Chapter Text
Chapter Titles
Each chapter is titled after a different line from Ethel Cain's song Dust Bowl, after which this fic is named. Shout out to my beautiful, beautiful friend Juno for giving me this recommendation when I was trying to figure out a title for this fic. I only heard the song for the first time after writing chapter one, and it completely altered the shape that this fic took.
Chapter one, "tend to your row of violets" was the first lyric to really strike me. It evoked ideas of innocence, which is where Shane starts with regards to her gender identity. More obviously is the word "tend" which is what Ilya and Rose do for Shane. They tend to her, and they help her grow.
Chapter two, "the holes in his sneakers" is obviously about Ilya. The holes in his sneakers are his grief and trauma, things that Shane notices and wants to desperately tend to herself. But she can't, because she would have to make herself vulnerable first, and she's too scared to. They are also in a way about Scott Hunter and his coming out, something that makes holes in her sneakers. It starts to fray her thread.
Chapter 3, "eighth grade death pact" was the lyric that sealed this song as the title for this fic. Because that's what the Ottawa promise is. It's a death pact, it's Ilya signing his fate away in Shane's blood. It's what turns Shane away from essentially her suicide and towards the future instead. It's Ilya refusing to let her die alone. It's the thesis of their relationship in this fic.
Chapter 4, "scared of the rain" is a bit of a weak one, to be honest. The song Dust Bowl takes place from the girl's perspective and so it was hard to find something to give to Ilya alone. I decided on this because it was the best descriptor for Ilya's feelings at this point in time. He's scared of losing Shane, of not being enough for her, and he's anxious about proving himself to the Hollanders. It helps that Shane is just as afraid too.
Finally, chapter 5, "his eyes all over me", is just descriptive of the events of this chapter. Ilya's eyes all over Shane during sex, in the aftermath, on the ice. His eyes all over her are what make Shane feel like his girl. And as long as he's looking at her, she'll be alright.
Rose Landry
I picked dinner with Rose as the place to start because it's canonically a point in the story where Shane is 1) forced to confront his identity and 2) reflecting on how Ilya has shaped this identity. That made it perfect to briefly touch on the eight years of slow egg-cracking that I didn't want to go into detail about.
More than that, Rose Landry exists in Heated Rivalry to be a device towards Shane's character development. Sophie Nelisse's characterization makes her a lot more "human" than she is in the book (where she is… barely even a person) but I wound up using her as a means to Shane's end as well. A few people picked up on it, but a lot of Shane's apparent attraction to Rose was just gender envy. Do I want to be with her or be her? Rose was the perfect device to fully crack Shane's egg wide open, and also the perfect ally to give to Shane as a girl-space-friend.
I've written character studies for other fandoms on different accounts that amount to "what if this character had a transgender experience opposite to the gender that they are in canon?" Whenever I've done this, my ultimate goal has always been hope and kindness. I will absolutely subject these characters to difficulties, dysphoria, and angst along the way, but I will never write an unhappy ending for them. That would be an act of self-harm, in all honesty.
This is why I decided against having anyone be initially transphobic, or even uninformed/resistant. Rose, Ilya, Yuna, and David are all immediately accepting of Shane's identity. They don't challenge her on it in any way, because I don't need to subject Shane (or myself) to that trauma in order to make my narrative compelling. I also felt that the terrifying realization of "Oh my god, I'm a transgender woman and I play for the NHL" needed to be softened slightly. I didn't want Shane to spiral so much in chapter one. So, Rose was there to redirect.
Post-canon, Rose continues to be an incredible friend to Shane. She can't always be there for her, given her busy schedule and life, but they call and talk often. Long before Shane comes out, Rose starts being an outspoken advocate/ally for trans people. The only reason that she doesn't come to Hollanov's first wedding is because she had a scheduling conflict. But she's Shane's maid-of-honour for her "real" wedding.
Also yes, "Shauna" was a reference to Yellowjackets (a show that I still need to watch). It was also a joke about how trans characters tend to choose names that are weirdly similar to their dead names. Shane, Shauna. Or, Shane and Jane.
Jane Hollander
A working draft for this fic was Plain Jane before my beautiful friend Juno showed me this song. Originally, Jane was going to be part of Shane's identity. But between having a better title for the fic, and also the whole "being Shane" of it all, the Jane Hollander thing kind of stopped working. I was more than happy to drop it as well. To be honest, the idea of Shane having to reintroduce herself with a new name whenever she came out was kind of not doing it for me, and also I liked the idea of Shane's gender identity being separate from her name.
I did briefly go "she could make it her middle name!" and then I was like. Naming her Shane Jane Hollander might actually constitute a hate crime. So I didn't do that. But I do think that Jane was on the list of names that her parents considered for a daughter. Which was partly why Shane broke down after David sent her that text.
"Three conflicting points of interest" vs "three truths to live by."
The phrasing of this was important to me. Initially, Shane views these things as circumstances that she is helpless to. She can't stop herself from liking hockey, from liking boys, or being Shane. Then there's that fourth point that she wants to deny, being Ilya's girl. By the end of the fic, she decides that there are three things that matter with regards to who she is: she's a hockey player, she's a woman, and she's Shane Hollander.
Liking Boys vs Being A Woman
The removal of "liking boys" is to reflect her understanding of her sexuality being a function of her gender identity and not her sexuality. It felt taboo for her to like boys when she thought she was a boy. Now that she knows that she's a woman, it's inconsequential. Again, that gender affirming heteronormativity.
It also reflects her identity going from an indulgence that she cannot help to a core part of herself that she will not deny. At the end of the fic, being Rozanov's girl is still a secret fourth thing that's just for her, but that's reflective of their relationship. She's a woman regardless of if she's Rozanov's girl.
Being Shane Hollander
"Being Shane" was my shorthand for Shane's autism. Partly because I don't think that Shane is diagnosed or even has the insight to pursue a diagnosis, but also because this is how I think about myself, my shortcomings, and how they interfere with my attempts to move through the world.
There are many times that I have felt that who I was conflicted with the things I am good at or who I want to be in a way that feels suffocating. While I have not been diagnosed as autistic myself, several members of my family are autistic and I demonstrate many of the same traits. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD and it is genuinely suffocating. I wrote a lot of this fic in a bit of a suicidal spiral, I have to admit, because of how frustrated I was with my inability to work/my executive dysfunction.
Of the three truths that Shane's life operated around, being Shane was the worst one of all.
This is why Ilya's POV became important. The most romantic part of Ilya and Shane's relationship is that yes, Shane's social shortcomings lead to a lot of friction between them. But Ilya is so utterly charmed by elements of Shane that are based in his autism. Folding clothes before sex, his inability to sext or pick up on certain jokes, the earnestness that Shane is never able to hide—Ilya is completely smitten with these parts of Shane Hollander. If Shane didn't have these traits (aka, if Shane wasn't Shane) then Ilya might not have been so bowled over with affection.
And that's the purpose of this line:
"I will tell them this," he starts, his own voice shaking. "I will tell them that I fell in love with Shane Hollander. That my love is not a question of how can I? My love is just simply something that is."
[...]
"Everything you are is Shane Hollander," Ilya tells her. "And it is everything that is Shane Hollander that I love."
While Ilya's love starts because of hockey and validates Shane as a woman, the most important thing that it speaks to is Shane's experience of being Shane. I think hearing Ilya say this is the first time in her life that she is completely and utterly happy with who she is.
The Hockey of it All
I will not lie, I have major beef with characterizations of Shane that downplay the hockey of it all. Shane Hollander is hockey. Shane's identity is hockey. This is baked into his character, and I feel like criticisms of Reid's characterization of him often ignore this.
Everything that Shane does revolves around hockey: how he conducts himself, how he engages with people, how he eats, what he does in his spare time. He lives and fucking breathes it. When I write Shane, I am thinking about hockey above everything else. Hockey is the axis around which his character operates, and this remains true for trans fem!Shane as well.
I heavily referenced this article about Harrison Browne, the first transgender professional hockey player, when scoping out Shane's experiences and trajectory. It starts with this quote: "Growing up, hockey was the one place where Harrison Browne, who was born female, truly felt like himself. But if he wants to keep playing, he has to wait to become who he really is."
This was kind of the core idea I had when it came to the intersection between being autistic and being transgender in Shane's character. That feeling of hockey being the only place where Shane felt like she could fit in amongst her cisgender male peers, but it meant denying who she truly was.
But it has less to do with gender affirmation and more of an affirmation of personhood. Shane spends a lot of this fic feeling not-quite human. I describe her feeling like she's possessing a body that she's found, I have her categorically exclude herself from definitions of man and woman. Through her support network, and Ilya's love, and her own self-acceptance, she comes to term with her identity as a woman and embraces it. But I've found that just as important to one's identity is what one does to engage with the world, and for Shane that is hockey. So her sense of personhood comes from being a hockey player as well. Her "hockey-shaped heart" is her reason for living (side note: that might be one of my favourite lines in the fic).
Ilya Rozanov
For a fic that really did start in a vacuum as an AU-Shane Hollander character study, a lot more consideration went into Ilya than I initially expected. He kind of crammed himself into the narrative when I wasn't looking, and then refused to leave. I think this is because when I was rewatching Episode 6 while writing Chapter 3, I couldn't stop watching Connor's insane expressions. He infected this doc guys.
Blonde, Blue, and Boyish
In Shane's POV, I repeatedly and purposefully describe Ilya by his blue eyes and blond hair. Partly because they relate to the lyrics of Dust Bowl ("natural blood-stained blond") which meant I was extra aware of Ilya being blond when writing this.
More pretentiously, I was also thinking about the way that angels and cherubs are depicted in renaissance paintings and Shane's perception of Ilya as someone good and pure. Another part of it is an element of almost unreality, I guess? Not in terms of disassociation, but Ilya seems almost like an impossible miracle in Shane's eyes—a beautiful boy with blond hair that's almost gold in her hands who loves her unconditionally.
Also, the blue kind of represents freedom. Eyes as blue as the sky, as the ocean. Wide open expanses that don't tether or bind one down. Ilya's eyes offer Shane that freedom to be herself. His eyes all over her, again.
Boyish has a bit more character work behind it. Like yeah, sure, Connor Storrie's smile makes me feel giddy and a little in love (how does he have so many teeth!!!!) but also there's an interplay between Shane's identity and his.
It's rather explicit in the fic itself (chapter 2) so I don't think I need to go into too much detail about it, but I still will. I loved writing these parts. Being transgender means losing time. It means missing out on fundamental experiences that your cisgender peers experience as kids and teens. Shane never got to be a blushing schoolgirl with a crush, she never got to gossip about boys—and I don't think she would ever want to.
But (as many other people have said) this is also something present in Hollanov's relationship already. They are, technically, teenage sweethearts. In the show, Ilya is the first boy that Shane ever kisses and fucks, and then he goes onto marry him. And Ilya never got to have a childhood either. So they get to make each other feel like kids with crushes. It allows them a chance to feel normal, but also loveable, and I think being able to experience both of those things at the same time is genuinely healing.
Ultimate Wife and Ultimate Guy
Frankly, I don't think I made Ilya enough of a wife guy. I have a bunch of little snippets where he just waxes poetic about how beautiful Shane is that may turn into fics one day. We'll see. But as this fic kept growing and growing (without my input, as you could tell by me lamenting the chapters count), Ilya took on a greater and greater role in the dynamic.
Domination and submission is inherent to Hollanov, especially in the show. Shane feels the pressure to be what everyone expects, and finds comfort in fulfilling Ilya's much smaller demands. Ilya has no control in his personal life and thrives off of being able to mould Shane as much as he likes. There's elements of corruption to this narrative that I wish Reid leaned more into, and I think that came through in Dust Bowl.
The initial trigger for the feminization (Ilya off-handedly saying that Shane gets wet like a girl, and Shane saying that she wants to be Ilya's good girl) was kind of my Vegas bathroom scene of the fic. It's Ilya's moment of realization about the nigh-unberable truth that is Shane Hollander's submission. That Shane gives himself/herself over completely, with the utmost trust, and that makes Ilya feel a certain way about himself. It makes him feel good, secure, and loved, which terrifies him because he can't trust those feelings. They've always hurt him before.
In canon, this manifests as him needing Shane to make the Ottawa plan, to pursue and need him, for him to know that he can love Shane. But in this fic, her dependance on him (a damsel in distress, needing a hero) moves him to act first. In essence, Shane's identity affirms Ilya's sense of self. To be quite honest, there were parts of this that I wrote as T4T before remembering that Ilya is cis in this fic, and a lot of Ilya's perspective that I think can read as a trans man's gender euphoria at the thought of being relied upon. Which might just be my voice seeping into his narration, but I don't think it's out of place at all.
Another way that my voice seeped in was via Ilya's lust over Shane being a clocky tgirl. To all early transition trans women out there, I love you so deeply.
Fire Symbolism
To be honest, flames and heat are imagery that I tend to use in all my fics. Partly because they're inherently associated with arousal and I write a lot of smut, but also because it feels universal.
In Dust Bowl, flames and fire are kind of associated with truth. The shameful truth, like how much Shane wants to be Ilya's girl at the All-Star game. A liveable truth: Shane describes both hockey and being called Rozanov's girl as like "being set on fire." It's something that burns all the way through in a way that's impossible to deny. You can't deny fire or flame, you can't run from it. It will consume you, and you will have to deal with the ashes.
In a way it kind of complements Ilya's blue eyes: the truth sears and burns, but Shane can always find cooling comfort in Ilya's eyes.
Cut Ideas
There aren't a lot of things that hit the cutting room floor. I tend to write like a bulldozer, just sitting down and doing consecutive scenes that all flow into each other. It's only when I find things getting "sticky", as I like to put it, that I'll double back and try to figure out what I just wrote that is holding me back.
One of those things was an original character named Nyx. They were originally Shane's stylist, a nonbinary friend of Rose that redesigned Shane's wardrobe for her. Nyx was partly my love letter for the genderweird trans people out there who aren't necessarily being represented in my depiction of Shane as a het trans woman with white picket fence dreams. My trans experience is certainly not as neatly defined as Shane's is.
But more than that, Nyx was my way of introducing the idea of the eroticism inherent in gender euphoria and dysphoria. The shit that makes you feel affirmed in your gender is, in large part, a turn on. And those turn ons aren't always sex things. I wanted to have someone who could frankly tell Shane "Hey, you're about to feel some weird shit about yourself in the next few months. Yeah, it's kind of freaky, but be kind to yourself." Which would then lead into Shane being turned on over Ilya's phone call.
It wound up being too clunky and a little too nice for Shane. Having a trans confidant was too much for chapter 2. She needed a bit more time in the meat grinder to spiral first.
The other thing was actually something I referenced in chapter 5: that was originally going to have two smut scenes. The first would involve the bathing suit, and the second would be a candlelit dinner with Shane in a beautiful gown that Ilya bought her, and then they'd make tender love in missionary. Again, the gown stuff wound up being too clunky and I started overthinking the size of Ilya's suitcase (don't ask, I get fixated on the weirdest stuff) so I put more effort into the swimsuit scene.
I'm glad I did, because it kept the word count within the range I wanted and allowed me to focus more on the emotions of the shaving scene. Another fun fact, I struggled so much with trying to position them that I wound up watching feminization porn to figure out how Ilya was supposed to shave Shane's legs. I am dedicated to my art, I'll tell you that much.
Between The Cottage and Retirement
Just clarifying on a few things that I had to cut from the end notes of chapter 5 because they got too long.
Firstly, I think that the level of paranoia from Shane & Ilya in The Long Game is like… kind of weird. It's way too much in some ways (like Ilya not getting to come out to Troy without Shane's panic, while Shane gets to come out to Montreal) even for an au where Shane is a trans woman. So in this au, Ilya does come out to the Centaurs as bisexual. Very casually, just in conversation. He makes reference to a mysterious long-term girlfriend while talking to them and the media but is very tight-lipped about it. People kind of eventually start saying that oh, the reason he moved to Ottawa was for his girlfriend, but he keeps her very private. I think that this does way more for secrecy than whatever Hollanov were doing in TLG.
This is also why I think telling Svetlana is fine. Again, this is going off of the show logic of them being childhood friends and not just very close sex friends like they are in the book. But I think that Ilya choosing Ottawa first makes Shane feel much more indebted to him, so he wants Shane to have someone to confide in. This again eases up the communication issues that Hollanov would've had, as well as helps Ilya feel less lonely.
I think Ilya still struggles with sucking at hockey on the Centaurs. I think he only ever wins one cup with them, and it's a hard-fought victory that they barely get. Like, they go to game 7 for all rounds of the playoffs and it's fucking brutal. But this Ilya's opinion of hockey is that it's Shane's. Connor's talked about how he doesn't feel like Ilya gives a fuck about hockey and it's especially true in this fic.
With Montreal: Shane not coming out to her team means that there aren't any grounds for Drapeau and Cormeau to do their shit. By the time she does come out, both of them have retired from the league I think. So have Hayden and J.J.. I think that she's the last member of that cup-winning team by the time she comes out. And coming out between seasons, without the tripping incident or the outing looming overhead, and as well just being the legendary player that she is—all of that makes it so much easier.
I realized too late that nine stanley cups is so many but in my defence! The record for one player is 11. So I was like "oh, 2 less than that should be reasonable" then I saw that Sidney fucking Crosby has won 3 cups and I was like FUCK. But let's just say that Shane has won the four by the start of TLG (her two back to back cups, the one she gets right before the season, and then one extra as a treat). She goes onto win her fifth at the end of TLG season (she DOESN'T trip because she wasn't outed so she's not as stressed!) She's thirty then, so over the next 7 years, she wins 4 more. That's… still insane. But y'know.
Again in my defence, most of the players who have won that many cups did so by playing for Montreal back in their dynasty years. Which isn't reflective of the modern NHL that Hollanov play in but hey. Y'know.
My fav detail that I came up with on the fly is Ilya moving in with Shane post-retirement and neither of them ever directly commenting on it so they become the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon of the NHL. RPFers going fucking crazy over it, especially because if people try to ask, Ilya will say he has a girlfriend and Shane will say that she's not gay. But then they'll be spotted at the grocery store, arguing over what tub of ice cream they should get, and there'll be a million Which Could Mean Nothings going around.
What RPFers also love: Shane Hollander's androgynous slay. Between growing her hair out to shoulder length and continuing to curate a wardrobe with less-masculine pieces, Shane accidentally becomes one of the best dressed players in the league. However, she's only stylish when she's going out. She never gives up her love for church skirts. Her favourite outfit at home is an ankle length skirt and one of Ilya's hoodies.
Retirement and Transition
I'm not too educated about feminizing procedures to be honest. I think that Shane gets a full vaginoplasty with a canal and has 0 complications and gets perfectly wet every time. Her clit is more than functional and Ilya loves playing with it. When she gets cleared for sex, they don't leave their house for a long time.
She grows tits naturally via HRT and never feels the need for implants. I think she gets cute B cups, maybe C cups. I already mentioned that she gets FFS (the day before the procedure, Ilya kisses her a million times because he won't get to do it while she recovers). She doesn't get a butt augmentation (God bless hockey butts) and I honestly don't think she does voice training or anything like that? I think that having to think More about how she talks and sounds would be a headache.
But before she retires, she does get laser hair removal on her face and it helps a lot with her day-to-day dysphoria. She also gets her legs and pits waxed from time to time. And she gets pretty good at makeup! Ilya also gets good at makeup. Ilya's favourite thing is when Shane lets him do her makeup.
Future Fic Ideas
I'm not ready to say goodbye to my beautiful girl and her beautiful boy just yet. I have a bunch of fic ideas that I'll quickly name off:
- A fic set during the Montreal/Ottawa years where Ilya comes home from practice and finds Shane already at home. Fluffy domesticity ft some kinky stuff. I am possessed with this image of Shane with a claw clip and her glasses and Ilya nuzzling into her neck.
- A 5 + 1 kind of fic that's all about the various people that Shane has to come out to before her public coming out. So that'd be Farrah, J.J., Hayden... I've run out of people for 5 + 1 but I just want to explore this preparatory phase before she makes the formal statement.
- Shane having sensitive nipples bc of HRT and Ilya taking advantage of this
- Ilya trying to be gender affirming via breeding kink and Shane going "um! actually!" because of the body horror of it all. I know we all wanna see Shane Hollander pregnant but I don't think Shane Hollander wants to be pregnant at all, man or woman or otherwise.
- Ilya just being corny in general. Guy who loves his wife.
- Live Scott Hunter reaction. TFW you're the most outspoken LGBTQIA advocate in your whole league and then one day when you're peacefully retired your hot husband comes over and tells you that Shane Hollander Is Now A Woman
I'll also share an excerpt that I really wanted to fit into dust bowl but never managed to put anywhere:
"Look at you!" Ilya cheers. Shane rolls her eyes at him, blushing. "Wow, wow, wow! What a classy lady!"
"That just sounds like you're complimenting a dog wearing a bow tie," Shane complains, but she sounds so pleased. She sways in place, making her dress swish around her.
That's all! I think this commentary thing is longer than chapter one of dust bowl LMAO. If you have any questions, please comment them! Thank you so much for all your support!