egore; registration

[mountreal]

player info

NAME: Kait
CONTACT: kaitniss
AVERSIONS: forced pregnancy/mass breeding plots

character info

CHARACTER NAME: Shane Hollander
CANON: Heated Rivalry
CANON POINT: Ep.6, "The Cottage"
TOKEN: his glasses

details

SUMMARY:

Shane achieved some of the biggest goals possible for Canadian youth in the professional hockey league when he was only a teenager, but since then, he has been in permanent conflict with the two biggest parts of himself: the notoriously homophobic sport he excels at and has dedicated his entire career life to, and his sexuality. Or, more accurately, his nearly decade-long romantic situationship with his rival, Ilya Rozanov. Knowing that if he were to be honest about who he is, his professional life would be permanently altered, Shane has spent his entire adult life hiding in plain sight. He lives with high levels of anxiety and suffers from panic attacks when things threaten to get out of his control but despite that, Shane is an extremely high achiever. The second draft pick for the league, the youngest player ever signed to multiple high-end brand deals, and a two-time consecutive cup winner, on the outside Shane is accomplished, athletic, rich, and famous. And every day has been a struggle for him on the inside.

Managed by his mother since he was a kid, Shane has been very good at perfecting his role as a hockey player and team captain, but his situationship-turned-relationship with Ilya is where most of Shane’s personal development in his adult years has come from. Forced to accept that he’s gay after attempting (and failing) to sustain a sexual relationship with the movie star Rose Landry, Shane was finally able to confront this truth about himself with her support and after another player leading by example, Shane has managed to open himself up to the possibility that the two parts of himself might one day be able to come together in a full and complete life. He is feeling far braver these days than he ever has before.

CALLING:

Shane has a hardwired desire to be the best at what he does and is competitive to his core. In his professional life this means being the fastest skater and competing for the highest number of goals, but there's an aspect to this desperate race to the top that hides the fact that he has no idea what will come next once he gets there. He is a classic high achiever who has been using those highs to avoid looking closely at other aspects of his life. At times, this perfectionism and self-policing can verge on psychologically damaging.

VALUES:

In a deeply ironic way for someone who has spent his adult lifetime hiding a huge part of himself from almost everyone he cares about, Shane values honesty, family, and predictable routine. Whenever he can he tries to be honest and clear, especially lately, but this is also a deep conflict for him as a (mostly) closeted man so he's new to navigating living this way. He values hard work and expects an extremely high standard from himself, to the point that he can beat himself up if he isn't functioning at the level he believes he should be. Still, Shane desires connection with others tremendously and is careful to maintain and cherish his close relationships.

FLAWS:

Shane is incredibly shy outside of his professional identity. He is wary of sharing too much about himself with strangers and is prone to anxiety and panic attacks when situations feel out of his control. To gain it back, Shane can lean heavily on routine to the point that he sometimes indulges in extremely restrictive eating, drinking and exercise routines. He rarely drinks and doesn't do drugs, but Ilya on the right night could convince him to do anything. He is very suggestible, but only to a few very special people.

FEARS:

Shane's worst fear is being outed to the world; to have his private life of nearly a decade become public knowledge that he has no control over. He's lived in the spotlight since he was a teenager while also managing to hide everything real and personal about his life, so Shane is instinctively secretive and protective (to a paranoid degree) of his relationship with Ilya. If his romantic relationship remains a secret, then Shane thinks he can protect both it and his professional career. He's terrified that if he loses the cover of secrecy he'll somehow manage to lose both.

MOTIFS:

Separation, longing/yearning, competition, ice and snow, hiding, darkness vs. light as symbols for openness vs. secrecy, sex, hotel rooms, huge windows as a metaphor for public surveillance, dance clubs, sunrises/sunsets, lakeside properties, loons, sports.

BONDS:

• Ilya Rozanov - The love of Shane's life, his boyfriend, the person that understands him best and keeps him sane while driving him crazy.
• Rose Landry - Shane's new best friend, incredibly supportive and understanding, she gave him the courage to be more of himself
• Hayden Pike - Shane's best friend on his team, he is basically integrated into his family even though Hayden still doesn't know one big important thing about him
• his parents - Yuna and David Hollander are basically his managers and advocates in his career, but were also his closest friends for a part of his young life when he was constantly on the road and being scouted
• the cottage - Shane's custom-built cottage two hours outside of Ottawa where all the most important moments of his life happened
• Montreal - the city he's lived in since being drafted to their hockey team as a teenager, it's home to him
• Ottawa - his home town, the capital of Canada

SERVITOR:

Shane's servitor is a manifestation of his severe anxiety about who he is and what that will mean for his life - existing as an unknowable mystery in eventual isolation and misery; the lonely and singular yeti.

Description: Only seen in the brief moments before an attack, the yeti is huge, hulking, and while broadly humanoid it is in a very uncanny valley way which appears more ape than person. Shaggy and constantly crusted in ice and snow, it's nearly impossible to tell what parts of it are coat and pelt and which are the moss and bracken and ice crystals that have become one with it. It towers over 8ft tall and has crushingly brutal hands that can enclose a human head in its palm, legs as thick as tree trunks and it has wide, sloping shoulders. Dark, glassy eyes burn from under all that hair but its face is otherwise hidden - except its fetid mouth full of broken teeth, always hungry.

Behavior: The approach of the hunting (or wandering) yeti brings with it a feeling of deep cold, like the way an anxiety attack feels in the body, and the knowledge that something is wrong. Something is about to go wrong, there is unseen danger, but you have no idea how to flee from it or how to fight it. The cold gradually increases as the distance shrinks until the victim is unable to move or flee due to full-body tremors. Eventually, a smell arrives along with the yeti, and by that point it is too late. The hunt is successful because you are too cold and too full of dread to escape.

Abilities:
• the yeti brings a debilitating, terrifying cold that disables its victims and keeps them in place until it arrives
• like some predators, it can smell blood and fear and anxiety from miles away
• the yeti itself is impervious to cold and its thick pelt protects it from most weapons not wielded with extreme skill
• it is tireless, and can track its mobile prey without stopping until it is caught

Weaknesses:
• heat and fire, it may be strong in the cold but hot environments will weaken it or make it flee
• cacophonous, loud noise that doesn't stop can also sometimes run the yeti off