#we're going in the right direction

[egophiliac]

I'm still processing 7-13, in the meantime have this super quick thing! of all the things that happened that I didn't expect, one of 'em certainly was a not insignificant subplot revolving around Silver unintentionally committing international mail fraud.

[pocketramblr]

fun as all the various other quirks-in-ofa manifest first are, i am now musing on a "the first power to manifest is the vestiges" au where Izuku, still functionally quirkless, is in the middle of the entrance exam when he uhhh summons seven and half ghosts who were not prior to this fully aware and/or paying attention.

[piecesofchess]

Tartarus is still a little broken and that's Fun !

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i think fandom spaces would become much more enjoyable across the board if people stopped flipping their pancakes over other fans enjoying characters that they don't like. or, god forbid, like them but in 'the wrong way.'

[damiel-of-real]

i need to practice drawing rouxls. hes such a fucking funny character. i wish i hadn't accidentally skipped his post-k.round shop dialogue in my last replay because his complete 180 in his allegiance is so fucking funny. rouxls is ALWAYS on the winning side!!

[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closest friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lost any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[soratonin]

isagi x sora x barou love triangle ............... much 2 consider

[depoteka]

i'm so anxious about the elections next week. if we somehow end up with a president who's even worse than our current one i'm giving up my citizenship and kms

[phoenixtakaramono]

OPERATION BABYLON - PART VII

aka the butchlander sugar baby AU.

Tumblr Navigation (note I have not shared the prologue here with its premise setup; I’ve only started sharing this twitter threadfic on tumblr starting from the 2nd 🔞 scene): I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII

Update Schedule: weekly/ biweekly

(You can read the rest of the threadfic update here!)

Keep in mind, all of my AU Butchlander threadfics on Twitter are the unpolished first draft versions of what’ll eventually be polished up into long fics on AO3 under the Shock and Awe series. So you may regard this threadfic as an experimental first prototype and exclusive preview whose contents may or may not be changed in the future final draft version. We’re just loosely playing around with ideas and concepts for now!

If you don’t have a Twitter account, screenshots are provided below the line break so you can read this update on Tumblr as well:

A/N - ...I shouldn't be surprised but it's always a surprise to me seeing the effect whenever I switch POVs in my fics (because, depending on who's POV it is, it somehow always humanizes the male chara whose POV I'm in and makes him seem...softer than were I to write in the opposite POV).

In Billy's POV = HL is provocative and manly

In HL's POV = Billy is provocative and manly

Maybe it's just me imagining this strange phenomenon but I feel the dynamic has certainly flipped a tad when this happens, haha.

Next update we'll get the stereotypical rich sug*r d*ddy spoiling and pampering his wide-eyed sug*r b*by scene. Tbh I tried to fit it into this update but it didn't feel like it's the right placement yet and it needs buildup (to set up the next spicy scene). Homelander has to earn that D 🍆 💦.

[gibbearish]

oh boy its my favorite day where nonusamericans condescendingly explain to me that the election effects other countries too and therefore i need to be even more terrified than however terrified i already am

[shortqueershakespeare]

when you have two time blind chronically late bitches organising phone calls there is not a chance both of you will ever be ready at the assigned time

[gu6chan]

birthday's finally over

[habitant]

Dimitri Filipovic and Harman Dayal on The Hockey PDOcast discuss the Dobson trade to Montreal, the caliber of player that he is and the fit with the Habs. Episode released on June 28th 2025 [59:20 to 1:14:53]

FILIPOVIC: But let's focus on Dobson here, and the fit with the Habs, and kind of what they're getting in him, because I think... This is true for a lot of, you know, offensive-oriented defensemen, in terms of depending who you talk to and their preferences, I think opinions are gonna vary. He seems like a very polarizing player, having played for the Islanders the past couple years, and obviously peaked two years ago with that 70+ point explosion, and then, regressed somewhat from a point perspective at least last year. And it feels like people have kind of soured on him, as a player a little bit. I think some of it is justified, I think there's a lot of things that we're gonna talk about today that suggest that that's probably unfair, and that he's still the caliber of player that he was regarded as previously. But what are your thoughts on Dobson, and the Habs prioritizing landing him and ultimately doing so?

DAYAL: I love this fit for the Habs. I've been a long time Noah Dobson believer. Even going back to his draft year, I watched a ton of his tape in the Q[MJHL]. I've been a long-time believer in [???]. I never thought he was quite as good as his 2023-24 season when he put up the 70 points, when he finished top 10 in Norris trophy voting. I didn't view him as this upper echelon number one defenseman, necessarily. But I also think that the criticism of his game coming off a down year this season has been a little bit over the top. So I'm a little—I'm in between, in terms of rating the player, um, between what he did in 2023-24 and this past season. To me he's sort of like low-end number one, slash ultra-premium number two. In my mind, he's one of the top ten or fifteen right-shot defensemen in the NHL. It gives them another dynamic puck mover, another even-strength needle mover for the Habs, which outside of the [unintelligible, but I suspect he means "the first line"] and the Lane Hutson pairing, the Habs needed more five-on-five playdrivers. And look, top-pair, right side defensemen in their prime are one of the hardest things in the league to acquire, and for the Canadiens, outside of that second line center position, that was probably their biggest roster need moving forward. Plus, you're able to sign him in, sign him long term and under 10 million dollars, as the cap hit, I think that contract will look good, as the cap continues to skyrocket. He's obviously not a, not a perfect player, but I'm a fan of the player. I love the fit, whether he's with Guhle, or you wanna load up your two best offensive guys and have him play with Hutson, and sort of do the Toews-Makar thing, the Hughes-Hronek thing, where you're stacking two of your best puck movers and offensive guys together, that's an option, but I also think he'd be a terrific fit with Kaiden Guhle.

FILIPOVIC: Yeah, you mentioned not only a right-shot defenseman, but one who's 6"4 and, you know, in the prime of his career, turning 26 in January, similar in just—in part one, I had Steve Peters on and we were talking about Michael Kesselring within the context of the JJ Peterka trade, and a lot of that same stuff applies, obviously, Dobson at a much higher echelon in terms of production where it wasn't just that 23-24 season. The past four seasons, he's averaged 56 points per 82 games played. The only defensemen with more total points in that time are a pretty good list of Makar, Quinn Hughes, Fox, Josi, Headman, Dahlin, Karlsson, Morissey, and Bouchard. Now, I think there's some important context to apply to what happened last year. Obviously, the Islanders bottomed out due to injuries and regression, and wound up getting the first overall pick and getting Matthew Schaefer in the process, but the underlying numbers still suggest that he was a legitimate driver, right? 54 percent, or even North of it in terms of five-on-five high danger chance share, expected goal share... I think it's, because of the injuries, and as a result of it, like he winds up playing 50+ five-on-five minutes with Romanov, Isaiah George, Pelech, Pulock, Mayfield, and then getting into like Mike Reilly, and Dennis Cholowski, and the Islanders had this rotating door of defensemen all year, where they wound up using twelve of them for ten games or more. And then, there's also the fact that Barzal only played 30 games, right? And we don't often think about the impact of defense and forward combinations, because we think of defensemen within the context of their own pairing and their own partner. But it's clear when you just, apply any thought, but especially look into the tape, and what those two guys were doing together when Barzal really had the best season of his career in 23-24. The chemistry between the two, and the dynamic of creating space for each other, and sort of playing off each other in this symbiotic way, and that was on full display that season. And then you remove Barzal from that equation as well, and I think that added a clear detrimental impact on him.

Clearly, have some questions about his game, right? I think some of the footspeed stuff defensively, in terms of defending the blue line, has always been up for debate. Although, you look at Cory Schneider's data, and he was much more aggressive last year in gapping up, and closing off space, and jump in passing lanes. He was still giving up a very high percent of scoring chances off of entries, but the actual volume of what he was allowing guys to carry the puck in went way down compared to even his best season in 23-24. He forced many more denials, and so that's all stuff you like to see, and then there's the component of, sometimes, what's drawn the ire of Islanders fans is, have been the blunders with the puck, right? Giveaways, turnovers, things like that, and some of that is a by-product, I think, of him not having a lot of urgency to his game, right? He plays at a very, slower rhythm, much more methodical, I think, with the puck, and is a bit more deliberate, and I think he needs to ramp that up a little bit, and maybe going to a more fast-paced, younger, explosive team in Montreal is gonna help with that. But it's also, I think, a by-product of any defenseman that handles the puck as much as he does, right. Playing 23-24 minutes a night, being relied on to do all the heavy lifting as a creator and facilitator, you're gonna wind up having your share of giveaways just because you always have the puck on your stick. And if you're as talented as he is, you're routinely trying to do stuff with it to create. And so, those blunders are gonna happen, but I think the net positive in terms of his impact, and how good the team is with him on the ice, and how much he creates, of course, is just undeniable. And so, I think betting on the player to bounce back, and even really, kind of framing it as he wasn't necessarily as bad as some of the overall numbers might indicate last year, I think is very fair and so I think he's gonna be awesome in Montreal.

DAYAL: Yeah, as you alluded to, he's not a perfect player. Especially defensively, and the puck management side of things. He did have some very loud defensive blunders, but when you step back and look at the overall picture, he's consistently won his minutes playing first-pair the last four seasons. He has been in this top pair role and the Isles have scored more goals than they've allowed in every single one of those seasons during Dobson's five-on-five shifts. And even when we characterize his defensive flaws, the actual number of goals against that he's on the ice for aren't actually that high, right. So you look at the last three seasons, Dobson's been on the ice for 2.24 goals against per 60 at five-on-five, that ranks top 50 among NHL defensemen. So, yes, he's prone to blunders. Yes, without the puck, there are moments when you'd like him to be a little more assertive closing plays, and killing them proactively, and he's been criticized for not always leveraging his 6"4 frame assertively enough, and I understand all of those question marks, but... Ultimately, you step back, and when you can find a 25 year old defenseman who isn't just, isn't just competent in top pair minutes, but is consistently winning them, that's a really hard player to acquire.

FILIPOVIC: It is, and as I said, some of the regression as well, right, where in 23-24, he has the 70 points, the plus 12, last year he winds up with just 39 points and a minus 16, you look a little further and, as you alluded to, they still won his five-on-five minutes. He had a plus 3 goal differential, part of that minus is just because he was on the ice for a shocking amount of empty net goals against, because the Islanders weren't very good, and the power play itself was 31rst in the league. And so, he was on that unit, but with Barzal out, and then trading Nelson, I'm not necessarily holding that against him. And, you know, as you look ahead to him in Montreal, with Lane Hutson there, the points might not necessarily bump up back to that 70 point total, and he might not even get a heavy volume of power play usage, but what he's gonna be able to do at five-on-five is I think gonna make a massive difference. And I wanna talk more a little bit about that fit, in terms of the best way to deploy him, and what you see. Because I imagine, Marty St-Louis certainly, you know situationally, if they're trailing or pushing for offense, gonna be inclined to load up both him and Hutson, you know on their natural sides, with one being a lefty and one being a righty, and I think that that dynamic can certainly coexist, because they both like to have the puck on their stick, but they also do it in different ways. Not only with Dobson's shot, compared to Hutson's more sort of holding on to it and trying to make plays for other dynamic, but also what I said earlier about whenever he'd be out there with Barzal, you'd sort of see this where Barzal would kinda be holding on to the puck, and circling the zone, and Dobson was so good at stepping into the open lane, or kind of moving off of the spot. And getting lost in the coverage and then popping open and either getting a good look off of it, or then setting up a teammate with a backdoor pass. I think they're gonna be able to replicate a lot of that with Hutson, some of the interchanges at the blue line, and setting him up for a one time look in a good shooting position, so I love that, but I think even long term, the idea that you add a guy who can, has already proven that he can float his own pair is a massive development for the Habs. Because when they had Hutson and Guhle out there, as the year progressed, things were shaping up really well for the Habs, but beyond that—and some of that was deployment, right, like they leaned on that Mike Matheson-Alex Carrier pair with such heavy defensive zone deployment where I think they were under 30% offensive zone starts for a long time [habitant note: correct, that pairing ended the season with 21.05% offensive zone starts, which was the least out of any Habs d-pairing that played at least 100 minutes together over the course of the season]. That's gonna result in bad numbers, especially with Matheson not really having the skillset to accommodate that, but they just didn't really have playmakers or facilitators when Hutson wasn't out there, especially if Guhle was playing with him, and now, you have a second guy who can get the puck to the forwards efficiently and quickly, and I think we agree that Marty St-Louis wants this team ideally to play quickly, North-South, and attack much more off the rush, and I think a guy like Dobson and his skillset is really gonna help enable that to a great extent.

DAYAL: Yeah, this is um, this gives Marty St-Louis a lot of different options, and I'm curious to see how they experiment in training camp, and pre-season, and even during the start of the regular season to land on what's the optimal way to deploy these guys. Because you're right, Dobson can drive his own pairing, which is such an asset, where some defensemen only thrive in a top four setting when they have an equal or better sort of partner to play with, whereas Dobson, you can trust that his skillset can work in a complementary role, if you wanna load him up with Hutson, and especially with their offensive skillsets sort of being complementary, they would have a ton of success together. But also, now Guhle all of a sudden, he's a big winner in all this where now all of a sudden you're imagining that he's gonna be with one of Hutson or Dobson at all times. And when I look at Guhle's skillset, as a, as a sort of shut down, more authoritative physical presence, a guy who can gap up in the neutral zone, and also fits that modern blend, where he's mobile enough, and has enough sort of puck skills to complement an offensive guy. It takes pressure off him to single-handedly drive a pair, and I think the idea of him and Dobson together, where you mentionned that Dobson isn't always necessarily the best at defending off the rush, well that's an area where Guhle really excels in. So that fits there, and if Guhle isn't with Dobson, then he gets to play with Hutson full time. So this gives the Canadiens a ton of options and even when I think about this Habs blue line long term now, to have Hutson, Dobson, Guhle, and then also Reinbacher coming. This Habs blue line is gonna be an absolute force for years to come.

FILIPOVIC: Yeah, I loved it. The 23-24 tape, I got into it in preparation for this, was just absolutely sublime for Dobson. Like the amount of, the things he was doing in the offensive zone, in terms of some of the backdoor passing and setting guys up for tap-ins, or the shot passes and the Islanders had a bunch of guys netfront with Lee and others who were able to capitalize on that, or just kind of playing around with it at the blue line and creating space for others was next level. And so I think that's something to really look forward to here. On the note of pairs, and having a second pair that can hold their own, I know it was only five games in round one against the Caps, but I think it's pretty instructive in terms of what we're talking about, where, when Montreal had Hutson and Guhle out there in that series: 55% shot share five-on-five, 61% expected goals share. Unfortunately, when they had the other pairs, which were Matheson and Carrier, or David Savard, who's since retired, with either Xhekaj or Struble, they were in the mid 30s essentially, right. And there was a massive sample of Matheson and Carrier kind of playing in a role that wasn't suitable to their skillset, and being overextended, and they were just getting crushed in that time, and really you could even date this back to since the 4 Nations break, when Montreal really started their spirited playoff push, and that's a 26 game sample. When they had Suzuki and Hutson out there, up 17 to 4, 61% of the shots, 61% of the chances and expected goals, and then without them, down 27 to 14, and everything in the 30s. And so, just having a second driver who, if you don't have those guys out there, is still able to keep you afloat and actually create stuff, is just gonna be so massive. On the powerplay note, I think we both expect that he's not necessarily gonna feature very heavily on the top unit, right? Because I think the splits for them last year, they wind up 21rst on the man advantage, I don't think that's reflective of how good their top guys were. Because a lot of that includes the early season when they were kind of working Hutson in and trying to manage his minutes, and Matheson was on that top unit. And as soon as they put Hutson up there, and he was playing with Suzuki and Caufield on the top unit, they exploded up to 9.5 goals per hour, and that was the, I think, 6th best in the league, and then now you also bake in Demidov's playmaking and potentially adding to that as another creator. That's gonna be a pretty lethal combination of guys, and I think that's gonna allow Dobson certainly to quarterback the second unit, but just generate a lot of his value to this team I think in just making them a much more well-rounded five-on-five group. And that's something you look for when you try to take that next step as an organization from, last year was a fun story, they made the playoffs for the first time in a while, and now actually consolidating on that, and building it out and scaling it, and becoming a team that does this year over year, and actually advances past just five game cameo in the first round.

[dianalaurenstyles]

What's a fandom-related delusion that you know is a delusion but you also lowkey deeply believe is true?

I'll go first - I'm convinced I'm going to meet Harry in a very casual way where we have a good and meaningful conversation.

[queer-omens-in-the-archives]

Immense willingness to write VS absolutely shot visual/word processing that makes it hard to read: battle to the death right now

[dubioushonour]

Jotting it down now, Legends ZA potential starters-

Grass: Snivy (most likely), Chikorita

Water: Piplup (most likely), Poplio

Fire: an equal tossup between Torchic (rooster is Frances national animal and tpc loves this bird) and Litten (France is generally credited for being where modern professional wrestling as a sport started)