imagine being ilya. imagine ur shitbag father dies and you have to sit on that twelve hour flight to go to his funeral. meanwhile all you can think about is your boyfriend. you get there and the millisecond you have wifi you’re sexting your boyfriend. you go to the funeral and your abusive brother tries to fistfight you during the service. you impulsively cut him out of your life and you suddenly realize you can never come home again. you call your boyfriend and sob over the phone to him about how much you love him and how badly you want to be with him but you know you can’t. you silently decide you’re going to break up with him once you get back.

not even one week later, your boyfriend is laying in a crumpled heap on the freezing ice, and all you can think about is finding your mother in that same position. for a single, silent moment, you have literally no one left.

Ilya really said the rumors are true. I am a whore and a slut. but ☝️ I love your boring son.

i have no words 😩

imagine you're ilya and you lost your mother to suicide, and all you have of her are your memories. memories of your beautiful and funny mother who was so incredibly strong, but never got the help/support she needed. you're the one to find your mother, but instead of being allowed to grief and for this traumatic event to be acknowledged your family hushes it down and pretends it was an accident. so there is no one left to share the truth with. no good memories to be shared either because your mom is treated like a dirty secret, like she was weak for all of this. you're family hates you, maybe you've always been too much like your mother. you're completely alone now, sure you hook up with people when you get older and you do have svetlana, but you still feel like a ghost most of the time. sexual intimacy is nothing when it's accompanied by an aching hole you can't fill. you seek connection and you're thankful for svetlana it's the moments you spend together that make you feel a little less alone, but those are getting rarer. she has her own life. but then you meet this boy and you fall in love with him and you're lucky enough thay he loves you back. you can’t quite wrap your hand around it, how someone like him could love someone like you. you're your mother's son, after all. and you tell him about your mother and for the first time in a long time.... someone believes you, believes her story and how wonderful she was, and not only does he listen he also want to help you build something around your mother's memory. maybe you still have to hide, but your mother doesn't have to anymore. she can finally breath and exist as the light and anchor she's always been, and every time the sun shines through the windows of the cottage your boyfriend invited you to, with every ray of sunshine that's hitting your face you like to believe that she's still there, looking out for you... looking out for the both of you

i love how in ep6 shane is crafting this huge elaborate romantic charity plan all so they can be seen near each other in public without people assuming theyre gay and it's like shane. baby girl. did you hear those announcers when scott pulled kip out of the crowd. you could be sucking ilya's dick on the ice and everyone would be like "wow looks like hollander and rozanov have finally figured out sportsmanship"

yes good.

DECEMBER 2008 - JULY 2017 || apple music | spotify

heated rivalry is a perfect show because you can think about the characters as these complex nuanced portrayals of intersections of race and masculinity and trauma and geopolitical conflict and how those traits play out within how the characters interact and you can also think shane hollander rides that thang like he’s being held at gunpoint but he’s holding the gun to his own head

hr twitter (part 2/?) ft our little autistic man <3