#and so he starts from a baseline assumption that people are similar to him

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; mistaken identities and interdimensional refugees. ( chrono || non-chrono )

And they must have a Clark. Kon can’t imagine how they couldn’t. 

He can’t imagine how anywhere couldn’t, if it came to it. 

Yeah, that’s a healthy thought, Kon reflects resignedly as Alfred shuts the car door and goes around to the driver’s side to slip into his own seat. Alfred starts the engine and pulls out of his parking spot, and Jon nervously grips Kon’s sleeve. He twists his wrist to grab the kid’s hand, and immediately ends up with Jon pressed completely against his side and resuming his earlier sniffling buried against his bicep. It’s whatever, obviously; Kon figures if the kid cries on the suit a bit, he can just get it . . . dry-cleaned, he guesses? Probably this is a dry-cleaning thing? 

God, who knows, Tim got the damn thing for him. It might need to be cleaned by a hyper-specific radiation or fresh water from snowmelt on the Alps or a custom-designed spray from the Batcave, for all he friggin’ knows. 

“Hello, Mr. Kent,” Alfred says as soon as the aid workers on the street have directed the towncar out of the immediate area of the refugee camp, his voice wryly but politely amused, and Kon feels an immediate rush of relief. Thank fuck, yeah, okay. Not that he really thought Alfred of all people thought he was actually a version of Batman, just . . . yeah. Just–yeah. It’s a relief. “Dare I ask why you informed the aid workers that you were Master Bruce?” 

“I did not, but I winked at a pretty lady while wearing a very expensive suit and holding a traumatized kid, so apparently some assumptions were made,” Kon admits sheepishly, and Alfred’s mouth quirks in the rearview mirror. 

“Do tell,” he says. 

“Please tell me Batman isn't gonna pull the ‘no outside capes in Gotham’ card over this,” Kon says, dragging a hand through his hair and slightly wrecking the carefully slicked-back style he had it in. At this point, he does not care. “My Batman knew I was in town.” 

“Oh, did he?” Alfred asks, still seeming wryly amused. 

“Mine too!” Jon blurts, straightening up a little as he leans back a bit from Kon. He keeps a hand on his arm, but Kon figures that’s no surprise. He’s a pretty familiar face, considering. Like, double-familiar, in a sense. 

“Ah, yes,” Alfred says, glancing carefully at Jon in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, young man. May I inquire after your name?” 

Well, shit, Kon thinks as Jon wilts immediately and tightens his grip on his sleeve, then buries his face in his bicep again. Not ideal, probably. At least, explaining Jon as a person is probably gonna be a whole thing, and not a thing the local Batman is gonna be thrilled to hear. 

Could be worse, admittedly. Could be “oh, Lex Luthor cooked me up in a basement”. 

Yeahhhhh. Well, at least Alfred actually recognized him, so apparently he does exist here. So like, at least they’ve only got to get through one of those explanations. 

“Jon Kent,” Jon says quietly, and Alfred . . . pauses. Kon does not let himself wince or look guilty or anything even remotely similar. Look, he’d have forewarned them if he’d had the option, okay? 

“I see,” Alfred says carefully. “May I inquire, young Mr. Kent, as to who your father might happen to be?” 

“Clark Kent,” Jon says, his voice still quiet and grip on Kon’s sleeve probably at hydraulic-press levels by now. “And my mom's Lois Lane.” 

“Ah,” Alfred says. “Please don't take this question the wrong way, young man, but would you happen to be adopted?” 

“No,” Jon says, setting his jaw stubbornly. 

“I see,” Alfred says. Kon–sighs, for lack of a better idea, and just wraps his arm around Jon. 

“I got you, Jonno,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. He’s not as good at that as Clark is, which is immediately proven by Jon tearing up and just clinging to him, full super-strength and all. A less invulnerable version of him would definitely bruise. 

And literally any baseline human would get their fucking spine crushed.

“I’m not dangerous,” Jon mutters. “And I’m not gonna hurt anybody. You know I wouldn't, right? I–I know you haven't had me yet in your reality, but–” 

Wait. 

What? 

“–but I'm not bad, I wouldn't hurt anyone, I promise, you know you and Mom wouldn't ever have a kid who was bad!” Jon chokes past an almost-sob, and Kon’s stomach sinks like a rock. 

Okay. Jon does not, in fact, have a version of him in his reality. 

Fuck. 

Also, apparently has some really concerning ideas about biological determinism and nature versus nurture and whatever else, but like, he’s like ten, that’s–normal, or whatever, that’s–

Fuck. 

“Jon, kiddo, no, I’m not–” he tries, and then the car dashboard lights up with a low, melodious sound, and Alfred presses a button on the steering wheel. 

“Report,” Batman’s voice says neutrally from the speakers, and Kon immediately winces. 

Well, this is gonna go just great, isn’t it. 

“Well, it seems Batman doesn't yet have to worry about an interdimensional territory dispute,” Alfred informs him dryly. “Superman, however . . .” 

Fuck his entire fucking life, Kon thinks. 

So much for not having to give both of the awkward explanations. 

“. . . Kent,” Bruce says, sounding immediately exasperated and also way less “Batman”, which Kon wishes he could assume were a good sign. “Why the hell did you tell the aid workers you were me?”

[ikemenomegas]

First of all, thank you for making this blog!! Its always a pleasure to have more omega!character blogs here hehe. Really really excited and looking forward to your all your hcs and drabbles 😊

Could I request for itachi and izuna, perhaps how they met their alpha and what made them fall in love? Ty!! 🤍

Hello,

Sorry for making you wait for a reply! I wanted to get to a point in Izuna's fic that it was obvious what was going to happen before I answered, and then I realized I hadn't thought about how Itachi might meet his alpha. Sometimes we like the fluffy stuff and my brain had jumped right over "first meetings" and the hardships of a forming relationship to "domestic/mated" hc's. Here's what I came up with after a few days of thinking it over:

Itachi

When there is a strong enough tie, there is no single way to meet someone who's fate crosses paths with yours

Itachi meets his alpha twice

The first time, you were students in the academy. He was well admired by most of the other students, including the person who would be come his alpha

Even though he graduated early, the alpha stayed friendly with him and asked him how he knew to solve certain problems so quickly - essentially their admiration and friendship became such that the alpha used Itachi as a baseline of success and strove for a level of success that emulated their perceptions of him

When Itachi kills his clan and leaves the village, the alpha doesn't believe that the rumors are telling the whole truth. Itachi never did anything without a reason.

If the Alpha is nosy enough (which they are), they probably find out enough of the truth to either get in trouble and have to flee for safety or simply decide to go find Itachi on their own just like when they were kids, knowing that there's maybe no way home. The Alpha wants to know if their assessment of the situation is correct (but also... the kind of person who would put Itachi through something like this is no one you want to serve)

Itachi's second first meeting is when they're both different people and the Alpha shows up while he and Kisame are wandering around.

"I know what happened," you say. Landing right in front of two Akatsuki members is not the best idea you've ever had, but you're not as scared as you thought you would be. The Hidden Mist shinobi, notable for how he's almost a head and a half taller than Itachi and looks like a shark, catches sight of you and grins. You tear your gaze away from him. You're probably going to die anyways, doesn't matter if it's going to be him or how he's going to do it. "Do you now?" Itachi's eyes and his voice are colder than you remember. You shrug. You made peace with the ways this could go last night. "As much as anyone ever knows anything, based upon their own assumptions." Itachi huffs, you'd almost call it a laugh with how similar it is to the sound he would make every time the two of you had done this in the past. "And what are you assumptions?" he asks, mocking. "That I couldn't be the one to do it?" "That maybe there weren't any other good options." You cocked your head to the side, the same direction Itachi's partner was standing. "Do you really want to do this on the road?" Itachi's eyes were already activated, and it was between one heartbeat and the next that you and he were standing alone, wind bending the grass along the road. You're not sure when he cast the genjustu. It could have been the moment you showed up, it could have been after you began to speak, but he's made it obvious, which at least means he's listening.

Alpha lays out what they've figured out from studying village history, listening to what is said between villagers and other shinobi, and mostly tracking the village's power plays.

Honestly it's not much, since the reality was made of so many secret pieces. The theory mostly started based on the Alpha's confidence that Itachi didn't have the necessary pride to actually kill everyone except his brother as a skill test.

In this case the lack of publicly available knowledge about the sharingan and how it can be activated and passed down worked out in your favor.

Ultimately, they just want to know if he committed the massacre because of an order or a personal issue, although the extremity of his actions makes them suspect it was an order. They also can't figure out who of the elders it could come from. And hey, did he know that there's kids disappearing from the village all the time, doesn't that seem like a huge problem?

Itachi is super exasperated even if his face doesn't do anything. He's supposed to do this alone, not get confronted with the confidence of someone he used to know.

Itachi tries to warn them off, but does admit that the dark side of the village (Danzo) probably has them on a radar by now. Better to let you tag along. At least he can keep an eye on you this way. It wouldn't do for his secrets to get out if you've figure it out. He can always kill you later.

"You aren't getting sentimental on me, are you Itachi?" his companion asks. Itachi blinks, his sharingan fading away. "You can say something when you learn how to cook, Kisame."

Kisame feels offended. There's nothing wrong with raw fish 24/7/365. Does Itachi know how expensive sashimi is when you don't do it yourself?

This new version of Itachi is depressing and depressed. He's not just quiet, he's silent, which is creepy when he sneaks up on you one too many times when you have to move camp further into the woods (you and he are probably 16-17 at this point and the Uchiha have a problem)

He's willing to suffer because he thinks he deserves it and low key makes the first few weeks of camping Worse than necessary to try and get you to leave. But eventually he does let you travel with him, as long as you stay out of sight.

He ends up helping you fake your death (if you didn't already do a good job yourself) after noticing a Root member in a town you've been to with them before and coming up with an excuse for Pain so that Deidara and Hidan the others aren't allowed to kill you on sight.

Itachi falls in love with his Alpha slowly. Honestly the two of them don't realize they've sort of been courting until Kisame points out how much stuff they have in this one sealing scroll and that none of it is his thank you very much.

Which ensures the sort of sibling-like bickering between the Alpha and Kisame that "the scroll doesn't even weigh anything for you, why are you complaining" and he catches himself hiding a smile in his collar and he sort of realizes that he's grown both familiar and comfortable around you.

Not only is he comfortable, he no longer views you as a threat, he feels safe when you're around, there's a reason all the trinkets you've brought one another that aren't edible are in that scroll and it's that he wants them, he wants you around, in a way he hasn't allowed himself to want anything for years.

He likes that you believed in him, he didn't know how much that would mean until he had it.

It makes him feel guilty but also somehow important that this is also an Alpha that, although maybe not intentionally, lost everything looking for him, and is consistently devoted to his comfort and respectful of his boundaries while also somehow drawing him little by little out of the shell he'd built around his heart when he killed almost everyone he was ever told he should love.

He loves that you invent your own little missions in every town they stop in (they're silly things sometimes, other times more complicated and have to do with you finding more ways to protect yourself so Itachi doesn't have to worry about you when you travel)

He thinks it's sweet that the crows he sends to travel with you all end up with a name (... it's the same name, you just call them karasu because "you should call something what it is and it's a crow, Itachi") and sit in the hood of your cloak

When it doesn't annoy him (because you're right) he likes that you say things the way they are, the bluntness is refreshing and different from the way Kisame likes to play with metaphors and thinly veiled hints

Izuna

Izuna meets his Alpha the day they get married

The warring states period is dangerous and messy and people die from things other than war. Izuna was engaged to his Alpha's elder sister (who was a beta) since before he presented as part of a main clan to branch-clan marriage. When she died, her younger sibling, who was an Alpha and who he had never seen before in person or in paintings, is put forth as her replacement.

The ceremony was already scheduled, the dowries (in this case the gifts the mates give each other for they and their families to use) were both prepared, even the clothing was all ready, so the temples just redid Izuna and the Alpha's birth charts and chose the next date that was close to the original

He's nervous during the ceremony because he doesn't know this alpha. Alphas fight in the war, and every amab child is also trained to fight on a battlefield (as opposed to afab kids who are also taught to fight, but more so they have some means of self defense and this has to do with how male omegas can't be identified until they present in adolescence) but there's still stereotypes around how alphas treat omegas

He's one of the Uchiha's best fighters, war is stressful, the Uchiha (of which he is one) are stressful, the daimyo is stressful and annoying. Izuna is very stressed. And he's getting mated and married before Madara does, so he's stressed about doing something before brother in the way that younger siblings get about that sort of thing (smug and also nervous)

But the ceremony is nice, normal, he sneaks glances at you throughout and is at least glad you comport yourself well

Izuna falls in love with his alpha's respect. They don't ask anything of him the first night, or any of the nights they are traveling back to the main compound. They leave that first step to him

In my naruto omegaverse, there's a potential benefit to alpha-omega pairings (beta-omega and beta-alpha pairs might also get this benefit but it's one-sided in favor of the beta and still isn't a guaranteed part of the bond), which is that upon consensually submitting to the mating mark, the alpha-omega pair have a better sense of one anothers' location and have better coordination with one another over all because of it. For battle-pairs this could provide an incredible edge.

Because no one except his brother and Tobirama have ever been able to keep up with him in a fight, Izuna is a little more interested in a second effect, which is that alpha-omega pairs who are well bonded (usually has to include emotionally aligned) have a slight but documented increase in base power level. For Uchiha for whom love (and fear of loss/hate after loss) is sort of the thing that fuels them, this is a little bit more than average. (There's a whole thing about how the organ associated with fire in eastern medicine is the heart and how fire is the Uchiha element etc etc)

So not gonna lie, he's a little in love with the power that mating gets him, but he's also a little proud that he and his mate have the kind of bond that does that.

But he also loves how they care for the clan. His Alpha was trained in chakra control and has taken on roles as a field medic in the past. They also have natural sensory abilities that were honed in the years before they joined the battlefield. They use these skills to look out for the clan in a way that Izuna can't, or cover for place he can't be, which makes him very happy.

They also try to keep up with him regarding field skills, which he finds and endearing and encourages. He loves that his Alpha wants to stand by his side. By the time he and his Alpha have been mated for about two years, they're able to take most missions together. The only thing he will not permit is for his Alpha to be on the front lines with him when they are fighting the Senju, because inevitably when Hashirama or Tobirama are there, the other is not far, and he and Madara must go together in order to meet them.

He also loves how they understand how being an Omega complicates his life as a key fighter for the clan. If there is a "moment" when he realizes how much he could come to love this Alpha, it's when they help him end his heat early using a safe herbal tincture so that he can go to battle without the handicap of needing to ignore it, rather than pushing for him to spend it with them.

Izuna and his Alpha's relationship is largely built on the two of them listening to one anothers' needs and figuring out how to meet them.

part 1 of their fic is linked here!

[shaymcsudonim]

I have no idea what the fuck liebe's legal status is, but some details in this chapter offer hints.

First off, asta's appearance.

Fuegoleon mentioned that people know that Asta uses a devil's power, and yet he hasn't been convicted of any crimes.

Once the anime finishes the spade arc, I bet they're going to start another filler arc to explain what happened during the year and change time skip, but until then, all we've got is speculation.

First thing to consider is Asta's appearance. It looks like he's wearing a long glove to cover up his demon arm, but also that he's keeping his other sleeve rolled up so that everyone can see his friendship bracelet... I mean his mark from the devil friending ceremony. Wait, shit.

You guys know what I mean. The official name is probably 'Contract Seal' or something similar, but there's nothing official or traditional about the way Asta and Liebe work together.

The final detail to consider, one that I actually missed the first read through, is that Liebe is sitting on Asta's shoulder for most of the ceremony, only returning to the grimoire once he realizes that Asta's about to confess his love for a nun, and that if he stays he'll have to watch.

So, in summary, Asta seems willing to make some concessions towards making people more comfortable/allowing them to pretend that he doesn't use demonic powers... but that these concessions begin and end with covering up his demon arm. He won't cover the mark on his wrist, and he won't ask Liebe to stay in the grimoire to be less conspicuous.

To your average person, it probably looks a lot like Asta is getting strung along by a demon, and that one day he'll be betrayed.

To be fair though, their 'Contract' probably looks far more ridiculous from a demon perspective. The whole system of 'devil's bargains' and 'devil binding ceremonies' is built around the core assumption that of course devils and humans would only interact for the purposes of exploiting each other.

Zenon had to trade his soul for a demon's heart, Vanica's deals apparently left her vulnerable to possession, and Dante was probably left to die once he was no longer useful. Lucius seems to be the only Zogratis sibling who managed to exploit demons using devil binding agreements in the same way that the Faust family managed to subdue them through devil binding rituals.

At this point I have no idea where the arc is going, which with only one chapter out isn't surprising, so I guess I'll just end by observing that Liebe seems to have reverted to his baseline antisocial self.

He was probably watching Asta's actions just as much during the first two arcs, and the only difference now is that we can see him there, that now we are blessed with a 'live liebe reaction' as it were.

And I, for one, find it hilarious.

[andysmetahell]

One for All and All for One: The study in complimentary and infinite (wasted) potentials

One for All and All for One: two Quirks whose history we can, in the universe of Boku no Hero Academia, treat almost as the history of society. Their users had left enormous impact on everyone in the series, and through hints we can see their influence stretching long, long back to the first appearance of the Quirks.

Neither Quirk can be considered ‘normal’, though: the ability to take away Quirks at whim and an ability to share Quirks with others (which would inevitably leave you Quirkless) are both complete anathemas to the society that by and large is half-in love with the idea of simply having a Quirk (which deserves a whole breakdown in on itself, but that’s not what I’ll be writing about here!). And yet, One For All users are all heroes, and All for One users are all villains as far as we know (written after the release of manga chapter 280).

How is that even possible? With how objectively similar they are, why aren’t they both heroes, or both villains?

Well, before we take a crack at how Horikoshi coded the Hero society that made this happen, let’s first take a look at just why I’m so surprised the two Quirks aren’t on the same ‘side’. Also, obligatory ‘spoilers ahead’ warning for everyone who’re anime-only watchers, or haven’t gotten past Meta Liberation Army arc in manga.

Purely from the activation/mechanics point of view, All for One and One for All are warped mirror images of each other. All for One functions on the assumption that a) the user knows the other person has a Quirk and b) the Quirk doesn’t have an inherent clause that disallows itself to be taken by force when it comes to taking it. One for All is the only Quirk so far that has shown the resistance to the b), as it is encoded in the very nature of the ‘share-along’ Quirk that forms the true base of One for All that it can only be given away willingly.

Why is this so important? Because All for One doesn’t only take Quirks, it’s also capable of releasing them and giving them to others, whether the recipient is willing or unwilling. In this regard, One for All is startlingly identical: it can be forced upon someone else, as long as the DNA is exchanged and the previous user is willing to give it away. This little fact is often overlooked (likely deliberately) by the existing canon in favor of emphasizing the ‘cannot be taken forcefully away’ which makes sense plot-wise, but not ethics and logic-wise.

But who knows, maybe Horikoshi is holding back on us, and One for All ends up being the ultimate villain of the story.

… yeah, not likely. But the idea is interesting, isn’t it?

Moving onto the way they interact with their users and other Quirks, One for All and All for One are again very, very different, but with a shared approximate visualization of usage behind it. The closest approximation of how they interact with other Quirks would be, in my opinion, be gravity – but two very different applications of gravity.

There are two relevant things you need to know about gravity: it is defined by the masses of an object interacting with another object, and every single object in the universe has its own gravity field. (thank you, Physics nationals I went to once, for forcing me to learn more about gravity!)

All for One is more akin to a star within a stable planetary system: it holds planets, satellites and comets (other Quirks) locked in its orbit, but any change can make all those objects lose their orbits and go wander in the deep space. Its hold is strong, but the fact still remains it can be nullified in order to give away Quirks. It’s also stable – its attraction/hold power doesn’t change with the number of Quirks taken, it simply gives it a bigger array of powers to work with.

One for All on the other hand would be closer to black hole: its gravity is so enormous even light, the fastest object in the universe, cannot escape it, and its mass (and therefore its gravity) grows stronger with every object it swallows. Once it grabs a hold of anything (its user’s other Quirk) it merges it with itself and keeps it for forever, with very little chance of it ever surfacing again as individual Quirk (unless your name is Midoriya Izuku). However, it heavily relies on the energy (other Quirks it merges with) to provide power-ups; hence the ridiculous difference between Izuku’s and Toshinori’s One for All. (also protagonst shenanigans, but we’re not going that far into metatextuality here – that needs its own essay)

So, concept-wise, One for All and All for One are again identical in the idea behind it, but drastically different in application – both still fucking scary, but what can we do here, our main protagonist and antagonist need to have OP armor around themselves.

This leads us to the probably the biggest spoiler I’ll discuss in this essay:

this panel.

In chapter 270 of manga, Shigaraki Tomura is revealed to have been passed All for One, which is a whole mindfuck in on itself that Horikoshi needs to explain stat because I’m going crazy over here with theories (!!!), but moving on. The short and extremely brief summary of what happens afterwards is: Heroes discover where Tomura is while he’s still being transferred All for One, they wreck the Nomus and facility, Shigaraki gets partial All for One and his original Quirk Decay goes absolutely nuts again, Izuku runs off to face him, and at one point point, while using Ragdoll’s Search, Shigakari utters a very strange sentence while seemingly under the influence of All for One (the Quirk):

“You will be mine… little brother.”

Moments later, Shigaraki snaps out of it and comments about Sensei (All for One) no longer being his puppeteer, that he’s making his own choices and not Sensei’s.

Here we get a stunning punch in the plexus about what we already have been hinted at during Izuku’s fight with Shinsou Hitoshi, during Kamino Ward and Joint Training Arcs:

One for All and All for One both retain the echoes of their past owners.

Now, here comes a million dollar question: is this something both the baseline ‘share’ part of One for All and All for One possess (which would further link the two Quirks, and also explain a lot of characterizations in the series so far), or is it an imprint of All for One on ‘stockpile’ part of One for All that ‘share’ part absorbed and made its own? Both possibilities are extremely intriguing and make any future possibility of unification (which was apparently Sensei’s original goal before, judging by that one panel) extremely volatile, and very intriguing if Horikoshi pursues that idea to its end.

Speaking of the man himself, now we arrive at the question that really started the whole essay here: how come it was All for One chosen to be the ultimate evil, and One for All to be ultimate good? As we’ve seen so far, both Quirks are startlingly similar; theoretically, could All for One be a ‘heroic’ Quirk and One for One for All ‘villainous’?

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because theoretically, switching the two would still make the story work; it’d change the motivations of characters drastically, sure, and turn the story of generations of good trying defeat one evil into one good fending off generations of evil, but it’d work – and no, because that’d fundamentally change the society in which Boku no Hero Academia’s current time frame is, and society is the key underlying factor in this entire story.

Let me explain through the examples of three characters and a faction.

Midoriya Izuku is Quirkless person in a society who is, like I said at the beginning, half-in love with the idea of having Quirks – the fact that you have them makes you seem useful, someone with potential, no matter how objectively useless some Quirks inevitably can be in certain lines of work. By their standards, he’s without potential, and therefore is largely useless out of gate. Had All for One been in public eye and celebrated as Hero, he’d be the pinnacle of useful: there’d be no danger of bad reactions to donated Quirks in his DNA, and he, someone who wishes desperately for a Quirk, could easily be given a Quirk of someone who finds their life unbearable due to it.

Bakugou Katsuki, someone with extremely property-damaging Quirk, would constantly be told that if he doesn’t behave himself, he’d be sent off to All for One to have his Quirk taken away – in essence, he’d be no one special, just another kid with a Quirk. Since All for One is so visible, it’d be all too easy for parents and teachers to threaten their kids into compliance whenever they throw an over-powered tantrum with the removal of a Quirk; it’d also be a good deterrent for any Pro Heroes that existed there to not get too comfy with their jobs, because they could easily be taken out of it if they manage to anger All for One enough, which would deter some people from being Pro Heroes.

Shigaraki Tomura (Shimura Tenko), someone whose Quirk came in during an extremely traumatic event and left him so scarred mentally he was never quite the same again, could easily simply give away his Quirk and have something far less volatile and triggering if he wished so, and also have a chance of potentially one day seeing his Quirk in the hands of someone like Izuku or Melissa, who could use it to its full potential without being constantly triggered by it or being re-traumatized again and again by the society who would rail on him for having such a potentially devastating Quirk.

Meta Liberation Army (which is a poorly disguised Brotherhood of Mutants on Genosha in X-men cartoons, let’s be realistic – the whole thing about the superiority of fight-compatible Quirks was not subtle at all) would be a much smaller and a lot less influential group. The publicity of a Quirk being able to take away other Quirks would make the existence of Deika City clones very, very difficult; it’d take but one hint, one whisper of a fringe group amassing in remote location that wants to eliminate so-called ‘useless Quirks’ for All for One to act – as much of an asshole as he is, he was shown [cite] to like all kinds of Quirks, despite only keeping the ones he felt were the most useful to him.

OK, but what about them being on the same side? You might ask yourself. If they’re so similar, why not make them both on the same side?

One, drama is always more delicious if there are high personal stakes involved, and nothing gets more personal than family drama – that’s just a fact. (Kardashians, anyone?)

Two, this is shonen – openly bad guys being the protagonists isn’t often done (in mainstream at least).

Three: we need some material to make all those ‘Izuku’s related to All for One or One for All first user’ for our satisfaction before Horikoshi josses the whole thing, okay??

(no, this is certainly not a call for you to make more ‘Izuku is related to original two brothers’… but it’s heavily suggested lol)

Thank you for sticking around until the end of this essay! Have a cookie, and enjoy the hell my mind led me to during the binge-read of the last 5 released chapters of manga:

[mittensmorgul]

7.08, Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

Sam's absolute belief that he's in the right, and the real problem is actually Dean's that I addressed in my 7.06-7.09 post, and the toxic root of that assumption, is on perfect display in this episode. Once again, Sam can't see how off base his stand is-- like when he was addicted to demon blood in s4, or at the mercy of his Hallucifering in s7. But this time there is a clear and obvious source for WHY he's so absolutely convinced of his belief. We the audience are shown exactly how Sam could be so self-deluded to the point he doesn't even recognize how horrifying his own situation really is. And it's delivered in ever-increasing doses from a flask of purple liquid.

Each time Becky doses him, it takes more to achieve the desired effect and wears off quicker, because it's been a scam all along. The demon who pretends to be an innocent "wiccan," who convinces her that there's nothing morally wrong with using a love potion because "it wouldn't work if Sam didn't love her deep down," shows us another entire level to Sam's self-delusion-- how much he absolutely needs to convince himself that he is okay, that his issues are manageable, that he's really in control, and not being completely manipulated into what he wants to believe.

And isn't that one of the big themes of Dabb Era overall, post 14.20?

I set this post aside from the group post I made for 6, 7, and 9, because I specifically wanted to focus on the character of Becky. Her first appearance in 5.01 was never intended to be a pure representation of "Supernatural Fandom." She's the outlier who should not have been counted-- which was exactly why Chuck chose HER. She was the one who wrote wincest smut and was 100% ready to believe that Supernatural was all real, despite having no experience with the supernatural in her own life. She never saw a ghost, never encountered a monster, and yet her entire character was based around her complete inability to tell reality from fantasy (or at least the assumption that HER reading of the story was real). I mean, her very first line ever was:

BECKY: "And then Sam touched—" No. "—caressed Dean's clavicle. 'This is wrong,' said Dean. 'Then I don't want to be right,' replied Sam, in a husky voice."

and then when confronted with the creator questioning her read:

CHUCK: Oh. Yeah. No, yeah. You're my...number-one fan. That's why I contacted you. You're the only one who will believe me. BECKY: Are you all right? CHUCK: No. I'm being watched. Okay, not, not now—at least, I don't think so. But I don't have much time. I need your help. BECKY: You need my help? CHUCK: That's right. I need you to get a message to Sam and Dean. Okay? BECKY sighs, reality intruding. BECKY: Look, Mr. Edlund... Yes, I'm a fan, but I really don't appreciate being mocked. I know that Supernatural's just a book, okay? I know the difference between fantasy and reality. CHUCK: Becky, it's all real. BECKY snaps back to overexcitedness. BECKY: I knew it!

Becky believes her entire read of the story has been validated, and she just... goes on to be super-creepy toward Sam from then on out. And we know her perception of "Real Sam" is still sorely lacking, because what she believes is now "true" of him is only part of the story. We know Chuck left out crucial info from the books (hello Lizbob's excellent meta about Book Fandom vs Show Fandom), so Becky really has no idea just how... off... her baseline assumptions really are.

To that end, we got one of my favorite visual metaphors in this episode. The Waffle Iron. I have a tag for waffles. Waffles on this show are as much a thing as El Sol Beer, and serve a similar function. After Sam tells Dean off at his wedding for not accepting his choice to marry Becky, and for being vehemently suspicious of just how Becky managed to convince Sam that he was in love with her, Dean brings Sam a waffle iron as a peacemaking gesture:

Dean: It’s a waffle iron. Nonstick. You just…I actually don’t know how to use it. We good?

He doesn't know anything about it, aside from the fact it seems like a traditional wedding gift. It's a surface-level placating gesture, which Dean almost immediately undermines at the pretense it was to get himself in the door (hello, trickery of El Sol Lite metaphors), almost immediately questioning Sam's relationship with Becky again:

DEAN: All right, listen, Cookie, I don't know what kind of mojo you're working, but, believe me, I will find out. SAM: Dean, that's...my wife you're talking to. DEAN: You're not even acting like yourself, Sam! SAM: How am I not? DEAN: You married Becky Rosen! BECKY: What are you saying? I'm a witch? Or maybe I'm a siren. Ever occur to you we're just – I don't know – happy? DEAN: Come on, Sam! Guy wins the lotto, guy hits the bigs. All right, obviously, uh, people's dreams are coming true in this town. Don't you think this is a little bit of a coincidence? SAM: You know what, Dean? What Becky and I have is real. And if you can't accept that, that's your problem, not ours. DEAN: Or maybe she's part of it. Because for whatever reason, you're her dream. If you really do care about her, I'd be worried. Because people who do get their little fantasies or whatever seem to end up dead pretty quick. SAM: You know, I went after her, Dean. Maybe that's what's bugging you – that I'm moving on with my life. I mean, you took care of me, and that's great. But I don't need you anymore.

And he didn't even get to eat a waffle! When Becky's potion stops working (through what's likely a deliberate manipulation by the demon slowly luring her in), she uses the waffle iron to knock Sam out. There's the revelation of the deception. When Sam wakes up again, he's tied to a bed and gagged. But hey, at least he starts getting the truth. Sorry it took getting clocked with a waffle iron for it to happen...

[typicalclint]

One last 3 am Ramble before I go to bed because it is something that’s been on my mind all week: S H I P P I N G.

If you asked me, “Spade, what do you ship for Clint?” I would perhaps assume that you are asking who I think pairs up well with Clint romantically based on the fact that this is the $1,000,000 question on everybody’s mind in the RP world.

If I were to answer, romantically speaking, I would say, “Chemistry.” Perhaps you’d be reluctant to follow up, “But Spade, you Clintasha shipping trash, we’ve seen all the reblogs!!” Alright you got me there, but let me reiterate: I ship chemistry. This brings me to a very valuable point regarding my Hawkeye that I will hope dispel some assumptions you may or may not have about him. I have been roleplaying Clint Barton for what is coming up to be six years now. My interpretation on Tumblr is actually the second iteration of Clint I have written, and it all began with the intent that I would refuse to pair him up with any other muse. Period. And this is where ‘chemistry’ comes in. I started to roleplay with a very strong writer, with brilliant ideas, and with the same energy that just clicked with mine. Our muses had: Chemistry. By coincidence it was a Natasha ( @kxtiik ) With whom I’ve grown my stories with for 4 years! “Soooo, Spade, are you an exclusive ship with that Nat then?” My response is, no. I am not. But I want to take this moment to explain why:. I refuse to limit the possibility for stories by making myself exclusive, however this is not to say I am not VERY VERY VERY PICKY. When it comes to Clint I am very protective and particular. I look for profound writing with my partners, and I’ve rarely found that, let alone found any sort of romantic correlation between Clint and another muse. Clint simply has never shown interest in anyone else, however I personally am a multishipper, but I will always listen to my muse first and foremost. For starters just to establish a baseline, I consider Clint to be heterosexual. He is very attracted to women, but he’s never been much of a flirt which is where my Hawkeye skews away from the comics. Again, I want to reiterate that I will not dismiss the possibility of him falling in love again, but...it’s been 4 years of writing that he’s never looked at anyone else, so you know...it may take a while. Every ship would of course exist in it’s own separate universe. “Ok but is it just Clintasha, what are you saying?” Not necessarily. I adore Clint and Bobbi in the comics, and in fact have incorporated pieces of that storyline into my mainverse such as the fact that Clint was divorced when he met his mainverse Nat. I wouldn’t mind the idea of Clint with a very thoughtfully written and powerful OC. Heck, I wouldn’t even dismiss the idea of other Marvel characters I haven’t even considered if the writing was very strong and there was a strong chemistry, but again it ALL comes down to chemistry. I suppose the start of these thoughts derives from being badgered for so long about who I ship with who on this blog as well as others. Honest to God’s truth I don’t care who Clint is sleeping with as long as he is in love with them, the chemistry is there and we as Muns click. My goal as a roleplayer is to explore the human condition. I want to explore friendships, mentorships, commraderie, all the elements that make complex characters. Give me an in depth experience about why people do, or say certain things. Give me unrequited love, give me platonic love, give me all the layers. This blog isn’t exclusive, but this isn’t a dating blog either. Let’s write stories we can both laugh about and learn from. With that I will force myself to bow out of this 3am ramble as I do have work in a few. Thanks for a moment of your time and I’d love to hear what thoughts you all have about this or similar issues you’ve experienced.))

[distort-opia]

#very interesting analysis... especially the whole part about him leaving it up to other people to navigate the fallout of his emotions#and how closely guarded and craved his approval is#i will NEVER forget the scene in batman and robin eternal where bruce praises dick to distract from the fact that he's lying#and it works because dick is so desperate for bruce's approval that he doesn't want to lose it by pushing further#anyway i think the whole emotional labor thing you lay out is exactly why so many of the 2022 'batdad' posts rub me the wrong way#because so many of them make the baseline assumption that giving bruce a child would fix him and he'd become healthier to take care of dick#which is. a) not at all how becoming a parent works in real life. becoming responsible for a child does not fix your emotional problems#and b) it's not even how becoming a parent worked in the actual batman comics#and in-universe dick's belief that he COULD make bruce a happier and healthier person has caused him nothing but grief#which is demonstrated in a lot of comics but especially in tim's urban legends coming out storyline#where he literally tells tim point blank that trying to make bruce happy is a black hole of emotional labor#but i think the ending of that story is also important. when bruce says that tim being happy makes him happy#because like you said. it's his empathy for other children in similar situations that leads him to take them on as proteges#so them managing to grow up into healthy well-adjusted people is something that brings him happiness#even if (especially if?) he knows that it was more in spite of him than because of him#although the last scene of teen titans: year one is an especially haunting examination#of bruce realizing that dick has the opportunity to become happy and healthy by growing away from him#but bruce's pathological need for dick to stay with him and make him happy manages to overwhelm his desire for dick's happiness#so i guess it's kind of a toss up#although maybe he's just gotten better control of that in the many years since dick has been robin

Thank you! And don’t hide your quality additions in the tags :)) Very good point about Dick, and tbh, it’s interesting that if you’d ask which of them I feel have suffered the most... I’d think Dick. He’s Bruce’s favorite, but it’s such a double-edged sword. Dick breaks through Bruce’s walls easier, he gets listened to more often and he’s trusted with many things others aren’t, but that also means he has to keep fighting for it. And that’s worn him down and caused him to be so unhappy, because Bruce is (in Dick’s own words) a black hole in this regard: he absorbs, but he doesn’t return nearly as much. I didn’t touch upon it enough when I mentioned Bruce’s ruthlessness, but there is a calculated element to his behavior, I think. In the case you mentioned in Batman & Robin Eternal, he is aware enough of his effect on Dick, and on the others, to manipulate them successfully. Tbh, he kind of did this in Court of Owls too; after he punches Dick for a hard-to-justify reason, he later admits to needing him, and then Dick jokingly says ‘now I can’t punch you back anymore’. They’re aware too, that Bruce does some of it on purpose, despite his justifications to them and to himself. In Detective Comics, after Tim apparently dies and Stephanie starts to act out in her grief, there’s this line that stuck with me:

“Even if he doesn’t think that’s what’s he’s doing, that’s what’s he’s doing. I don’t even blame him for it.”

I love your Batman meta related posts, and I enjoy reading through them. I’ve noticed that a common theme in some of them revolve around Bruce being an abusive parent. I’m sorry if this is too much to ask, but may you please go over some examples of Bruce being abusive to the batfam, and how it’s not an OOC characterization for him?

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy my occasional Batman thoughts. Indeed, I've expressed more than once that I do believe Bruce is an abusive parent -- though I feel like others before me have articulated the reasons for it far better. Which is why I will offer some of my opinions below, but I will also redirect you to a couple of metas on this topic I myself agreed with and found interesting, which contain examples of Bruce being abusive (with comic receipts a lot of the time): here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here... look, pretty much go through the “Batman’s C+ parenting” tag of bitimdrake’s blog :)) Many bingeable good metas to read.

I think it's very important to note that abuse is a heavy and complicated topic. People perceive and deal with abuse very differently; and people become abusers in different ways. You can certainly encounter individuals who maliciously and intentionally use their power or privilege to abuse others, but more often than not it's not that simple. It's not that black and white. Sometimes, a parent might genuinely love their child, but they might have no idea how to express themselves healthily or raise them, and they might end up doing a lot of emotional damage to their child because of it. And in my opinion, Bruce falls in the second category. He doesn't intend to harm his children, emotionally or physically -- but he ends up doing it nonetheless, again and again. That’s not to say Bruce can’t be a good parent. He has been; he’s supported the Family, he’s praised them, he’s shown them he cares, and I’m pretty sure he’d die for them if he needed to. And that’s the most interesting part: he’s a realistic parent with abusive tendencies. He’s human. He’s fallible. He loves his children and he tries his best, and he’s learned a lot over time; but he also makes a lot of mistakes.

I’ll go into more detail on each type of abusive behavior he displays (so warning for that), and why I don’t consider it OOC, under the cut. Because I was like ‘haha I’ll just link some metas’ but then I got long again. Sigh.

It's a joke that's made a lot, how Batman is supposed to be a loner, and yet he has one of the most extensive Families and ally circles in DC. But once you get to know the character, it's not at all a contradiction. Bruce lost his family, and that trauma shaped him. It's the basis of Batman. It makes perfect sense that he'd yearn to create one of his own... but the problem is, his desire for connection is many times outweighed by his absolute, paralyzing fear of it. If he has a family, if he has people he cares about, then he can lose them. Bruce is terrified of loss, and this fear is one of the main roots of his pattern of emotional abuse.

This pattern tends to manifest in three forms. The first is neglect. He distances himself from his children, treats them as soldiers in his neverending war on crime, keeps them at arms length -- both because he wants it to hurt less if he loses them, and because he's never developed a healthy way of dealing with his own or others' emotions. In many ways, it's self-preservation, and not just towards the Family. In general, Bruce's repression, intellectualization, and emotional distancing is a way to avoid being hurt. This drives his belief that emotional attachments are, in the end, a weakness. He can't focus on the Mission if he's constantly worried about the people fighting alongside him... but he also needs them. And here one of Bruce's darker traits come in, too: his ruthlessness. He can't be everywhere all at once, he can't operate alone and be as efficient as when having a small army of trained soldiers at his side. For the sake of the Mission being fulfilled, and with the goal of protecting Gotham and saving as many people as possible, he allows the Batfamily to exist. Bruce is capable of 'turning off' his emotions and only acting in the interest of a higher goal, in a way that's hurt and pissed off his friends and Family multiple times. I'm not at all saying he doesn't love them, or care about them. That's the crux of the matter. He does care, and he's afraid of what happens when he cares, which again and again prompts him to act cold and distant and emotionally push them away. But, ironically enough, it's this exact same issue that leads him to display the third kind of emotionally abusive behavior: excessive control.

Bruce has been shown to be invasive and manipulative, wanting all of them to follow his orders and punishing them in various way when they don’t -- because, if you're terrified of losing something, one way to ensure you're not going to lose it is to contain it, and never take your eyes off it. Carefully control it. See, he can't entirely cut all ties, both because he loves them and because he needs them from a utilitarian point of view. But he can try to emotionally protect himself by distancing, and he can try to protect them by controlling them. By knowing everything that goes on in their lives, and (sadly) trying to get them to make choices he would make. He’s got a bit of a thing when it comes to rewarding the Family for acting the same way he does. It’s a complicated mix of Bruce’s arrogance, God complex and that controlling overprotective streak I mentioned; it’s ‘I think of every worst-case scenario and prepare for everything and train for everything and essentially try to become God, so if you act the same way I do, you will be safer and less likely to get hurt.’

The third form of his emotionally abusive pattern is the expectation for others to prioritize and handle his emotions. This pretty much follows the other two kinds; Bruce does say very hurtful things, he pushes people away, he keeps secrets and refuses to ask for help or include his children in intimate aspects of his life; but he also expects them to not let him do it, and it's... this one is really tough. I don't think it's ever quite hit him, the realization of his egocentrism: the way he makes so many things about himself. His emotions and his state of being are the priority, for his kids, and they always watch out for Bruce's anger, for his self-destructive tendencies, for signs of him retreating so they can pull him back from the brink, and the thing is, that's not their job. The kid is not supposed to take care of the parent, it's supposed to be the other way around. But more often than not, it's not Bruce handling his childrens' emotions, it's them navigating his. Dick and Tim, especially, are subject to this. Hell, Tim basically became Robin because he saw how Bruce was spiralling and went 'is no one gonna take care of that??', stepping into the role himself when Dick refused to (and good for him). And thing is, while a huge part of why Bruce adopted and trained them is empathizing with their traumas and caring about them, another part of it is... a need for grounding himself. Bruce knows he's always walking the line. He knows he's got a lot of darkness that he's always fighting to keep contained, and he can't manage it alone. He keeps himself human through his connections, his attachments; his Family, most of all. And so, it's not surprising that his children end up having to chase Bruce and figure out his emotions and take care of him, make him socialize and act like a person -- it's part of why Bruce forged these relationships in the first place. But it's still not fair to any of them. And it's impacted them in various unhealthy ways. There's certainly an argument to be made that some of them began to base their value, and self-worth, in how useful they were to Bruce. Bruce's approval is something that's so deeply craved in the core Family circle, and it's... sigh. It's downright insidious, sometimes. Bruce does so many shitty things, but they keep coming back, often at token signs of apology from Bruce or barely any crumbs at all.

And if it were only that. But Bruce's grief and his fear of loss always turn to anger. Batman is fueled by that anger, and Bruce has... lots of issues in dealing with it and venting it in a healthy way (see the above general issues in handling his own emotions). And so, you have the pattern of physical abuse, and not just the emotional I described above. In his grief and his anger, Bruce has exploded and hit his children more than once. It's tough to say who suffered more from this: Dick or Jason. Maybe Jason, since Bruce's tremendous amount of guilt and self-hatred towards him just turns into more anger, and that translates into even more potential violence. Especially when Jason breaches Bruce's rules. He gets very angry when anyone breaches his imposed rules, especially the no-killing one, and here’s where his harmful need for absolute control and some of that arrogance come in. Bruce justifies this kind of behavior in various ways (and the narrative does too, because it has to -- Batman has to be the hero), the most prevalent excuse being his treatment of them as soldiers, or a downright refusal to admit he’s even viewed as a father figure by them. This is an overarching issue in itself, his reluctance to admit he’s wrong.

In the end, so much of this has roots in Bruce’s trauma, which is the main reason why I don’t see it as OOC. He tries to save everyone because he couldn’t save his parents back then. He’s so controlling because he cannot even conceive of ever being that helpless again; he’s terrified of losing the people he cares about and still so incandescently angry at the criminals that took them away. Needless to say, he’s plenty neurodivergent, too. And disappearing for over a decade and training for being Batman, being away from Alfred and having his parents taken away at such a young age... never afforded him the opportunity to learn healthy ways of emotionally regulating himself. Neither did it teach him to reach out to others in a healthy way. And all the resulting issues, that he’s never truly dealt with constructively, converge in all the ways Bruce has fallen into abusive behaviors as a parental figure.

Hope you’ve found this an interesting read! I tried to keep it as general as possible, seeing as the metas before I’ve linked are a lot more specific. I also want to assert that this is my personal assessment of Bruce’s character, and that (obviously) everyone is free to create their own interpretation; I take no issue with people who prefer to headcanon and write Bruce solely as a good parent. But the canon reality of him not being one does exist, and is still interesting to dissect.

[junker-town]

No one can deny Andy Reid’s impact on football ever again

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Andy Reid’s Super Bowl victory means we can finally appreciate him for who he is.

His reputation was always unfair, but for a long time Andy Reid coaching your football team felt like both the best and worst thing that could happen to it.

Best, because he quickly established a high baseline level of competence. He coached playoff teams in 15 of the 21 years he’s been the head coach of the Eagles and the Chiefs. Worst, because he had established a pattern of screwing up in the clutch.

Specifically, Reid botched clock management, particularly in the postseason. The Eagles lost three straight NFC Championship games under Reid before finally making a Super Bowl. Then they lost that game when they piddled away nearly four minutes scoring a late touchdown, leaving almost no time to get the second score they needed against the Patriots.

When Reid went to Kansas City in 2013, he took over a 4-12 team and immediately got it to 11-5. He has since missed the playoffs just once with the Chiefs, but he also introduced a formerly championship-starved fanbase to a new brand of heartache. In 2016 and 2017, his team once again moved at snail’s pace on crucial fourth-quarter drives in postseason losses. In 2018, the Chiefs had a 21-3 lead over the Titans in the Wild Card Round, and were shut out in the second half of a 22-21 loss. The next year, Reid suffered the fifth conference championship game loss of his career after a wild fourth quarter against the Pats.

In short, Reid’s teams consistently collapsed in pivotal moments, and masked everything that made him a brilliant head coach the 99 percent of the time when he wasn’t managing good teams in late-game situations.

By several measures, he is one of the best offensive minds the NFL has ever seen. Pro Football Focus determined that Reid was one of the NFL’s top 10 play callers every season from 2014 to 2019, notably finishing first by its metric the last two seasons. In cruder measures, Reid-coached teams have finished top 10 in total offense nine times and top 10 in scoring 13 times in his 21 seasons.

Reid has been called “innovative,” but a better term would be “studious.” His offensive philosophy has evolved steadily from his West Coast education because he pays attention to what everyone else is doing, particularly at the college level. A good anecdote illustrating how Reid stays on the “cutting edge” is this from The Ringer’s Kevin Clark:

In 2013, I sat down with Reid in a plain room in a college building in St. Joseph, Missouri, where the Chiefs held their training camp. He told me that the college game is five years ahead of the pro game and that in five years, the spread offenses that had thoroughly dominated the college game would finally dominate the NFL. Five years later, it happened. The Eagles beat the Patriots in what Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley told me looked like a Big 12 game.

The game that arguably started Kansas City’s reign as the NFL’s incubator for offensive ideas was the 2017 season-opening win against the defending-champion Patriots, which included Travis Kelce running the read option. This year, the Chiefs leaned so far into researching college offenses that they successfully ran a play that Michigan used in the 1948 Rose Bowl.

Reid may be an offensive genius, but more than that he is open-minded and malleable. That is harder to accomplish than it sounds considering how many coaches get fired every year by clinging too tightly to a dogma that they don’t realize is a sinking ship until much too late. In a profession where even if a coach doesn’t screw up the Xs and Os, they tend to fall afoul of personality disputes with players and upper management, Reid has only ever had long tenures.

Reid seems to nurture relationships. His assistants almost always come out better people than when they came into his fold, creating one of the strongest coaching trees in the game. In contrast, Bill Belichick assistants keep getting head coaching opportunities despite a terrible track record.

Reid and Belichick are arguably the two most accomplished active head coaches in the league. The difference between their coaching trees may have to do with their personalities. Both have succeeded in similar ways, foremost by never treating their prevailing philosophies as so precious that they can’t be re-thought. But where Belichick has also become a stand-in for curmudgeonly Do Your Job toughness, Reid represents nothing more than the importance of being utterly and simply oneself. And where Belichick’s assistants have failed by only adopting Belichick’s talent for being an inscrutable jerk, Reid’s example isn’t so easily misconstrued: Enjoy the game, and don’t ever believe you’ve mastered it.

Reid has never taken the game too seriously. Or at least, he’s not above being humbled by it. He has been tagged as a coach who Can’t Win The Big One since early in his Eagles tenure, and answered the same needling questions for decades now. Being the “winningest coach without a Super Bowl” is more an indictment than praise. But in response to the idea that he needed to win a Super Bowl to cement his legacy, he was adamant that football’s intrinsic value meant more to him.

Just then, Reid was answering a question from a reporter by explaining that, once he has taught players the right way to play, he wants them to enjoy it.

”Why ruin something they love doing?” he asked.

It seems the rest of us are intent on doing the same with Reid’s record. However much Reid may privately burn for that championship, everyone else seems to be in a rush to ruin something he has loved by pointing out its flaw.

”It’s not about me getting over the hump,” Reid said. “It’s about our team playing well. That’s what I’m into.”

More than anything, Reid is really likable. He is one of the few coaches who has found success without giving himself up to the current of hyper-machismo that has always run through football. He grew up under the dual influences of a radiologist mother and an artist father, and majored in English at BYU, where he wrote creative sports columns. Instead of grumbling through every public interaction, he does things like offer up his famous mac ‘n’ cheese recipe. He likes Hawaiian shirts and celebrates big wins with his team under the novel assumption that sports are supposed to be fun.

I’m fairly confident that almost nothing Reid does is an act, which may make him the only coach in pro football who isn’t posturing in some way. The outpouring of love for the coach from current and former players before and after Super Bowl seems to confirm as much. Even the Eagles organization was stoked to see him win the big one despite their bittersweet relationship.

Reid comes off as stable and consistent and amenable, and that has led to a team culture that feels the same way. If it took a while to lead to a Super Bowl ring, that may say more about the inherent cruelty of football than some inherent problem with Reid.

Ultimately, I think Reid’s career illustrates two things:

Just how much one’s legacy is determined at the margins. That’s especially the case in football, in which the Super Bowl is disproportionately weighted within American sports culture, and the postseason is single elimination, making it easy for anyone to gain a reputation as a choke artist in just a few missteps. And ...

That being genial, patient, nurturing, hard working and empathetic is still, and can always be, a path to success. In football or otherwise.

Until Sunday’s Super Bowl victory, it looked as if the first point might submerge the second in the long story of Andy Reid. He shouldn’t have needed to win a Super Bowl to be properly appreciated, of course, but now that he will be getting a ring, it’s nice to know that the record will be corrected in every sense.

Andy Reid is a champion, and no one can take anything away from him anymore. We no longer have to talk about him with arbitrary caveats. Finally, there is nothing standing in the way of appreciating his importance, and all the lessons we could have been learning if we hadn’t been so concerned about his legacy.

[rachello344]

First thing’s first:  As each of my other two meta rely on this assumption, I’m going to explain the reasons I think this new “Shiro” at the end of season three is a clone.  For simplicity’s sake, from here on, when I mean the Shiro from season three, I’ll call him Kuron (after Project Kuron) and the real Shiro will just be Shiro.  That being said, let’s start from the beginning.  This is going to get long and maybe a little complicated, but bear with me.  It’s going under this readmore for length.

When we first meet him, Kuron has long hair, long enough to imply that it’s been at least six months, maybe even closer to a year.  That, more than anything, really throws a wrench into the timeline.  “How long has Shiro been gone?”  Well, by all accounts, no more than a month, no less than about two weeks.  And yet, his hair is that long?  It doesn’t make sense.  And then, on top of that, Kuron sees another Shiro strapped down.  At first, I thought it was because he was having a nightmare, but it’s shown that he is awake, just shaky.  I’m willing to believe that he did really see another Shiro--after all, why make only one clone?  And even if he was imagining it, why does he remember seeing another Shiro that wasn’t himself?  Why are their ID numbers different?  It all adds up to suggest that this new “Shiro” (Kuron), really is a clone.

And then, we have his escape.  The empire was holding the Champion, the Black Paladin of Voltron, on some distant outpost near an ice planet with rebels on it?  Really?  That seems unsafe and a little ridiculous.  Shiro is probably one of the Galra’s Most Wanted, and I’m to believe that he wasn’t being held in maximum security in the center of the Empire?  That doesn’t sound right.  And then, as if that wasn’t enough, they let him escape?  Why would they do that?  (I know why I think they’d do that, but that’s a topic for another post.)

I won’t go too much into the circumstances of his finding Voltron again (also suspect), because I’m going to be focusing on that in the aforementioned post.  Instead, let’s move to his change in design.  Changing a character’s hair or clothes mid-season in this kind of cartoon is something that implies a drastic change from the character’s baseline.  Consider Zuko cutting off his hair in ATLA, a sign that he was moving away from what his father wanted from him, starting over and trying to retake what honor means to him, etc.  Korra cuts her hair after a significant trauma.  Mulan cuts her hair to become Ping.  Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul has at least three distinct designs, all of which indicate completely different personalities--the original “black-haired” Kaneki, “white-haired Kaneki,” and Haise (black roots with white hair).  When Kaneki is no longer “Haise,” his hair immediately returns to its previous white.  Character design matters with differentiating, even when it’s the same character suffering a drastic change.

For Shiro, we’ve seen Original Shiro (pre-Kerberos), his appearance post-Kerberos (and after being forced to fight and experimented on, a trauma the turned some of his hair white), Sven (like pre-Kerberos Shiro, but with an accent), and now Kuron (shorter hair, different clothes).  Differentiating him to that extent would only make sense if a. Shiro were gone for longer, b. the events he suffered were especially traumatic, or c. if this Shiro is not the same as the original.  Kuron and Sven are both significant departures from Shiro’s normal design, both in their hair and their clothes--and for Sven, his arm.  I don’t think the events between Shiro’s disappearance and his apparent reappearance were enough for that kind of change in design, but if he were a totally different Shiro, it would make sense.  And the fact that we have a fake Shiro to compare with is both significant and a little too convenient.

Even if the design and the circumstances weren’t enough, his behavior and Keith’s response to him are also suspect.  We have seen two seasons of “Shiro as he naturally is.”  He’s noble and self-sacrificing, supportive (especially of Keith), and he has a pretty morbid sense of humor (gallows humor anyone?).  Kuron has shown himself to be none of those things.  I believe that Shiro, rather than trying to return to being Black Paladin right away, would have stood aside and let Keith lead.  Shiro is the one who chose Keith.  Why would he try to get in the way of something he wanted?  And then even disrupt Keith during a mission?  The same Shiro who allowed Keith to do what he thought was necessary with the Blade of Marmora, only promising to step in if he thought things were too dangerous or getting out of hand.  That Shiro has never been the type of person to command like Kuron is shown to--he doesn’t need to.

And it wasn’t until after the fact that I realized that a Shiro held captive by apparent rebel forces (people who should be on his side) would have spent most of the time joking about it.  I mean, he was clearly not in any particular danger.  Escaping was simple enough for him.  And he didn’t crack a single joke?  No sighing about ending up in such a position or about being held captive by his own potential allies?  And in the ship when he’s on his own, he didn’t make a single joke in his log?  That’s just unrealistic.  Shiro is like the main character in The Martian.  He’s prone to self-deprecating humor, especially if he’s in some kind of danger.  (When he was bleeding and surrounded by beasts, he was talking casually with Keith, cracking jokes about the situation.)  Kuron doesn’t make a single joke.  Not one.

Now, on a darker note: his orders during the team’s attempts to fight Lotor/retake the comet.  At the beginning of the mission, Keith insists on going after Lotor and leaving the comet for later.  If they can take Lotor out of the equation now, they should.  Kuron shuts that down and insists he and the team go after the comet.  Everyone agrees with Kuron.  When they’re outside, going after the comet (the ship), Kuron suddenly commands they go after Lotor and the warp gate, doing a complete 180 on his orders.  Everyone, again, agrees with Kuron.  And then, when Keith insists they go after Lotor’s ship, Kuron stops them and calls them back to regroup.

Keith’s frustration, at a glance, appears to be a case of growing pains.  He’s apparently used to leading now, so he dislikes taking orders--except that Keith would be happy to have Shiro lead again.  He’s willing to follow orders... that make sense.  Shiro normally allows Keith to do what he thinks is right.  He trusts Keith’s judgment and frequently asks his opinion on plans of action.  Kuron actively undermines Keith’s authority, calling all of his plans into question and leads the team in effectively isolating and dog-piling Keith.  These scenes are followed by Keith and Kuron speaking alone.  Kuron apologizes for his behavior but also scolds Keith, insisting he learn to choose his battles, as if Keith wasn’t doing exactly that the entire time.

Kuron’s orders during the mission were always to do what Keith didn’t want to do.  He constantly negated Keith’s orders to the detriment of the mission, using his authority and the others’ trust in him to derail any and all of Keith’s plans.  Keith is capable of adapting, so he managed to complete part of their mission anyway, but that’s only because he’s a quick thinker, even under pressure.  It took me a little while to realize what it was about this that left me feeling so unsettled.  During these scenes, Kuron is gaslighting Keith.  He keeps flipping the script on Keith, isolating him from the rest of the team, and insisting that he’s in the right, that he knows best, that what he’s doing is for Keith’s own good.  He apologizes but in the same breath scolds Keith.  And if Keith called him on it, no one would believe him.  They would all think he was making it up or imagining it.  Even in his own team, Keith is alone once again.  And the real Shiro would never stand for that let alone make it happen himself.

Keith is more comfortable with Shiro than with anyone else. He is the first person he thinks about during disaster, and the first person he worries might be in danger.  Shiro is both his greatest hope and his greatest fear.  Keith is more afraid of losing Shiro than anything else.  So then why doesn’t he seem more happy to see him here?  Everyone else seems happier than Keith when Keith was the one most intent on searching for him.  Sure, he wants this to be Shiro and he wants to be allowed to have this, but I think he knows that something’s wrong.  He was planning to search the universe for Shiro, but he turned up practically at their doorstep without any effort on Keith’s part.  It was too easy.  In almost every shot of “Shiro” and Keith this season, Keith’s expression is strained or worried.  He smiles a few times, but none of them are like the normal smiles he reserves for Shiro.  Keith infiltrated a government building, crossed a chasm and fought monsters, attacked Zarkon, all to get Shiro back.  So then why doesn’t he look more relieved?

I think, at some level, Keith suspects that this Shiro is actually the wrong one.  After his initial shock at seeing Sven, Keith basically completely disregards him, more concerned with the Alteans than with him, despite the uncanny resemblance to the boy he’s been searching for.  And here we see a similar coldness, though not the same.  This is almost Shiro.  Sometimes, he really is exactly like Shiro, but others he does things that Shiro would never do.  That disconnect is enough to sow doubt in the minds of both the viewer and Keith.  VLD never seems to show the initial moments of reunion or strong emotion between people--often to their detriment, imo--but they do show the fallout, and regardless of how their initial reunion went, the latter stages of it show Keith distrusting Shiro in a way that he never has.

Keith and the Black Lion want Shiro back more than anyone else.  They are both still looking for him.  But the lion refused Kuron from piloting her.  She switched between Keith and Shiro before, so why would she refuse Shiro now?  Unless, perhaps, he isn’t her Shiro, and she knows it.  After all, Shiro is the kind of leader who doesn’t want to lead.  I don’t think he would insist on taking the reins again the first moment he could--trying to pry his role back from Keith is unlike him and unfitting for the leader he has shown himself to be.  With his behavior out of the ordinary and Black turning him away despite still looking for him, it’s no wonder that Keith seems to be on his guard with the person he usually trusts more than himself.  It’s a wonder that no one else (in show) has noticed at this point.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few points, but I know I’m not the only one who believes this Shiro is more likely a clone than the real deal.  In any case, if anyone has any questions or points they want clarified, please feel free to send me an ask.  I’d be happy to elaborate.  I’m going to be writing two more posts, on the lions and on Lotor, so I’ll answer any questions I get afterward.

[esamastation]

fucking super soldiers, deleted scene

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Caps Even Up; Kuznetsov Injured; Habs; Coyle; Anderson; Tatar and More – May 31

Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final had a lot to live up to following the standard set by Game 1 and it came pretty close to doing so. These two teams are developing a genuine dislike and it’s starting to show.

To kick things off we had a James Neal goal nearing the middle of the first period and it was an absolute beauty:

Framed. #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/gcXULovKiU

— NHL (@NHL) May 31, 2018

The deft touch to get the puck back to the middle followed by the absolute snipe on Braden Holtby, just pure magic. With all the hubbub surrounding other Golden Knights forwards, it’s easy to forget Neal’s been one of the game’s premier snipers for a decade.

Lars Eller would tie things up later but the big news was injury to Evgeny Kuznetsov. He took a big hit in the neutral zone along the boards from Brayden McNabb – which probably should have been an elbowing call honestly – but seemed to injure his left wrist or shoulder in the process. Kuznetsov left the game and did not return. All the Caps would say is that it was an upper-body injury.

Power-play goals from Alex Ovechkin and Shea Thedore, along with an even-strength goal from Brooks Orpik, had the Caps with the lead heading into the third period.

Holtby would shut the door the rest of the way and Washington would skate out of Vegas with a 3-2 win and an evened series. Just saying he shut the door doesn't really do it justice, though, as he faced 39 shots, and made this absolutely incredible save on Tuch with about two minutes left in the game:

Oh my god Braden Holtby pic.twitter.com/xCR65Itcf7

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 31, 2018

Lucky? Maybe a bit, but you have to put yourself in a position to be lucky, and that was incredible. Hats off, Mr. Holtby. 

*

A story in theScore quotes Marc Bergevin, in an interview with Mike Zeisberger, as saying Montreal isn’t likely to deal the third overall pick. It never really made sense in the first place; the Habs need to start stocking the cupboards. This isn’t a team one impact player away from the Cup.

From a fantasy hockey perspective, though, it’s kind of disappointing, I think? For fantasy hockey owners in redraft leagues, we don’t care if the team is going to be good in three years. We need the team to be good now. Fantasy owners need legitimate centres to feed guys like Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Artturi Lehkonen, and Brendan Gallaghe. It’s in the best interest of the team and its fans for the long-term to hold that pick, but the selfish fantasy owner in me wanted to see them trade it in some sort of package for a top-end centre.

Ah well. Maybe they’ll still sign John Tavares.

(editor’s note: they will not sign John Tavares)

*

A week ago there was a Ramblings posted for new baseline targets in fantasy hockey. They’re based on the increase in scoring across the NHL which are (partly) are a product of the rise in shot rates. The targets for an average forward in a 12-team league with 13 forwards rostered should be 25 goals, 35 assists, and 201 shots on goal. For defencemen, we are looking for 9 goals, 31 assists, and 173 shots on goal. As one can imagine, not every fantasy-relevant player hits each of those targets – Hockey Reference had just 24 forwards and 15 defencemen reach those marks – but it does help set a guideline of what we need from players in order to stay in the hunt for a fantasy title.

It’s worth going over some players who failed to reach each of those different marks, are good bets to get over the hump for 2018-19, and might make good values at the draft table.

We’ll dig into the forwards for today.

  Forwards – Goals

Tomas Tatar

It’s been disappointing to see Tatar on the sidelines for most of the playoffs since Vegas acquired him at the trade deadline but sometimes a player doesn’t mesh immediately. It speaks to just one of the issues that can arise post-deadline with acquisitions. Regardless, they acquired Tatar because both James Neal and David Perron are UFAs and it’s not certain both (or either) return. Tatar has posted four straight 20-goal seasons, averaging 24 goals per campaign in that span, playing just over 16 minutes on average a night. He should find himself in the Vegas top-6 next year with power-play time and a return to 25 goals seems possible in those circumstances.

  Kevin Fiala

Nashville was a Cup contender so hopefully their second-round exit will mean a bit of a discount on some players at the draft table in September. Fiala managed a 23-goal season in 2017-18 and that was despite playing just 15:09 per game. He put up a shot attempt rate that came in just below what Filip Forsberg’s was in the regular season so even a modest increase in ice time should mean flying past the 200-shot mark. He was very good all year for the team and did nothing to warrant a push down the lineup. He seems primed for a full breakout campaign.

  Jake DeBrusk

The concern is that DeBrusk’s playoff performance – 6 goals in 12 games – will inflate his ADP next year but like Fiala, hopefully an early-ish exit doesn’t bring this to fruition. Regardless, DeBrusk was impressive basically from the start of the season, mixing speed and skill to get to the net with regularity and that kind of skillset is useful on the power play. The hope is he gets first crack at the top PP unit should Rick Nash move on, and that, along with a small boost in five-on-five ice time, should be enough to get him to 25 goals.

  Forwards – Assists

Pierre-Luc Dubois

It’s hard to see Dubois being undervalued going into drafts next year given that by the end of the year he was on both the top line and the top PP unit for Columbus. My hope is two-fold, though: people are scared of Tortorella’s… let’s call it whims… and that he’s pushed down the list given he’s a centre. But he was a monster down the stretch for the team with 16 assists and 26 points in 33 games post-All Star Game and on the top line there’s no reason not to think he can’t post similar numbers over a larger sample next year. Getting to 35 assists with guys like Panarin, Atkinson, or Anderson on his wing is doable.  

  Charlie Coyle

I’m going to fully reserve a prediction here until we get more certainty with Minnesota’s future because there might be some big changes coming. There is a new general manager in town while the team hasn’t reached their postseason goals since the signings of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise years ago. All the same, Coyle missed 16 games last year but his 82-game pace still worked out to 32 assists. He also saw a three-year low in shooting percentage. There is enough talent where he won’t be a focal point of the roster but getting back to 15+ goals and 35+ assists is reasonable in a full season.

  Jonathan Toews

I like to poke fun at the aggrandization of Toews’ contributions as much as the next person but he should see a bounceback in 2018-19. He still managed 32 assists in 2017-18, meaning he’s cracked 30 assists in every season in which he’s played at least 60 games. He also did that with a revolving door of wingers all season long in conjunction with an underperforming Brandon Saad and a career-low second assist rate. Despite all that, his 82-game pace for assists was 35 (he only played 74 games). Do not be surprised to see him back over the 60-point mark again next season thanks largely due to just a jump in assists.

  Forwards – Shots

Kyle Palmieri

Anyone who reads my Ramblings with regularity knows I’m a fan of Palmieri. In 2017-18, he set a career-high with 2.92 shots per game even though he had a three-year low in TOI per game. He cracked 180 shots despite playing just 62 games. A full season with the Devils, hopefully on the top line with Taylor Hall and Nico Hischier, could see career-highs across the board for Palmieri. Even if he were to pull back a bit on the shots per game, just getting a full season in should see him cross 200 shots. He’s a guy I will be targeting in every fantasy draft with the assumption his ADP will be depressed due to low raw totals.

  Artturi Lehkonen

Lehkonen is one player whose ADP I’m interested to see in September. I doubt it’s even inside the top-200 given his horrific start to the year depressed his numbers (remember, he had two goals at the All-Star Break, and both goals came in the same game). All the same, his 82-game pace for shots was 203 and to do that as a 22-year old in his second season on this roster is impressive. He doesn’t even need a bigger role to be a fantasy contributor next year but consistent top-six minutes with top power-play time should help.

  Josh Anderson

The way Anderson finished the season makes it easy to forget the way he started the season. Up until the All-Star break, he had 15 goals and 25 points with 151 shots in just 47 games. And that was with an offseason contract dispute that didn’t see him signed until October. He was injured at the end of February, though, and by that point he had been pushed down the lineup. Aside from Artemi Panarin, Cam Atkinson, and probably Pierre-Luc Dubois, I’m not sure anyone has a lock on top-six minutes next year and we know what Torts can be like. All the same, all things equal, I’ll put my faith in talent and Anderson oozes it. A healthy season should see him cruise past 200 shots.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-caps-even-up-kuznetsov-injured-habs-coyle-anderson-tatar-and-more-may-31/

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Fantasy Basketball auction how-to guide

Knowing when to spend or save a few dollars more during a fantasy auction is crucial. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo)

Alex Rikleen, RotoWire Special to Yahoo Sports

Congratulations, you are participating in an auction draft!

Auctions are the preferred drafting format for many fantasy experts, and they’ve increased in popularity in recent years. The knowledge required to be a strong fantasy basketball drafter is similar to a traditional snake draft, but the skills and strategies differ in a few key ways.

Whether this is your first time auctioning or you’re simply looking for a refresher, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started.

[Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Basketball! Join for free]

What are the basics of an auction draft?

Every manager starts with a set budget, usually $200. Managers take turns nominating players for the auction block, and the nominated player is “sold” to the highest bidder. The draft continues until every roster is full. Take note: most host sites will force you to keep at least $1 per remaining roster spot, so keep that in mind as you get into late-draft bidding wars.

PRE-DRAFT

Game Plan While all auction drafts will require some improvisation, this is not the time to “do it live”. You should enter with an outline for how you want your draft to go. Specifically, I recommend entering with two complementary plans: 1. Have an idea of which tiers you want to invest heavily in; 2. Make a list of the key players you’re targeting.

Your plan for No. 1 should look something like: I want to spend on multiple top-15 players, and I understand that I’ll be priced out of the market for most guys between 16 and 50; or, I want to pass on top-20 prices and load up on guys between 20 and 40. We’ll talk about how to decide which of these is right for you below.

For No. 2, I recommend two lists. The first should be a relatively thorough list of players you want, so long as the price stays reasonable. The second list should be short. These are the players you don’t want, the guys you’re crossing off no matter the price. When you look back on your draft, these are the guys who make you say I really wish I had that roster spot available – that’s not the same as feeling like you overpaid for someone!

Pick an Investment Strategy This is one of the most fun components of an Auction draft – there are infinite investment strategies. In broad strokes, here are the three most common:

1. Studs and Duds: Spend big to acquire several elite talents, and fill the rest of the roster with very cheap players. The biggest risk with most top-20 players is that they get hurt, and there are always a few top-80 players who emerge off the waiver wire throughout the season. If you’re active on waivers early and a few of your discount picks work out, you might have something special.

2. Snake-like Distribution: Even though it’s an auction, you can still use the snake draft model for team-building. This strategy typically yields a price breakdown of roughly: one $55+ player, one $40, one $30, one $23, one $16, one $11, one $7, and one $5, with the residual $13 split among the five remaining roster spots.

3. Mind the Gap: “The gap” refers to the mid-draft lull – after the top players are off the board, when the pre-draft excitement has waned, and managers are getting tired (or inebriated, or both). This team building strategy calls for basically sitting out on the top dozen or so players. Once other managers have spent most of their draft capital, gap minders can take advantage of the depleted funds – and their depleted energy, auction drafts can be a grind – to bully their way to a strong stable of mid-tier players.

Part of the strategy is having enough money to comfortably price-enforce throughout picks 30 to 100. This approach can produce some enticing discounts, but it requires more flexibility and ability to change directions on the fly.

[Positional tiers: PGs | SGs | SFs | PFs | Cs]

Make Your Lists Identify players you want at every tier. Write them down. If you’re not writing them out by hand, print them out. Have the hard copy with you when you draft.

You want this list to be comprehensive. You don’t want to get too attached to specific players – that’s an easy way to end up overspending in an otherwise-avoidable bidding war. Keeping a long list also enables you to better adapt to the changing marketplace, and it helps you pivot as your budget changes.

I also like to make a list of players I don’t want under any circumstances. This list should be smaller, and should have almost no one in the top-70, according to average draft position – sure, Joel Embiid is a massive injury risk, but you should take him for $5 if you get the opportunity.

One bonus list idea: Players with glaring categorical weaknesses. This is the list that calls out DeAndre Jordan for his free throw shooting, Marcus Smart for his field goal percentage, and James Harden for his turnovers.

Know Your League This is fantasy 101, but it’s ignored all too frequently. Make sure, in any auction, that you’re well-versed in your league’s scoring and roster settings, and that you’re at least somewhat familiar with your opponents.

You absolutely must know your settings. If you play in an 11-category league that counts double-doubles and triple-doubles, Nikola Jokic jumps all the way from 11th to third on my big board. Giannis Antetokounmpo has more value in leagues with strict positional requirements, while all shooting guards lose value in leagues that allow more positional flexibility. Joel Embiid is more valuable in leagues with an IR spot. Fantasy basketball, like every game ever, has rules. You have to know the rules to be able to win.

Keeper Leagues: Figure Out the Inflation Rate A standard, 12-team auction draft has $2,400 ($200 x 12 = $2,400) to spend on 156 players (12 teams x 13 roster spots).

The auction prices listed in pre-draft guides assume everyone is starting from scratch. If experts decide that Myles Turner should go for $45, but you are keeping him for only $20, that messes up the experts’ baseline assumption. In effect, you are starting the draft with $25 dollars more than everyone else, which should change how you bid. You have more money, so you can afford to bid more to get your guys, which leads to the players on your team costing more than the experts predicted.

This is much different than overpaying – this is understanding the market, understanding your buying power, and using both to acquire the assets you desire. Managers who don’t know the keeper inflation rate will get spooked that they are overpaying and end up with a less-talented team. Managers who know the inflation rate have a much better understanding of how much money is available, and what is reasonable to spend through each stage of the draft.

DURING THE DRAFT

Adapt Every auction room is different, and being too rigid is a good way to kill your team. Auction drafts are all about value. It’s good to have a game-script, but if a top-5 talent is going for top-15 money, call an audible and go get him.

Be a Price-Enforcer, Within Reason Bid up other people’s players. Later, when you are bidding against those same managers, you’ll be glad they spent the extra money. A few dollars at a time really adds up over the course of the auction. Just be sure to set limits for yourself, to avoid getting stuck paying for a player you don’t want. Some rules for price enforcing:

1. It’s only price enforcing when you’re confident you’ll be outbid.

2. Do not price enforce for a player on your Do Not Draft list.

3. Set limits early for players you don’t actually want. The cap should be the highest price at which –even though you didn’t want him — you recognize you got a good value. If you don’t want a player whose expected price is in the low $50s, then when he is nominated, bid him up to around $45 and step away.

4. Remember that any bid could be final. Don’t make a bid if you are not satisfied with the consequences of winning it.

5. Keep track of available roster spots. If there are four players left who you want on your team, and you have enough money that you’re confident you will get all four, then make sure you have four roster spots available.

Be Disciplined, Stay Disciplined If you said you weren’t going to spend more than $45 on Chris Paul’s knees, stick to it. If you only entered the Kevin Durant sweepstakes because the bidding slowed at $50, remember to bow out when it hits $70. If you were well-behaved early, don’t relax and forget your principles just because the dollar figure went down later in the draft.

It’s OK to Have Money Left Over This flies in the face of what many people recommend, but hear me out. First, it’s acceptable to leave some money available, but be careful not to leave too much. You should not leave more than about six percent ($12 on a $200 budget) unused. That much left over means you should have upgraded a pick or two. But if you are left with roughly five percent or less of your budget remaining, that’s not worth fretting about.

You know what feels better than spending all your money? Liking your team. I’d rather leave $10 unused than miss out by a dollar on my mid-to-late darlings. The following is an incomplete list of players who were available in most leagues for between $2 and $5 last season, yet finished inside fantasy’s top 60 overall (9-cat): Otto Porter, Robert Covington, Joel Embiid, Trevor Ariza, Ricky Rubio, Jae Crowder, Gorgui Dieng, Patrick Beverley, Avery Bradley.

It’s hard to predict which late picks will break out, but I like being able to flex and grab my guys. While virtually no one predicted Porter’s rise, I remember seeing Covington, Embiid, Dieng, and Beverley on several “sleepers” lists. I saved my bully money for T.J. Warren, who ended up just outside that top-60. If you were busy worrying about spending all your cash, you probably missed out on these high-end fantasy starters.