#AS TEAMMATES???? YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Man

[oscatmeowstri]

who else up thinking about the osc features on lando.jpg

[feketeribizli]

[on the cheating rumours regarding his involvement with the seperation between sally carrera and teammate montgomery "monty" mcqueen after their two years of engagement]

[ratatatastic]

the sauna robe era: a beautiful saga unfolding before us. we really have gone from "it was matthew's idea to wear them for pregame fits" to "sasha texted them team to make them wear the robes for the preds game"

nashville predators @ florida panthers postgame interview | 11.7.24 (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

DO YOU KNOW HOW FUNNY IT IS THAT BOTH RODDY AND MAFFHEW WENT oh the whole team all thought it was a prank but we still wore them anyways which somehow makes the robe walkin an exercise in trust and love that everyone passed with flying colours god this team is filled with lobe and friemdship

also happy mackie did in fact get ribbed for taking the shirt option his team uncles sure are giving him the rookie experience and also "i wasn't sure if i was showing too much skin or not" on a team

THAT WALKED IN LIKE THIS WITHOUT ANY SHAME. YEAH BUD I DONT THINK THATS A PROBLEM HERE.

the robes are truly a hit amongst the team aka we dont have to use our brains and we just put on a robe its fantastic, mackie maffhew and nosey are on absolutely onboard unsurprisingly

and if you wondering oh what about paul when will we see him-

the answer is a firm NO on both accounts so to those (me) who wanted to see an old man in a skimpy robe our dreams have to be crushed from the getgo but maybe if the streak goes long enough-

[revvywevvy]

dont u just hate it when u and bro are plotting but then some expendable starts flashing u w/ their beacon AND they have the gall to scratch u up when u try to shut that shit down so you have to blow their head off like UGH the nerve of some people amirite

{ zoom and bonus under cut }

{ Bonus }

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Wait, fuck, hold on-

THEY CAN'T FUCKING BRING OUT AN ANTI-HERO ARTEMIS WHEN I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF STUDYING FOR FINALS!!

WHAT THE FUCK, DC?!? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FOCUS?!?

oh i am so excited holy shit. am i the only one getting slade vibes from her?? because im getting massive slade/rose wilson vibes from the single eye cover and im wondering if artemis is a plant, someone unconnected from slade who wouldn't be considered a threat, to go undercover and get close to the titans. this is also like, high-key a chance to make jade and artemis sisters and/or half-sisters in canon which would be neat. i know comics fans aren't huge on changes to the canon based on outside things but making them half sisters doesn't really change jades backstory, nor artemis'.

[chaoticlad]

I said I would create a salmon run n’ smg4 crossover 👍

+ a lil scrapped doodle‼️

I love salmon run (I suck at it 🙂)

[animentality]

something I really love about blue lock is that literally from the very first scene, it establishes something that no sports anime has ever tried to before:

do not trust your teammates. they will fail you.

and that's kind of amazing for a sports anime.

[batsplat]

from the stuff i’ve heard marc’s former honda teammates (dani jorge and pol in their media careers but joan also i guess) say about him now that they’re racing is generally quite positive, both on a professional/riding level but also seemingly on a personal level? i’m wondering what you make of that given that, yeah, marc doesn’t seem like a very good teammate (unless you’re alex who i’ve left off this list). like MARC wants to separate on and off track stuff and it seems like all of these guys are willing too at least in retrospect, so he can’t have truly burned bridges with them. do you have any thoughts on that

(x, x) most riders are quite good at not burning bridges with each other! it's not like marc's competitors don't know that this stuff is kinda part of the game. I mean, all of marc's past teammates were also trying to assert themselves within the internal hierarchy... you can say that certain teammates engage in 'worse' behaviour than others, but, like, these people do understand they're supposed to be fighting each other! a baseline degree of nastiness is factored in and will be accepted to a greater or lesser extent by your rivals - especially when it comes to asserting yourself in intra-team power struggles. you might hate the other guy in the moment, but generally speaking once the active part of the rivalry is done with... you will probably get over it. marc's fellow riders are aware of how ultra-competitive marc is - and to a certain point they do respect it, not least because they're aware that this is part of the reason why marc has ended up with all those titles. it's like dani said, right, it's marc's strong suit. and in general, you do have to say that there's relatively few teammate pairings that devolve to the level of toxicity that it completely destroys the interpersonal relationship. you might need some level of preexisting animosity... most of the purely competitive sins can be healed with a little time

on the 'separating on-track and off-track' thing... well. this is kind of a question of how you define these things, you can say that marc generally speaking isn't going to massively hold grudges over isolated on-track incidents or whatever... but he doesn't just leave his fighting to the track, and personally I've also never felt he can entirely separate these things out in his mind. can you really say his professional and private relationships with other riders are completely detached from one another? mostly, he's opted to be pretty disengaged from his fellow riders as a collective, and obviously that's a good way to not take things too personally... it's all part of the game, isn't it? sometimes it's good to go with the straightforward approach: marc tells you he will make your life hell, he does indeed make your life hell, and then you both move on with your lives and can maybe actually have a pretty amiable relationship with him in years to come. he's not really defying your expectations at any point here, is he now? it's still a question for each of them as individuals as to whether they think that kind of behaviour is above board and acceptable or not... but everyone by now knows that marc plays these games, so it's not like they're going in blind

and it's not like other former teammates are constantly badmouthing each other. I mean... look, let's just cut to the chase here and bring in valentino as our reference point (as he is for the sport as a whole, which by the way does also help create a certain baseline of acceptability for marc's antics - maybe goated riders are just supposed to be dicks who knows). vale's premier class teammates were 1) nobody (2000-01), 2) tohru ukawa (2002), 3) nicky hayden (2003; 2011-12), 4) carlos checa (2004), 5) colin edwards (2005-2007), 6) jorge lorenzo (2008-10; 2013-16), 7) maverick vinales (2017-20), 8) franco morbidelli (2021), and 9) andrea dovizioso (2021). of these eight men (let's just exclude 'nobody' for now), do you know how many had serious complaints at any point about valentino as a teammate? that's right, it's one guy. one. some of valentino's other teammates, like hayden, checa and edwards, were even quite actively positive about their whole experience. this is the thing - you do need some specific circumstances for teammate rivalries to escalate from 'being kinda bitchy every other month' to 'actively fantasising about stabbing each other'. not accounting for natural interpersonal animosity, let's list some circumstantial factors that you need to get a bridge-burning-worthy level of feud:

you need a competitive bike. it is possible to beef about development direction when you're in the trenches (cf late 2010's yamaha, 2020's honda)... but generally speaking this is going to be quite low-level petty stuff, not actual war

you also need something that approaches competitiveness between teammates. if one teammate is unquestionably stronger than the other one, then it is very unlikely that you are going to get any open hostilities. the tension comes when the two sides are close enough to each other for the internal hierarchy to actually be a contentious issue (this is also basic self preservation... if you're the far weaker teammate then you do not want to make the situation troublesome, because then you will be the one to be fired)

following on from those first two things... well, it doesn't hurt to have a title fight in the mix. there are also other ways you can generate competitive stakes, like, for instance, if you and your teammate know that one of you will be out of a job soon. basically, it helps to have something to squabble over

it is maybe easy to forget how rare it is this century for teammates to be fighting directly for a title, let alone over the course of multiple seasons. only two 1-2's since the year 2000 and they're both for the factory yamaha's (though 2006, 2011-13 and 2017 did all prominently feature two factory hondas). which means that for valentino, the prerequisites were met just the once in his premier class career... and yes, the results were pretty memorable, but (topic! for! another! post!) it's worth pointing out that even that relationship was pretty much 'fine' whenever there was a sizeable disparity between the two of them performance-wise (2008 and 2013 are the most clear cut examples). I think the way I'd frame it with marc is that he has a bunch of mildly dubious strategies up his sleeve to assert himself within the team, which don't really deviate that far from what you'd expect from a rider of marc's calibre and only need to be escalated under specific circumstances. that doesn't mean he doesn't have the potential to be ruthless, but up until now it's mostly been a fairly 'acceptable' level of ruthlessness on the intra-team level... and not something that is likely to make other riders actually hate him

taking marc's teammates one by one... dani was the closest to meeting the bridge-burning prerequisites, though he was only a title rival in marc's rookie season. and marc did go further with him than he did with anyone else, and dani has made some pointed comments about marc's style as a teammate... but yes, he is fonder of marc these days. partly I'd just emphasise again that this is a fairly natural progression when you've stopped directly competing for long enough, and partly it's also just a question of individual personality - dani's not massively into holding grudges. then there's jorge, who... I mean, they might as well not have been teammates, given that jorge was either too slow or too injured to even be sharing any track space with marc. you have to put that one down primarily to circumstance, seeing as jorge's own track record on the teammate front isn't exactly spotless. marc and jorge beefing in 2019 would have been pretty dumb and also a massive waste of everyone's time in a year in which marc singlehandedly won the team's championship. even those two needed more to get things going

moving on to the dark years, pol and marc had an extremely stop-and-start partnership on a honda that was generally pretty uncompetitive... so the only stuff they could get ever so mildly irritable about were riveting incidents like 'marc saying pol wasn't the biggest championship threat' (neither of them were) or 'pol saying he'd copy marc's set up' (which proved entirely useless). not exactly title decider territory, is it now, and marc very much had pol covered as a challenger throughout their partnership. also, those two do have a longer history! they've known each other since they were kids and hold a pretty significant place in each other's careers. now that pol's more or less retired, it's natural there'll be quite a lot of sentimentality there - which will paper over any small cracks that appeared during those two years. and joan was a one year teammate at a time in which the bike was consistently close to offing them both. they only managed to start a sunday race together as teammates on thirteen occasions. it would take some serious effort to engineer a feud with that little opportunity, and, really, why on earth would you bother. maybe if honda had gone for rinsy rather than joan for the factory seat, it could've been a bit more prickly, but it's unlikely that it would have escalated beyond that

this is the thing, right, the only one of these partnerships that would have been worth burning bridges over was dani, and even there marc pretty much had him handled after the first season. in general, marc has been pretty clear on how he's not interested in making friends with the other side of the garage while the teammate relationship is ongoing... which is fine! there's some prominent-ish teammate pairings that are actually good friends, some teammate pairings where one of them is actively helping out and advising the other one, but some riders prefer to just keep their distance. it would have been a little silly of marc to start a feud with a teammate who is galaxies away from being a competitive threat, let alone a title rival, but generally it is possible to toe the line between 'attempting to suppress your internal rivals enough to stop them from becoming a problem for you' and 'taking radical enough action to make your internal rivals despise you'

especially in the post-dani era, marc never really had any need to push things too far... and, let's face it, how many of your teammate relationships end up with burnt bridges is also quite frankly a question of luck and circumstance. do you want to guess which top rider on paper has the worst track record this century with premier class teammate feuds, in terms of a) how many they've had, and b) how little public reconciliation there has been since the end of the rivalry?

yes, that's right, it's the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking of toxic and conflict-prone riders: andrea dovizioso. that old devil, constantly causing trouble. just couldn't stop undermining his poor, innocent teammates. can somebody please stop this ruthless bully before it's too late

I think you get the point. I would personally suggest that dovi is not in fact the worst teammate it is possible to have in a motogp top team. he just happened to find himself in a situation where he was teammates with two separate guys he did not click with at all, in situations that involved a pairing of riders who were (or had the potential to be) competitive with each other, as well as some proper stakes attached to the rivalry. in general, situational factors are going to determine this stuff more than anything else... and marc more often than not does have a reasonably good feel for picking his battles. he's flirted with the line, but he's mostly avoided crossing it. he hasn't had to

[triptychofvoids]

you know that one post that's like "autistic people are legally allowed to kill 1 person"? That's medic. But he gets infinite because I said so.

-☎ anon, macking they cheese.

YIPPEE!! i agree. he should be allowed to do whatever he wants i think and that includes killing people for enrichment

[starscelly]

“johnny’s just all of our little brothers- uh, little brother on the team. we all love the kid.”

(🎙️)

[chussyracing]

charles framing the prancing horse with the white paint and firmly stating "THIS is art" on his race suit as if he didn't rip out my heart and stomp on it with this simple gesture

[liquidstar]

If I can't sleep that's ok because you know what.... I will post one more small excerpt from my oc writing practice wips. Just once more for now

probably the only context you need for this one is that everyone's at a party that a place is throwing them for completing a big mission. so here it is

-----

As the party raged on within the stone walls, Polaris slipped away to the porch. She took slow steps, carefully carrying an arranged plate of finger food she’d collected. She sat down on the floor, and leaned her head up against the wall. Taking in the muted sounds of the festivity indoors, she found comfort in this space that hovered between the roaring celebration and the stillness of the night.

Polaris wasn’t alone in seeking refuge outside, another person had found their way to her hiding spot- It’s Mira! Though Polaris had ventured out to eat alone, Mira was certainly not unwelcome company.

However, Mira did not seem to notice Polaris sitting on the ground. She walked right past her, lost in her own thoughts as she made her way to the railing, relaxing her arms on it.

“Hey,” Polaris spoke in a cautious voice, so as not to startle her teammate. Still, she saw Mira tense at the sound of her voice.

“Oh! Polly! I didn't see you, sorry!”

Polaris laughs, “All good!”

“What are you doing… sitting on the ground alone?”

“Eating,” Polaris shrugged, and took another bite of her food.

“Ohh…”

“What about you? I didn't think you'd be the type to leave parties. Aren’t you a social butterfly?”

“I'd like to be a butterfly!” Mira laughs, turning her face towards the sky above, her eyes sparkling with wonder, “But actually I just wanted to look at the stars a little. They're clearer here in the mountains y'know…”

“Hm,” Polaris followed Mira's gaze upwards. She rose to her feet, joining Mira at the railing, “Yeah, you're right.”

“It's so pretty,” Mira marveled, tracing the constellations above. She adds, “It's so big.”

“Yeah, well, that's space.”

They fell into a comfortable stilless, taking in the enchanting view of the starry sky. The distant sounds of the party still echoed in the background, the golden light from inside illuminating only their backs.

“Do you ever feel like this is the wrong place?”

Polaris tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at Mira's sudden question. “What do you mean?”

Mira raised a single outstretched hand to the heavens, as if waiting for the universe to take it. Staring at the gaps of sky between her fingers, she continues, "Don't you feel like… We're supposed to be up there?"

Polaris looks into Mira's eyes, which were still fixated above. She could only see a vague wistfulness within them- A nostalgia. The stars themselves shined within those eyes. Polaris couldn’t explain why, but this made her uneasy.

As if in a daze, Mira stood on her tiptoes and reached for the stars with all her might. In a panic, Polaris drops her plate and grabs onto her friend.

“Polaris? What are you doing?” Mira’s trance was broken by the sudden embrace, “I thought you weren't a hugger?” She joked.

“I thought… I thought the stars were going to take you away,” Polaris mumbled, embarrassed by the ridiculousness of her own words, “So I held on…”

Mira couldn’t help but laugh at this absurd statement, “What? That's silly! How would that even work?” poking fun at her friend's nonsense concerns, she tried to lighten the mood.

“I don't-” Polaris relaxed her grip, but didn't fully let go of Mira, “It really felt like it…”

Mira let out a sigh and patted her head, “I wouldn't let that happen, okay?”

Having these irrational concerns humored somehow made Polaris feel even more embarrassed. She released Mira from her embrace, and stepped back to lean on the railing. "Sorry,” she replied.

“Well, I'm just glad you care so much!” Mira laughed again, not letting up on her teasing. However, her snarky smile softens and she leaves Polaris with a, “Thank you.”

With that, Mira heads back inside, leaving Polaris alone with her thoughts. She took one last glance at the stars.

“The right place…” She whispers to the night.

[ratatatastic]

"I gotta have you talk about Barkov a little bit... 'cuz, you know, he's your Captain but like... What should we know that we don't know about this guy? He's so quiet, he keeps a low profile—I'm sure that's by design—but he's the quietest, incredible superstar that...When Chris Pronger was working there (VP of Hockey OPs/Senior Advisor from 2017-2020), I remember he used to say to me, 'Hey, this guy is a Top 5 player in the game.' Even when nobody was even putting him in the Top 10 at that time, you know? But what makes him so great? What do you know about him now that you thought you knew before you got there?" "You know, well, everything—because I'm with you! I knew he was in the league, I knew he was a great player but playing on the other side—I'd see him play twice a year and I wouldn't watch that much and I had no appreciation for how good he was. But the answer—I'm gonna give you an answer about Barkov and it's not gonna be good enough... 'cuz I can't answer that question about him yet, I still haven't gotten to figure it out. I don't know to do it justice but he's this extreme perfect blend of absolutely no ego and an incredible drive to be better at the same time. So usually the guys that are really driven have a bit of an ego. Ego's not bad always, right? Maybe I'm using the wrong word to describe it but he will put his teammates and his—everything—first, and it won't bother him one bit! That's exactly the way he wants it! He doesn't want to be the first guy out, he doesn't want to—it's not that he doesn't want to do interviews because of the media! Talk to this guy! You walk in our room—you don't know hockey and you don't know names—you can't tell if he's the 1st forward or the 13th forward by the way he treats people. That's absolutely the truth! And the reason he's not appreciated as much as a player is: I have never, ever once seen him even remotely cheat to the offensive side of the game to score a point. He just won't do it. That doesn't mean he's sitting back defensively! He doesn't give a rat's ass about his point totals, he just wants to win. So he's never gonna put the numbers up that he could. If Barky decided he was gonna generate points—if somebody'd convince him, 'Hey, Barky! If you just cheat the game and score—we'd got a better chance of winning!' I don't know, [he'd put up] 120, 130 points? Like he is brilliant but he will never, ever put the game—you know, what? He wouldn't put himself in front of the game. The game demands certain things and you can't get past that no matter how good you are. There are certain things you got to do in this game and usually those are hard things... he'd never once put himself in front of the game." "You can't score 120 or 130 without cheating a little bit, right? It's just a real—" "Yeah, except those guys don't call it cheating! They call it anticipating. Bad players cheat, good players anticipate." "They see things before they happen, Paul! That's what happens!" "Exactly, exactly!"

The Cam & Strick Podcast | 9.24.24 (x)

[zinhuan]

in true spooky day fashion, let me introduce you a spooky supernatural-ish horror muse named ling zhou 凌舟, aka an exorcist who's known to be one of the very few, if not the only to master the ancient dark magic sorcery trick(s) and the likes that no one else's able to till date and the only surviving successor in his line of exorcism, which makes him in high demand, except all he likes doing is chilling in a noodle restaurant somewhere, watching (criticizing) whatever historical drama that's playing and also trying to quit an online shopping addiction. probably keeps a few harmless demons and ghosts as pets unfortunately (read: they owe him things) and does he get along with other otherworldly beings? not exactly because usually they're either wary or scared of him, or pissed at him. or all of the above. no one truly knows where he came from or how old he really is; it was a random one fine day that he ended up in front of his eventual master's doorstep, with no memories of who he was or how he ended up there, and was given a chance at becoming their apprentice. he probably (reluctantly) hangs around this little group of few others like him who specialize in exorcism, sorcery etc and go on these little missions that people seek them for (grave robbing yes)

ps: he probably Also has a little reincarnation verse which is why he's like this now (technically immortal and can't really be harmed in a significant way and gives off some very mysterious, puzzling vibes sometimes) but shhh i'll elaborate more when time comes)

[blusical]

sometimes im reminded of the fact that kyle beach was on the kansas city mavericks at one point (albeit a short-lived stay) and i get depressed every time.

[lunar-years]

I don't really have an issue believing Jamie was a different player under Pep. One, he just had to have been. Man City is not the mess Richmond was, and Pep wouldn't have allowed it. But two, there was a manager BETWEEN Pep and Ted that Jamie had, who allowed and encouraged Jamie to regress. There's a lot of factors going on there - Jamie, a young player, suddenly becoming the best player on the team, which he wasn't mature enough for, so he really lets the "prick" part of his personality out, helped along by his father and the way his father wants him to play and be. Then you also had CARTRICK, who wanted Jamie to be the star and for all the players to get the ball to Jamie. That was their play style. So you've got both him and Jamie's dad feeding all of that.

I think the main question really, since we know Pep would have done a good job training Jamie, and that Jamie is very talented and wouldn't have behaved the way he did in S1 back at Man City, is how did the previous Richmond coach (George?) manage to fuck up and especially fuck up with Jamie so bad that he became an entirely different player.

Putting these asks in conversation because I think second anon is maybe answered by first anon? Like, Cartrick threw Jamie into being the "team star" so that Cartrick didn't have to bother with coming up with a real strategy and then it spiraled out from there (combined with Jamie's dad and Roy totally checked-out as captain, Jamie was not at all in an environment to thrive in s1, I think that much is pretty clear).

After all these asks I am starting to see the vision about how the Pep to Richmond transition makes sense. I am definitely picking up what ya'll are putting down. But I also think what Ted did for Jamie is solidify the line between how he can act and how he should act.

Basically, I think it does go beyond just Ted rolling back Jamie's regression under Cartrick and allowing him to progress back to the "team player" he'd already always been at Man City, if that makes sense? Because there's a difference between being a team player because you are self-aware enough to realize your place as a cog in a much larger machine (which is how I assume Jamie was at Man City), and another thing to be a team player because you realize the intrinsic value in it and want to facilitate that sort of environment for the rest of your teammates, too, while in a position of influence to do so (which is the place I think he gets to, in significant part because of Ted).