#in andre's case it does. he is fully prepared to kill him if it means he protects the rest of the town

[localvoidcat]

i really need to talk more about salvador and isa because i do have an unholy amount of thoughts about the both of them

[roccinan]

I'm risking sounding terribly egoistical by sending a public ask about my own url here but I'm doing it!!!!! I need the super graphic-details

Your ego is my ego, dearest nharidy. There's a reason the doc is named after you hahaha

[ 👉 My Wips ]

OK so the Absolvisti sequel's been sitting in my head since well, the week after I published it lmao. But I never got around to writing because I wasn't sure if it was being too self-indulgent (I'm feeling more confident about it now that I know you'll be pleased by it!). Also because I was having trouble deciding on a pov: should I continue with the Tatiana 1st person pov as always? Change it up to Martin 3rd person? or surprise: 1st person Don Juan?? Should it be a new chapter or new fic? (def. open to suggestions here!) Also I think it'd be Iconic to publish a story in the Dies Irae universe with our new cat profile pics.

Graphic detail time :D Prepare for a SUPER LONG answer LMAO. Most of the things I mentioned here and here will make their way in, with maybe a bonus ns/fw chapter from Martin or Andres' pov. The main story is SFW however, and there's like a hilariously high amount of hurt!Andres, who doesn't have demons to rely on anymore but still carries all the permanent damage the demons left on him:

It takes place some months after Absolvisti so Andres is doing better, but not fully well yet. He's not actively dying anymore but he does faint a lot and isn't exactly making a full recovery. Because I wanted to make things harder for Martin. Because he's not a young man anymore, the wounds were super extensive, and this is the result of years of accumulated damage + a form of "withdrawal" (the shadows/demons that used to feed on him were also the things that kept him alive so it's one big cycle that his body isn't leaving that easily).

This means every time Martin plans something nice for him like seeing a play or going out for a nightly walk, Andres can't go through the whole thing without feeling unwell. (Martin: "I over-exerted the love of my life. I am so SELFISH. what does Andres see in me??" Andres: "I disappointed the love of my life. I am the WEAKEST. what does Martin see in me??" Tatiana: feed me, bitches)

They manage to sit through one play though (not sure if I want this at the beginning or end of the fic LMAO). It's the one Bogota wrote, The Necromancer's Lament, a "biopic" about Andres' life. And it's every bit as terrible as Martin expected. Bad special effects, bad acting especially from Martin's actor, Andres' actor has a beard, and Tatiana looks like this:

Andres thinks it's the best play ever. Martin hates it and demands a refund. Tatiana hates it too but Don Juan's like, "mi amor, you are still beautiful to me, even as a deformed puppet."

Martin's 120-page complaints aside, Bogota runs the theatre troupe with his partner, Nairobi/Agata, and they're both going to start teaching performing arts at Santa Catalina because the last drama professor died lmao

Meanwhile, Santa Catalina has a new bad girl student, Tokyo/Silene! Sergio took her in as a charity case after some dark and mysterious events in her life. But Tokyo being Tokyo can't stay away from trouble, and she becomes obsessed with finding the demons that Andres expelled. Some bizarre possessions start happening again and the school's sponsors force Raquel to keep it under wraps. (Raquel: maybe if you increased funding, we wouldn't have so many problems!!)

In the meantime, Martin gets that letter from a long lost relative asking to meet him. Not sure about the order of this either. Anyway, Martin was planning to ignore the relative, but Andres insists he go. Either Tatiana or Don Juan accompany him. Martin learns that he's the sole heir of his dead parents across the sea (the will: “we forgive you for being a heretic, a freak of nature, and the alchemist of Palermo. also no hard feelings for leaving you to die as a baby xoxoxo”). There's one (1) condition though: he has to end his partnership with the necromancer. Martin: NO THANKS.

So while Martin's dealing with this unexpected drama, Sergio decides to call in Andres' expertise TM again because it's also a good excuse to talk to his brother. Martin is Very wary about this and rejects him. But Andres insists that it'll be fine. Plus, maybe he wants to turn a new leaf and help Santa Catalina for nothing in return this time. Not everyone gets a second chance at life and he doesn't want to be a bad person anymore uwu (Tatiana: "Andres was a pretentious piece of shit, surprising no one." Martin: "Nobody deserves Andres, not even me, and I'm like, the most amazing person in the world.")

Andres comes to do the exorcism with the random priest the school hired. And they discover there aren't any demons- it's just some ghost fucking around (maybe I'll make it the spirit of Gandia or Alicia since they haven't shown up yet lol). Anyway, it doesn't go very well but Andres gets rid of the creature or whatever. Not before it punctures a hole in his side though. Then Martin loses it, just full-on screams at Sergio for almost getting Andres killed again, makes a lot of threats against the school, etc. etc.

Raquel, being more useful, plugs up the wound. But the priest accidentally provokes Martin more by asking Raquel if he should mop up Andres' blood with holy water or something. What if the necromancer's blood is cursed?? And now it's all over the floor, so disgusting :/

Martin, already in a very bad mood, beats the priest up.

They go home. Martin's in a really sour mood and he just doesn't understand why Andres isn't mad at Sergio. Martin: "It's really emotionally damaging to me if you don't give a fuck about yourself." Andres makes him even angrier by bringing up the Berrote family will and having the audacity to suggest Martin leave him for money. He makes a huge case about how he literally has nothing to offer Martin except a body that barely works and a terrible reputation. Martin: "I lost a fucking eye for you??"

They fight and Martin storms away, and also kidnaps Don Juan, his honorary new soulmate who would never betray him like Andres.

A while after this, the Spanish Inquisition local clergy arrests Andres for "questioning." Because the shenanigans at Santa Catalina are still going on and that one priest suspects him of being behind everything just because. Raquel's the one who bails him out. She may not like Sergio's brother, but the way everyone else treats him is ridiculous.

Andres limps home, hoping Martin's still away. Surprise! Martin felt guilty and came back. And it's pretty obvious that Andres has just been tortured. Martin: "Say no more. I'm going to kill some people."

Andres gets Martin to not do anything stupid by dropping the thing with the will. He admits he was wrong for saying those things to Martin and he selfishly, genuinely wants to stay with Martin forever. Martin: "I'm still going to kill your brother. You may appease me with a kiss."

Does it end here? No! Because the shit at Santa Catalina is still happening. Andres and Martin solve it for good though. But it's all very dramatic. I'm vaguest about this part, but maybe Nairobi's injured saving Tokyo, and this gives Tokyo the wakeup call to move on from whatever baggage that got her into this mess in the first place. Then Andres' solution for saving Nairobi is to ask Martin to work that alchemist magic and transfer her wounds onto himself (at this point, we're just going overboard with the Andres whump but asdfasdf why stop??). Raquel: Sergio, tell your brother to stop dying. That's a bad example for the kids.

It takes a lot of convincing, but Martin relents in the end, only because he trusts Andres. At this point, Andres has been through so much that he physically cannot take any more damage. Like, he just can't lmao. So the whole process puts Andres into a coma or something. But we don't need him anymore because now we can revel in Martin's angst!

Martin spends the rest of his time crying and angsting and guilt-tripping Sergio, and just being very loud in general. He also writes back to his family and tells them to fuck off.

Once we indulge in enough of Martin's pain, Andres finally wakes up. Still very bad off but he's alive and not showing signs of dying any time soon. So that's good enough for Martin. They have a nice heart-to-heart, and idk, maybe Raquel comes to see them because Sergio's too embarrassed to. Until Andres insists, because he loves hermanito unconditionally uwu. Martin: "watch your back, Sergio. I might murder you in your sleep (:"

Then at the very end (I have no idea how long this story is LOL), there's some kind of family photoshoot between Raquel, Sergio, and Paula. Everyone's raving over this new invention called the "camera." Andres is admiring it from a distance until Raquel's like, "get over here. what part of FAMILY photoshoot do you not understand!?"

Andres is shocked pikachu face because good will towards him for once?? he's being included in something?? people want him around?? what is happening??

Martin's happy for him though. Then he's admiring from a distance until Raquel's like, "I said FAMILY photoshoot. Get over here, Martin!"

Tatiana didn't want to be a part of it, but Paula saw her favorite talking cat and like, grabbed her lmao. Don Juan photobombs it because he can't be excluded from an activity with Tatiana, especially when his former rival Andres is in the photo too. (His current rival is Casanova, an unworthy white cat vying for Tatiana's affections)

Sergio proposes to Raquel. The end! Yes, the kitty love triangle is also a central theme of this story LMAO Hope that satisfies you, nharidy! And I welcome any and all suggestions!

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Trending Topics: Golden Knights already badly mismanaged

The Golden Knights completely bungled the Vadim Shipachyov situation. (David Becker/Getty Images)

If you were wondering whether George McPhee had gotten any better at handling an NHL roster since he was ousted in Washington, and you still had some lingering doubts even after he mostly punted the expansion draft, the end of the Vadim Shipachyov saga should answer all questions with finality.

Let’s not all look at once, but Vegas has one win in its last six games, and it needed to score five goals against a not-great Senators team to do it. Part of their current problem is that they can’t keep even an AHL-level goalie healthy enough to stay competitive, sure, and the team is still second in its division. But we all know hard times are coming even if Marc-Andre Fleury gets healthy sometime soon, because the team isn’t going to shoot almost 12 percent for the rest of the season.

But it’s lucky for McPhee the team got off to that hot start — such a great, fun story, especially in the wake of the shooting there; all that stuff is 100 percent true — because if they were playing to the level we would have all expected and were, say, 5-9-1 instead of 9-5-1, the Shipachyov saga would have people asking a lot more questions than they currently are.

Everyone signed off on his contract termination Thursday, and it’s expected the center will head back to Russia. The good news for Vegas is that it’s only on the hook for the cost of Shipachyov’s contract while he was rostered with the NHL club, and a smaller portion of that from when he was technically buried in the AHL, plus a very small portion of his signing bonus.

After the whole story came to an end and Shipachyov “retired” from the NHL, McPhee revealed that he had a trade on the table but that the player wanted to head back home (not hard to understand), but also that Shipachyov wasn’t playing well enough to supplant even the No. 4 center on the roster. This is an incredible statement to make, because in their most recent game, Vegas used Pierre-Edouard Bellemare as its No. 4 center, and he only got a whopping 10:34 of ice time, second-lowest total on the team.

The idea we’re supposed to buy, then, is that Shipachyov wasn’t good enough to take 10 and a half minutes of ice time against fourth liners and do better than Bellemare (currently a 45 percent possession player with 2-1-3 in 15 games against bottom-of-the-barrel competition).

This means one of three things, and neither one speaks highly of what McPhee has done to this point.

1) McPhee is just glossing over a chemistry/dressing room issue

Maybe Shipachyov, like plenty of other Enigmatic Russians over the years, is just a jerk and no one likes him. If this were Boston or Edmonton or Philly, we’d already have gotten those stories shivving the player on his way out of town. And let’s say this is the real issue: It explains why the player capital-R Refused to report to Chicago. But it also leads you to ask why McPhee didn’t do his homework before bringing aboard a 30-year-old who’d never played in North America at $4.5 million for two seasons.

McPhee would have, of course, had plenty of experience dealing with malcontent-locker-room-cancer Russians with the whole Alex Semin thing several years ago, and as good as Semin was in those days — really, really good — the player’s presence was something that overshadowed his quality to a significant extent. Do you know how much of a prick you have to be for an NHL general manager to look past 271 points in 277 games over four seasons?

That’s not saying Shipachyov would have been nearly point-a-game for Vegas, as Semin was, but the principle is the same. This is a guy who can score, and if you screwed up the vetting process, that’s on you.

Frankly, though, I don’t think that’s it, because why wouldn’t McPhee himself just shiv the guy in the exit interview if that were the case? “It didn’t work out because he didn’t match our culture,” is an explanation the hockey establishment would mostly buy. As with elephants, sometimes hockey players are just jerks.

2) McPhee overestimated Shipachyov at the time of the signing

Hey, it happens all the time: GMs get all excited about what they think is a great talent, throw a bunch of money at it, and then find out, “Oops, that was a mistake.”

But I find it extremely difficult to believe that McPhee misevaluated Shipachyov’s talent level to the point that the guy goes from potentially being the No. 1 center — remember, this is on a team with Wild Bill freaking Karlsson as its actual No. 1 center, so being the top pivot isn’t that hard — to thinking, “Ah well, y’know, he’s more like our No. 5.”

Real McPhee quote from when the team signed Shipachyov: “He is prepared to play a lot and sees that there could be a lot of ice time. We fully expect him to be one of the top six forwards, as well as a major contributor on play on power plays and the penalty kill.”

Now he’s not even good enough to be in your lineup? We’re supposed to buy that?

When was the last time a GM was that wrong about someone? Maybe when Ken Holland got Stephen Weiss at $4.9 million — by the way, that contract would still be happening if it hadn’t been bought out three summers ago — and he only put up 29 points in 78 games over two seasons. And even then, that disappointment was driven as much by injury as by Holland not being good at his job.

So if this kind of misevaluation were the case, and I partially doubt that it is, that says to me McPhee is a world-class misjudger of talent. But again, there’s misjudging things and misjudging things so badly that you think an AHLer is going to be the best center on your team. No one is this bad at their job.

3) McPhee underestimated Shipachyov once he got to Vegas

This seems to me to be the most plausible. Remember, Vegas held Shipachyov, Shea Theodore and Alex Tuch off the NHL roster for a little while in part because McPhee was forcing the team to carry the 52 bad defensemen he took in the expansion draft.

Shipachyov, however, didn’t report to the AHL even though he was assigned there, because his wife doesn’t speak English and reportedly wasn’t doing well alone in a new city on a new continent. Shipachyov did pretty well in the preseason, driving play but only getting one assist. He also scored in his NHL debut when the team finally called him up, but that was his only point in three appearances and he got pushed around at 5-on-5.

So it’s a mixed bag in terms of how he played, but it’s also fair to say he wasn’t given a chance by either Gerard Gallant or McPhee. His total ice time between the preseason and regular season only comes to about 100 minutes over seven games — 14 a night, give or take — and overall he finished a mere 51 percent at 5-on-5. However, despite the promises of a lot of power-play time, he got none in either the pre- or regular season. That, frankly, just doesn’t make sense if you thought for even a second the guy was a potential elite scorer.

Again, there’s no way you take a talent with that many points in that many KHL seasons and say, after 100 minutes of even semi-competitive ice time, “This guy’s worse than Bellemare and it’s not particularly close.”

How much, then, does this have to do with the fact that Vegas shot 12.5 percent and went 8-3 before they called up Shipachyov and got him into a game (in which he scored)? How much does it have to do with the fact that in his three games, the team shot just 9.9 percent over three games, all of which they lost because they didn’t have an AHL goalie in the lineup, before they stopped using him again?

If Vegas bought its own BS 12 games into the season, before cutting bait on a potential top center after three losses that weren’t even his fault, that seems like McPhee being colossally bad at his job.

But the good news is no one has to care or think about this again. First, because Shipachyov is Russian and instead of forcing the team to stash his hefty salary in the AHL, which he almost certainly would have dominated with little effort, he just went back to another country and another league, and kept just $86,000 of his $2 million signing bonus. Second, because the team banked a lot of wins when it was shooting 12 percent. Third, because ah who cares, it’s an expansion team and they’re not supposed to be good anyway. Fourth, because this team is in Vegas and no one’s really paying attention. And fifth, because no one in the hockey media dares question a Good Hockey Man like George “Forsberg-for-Erat” McPhee.

It’s a perfect storm of non-accountability. So McPhee comes out of the mud here sparkling clean, but he shouldn’t. Because no matter how you care to look at it, this is like the fourth thing he screwed up since June. No other GM for no other franchise would be able to absorb that kind of failure rate.

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Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.