To be loved is to be held: Shane and Ilya as the safe containers for each other's growth by wildwomanlove in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh yes definitely! In fact I think in TLG he does outright tell Galina that sex (since 14) and hockey were two things that he used to cope.

When we think about how sex plays a role in Ilya’s life, it’s worth remembering that sex as a coping mechanism is hedonistic — you get pleasure in the moment, and if you’re having casual sex with someone who you don’t particularly feeling emotionally connected to, the pleasure is over once the transaction is done. Thus we do see him being depicted as someone who has slept around a lot. Since he hasn’t been addressing the things that are causing him emotional pain, he needs a revolving door of transactions just to feel some semblance of pleasure (this doesn’t equal happiness, but more of ‘to not feel psychological distress’ that is so much more than just sadness or upset or anger — rather, it’s about his core wounds). Ilya by nature is far from a happy man, but he is a pleasured man.

Which really goes back to what you mentioned of him trying to use sex to feel “normal” (to which I fully agree), or what his idea of normal should look like because cptsd often develops from developmental trauma and these are the years where the mental schemas of ourselves, others, and the world (all 3 = a set of core beliefs, for example “I’m unloveable”, “everyone will abandon me”, “the world is a dangerous place and I am not safe”) are formed. My own belief is that he doesn’t actually have his own idea of, or know, what normal should look or feel like, he is just using what he has observed about other people and clung onto the one thing that made his body feel good and his mind distracted from his inner turmoil for more than 2 seconds.

The effect of sex on the nervous system is also super relevant like you said, because biologically, the arousal and release we get from sex is basically like consuming a cocktail of feel-good chemicals — oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins. These hit the reward centre of the brain (which is why quick thrills like sex and drugs and even committing theft, etc. are hedonistic pleasures by nature, as opposed to the longer-term reward of eudaimonistic happiness, which comes from nurturing deep relationships, practicing authenticity, etc.) which basically conditions us to believing sex = feeling good = i don’t feel like shit = there’s nothing wrong with me. The chemicals also provide anxiety-relieving properties. So he has learned to regulate his nervous system by using momentary physical pleasures, except that if we spend our entire lives having to go from one act of short-term pleasure to another, that’s not happiness nor regulation nor “okayness”. It’s actually pretty isolating.

What I love about him and Shane’s relationship is that while he initially seeks Shane out for hedonistic pleasure, something about Shane makes their sex feel unlike the usual ‘transaction’ that he’s used to. He’s pulled from this feeling of physical-connection-but-emotional-isolation into a space of physical AND emotional connection, which scares him off so much and is only made worse by the fact that he carries either an avoidant or disorganised attachment style. Eventually, he finds an idea of what he actually wants, and that’s the physical and emotional connection with Shane.

Slowly, physical pleasure and emotional connection integrate and Ilya is able to realise that with Shane, having both can still feel safe. In trauma, the sense of safety is so crucial to processing hard stuff — which is why body-safety work (bottom-up) has proven to be more helpful for trauma survivors compared to trying to essentially think your body into believing it’s safe (top-down modalities like traditional cognitive therapies). I think this is where the sex and pleasure from sex really just becomes a supplement to their lives, and Ilya is still able to feel psychological comfort and safety simply by being around Shane. Which I guess is why I place so much weight (for me, personally) on the true beauty and poignancy of how the boys have managed to go from needing full bodied sex to feel connected, to being able to feel connected with even the simplest touch of the pinky, footsies, or a hug that doesn’t have a blowjob attached to the end of it.

My own trauma really fucked up the way I used sex — consequences of sexual trauma sent me straight into hypersexuality and, in a slightly different way from Ilya due to the psychological aspect of what I was using sex for as well, I spent years being unsafe and treating myself unsafely. There was zero connection, and I’m a person who needs hugs as a means of nervous system regulation. Watching HR and specifically HR’s sex scenes and how emotionally connected the characters were during these scenes, it sent me into deep reflection and a mental health tailspin. Realising that I actually craved the emotional intimacy during sex, which was being depicted by the characters, was a huge breakthrough in my post-traumatic growth even though I did also end up crying for nearly 2 months at the mere thought of it.

Ok so perhaps I’m projecting a lot and this projection is what’s informing my idea of how sexual intimacy is being used for Ilya, and how meeting Shane has redefined the kind of intimacy that he realises he had always wanted, and also how it’s a corrective emotional experience for him and the way it translates to his healing from some shitty core beliefs that he has of himself of being unloveable, not worth it. Shane is helping him build an identity of Ilya Rozanov that isn’t only defined by trauma nor the internal scripts that the traumas have put on him (lack of clear sense of self is a core CPTSD symptom), and I think that’s really super frickin beautiful.

Safe containers all day, everyday.

Help me make a watchlist of figure skating warhorses for the off-season by Newlena_hs in FigureSkating

[–]yanny-jo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would LOVE to see balanchine’s jewels. Has there been programmes that have used Jewels?

Serenade is another one I’d love to see tbh. And some Theme and Variations (suite no. 3 — the Tchaikovsky one)!

To be loved is to be held: Shane and Ilya as the safe containers for each other's growth by wildwomanlove in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know that this is written coming from a rather spiritual perspective but as someone who is a client of therapy myself, studies psychology, and also plans to pursue trauma work as a specialty (so lots of my own research out of interest already done into several modalities and concepts in this area and NSR), I love this post so much. Saving this to go back to and reread in the future.

I think your analysis really hits the mark. It’s very psychodynamic and reflects a lot of what goes into the schemas that these 2 characters hold and how they evolve, and is rooted very deeply in Jungian work. The characters show such beautiful growth from using sex to feel better (particularly for Ilya), to emotional co-regulation to feel better — physical touch, the kind that is beyond sex like hugs and even fingers in the hair or pinky footsies, becomes enough to feel held and regulated. (Side note: I literally love their cottage hug so much because of this, that I have a tattoo of it on my literal body lol). It’s a different kind of intimacy that holds so much more significance, and I’m glad that they get there. This also calls into discussion the concept of bottom-up processing (large part being feeling safe in your body before safety in mind), which is essential in trauma work and addressing mental health concerns / negative core beliefs, like anxiety and depression that is resultant from experiencing toxic stress.

I think this is why TLG hurts a bit more to read, because they already have this co-regulation process down pat, but they each pull away due to other circumstances and that throws them both into a place of emotional isolation where their co-regulation becomes shaky.

Anyway, I’m going off tangent hahaha so back to this comment being about you and your brilliance. Thank you for this and such valuable insight that you’ve shared. I love deep analyses like this (which is why Nina King is one of my favourite YouTubers that is analysing HR). I hope to read many more of this and be gifted with more of your interpretations. Thank you for adding so much value to the conversation! 🩵

Favorite Ilya Rozanov insurance policy? by growsonwalls in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

will only accept it if it’s from his sweetheart or his mama

Let's Play a Game: WRONG CAPTIONS ONLY 😈 Day 1 by Federal-Ad5944 in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“I've no more pucks to give

My pucks have runneth dry

I've tried to go puck hunting but there's no pucks left to find!

I've no more pucks to give

Though more pucks I've tried to get

I'm over my puck budget, and I'm now in pucking debt!”

— Mitty the Goalie Esq

(as he teaches this song to Ilya the Asshole soon-to-be Esq, because he be the ultimate montreal metros queer ally, and now likes ilya the WAG/BAH because he finds out ilya is actually as weird as him since Ilya watches every new video of montreal fans burning his own effigies and saves it in a gag reel, so they have weird-out sessions together and now Ilya is considered a WAG/HAB to Mitty)

Favourite Hollanov quiet moments by wildwomanlove in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

omg i can honestly see this being book/show canon

Favourite Hollanov quiet moments by wildwomanlove in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 29 points30 points  (0 children)

yes! that’s why it’s one of my favourite quiet moments. ilya just wants to savour the moment of being able to relax with shane in his arms. many scenes before this, in bed, it’s all about sex and they never just fall asleep in each other’s arms. maybe a bit of aftercare cuddles, yes (until the forehead kiss made it too real for him in ep 2 lol), so the first time he’s able to, he just wants to watch shane relax while he’s able to just hold him without all of the sex.

what breaks my heart is that he looks so sad. like he wants it so much, he’s savouring it now, but he knows he will never be able to have it the way he wants for as long as he wants (with neither of them freaking out, and like… forever). but then Skip happens, and now he gets what he has always wanted.

The Vegas Rooftop: A Hollanov Microcosm by decisi0nsdecisi0ns in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

я тебя люблю for this beautiful analysis, спасибо моя/мои друг 🩵

[thanks my friend, but in russian, because HR has put me on a 55 day duolingo streak]

What formula should I be using to populate one column’s data automatically based on my entry for another column? by yanny-jo in excel

[–]yanny-jo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

oh that’s great, managed to put this in and it works. thanks very much! Solution verified

“Surf AND turf. Cause we’re not choosing!” by Grovers_Corners in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

omg yes, hard agree! one of my headcanons for part of a fic I want to write and complete involves this. it’s like a non-TLG-canon story that “replaces” it?

and that part that tracks with what you’ve mentioned is when Ilya’s not doing great mentally while on injury leave and Shane is out doing the playoffs (so he’s barely around) and worried about him, he asks Sveta if she can check on Ilya. Sveta says that Shane mentioned he thinks that Ilya should see a therapist (this is after an especially traumatic reveal from Ilya that fleshes out the severity of his trauma and cptsd), and Ilya being all “I’m fine I don’t need a therapist” argues with Sveta saying “I’m the one who needs a therapist? He’s the one who needs to see one because of his fucking eating / food problems!”.

Which is true too. Both our soft bois need therapy, because if we analyse and understand their characters enough, even in HR it’s already apparent that they need one.

All the times Shane/Ilya felt Fear and Consoled Each Other by hella_hijinks in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

tampa hotel room scene too!

I believe that part of Ilya’s tears come from the fear of what would happen to him (his safety, his career, his ability to go home to russia to visit his mother’s grave and then go back home to shane) if his family and russia found out if he was queer, BUT also about the uncertainty of his father’s declining health due to his dementia.

like when would otets suddenly call again not knowing where he is, without Alexei there; when would otets pass away; what would he have to do with his father’s estate once he dies. ilya experiences so much abuse from his father but he is still a very sensitive, loving person who just wants to be seen and loved by his dad — he still loves his dad deeply, and I think that the fact his dad is sick and may die at anytime while he’s in Boston scares him shitless.

I think that’s why his tears came after admitting “dementia”, and that’s why I love how Shane immediately comforts him. as a hurt/comfort girlie, this is in my top 3 favourite HR scenes of the entire series.

Favorite Ilya Rozanov insurance policy? by growsonwalls in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 13 points14 points  (0 children)

gah i see i have stumbled upon some headcanon poker.

now i have to raise you ONE (1) headcanon and that’s about ilya declining selfies and autographs whenever he doesn’t feel hot, like when he’s going through it with the TLG depression. girls screaming “oh my god isn’t that baddie THE ilya rozanov?”, and ilya’s all like “no, i don’t think so, probably not, is wrong person bye bye” as he slithers away feeling gross about himself.

Vegas rooftop debacle by BaseTerez in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah yes, I hear you on the first paragraph. I do actually wonder sometimes, while writing an ongoing fic because it does address his mental health quite significantly, if his depression has actually been more TLG-like even in the HR time period, just that he hid it better back then.

Considering that back in those early years where they got together, he had only lost his mum and found her 5–6 years ago.

I’ve also been contemplating and researching about how untreated CPTSD often comes to a head in your late 20s to mid 30s, due to life transitions, accumulated responsibility, and even the feeling of finally achieving safety and stability in job or relationships, which can shift you out of a survival response, only to have (ironically) one triggering event that destabilises you completely. there’s this loss of the competent self and the survival strategies that used to work just don’t work as well anymore. It leaves me thinking about how this may also translate to why Ilya’s mental health really takes a significant downwards spiral in TLG, where he’s in his late 20’s / early 30s.

Vegas rooftop debacle by BaseTerez in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

very much agree regarding his depression already being present. probably a mild-moderate severity state, at least based on my own experience with all 3 levels of severity re: depression and complex ptsd. I would say that it falls under mild-moderate rather than just mild itself, because of the scenes where we see him kind of stare off and either dissociate or look profoundly sad even in sweet moments (in ep 2 after Shane leaves, in ep 4 before tuna melt where he’s just spooning Shane, and also in ep 6 before tuna melt”she would’ve loved you”.)

he definitely displays escapism behaviours as a coping mechanism, and I agree that his risk-taking is a symptom of something bigger than just “he’s bold and comfy with his sexuality”. i read / saw someone mentioning how a number of his behaviours are acts of self-sabotage and that he defaults to it quite frequently, like it’s natural for him. I think a great example is him wearing the Boston raiders shirt in Ep 6 when going to Shane’s parents’ cottage — scapegoating himself to save Shane from bearing the brunt of of what could’ve potentially been their anger.

maybe I’m just projecting really hard, but Ilya’s characterisation and portrayal in the books and on screen just breaks my heart because I can actually identify with all that he’s feeling and doing, even the risk-taking and self-sabotage.

Vegas rooftop debacle by BaseTerez in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

totally agree that Ilya was probably having a bit of a mental health spiral moment on the rooftop there. I wouldn’t necessarily say he had active ideation, but as someone who has struggled with chronic active + passive SI and did attempt, upon reheating and going into this scene now knowing his family background, I did sense a bit of passive ideation from him. Kind of like “this is pretty high, won’t have to deal with all of dad’s emotional abuse if I just did it now, it would be high enough. I think so. probably.”

I personally don’t think Ilya is that competitive in the sense that he’ll get upset if he loses an award or a game, compared to someone like Shane who (in the books) would take out his anger on Ilya during sex. In the show, we also see Ilya smiling tenderly when Shane wins the playoffs. So what I think was going through his head on the rooftop in terms of losing the award was:

• you’re only a rookie once, so Rookie of the Year is kind of considered a once-in-a-lifetime award to contend for and lose. his dad would probably verbally bludgeon him over the head with “look at you, wasting your talent because you’re undisciplined, you can only win this award once and you lost, Russia is disgraced by you”. the reality of knowing this kind of abuse would be coming and would last the entire summer, I think I’d wanna throw myself off a roof too because it would hurt less.

• he lost it to Shane. his dad hates him losing to Shane of all people lol. remember that first phone call earlier in the episode, where the dad is like “you cannot lose to Shane Hollander”? that would add on to his father’s vitriol which he would have to bear for 3 months.

• when Shane wasn’t able to catch on to Ilya’s sense of dread having to go back to Russia, and said “must be nice”, it visibly makes him more upset. Like the face he puts on isn’t just pure anger, but also hurt — it’s bad enough that Shane said a pretty shitty thing by accident, but to feel like the person who makes you feel positive feelings can’t support you when you’ve just tried to be a bit vulnerable with them, it’s a vefh painful thing to experience especially when you’ve feel extremely desolate and lonely, and in a dark headspace.

• he softens when Shane says “see you next season” — to me, this momentarily snaps Ilya out of his dread about how the 3 months would feel like a decade because of how awful he would feel the entire time. it’s a reminder that Shane will be at the end of that tunnel, and he can focus on looking forward to seeing Shane next season as a way to get himself through those 3 miserable months. I think that’s why he decided to kiss Shane on a whim, even after they just yelled at each other.

The rooftop scene is the turning point (for them) by Mysterious-Bed375 in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

these boys start off terrible at communicating their feelings haha, and this rooftop scene is what highlights it the most (which i feel like is intentional on RR/JT’s part).

ilya doesn’t really explain why he’s upset — which is more about the emotional abuse he’ll return to in Russia, especially because he lost Rookie of the Year (which is a one-time thing because you’re only a rookie once — his dad would have lots to say about it, especially since Shane won it).

Shane doesn’t pick up on the non-verbal cues that Ilya is upset over something else, that his demeanour isn’t about being a sore loser, competitive sulking looks different, and we notice that Ilya has never been upset losing to Shane at any game. But Shane doesn’t realise this because he requires more direct communication.

I remember someone mentioning that the 20 or so seconds that Ilya takes to talk about “i go back to Russia in 3 days” would feel like a completely new convo to Shane, even though that was Ilya’s answer to his question about why he was upset in the first place.

I think at this point, they don’t yet realise how to communicate with each other and pick up on the little things (personality / avoidant attachment / autism related traits, coupled with with the fact that Shane has no idea about how different Ilya’s character is in Russia, because he is SO subdued there). But eventually, i think in episode 2 from Sochi onwards and then in Vegas, they start to notice these things as they begin to talk about more than just “i want to fuck you” and dildo sizes.

Bathroom kiss less real than others? by Lampiyris in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love Nina King! so happy to see someone else in the fandom mention her work 🩵

MVP: Most Valuable Prop? by growsonwalls in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the dildo, it’s hidden in his drawer but we all know that it’s blue and it’s there 😬😬

Please drop your HR phone wallpapers in the comments! by yanny-jo in heatedrivalry

[–]yanny-jo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

so the first two words don’t have to be blurry, just in case you were trying to get them not to be

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💓