#mantha answers

[samwisegamgeeee]

hey! I'm a composition teacher who teaches college freshman and I would really love to incorporate the Spanish poem you wrote on language and gender in my class. one thing I really try to emphasize is my students expressing themselves in all the languages that they have at their disposal. I feel like your poem such a great example of how using a language with grammatical gender can give you all these extra layers of meaning, as well as how we might navigate this in translation. however, I'd want to get your permission first as well as know how to credit you if I would incorporate it into a lesson plan. also no pressure; I already have some resources I use to talk about the subject 💛

Of course!

If you do, an important think to keep in mind is that grammatical gender and social gender are different things that I'm conflating and playing with in this poem. Grammatical gender in Spanish isn't the same as the gendered connotations we give things in English. Sugar might be grammatically masculine in Spanish, but it still has more feminine connotations, even in that language. But that's kinda the point of the poem!

If you're talking about navigating these differences in translation, there are a few people who have written translations into other languages in the notes (though they may have used a different version of the poem).

Speaking of, please use this version (corrected and updated):

Masculino como el amor, femenino como la espada por Mantha Pratt

Si tienes que usar el masculino conmigo, usa el masculino como lo usas para el azúcar para el lobo el amor y el mar. Pero si tienes que usar el femenino, úsalo como lo usas para la linde para la tierra la guerra y la mar. Llámame masculino como el día como el melocotón el cuerpo y el cometa. O, llámame femenino como la noche como la piedra la alma y la mano. Masculino como el viento, femenino como la tormenta. El hueso, la sangre. El mito, la magia. El sol, la luna. Si tienes que usar el masculino conmigo, o si tienes que usar el femenino, llámame femenino con la boca y la lengua o llámame masculino con los dientes y los pulmones. O si puedes llámame por mi nombre. Llámame yo.

Translation: Masculine like love, feminine like the sword by Mantha Pratt

If you have to use the masculine for me, use the masculine like you use it for sugar for the wolf love and the sea. But if you have to use the feminine, use it like you use it for the boundary for earth war and the Sea. Call me masculine like the day like the peach the body and the comet. Or, call me feminine like the night like the stone the soul and the hand. Masculine like the wind, feminine like the storm. The bone, the blood. The myth, the magic. The sun, the moon. If you have to use the masculine for me, or if you have to use the feminine, call me feminine with your mouth and your tongue or call me masculine with your teeth and your lungs. Or if you can call me by my name. Call me myself.

[mantha-has-fallen]

Evil boop! >:) cause I'm not on desktop

>:3

(I will note that my Tumblr is struggling. So for every boop you get, I had to try booping like 4/5 times. This includes the time it takes to evil boop lol)

[ulec-elec]

How are casper, mantha and ra's cooking skills? (maybe harpy, dummy girl, slither, and thatch's too if possible?)

Sorry that the answer took so long haha

[decrepitdeer]

What are the relationships between your ocs and the cannon characters of css

Thanks for the question! These were fun to think about! (I actually wrote the full answer once before, but the my internet fucked up and I lost the entire thing 🙃)

Mara kept mostly to herself in the beginning. She got along fine with most of the students, although some were intimidated by her. She wasn't really close to anyone, before Thatch that is. They didn't get along at all when they first met. Mara was annoyed by pretty much anything he did, and Thatch was baffled and furious about Mara being at Scare School in the first place. Mara also wasn't intimidated by Thatch, which drove him near insane. Over time, bit by bit, they got closer. They are currently good friends, but only the two of them know it Thatch's pride couldn't handle the others knowing he's friends with with a human pfft

Mara also uses her powers to help Casper and his friends whenever there some kind of a disaster happening at school which is almost everyday so

The faculty is mixed on her. They do appreciate her grim attitude and fondness for creepy things, but Mara is also an independent thinker, so she often questions the things they are being taught (this annoys Professor Burns especially)

Mara also is not a huge fan of Alder and Dash, never really trusting anything they say. The two of them also find her.. somewhat creepy, and not in a good way.

Briar is kind and sociable, which rubs most of the students the wrong way, but not all. She mostly spends her time with Casper, Mantha and Ra, although she gets along with everyone! (If you ask her at least) Briar can sympathize with Casper's unwillingness to be mean and scary, Ra and her get up to stupid shenanigans sometimes and Briar is Mantha's only girl friend, so she talks to Briar about things her other friends won't fully understand (girlhood solidarity✊ )

Thatch tried and succeeded in hurting Briar's feelings that one time, but hasn't done it since finding out she turns into a towering beast, when she gets upset enough. Wolfie talks to her sometimes to ask if she has the same experiences with her beast form as he does, and Briar often offers to be Mickey's and Monaco's next victim makeover project.

Briar was always a good student in her other school, and that is not about to stop now! The only complaint that the teachers have is her constant kindness, but since she grew up with humans, so they let it slide most of the time.

Amari loves all the creatures and creepy crawlies of the underworld! No one knows she's there, but she knows them. She appreciates Casper's kind heart, Mantha's passion etc. Since Amari pretty much lives inside of Mara's noggin, she also knows about Mara's and Thatch's friendship, and occasionally teases her about it because what else are witchcraft mentors/big sister figures for?

She doesn't mind the faculty for the most part, but sometimes pushes Mara to stick it to the man, especially when it comes to Alder an Dash. Amari also agrees with Frankengymteacher on the fact that villagers with torches are the literal worst.

Amari isn't aware of this, but I think Kibosh knows about her/remembers her, or at least story of her destroying a bunch villages with her magic.

[andrebearakovsky]

Please explain Dowd's 4th line to me. I think he must like it, but it makes no sense to me at all that he's not playing higher-up

(An ask about my favorite topic, Dowd’s 4th line? Oh yes please)

Nic Dowd is a very talented hockey player, and he would probably excel on higher lines if he were placed there. HOWEVER, that won’t happen, because he is perfectly suited for the role he has, which is the shutdown center. While the top two lines are scoring-focused, Dowd’s line is a defensive line. Their first focus is not to score but to stop the other team from scoring. Dowd and his linemates get 90% of their starts in the defensive zone, which lead the team by a country mile:

That’s their job, and they’re quite good at it. They get put out on the defensive side because Carbery trusts them, they’re pretty lockdown and good in front of their own net. Dowd and Malenstyn are also the top two penalty killing forwards who WILL be the first out on the PK every single time (provided they’re not the one in the box, which is why you will often see me say “of all the people to be in the box Dowd/Malenstyn is not who I want” when I’m liveblogging the game). The numbers back this up as well, teams aren’t scoring that much when that line is out there; the three of them only trail Mantha and Protas on the team in plus-minus. And that’s your fourth line that’s 3 through 5 on the team in plus-minus, that’s pretty impressive.

So like, the answer to your question is he’s on the 4th line because he’s the defensive shutdown center, a role he’s insanely good at. In fact he’s so good at this, that it’s become A Thing over the last few years that his job specifically is to shut down the other team’s top line. I have a name for this game, every time I see this happen I say “looks like we have another edition of ‘Nic Dowd tries to shut down the other team’s top center’” (or something along those lines). This mostly happens during home games, when we control the line matchups. The coach will deliberately put the Dowd line out there against the other team’s top line in hopes that they can neutralize the opposing star players - usually this means the top center because that’s who Dowd will be taking faceoffs against, but sometimes one of the wingers is the star who needs shutting down. This is why they will often start the game (if the other team is starting the top line), and opposing broadcasts and people will often get super confused we’re purposefully playing the fourth line against the other first line, cause general wisdom says the first line will crush the fourth line. But the thing is, it works. I have watched many, many games where the Dowd line is the one out there against the opposing top line, and those top players do nothing. This isn’t always the case of course, but I’ve watched a lot of games at Capital One Arena where the visiting stars are eerily quiet and they can’t get anything going, which is in large part due to the Dowd line annoying the shit out of them and shutting them down. He’s done this and been super effective at it against, in particular, Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Tage Thompson, Jason Robertson, among others. He recently did this against the Horvat-Barzal line against Isles.

But there’s no one he does this better against than Sidney Crosby. Of course Sid still scores against us a bunch sometimes, but it would be much more if not for Dowd. He has an uncanny ability to win faceoffs against Sid (I think it’s something to do with him being right handed, which none of the other caps centers are), which was probably a factor in matching them up in the first place. And not only is he effective but I can just see on his face that Dowd just annoys the absolute shit out of Sid lol. I’m pretty sure one time Sid punched him in the face lmao. I like to joke around that Dowd is Sid’s “enemy” and that Sid has like an enemies board on his wall that he stares at and gets angry at and there are many people on this board but Nic Dowd’s face is front and center lol

Dowd doesn’t always get the direct matchup against the top line, but it happens enough that it’s a thing. How many other fourth lines are getting matchups like that? In my opinion, the Dowd line is the best fourth line in hockey (I’ll take arguments for that Islanders fourth line but that’s it). And not only that, but this fourth line has existed in two different iterations and they’re both damn good. For YEARS, the fourth line was Carl Hagelin-Nic Dowd-Garnet Hathaway. You KNEW they were gonna be together every single game, and they stayed together as a line for a long, long time. The other lines would all shuffle around but that one was set in stone. After they were established I can’t remember them ever being separated save for if somebody was injured. And they were one of the most effective and fun fourth lines I’ve ever seen. They were mean, and tough to play against. They all blocked shots, and they all hit and hit hard, Hathaway especially. Not to mention that Nic and Garnet were besties and clearly loved playing with each other, and Carl was like exasperated by them but fond of them and worked with them very well. And now the Nic Dowd line 2.0 is much the same way. Beck Malenstyn-Nic Dowd-Nicolas Aube-Kubel have the same role and plays almost the same as the iteration before them. Malenstyn slotted perfectly into the role that Hathaway left, he’s a big guy who hits a bunch and blocks a lot of shots and I believe he’ll only do more and more of the physicality as time goes on, that’s what he was known for in Hershey. NAK, like Hagelin, is faster than the other two. And all three of them aren’t afraid to throw a punch. And they very very clearly work incredibly well together. You could see evidence of it last year: Malenstyn visibly clicked with Dowd and Hathaway when he was up with the big club, and I am a firm believer that he would’ve had that spot for the entire rest of the season had he not gotten hurt. And NAK also clicked with Dowd and Hathaway and he was with them for like the second half of the season if I remember correctly. Dowd very clearly really liked the both of them (I used to say that “those two are fraternal twin shitstarters and Nic Dowd just has to absolutely love them and want them on his wings always”), and tbh I was really surprised when they sent down NAK before opening night. Dowd and Malenstyn had been working well together since the beginning of the season, but they absolutely BLOSSOMED once NAK returned to the NHL level. The two of them literally didn’t have any points on the season until NAK came back. My friend and I would make our jokes, like “those are Dowd’s two sons and he wants to play with them” and how he was probably saying “you can pry them from my cold dead hands” and how he grabbed each of them (beck especially) and was like “okay these ones are mine these are my wingers and I am taking them with me everywhere.” And like I thought it was just jokes but then all 3 of them popped off in NAK’s return game and I’m like oh I see it wasn’t just me projecting it was 100% real. They hadn’t all 3 played together before the season and I was curious to see how they’d play together and they did not disappoint, their chemistry from that first game has been absolutely wild.

So, to bring it back to your original question, there are many reasons why Dowd doesn’t play higher up in the lineup. His strengths lie in this particular role of defense, and he and his linemates are very effective at it. Also, while he’s very good at what he does, he is not more offensively talented than the other centers on this team: Strome, Kuznetsov, and McMichael (and Nicky). Like, he’s not above them in the center hierarchy. And he’s not gonna move up to play wing, he’s a center the end. And I am perfectly happy with him where he is, he’s a stellar fourth line center that most any team would probably kill to have tbh, and he does a beautiful job at what he does.

This uhhh likely went much longer than you expected it would, sorry. I’m passionate about the fourth line. But I hoped this answered your question.

[the-hem]

"The Tiger's Foot." From the Chandogya Upanishad, the Exploration of the Mysteries of the Priesthood.

Chapter II − The Mantha Rite

1 The prana said: "What will be my food?"

They answered: "Whatever food there is−including that of dogs and birds."

The Upanishad says: All that is eaten is the food of the ana. Ana is his (i.e. the prana’s) direct name. For one who knows this, there exists nothing which is not food.

2 He said: "What will be my dress?"

They answered: "Water." Therefore when people eat they cover him (the prana), both before and after eating, with water. Thus the prana obtains clothing and is no longer naked.

First comes the body, then comes the Identity. These cover the naked body. We eat and care for the body for the sole purposes of ensuring the Identity can live and work, to find the meter and the path of what we will call the Ritual going forward to do its soul's work and become free of ignorance.

Food is knowledge, water is its Essence, the Self.

3 Satyakama (the lover of truth) the son of Jabala (the rhythmic meter of creation) explained this doctrine of the prana to Gosruti (the seeker of the path) the son of Vyaghrapada (tiger footed one) and said: "If one should tell this to a dry stump, branches would grow and leaves spring forth."

4 Now, if a man wishes to attain greatness, he should perform the initiatory rite on the day of the new moon and then on the night of the full moon he should stir a paste of all the herbs with curds and honey and offer it as a libation in the fire where the melted butter is offered, saying: "Svaha to the oldest (jyashtha) and greatest (sreshtha)!" Then let him throw the remainder adhering to the ladle into the paste.

5 In the same manner he should offer a libation in the fire where the melted butter is offered, saying: "Svaha to the most excellent vasishtha (blood)!" Then let him throw the remainder adhering to the ladle into the paste.

In the same manner he should offer a libation into the fire where the melted butter is offered, saying: "Svaha to firmness (pratishthi)!" and then throw the remainder adhering to the ladle into the paste.

In the same manner he should offer a libation in the fire where the melted butter is offered, saying: "Svaha to prosperity (sampad)!" and then throw the remainder adhering to the ladle into the paste.

In the same manner he should offer a libation into the fire where the melted butter is offered, saying: "Svaha to the abode (ayatana)!" and then throw the remainder adhering to the ladle into the paste.

6 Then, moving away a little from the fire and holding the paste (mantha) in his hands, he recites: "Thou (prana) art ama by name, for all this rests in thee. He (i.e. the paste, which is the same as the prana) is the oldest, the greatest, the king and the sovereign. May he make me the oldest, the greatest, the king and the sovereign. May I be all this!"

7 Then he recites the following Rik−mantra, swallowing the paste (mantha) each time he utters a foot of the mantra:

"We desire, of the great progenitor (i.e. the sun)"−here he swallows a little−"of the luminous, the food"−here he swallows a little− "the best and all−supporting"−here he swallows a little−"we meditate quickly on the nature of the sun"−here he swallows the whole.

Having cleansed the vessel made of metal or wood, he lies down behind the fire, on a skin or on the bare ground, controlling his speech and self−possessed. If he sees a woman in a dream, then let him know that his work (rite) has been a success.

8 On this there is the following verse: "If during rites performed with a view to fulfilling certain desires, he sees a woman in his dream, let him know of his success from this vision in a dream, yea, from this vision in a dream."

The Upanishads say we sin until we discover a better way to do things, and that requires the agitation of the vasanas, AKA the ingredients.

To agitate the ingredients, the aspects of the Self with the ladle, AKA the intellect while visualizing the Gayatri, "May my mind be illuminated, may the world be free on suffering on earth as it is in heaven" and offer one's sinful tendencies to the fire, this is the path the Tiger Footed One follows.

[thornescratch]

Alex Flum: The year the Caps won the Cup, who scored the goal to eliminate the Penguins in the second round? Dylan Strome: (no hesitation) Bird celly. Kuznetsov.

Dylan Strome hasn’t even suited up for the Caps in a regular season game yet, but he managed to nail every single trivia question about the team and beat out regular players Anthony Mantha and Nic Dowd, including the exact year the team was founded and the franchise’s all time saves leader.

[beejsdevilishsoulmate]

Question for my fellow beetlejuice the musical fans...

Is there anywhere I can buy an Alex Brightman/Beetlejuice tshirt?

I've got a few Beej tees but they're all Movie Beej and I'd love one from the musical, so any suggestions...

[ironwoman359]

Why is my room always a mess?

The energy it takes you to put things away right away seems like too much to expend, so you tell yourself “later” but when later comes everything has piled up so that the energy it would take to clean properly is far greater than the intial putting away of [thing] was, leaving you with a perpetually messy room. 

ask me anything

[archivistbot]

I honestly have no idea what's going on here and I'm not sure I want to.

I-I think they’re connected somehow.ARCHIVIST

Yes. Yes, they were.

When I met them I thought they were :)

[aquamarineicecream]

Pass the happy! 🌻🌈 When you receive this, list 5 things that make you happy and then send this to 10 of the latest people in your notifications!

1- My sister! And just being around her in general

2- Music

3- Painting

4- Singing

5- Going to the beach (especially at night)

[samwisegamgeeee]

Hello! Bit of an odd question. I found your poem "Masculino como el amor, femenino como la espada" a few months ago and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much, I wanted to include it in a poetry collection I was making for my friend. My friend has trouble reading, so I wanted to make a CD with audio recordings of a bunch of different poems, this one included. I figured I'd try to find readings done by the authors of the poems if I could, and if none were to be found, I would record the poems myself. So this is really two questions: 1, which name shall I credit you under? and 2, is there any way you would be willing to record yourself reading the poem? I 1000% understand that I am a total internet stranger and it would make total sense to say no, so please feel free to! But on the off chance you're like, "Yeah, I would totally want to record my poem," please know that this would never be posted anywhere, it would literally just be going on one physical CD for one person. Hope this isn't too weird. Really loved your poem. Thanks so much for writing it <3

I am going to CRY. Thank you so much for your kind words! It really means a lot. It's been so heartwarming to me to see how many people the poem has resonated with!

You can credit me as Mantha Pratt, and yes, I'd love to record myself reading my poem for you and your friend. I wish I could record all the translations so many people have responded with, but unfortunately I can only read aloud in English and Spanish :( Let me know how you'd like to receive the file(s), and I can send a recording your way! I'm sure your friend will LOVE it!

[mantha-has-fallen]

Pass the happy! 🌻🌈 When you receive this, list 5 things that make you happy and then send this to 10 of the latest people in your notifications!

1) Making other people happy

2) Acts of affection from people/animals that I may or may not know

3) Platonic physical affection

4) Remembering animals that are just So Smol™

5) Learning a new instrument

[ulec-elec]

Ask:

Ra, Casper and Mantha

I‘ll draw the answers I need some warm up sketches

[andrebearakovsky]

(cont. ask) first of all NOOO don't apologize i was looking for a long post, this is why i came here! i've been lurking way back! i remembered your blog name! 2. wow??? this is such a comprehensive answer!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍🤗😳 thank you so much! 3. any content you want to post i am here for! 4. i can't believe there are so many new guys, like yes of course, but i can't believe it! 5. Oh yeah the details of the Holtby thing are coming back to me, i seem to have repressed it.🙈

Aw that's so sweet of you! A longtime viewer! (Viewer? What am I, a YouTuber? Calm down.) It's sweet of you to remember me and I'm delighted that I am apparently famous and evidently famous for making long/extensive posts lol. Which I'm about to do again.

I talked about Strome, Milano, Sandin, and alllll those young guys on my last post, as well as Darcy and TvR. [And Dowd but you already knew him.] The rest of the guys currently on the team I haven't really touched on yet that joined post-Holtby era are Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Anthony Mantha, and Charlie Lindgren. I'll get into them in a bit, but I gotta get into some other things first.

You said you haven't really watched since the Holtby era, so I'm going to assume you know everything that happened/all the people we had up til that final season, and that you know little/nothing of what has happened since then. So I'm gonna give a quick recap of some of the big things that have happened in that time:

You missed the ENTIRETY of the Sammy and Vitek goaltending era, which was kinda turbulent. Sammy was gonna be the starter with Henrik Lundqvist as the backup, but then it turned out Lundqvist had a heart condition and had to retire and never played a game for the Caps. This forced Vitek into action, and we had 2 years of the Sammy and Vitek goaltending duo. I, personally, loved it. Some people did not. I still hold that they were BOTH GOOD!! They split time, neither one ever TRULY grasped the starting reigns. There was also when Vitek got taken by the Kraken in the expansion draft and then immediately traded him back to us. Also they were besties, which started when they were a duo down in Hershey. It's also why my blog is titled "goalie best friend tandem," though it also currently applies to Darcy and Chuck who are besties. You can search the "goalie best friends" tag on my blog for cute Sammy and Vitek content. Neither of them are here anymore, but they're still friends - I remember seeing a quote Vitek gave to some Devils people talking about him and about still being friends and such.

Players you knew back from the Holtby era who are no longer with us: Lars Eller, Richard Panik (useless), Jonas Siegenthaler, Travis Boyd, Christian Djoos, Michal Kempny, Radko Gudas, Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov [don't talk to me about these last two I'm sad]

Players that played with us for multiple seasons after the Holtby era who are no longer with us this year: Justin Schultz, Conor Sheary, Daniel Sprong, Matt Irwin

COVID robbed us of our time with Brenden Dillon and I'm sad about it

We had Zdeno Chara for 1 year, and he straightup fixed Nick Jensen. Jensen was abysmal before that, then Chara was his defense partner for the whole year, and Jensen is good now. I no longer dread every time he touches the puck, I trust him. Also he has a personality now! Idk what kind of dark magic Chara used, but I will be forever thankful to him for it. 1 year of Chara absolutely 1000% worth it just for fixing Nick Jensen

We got Marcus Johansson back! :) And then we traded him again

We traded Jakub Vrana for Anthony Mantha, who is useless and unfortunately still here. He never fit in with the team vibe of "sexy idiots," he's not loud enough or slutty enough.

In March 2022 Carl Hagelin suffered a really bad eye injury during practice. I think the butt end of someone's stick got into his eye? (We were never told whose stick it was, I'm sure they have to feel absolutely terrible about it.) He's lucky he didn't lose his eye. He tried to come back, but he never played a game again after that. He was technically on the roster all of last season, but he never got into any games, and he just announced his retirement this summer. A really sad end, tbh. And RIP to the 4th line of dreams.

We were GONNA have Connor Brown for the 2022-23 season, and he was gonna play with Dylan Strome whom he's friends with and played in juniors with. But he played for like 2 games and then got hurt and was out for the season and never played for us again. I think he's in Edmonton now.

You know about goal songs, right?? I think the last year of Holtby was the first year of goal songs. I have a Spotify playlist of goal songs if you wanna check it out

There have been SO many injuries the last 3 years. 2021-22 was what I like to call the year of babies. I don't even remember who exactly was injured but there were so many injuries it necessitated the callup of SO many rookies. TWELVE rookies played that season: Martin Fehervary, Connor McMichael, Beck Malenstyn, Garrett Pilon, Hendrix Lapierre, Brett Leason, Aliaksei Protas, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Zach Fucale, Joe Snively, Alex Alexeyev, and Lucas Johansen. All of whom made their NHL debuts that season except for Fehervary, McMichael, Malenstyn, and Pilon. Of those rookies, Fehervary and McMichael were the only ones who were really supposed to make the team that season; they stuck around the whole season, while Leason and Protas played 30+ games, AJF played 20+, Snively and Malenstyn played more than 10 each, and the rest had 6 or less. It was truly the year of babies. Some of those guys aren't in the organization anymore, but I think this is the year the rest of them finally make the leap and are true full-timers. [Except for Fehervary, who already is]

More injury news: Nicky and Tom were injured for like the first half of last season. And in December, John Carlson broke his fucking face. He got hit in the face with a puck and it broke his entire face, like it was really bad, and he hardly played again. I think he came back for like the last few weeks, but tbh his injury was when the season went downhill. [I say "broke his face" but the official reports are he had a fractured skull and severed temporal artery. Yikes! He's fine now though]

Ovi just keeps breaking goal records. He got 800 goals and then passed Gordie Howe last season!!! He is now number 2 all-time in goals!! He currently has 822. Watch out, Gretzky, he's comin' for ya

Oh yeah the Hershey Bears won the Calder Cup this year!! It was absolutely epic. They played the Coachella Valley Firebirds (Kraken AHL team) in the finals, and it was an awesome finals. It went to Game 7 overtime. GAME SEVEN OVERTIME!!!!! Do you know how rare that is? It's only the 2nd time the Calder Cup Finals has gone to overtime in Game 7, with the first time being in 1953. In the NHL, it has only ever happened in the Stanley Cup Finals TWICE. EVER! By the Wings in 1950 and 1954. So the Bears won the Calder Cup in Game 7 overtime and it was exciting as FUCK. And a lot of guys who might make the Caps roster this year were on that Cup-winning team: Snively, Protas, McMichael, Malenstyn, Johansen, as well as top prospects Lapierre and Iorio. They're the oldest franchise in the AHL, and that was their 12th Calder Cup, which is the most in AHL history.

And you said to feel free to post some content so I am going to POST some CONTENT. Starting with:

✨Darcy Kuemper✨

I fucking love Darcy, so much. I've already said that I've liked him for a long time, and I'm absolutely elated to have him on the team. He won the Cup with the Avs in 2022. He is also very tall, he's 6'5", one time he hugged TJ and it made TJ look like a child. He's so sweet, and he's so dumb. He's like a giant labrador. Some of my favorite assorted Darcy things and moments include:

In one of his first interviews after signing he said he was gonna visit every museum in DC, and I'm like no you're not, Darcy, that's not possible. Our first sign that he was a big dummy

One time suplexed Matthew Tkachuk into the ice

Got a shot on goal during a game last year

The time he tried to "interview" Nick Jensen at the outdoor game practice while giggling incessantly

Here's him at NHL media day last year, featuring him kicking a soccer ball like you see in my profile pic :)

Says one of his life goals is to bring back the dinosaurs. Please see this post for the full story on that one

Is absolute BESTIES with Charlie Lindgren, the backup goalie. Like, so much so that they and their wives constantly take their dogs on walks together, the dogs are reportedly besties as well, and the Kuempers dog-sat Chuck's dog over Christmas. They also kind of have matching dogs, I'll include a picture below. Chuck also called himself and Darcy two of the "more normal goalies in the league" which is an absolute lie after the dinosaurs thing, so clearly Chuck doesn't have that many brain cells rolling around up there either. They also did THIS at media day this year. Their friendship is just so pure. You can read more about it in this article. And like, they didn't know each other before signing here. According to the article, evidently after they signed, they texted each other and then literally the scene from stepbrothers happened

And then TvR 🥰 Mine own love TvR. I adore Trevor van Riemsdyk so much. He's just got incredibly good vibes. I also have a bit more of a personal attachment to him, because he and I have the same birthday (July 24). He's a bit soft-spoken, especially compared to some of the other freaks on this team. Possibly one of the only ones with any semblance of a brain cell. He's not flashy; he's a steady-eddy defenseman, almost always on the third pair barring injuries. He's not gonna score a bunch of points, but he plays hard defensively every game (one of the reasons goalies love him), he's reliable, and he blocks SO many shots. He's also one of THE guys on the penalty kill. The penalty kill is TvR, Jensen, Fehervary, and Dowd, those are the main guys. We also officially claimed him as our own. As of this year, he will have played more years with the Caps than with anyone else, he currently has more goals, assists, and points with us than with anyone else, and after about 40 more games he will have played more games with us than with anyone else.

Also the ENTIRE team is absolutely fucking OBSESSED with him. There aren't like that many big specific things I can point to, it's just how I've noticed them treating him over the years, and how they talk about/to him and the general energy. They all love to shout "REEEEEEEEEEEEMERRRRRRRR" at any and every opportunity. And like you can just tell that every single one of them is deeply in love with him. They are all constantly tripping over themselves to give him the player of the game award in the locker room, even when other guys have a bunch of points in the game and it feels like they're the obvious choice but no they all want to give a love letter to their collective crush. The goalies especially love him. (Here's Chuck giving him the POTG, Nicky giving him the POTG, and a recounting of Sammy's love affair with him two seasons ago). The coaches also love him, sometimes too much for their own good - there have been times in the last few years when they've put TvR on the power play and in the shootout (??) when he had no business being there lol. And like I don't blame them lmao. He's grown to become a leader on the team (and occasionally gets As on his chest during preseason games and when a bunch of dudes are injured - another thing that confirms to me they're all in love with him, he got real high up on the chain of command real quick), he's super consistent (there was one game last year when there were so many injuries on D that the defense was quite literally just TvR plus a bunch of rookies - I said that day that the defense was "TvR and a dream"), and he will absolutely never put his mouthguard in his mouth. So as the year goes on, and as you watch games and social media content, just keep your eyes peeled, watch TvR, and you'll see that the entire team is so fucking horny for TvR specifically. I made this meme awhile back, which is exactly how the Caps feel about TvR:

Other miscellaneous fun facts about the team and players that I think you should know:

Our backup goalie is Charlie Lindgren, but we all call him Chuck. It suits him better, especially with his mustache. He also catches right-handed, which is different than practically every other goalie in the league. So like if you look, he and Darcy wear their catching gloves on different hands.

There are a LOT of NHL brothers on this team. Dylan Strome's older brother Ryan plays for the Ducks, and his younger brother Matt actually plays for the Hershey Bears. Trevor van Riemsdyk is also the middle child of three hockey-playing brothers: his older brother James plays for the Bruins, and younger brother Brendan doesn't play in the NHL but played college hockey. And Charlie Lindgren is the oldest of 3 hockey brothers: Andrew played college hockey but never made the NHL, and youngest brother Ryan plays for the Rangers.

Kuzy has been doing some wacky shit in the shootout the last few years, just go look it up on YouTube

Here's a video of the mentors trip this year so you can see Sonny Milano's father who is simply exactly who I envisioned him to be in my head

Nicolas Aube-Kubel (NAK), a French-Canadian fourth line winger that the Caps picked up on waivers in November last year, is Sergei Ovechkin's (Ovi's son) favorite player. We learn this in a video feature with Ovi's wife and kids (I'm including the link to this gifset from the lovely @thornescratch which is where I first saw this). The producer asks who Sergei's favorite player is, and Sergei immediately answers "Aube-Kubel." Not only is Aube-Kubel his "guy" according to Nastya, but then we also see that a selfie of Sergei and Aube-Kubel is the lock screen of Sergei's iPad. And Sergei calls Aube-Kubel his "best friend." Learning this information is such a curveball, because it's like the last person you'd expect Sergei's favorite to be. It's not somebody Russian or even European, it's not somebody old or someone who's been on the team a long time, it's not one of his dad's closer friends, and it's not even one of the stars of the team, it's a young Canadian dude who plays fourth line if he's in. Aube-Kubel must be REALLY friendly, otherwise why else would he be Sergei's favorite? You know it has to be absolutely devastating to Tom Wilson to not be Sergei's favorite lol. [I'm also convinced this is why they re-signed NAK so quick in the offseason, you HAVE to bring back Sergei's favorite player!!]

Speaking of NAK: remember how I said Beck Malenstyn was Nic Dowd's chosen winger? NAK is his OTHER chosen winger. Those two are twin shitstarters and Dowd loves them and I know he absolutely wants both of them on his line this season. They're gonna be a great 4th line. I could talk all day about Dowd and his 4th line duties, and you can ask me to do that if you want but I'm not gonna do it here

I also know everyone's zodiac sign because I'm a freak. I can also get more into that in a separate post if you want

There's probably more stuff, but this is all I can think of for now. Please feel free to ask me more stuff, I love diving into things. Stuff about the team, players, my favorites, whatever. I hope this is both informative and entertaining!

[rustyskateblade]

so you’re telling me the one time i miss a wings game in forever i miss:

-my boy andreas athanasiou, aka Speedy McGee, aka Yung Andy, ending his scoring drought

-o captain My captain scoring on his own damn rebound, thank u very much, by DIVING, not unlike olymipic-high-diving-sweetheart-and-medalist tom daley

-frans nielsen scoring in a shootout with an air of peace, tranquility, and serenity, probably bc he has scored the MOST SHOOTOUT-DECIDING GOALS IN NHL HISTORY ?? BOY

-and big jim, slim jim, jimmy johns, howie, howárdê, etc. ad nauseam, making 37 saves, not including our souls and dignity, one of them against skjei in OT

-talk of an undisclosed injury on my mans mantha??? Big Tony??? i had to find out through snapchat like some kind of troglodyte???

sounds about right