy-lady