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truly-sincerely · 2 months

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Okay let's try this again from the top (Now with AO3 link)

Dark Star Falling 1 - hot and cold

This is gonna be:

reasonably high fidelity to game canon

starting in act 3, at Wyrm's Rock Fortress

a series of vignettes, mostly between canon scenes

an agender/tiefling durge x astarion

mostly about dealing with intense durgetash feelings

Elient 22

“So… Thank you. For being that evil bastard.”

Darling is only half paying attention. Astarion can see the wheels turning in their head–an expression which has, in the past, foretold some of their more elaborate crimes. It was easy to see how the party had made it this far–with Darling doing the battle math and checking for exits as casually as breathing. They aren’t like any bard Astarion has ever met.

Even their aggravating predilection for rescuing every pathetic urchin and bedraggled gnome they come across is only a minor inconvenience in the larger scheme of playing their enemies off each other and picking off whoever’s left. Darling always seems to find a way to make a profit off of even the most pathetic victims.

Karlach has stormed off to the far end of the hall. Darling’s gaze follows her thru the crowd. Wyll is standing nearby waiting impatiently to talk to his father, or what’s left of him.

“Hey, Star? Do me a favor?”

“Whatever you need, precious bhaal-babe,” Astarion says, sliding into Darling’s field of view. Darling snickers in spite of themself and paws his chest, eliciting a self-satisfied smile from the vampire. He’s known about Darling’s heritage for all of ten minutes and he’s already teasing them about it.

The revelation that they’re Bhaalspawn and one of the architects of the Absolute hoax is certainly a shock but the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. Darling has always been hot and cold–not one and then the other, but both simultaneously. Playful, dangerous, and insatiable. A creature that acts wounded to lure predators in and then snaps them up.

“Talk to Ravengard with Wyll, would you?” they ask, looking back in the direction of the Grand Duke as tho not sure he’ll still be there. Ravengard is standing to the side of the throne, looking like little more than one of the many Fists strewn about the hall.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but all that’s beneath that eminently smooth pate is a tadpole.”

“Then talk to the tadpole,” Darling snaps, and then their expression softens into something apologetic. “Maybe Wyll can get thru to him. I dunno. And tell Karlach to go back to camp, please.”

“That’s probably for the best. Wyll had to physically restrain her when Gortash was calling you his ‘nearest and dearest’,” he titters. “I haven’t seen her this angry since she was turning that Paladin of Tyr into paste.”

“If I find out I had something to do with Gortash betraying her I’m going to throw myself into the Chionthar,” Darling says, and they have such a pained look on their face that Astarion is overwhelmed by an alien desire to say something gentle. Fortunately, Darling turns and walks away before he can embarrass himself.

– – –

The Archduke is just standing there, surveying the nobles as they mingle. Darling can hear one of the patriars complaining about cheese. Gortash doesn’t have a tadpole, but Darling thinks he’s wearing the same expression that they’ve seen on their companions when one is making use of their parasites–eyes unfocused, almost but not quite nodding, listening to nothing, generally distant. As they watch him they think they can see him subvocalizing. He’s connected to someone or something telepathically.

Darling reads the Weave around him. He’s protected by multiple enchantments from his equipment and otherwise. Magic that grants him more presence, more authority, more confidence. Too much confidence. He’s drunk on it.

His languid gaze passes over Darling. His eyes meet theirs and his expression changes–his smile changes–it moves up into his eyes. Darling’s breath catches as he holds their gaze.

They catch themself making battle plans and–realizing that their best course of action would be to lay down cover and let Karlach get in his face and chop him to pieces before he can invoke the powers of his god–they let slip the tiniest of smiles on one side of their mouth. His expression shifts again. They see recognition in his look. He’s reading them too.

Darling whispers an almost silent expletive to themself, covering their face with a hand, pretending to brush stray hair out of their eyes. Suddenly he’s standing before them.

“Follow me up to my office,” he commands, and then, seeing their eyes narrow, adds in a softer tone, “We could be good for each other.”

“What will you tell me?” they ask stiffly. He looks down at the creak of leather as Darling’s glove tightens around the grip of their blade. Gortash shifts closer as if to shield Darling’s indiscretion from sight, but who’s sight? They glance over at Astarion and Wyll who are engrossed in whatever Ravengard is saying. Gortash moves his hand over Darling’s, brushing his fingertips across their knuckles. He smells like vanilla. Their voice cracks as they whisper, “I don’t know you.”

“Join me upstairs and we can use that dagger for whatever you like,” he proposes. Darling’s body responds with what feels like the expenditure of every chemical at its disposal. They stumble half a step back, suddenly keenly aware of an oven-like heat between his body and theirs. Gortash wonders pleasantly at their outsized reaction.

“Is this guy bothering you, darling?” Astarion’s voice comes from behind Darling moments before he touches their back gently.

“Yes!,” they respond, loud and shrill. “I mean no. No! Gods...”

Gortash and Astarion take a moment to size each other up while Darling recovers their composure. Astarion is accustomed to Darling’s occasional fits of nausea and twitching, and from observing Gortash’s demeanor in the moment, he is as well. It seems he really does know Darling as well as he claims to.

It doesn’t last long. Darling straightens up and turns their body into Astarion’s and says, “We’re going back to camp.” Astarion links an arm around Darling’s and leads them toward the door. Wyll follows them out, looking back at Gortash and leveling a particularly diabolic stinky eye his way.

Gortash watches the trio of adventurers exit, still wearing that smug smile.

They’re alive and they’re still themself, more or less.

#bg3 spoilers #bg3 fanfic #dark star falling #durgetash #durgestarion #durge #gortash #astarion #I'm leaving the first draft up #it's much looser than this version #I think I've found my voice/style a lot better with this draft #but it's a bit leaner/more serious than the first draft #so I won't be upset if you like the old ones better

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: Rask repercussions, Sanheim injury, prospects off to strong starts, RFA’s and more (Sep 17)

The last update of the Fantasy Guide was Sunday Night. You can likely look for updates to happen daily or every second day until puck drop.

Friday’s update was no easy task and very in-depth. The Erik Karlsson trade had so many implications and I ended up touching about 20 player projections on both teams as a result. This is why you buy this online Guide to supplement anything you picked up at the newsstand.

To me, the biggest jump in projected points goes to Karlsson himself. Brent Burns and Karlsson are too far into the elite category to cannibalize each other’s production. My favorite 50-50 sleeper player as a result of this trade is the guy I traded three hours prior to Ottawa announcing the deal – Marc-Edouard Vlasic. On one hand, he’s a Band-Aid Boy who only seems to get hurt when his production is on fire. But on the other hand, he is the best left-hand shooting defenseman on San Jose. He has been tied at the hip to Justin Braun for the last five years (so that’s the downside of the 50-50 risk), but he is a favorite to pair up with Karlsson.

My favorite non-Karlsson player in this deal is the boost that goes to Chris Tierney. This had help, of course, from J-G Pageau getting injured and now Tierney is the second-line center. He’s at a prime age with a steady increase in production. It is Ottawa, though, so his ceiling is limited. But I like him for mid-40s now, with a bit of upside.

ANNOUNCEMENT 1: Dobbernomics is now open. A FREE game where the value of each player is driven by total ownership. You get five transactions per week, that you can save or use, to take advantage of a player’s low cap value while dropping a player with high cap value thereby increasing the overall value of your roster. Winning can be twofold – most fantasy points at the end of the year, or highest roster value. Check it out here!

So the Victor Rask injury is even more serious than we thought. He didn’t just slice his fingers in the kitchen and require minor surgery – he sliced tendons and required major surgery. Rod Brind’Amour says he will be out “months for sure”. Because Rask was one of the key centermen on the team, this has an impact on several players. Martin Necas goes from “a pretty good chance” of making the team to “a near-lock”. Ditto for Lucas Wallmark, who has to clear waivers to be sent down. I bumped up Wallmark’s projected games played in the Guide. I bumped up Necas’ production expectation. This also puts Janne Kuokkanen and Aleksi Saarela firmly on the map. I still don’t have them making the team, but now I think they will get in a dozen games (or more) early on in the season. If Necas were to crash and burn, then Sebastian Aho will have to be taken off the wing and put at center. And that would shift things around quite a bit.

Tampa defenseman Jake Dotchin getting released from his contract last week (followed quickly by St. Louis prospect Dmitrii Sergeev) because of conditioning (or lack thereof) was very interesting. Naturally my first thought was that NHL teams can get out of bad contracts any time the player they no longer want eats an extra cupcake for dessert. If you subscribe to the Athletic you can read an article of them diving into the issue here. But it looks as though in order to pull this off, teams would need to provide many warnings and thoroughly document the entire process. Because in order to keep teams honest, the NHLPA pretty much has to appeal each and every case.

Jonathan Drouin has reportedly arrived in camp in remarkable shape. His agent said that he trained hard all summer and arrived in camp leaner and faster. One observer called him easily the best player on the ice Sunday. He was also on the wing, it should be noted. I really like his outlook for the year ahead in terms of personal progression. But since nobody else on the Canadiens will hit 60 points, it is hard to see him get there.

Columbus beatwriter Aaron Portzline had this to say about Vitali Abramov’s chances of making the roster, given that the forward corps is deep when it comes to one-way contracts:

“The challenge ahead of Abramov is steep. He needs to prove more than his NHL readiness; he needs to prove he can play and produce in a top-nine role, which does not appear readily available. He’ll likely need to do that at the AHL level first.”

You can check out Abramov’s scouting profile here, if you don’t know much about him.

ANNOUNCEMENT 2: Rob Vollman’s player usage charts are now live on Frozen Tools. Furthermore, we stuck each team’s usage chart in the “advanced” tab of each player profile. Now all the advanced stats you need is at your fingertips (and it loads remarkably fast). Kudos to Eric Daoust for getting that done.

Travis Sanheim sustained an injury during a preseason game. He was hit by Matt Martin and left the game with a shoulder injury. An update will be provided later today, but don’t be surprised if he misses the start of the season.

{source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Matt Martin boards Travis Sanheim. Shocker <a href="https://t.co/ArVomyr2Vx">pic.twitter.com/ArVomyr2Vx</a></p>— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) <a href="https://twitter.com/BroadStHockey/status/1041391884386672640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 16, 2018</a></blockquote>

Josh Morrissey signed a two-year deal worth $3.15 per season. Darnell Nurse is expected to sign something similar. Besides Nurse, the remaining RFA’s are Miles Wood, William Nylander, Sam Reinhart, Nick Ritchie and Shea Theodore. Of these six players, I can see Nylander holding out the longest, followed by Theodore. Call it a hunch. Funny thing about Nylander is that I remember going through this about 20 years ago. I just remember his dad, Michael Nylander, holding out…thought I can’t dig up firm documentation on it. Contract stuff with the Nylander family seems to be a regular thing, unless my memory is off.

I didn’t give Martin Kaut much of a chance to make the Colorado roster this year or even next, but it is looking as though the team really wants him to succeed quickly and they are giving him every opportunity to do so. He played on the right wing on Colorado’s second line with Tyson Jost and Alex Kerfoot and is apparently doing well. He is eligible to play in the AHL this year and the belief is that he will be sent there but will be one of the first call-ups when injury strikes. Similar to the thinking with Mikko Rantanen back in his post-draft year when he played nine games with the big club and tore it up in the AHL.

The Bruins gave a tryout contract to goaltender Alex Sakellaropoulos. Presumably to challenge the staff with fitting more letters on a jersey than they did with Forsbacka-Karlsson.

It looks like Jordan Greenway is being tried at center and he isn’t doing too bad there. Generally prospects who are natural centermen start off on the wing unless they are the cream of the crop. Obviously Greenway is just that. The Wild are also using Mikael Granlund on the point on the power play, which is interesting. That means Jared Spurgeon won’t rake in Ryan Suter’s lost PP points and instead the team will roll with Granlund – Matt Dumba duo. Assuming the experiment works, of course. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t.

Early camp notes from out of Vancouver are saying that wunderkind Elias Pettersson is working well on a line with Sven Baertschi and Nikolay Goldobin in an all-Euro line. If so, that’s a huge boon for Goldobin and Baertschi owners.

We’re already getting cuts from training camp, but at this point the notable names haven’t started yet.

Announcement 3: Later today I plan to make available my player draft list for $9.99. You already get it free with the Fantasy Guide, but some of the more casual players may not want the Guide and will look to save a dollar. I’m just waiting on the cover graphic.

See you next Monday.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-rask-repercussions-sanheim-injury-prospects-off-to-strong-starts-rfas-and-more-sep-17/

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buddyrabrahams · 7 years

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Top six swingmen in the 2017 NBA Draft

Versatility has become such a crucial part of today’s NBA. Finding players who can play on the wings, but move into the post or work as a secondary ball handler has become a key part of team building.

This year’s draft features several prospects who can bring that level of malleability to the forward positions and could really cause problems for opposing matchups. Unlike guards or big men, the swingmen fit into almost every roster, without overhauling the trajectory of the teams at the top of the draft.

Athleticism, shooting, and defensive ability will separate the top prospects in this category, but all could have stellar careers with the right fit.

Here are the top six swingmen prospects in the 2017 NBA Draft.

1. Josh Jackson, Kansas

No player has such obvious strengths and weaknesses in this draft class as the talented Kansas freshman.

The good things about Josh Jackson’s game are fantastic. He’s an elite level athlete at both ends of the floor and in transition. Jackson slashes and cuts to the basket effectively, ending with dunks at the rim.

On defense, his versatility was paramount to Kansas’ success. The 6-foot-8 swingman played most of his minutes up at the power forward position. He showed himself able to battle with bigger bodies inside the paint and switch on to guards on the perimeter. His wingspan and footspeed could make him a dangerous weapon defensively. He was the first freshman in five years to average more than a block per game, 1.5 steals per game, and 7 rebounds per game.

All of that being said, Jackson’s shooting is such a question mark that it could leave him unable to use any of his other skills effectively. Just watching him take a jumper, even a casual observer can see the obvious hitch in his delivery. Changing his mechanics will be a big undertaking, so much so that Bill Self and his staff chose to only suggest minor tweaks, rather than the full scale overhaul Jackson’ shooting form probably needs.

That may have come from an unexpected hot streak from Jackson this season. After starting the season shooting 23.7 percent from outside the arc (38 attempts in 18 games), Jackson caught fire, shooting 48.1 percent the rest of the season (53 attempts in 17 games).

That’s a very small sample size, not aided by his dismal 57 percent free throw shooting, often a better indicator of future shooting success.

In the end, most of this may already be a moot point for most draft evaluators. Rumors have floated about Jackson receiving a promise from the Lakers before he’d worked out for any other team. Jackson even went as far as cancelling his workout with the Celtics, who pick behind the Lakers at the top of the draft. He’d certainly be an intriguing piece for a young Lakers team to add.

2. Jayson Tatum, Duke

With top recruit Harry Giles in the same recruiting class, not many would have expected Jayson Tatum to be the first Duke Blue Devil to have his name called in this June’s draft. Giles had injury issues, but Tatum shined and worked his way into the top 10, if not higher.

He has a big body for a small forward and could play both the three and four spots in the NBA. Regardless of whom he defends at the next level, he’ll be able to score against almost any size defender. Tatum is built to get buckets, in any way he can. He’s great in isolation or the pick-and-roll, with enough creativity to find the open man when doubled.

His offensive game has its drawbacks though. Tatum isn’t great without the ball in his hands and can really kill ball movement with his love of isolation. Even when away from the action, he won’t provide much spacing with a streaky, but unreliable jumper. He’s more of a shot-maker than a shooter, canning just 34 percent of his three-point attempts (with a high 87 percent of his makes coming via assist).

Teams taking Tatum are certainly going to get talent and star power. There is a worry that he could be the kind of flawed star player who stunts a franchise’s team building efforts, like Rudy Gay or Joe Johnson.

3. OG Anunoby, Indiana

Teams in search of a possible defensive gamechanger, this is your man. OG Anunoby showed in his two seasons at Indiana that he was a top level athlete and capable of competing at any pace, speed, or vertical level. His time as a Hoosier was filled with high-flying dunks, soaring blocks, and blink-and-you-missed-it highlights.

He’s 6-foot-8 and 215 pounds, fully capable of guarding any of three positions, and comfortable switching for a moment onto point guards and centers too.

He’ll struggle to make a franchise-altering difference because he simply can’t shoot. Offensively he’s not going to provide much. It’s tough to see him as a starter because of that lack of production, but his value on defense and in the open court makes him an attractive prospect. He could be an elite substitute, capable of shutting down some of the league’s best scorers for a chunk of every game.

He is recovering from a midseason ACL tear, so teams with a desire to win now may pass and leave Anunoby on the board for a few picks longer than he should be.

4. Semi Ojeleye, SMU

After a stop-and-start stint at Duke, Ojeleye transferred to SMU and flourished. He averaged 19 points and 7 rebounds, while leading the Mustangs to a conference championship. His game would seem to translate nicely to the next level.

Ojeleye’s 230-pound frame should allow him to guard both forward positions, and he’ll be a tricky cover on the offensive end. He’s skilled and strong enough to punish smaller defenders in the post and he shot 41 percent from outside this season. He should bring some serious value in the modern NBA, where switching and mismatches reign supreme.

His age after two lackluster years at Duke and the requisite redshirt year after transferring is a bit of a worry, but he’s skilled enough for that to not matter.

5. Justin Jackson, North Carolina

After being crowned NCAA champion, the lanky Tar Heel scorer heads to the NBA. He brings with him an arsenal of floaters, leaners, and fadeaways that make him a deadly offensive weapon.

He’s not a knockdown shooter right now, but what he lacks in fundamental skill he makes up for with a craftiness that utilizes his long limbs. For someone his size, he does nicely with the ball in his hands, creating opportunities for himself and others.

He has the tools to hold his own defensively, giving his team productive minutes off the bench. He could provide the instant offensive jolt of a Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.

6. Sindarius Thornwell, South Carolina

Our third consecutive player on this list that is already 22 years of age. That’s a concerning number, with scouts fearing production in college came only from beating up on younger and smaller teenagers.

Thornwell, however, showed promise in his first three seasons at South Carolina as well. He averaged double-figure scoring every season in college, and topped 14.5 points per 40 minutes in each year on campus as well.

On top of that, Thornwell grew his game every year. He became an elite rebounder for a guard, refined his jump shot, and became one of the nation’s most sound defenders (earning SEC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior).

This past season, which ended with his Gamecocks streaking to the Final Four, he shot just shy of 40 percent from outside and over 83 percent at the free throw line. He projects to be a 3-and-D scrapper off an NBA bench.

Honorable Mention: Devin Robinson, Dillon Brooks, Jaron Blossomgame

Shane McNichol covers college basketball and the NBA for Larry Brown Sports. He also blogs about basketball at Palestra Back and has contributed to Rush The Court, ESPN.com, and USA Today Sports Weekly. Follow him on Twitter @OnTheShaneTrain.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2sXEySF

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