#disclaimer: im not that old. but your prospective of time does change.

[astrxlis-archive]

Hello again !! 😚 THANK YOU for your warm welcome Fox! <33 also the paragraphs are still duplicated in my side i do not know what's going on, but don't worry! Not much of a big deal 👌

THE MEMES too... You really took a fraction of your time to do the cake one😭 I probably am not around or maybe I am but not aware of it during that time. I'm doing alright! (i do not know my true state tbh 😅) I could say that, but really I don't think I actually am because it's really difficult to do work now, given that this so-called Executive Dysfunction is affecting me so much (ᗒᗩᗕ) OH SCARAMOUCHE! I definitely am not aware that i have said to dislike him however i'm very very glad to have my ideas help you!! I look forward to the xingqiu theme in October! 👀

Sumeru is such a cozy place, I agree with that! The enemies are great for me too, so many variety of mushrooms + eremites! I did have finished the archon quest available, due to needing to unlock reputation immediately to start progress~ it was great, Nahida is well written and I hope you'd love her too! The only concern i have is that she looks like a radish 😆 I have also finished the Aranyaka quest, it was long but it was meant to be that. I love Aranaras so much :3

Hello fellow kazuha haver~ I feel the same about getting tighnari because of the difficulties i'm having in exploring sumeru. Goodluck on getting Scaramouche too (early pity hopefully) <3 ACTUALLY I was thinking of pulling for scaramouche for funsies only, since i have ei and kazuha. But then another thing that prevents me from doing so is that i barely have built my anemo characters properly with a 4 pc VV,,, i am wondering as well if you're interested in getting candace? She's a definite yes to me given that she's a four star, but we'll see what happens! Nilou's skills are really beautiful, AND CYNO. Cyno's like the Ayaka or Xiao of Sumeru. They're beautiful, but I am f2p .......

May you get some proper rest during your gap semester Fox!! Take your nice break and make the best of it from uni for a while 💕 The heavy things that will come later on during the year isn't yet happening, however if i were to be honest... It is really overwhelming even if it doesn't scare me due to not functioning as a student at this point *sweats* I'm still trying ☺️ i also wanted to share that im seeing study posts around social media, making me think if it's a sign of anything 🤔

so i didnt knew this is getting long but it cant be compared to the long ass messages we've exchanged with each other before xD True about writing,... 5 years.. that's a lot!! I definitely enjoyed your ramblings, I liked reading it! I'm not supposed to reply to everything but I have lots of things to say for each so i cant not reply! Hehe.

— 🍰.

hewwo 🍰!!!

no dude no need to thank me❣️i tried to fix that but gave up; hopefully this one won't give me issues.

ofc i did!! i thought you'd find it a little funny too 😂 also, no worries!! i'm,,,, not sure if i should say i'm glad you're alright or not?? kfndjdnd but here, have a hug, i know exactly how much executive dysfunction can mess you up 🥴 are you back on meds or gave up?

i'm pretty sure you did when we were talking abt the irodori festival lore, but i don't remember if i replies to that ask or not... i still have three asks from july (rip) in my inbox. i'm really sorry abt that 😥

is it bad that i laughed about the nahida comment? i feel like it is but it's still funny jdndjsn i'm taking it slow, enjoying the events instead of rushing through the quests, but i'll let you know when i finish the archon one. i unlocked vanarana yesterday, and dude. i wanna squish the aranaras so much. they're so cute but so trusting it makes me worry for them so much— 🥹🥹🥹

hello~ did you get any kazuha constellations too or just him at C0? i lost my tighnari 50/50 to diluc. he's benched. that's all i have to say. and thank you!! i really do hope he comes home early. he has no choice since i'm guaranteed now. :)

dude if i show my anemo "builds" i think it might make you feel better about yours 🤧 to think i main an anemo character... i'm sorry xiao.......

hmmm... i'll wait to see how well i adapt to her fighting style, but by looks alone, i'm very excited to get her as well hehe speaking of four stars, what did you think of heizou? cyno (dreamy sigh).... please come home to me on your rerun...... i've been interested in him since i read the comics, and his skills........ and his idle animations too 🫣 i haven't seen about nilou, so i can't comment 🥲

i'm doing my best to enjoy my break 💖 only recently i've started to feel like i can relax, so that's good. yeah, i would take that as i sign, but that's just me 😂 school is overwhelming, and i hope you have a good support system with you 🥺 and if it's worth anything, i'm here to encourage you or just hand out if you need a break!

kfnskabja don't worry about it!! 5 years... is it a long time though? seems so little to me. maybe it's my old age........... jokes aside, i'm glad you're so thoughtful about the things i say and in your replies 💕

[jamesvanriemsdyk]

Best GMs and coaches in the league ACC to you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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