#that took so long im so serious

[distardre]

drew this one while held at gunpoint by my best friend /j

reference pic

[deep-space-lines]

in case anyone was wondering where I disappeared to for the past few days, i've been going insane again. fun fact staring at stained glass windows for hours on end will not turn you catholic (source: i stared at so many stained glass windows to make this bc i really wanted to go for a realistic church window sort of vibe)

tumblr is a coward and won't let me upload the full size images so you can look at them and zoom in to your heart's content (please look at them. please) [1] [2]

Prints of this are available on my Society6 (both versions cuz I'm indecisive) (it may take a little while for them to actually appear on the site)

Details:

Timelapse under the cut!

my favorite part of this is when I'm trying to get the pose down and I keep flipping the canvas and it looks like they're doing a silly little dance :)

[lokh]

what do you think toshiro's version of laios would've been like if he was still with the group during the shapeshifter shenanigans

there have been a few speculations in the tag and among the fans and they are all very good SO i am going to take this opportunity to insert a bit of my shipping bias as i like in my interpretation LMAO agdsfgdfgv

i noted that in actuality shuro seems to have a very good grasp on laios' character??? this is most obvious in the manga later on but even seeing how he criticises laios in their fight... iirc nothing he says is actually untrue or wildly exaggerated, and while he does express frustration over something he feels like laios Should have control over (noticing his cues), he is also aware that laios isnt being malicious and that hes Just Like That. what i mean to say is that while i think his version of laios may seem more pushy and in-your-face, i dont think it will be overwhelmingly so. if its post-fight, i think the idea of laios (and marcille) being willing to do anything to get falin back made a big impression on him, as well as the idea that they need to eat and rest in order to succeed in their goals, so those aspects would be prominent in his version. he seems pretty observant, so i think for the most part the physical traits would line up, but i think there would be specific things that stand out to him that would appear strangely striking on his version of laios (like. idk something about his eye colour or the subtle contrast of his armour and chainmail. he seems to have a weird sense of aesthetics if extras are anything to go by lmao). if hed actually been paying attention all those times laios had gone on about what the hell ever, then it might be even MORE hard to tell apart his version since he would also have a good grasp on what laios should know. so either his version of laios is pretty difficult to pick out, OR despite the character being accurate his appearance is too. stylised lmao (exaggerated features or something) OR!! they just get him to pull out his monster gourmet guide thing and are able to tell from there. iirc everyone was surprised at its appearance so its possible toshiro had also never seen it before

IN MY IMAGINARY SHIPPING SCENARIO............ lets say that his laios isnt able to be picked out immediately and that the monster guide thing also doesnt immediately occur to anyone. what the real laios Specifically notices is how close this other laios keeps getting to shuro. and hes like. ??? why is he getting so close to him, theres no way i get that close to him??? but no one else seems to be picking up on it as weird, so hes having a small crisis like do i REALLY get that close to him???? and now that hes on the outside he notices shuro subtly leaning away and he feels both a wave of shame and..... protectiveness??? (JEALOUSY??????) and he immediately steps in and grabs him like Hey!!! cant you see hes uncomfortable???? weve been through this already!!! and like. ok i cant believe im doing this again but i need to separate this into different endings

a) the whump route: i dont think shuro ever envisioned Actually Telling laios about his frustrations outside of being basically cornered into it. has he ever spoken up against what was expected of him?? has he ever been confrontational???? i think part of what held him back from expressing his frustrations, along with the cultural norms, could be fear of what the reaction would be. if he had done the same in any other aspect of his life (his family, his inheritance), i think he would expect disappointment, disapproval, more proof that he doesnt add up to expectation. to be honest i dont think he Truly believes that laios is the type of person to react like this. but it was strong enough to prevent him from acting and i think would be projected onto his image of laios. maybe fake!laios says something dismissive like Well if it really bothered him hed say something right? what, he cant even stand up for himself? cmon, shuro, prove that you cant handle it just like everything else. and thats pretty much the fastest giveaway that it isnt really laios. of course this would be a HUGE tonal departure from what the actual episode/chapter was, so:

b) the dumbass route: both laioses break into fisticuffs, and, yes.... barking. and so they speedrun the entire encounter as the shapeshifters true form appears and, after laios points out that thinking too hard about others versions of you can tear apart groups and peace of mind, they pointedly do not speak of it again. they think about it though. a LOT

c) the normal route: both laioses argue normal like and the group ends up being able to tell them apart because the fake laios goes on a little too long about how theyre all here for falin and everyones like ok its not like he DOESNT love his sister but.......... the rest of the scenario probably goes like canon, though then i would want to see what everyone Else thought of shuro

[hey-heigo]

dw guys the thh tonaegiri trio was supposed to be included in the arti-mate collab but kyoko already filled their long-skirt quota and they had to stick junko in somewhere. so

some alternative outfit designs i was messing around with under the cut

i mostly couldn't use these because i couldn't figure out a color scheme that could still comfortably carry the original palette to fit the collab theme...anyways feel free to color yourself lol

[hballegro]

i have more conspiracies about MASH that may or may not be true, but ive decided they are. they also just might have been explained, but im dumb, and cant remember. heres your sequel.

in 7x3 where hawkeye tackles bj, bj goes "AAH!' and hawkeye says 'WRONG! THAT STARTS WITH AN H!'. this is because mike farrell's line was 'hey!' but due to the force and drama of the scene, just Yelped instead.

All the dogs that turned up that never appeared again [like the one bj and hawk "ate" when they were trying to scare a visitor, dogs seen in 1 shot, etc] were just dogs that the production crew/cast owned and wanted to bring to work/volunteered their animal for acting duty

in the handful if scenes where hawkeye is actually knitting [and not using the red yarn, for the reason given in the previous edition], hes making a blankie for erin. [co-credit my sibling]

klinger got his ears pierced during the course of the show, starting with clearly just clip-ons and then later declares he doesnt want his ears to close up. some say continuity error, I say commitment (and also it would probably be easier to find real earrings instead of clip-ons)

in s7e2 Peace on Us, no one told bill christopher to tie that red streamer around his neck, he just thought it would be silly

in s7e2 Peace on Us, again, no one told alan alda to drive the jeep back to camp with his leg up like that. he just knows the character well enough to make that call. which he's correct about

the scar on hawkeye's lip was caused by a fishhook in his youth. got called Troutboy a long time afterward because of it.

bj is a vaseline girlie and takes good care of his hair as well.

hawkeye sniffs food because, having grown up partly during the depression, eating spoiled food was a real risk, so giving it a good ol' sniff-test was a given

fr mulcahy cares deeply about his appearance and engages in more grooming activities than any other guy in camp [the shower cap, always looking perfect, owning gardening gloves, manicured hands and feet, etc]. he even irons his stole on a bi-weekly basis and launders his clerical collars

hawkeye's issues with people leaving and not saying goodbye began with his mother after she passed, since his father didnt want him to worry

on nights where charles goes to bed after the other two, he will occasionally clean up a little bit. this contributes to why he's so pissed in 'Pressure Points'- he's been doing his own cleaning and some of theirs without them noticing or caring.

once again these are all just things that came to mind while watching, i didnt think too hard on them. the only one 'researched' on was the food sniffing, solely because i needed to do Year Math lol

[askkonbart]

Hey!! Wanted to know, what's your favorite place to go on a date?

Dates and stuff

[blood-mocha-latte]

part one of a belated birthday gift for the wonderful @ep6bastogne <33

OTHER PEOPLE BY @ep6bastogne

Web always catches the overnight train from Chicago to Oakland.

[beaulesbian]

(wano spoilers)

there are these few pages in chapter 1001, where right after zoro protected luffy from an attack by big mom, he told him (similarily like in punk hazard arc, but this time he definitely meant it 100x more seriously) not to get distracted - to 'not lose focus for a single instant'.

and right next panel law was starting shit with luffy (after saving him from kaido's attack)

it's so funny how law was annoyed that it seemed luffy was ordering him around, even if he did the thing luffy asked for. because he was already planning on doing that, sure, sure. and thought it was the best time to talk about it with luffy

and then kid, of course, couldn't help but add his two cents to the discussion

all while they were literally up fighting against kaido and big mom askjdsjd

and luffy really knew when to come up with his best ideas for the moment 'whoever reacts first is the loser!'

they're all so competitive with each other, it's so fun to watch/read their stupid shenanigans!

even zoro is so done with them :')

edit: few pages later and zoro ordering law around too, bc it's just that much fun! and law listens lol

[puckpocketed]

caps fan here!

as follower of pld (the few, the proud, the courageous!), i was wondering if you had any thoughts about how he might fit in with our team, assuming he's going to be 1C with Ovi on the left and one of Wilson or Mangiapane on the right, and basically taking the former Kuznetsov/Backstrom spot on the halfwall on PP1. my thinking is that he can easily return to being a 60 point player just by the increase in ice time alone this coming season, and maybe even flirt with 70 if he has a triggerman like big O on his wing.

as someone who knows a hell of a lot more about PLD than i do, is that just wishful thinking because i'm a caps fan? what do you think?

The PLD Post, Part 2: mask-OFF

Hii!! (we are SO brave and SO correct). i am so sorry this took ages to answer, i was trying to decide how serious to be. I will admit, I was hesitant about going mask-off and hitting up the microstats and revealing that i do seriously think he can be better than he was bc that shit is kinda lame ESPECIALLY when defending a clear failhorse. but at this point any rep i have as someone with good opinions must be gone considering how many media scapegoats i've attached myself to (i got a fucking. c.gauthier ask the other day aslkjdkljas) so. mask is coming off. we've hit somewhere between well-considered manifesto and vibe check so . um. enjoy!!

I remain optimistic going from everything I've heard and from what you're saying here! But, big big asterisk. He absolutely needs to take ownership of his lack of engagement. when he speaks in media availability I believe him when he says he wants to change. The will to change is there, idk if it’s possible that any player would be satisfied with their performance being the way his was. There’s a lot that needs to be unpacked about his lack of production, the Character Issues, and what his role might look like going forward. You and any other Caps fan who reads this will have to tell me if the fit is right. Hockey talk below the cut lol!!

So before I start I have to say I know dick all about the Caps except:

You're dragging that old man (Ovechkin) to Gretzky's lawn (record) to set it on fire (break it before he retires)

Everyone is pining away for your very very injured 1C who is also Ovechkin's boybestfriend/perfect set-up guy/work wife

There's. intricate pre-game rituals?

So I'm not sure I can speak to how he will fit with your (our? i AM picking the Caps up fr given every acquisition/draft pick they've made) team with any depth or specificity. also i don't think i'd call myself a PLD expert. like. i just got here !! I haven't been following him since he was drafted or anything!! I have, however, consumed TOO MANY Kings games this past season and I can give you a broad look at what actually happened with them and why I think it didn't work out. I will not be making any overtures about being unbiased. My biases WILL slip through because I think Dubois is a sweetheart and I find the mental exercise of defending him fun <3 I’ll give you stats and observations and I will build a story that runs counter to what the prevailing media narratives say. While I stand by my opinions, they're also just one of many available interpretations of what happened.

character concerns

Everyone will be bringing it up at the first speed bump of the season, the first bad game he has. Please be prepared to have a crisis of faith and also be deeply disappointed in him. god knows I am, like, all the time <3 But... I always want to dig deeper when it comes to dominant narratives, because in following multiple teams I’ve become acutely aware of just how miserably Bad media can be at reporting on teams that aren’t their own.

I hear “Locker room cancer” accusations bandied about and I’ve yet to see anyone produce a primary source for this — podcasters, journalists, even people on nhl broadcasts will throw these words around so casually, assuming they’re correct because everyone knows the story. Some confounding factors in the character narratives arise when you scratch the surface. People who've worked with him speak well enough of him. Todd McLellan called him “misunderstood”, and had nothing bad to say about his character.

Matt Roy, who also just got picked up by the Caps, has recently said he’s a great teammate. MORE proof if you want to hear it directly, Roy went on Dropping The Gloves and had this to say about Dubois (transcript by me):

[on what actually happened] Honestly, I don’t know. I mean if you asked him he would say he had a down year. But it’s nothing like — I feel like the media paints this picture of him, and to me it couldn’t be further from the truth, you know. He’s a great teammate, he’s a great locker room guy, he gets along with everybody. So, in terms of all that I don’t know where the media is getting all this stuff. If I hated the guy I probably wouldn’t have come to Washington. He’s one of my friends on the team and I really think he’s going to have a bounce back year. I think he’s really going to be good for the team.

Matt Roy signed with the Caps of his own free will as an RD, a contested free agent in a sparse market, knowing Dubois was already here. He could’ve gone to plenty of different places. Why the hell would Roy sign here long-term, clearly wanting to play and win, if Dubois was as disliked as some pundits would have us believe??? Credible reports (and not just speculation) point to PLD’s other teammates liking him!! 

And here’s some propaganda; I direct you to this extremely sweet video where he gets asked about assisting on Akil Thomas' first NHL goal (and a bunch of other first NHL goals). He is so, so genuinely happy for Akil, who battled through injuries that set back his development for years. Just LOOK at his smile!! He can’t hold it back. (Others have said this but it looks like a little v. Like :> !!!! HELLO !!)

How does all of this happen when, supposedly, he’s a low-character asshole and a “locker room cancer”? It doesn’t line up for me.

On the other hand, I have seen Dubois cruise. He really can’t seem to bounce back from a poor start, and if you were just looking from the outside in, the scoresheet this year reflects this. The critique is fair; I’ve turned this over in my head enough times. there are less physically gifted, less skilled players, who are working so hard to stay in this league, and Dubois’ poor showing does feel somewhat like, idk, something I’d be mad about usually.

Here comes the “but”. Call this next bit the narrative section, because I’m showing my ass here: I think Dubois gets a lot of scrutiny because of his infamous Shift, which went a specific kind of viral, under the exact right conditions, and it has just. defined his career. And okay… I am not denying that the shift happened, but plenty of guys in this league have taken shifts off. come on. the season is long and they're only human. I’m not excusing it either! It was bad and he deserved his benching. Ideally, he one day becomes a player who always puts effort in. Working hard is one of my favourite traits in any player, and usually this would be enough for me to dismiss him as not worth being invested in.

and yet…. the reactions to his floundering performance feel so much like they’re about expectations as seen through the lens of The Shift. They’re calibrated differently because he went 3rd overall, and he's got this big body, the speed, the skill — it's the fact that he's got the tools and seemingly squanders them. All of this is amplified by the contract he's sitting on and his run of short-term stays on teams. Does he get this much scrutiny if he went in the 2nd or 3rd round? Does he catch this much heat for his low energy performance if that one shift clip hadn’t done all that damage? We’ll never know obviously but . I do wonder.

Final word on the character stuff is that we don’t know what truly went on in those locker rooms and i don't want to give more air time to baseless speculation. What we can examine is the hockey. The hockey tells the truth <3

the 23-24 la kings

Assuming the plan is to give PLD a look at 1/2C while he’s on the Caps, I think he’s a complementary type of player. The way he is right now, I don't think he can drive his own line or pull people up. He works with the calibre of lineys he's got and will produce the expected outcome. That sounds so obvious, but what I’m saying is I don’t think he’s capable of miracles like the best playmakers in the league, he's not about to make your guys look 15 years younger. In this vein, I look at his many first NHL goal assists as a symptom of what kind of linemates he was being paired with all season, and how unstable the situation was. His drop in point production IS more complicated than "he's just a piece of shit". From this article, the best summary I've seen of the Situation PLD was in:

LA acquired a player who had been a top-six center (and at times, winger) his entire career playing with established NHL talent. Yet after investing multiple assets to acquire Dubois and sign him to a significant contract, the team decided to put him in a third-line role where his most common linemate was a first-year NHL player who wasn’t expected to be on the roster in Alex Laferriere. Those two had a revolving door of wingers throughout the season. Moreover, Dubois’ most common on-ice teammates after Laferriere at 5-on-5 this season were Matt Roy and Andreas Englund. Gee, I wonder why he didn’t produce?

Context about Roy and Englund: Roy is a quiet but capable d-man who is defensively geared with a bit of offensive upside (j'adore. does things the right way and is very responsible and good. will throw hits but doesn't chase them or headhunt. I think playing away from the Kings’ more passive system will unlock more of his offensive potential. Matt Roy you will be SO good for the Caps I truly believe mwah mwah); and Englund is a leg weight/goon who, going by every single stat I can pull out, makes his d-partners Worse (with affection <3). Point here is neither of them being on the ice was particularly conducive to a lot of scoring chances.

As I said in my previous post, I think Dubois absolutely needs finishers. At some point there was hype around his shot but I didn't see much of that at all on lak? Eye test says: he was unwilling to shoot, and when he did shoot it felt like there was low/no commitment, no power behind it. Comments on his shooting called him “too deferential” at different turns. That’s just an insulting way to say a guy likes to pass and I truly think it circles back to the expectations thing. Would there be anything wrong with him not being much of a shooter this past season if he was another player? (Can't we just say he passed a lot this season without bringing value judgement into it? leave my failhorse ALONE!!!! like must a man score goals ,can't he be very very sweet and happy for the rookies he assisted ? wailing about it forever.)

More fun stats from that same article:

#1 on lak for passes that led to high-danger scoring chances, and scoring chances in general <- again, not a miracle worker. did not have finishers who could capitalise on these chances. its so fucked up what they did to my failwife

one of the best on lak in actually carrying the puck into the o-zone. (another reason i quite liked watching him!! transition forwards my BELOVED) everything I've ever observed about him off the cuff holds true here: he draws penalties this way, because he's fast and when he's locked in he is pretty good for controlled zone entries <3

Dubois had a career high in even-strength assists per 60, this is all in spite of his weird linemate situation and his reduced TOI and the power play mess (more on this later). he might have been deferring, but I truly think the lack of stability + good finishers, and ice time held him back from being more productive.

jim hiller

Building off that last point: even worse on the stability front, which I did allude to in the initial PLD Post, was what happened when Jim Hiller took over. You must understand one of the first clues that we were working with a different animal of a head coach is he was NOT afraid to line shuffle, and shortly after he found short-term success with that, they started running 11 forwards and 7 defensemen (you can see where it started precisely if you scroll back in lak lb because you'll find ME yelling about it LMAO). This shortened forward bench resulted in mid-game line shuffling, as in it was uncertain as to who they would be playing with from shift to shift. Hiller is on record saying he thinks it was beneficial, per this article:

It’s all about getting his deep forward corps engaged in the game. That’s sometimes difficult if you’re running four full lines and there are penalty kill or power play opportunities that alter the flow of the lines. Especially for the group of forwards who don’t kill penalties – think Kevin Fiala, Viktor Arvidsson, Quinton Byfield, Pierre-Luc Dubois – it’s an opportunity to get them extra shifts and engage in the game. “Some of our other players who don’t penalty kill, you know they can lose the flow of the game, so they enjoy it more I know,” Hiller said of having 11 forwards in action. “We’ve talked about it a lot. We really just think for our team, the way it is right now, that gives us an advantage getting those players more ice time.”

(and ok sorry to go off about my gripes with how the kings are run but .They were doing this into playoffs. This article was written during playoffs. god. CARL GRUNDSTROM, WHO HAS NEVER NOT PLAYED HARD, PLAYED 25 SECONDS IN GAME 2. all this while they were trying to get people 'engaged'. Idk. Maybe it did work for some players. I wasn’t behind that bench. But sitting one of your most energetic and committed forwards during a series in which you’re trying to come back from being down several games was a CHOICE!!!! also like what if you didn't double-shift QB. what then. And we all know how that series ended. lak coaching/management i am beating you with a pillowcase stuffed with bricks . <3)

Much was made of the Hiller takeover. I liked it at the time. In his first couple of media availabilities post-TM, Hiller emphasised bringing back "fun" to the game for many of the players who were slumping — and a reportedly tense locker room during the big skid that lost McLellan his job. It was all very Ted Lasso of him. Hiller also introduced a new way to rate Dubois for his performance every night, separate from the scoresheet. I made jokes about PLD's very special star-chart, everyone who knew about it was making jokes about it. This merit system was tailored towards communicating with Dubois what he did and didn't do well, and while no one ever went into depth about it we do know a few things:

It measured things outside of +/-, goals and assists, and was likely a score out of 5 per metric.

One of the metrics was about hits/physicality, another one was likely ‘compete’ levels.

He alluded to being measured on penalties drawn?? Or something??

Anyway it sort of … worked?? The change in Dubois was pretty immediate, the moment he was given some clear direction to work in. He played some of his BEST games of the year in the wake of this change. He got involved physically, he was not losing steam, he was drawing tons of penalties because he’s huge and fast and has good hands and IF he puts his mind to it he can truly be a transition monster.

CUE THE LINE SHUFFLING… imo, much of the progress made seemed to be lost, and the rest is history.

NOT saying Dubois is free of fault here. Needing that extra motivation to get physically involved is kinda wild, and I understand why for some people it’s a bridge too far. EYE am here for the laffs though and it's really funny that the communication came in the form of super special individualised performance evaluations/a glorified sticker chart. This is why he’s my temperamental desert flower. Wilting violet. Soggy kitten. <3 and for the record I truly don’t think I’d care if he put up 40 points per szn for the rest of his career. I don’t care because he’s a sweetie and the Bit i do when defending him is too funny. I don’t think I’d care if everyone was right about him — I just don’t actually think they are.

the power play problem

So okay, as per part 1 (my last email <3) we know Dubois thrives net front. It’s where he scored a bunch of his goals on the Jets. Every stat and the eye test supports this. So how come Lak had him stationed on the half wall doing jackshit, if he was on the power play at all?? I will admit I drove myself half crazy studying power play structures and watching LA Kings games back before coming up with a garbled, half-formed idea about how LA runs their PP. I was going to attempt to explain it here — had to do with Kevin Fiala and Dubois being lefties and how that's just an awkward passing sitch — but it turns out more than one person has had this thought and MAN I love being validated by actual hockey people. I fully thought i was making shit up in my head for a good week or two, and was seriously considering scrapping this portion . but it’s SO important for contextualising the production drop, so here goes !!

As early as September 2023 there was a story published about PLD’s role on PP1 — a place where he certainly should’ve belonged as a top-6 guy with plenty of ppg’s under his belt. From this article, which explains the issue very very neatly, and much more eloquently than I could ever hope to:

The addition of Pierre-Luc Dubois was a big one this summer; at first glance, he should be a great addition to the power play. But when digging deeper, the Kings might struggle to fit him onto the top unit. Dubois played mostly as the net front player for the Winnipeg Jets last season, the role Gabriel Vilardi often played for the Kings last season. So, it’s an easy one-to-one switch in that spot, right? Not necessarily. Dubois has all the talents to be an effective net-front player. He has the size and strength to battle in front, with the skill to effectively pop down low and create chances. However, his handedness is a big problem for this role. The Kings run their power play primarily on the left side with Kevin Fiala — Anze Kopitar when Fiala is hurt — which necessitates a right shot down low. When a right shot player pops out on the left side, there’s an easy passing angle for the half-wall player and more options for the player down low. Quick passing is key for a successful power and a left-shot can’t move the puck quick enough down low. They would have to either move too far into the corner or take the extra second to step out from and open up their body to create an effective passing angle. Time that would slow the power play down too much and allow the opposition penalty kill to get back into position. There’s also minimal shot threat from a lefty down low. We saw both Vilardi and Viktor Arvidsson frequently take the pass down low and quickly turn it into a shooting opportunity, something a left shot wouldn’t be able to do.

It then goes on to suggest 2 solutions that aren’t appealing at all:

Flip the power play entirely to accommodate Dubois net front. Not great as they dont have the players for that, and if they tried it they’d be hamstringing Adrian Kempe’s one-timer.

PLD on the bumper position. This one’s hard to swallow because that displaces Kopitar to PP2, there’s his position as captain and the optics of moving him off his spot.

In this article it is once again suggested that LA MUST flip their power play and figure out how to get PLD net front. In this article they point out how useless he was playing on the wall down the stretch, and how the only reason he seemed to be able to produce something was because he’d taken Kopitar’s spot in his absence. This article calls to attention Dubois’ worlds performance, where team Canada utilised him net front.

Big picture, the Fit

Do we see the problem here yet? It’s not the flat narrative I was sold by the national media, random assholes on twitter, and podcasters who don’t actually watch Kings matches!!!! Do we see how weird and messy and complicated it is, beyond “hey he’s just a sack of shit who isn’t trying hard enough”. Rob Blake himself has come out and admitted that they didn’t put Dubois in a position to succeed. And absolutely there was effort required on his end — a different player might have sucked it up and adapted to circumstances, a different player might never have needed that extra bit of communication, a straight up better player might have dragged his less skilled lineys up to a higher level. But the problem has always been two-fold: LA was trying to coach and manage a completely different player to the one they had in front of them and expecting good results; and Dubois was unable to keep competing with all he had in the face of that. I think both parties are at fault here. And I think, given the chance and the right circumstances, Dubois can hit 60 points again.

Okay, circling back to the big question of Fit. Will he be able to work with Ovechkin? Hard to think he could fail with one of hockey’s best goal scorers on his wing, if he does get a look at 1C. People who know the Caps better than I do, does this sound workable? Is Dubois going to be too difficult of a nut to crack for your coach? Your locker room?

And, of course, the power play issue. Maybe Dubois learns to be better on the half wall! Idk!! Maybe it was a matter of coaching and he thrives in Washington running your PP1 from there. For my money… I like him better playing net front or bumper. Do the Caps have the bodies to accommodate this? I did ask someone familiar with the Caps PP to explain it to me so I could try and figure this out but ouuuugh. My head is spinning. Someone smarter than me please jump in. I am TIRED . We don’t know what it will look like, what they’re planning to do with Dubois on the power play. You guys probably have a better idea about what’s possible than I do <3

Conclusion?

PLD is fast, big, a passing threat and a formidable net front presence when he’s given the opportunity and playing his A-game. As far as I can tell, his B-game is garbage </3 His poor performance is more complicated than people think and I’m pretty sure only the LA Kings beat reporters + the 12 kings fans on twitter know this. Most of them still dislike PLD anyway bc his low motor. I don’t blame them, I’m just more inclined to be forgiving because I love redemption arcs and I think he’s a good person. i would love to be wrong about his low-effort B-game LMAO but im trying to be realistic here. I want him to fit in and be embraced by the Caps so bad <3 Your coach sounds like he wants to help PLD succeed and is up for the challenge. The vibes from my friends who follow the Caps are always good, I’ve read through various tags and it sounds like a place that will take him in whether he likes it or not. I might be stupid but I believe in him !!! and I’ve laid out all the hockey bullshit for you to the best of my ability. Given all of this… do you think he’ll do well?

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

i wanted this comic digitalized so bad that i used max's birthday as an excuse. :)

this is the true ending. if im insane enough ill show you the alternate ending though

bonus because i just. it just kinda peters out. longggg post yayyye

[cbartonscoffee]

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet so David Tennant could play him in a 2009 movie and thus create gender envy.

[britneyshakespeare]

Had the extremely upsetting experience of a mutual of like 6 years going off on me for occasionally making posts about supporting Harris because apparently that makes me a g n cide denier who refuses to learn and grow, with all of my views just being assumed not even from what I've told them I believe or what I've posted before, but just because I DON'T post particularly the kind of things they THINK I should be. When I pointed out how much they were just completely assuming about stuff I'd never talked to them about, I was told it doesn't matter what I do in real life or "care" about if I simply disagree with their conclusion and vote for her anyway. Like they were absolutely not sorry for the level of maliciousness they not just assumed of my character, but for some reason thought appropriate to bring directly to me before unfollowing me. No apology whatsoever for how discomforting or upsetting that might be and certainly no acknowledgment that I could disagree with them and still be a good person. I just got another even longer rant about how they fundamentally can't fuck with me because of this one thing, no matter WHAT else I do in my real life (which I pointed out that they do not know), and how I'm directly supporting fascism.

Like seriously what is it about Tumblr that makes people think they know someone based off of occasional posts? There were just such DEEP assumptions they were making of me and going off of very little or absolutely nothing. Around the time I first became mutuals with that person I used to express my personality and beliefs and talk about what was going on in my life a lot more openly, but I've significantly scaled back on doing that in many ways for many reasons. One of my major ones is privacy and the way I've had strangers outside my followers and following circles just find random things I say and dogpile me for it. I was fundamentally changed after some T Fs did that to me like 3 years ago. I also just didn't have many conversations w that person anymore (I message people in general on here like 10x less than I did circa 2018-2019, which I'm somewhat sorry about!). My point is to say I think this person felt comfortable assuming that they knew me, especially who I am in 2024 at the age of 25, much better than they actually did.

One of the specific things they accused me of was being afraid of learning and growing (because I don't perform social media activism on here like they think I should). Like AFRAID to take criticism. When again I've never received criticism from them or had to respond to any criticism on here before as pertaining to my views on... well, absolutely any of the issues they accused me of not caring about. They essentially treated it as if the only thing in the world I cared about was the US election and characterized me as the most out-of-touch liberal they could possibly imagine, because I'm not "pushing" Kamala Harris to be better (Oh?? Should I do that on here?? Does she read my blog??).

And most hypocritically what they said was that I only *sometimes* *vaguely* post pro-Harris things (I often post like 5 or fewer things in a day though?). But here's the kicker. "Because I know I'll get shit for it. And rightfully so."

Really????? Not a single person, anon or not, in my messages or in a tagged post or anything, has ever given me shit before for saying who I'm voting for. I'm actually NOT afraid of "getting shit" for that opinion, I just don't start fights with people who are anti-voting. And why should I??? I genuinely don't believe in trying to change the minds of strangers on the internet about that sort of thing. I'm just not confrontational about it; that is so not the same thing as being "afraid of getting shit." I'm not posting ENOUGH about my support for Harris, therefore I'm afraid. But therefore they can also make all these assumptions about me being their strawman for an ignorant Harris supporter.

I'm afraid of getting shit but I still post anyway? But if I weren't afraid of getting shit I'd be posting a lot more?? This is ALL based on their assumptions of what my blog *should* look like, based on what I really and truly believe. My level of posting every now and then is an accurate gauge of my feelings on complex, sensitive, global issues. Because I'm voting for the Democratic presidential candidate and I'm ok sharing pretty much just that little glimpse of myself.

I really don't think that person knows just how inappropriate and insulting that is to just say all of that to me. Like they really know what's going on in my head. Their first message began and ended with like "I'm sorry I love you I just can't take it anymore" but they clearly weren't sorry enough to try and be more respectful to me, and they didn't love me enough not to default to extremely ungenerous assumptions and attacking me based off of those instead of any actual words I've said that they take issue with.

Online radicalization is real and it's not necessarily bad because your political views can start to fall well out of the contemporary Overton window. The way you find it appropriate to treat people whose views, however common, seem to fundamentally misalign with yours... that does matter. You can't just assume the worst of everyone and then act on that in how you approach them as individuals. And then be shocked that you don't stay friends with them. You can't be confrontational with someone about an issue you've never had an honest conversation about, and then expect them to take your bad faith in them as reasonable well-meaning criticism.

I'm afraid of criticism??? I'm afraid of criticism. No I'm not. This person and I have never had an issue before where they criticized me and I got harshly defensive. It was ALL projection. The entire tone of their messages was as if all their anti-voting posts recently were somehow in communication with the occasional go-vote-for-Harris posts that I make. That's not a conversation. I don't post for your satisfaction. I don't post in "response" to my mutuals I disagree with. I just post what's on my mind, sometimes, about some things. I really again can't stress enough how baffled I am by this

[popppyfur]

...Im having thoughts and i need a 2nd opinion.

How long ago do we reckon trolls were caught/eaten/found by bergens? (relative to the great escape for simplicity)

lemme walk you through my thoughts...

we dont know how the tunnels got there, did the trolls dig them? or something else? or were they always there?

When did Peppy decide to use the tunnels? when were they discovered?

How many trolls did the bergens eat. surely at first they must have bean eating HEAPS of trolls daily before realised that they would run out. how long was it until then?

It had to have been long enough that they would have then decided to make trollstice (help cant spell) a yearly tradtion. could it at first have been monthly?

We dont know how many pop trolls there were at first. have their number gone down? by how much? since more being eaten means less babies.

How many queens/kings were at the troll tree? Just peppy? his parents? But that raises the question of wether or not any of the escaped trolls remember a time before the bergens.

-- A brand new, different anon.

GOD you reminded me of when i eventually realized how massively fucked the pop trolls were pre 1st movie. i remember trying to read everything i could that talked about it and staying up til 4 am to do it because holy hell they were being eaten on a yearly basis. IM HOLDING UR HAND AND SHAKING IT REALLY HARD. and im gonna answer this as jumbled as i can bc. its me. the professional yapper.

on that note ! all under read more to spare everyones dashboards

also, i havent really gone through actual specific numbers, my brains just settled on some vague decision that the pop trolls dont pass the hundreds, or five hundreds. that is to say, poppy would probably still try to know everyone by name just bc she would lol. so i hope you guys can just make up imaginary numbers of years too !!

we dont know how the tunnels got there, did the trolls dig them? or something else? or were they always there? When did Peppy decide to use the tunnels? when were they discovered?

ive always kinda assumed that the pop trolls dug it themselves! they knew about it long enough that they bothered to leave behind decoys of themselves after all. im assuming its a part of a long, long long list of attempts to escape, and they finished digging just a bit before the last trollstice. peppy wasnt gonna risk losing any more, especially since poppy herself was gonna be given to gristle

How many trolls did the bergens eat. surely at first they must have bean eating HEAPS of trolls daily before realised that they would run out. how long was it until then? It had to have been long enough that they would have then decided to make trollstice (help cant spell) a yearly tradtion. could it at first have been monthly? We dont know how many pop trolls there were at first. have their number gone down? by how much? since more being eaten means less babies.

i lost the damn reddit post so im gonna make my own screenshot instead LOL

from left to right, classical, techno, pop, funk, country, and the red blob under them; rock with a mix of other trolls

so like. THIS FUCKING DEVASTATED MEEEEEEEEEEEE. assuming theres more classical trolls just off screen, the visible sheer difference in numbers from the pop trolls in comparison to the other tribes (FUNK IS AN OUTLIER HUMOR ME) just. genuinely left me a bit speechless.

and if you go back to the first movie and remember that the entirety of their village fit in branch's bunker not to mention the DAMN POT? it just. really puts itself into perspective. bc that stage was still relatively big, but the pot. the fucking pot. the entirety of pop village

ALL of them. in THERE? isnt that crazy? we can say that some escaped, sure. but just the fact that they couldve gotten wiped out just like that is so. messed up to me man ToT

i dont remember which fic i read it from anymore, but there was a line going how the pops initially outnumbered the other tribes and thats how they were ever able to threaten actually overtaking everyone. and like. YEAH SURE. fuck me up even more like that why dont ya!!!!!

so suffice to say, pop troll population not doing so hot! and all your thoughts is just one domino falling after another. you piece together the pieces and ultimately just ending up with one undeniable answer. they got eaten. simple as that.

How many queens/kings were at the troll tree? Just peppy? his parents? But that raises the question of wether or not any of the escaped trolls remember a time before the bergens.

and ur first question, putting them together for one last godawfully long ramble :]

How long ago do we reckon trolls were caught/eaten/found by bergens? (relative to the great escape for simplicity)

the fact that world tour makes it a point to say that only peppy ever knew of the other tribes makes me lean more onto the assumption that its been... a while? but also like. no one's ever mentioned viva? no one remembers the princess who was old enough to fight bergens and mention that to poppy??? whos to say these guys arent just repressing everything as they always do????????? [ITS HARD TO ARGUE SPECULATIONS HERE BC they had to make plot for the movies to make sense!!! its why it feels so mean to me to just blame everything on peppy LMAO. even if that is the easiest way to make sense of it. I WANT NUANCE DAMMIT]

so for the sake of it. i like to think that theyve been under the bergens' capture long enough that everyone outside of the royal family forgot about the time that they were even free from the bergens. long enough that the royal family could rewrite the scrapbooks to make it seem like it wasnt their fault. that it never was. whether to spare themselves the blame, selfish deniability, or just. give up the hope that there was a single minuscule possibility to have help from the outside.

i said before that i headcanonned peppy holding resentment for them in the belief that no one could ever bother to just check. and thats part of the reason why he doesnt even want to attempt getting to know them, since it probably felt like no one EVER cared except for themselves.

again. im sorry that i dont have a specific number for you though ToT the most i can say is that: its long enough that they forgot.

POST ANSWER ASK RAMBLEEEE

heres a fic that made me ugly cry about this! i think it gives really good answers to your questions!!!!!!! and though it doesnt completely fit with whats 'canon' (when has anything ever) its such a horrifying and deliciously good outlook on how the bergens affected the pop trolls as a whole! cant recommend it enough!! please leave the author kudos and love especially if this is your type of jam!!!

more than anything. the realization of how hard the pop trolls' lives mustve even been prior to the first movie made me have so much fucking love for them even more?? T_T even if it is unhealthy to an outside perspective, they tried to stay positive, and they got through all those yearly eatings thanks to it, no wonder they try to stay within that mindset even after everything. sometimes i wonder if they felt like its all they had

[quinn-pop]

Mayta Knight day 22 - Plushie

personally i have a hard time imagining kirby as oblivious and emotionally unaware. at least when it comes to those he’s closest with. mk hates it because he’s usually right. :’)

bonus:

[bitegore]

i'm coming to the conclusion that if every two weeks i go to make a post like 'i miss having friends who were mean to me but who, importantly, i could be mean back to, because the understanding was just that we were mean to each other and there were no hard feelings and also sometimes we'd fight each other physically also for fun without hard feelings, and the minuge the feelings got hard everything fractured into a million pieces because that wasn't how they were supposed to be and it was all good until someone crossed a line' its possible that, like, , i'm not very happy with my current crop of friends.

and furthermore given the way i keep coming at it i think the issue may possibly be 'i think my friends are kind of mean to me but i'm not allowed to be mean back'

which honestly connects way too many dots. but the last thing i want to be about it is, like, sensitive. I just miss getting to play on the same field.

[rainbowresurrection]

The thing I find lame about SNW is that they "lean into" Spock's human half. Ohhhhh oo-hoo-hooooo look at me! I'm a writer who wants to put my goofy ass spin on Mr. Spock!

But then they want to call it a canon prequel to the ORIGINAL? Like canon. To the original. I don't buy it. Canon to the OG where Spock is literally disgusted and ashamed of his human half and has spent his ENTIRE life hiding it? Like the entire time, that includes the time in which SNW supposedly takes place? And the T'Pring shit I can't even bring myself to talk about because it deviates so far from canon? A one-off character they just brought back to make Spock seem less fucking gay?

Hoh look a musical episode! Wow! It's camp get it??? Camp?? Cuz the original was campy?? Except Spock is straightwashed so they managed to make camp heterocentric so what are they doing and what was the point? Who the hell is this supposed to be for?

What. Were. They. Thinking. I'm going insane. Episode where SPOCK becomes HUMAN? Episode where they SPLIT the MIXED RACE character who was written as MIXED RACE in the SIXTIES! I dare them to write a goofy episode where Oops! I turn Full Native and see how quirky and racially sensitive it is. Hoho so fun and goofy!

No I cannot overlook these transgressions. I want as many people as possible to know that I'm disgusted and to feel vindicated in knowing that they aren't the only one. I'm so sorry fellow mixed race queers. We deserve better from a "Star Trek show". And Spock as a character deserves so much more respect than he's ever given in reboot writing. A kid with a Spock action figure could conjure up a superior narrative.

I haven't been this angry since AOS (straight Spock [x2] White Khan [x1] mental diarrhea [x1000]).

There's so many types of Star Trek Show at this point that there is bound to be some contention over what is the "right vibe" and what is sacrilege but whatever the fuck SNW and AOS is dishing out is just sooooo far removed from everything I found appealing about Star Trek. Oooo big het guys do tuff stuff but never in a gay way (maybe throw a qweer in the background so people can't call out lack of rep) and also the enterprise looks like a migraine and maybe there's some explosions oooooooo [has a stroke and fucking dies]