#it astounds me how kind keefe is

[artnerdsrule]

Keefe and mommy dearest.

[jamesvanriemsdyk]

Best GMs and coaches in the league ACC to you?

we can start with gms because coaching is a bit more complicated. best gms in the league is easy to look at because like, who has a good team? who has had a consistently good team? whose locker room is the most cohesive, whose coaching staff is the best? who is the best at acquiring and keeping the best players, coaches, staff, etc? and you can see that in the way teams play. 

(putting this under the cut because it got long. and i mean Long.)

so, in no particular order: kyle dubas (leafs), steve yzerman (red wings, i will explain this later), don waddell (canes), julien brisebois (lightning), joe sakic (avs), and kelly mccrimmon/george mcphee (golden knights) (god i still hate that name and also will explain this later too) are the best in the league in my opinion. honorable mention to marc bergevin, who has held onto his job much longer than he arguably should have, but still has a decent team on the ice and a decent coaching staff, although the french rule does severely handicap them (i understand why it exists but it does, it just does). 

david poile (preds) is the longest tenured gm in the league (has been the preds gm since fucking 1997, thats insane, thats legit before i was born, what the fuck), and i do genuinely think he is very good at his job, and that he is very hockey smart, but oh boy have his recent decisions been suspect as hell, and that reflects in the state of his team. doug wilson (sharks), who is the second longest tenured gm in the nhl, is in the exact same boat (the karlsson deal is a nightmare, and also did he just forget that his star core was gonna get old and retire or ??).

with dubas, waddell, brisebois, sakic, and mccrimmon/mcphee all have the same basic strengths: they draft well, they have a fundamental understanding of their team structure and how to manage public perception of the team and everything that implies, and they have two fingers on the pulse of their locker room at all times. im not going to pretend to know as much about sakic and mccrimmon/mcphee as i do the eastern gms, but it doesnt take much to figure it out. look at the avs, and their locker room, the success theyve found after being dead fucking last in the league. look at the knights and their incredible success that theyve found after literally not existing before 2017. ive talked about dubas a lot on my blog, but its incredibly easy to see that waddell and brisebois do the same shit he does, and i can do a deep dive on them if asked. bergevin has moments of brilliance, like the suzuki trade and acquiring caufield and anderson, but things like kotkaniemi’s development and their entire blue line give me a massive pause, which is why he’s not in the main list. he’s a good gm. he’s just not the best.

in regards to steve yzerman: you have to understand that this is the man that built the tampa bay lightning as we know them. this man was gm of the bolts until fucking 2018. tampa bay has been a monster in the eastern conference for years, BECAUSE of the work steve yzerman put in. his team set the franchise record for wins, and he was the first and is the only lightning gm to have won gm of the year. look up the 17-18 roster. it is, essentially, the roster that won them the cup last year. make no mistake, i think brisebois is great, and hes on the list for a reason, but the biggest part of brisebois’ success was steve yzerman’s incredible hockey mind. brisebois essentially had to sell off a fourth of his roster, and the lightning are still a top team in their division and in the league, and thats why he’s there (it is so incredibly easy to fuck shit up post cup win), but the brisebois lightning would not exist without steve yzerman, plain and simple.

what steve yzerman is doing in detroit should be watched very, very closely by every single person in the hockey world. youre fucking nuts if youre not paying attention to them, not gonna lie. the mantha trade was excellent, if really sad if you know even a bit about the wings, but the amount of draft picks steve yzerman has amassed and the way he’s using the prospects and players he already has is really fucking admirable. mike babcock left the red wings organization absolutely in tatters, and i think, honestly, it was always steve yzerman’s plan to go home to detroit and rebuild. if there is anyone who is going to strike absolute gold this draft year, it is steve yzerman. watch the red wings, i am telling you, keep a beat on detroit. they are going to be good. its not an if, its a when.

(real quick on the knights situation: mcphee was the first gm of the knights, and was also president of hockey ops at the same time, and then in 2019 mcphee said he was just gonna focus on his job as president, but we all know hes still an integral part of the way the knights are run, and he and mccrimmon have kinda been building the knight together since the beginning anyway bc mccrimmon was originally mcphee’s agm. so. thats why theyre together)

as for coaches, it’s very simple. rod brind’amour (canes), sheldon keefe (leafs, yes im biased, we’ll get into it), jared bednar (avs), joel quenneville (panthers), jon cooper (lightning), barry trotz (isles), and mike sullivan (pens).

(disclaimer: obviously coaching is done as a team, and assistants and specialist coaches and staff are all very important, but the head coaches set the tone and organize the entire machine, if you will, so im going to be talking about head coaches as if theyre the entire coaching staff. its just easier this way im sorry)

im gonna just start with the easy ones: barry trotz, mike sullivan, and jon cooper have been in the league for years. cooper is the longest tenured coach in the nhl for a reason (again, just look at the tampa bay lightning. its the gm’s job to make the coach’s life easier and the coach’s job to make the gm’s life easier, and this is one of the prime examples of it in the league. its dope as hell tbh), trotz is one of the most respected coaches in the hockey world for a reason (the caps lost something when he walked. they just did. and now the isles are absolute hell to play against and that is largely the coaching of barry trotz, you legit cannot tell me im wrong), and while mike sullivan does have his faults, i think hes found a way to please both management and the crosby-and-malkin unit, which has been really really fucking hard to do. he also led the pens to back to back cups, which you can never really uh. ignore. lmao. so theres those three.

i know less about bednar, but again, another example of the coach and gm working together to make each others’ lives easier. sakic gets bednar the players and staff he needs to make the avs better, and bednar takes those players and staff and makes them into the absolute giant they are. it wouldve been really, really easy to fuck up makar’s development, or bowen byram’s, or sam girard’s, or ryan graves’s, or jost or mackinnon or rantanen’s, but he hasn’t, and he hasn’t just given up on players like burakovsky or kadri, he’s given them new life as players and made them more successful.

joel quenneville is the reason the bl/ckh/wks were a legacy team point blank period. sure they had the talent, sure the gm drafted well, but you do not get the legacy of the chicago bl/ckh/wks without joel quenneville. they fired him on a whim and it absolutely was a mistake, and the moment the cats hired him i literally out loud said ‘oh no’ because i knew exactly what that meant for the leafs and their position in the standings. the panthers are underrated generally, yes, but they would not be the powerhouse they are this season without quenneville. just look at q’s wiki stats. he’s absolutely unbeilevable. he won the jack adams in fucking 2000, before he’d even won any of the cups with the h/wks. i cant tell you what kind of a locker room coach this guy is, but i can tell you his teams win and win convincingly, and that firing him was the biggest mistake the h/wks have made in years.

whenever i talk about coaching, i talk about rod brindamour and sheldon keefe in the same breath every single time because there is no match, and i mean none, for the love inside those locker rooms. the avs, maybe, but my point stands. keefe and brindamour fucking BLEED team spirit, it is at the center of their coaching styles and their teams are good because of it specifically. marner and matthews are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation and then some with keefe. aho, teravainen, and svechnikov are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation with brindamour. brindamour and keefe have both hashtag played the game, so they Get It, and more than that, theyve grown and changed their understanding of the game as the game itself has changed, and so they can command the authority of their teams while also connecting to them on a really deep level. i should make a note here that keefe and brindamour are incredibly, deeply hockey smart, and that they are also just technically good coaches, skimming their wiki or nhl dot com articles will tell you that, but what makes them stand out to me is that their players would fucking die for them. the leafs would go through the end boards for keefe, the canes would do the same for brindamour. travis dermott said it best when keefe got promoted: boys wanna play for him. beyond that, the management skills both brindamour and keefe have are just frankly amazing (the amount of ego keefe specifically has to manage in the leafs locker room is astounding and he does it so incredibly brilliantly). the leafs and the canes are talented, yes, and would have been talented regardless of who was coaching them. but brindamour and keefe bring both of those teams from talented to exceptional, and the true mark of an amazing coach is not only how many games their team wins, but how they win them, and the leafs and canes have been winning games this year for and because of each other, and that starts with their coaches. what makes a great coach, to me, is not the talent on the team (though that certainly helps), but how the coach manages his players no matter who they are, and how he helps those players grow not just as players as people, because no matter how much pure stats people and twitter hockey dudebros wanna deny it, that shit does affect on ice play, and it does make good players better.

so theres my analysis of the best coaches and gms of the nhl, im so sorry this is so long, oh my god. also, shoutout to @bishops--knifetrick for sending me an ask about this literally a month ago that i just never answered, sorry for that, but here i hope this is good. :)

[ravs6709]

Within The Background- Platonic Marellinhiana

Woo, the last of my requests! Platonic Marellinhiana, requested by @completekeefitztrash (sorry for taking so long, whoops). It's really Biana-centric and deals with her scars that she got during Nightfall. And just all of them being supportive.

I'm not someone who has scars, so if something ends up being a little insensitive, please let me know! Kinda injury tw, but its more of the effects than the actual pain itself

Enjoy!

•~•~•~•~•~•

Biana Vacker was someone who was used to standing out. She'd been doing it all her life, she was a Vacker, born for attention.

But with the whole Neverseen thing going on, she wasn't the one with the attention. It wasn't like she needed it, it was just something she was so used to. And you could call her selfish or self-absorbed, but she kind of missed it. It was a little difficult to see Sophie run off with Fitz and Keefe all the time, while the rest of them were left behind.

She wasn't going to ruin things just because she was jealous though. She knew better than to do something like that. She channeled all that frustration, converting it into something more harmless, something she could use to protect her friends.

During Nightfall, it'd been the first time that those pent up feelings had let loose. She didn't even hesitate before going after Vespera, and she didn't realize what had happened to her until after she'd gotten away.

And at first? She felt ashamed. She wore more simple dresses, hiding away the scars. If she was faster, stronger, better, she wouldn't have been injured and Vespera would have been captured. She distanced herself from the others, and for the first time in her life, she hated the attention. She'd wanted to stand out, but not like this. Not for failing.

It took a while for her to mentally recover. A large portion of it was due to the support of her friends.

•~•~•~•~•~•

"What are you two doing?" Biana asked, stumbling across Linh and Marella in a relatively isolate, open place.

"We're trying to practice our abilities," Linh explained. "I'm finally gaining control over the water, but I don't want it to only work out if I'm being enhanced."

"She's also here for damage control, in case my fires become too wild," Marella added.

"Oh, you can continue," Biana said, sitting down.

She didn't know what exactly they'd been doing, but she was astounded. They'd been practicing separately before, but then they turned to each other. Reds and blues shot from their hands, hot and cold and it was all beautiful. If this was just then experimenting, she couldn't imagine what they were capable of in a real fight.

Her fingers pressed together, and her legs shook with a surprising amount of energy. Maybe she should join them? It was more productive then sitting there, doing nothing.

As if Linh had read her mind, she spoke. "You could join us too, if you want?"

Biana smiled softly at that. "My ability isn't as offensive as the two of yours."

"There's other things we can work on than just power. Precision, timing, you could work with it? Right Marella?"

Marella nodded. "No point shooting flames if it doesn't hit anyone."

So during a lot of their free time, they had gone to the open field and practiced their abilities. Biana worked on moving more gracefully, hoping that in a real fight, she'd have speed and stealth to her advantage.

She reached up to stretch, only to wince at the dress' sleeve falling to uncover her arm.

"You... you don't have to hide it from us," Linh told her. "I don't think it changes you."

Biana closed her eyes and thought it over. It wasn't really about ruining the 'perfect' skin. The existence of the scars themselves wasn't too bad. It was what they represented. She couldn't stand to have people stare at her and be reminded of the way she failed.

"You fought really hard during Nightfall," Marella said, her tone a little heavy. "You went face to face with an actual criminal, who has experience with this type of thing. We're all children with little experience, so we fought out best. It's pretty inspiring."

"Neither of us think you failed. All it means is that we have to practice harder," Linh continued. "To me, the scars meant that you tried, they represent how brave you are."

"Which is something that I would have never expected from 'Princess Prettypants'. You've grown from the spoiled selfish elf you were, and that's what matters to us."

Biana smiled. "Thank you."

A small conversation like that wasn't going to change her opinion so easily, but that evening, she managed to get herself to look in the mirror for once and not feel completely ashamed.

The rest of the progress needed to be made would be done by her. But those words were the push that she'd needed.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Their training kept continuing, even if they didn't have many chances to actually fight. Biana was usually invisible, her goal usually to reach Linh while avoiding the water. When Marella's control got better, her and Lihh would trade places.

When Biana had to evade the fire, it was exhilarating. Getting hit by the water wouldn't hurt that badly, but fire was an active threat, and would actually burn. She had to be light on her feet if she didn't want to be hurt.

It was going to be easier if there was the threat of a fire. There would be no tensing up of freezing, because she was used to it now. She could jump straight into action. And if the fire belonged to Marella, it only made it that much easier to trust it.

"That was tiring," Marella said after they were done, and laid down on the field.

Biana and Linh laid down at her sides, and tried to catch their breath.

"We're doing a lot better," Marella stated. "We're getting stronger."

"We've really come so far together," Linh agreed, and Biana noticed that Marella shifted a little so she could hold Biana's hand. Then she offered the other to Biana. She took the hand.

"When Sophie needs us, we'll be ready to help her. Right?" Biana asked.

"Right."

•~•~•~•~•~•

Taglist- @keefeinnit @my-swan-song @impostertamsong @subrosasteath

Wanna join/be removed from the taglist? Just let me know!

[revasnaslan]

Red Shells | Ao3 Link

Rating: G Pairings: Gen ; Kolivan&Keith, Background Thace/Ulaz Tags: Merpeople AU, Dads of Marmora, Galra Keith Summary: When one of his fathers falls ill, and the other has to hunt for the pod, Keith is left in the care of Kolivan for the morning. Word Count: 2,318 Verse: Out of the Depths — Ao3 Link | Tumblr Tag

This was written for Kolivan Week Day 7 (Free Day/AU) over @galraweek!! Decided to do a fic from my Mer Galra AU featuring Kolivan and bby keef! :3

Sickness had been sweeping through the pod over the last couple of weeks. Kolivan had tried not to hover, as he knew that their medic, Kellun, had been working tirelessly to handle the outbreak. Even with Kellun’s experience, Kolivan still worried, though. It seemed like it was a respiratory infection, not anything that would be deadly to the hunters. The elders and pups, however, were more susceptible to it. So, as soon as Thace had fallen ill a couple of sunrises prior, Kolivan had helped Ulaz get him to the medical cave, in order to make sure Keith didn’t get sick as well.

This left Ulaz watching Keith alone. Normally, there were enough hunters in the pod that this wouldn’t have been a problem—Ulaz could have sat out from hunts until Thace got better and they could return to swapping pupsitting duty during the morning hunts. However, with so many hunters falling ill, Ulaz couldn’t continue to sit out of hunts. There were too many mouths to feed, including several elders and pups. Since he had gone hunting the previous day, Kolivan had volunteered to take pupsitting duty for the day. He had only watched Keith once before, when Keith had left his fathers’ cave for the first time. However, that had been back in the Old Territory, and Keith had only been about five moons old at the time. While Kolivan hadn’t pupsat since, on account of being too busy keeping track of the goings on of the pod, he did speak with Keith whenever he ran into Keith and Thace during his morning rounds. Keith was normally excited to see him and asked him questions.

Given Keith didn’t have a problem with him, Kolivan didn’t think keeping an eye on the pup was going to be too much trouble.

Early in the morning, Kolivan carefully ducked inside of Ulaz and Thace’s cave, after the sun had just barely begun rising over the horizon and casting light over the water. Ulaz’s back was to the cave’s entrance, one arm tucked beneath his head. Keith was out of sight, but Kolivan could assume that the pup was curled up against his father. Before Kolivan could announce his presence, one of Ulaz’s ears flicked, and he half-turned, looking over his shoulder to check who had just entered the cave. Keith must have still been asleep—Kolivan knew the pup was normally very quick to greet visitors.

“There you are,” Ulaz said quietly, before he began trying to extract himself the nest without disturbing his pup. The plant matter that made up the nest looked newly changed since Kolivan had been in here a couple of sunrises ago. Ulaz must have done that after returning from the medical cave.

Keith didn’t stir beyond a soft squeak, but he shifted and curled up, tucking his tail fin in close to his body as it twitched in his sleep. He seemed to be resting easily, but Kolivan knew that Ulaz had likely been watching out for signs of coughing and fluttering gills. Those were the first symptoms that Thace had displayed before the sickness had gotten bad.

“Did you tell him that I would be watching him today?” Kolivan asked, indicating the pup with a flick of his ears.

Ulaz nodded. “When he wakes up, he’ll probably be hungry,” he said, and his brow furrowed in worry as he looked back over to his pup. “He didn’t eat much yesterday…”

Kolivan’s ears pinned back. “You don’t think he has gillflutters, do you?” he asked. Several other hunters in the medical cave had lost their appetites now that they were sick. If Keith had lost his appetite as well…

“No,” Ulaz said quickly, shaking his head. “He misses Thace.” Judging by his tone and down set ears, Ulaz missed his mate terribly as well. He leaned down to give the pup one last nuzzle—earning a soft, sleepy sounding chirp in return—before moving towards the mouth of the cave. “I’ll be back later, a little after sunhigh. He shouldn’t give you too much trouble.”

Kolivan hadn’t been expecting Keith to give him much trouble considering how well behaved the pup normally was, but he nodded nonetheless. “Good hunting…”

While waiting for Keith to wake up, Kolivan looked around at the many pockets in the cave’s walls. He had always been astounded by the amount of trinkets Ulaz managed to find—they had only been in the new territory for around four seasons, and yet Ulaz had already managed to amass a collection that rivaled the one he had had in the Old Territory. However, Kolivan also found the idea of collecting human things baffling. He thought that perhaps it was a Wanderer thing—he hadn’t met one until Ulaz had joined their pod all those seasons ago.

As he drifted through the cave, he noticed a flash of red in his peripheral vision. When he turned his head, he found a nook hidden lower on one of the cave walls that was filled with shells. Tilting his head to the side, he moved closer to get a better look. He knew that Ulaz frequently brought back shells for Thace, but they were always intact—and purple. These shells, however, seemed to be an assortment of many different kinds, some of them broken, some still whole…

“I got those for Dad…” Keith’s soft, sleepy voice came from behind him, and Kolivan turned to see the pup sitting in the nest, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“Oh?” Kolivan asked as Keith swam over to his side. “Where did you find them?” he asked, lightly trying to smooth down Keith’s headfur with his hand, being mindful of his claws. The pup’s headfur was an absolute mess, sticking up at odd angles, and Thace wasn’t around to make it lie at least somewhat flat even underwater. Kolivan didn’t think he had ever seen a birthparent groom their pup as much as Thace groomed Keith.

“The pools,” Keith said, smiling brightly. “Papa took me…” And then, the pup’s expression fell a little bit, ears pinning back against the sides of his head. “Cause when Dad gets back I want to give him presents…”

“Are you hungry?” Kolivan asked—perhaps getting Keith out of the cave for a bit would help. It would certainly provide a nice distraction for him until Ulaz got back. “We can go and get some fish, if you’d like…”

The mere mention of food seemed to lift Keith’s spirits, and he nodded quickly. “I can catch my own,” he said insistently. “Dad taught me! He says I’m going to be the best hunter in the pod!”

Kolivan let out a soft purr of amusement. “Is that so?” he asked, trailing along after the pup as Keith made for the mouth of the cave. “Where should we go hunting, then?”

Keith didn’t bother to respond. Instead, he grabbed hold of Kolivan’s hand and hurriedly led him out of the cave. Kolivan followed without argument as Keith led him to some nearby plant life, and he watched as Keith got into position, floating just in front of the plants. Upon noticing a flash of silver, he darted forward, startling the fish out of cover. Then, he managed to stun one of the smaller of the fish that emerged with a firm tail slap before giving it over to Kolivan and going to try finding another fish.

Even if the fish wasn’t large enough to be much of a meal to Kolivan, he thanked Keith anyway, because the pup seemed so enthusiastic about his catch.

—

After Keith was fed, Kolivan decided to take him on a small tour of the territory surrounding his fathers’ cave. Just far enough that Keith could feel like he was on an adventure. From what Thace had mentioned, Kolivan gathered Keith almost always slept through most of the journey back to the cave when they came back from the shore. The swim there wore him out more often than not, as it was to the far side of the territory, closer to the docks.

Kolivan did enjoy being able to point out new things to the pup, since Keith always seemed to ask what things were even if he had already seen them fifty times.

“And that is where the pod meetings are held,” he said as he motioned to a large grouping of rocks with his tail. Seaweed obscured most of the clearing from view, hiding the meeting place from prying eyes. While most of their meetings were held at dusk, it didn’t hurt to be careful, especially where humans were concerned. Kolivan had nearly had several run ins with them since the pod had settled in this territory.

He was almost ready to continue the tour—perhaps the next stop could be the drop off—but he noticed how Keith had begun trailing behind and didn’t seem to be as interested as he had been at the beginning.

“Keith?” Kolivan asked as he swam back over to the pup’s side.

“Dad’s going to be okay, right?” Keith asked. His voice was soft and barely audible over the shift of the current, and his ears had pinned back, nearly disappearing into his headfur.

Kolivan paused, unsure of what to say. Kellun had already assured him that it wasn’t anything serious, that Thace would make a full recovery, that the only reason Thace had moved in the first place was because of Keith. But he realized that he had been hesitating too long when Keith’s eyes widened and his lip began quivering.

“He’ll be fine,” Kolivan said hastily. Ulaz would be distraught if anything happened to his mate. Not to mention what it would do to Keith if his father died—he had always been Thace’s pup, and it was rare to see Thace without Keith trailing along after him or riding on his back because he had gotten tired of swimming. The two of them had been close since Keith was too small to swim on his own, before he had opened his eyes, even.

But nothing was going to happen to Thace.

“He’ll be fine, pup,” Kolivan asserted, and the firmness of his voice seemed to calm Keith a little, although Kolivan reaching out to lightly scratch the pup behind his ears did more. Keith managed a laugh and squirmed as his expression brightened just a little. Then, Kolivan noticed a small, red shell poking out of the sand nearby. He motioned to it with his ears and smiled. “How about you find some more shells for him?” he suggested. “To add to the pile back in your cave?”

Keith nodded quickly and darted off to start digging the shell free of the sand. Once he had the shell in hand, Keith moved to another spot to start searching, then, and Kolivan trailed a tail length behind, keeping watch for predators and other, smaller threats like stray crabs.

—

By the time they returned to Ulaz and Thace’s cave, the sun was nearing its peak in the sky and Keith had found three more shells to add the ever growing pile he had amassed for his father. Keith was trying to arrange them perfectly when Ulaz darted into the cave, carrying two fish in his jaws. He handed one—the larger of the two—over to Kolivan, before turning his attention to his pup.

“Papa!” Keith said excitedly, abandoning his organizing to dart into his father’s arms, rubbing their cheeks together. Ulaz purred deep in his chest, and Keith mimicked him, although his purr was much higher pitched. When Ulaz presented the second, smaller fish to Keith, the pup happily accepted it and settled on the cave’s floor to start eating.

“Did he behave alright?” Ulaz asked, ears twitching nervously.

“Yes, he did,” Kolivan assured him. “He even found some more shells for Thace while we were out…”

“He showed me the meeting place!” Keith said excitedly, looking up from his fish. “And I swam all the way by myself!” He seemed rather proud of that feat, even though it wasn’t actually that far from the cave.

“Oh, really?” Ulaz said, settling down beside his pup. “Well, I have some good news for you… Dad is going to be coming home soon.”

“He is?” Keith asked, ears going alert. “When? Did you talk to him?”

“In two sunrises,” Ulaz said, smiling at the pup’s excitement. “He was very excited to hear about what you’ve been up to…”

Keith frowned. “Did you tell him about the shells? It’s supposed to be a surprise…”

“Of course I didn’t,” Ulaz said, shaking his head. “Now, finish your lunch while I talk to Kolivan…”

Kolivan paused in dissecting the fish he had been given when Ulaz turned his attention back to him. “So, Thace is improving?” he asked, carefully extracting a lingering hook from the fish and setting it the side out of sight so Keith wouldn’t be tempted to try playing with it.

“Yes,” Ulaz said nodding. “He is very eager to get out of the medical cave. Apparently Kellun is smothering him.”

Kolivan snorted, ears twitching in amusement. “Well, I’m certain he’ll be glad to see his pup again.”

“Thanks again for watching him,” Ulaz said gratefully. “I know he can be a handful…”

“It was no trouble, Ulaz,” Kolivan said, shaking his head. “He’s a good pup.”

“So…” Ulaz began, ears flicking in interest—and perhaps just a touch hopefully. “You wouldn’t mind watching him tomorrow too?”

Kolivan glanced over at Keith again. The pup was tearing into the fish his father had given him with tiny claws—probably trying to check for hooks, but lacking the finesse to do so without utterly destroying his meal. Perhaps tomorrow Kolivan could teach him how to check fish properly. “Yes, I would like that very much,” he finally said.

[raviolifeathers]

[tried to make a happy ending, sorry]

His screams were unbearable.

While most of the villagers mourned their dear friend, some, including Ocanik, had gone to tie up the disgrace of a knight and throw him out the village.

"WHY HASN'T THE SPELL BROKEN?! WHY AM I BEING TREATED LIKE- LIKE-"

"Like a pest? An abomination? You- you killed Keefie. Dear dear Keefalyuse. Why? For gold, eh? Was that it?!" Ocanik's voice cracked at the acceptance that the village's friend was gone. Some muttered their agreement.

The knight stayed silent as he was carried away, tied to a pole. Would he be burned? A life for a life? Perhaps. He didn't know.

"I didn't. . . It's not dead, well not completely," the shameless knight muttered.

Ocanik and the rest refused to believe it.

"I swear! I may have angered you all, but I'm not a liar!"

No, Keefie had to be dead. All the blood, and the body burning. . .

burning. . .

burning?

no.

"Keefie doesn't burn. . ." Ocanik's breath stopped.

During a particularly hot drought, there had been an awful lightning storm. A tree had been struck near old Haariks' and his grandkids' farm. Luckily, the kind dragon had pulled them out of there, not even slightly scorched.

"KEEFIE DOESN'T BURN!" Ocanik cried. In a surge of adrenaline, Ocanik pulled out a dagger and held it to the knight's throat. "Tell me quickly, why did you try burning Keefalyuse? A knight like you should know it wouldn't burn."

"Please- please I'll tell you just put the weapon away," he was a coward of a knight for sure. He couldn't have killed Keefalyuse. Ocanik reluctantly agreed. "When I snuck in, I knew the beast—er the dragon—would hear me almost immediately and kill me. So I did the only logical thing; I shot it with a dreamer's curse arrow. I covered myself in racoon's blood and set afire to the place so nobody would reach the thing before it died. The curse doesn't kill its prey until the first rays of moon light."

Ocanik pulled along a friend as a witness and ran to the crone. While the crone was irrationally brave, social, and compulsive, her wife was more serene and well put together. Yet hard to find since she was always in the woods searching for potion ingredients. Only the crone could find her quickly.

Ocanik, out of breath, explained the situation and was astounded as to how fast she reacted. Determination streaked her face and she disappeared into the woods. Ocanik's friend told the mourners to put out the flames, "Keefalyuse is alive!"

By the time dear Keef had been watered down from the ashy foliage covering it's shimmery hide, the crone and the brewer had arrived. A mysterious bottle with warm golden potion in hand.

When the knight returned, he told all that the dragon was slain, but the villager's needed time to heal from the spell. Satisfied with that information, the village was left alone, but rumours of a dragon's ghost protecting a village arose.

am convinced that dragons eat gold……they stockpile it bc they hibernate for centuries at a time, and occasionally need to wake up and eat a snack…..this changes everything…..if you woke up and found a small invasive animal trying to steal from your grain pile, what would you do? it’s probably riddled w/ diseases….you have to exterminate the pests so you don’t get an infestation. nothing to do with greed just common sense….

[clareomalley-blog1]

Does “contemporary art need to be transgressive? Patrick Radden Keefe, "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain"

The Sacklers are an insanely wealthy family (net worth thirteen billion dollars) known globally for their philanthropic work.  “The Brooklyn-born brothers Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler, all physicians, donated lavishly during their lifetimes to an astounding range of institutions, many of which today bear the family name: the Sackler Gallery, in Washington; the Sackler Museum, at Harvard; the Sackler Center for Arts Education, at the Guggenheim; the Sackler Wing at the Louvre; and Sackler institutes and facilities at Columbia, Oxford, and a dozen other universities.”  They speak publicly about their generous donations, but they often do not talk about Purdue Pharma - “a privately held company, based in Stamford, Connecticut, that developed the prescription painkiller OxyContin”.  This family has acquired an unfathomable fortune on peddling pills to whoever will pop them.

Purdue Pharma has used many ‘marketing tactics’ to sell their most infamous concoction, Oxycontin.  They were known to go into doctors offices and speak with clinicians and pay off doctors to endorse the product.  One on the brothers also happened to be a medical advertiser, and seemed to be able to coerce doctors into prescribing the medication by creating savvy advertisements in medical journals that stood out from the rest.  They completely misinformed the medical community about the risks, saying that Oxycontin was ‘virtually’ non-addictive, and other bs like that.

It is extremely difficult to say wether or not museums should vet and reject their sources of income on the basis of how their patrons accrue wealth.  Some people might argue that philanthropy might represent, for at least some of the Sacklers, a form of atonement.  Regardless, this would undoubtedly result in a massive overhaul of, dare I say, pretty much everything in our society if establishments were to ‘comb’ through their donations.  I have a sneaky feeling that there is way more corruption, akin to the scandalous Sacklers, than we can comprehend.  If museums, for example, begin to reject money that comes from companies who are not the most ‘down to earth’ and ‘wholesome’, where will the money come from?  Thats the kicker…it won’t.  And then these great expansive museums will fall from a lack of funding - because only people like the Sacklers have enough extra money laying around to be able to give enough to national museums.  The rest of the world is scrambling to pay an overdue electric bill of $46.23 (or is that just me?).  Imagine how hard the world would freak if a museum began to take the art away?  Or close down the spaces built by these people?  Because of the corruption of the donators?  I wonder if the donators themselves might take some kind of stealthy ‘big cat’ approach to screw over the establishments that rejected them.  I know when im feelin good and evil (especially on Mondays), I’d do just about anything to cause the demise of those who shorthanded me for my hard weekend work (I don’t really feel this way *nervous laughing*).  Perhaps they should leave the past to the past and reevaluate from this point on.  It is tricky when a vast majority of a museums ever changing display of monumental works and spaces continue to come from people who never quit it with the ‘fu**ery’.  However, if we take the other route and leave it be, nothing changes for the worst, and money keeps gushing through the pipes to all of our favorite public facilities, and we’ll all continue to have that monotonous, dead-eyed jolly that everyone who ‘turns a blind eye’ has as they look away from the wreck.  Too dramatic?  Not really.  Its like we have all, as a society, become the step kid, left choiceless as we take handouts from the evil step mother, Lady Tremaine, despite our yearning to break free and take on the hardships of independence for the sake of justice and morality.  I think ultimately, just like everything else in this world, it comes down to money and greed.  These museums are too greedy, complacent and settled into their flow to suddenly shut off the water in quest of a long trek to a far away well.  Why carry buckets out in the heat when we have a sink right here?  I’ll tell ya why - its because behind the sink, there is a guy strong-arming 12 little kids from South America into illegally pumping water from Lake Nicaragua to a basin for you to access in your kitchen at your leisure (ok, this one is super super over the top dramatic and ridiculous, but you get the point).  Ultimately, these museums have decided to turn their backs on all the people who have been screwed by Purdue Pharma.  This company has ruined lives and families because of false advertisement and predatory business practices. To stop taking their donations would be really really hard, and probably detrimental in more way than one, but it would be the right thing to do.  It is scary though, because who would they then give their money to once the do-gooder museums wont take it anymore?  Who knows.  Real ‘philanthropy’ would be to contribute money to taking care of the people they should own up to fu**ing over.  Hopefully someday, the Sacklers will have a change of heart and hopefully the places that accept donations from people like this will begin to do the right thing.