#mb teammates

[coquelicoq]

we get a lot of really great stuff in system collapse about murderbot's relationships with ART and ratthi, which makes sense, because it spends almost the entire book with them. but i also love how even though mensah isn't there for most of the story, other people keep reminding mb of her:

chapter 2, page 25: “From ART’s personnel file, she [Karime] was older than Mensah and she didn’t look like an intrepid space explorer, either, even in the protective environmental suit.”

2, 27: “It took Karime three seconds to process the abrupt statement. (She was almost as good at not looking annoyed as Mensah was.) She kept her expression neutral and patient.”

2, 28: “In the underground colony room, Karime lifted her brows. ‘Another occupied site?’ I thought she was being careful not to show too much reaction. It was the way Mensah would have played it.”

4, 70: “Iris looked at me and I saw her hesitate, because her hesitation looked a lot like Dr. Mensah’s hesitation. And I realized I really didn’t want to go down there.”

5, 104: "Iris has that same thing as Dr. Mensah, the thing where she’s able to look and sound calm under circumstances where shit is possibly about to go down.”

it's spent so much time with her and it knows her so well and respects her so much that she's the model against which it compares all other humans. it thinks about her when they're not together. it's protective of her. it has such total faith in her competence. it (non-romantically) loves her and doesn't want to not see her again. idk man, it just gets to me! and they were teammates (oh my god they were teammates!!)

bonus:

I said, aloud, "You have to be kidding me." (ch. 2, p. 28)

seven pages later, in reaction to the same thing:

Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, "Oh, you have to be kidding me." Yeah.

twinsies 🥰

#something about their relationship is just sooo potent because of the structural power that mensah has over mb #and how mb has always been trying to navigate how much it cares about her and respects her with how afraid it is #of being a thing that she owns #because even if she doesn't exercise that power over it the fact remains that the context in which they live makes that possible #like! socially constructed ideas of personhood creating inherent violence in the human-construct relation! #even if she means well. even if it's necessary for mb to have a legal owner so that some corporate doesn't claim it as property. #it's not that mensah is an unsafe person it's that the power imbalance is intrinsically baked in because of #the broader social context of constructs as nonpersons. as property and equipment #all of that is true! AND it respects her and loves her. AND they're teammates! they are both trying so hard #to create sth just and beautiful out of sth really messed up. and trusting each other to collaborate in that way! #it was SO necessary for mb to leave at the end of ASR and SO necessary for it to get proof at the end of ES #that she would not try to stop it from leaving. that it was free. that it was autonomous #idk idk i'm rambling i just. i care them #the murderbot diaries #mb teammates #mb sc #system collapse spoilers #system collapse #my posts #murderbot

[grammarpedant]

Paging through Network Effect for other reasons and came across the following passage; now I'm belatedly, unintentionally filling that loveless aromantic prompt by yewlojee. With Murderbot & Mensah meta.

We all know the infamously aromantic "Do you love my mother? Thiago thinks so" / "Not the way he thinks" exchange, right, but do we ALSO know how aro relationship anarchy the ensuing exchange is too:

I said, “Your second mother is…” Client wasn’t the right word, not anymore. “My teammate.” I could see I had to clarify. It was really hard finding the right words. “Before your second mother, I had never been an actual member of a team before. Just an…” Amena finished, “An appliance for a team.” That was it. “Yes.” “I see. Thank you for letting me ask you questions.”

This!! this is MB putting to words just how important Mensah is to it, what their relationship IS to it without social shortcuts or euphemisms or any other bullshit. They are teammates, and that means more than anyone outside the relationship would know. She made it feel like its contributions and opinions mattered to the team. She offered their reliance on it like that meant it could rely on them, an interdependence, a being part of something as someone. She was the first person to ever make it feel like it mattered. I'm fucking tearing up just thinking about that.

And there's no script or euphemism or simple social shortcut to say that, is there? To say, "That person who's important to you, she's important to me because she took the time to treat me with dignity and respect when everyone else had overlooked me. She saw me as my own person, and I answered that recognition. She saved my life, and I saved hers, not because I'm obligated to save her, or because she's obligated to me, but because we care about each other." What a whole narrative to explain a relationship- and yet to cut it down to "love" or even to "she's my client" would be to flatten everything that is important about their relationship into something that it isn't. The things that are important about their relationship- and in this case, the things that Amena deserves to know about how her mother and her mother's SecUnit are important to each other- need to be explained in their own terms, without bullshit, without glossing, without hiding behind a pre-existing shape.

It's about finding your place in a network of relationships, isn't it? A network effect. Not a hierarchy, no insistence that relationships must take certain shapes, no pre-set expectations imposed upon relationships from outside, no expectation that this or that kind of relationship must be more important than other kinds. No hierarchy, no rules.

That's the best of what relationship anarchy offers. Just people figuring out how they relate to each other in the ways that make sense for them, with the words that make sense to them, how to fit together in the great web of connections known as family and community.

#the murderbot diaries #verso writes #meta #relationship anarchy #aromantic #murderbot diaries #network effect #murderbot #ayda mensah #aroace agenda

[haezen]

a/n: OKAYY IM SLOWLY COMING BACK im defrosting my writing skills ... they're frozen

(not proofread mb)

belphegor x gn!mc

2:56 A.M.

The perfect time for a late-night snack. 

You make your way to the kitchen and try to be as quiet as possible, so as to not disturb any of the demon brothers ‘peacefully’ sleeping in their rooms. Though it’s useless because you can hear Levi screaming at his teammates behind a closed door. That was normal for the third-born. If you listen carefully, you can also hear a faint tune playing all the way from behind Lucifer’s door up in his study.

You tip-toe to the kitchen and peek around the corner to ensure Beel isn’t already inside rummaging around for scraps. Aaand he’s nowhere to be seen. Perfect. 

During your time down in the Devildom with the demon brothers, you have noticed that there's rarely a day that passes where there are snacks for you to enjoy at night. Luckily, tonight seems to be an exception because a singular cookie is sitting smack dab in the middle of the kitchen island. Your favorite flavor.

You creep towards it to inspect it. How could this be?

There’s not a single letter, mark, or name written on the wrapper. There’s also no ignoring the convenient absence of any note that would indicate not to eat it.  Surely with Beel’s senses, he would have been able to sniff this cookie out in his sleep. It’s a miracle that the cookie has lasted this long.

The growling of your stomach pulls you out of your thoughts. Nobody would miss this cookie if it was gone, right? There’s no time to debate or allow your conscience to take over because before you know it, you’ve already taken a ginormous bite out of the cookie. And it tastes absolutely divine. It tastes so heavenly that you can’t help but close your eyes to savor the flavors that overwhelm your taste buds. Have you ever had a cookie that tasted so good?

The bliss you’re experiencing from a singular bite out of this godly cookie comes to an abrupt end. 

Creeaaak!

Oh, god. Please don’t be a ghost. You think as you peek around the kitchen door. Nobody’s there. You assure yourself. Everybody is busy or asleep. This house is just really old so of course it’s going to be creaky.

You take another bite and it’s just as good as the first. So maybe a moan escaped from your mouth? It tastes so good that you don’t care if any of the brothers heard you. 

A glass of milk would go perfectly with this cookie. Even though it tastes amazing on its own, it’s kinda making your mouth go dry. You fling open the fridge door to grab the carton of milk – nearly empty. 

With no one around to chastise you, you unscrew the cap and take a swig right from the container. As you begin to slowly shut the fridge and screw the cap back on, a dark figure is directly behind the previously open fridge door. 

You want to scream but with your mouth full, you end up spitting milk straight into their face. 

“What the fuck!” He yells with his hands outstretched in shock as he looks down at the floor.

“Belphie?” You whisper in disbelief, trying to calm your rapidly pounding heart. You want to feel bad for the demon because he's now soaking wet. But…you don’t because he scared the shit out of you while you were peacefully minding your business. He deserved it.

Ever since you told the demon brothers about Halloween and all of its traditions that you participated in up in the human world, the brothers have been tirelessly working to make it possible for you to celebrate the holiday in the Devildom too. Belphegor must have thought that scaring the shit out of you was perfectly in season. The thought of him planning the scare makes you wanna slap him. (Not that it’d hurt him, but just to get your point across that you didn’t exactly appreciate the gesture)

As your attack left him, his face, and his hair soaking wet, he’s forced to brush his bangs back out of his face to see properly. He tries to adjust to your unexpected reaction to his prank, but he could have never expected to be standing right in the splash-zone. 

“Why would you DO that!” You whisper-yell and lightly push him backwards. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to spit all over me!” Belphie groans in his defense, regaining his balance from your shove. “I was just trying to give you a good little scare.”

You slam the fridge door shut and shake the milk carton in front of his face. “You want the rest? Because I sure am tempted to dump the rest over you, you jerk!”

“Are you trying to get on my bad side?” 

“Are YOU trying to get on mine?!”

“Ah, right.” He laughs and snags a hand towel from the counter to dab his face dry. “Well…I don’t suppose you want to help me?”

“Surely you’re joking?” You set the carton down by your half-eaten cookie on the counter. “You want help, Belphie? I can help you plenty!”

The look on his face sours at your sarcastic tone. He’s about to roll his eyes but the sensation of your warm hands coming into contact with the wet clothes on his skin forces him into giving you his full attention. 

You grab a fistful of his shirt and pull him closer, sticking out your tongue to lick his cheek. Belphie recoils in disgust but you don’t miss the slight tinge of pink dusting over his pale cheeks. 

“You’re fucking disgusting!” He complains as he throws his head back. As he’s lifting his hands up to try and push you away, you lean in even closer to continue your assault. “Hey!”

“You asked for it!” 

Giggles and loud protests from the both of you fill the kitchen. Neither of you want to let the other win. As the fight continues on, the louder his squeals and your laughter become.

You sneak in a particularly wet lick on his jaw and as he cringes away, his foot slips out from beneath him. In the blink of an eye, you've fallen on top of the seventh-born. The fiery look behind his violet eyes and the slowly growing smirk on his face (as he plots revenge) makes you want to kiss him.

“Oh, you’re so in for it now [Name].” 

“I would say that the BOTH of you are in for it now.”

At the sound of Lucifer’s voice, you scramble off of Belphie immediately. Heat floods your body and when you meet Belphegor’s eyes, they are just as wide as your own. The apologetic smile he offers you in the midst of being caught immediately steels your nerves.

“If this kitchen is not cleaner than before you entered it in approximately ten minutes, both of you will deeply regret having left the comfort of your rooms tonight.”

"Yes sirrrr..."

#haezen writes! #obey me x reader #belphegor x reader #obey me fluff #obey me belphegor #om! belphie #shall we date belphegor #belphegor x you #belphie x reader #obey me belphie

[racingliners]

Sebastian Vettel's post race interview after finishing in 3rd place at the Chinese Grand Prix, his first podium of the 2019 season - Sunday 14th April 2019

transcript under the cut

Martin Brundle: Sebastian, tell us how that race was for you.

Sebastian Vettel: Well I'm happy to be on the podium but, tough because we tried to stick with them [Mercedes] but we just couldn't. They were just too quick right from the start and then obviously I had a bit of a race with Max, which was good fun. But the objective was try and chase them down, as I said they were just too quick for us today. So well done to Lewis and Valtteri.

MB: A great moment with Max, you hung him out to dry on the outside on the grass but that was good racing.

SV: Yeah, I mean I saw him coming. The speed delta at the end of the straight is quite big now, so knowing Max as well I knew that he will try. So I was sort of predicting that he will try to go down the inside and try to cut back, and it worked. I had a bit of a moment which I had to open the car a bit, but it was good because I just could get nearly a car length ahead, and then the angle into the last corner for him I guess wasn't very sexy so... yeah that was good fun. But as I said we would have love to have been a bit faster.

MB: The team eased you past your teammate Charles Leclerc early on, you felt that was the right move?

SV: Yeah I mean I felt I could go faster, then it was a bit difficult for me to find a rhythm. So I had a couple of wobbles where I locked up and lost the advantage I gained. But I think it's fair that if you see the whole race we were just not able to stick with Mercedes. But yeah I think it's a bit of a shame he [Charles] couldn't get Max in the end. I was following, there's the tower in the middle in the middle of the track, and I was hoping for him to pip Max. I think it was very close, but yeah as I said plenty of homework for us. Nevertheless it's a good result but not a great result.

MB: You have an appointment on the podium my friend.

SV: Thank you.

#Formula 1 #Chinese Grand Prix #2019 #Chinese Grand Prix 2019 #Sebastian Vettel #chinese gp 2019

[raetaro]

to the anon who requested this, i hope u like it! it’s my first time getting a request so im kinda nervous hsjdjdj

pairings: suna x gn!reader

genre: fluff (i think,,,)

warnings: swearing

a/n: not proofread! also youre playing fade & suna is playing yoru btw; in case it isnt implied well enough hsjdjd mb !!

“fuck! my bad, i whiffed. viper’s lit 78” you sigh into your mic.

you press ‘tab’ to look at your kda. 7/11/12 honestly isn’t that bad for someone who just started the game a couple weeks ago, but you just couldn’t help but feel like shit over your gameplay today. your frames were horrible and you were whiffing. a lot.

“oh my god, fade. you’re so fucking trash at this game” your team’s omen snaps.

you’d be lying if you said you weren’t expecting to hear stuff like that. you hear this kind of bullshit almost every single time you play, whether it’s directed at you or at another teammate. you close your eyes and take in a deep breath in an effort to calm yourself down.

you let out a soft “sorry”, hoping that the omen would just accept it and let it go.

“wait. why the fuck are you apologizing?” suna speaks up, annoyance clear in his voice.

suna always gets very heated whenever someone is being rude to you, simply because you don’t deserve to be treated like shit. he knows you won’t stand up for yourself, so he always takes things into his own hands.

you know what he’s about to do, and even though you kinda like it when he defends you, you aren’t really in the mood for conflicts today.

“rin, it’s fine—” you try to stop him, but suna interrupts you.

“omen you literally got knifed like four rounds ago. how about you shut the fuck up and play the game instead of being a toxic little bitch?”

there’s a short silence before the omen responds. maybe he’s backing off? you think to yourself, until you hear him snicker, “aw, is that your duo, yoru? i feel bad for you dude. you should find a new duo”

you can almost hear something in suna snap from miles away, but before you can even get the chance to say anything to intervene, suna spits, “and i feel bad for whoever has to deal with your annoying ass. don’t talk to me again unless you’re top fragging. y/n, just mute him.”

suna doesn’t talk for the rest of the game. you know he’s focused on trying to top frag so that he can make his point. he teabags the omen after getting an ace, which you found really amusing (and kinda cute).

“fuck you, omen” he scoffs after defusing the spike, getting your team the winning point.

#haikyuu hcs #haikyuu headcanons #suna hcs #suna headcanons #suna rintarō #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #suna x reader #haikyuu x reader #suna valorant

[milflewis]

So the people at the table make sense they’re all friendly with each other or are teammates. Pierre and Lance don’t have their teammate either empty could be mick but why would they not include him in the picture.

personally i think este and fernando were off somewhere raw dogging it in a mcdonalds car park but mb that’s just me

#fernando said fuck them kids and he MEANT it #anon tag #niamh.asks

[eclown4hire]

hi please rant about your enstars sports au 👉👈

Hi anon, you've unleashed my Autism Powers. Behold: My Rant.

Popping this under a read me because it’s a little long!

Some general setting notes:

- All characters are a little aged up in this AU! Each unit is apart of their own university team/general sports team (unrelated to uni). Every character is roughly around 2 years older than canon! :)

- Anzu is the manager of the UNDEAD team!

UNDEAD STUFF:

- Rei is the setter and the captain! He's incredibly strategic, but he cannot actually play on court for long due to his condition. However, when he gets swapped out -- he still observes from the sidelines and helps his team formulate strategies. If you've watched HQ!!, I would say his situation is similar to that of Kenma? Brilliant mind but gets tired easily: as well tending to get targeted much heavier by enemy teams due to this! But UNDEAD has developed a defensive strategy when it comes to situations like that! The rest of UNDEAD are very in tune with Rei's needs and know how to help him as much as they can. They're good buddies!!!

- Kaoru is the libero! He originally joined for credit and nothing more. He wasn't taking it very seriously in the beginning; but he slowly learned that he really enjoyed the sport (as well as his buddies.) He tends to make comments asking to go easy on him: (i.e 'Don't hit the ball too hard at me, okay?) but he puts his all into his games. I think he realised how much he really loved it and was valuable to the team when Koga ranted at him in that Special Anime Sports Show Way (you know the way) one time and kicked his ass in gear. I love Koga and Kaoru friendship so I'm shoving it in -- sorry not sorry.

- Adonis is a middle blocker! I thought this would be cute because he's always mentioning being the 'protector of the weak' and stuff like that -- So I put him as a MB! He's an incredibly competent middle blocker, who originally focussed mainly on blocks that were more to assist his team! Stuff like soft blocking. However he's been developing a killer stuff block lately (That's when you angle your hands in such a way that the intent is to kill the ball and slam it back into the hitters court rather than rebounce it) under the guiding hands of Rei! He's still more of a defensive blocker than aggressive, but he's slowly building up this skills :] Him and Koga are very close friends here, as well!

- Koga is a wing spiker and the ace of the team. He easily has the most stamina out of the whole team. He hits hard and he hits fast. He tends to get worked up however; and easily falls for taunts. He's the one who probably practises the most! Always dragging one of the other three into practice; he's always striving to improve. He and Rei have known each other for a long time and are the only ones out of the group to have known each other prior to the club. I see them more as silly brothers in this AU, because that's the dynamic that's most fun for me personally between them. He's very good friends with Ritsu as well! Their matches versus Knights is always one to watch because of that. He tends to feel insecure because he feels as though he is getting left behind his other teammates -- and that's why he practises so much.

If you're after more detail -- I'd be happy to provide! But I figured I would focus on UNDEAD for now considering I haven't um. Drawn the others yet. but they do Exist in My Mind.

I can say the positions of some units I know for sure tho!

Crazy B: Rinne (Setter + Captain), Niki (Libero), HiMERU (MB), Kohaku (Wing Spiker)

(Note about crazy:B : They always make sure to have plenty of bananas for Niki to eat when he needs them!!)

Alkaloid: Hiiro (Wing Spiker + Captain), Tatsumi (Middle Blocker, very good at defense), Aira (Setter) (?? unsure about this though.) and Mayoi (Libero)

Ra*bits: Nazuna (Libero), Tomoya (Wing spiker + Pinch Server perhaps), Hajime (Setter) and Mitsuru (Middle blocker) (Imaging him similar to Hinata Shoyou!)

Others are still in the Oven -- But if you had any specific Units you wished to know about, feel free to ask!!!

#asks #volleyball au #ilove this au sm im glad ur interested…

[un-pearable]

not fully decided but i’m losing my mind i need this “yoink everyone from the most awkward/painful possible times” story so bad so rough ideas:

kai - the only one actually from the current point in the show, has to both step up and readjust to handling all of his teammates and their individual AND interpersonal crises. kai focus story

zane - “youngest”, pre-robot reveal zane who is nowhere near the reliable figure they know now. still figuring out who he is and is both very thrown by all the social cues and in jokes he’s suddenly not getting again bc everyone thinks he’s just. you know. zane. and instinctly treat him they way they do their zane, which is both surprisingly helpful (bc the early ninja are accidentally very mean and over time they got better at. not being that) and very confusing bc he still doesn’t really Get It. and everyone else is freaking out trying to decide whether or not to break it to him. this only gets worse the longer it goes on.

lloyd - mid s9 when the core four + wu are stuck and he thinks everyone is dead arc, conflict bc he’s been trying to step up as the leader and also overcompensating for how genuinely terrified he is at the thought that he actually lost them all

nya - mayyyyyybe mid hands of time? extremely excited at the idea of having reunited w their parents and frustrated, angry to find out that they didn’t actually stay connected and blames kai for a bit bc he both hid that they found them from her and for them having a bad relationship

cole - pre dotd? skybound for some fucky shenanigans about who does and doesn’t remember certain things? mb when jay’s captured. idk smthn about him feeling left behind by his friends while he’s a ghost bc everyone else has filled his role as leader, three way conflict of kai (actually knows what’s going on but has so little experience) lloyd (is used to a world where he HAD to be the ones calling the shots) and cole (insecure bc he feels his friends no longer need him and thus WILDLY overcompensating bc he thinks it’s for the good of the team) cole and zane connect over the feeling of disconnect but everyone is so fucked up over whether to just tell zane or not it’s a mess

jay - easy way out is directly from THE most angsty possible everyone-is-dead part of skybound. which would be self explanatory, but i’m very keen on balancing it out a little and pulling him from either s3 or s4, or for max ouch right in the middle when they think zane’s dead (real fun right there for techno), bc then we get the exquisite potential of hands-of-time nya remembering skybound and jay doesn’t, and cole living through skybound and jay has no idea why the two of them are acting so weird, and nya and cole are confident in their friendships but jay feels like he’s ruined everything with BOTH of his best friends on top of losing zane and now he’s faced with versions of all three. funsies >:]

pixal - too good for this shit leave her alone. i think pixal and kai deserve to have a bit of a team up. extremely awkward situation regarding The Zane Problem, they’re probably fighting about it but bc literally everyone has an opinion on it and early zane has two hobbies of a) chilling with his friends doing this :) and b) wandering aimlessly (dangerous given he is Incredibly Recognizably Not The Titanium Ninja) so he keeps walking in on everyone’s tense conversations bc he is now the baby of the group :]

#text✨ #ninjago #agshdj actually wait. pixal is time displaced she’s just from the middle of prime empire #so kai didn’t notice at first bc he was just relieved someone wasn’t acting super weird. then homegirl whips out the detective act

[fistful-of-rage]

What is your opinion on magikarp? -@ask-pokeprofvoid

detached from work, they are floop. 10/10 pokémon

in work do u know how much it pains me figuring out if it’s worth trying to get them on the roster. they’d only be able to tackle, idk if we’d give them special harnesses so they can be fed by teammates, n obv they struggle out of water. mb just hologram only. gyarados is high on community polls for what’s wanted to add to roster as is magikarp for the meme so pressure to think of smth is real

may i ask u ur thoughts on annihilape, voi professor?

#asks #pkmn irl #pokeblog #pokeblr #rotomblr

[onmytape]

please do tell about the pg cougars

okay i’m kissing you on the mouth rn for asking. i’ll try to be chill about this

in general the team is very close. partially bc prince george is so much further from other teams so travel is longer and also bc there’s nothing to do in pg and it’s so isolated from other cities so they basically just spend a lot of time with each other. something about being the joke of the league makes you closer…idk. the team this season has been the best they’ve been in a long time. they made it to round two of the playoffs for the first time in 17 years this season (only to be swept by seattle) but they’ve been fun to watch! and they have two top prospects that will be drafted in june. 

here's the notable players from this season. i was going to make a separate post for wheaty/wiebe to beg dallas/anaheim fans to like them next season but whatver. I can’t wait. 

chase wheatcroft #29 (from calgary, ab) was traded a few times and had a mediocre juniors career and went undrafted. winnipeg traded him in the 2022 offseason to pg because they had other 20 year olds and couldn’t keep him, but everyone likes to bring up that he was traded for a fourth round pick and then became one of the whl's top scorers. he’s said that he didn’t fit into the role winnipeg wanted for him, which was an older, enforcer type. he’s a lover, not a fighter. Even though pg has a reputation for being a physical, dirty team, he was a perfect fit. they gave him an “a” and the team and city loved him. literally so humble. he was a favourite for media stuff and the post-game show. he was signed by dallas in march.  

jaxsen wiebe #22 (moose jaw, sk) another undrafted overager, wiebe was also traded a few times. he won the ed chynoweth cup with edmonton last year. He’s a bit of a short fuse and is hated by most whl fans. before getting traded to pg he had five suspensions over three years for a total of 18 games. A lot of dirty hits/fights and generally a poor attitude, yelling at refs and fans, etc. he was suspended on his last team when he was traded in november but eventually he became really well liked in pg. eventually he and wheaty were put on the same line (the team socials call them wiebecroft) and wheaty tamed him...???and taught him how to love...<???idk??. he was invited to and attended the columbus dev camp in 2022 and he was signed by anaheim in march. during the playoffs he was kicked out of game three against seattle for a hit on colton dach and given a suspension so he didn’t get to play his last whl game. 

dynamic duo - riley heidt #27 (saskatoon, sk) and koehn ziemmer #13 (mayerthorpe, ab) are two forwards projected to go first round/early second round in the draft. Both were drafted to pg (ziemmer in 2019, heidt in 2020) and have played their whole junior careers there. despite technically being draft competition, they’ve been dubbed the “dynamic duo” because of their linemate chemistry. theoretically heidt is the playmaker and ziemmer scores the goals but in reality heidt's a princess and ziemmer is his enforcer. they played on opposite teams at the chl prospect game.

ethan samson #4 (delta, bc) was drafted by the flyers in 2021. unanimously voted the captain by the team in 2022 and totally deserves it. looks like he could kill you (and he could) but he also pats his teammates heads like mama duck when they score. was invited to 2022 wjc camp but didn’t make the team. part of the trio.

Honourable mention: goalies (the "ty's") tyler brennan #30 (winnipeg, mb) drafted to new jersey in 2022, ty young #33 (coaldale, ab) drafted to vancouver in 2022. brennan was the third goalie for canada's u18 team in 2021, also invited to the 2023 wjc team camp but didn't make the cut. part of the trio.

blake eastman #28: the third and final part of the “trio” with samson and brennan. he’s not the best player, a fourth liner. not tough enough to be an enforcer but he is definitely a shit disturber. has never blinked in his life. Eastman is the only one of the trio that wasn’t drafted and no pro team has taken interest in him. the trio was all drafted to the whl in 2018 and have played their entire junior careers in pg. samson and brennan will be moving on next year and it’s highly unlikely the cougars will keep eastman as one of their 20 year olds. i firmly believe he could be the new mascot. If he’s not already. 

the team vibes:

#this got longer than i thought it would #it took me hours to find all the photos and i don't think anyone will actually read the whole thing lol #i hope this conveys the vibes #i can't tell if i love them bc of bias or if they actually are something special #cougarsposting

[coquelicoq]

i know we're all losing it at this sudden insight we've gained in the [tarik voice] uhhh why is there a drone in my face scene, so i wanted to pull out some moments from previous books in which murderbot uses drones to look at people and see how differently they read if we now assume said drones are hovering inches away from their faces. reviewing my notes to look for examples is how i found out that mb doesn't pilot drones to look at people's faces until FT/NE, with one exception, and it's a doozy:

When it [the drone] reached Wilken, I had it stop and hover in front of her face for twenty-six seconds. Okay, so I was a little angry. (RP, ch. 5)

so like, it knows putting a drone in somebody's face is gonna freak them out, and it uses that to fuck with a human that pissed it off. lol.

that's really the only moment in the first four books where mb could conceivably be droning right up in someone's business, and it's made explicit. so i don't think we missed anything there. FT and NE are another story. here are some of my favorite moments:

FT

Indah faced me and asked, "You have experience at this?" Watching her via the drones, I kept my gaze on the Starchy Foods!!! sign, which had little dancing figures around it which I guess were supposed to be starchy foods. (ch. 1)

there's something about having a drone in your face while you're trying to talk to a person who is staring very seriously at a whimsical sign that contains three exclamation points...

Indah stared at Tural. So did I, with my drones. (ch. 2)

MULTIPLE drones in face incident! plus your boss giving you the eyeball?? tural is doing their best u guys please have mercy!

He [one of Mensah's assistants] was used to me and used to confidential council stuff, so he didn’t even glance up at my drones, just nodded to us and slipped out as we stepped in. (ch. 6)

whose job is it to tell newly hired assistants "ignore it" when there's a drone in their face? it's probably part of the standard onboarding procedure at this point tbh.

Then me, Aylen, and Indah were standing in the office looking at each other. Or they were looking at me and my drones were looking at them. (ch. 6)

mexican standoff if instead of guns you had eye contact and also one of the people involved doesn't like making eye contact. or something.

NE

The drone I had watching [Mensah's] face increased magnification, its low-light filter rendering her features in black and white. (ch. 2)

POV you're having a tense conversation about trauma therapy in the dark with a little flying camera buzzing around your head. just little secunit teammate things! (i actually think mensah finds this very comforting though. she smiles at the drone four pages later <3)

I wanted to use my drones to look at [Amena], but while that was calming for me, it wouldn’t be for her. (ch. 3)

hmm would it not be calming for amena to have something hovering in her face right when she's about to be abducted by raiders? ya think??

I had a drone view of Amena watching the hand scanner, her brow furrowed in half-wince, half-concentration. (ch. 6)

it doesn't have to be like this [mb 🤝 performing surgery] when it can also be like this [putting a drone in amena's face 🤝 mb 🤝 performing surgery]. mb has two hands (metaphorically)

My drone watched [Amena] eyeing me. (ch. 20)

every time mb says it sees through a drone that someone is watching it gets 200% funnier if this means that the person is deliberately ignoring the drone invading their personal bubble in order to look at the person that is outside of their personal bubble. like that's commitment.

[Mensah] came and sat down next to me in the lounge and I adjusted a drone to be able to get a view of her face. (ch. 20)

read: "a drone zoomed down from where it was circling above my head and stopped an inch in front of mensah's nose." i mean, you don't have to read it that way, it's never made explicit and i'm not the boss of you. but isn't it fun to imagine?

#there is a LOT to say about mb and gaze and i will say a little more about it in the next post #but this is still barely even scratching the surface #i honestly was super surprised by how few examples there are of mb using drones to watch people in lieu of using its eyes #it feels like that happens all the time but it's actually not that common (or at least not mentioned very often) #mostly because in the first four books mb actually uses security cameras for this purpose more than drones #(in FT and NE it has access to drones but not security cameras) #anyway i'll get into that more in the next post <3 #the murderbot diaries #murderbot #mb gaze #mb sc #system collapse spoilers #my posts

[gleybrr]

ok i listened to an ep of talkin yanks bc i was curious to see who is in the running to play left , & j*mb*y said he texted luetge when he was traded to atl. apparently luetge treated him as a reporter, and jm was upset bc he didn’t want to be treated like ‘a cop’. immediately i thought hmm it might be because you were obviously responsible for the chastising of his teammate and are not held in the highest regard by the clubhouse! funny how that works!

#fuck around and find out

[grammarpedant]

new antagonist human dropped

a fun thematic headcanon that I subscribe to is that, of the major good-guy antagonists that we've seen over the course of the MBD series, Gurathin is an inverse of Murderbot itself, Thiago is antagonist!Ratthi, and Indah is antagonist!Mensah, right

so what's antagonist!Pin-Lee like?

let's start by imagining Pin-Lee. abrasive, practical to the point of cynicism, hot-headed and hyper-competent and holds a grudge, a woman who calls Murderbot an asshole to its face and is responded to with "takes one to know one," a CombatUnit among lawyers, willing to bring all her strengths and weaknesses to bear to defend Murderbot, willing to write "no hugging" into its contract and just as willing to make sure its teammates know the "no one goes off alone" clause also applies to it.

so antagonist!Pin-Lee must possess the same or similar traits, but turned against Murderbot now. we would have a character who's willing to bring the petty force of legal jargon and bullshit rules and bureaucracy to trip Murderbot up at every inopportune moment, who calls it out for its personal flaws as easily as she attacks its vulnerable legal standing as a person.

as with Gurathin, Thiago, and Indah, she has to have a reasonable point to her opposition of Murderbot, and her antagonism should serve to help the narrative address that point. she has to be someone who truly believes she's doing the right thing in working to undermine it.

instead of a lawyer, I think she's a PR agent or Preservation equivalent, honestly. someone who plays the media long game, maybe because she fears that Preservation is making itself a target for corporates who'd view it as building up the start of a rogue army. there'd be a fun little clash between how MB views media (comfort, insight into itself) versus how she views media (a tool or even a weapon, influence on the world). antagonist!Pin-Lee could even be the person who leaked its photos to the press in FT, the ones that show it pulling a face at a press conference: seeking to discredit MB both as a person and as a threat, reducing it to a haha-funny-meme reaction image and neither the construct with a complicated relationship to Preservation's legal definition of personhood nor the dangerous rogue secunit who could shut down a corporate station on its own.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot #fugitive telemetry #pin lee #verso writes #meta #fanfiction #i don't usually do this kind of thing but hey this was fun. really got away from me i honestly thought it'd be shorter #murderbot diaries #yknow what. while im at it ill motion for the court to consider Councillor Ephraim as antagonist!Volescu #y'all see it right #queue

[hesitationss]

i haven't gotten the chance to watch jjk season 2 yet, but i watched the ending theme for shibuya and i love it so much. the tokyo kids are so goofy and fun together. even megumi who has a grumpy attitude is begrudgingly enjoying himself.

it's kind of bittersweet (tho not as much as the ending in season 1 where we are filled w the pain of yuji clinging to life despite it all), there's this reoccurring theme of documenting life and recording memories. in season 1, it was yuji filming their beach outing and capturing memories of life to make every moment count because, well, he is doomed from the start, so all he can do is make the most of small joys.

in this ending, it's mostly megumi with the camera, with a disposable camera of all things! and even though nobara and yuji occasionally have it, it's mostly in megumi's hand photographing yuji and nobara. despite him being so accustomed to his 'cog in the machine' rhetoric and living live passively, it shows us that he wants to cherish his teammates just as much as the other 2 do as well. he just has a quieter way of nurturing his love for them. i also love the parts where the POV is coming from the camera lens paired w the photo stills themselves, it's like we are seeing through megumi + the trio's eyes. at the start, he takes a photo of the sky because it's beautiful, and we see all the other mundane things that have caught his eye - nobara's hair blowing im the wind, yuji crouching on the ground occupied by something else.

there's also a sense of finality to the music, so it will probably be emotionally impactful as the shibuya arc continues. i don't want to spoil any anime onlies tho! with both the visuals, music, and overall atmosphere, it feels like a warm love filled goodbye note...

TVアニメ『呪術廻戦』第2期「渋谷事変」ノンクレジットEDムービー／EDテーマ：羊文学「more than words」｜毎週木曜夜11時56分～MBS/TBS系列全国28局にて放送中!! -> the ED btw

#jjk tag #jjk spoilers #shibuya arc #oh i didn't know where to put this in the post but i'm really in love w whoever was working on the BGs. they're incredible

[heavensenthale]

I know I never talk about playing LoL here because I want you to think of me as a human being but I just had the wildest interaction playing aram

this got rather long so read only if you wanna see the worst side of me: the one that feels like downloading the game wasn't a mistake lmao

I got Xayah —a champ I'd used like twice before this match— and no one wanted to trade so I went into it like okay, let's hope these guys aren't assholes

so the match starts great, I get first blood, double kill, I go on a rampage (this is unprecedented. again, I was learning the champ as I went). I got killed and the Pyke in my team says "it's okay I'll avenge you"

and the mf killed Jax like it was no biggie. and so we starteed collabing really well. and the Lux and Brand in my team got wind of the situation and we started crushing the other team. I only died like twice more (and one of those was mb, I should've known better against Sion) and our Gragas became really helpful at that point.

so we crush the turrets and the inhibitor and Jax and Sion come at us with everything, but the last time I died I armed myself especifically to fuck with those two. we went into t 3-2, but my teammates died. badly. I pulled moves out of a fucking Worlds and killed them both. With half of my life bar to spare.

so Brand in my team says "that was sick xayah!

and I reply —while calmly knocking out the enemy nexus— "this is only like the third time I've played it"

and he replies "it's a talent you're born with, queen"

then I received all the GGs after the match

I got invited to play a match with the previous Brand (this time they were Nasus and I was Diana) and we lost terribly, but they were super nice in the chat? like when I got killed for the first time he said "oh queen, we're just human right?" and when we lost the first turret they sent to the chat a "whoops that ain't good for us i'm afraid"

when one guy tried to throw shit at our Zyra because she missed her ult, they said "mate it isn't the end of the world. just the match"

nevermind we lost that one, we friended each other and we're now coordinating to bring friends together for a night of truly chill aram

#milisays #leagueposting

[black-roses-monarch]

"Also, @crazydoodlez, if you think that the plan broke apart between me, King Shadow, and King MB, you are completely wrong~."

"We've just been working under ground, away from anyone's sight. Shadow and MB are wonderful teammates, even if they...argue a lot."

"But, more is always good, yes? I plan on getting more people in our little universe taking over project, even the...dreaded Mafia."

"The Monarch event isn't over, UNTIL I SAY SO!"

"AHAHAHAHAHA!"

#🌹| your king speaks #👑 THE MONARCH TAKEOVER EVENT 👑