Vorvayne

Unsent texts: we didn't even kiss

FUCK

I love also that Shane said that out loud a second after I thought it. This show does SO MUCH WORK to immerse the viewer in Shane's perspective

"Do you even like it there?"

Bingo. Standing ovation for Shane and his burgeoning Ilya-reading skills.

YES he knows
"It was real intense....are you going back this summer? Do you have to?"

Ilya won't meet his eyes.

Shane: so Russia this year was....something else

I'm RIGHT I LOVE BEING RIGHT. Shane is beginning to puzzle Ilya out. He knows something happened there and he knows Ilya has been weird ever since and he can maybe even see it on him still tonight.

Oh okay you turned it into a slower swagger. Nice save. We all saw you come when called immediately tho.

And Ilya folds IMMEDIATELY and nearly runs to the bed because being wanted and needed seems to be a load bearing emotion for him.

He Will do things that make him vulnerable actually. I have to think about why he goes for this despite the awkwardness but maybe he's beginning to work Ilya out, or maybe he was reassured enough by the kissing in the bathroom/missed him enough to push here. To come out and say "I need you."

Whatever it was, well, once we're out of the realm of "what if other people find out" it turns out Shane is actually a good deal emotionally braver in some ways than Ilya because he's clearly uncomfortable with (nervous about) being watched while he jerks off but he does it anyway.

Ilya I do not think this is the right time to pull out the Dom thing, actually. Emotional security is not to be found there, it has to originate there, what is your game here

Can I just say as a wearer of the same kind of underwear as Shane, the lil pulling-the-legs-down-the-thighs manoeuvre he does after undressing is v v real for people with thick thighs. That was plausibly unscripted tbh.

His face is softening even! We've got the hint of a smile back!

But when Shane gets back to the penthouse Ilya's drinking alone and has his Russia hair so all is clearly not yet going well for him

Like many people who grew up in fucked up families he's great at helping other people with their feelings and saying the right thing to put them at ease and even manipulating them a little but the minute HE has to say anything about HIS feelings and it's a coin flip whether he yells or deflects

And after executing THAT lil maneuver Ilya changes his tune completely and declares they'll go have sex properly in a bed. I think Ilya maybe just cannot function properly without sufficient physical affection.

God okay so after agreeing they really are gonna mess around in a semi-public bathroom they then....stand there nuzzling affectionately with an air of "I'm sorry" and "I missed you" so. Communication failed successfully????

Yup, okay, I was right. Shane I regret to inform you that you have hit the outer boundaries of Ilya's communication skills, which are situationally excellent but he will try to show his feelings via sex every time instead of saying he feels bad.

Shane: Unbelievable! You suck _my_ dick.

And weirdly I think Ilya is prepared to do this, actually, as an apology he probably can't verbalise.

Oooof the call back to the earlier texts, now it's Shane with the "What do you want from me?" And Ilya with the "I want you to suck my dick" except he's too obviously miserable to know what the hell he wants. So he's trying to do the Old Thing he was doing and it's nooooot working.

I'll ping back! I gotta do something about discord: it's a bit of a graveyard of unread notifs in there from the (fortunately now finished with!!!!!) days where I couldn't read shit

Except Ilya brought a lil bit of the Fuck-Awful Mental Health Consequences Of Going Back To A Place You Were Miserable and hasn't answered a text in 6 months apparently which has had....predictable consequences. Ouch.

YES!!!! LET US DO THAT!!!!!!

Oh. Oh, Shane. Watching Ilya and his team win the cup with a soft little smile and say he thinks Rozanov is the best, no stress and no shame and no terrible comparison, just admiration and affection. Well! Guess Shane is getting with the program a lil. One hopes.

*Wailing and gnashing of teeth* was Ilya sleeping with his two closest friends in Russia? Is this the thing we take from this? That Ilya Rozanov wants to drown in affection and he'll just throw himself at the possibility of love and closeness? God.

You can just see his face go, well, I guess I'll let this happen, when Sascha kisses him. With his arms still fucking folded. Like he wants nearly nothing less. But still not getting angry or actually pushing Sascha away for a loooong while, and when he does it's very gentle.

God Ilya's body is so completely fucking closed off to him. Christ. Thinking about scenes with Shane and how grabby but also affectionate and open and soft his body and posture are--

Svetlana deserves a medal for getting Ilya away from that weird horrible gala and for telling Ilya to stop listening to his father

Sascha........has a different variety of The Traumas and should definitely go back to Paris because, indeed, clockably queer men have a hard time in Russia!!!

Ilya's actor is really doing a fucking oscar worthy job here of just. Holding his face in an entirely different way while he's in Russia. It's not an emotion, per se, it's holding a different language and cultural expression in your facial muscles. Also he's miserable tho.

And think he actually isn't anything to Ilya instead of noticing that this is Ilya begging him to not push it here and now. After Shane said they couldn't hang out at the olympics!!!! Dude your timing is terrible.

Of course this is the time Shane decides to seek out Ilya!!! Like it sounds reasonable from the outside but Ilya was Definitely Lying when he said sleeping with his coach's son was fine! Being in Russia isn't fine and he isn't fine, and Shane will (as always) take his words literally

He was cooked from SO EARLY, OPAL!!! He just tripped and fell all the way down the stairs of Down Bad pretty much as soon as he met Shane.

Christ watching Ilya in Russia is Difficult. God. Maybe that's why he's so confident and loose in Canada; because it feels so much safer and freer by contrast.