#and roy seemed like he really fucking needed it out of his system

[hesherehesthere]

i've been thinking a lot about roy being on richmond while rupert was owner and cartrick was manager. i'm sure it was hell for everyone, but roy seemed genuinely glad to see rebecca pretty early on (greeting her in the hallways when most people ignored her), and he verbally expressed his distaste for cartrick as a manager on live tv. he's also immediately Alert when ted is hired and is clearly trying to figure out how he's going to handle certain situations. he has a clear shift towards respecting ted more after he benches jamie. it seems like in some ways he was expecting a repeat of cartrick (playing jamie even tho he was a dick, just because he was good). idk what this means, if anything, i've just been thinking about it

[youhavelessproof]

mob Dickie Jaydick AU anyone?

mob Dick is a thing we've seen in canon before and it will not leave my mind so y'all get to deal with ramblings about it. :) (Crutches and also a timeline where he never met Bruce.)

brainstormed this in the bottom Dick server, but here's me trying to summarize it.

general premise: no capes AU where once Dick escaped juvie he went and killed Zucco. (not quickly, he was 8, but he's a smart kid,) and then decided well police are useless, so I'll just help people myself. (very similar to how be became Robin, but like. more real world vigilante justice which is more morally questionable than fictional vigilantes.) Dick is a part of a mob at any given time because it makes doing what he was already going to do easier. which mob changes because he's not really part of the mob to be part of the mob and it's more a access to resources thing. Dick is allowed not wear a face mask/helmet because no records of him existing really exist. he was a circus kid that just ended up placed in juvie. he doesn't have records. Jason on the other hand is just a normal fucking dude. (probably a priest like that one timeline but I've never been religious so I wouldn't really know how to write it. but I could try.) also yes obviously Jason's life has not been easy-peasy or whatever but in comparison he is so very normal.

they meet at a bar or diner or something and Dick uses Jason to get some dudes of his back. probably an "I'll owe you, but I need you to kiss me right now." regardless, Dick had no intentions of actually getting Jason interested in him, but I mean. look at him.

their meeting should've ended at that, but Jason is involved now because he keeps wanting to see that pretty boy that definitely had knives and a gun on him but. pretty 🥺

also I just wanna clarify that Dick is not killing bad people to prove a point. he doesn't even necessarily see what he's doing as 100% right. the systems are corrupt and he knows it, but he also knows he is one man with 0 resources if he didn't get involved in crime. he can't change the systems as one man, but he can help people sleep at night. (kinda think of it like fanon Red Hood. except with less "I know I'm right." because Dick is not concerned about being right, he's concerned with helping people.)

which leads to a lot of conflict with cop Babs. because she doesn't agree at all with what Dick is doing, but also? he's so... gentle with victims. and he doesn't try and hurt Babs unless she tries to arrest him. he seems like an upstanding guy but also he has a kill count. and it is not a small number.

there's no past of present Dickbabs btw. they can be a little flirty at times, but Dick wouldn't date a cop and Babs thinks Dick is too self-righteous anyways.

Jason also has moral objections, (whether just personally or because of religion depends on the priest thing,) but he understands Dick on a deeper level than Babs. he's been at the bottom, he's had to steal to live, he knows. he just wishes that Dick didn't kill. didn't cross that line. it's not a deal breaker, but it is a point of tension.

Dick is basically talking to Jason sporadically at first. nothing much but some surface level conversations, but they're more than Dick usually has with people. Dick is thinking about trying to shut out Jason because he's just a guy and he's gonna get himself hurt. like. really hurt. Leslie encourages him to talk to Jason though because she's known Dick for forever and she says he needs the company. (Leslie does not agree with what Dick is doing btw, but she found him hurt when he was like 10 and became something a confidant for the boy. plus, Dick trusts her enough to bring victims to her when they need help.)

Dick still has Roy as a friend in this AU and they are close but also Roy has a government job that Dick isn't thrilled with and Roy is not thrilled with the murder. they are best friends, but they have a lot of... tension we'll call it. (Jason will have something of a friendship with Roy, but it is mostly formed from mutual concern about Dick.) also Donna is here, but I'm gonna say she does not live in Gotham so y'know. she also doesn't like murder, but Dick's her boy so it's... not fine, but it doesn't matter.

Dick and Jason end up in a friends with benefits situation because Jason assumes Dick would not be willing to commit to relationship considering everything around him and Dick assumes Jason would only want him for his body. they are both stupid. (/affectionate.)

possibly also a marriage of convenience at some point so that Jason can't testify against Dick. how Dick would even get caught in the first place? good question, have not gotten there.

anyway one last thing: Dick does not share his name like. at all. Donna knows it and maybe Roy too but generally it's either aliases or nicknames people call him. so when he tells Jason his name is Dick it is a big deal.

"see you around." "Dick." "huh?" "that's my name. Dick." "in that case, see you around, Dick." "see you, Jace."

anyway this AU will not leave my brain. I like role reversals when they're done in a specific way and this one just itches my brain.

also some quick little things: * I have no idea if Babs is a cop in any DC timeline, however the reason I chose this is so that she can still interact with Dick on some level. because while I don't like Dickbabs personally generally, she is an important character to Dick and I think her being to cop that's chasing him fits better than Gordon. * Roy used to be a government agent in mainline canon. I don't particularly love it for him, but I understand why they chose it and it is canon. I am not making him work for the government out of nowhere or just to fit into the narrative. there is a basis for it. * yes I do recognize that not everyone that is important to Dick has been included. I have not fleshed out every role in this AU and haven't decided what Kori, Wally, etc. will be. * as I mentioned in the post itself, priest Jason is canon to a specific timeline in the DC comics. you can like or not like it, but I am not pulling it out of my ass. (the flashpoint timeline which yes is supposed to be a bad timeline, but my point stands.) * "where's x member of the Batfamily?" I don't know. Tim is probably doing fine just living a normal life. Damian might not even exist. I will probably include Damian just because I love Dick parenting him, but like. I have no idea where the rest of the Batfamily is and this ain't about them. /lh * just because something is in a canon DC timeline does not mean I think it's in character or a good character choice, (looking at you cop Dickie), but I am saying that I think it's fair game for AUs. (like really anything is fair game for AUs, but you hopefully know what I mean.)

sorry to get a bit defensive, just thought I'd explain some of this AU upfront just to deal with some misinterpretations that might happen in one go. <3

Mob Dickie and Normal Guy Jason my beloved. maybe I will explore you in an actual fic someday.

[daydreamgoddess14]

Support System pt. 10 - The Finale!

CH1 | CH 2 | CH 3 | CH 4 | CH 5 | CH 6 | CH 7 | CH 8 | CH 9

MASTERLIST

It's the end doo doo doo doo! The final match of the season, the ending. I really hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it. I've had the best time and I'm really proud of this one! 💜

Chapter 10

You hadn’t considered that footballers or their coaches would get nervous. But the tension in the run up to the Man City game was palpable. The whole town seemed on edge, Roy included. He’d spent each one of your Lexie nights at your house, it felt a little odd that he was there observing your boring mum routine of washing, cooking and carrying the mental load of knowing where Lexie needed to be, when and everything else in between. He didn’t ask to stay, even though you’d wanted him to, he’d said goodnight each evening and gone back to his place. By the time Lexie was back to her dads, you’d worked out that he’d been there every evening not just because he’d wanted to be, but because he’d needed to be. The build up to the game had him restless and distractible and the time with you and Lexie managed to relax him far more than sitting in an empty house, or going over and over the match with Jamie, or Nate or whoever else was free for a pint. When you’d gone to him just a day before the match, the only solace he’d found from the plays, the tactics and the team, was in you. He took his time, undressing you slowly and kissing every inch of skin as it became exposed to him.

"Let me take care of you," you whispered. You felt his head shake as he kissed down your neck. 

"I've never needed anyone like I need you." He muttered, swiping a calloused thumb over your hardening nipple, "you look so fucking beautiful like this." You rolled your hips against him, 

"Please, Roy. I need you-" you all but begged. All night he'd taken the lead and given you everything, losing himself in the feel of your body against his. When they won the next day, you were euphoric. Lexie and Phoebe had been in bits when the camera had focused in on Roy and Nate discussing something over an iPad and they could see that Roy was wearing his Richmond colours friendship bracelet. The late journey back from Manchester and the subsequent celebrations meant that it was Tuesday morning before you saw him again. You’d joined the slip road to the school, queuing for the carpark with the windows down and blasting 90s dance music when his car had pulled alongside yours. You and Lexie had been so engrossed in singing/shouting Robin S ‘Show Me Love’ - complete with 'big box, little box' hand dancing - that you hadn’t even seen him until Phoebe had called through the open windows. 

“Morning. Congratulations on the win!” You’d called out.

“Morning. Nice dancing.”

“Especially for you.” You winked. You’d ended up parked at different ends of the carpark so he and Phoebe had waited for you by the gate as you walked down to them. You’d pulled out your phone to take a call from a recruitment agency so he’d walked alongside you while you talked and the girls ran ahead. “And that’s in Richmond? Wow, ok that sounds really interesting. Absolutely yes, send my CV over if you think I’m in with a shot. Actually, just send it over anyway - I’d be mad not to at least try,” at the front of the queue at the gates, you handed Lexie her bag and gave her a kiss whilst still on the phone, “Ok, could you just hang on one second please?” You moved the phone away from your mouth and stepped up on tiptoes to give Roy a lingering kiss. The other playground parents looked on, wide eyed. “I have to go, I love you. See you later.” You whispered, taking up the phone again and going back to the car, your hand holding onto his until you couldn’t reach any further. Lexie was with her dad during the beginning of that week so that she could go with you to the final Richmond match at the weekend, so after work you’d gone straight to Roy’s. You hopped up to sit on the counter while he cooked.

“Ted’s staying.” He told you, hands on your thighs.

“Really? That’s great!”

“He got to work this morning and Rebecca was in his office. She only fucking told him she was in love with him, that she’d help his ex get a job here if she wanted to move, she’d help them find a school for Henry… pretty much told him she’d do fucking anything if he’d say.” You leaned forward, eager to hear more,

“And did he tell her?”

“Yeah, told her he was in love with her. We walked in to find them nearly going at it in the office.” You shrieked,

“Oh god that’s so cute! At least you all know before the weekend as well.”

“Settles the lads down a bit, bunch of fucking kids sometimes.” You slid forward to wrap your legs around his hips. “Any news on that job from this morning?” His hands move up your thighs and around your waist so he can kiss your neck,

“Not yet, the agency is putting me forward. It’s in Richmond though, which would be amazing. I should hear more tomorrow.”

“And how you feeling going into your last week?”

“Happy. Scared. Nervous.”

“We’ll figure it out, you know. I won’t let you fucking drown. Season finishes at the weekend, so this time next week I’ll have loads more free time for a few weeks. I can help with Lex while you do what you need to do.” He’s turned the pan off and pulled you off the counter, taking you over to the sofa, dinner forgotten for now.

~~~~~~~

You took a further call from the recruitment agency the following day. Their client was interested in meeting you but needed an informal off-site meeting. You arranged with the recruiter to meet with them towards the end of the week just outside of town. To say you were surprised to see Keeley Jones and Rebecca Welton being led to your table was an understatement. You shook hands and sat back down before your legs could give out. The mums might have been all good, the kids, but maybe you were about to be ousted by two of the most influential women in Roy’s life? You clearly looked terrified because Keeley, to her credit, took your hand and held it,

“Oh fuck, you look so scared! I’m so sorry we ambushed you, are you ok?” You think of the night before when Roy had cooked your favourite meal while you’d taken Lexie to swimming lessons and then onto her dads. When you’d sat in his lap and pushed your fingers into the knot in his shoulder to try and relieve some of the stress of the final week of the season. When he’d lost all patience and decided on a different way to unwind, which had mostly revolved around keeping his head between your thighs for as long as you let him. You think about your 4am wake up call that morning, and the 6am follow up, where he’d interlocked your fingers above your head and pressed you into the mattress as he whispered “I could do this forever”. Whatever had changed their mind in the time since the gala, you couldn’t let it derail your future.

“Look, if you’ve suddenly come to the realisation that I’m not good enough for Roy then that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. But I’m not going to be scared off. He loves me and I’ll take that for as long as I possibly can because I am so, so in love with him and I will spend forever making him happy in any way I can. I’m really sorry, I’m sure you’re both lovely women and I know he values your opinions, but if he’s ever going to change how he feels about me then he’ll do it himself and he’ll tell me himself. And congratulations by the way,” you turn to Rebecca, “I heard that Ted is staying and that he finally told you he loves you. I’m so happy for you.” Keeley smiled at you while Rebecca looked curiously. 

“Are you sure about this?” She asked Keeley,

“I’ve been doing some digging. Trust me, Rebecca.”

“We’re not here to try and break you and Roy up.” Rebecca said finally,

“Oh. Well then I don’t understand?”

“I’d like to interview you for a job.”

“Sorry, what? Shit, have I just fucked it up completely?”

“Nahh!” Keeley said quickly.

“Well-” Rebecca interrupted.

“No, she hasn’t. We probably scared her half to death, Rebecca! Give the poor woman a minute to recover.” You finish your water and take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, really I am. I got completely carried away and I shouldn't have gone off like that.”

“Thank you,” Rebecca said, smiling at last. “And thank you for letting me know just how much you care about Roy.” You nod, making peace. Keeley whipped out some paperwork from her bag.

“So! Like Rebecca said, this is I guess, a final stage interview without all the previous stages? We already know about you, we'd love to know more. Our previous Director of Comms was Leslie Higgins, he moved into the Football Ops role quite a while ago now and there’s never really been the need to replace him. He and Rebecca have sort of taken on the various tasks and it’s worked fine.” She pauses for Rebecca to step in and continue,

“Now though, we’re one game away from maybe winning the Premier League just one season after coming back from relegation. That’s practically unheard of. The huge, growing success of the club, the opportunities with the Champions League next season and our plans for the future mean that we need to strengthen the internal team. KBPR can only do so much - they have other clients and I can’t ask Keeley to devote all of her time to the club.”

“We think,” Keeley started, “that with us, and Leslie and you… we could be a real Fab Four. The core AFC Richmond decision makers - with the coaches input of course.” You are stunned, to say the least.

“When you say you’ve done some digging, what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well, when you told me who you worked for and what you’d worked on, I realised that we’d met before. I’ve been asking around people who have worked with you or who have come across you in a professional capacity to learn more. When I liked what I saw, I took it to Rebecca.”

“With Ted confirmed as staying now, I have some big plans ahead for Roy. We have some very big plans ahead as a club.”

“And you don’t think it would be weird? Me working with you, for one,” you gesture to Keeley, “or with Roy?”

“I’ve been at the club probably at least two or three times a week since the day you blocked him in on the school car park. He came in ranting and raving about some idiot driver and every day, I’ve heard him fall more in love with you. If he found out there was a way to have you in the same building every day, I think he’d be beating Rebecca’s door down himself. And working in the same building doesn’t necessarily mean you spend every waking hour together. You still have crucial jobs to do. And as for me, I'd love to work with you.” Rebecca nodded in agreement.

“The job is nothing you don’t already know, the only difference is the industry.”

“Exactly, my football knowledge is… limited at best!”

“We’re a family, we wouldn’t let you drown.” Hearing Rebecca use the same phrase as Roy struck a chord with you.

“I take it you have a job spec, contract, everything I need to read through and make a decision?”

“An interview is as much about you deciding if we’re the right fit for you, as it is for us to decide. I think you’ll find that the club's current standing means we can afford to give you a generous package, and the locality means we can support a better work-life balance.”

“Take this, read it and see what you think.” You take the folder.

“As his friends, do you think I should tell Roy now, or decide based on him not knowing? I assume we’ve met here because he doesn’t know, and inviting me to Nelson Road would be a dead giveaway?”

“Perhaps tell him about the role first and then bring in where it came from. Let him help offer an opinion based on the job alone.” Rebecca suggested. “And I do so hope you’ll agree to join us, I think you could be a truly great asset to the club.”

~~~~~~~~

You’d kept the folder at your house, not daring to leave it in a bag or your car in danger of accidentally taking it to Roy’s. Being at yours also meant you could be ‘busy’ and have Lexie as a buffer and it also being your last week at your current workplace, this also gave you an excuse for being more distracted than usual. The last game of the season was doing the same for him so his being distracted also helped you. The intimacy of spending time alone at Roy’s exposed all of your vulnerabilities. You’d spent so many nights laying in the dark in his arms listening to him talk about his family and career, and have him ask about yours, it was impossible to hide anything from him. You’d mentioned the role to him, you’d had to since he knew about the original recruiter call, and he’d reacted to it exactly as you hoped he would - excited for you to have such a great opportunity, close to home, with a package befitting your knowledge and experience. You wanted to wait until after the West Ham game to tell him exactly who the role was for. Lexie was spending the night before the match at Phoebe’s for a sleepover. The night before the Man City game meant you knew exactly how he'd want to forget the West Ham match and this time, you'd planned accordingly. You'd finished your final day at work early and had blown the cash from your leaving card on the most beautiful lingerie set you'd ever seen. You'd come back via Nelson Road to borrow his keys, and gone back to his to cook. When he got back late that afternoon, you'd set up outside under the secluded canopy in his garden with soft lights, blankets and cushions. You handed him a beer and led him outside, brought food out - including dessert, and then when you'd eaten and cleared up, you stepped in front of him and slipped your summer dress down your body. He reached out and took your hand, you'd sat in his lap with your legs either side of his. He ran his finger over the cup of the bra, 

"Holy fucking shit, you're perfect," 

"Distracting enough?"

"Yeah I'd say so." He said gruffly. “It’s a good fucking job I just need to stand on the side of the pitch now.” He laughed. 

The match was intense, unexpected drama on the sidelines and Isaac’s incredible goal had everyone holding their breath for another goal or for news from the Liverpool game. When the win came, no one seemed to care what the final table result was. The fans flooded the pitch to be with their team. You, Sara and the girls had stayed back a little, you could see better as Coach Lasso danced with his team surrounding him. When you let the girls onto the pitch, they run straight to Roy and he ends up with Phoebe on his front and giving a piggyback to Lexie at the same time.

“Don’t come crying to me later when you can’t walk.” You tease, finding a route past Phoebe to give him a kiss.”

“You’re not gonna fucking take care of me?” He asks, faux outraged.

“Every. Single. Day.”

“Dad!” Lexie calls, she taps Roy’s shoulder and he lets her down. Andy is coming across the pitch from the away fans side.

“Alright love.” He scoops her up and hugs her. “Congratulations,” he says to Roy who nods without greeting. “Dunno what old Mannion was doing. Made us look like fools. Do you ehh, do you know if our gaffer is ok?”

“Yeah, that old twat is fine. Just a bruised ego and a picture of his balls on the front of every paper tomorrow.” Andy shrugs.

“I uhh, I wanted to apologise to you both. I was a real dickhead-” Roy snorts a laugh, “worse than that, then. I’m sorry. I’ve been watching since the game finished. You look happy.” He turns to you,

“I am.” You say shortly, unsure whether to trust the apology.

“Good. I mean it, you look happy together. And Lexie tells me so all the time. I’m… happy for you.” You thank him and he heads off with his mates to the pub. You’re left with the feeling that you might never be friendly, but you can at least be cordial. Relieved of carrying the kids, Roy pulls you into his arms.

“He’s jealous.”

“Of me?” he laughs,

“Of me, you muppet.” He leans down to kiss your cheek and whisper in your ear, “because you're the one. You're it. You're the only one I want for the rest of my life. And he knows he fucked it up.”

“Hmm, you're pretty irresistible yourself.” The kiss you leave him with leaves you both breathless,

“Think we can find somewhere-”

“No way, there are hundreds of people here. I need to tell you something later.” He looks curiously at you, but you both get caught up in another ‘Richmond til we Die’ chant when Jamie, Keeley and a raft of players come over to find Roy. A little further through the crowd, you see Ted sweep Rebecca into his arms and kiss her. Even an hour after the game had ended, the club was still heaving with people. The fans had gone on to celebrate elsewhere but the families and friends of the players and staff remained. Rebecca had instructed the bar to stay open, insisting that she’d cover the bill. Phoebe and Lexie were still running around on the now empty pitch with Leslie’s younger children and other player’s and staff kids. You’ve told Sara about the job and you can’t wait to tell Roy. He’s sitting with Nate, both of them animatedly discussing Jamie’s Oscar winning performance with Coach Beard. 

“Have you got an answer for me yet?” Rebecca asks, sitting next to you in the dugout.

“Yes, I think I do. I’d like to run it by someone in particular first though.” You catch Roy’s eye, he looks surprised but happy to see you talking to Rebecca. She waves her hand to call him over.

“Coach Kent, congratulations.”

“You too.”

“I meant your excellent girlfriend, not the match.” He cocks an eyebrow at her,

“Thanks then. She’s fucking brilliant.”

“I know. Thought I might poach her from you?” The furrow in his brow deepens with his confusion. You stand up and kiss the frown away.

“The amazing job I’ve been offered? It would be here. Working for Rebecca.” You tell him, trying to keep your voice light but nervous for his response.

“Here? Every day?” 

“Yeah,” you start to mistake his hesitation for annoyance, “but if you think that’s really fucking weird, then I can tell Rebecca to stuff it - no offense, Rebecca - and I can carry on looking and something else will turn up-”

“I don’t think it’s really fucking weird. I think you should say yes. You should definitely fucking do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah.” 

“You’d better come over tomorrow then, sign your contract.” Rebecca says with a smile. “Welcome.” You and Sara party on the pitch with the team until the girls start to flag and it’s time to go. You insist Roy stay,

“I’ll see you tomorrow, go - have an amazing night, you’ve earned it. I’m so fucking proud of you.” You kiss him and he waves you off. 

~~~~~~~

You’re reading in bed when the door knocks so quietly you think you might have imagined it. Lexie is practically comatose in her bed, the combination of exhilaration and fresh air has completely wiped her out. You creep down the stairs in one of Roy’s t-shirts and open the door. Jamie Tartt is on your doorstep with an arm slung around Roy.

“Tried to get him to come to a club with us, but he made us bring ‘im ‘ere instead.” You stifle a giggle, you can see that Roy’s nowhere near as drunk as Jamie but he’s still looking at you with total adoration.

“Thanks Jamie, I’ll take it from here. You have a good night,” you look around him to the taxi down the path. Isaac and Colin are both waving madly at you. “Be safe, boys.” You wave to them and blow a kiss before slipping your arm around Roy’s waist and guiding him inside.

“Night Coach,” Jamie grins.

“Night Tartt, fuckin’ love you man. Fuckin’ love all of you.”

“We know. And we wouldn’t have been on that fuckin’ pitch without you.” Jamie gave you both a little salute and ran off back to the taxi.

“Come on, coach. Time for bed.” You lead him upstairs and sit him on the bed so you can take off his t-shirt, then you drop to your knees and unlace his trainers. You pull his hands to get him to stand up, running your hands around the waistband of his dark jeans and pulling them down. Once they’re free of his hips, he sits back down. “Come here,” you whisper, climbing into bed and pulling him with you, his body between your legs and his head on your heart. 

“Feels like I won the whole fucking thing.” He whispers against your skin as he falls asleep.

[itsclydebitches]

It seems unlikely we'll get this now that Ted has had his triangle epiphany (and the club is presumably set to begin their upswing), so I just want to throw out that I was really hoping for a 'These are our true priorities' moment. Meaning, we began this journey with Ted telling Trent that he does not believe in wins and losses and though others (mostly Beard) have helped him to see the importance and meaning of putting effort into winning (particularly when there are livelihoods on the line), Ted has never actually wavered from his philosophy -- just adapted it. He, Beard, Roy, and formally Nate have created a balanced coaching system that allows others to manage the strategy/competitive edge while Ted focuses on the team's spirit.

Now, in Season 3, they're faced not only with a string of losses, but a string of wins prior to that which rest pretty squarely on the shoulders of one player, Zava. The implication is that the team itself is failing. If the team fails, the implication of that is a failure of the coach. Hence Higgins' very tentative suggestion that they rethink Ted's place here if this continues.

Post-Episode 6 it's looking like it won't come to that, simply because we presume that Ted's big idea will pay off. I could be wrong, of course, but I was reeeeaaally hoping for some side-plot where Higgins' and Rebecca's conversation gets out somehow, preferably to the whole team. I was looking forward to both the himbo shenanigans of the boys thinking they might loose Ted as well as the more serious reflection on why that terrifies them. Don't they want a coach who's going to ensure that they win? After all, everyone (understandably) booed Ted at the start. Who's this bumbling, naive outsider coming in to ruin our chances? Is this a fucking joke?

Basically, I wanted a scene where the boys tell a still-periodically-yelling-at-Ted Rebecca that no, you can't fire him. We don't care if we win! ...okay yes, of course we care, but if it comes down to getting relegated again or loosing our coach, we'll take getting relegated, easy. You know Isaac slamming his fist down and announcing that whatever they're doing in Amsterdam they're doing together, as a team? Give me that energy poised against the threat of Ted being ousted (not, I want to clarify, his own choice to leave which we might get at the end of the season), with a side of Rebecca realizing that the need to beat Rupert isn't really the same thing as needing the club to win. They're connected, but ultimately her demons won't be assuaged by a football victory; it's just an emotional Band-Aid. Besides, which is worse: Rupert gloating when the club continues to do badly... or her facing him without dart winning, speech giving, hug extraordinaire Ted Lasso around to support her?

Anyway this isn't really a criticism because I fucking loved the latest episode, but it IS a fic idea I might have to put out into the world some day :)

[adolin]

do you see any RJK / artashipatrick parallels? ive been thinking about it a lot lately and wanted to get ur viewpoint

hi hi hi! I actually saw this opinion a couple of times in Ted Lasso fandom, but personally I don't share it. I AM very curious about your reasoning for it because I love looking at ships from different angles and seeing what people take from them.

my tldr is that I don't think RKJ has anything in common with the Challengers trio, beyond the fact that they're about two men ostensively fighting over a girl while also engaging in the kind of simmering homoeroticism that permeates elite men's sport. (this Marylin Frie quote says it better) I get why this can seem a parallel by itself but, to me, it's just a function of both ships being set in a Sports Media canon. When it comes to characters and their dynamics, these ships are built very differently IMO.

relative to each other:

the Challengers trio all start out as peers, both in age and in relative success level of their careers. They're all finalists in the Junior US Open when they meet. RKJ as a dynamic is absolutely hierarchical in comparison: you have Roy being a Legacy kind of Big Name in the sport, Jamie as the talented up-and-comer who idolised him growing up, and while he has promise, there's non guarantee he can come even close to the kind of career Roy's implied to have had. And then there's Keeley, who's absolutely an outsider in their world, and on a systemic level is much lower down the pecking order. I think Ted Lasso, especially in S1 and S2 does a great job giving an overview of, like, how transactional footballers/wags relationships inherently ARE, even to people who aren't already familiar with the context — not just the financial asymmetry and stark difference in career and life prospects but just, like. She's the girl peeking into the changing room and saying, Hi Boys. Jamie makes a joke about oogling her ass because they are both in on the joke that they fulfil a very specific stereotypical relationship dynamic.

Even if on a personal level both Roy and Jamie really respect and admire Keeley, she Does Not Belong in their hyperfocused sport-as-sexually-charged-rivarly world. Art and Patrick want to fuck Tashi first and foremost because she's a tennis phenomenon, they value her athletic abilities and coaching insight. That's a whole completely different dynamic from what's going on between RKJ. Compare Art and Patrick complimenting Tashi's performance at the US Open to Roy and Jamie "fighting over her" in 3x12 where it's all about who she likes more. As someone who actually liked the bar fight because I think it shows a very realistic ugly side to these characters (*) it's just. two men fighting over a girl. vs two athletes being so impressed by someone who is a girl and also a star athlete in her own right.

(*) asterisk because I absolutely loathed so many writing choices in S3, like, even if I like some seeds of plots I hate how they were executed. Oh my god typing this out is making me want to completely AU S3 of TL. anyway; I have beef with the pacing and stuff around that scene but I like the existence of the scene itself.

Keeley and Tashi couldn't be more different

Tashi is just. Her personality is most similar to Roy's, imo. She lives and breathes tennis. She needs to be around that world to live; she struggles to fill the void left with coaching (and living vicariously through Art to an extent). Keeley, meanwhile, makes fun of Roy feeling like the world is ending when he finally admits to himself that he can't go on any longer. Mind, I think that lighthearted "it's not the end of the world" attitude was precisely what Roy needed to hear at that point, because he takes himself too seriously and needed someone to tell him that he can live without football, actually — but the fact that Keeley just Doesn't Get It on a fundamental level, again, marks her as an outsider to the kind of all-encompassing elite athlete attitude Roy and Jamie share. She doesn't even like football! She's occasionally flighty (good for her). She's turning 30 and doesn't know where her life is going (SO valid). She's a completely different personality than the kind of single-minded all-or-nothing attitude you NEED to make it as a pro athlete. Again: her dynamic with the two men who are into her couldn't be any different than Art/Tashi/Patrick, BECAUSE she's a completely different personality. If she was in Challengers, she'd be one of the normie Stamford kids Patrick and Tashi make fun of.

IDK. I think any similarity between Tashi and Keeley starts and ends at "they're both women". Maybe I'm being uncharitable here! I'm someone who thinks that Keeley's portrayal in fanon flattens her a bit (in the way female characters in the periphery of a m/m ship are often put on a pedestal and shoved off the way) so I'm definitely bringing some of my own baggage here; that's why I'd love to know what parallels others see. But I think she and Tashi have very different neuroses. THAT SAID. If I was writing a crossover Ted Lasso / Challengers fic, I really think Tashi/Keeley would be my ship of choice

[turtlesallthewaytomgreg]

tomgreg dependent on stress not tomshiv

okay so lil headcannon theory: thinking about how the idea that 'tomgreg only works when tom has someone to take his shiv-related aggression out on' doesn't seem to fully capture their relationship. tom being willing to go to prison for greg, greg not leaking whatever was in the logistics folder, tom taking the fall for boar on the floor, etc. etc.

i'm wondering if their relationship materializes, less out of tom's relationship to shiv and more out of tom and greg's relationship to environmental stressors. when everything's 'good,' their interactions are pretty surface level and or minimal, right? i mean, no reason to scheme, black mail, throw water bottles if there aren't any active shooters, corporate scandals, congressional hearings, etc. etc. but when things are bad? they pull together like magnets. they're the only two who really get what its like to be in that state of being the 'first to go' in the event of a huge stressor/threat to waystar as 'non roy' members of the roy family.

it's well documented that heightened levels of emotional arousal under stressful situations--which involves releasing adrenal into the body--increases the romantic attraction between two individuals. this certainly makes sense in the context of tom and greg's homoerotic build-up in s2/s3. the cruises scandal and threat of going to prison hit their stress response systems like a fucking bullet train (no pun intended). greg's getting a haircut even though he didn't need one because it felt 'soothing,' and the clear, physical and verbal manifestations of anxiety pre- and post- appearing before congress. not to mention tom constantly bringing up the prison blogs with his big sad eyes, months of fear and worry and dysregulation and expectation leading up to the culminating moment of emotional release: learning that he wouldn't be going to prison, waltzing into greg's office, flipping his desk over, beating his chest on top of the filing cabinets, pulling greg into a post-adrenal-fueled haze of a forehead kiss, etc.

s3 already established that tom goes to greg at the height of his emotional dysregulation, and s4 continues to confirm it. logan suddenly and unexpectedly dying? an extremely traumatic/emotional stressor, and tom responds by calling greg? solidifying him not only tom's number one confidant but the person he goes to first when his adrenaline's spiked by stress.

in the first couple of episodes, they didn't have a whole lot of reason to be stressed. they're at logan's birthday party, tom's getting a divorce, pretty standard family dysfunction. but what do we have here, episode three and four? now their sole protector is dead and the new guy, mattson has apparently no qualms about a total and immediate corporate restructure. sure, tom and greg aren't on the kill list for now, but what's actually standing in between them and a total loss of control? i don't know about you but the slow build up of uncertainty/stress within the plot across 4.01-4.04 seems like some pretty solid grounds for some late season romantic ~bonding!~ if you ask me :)

[thetarttfuldickhead]

A Jamie-centric pre-OT3 Christmas story told in 25 short chapters.

Masterpost / AO3

25.

Epilogue

Roy called her in the evening, as Keeley was carefully removing her make-up in front of the bathroom mirror. It had been a long day, a stifled Christmas lunch with her mother followed by Richmond’s home game against Norwich in the afternoon. At least Richmond had won, managing a by the skin of their teeth 1-0 after a late and defiant goal by Jamie.

She thought she’d seen him looking up at the VIP box as the team celebrated around him, and she’d blown him a little kiss, even if she knew the distance was too far for him to catch it.

Next to her, Rebecca had raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow in a perfect expression of slightly sceptical interest. “And here I thought you were here to support me.”

“I am here to support you,” Keeley had said firmly. “Because I’m an amazing friend and I’d show up to support you with chants and balloons of cute animals and stuff at your murder trial, especially if Rupar’s the victim. But I told you, he’s been having a rough time of it.”

Not telling Rebecca about what had gone down with Jamie and Roy the other day had never been an option. Rebecca had listened with a frown, and asked if she needed to do anything about James Tartt. Keeley had said no, for the moment: Jamie needed to be the one to make the call on that.

“Hey you,” Roy said now, looking properly fit in the black suit he usually put on for his pundit appearances (and which, to the untrained eye, looked identical to all his other black suits, but Keeley knew him and fashion better than most, and thought the Hugo Boss was a particularly nice look on him).

“Hi, babe.” Keeley propped the phone against a moisturiser bottle, so she could continue her routine while they talked. “You back from work then?”

“Yeah. Took fucking ages, because Cartrick wouldn’t fucking shut up. You’d think he’d run out of things to be wrong about after six hours, but no, if the filming crew hadn’t started making noises about needing to go home to their families, we’d still be there.”

Keeley hummed in agreement, even though she suspected Roy was maybe exaggerating things a little. Sometimes it was best to just let him vent belligerently for a bit, get it out of his system. Besides, it was lovely to have him care about things enough to be pissed about them again. Roy was a passionate man, and Keeley loved him for it; having seen him go through the motions with nary a flicker of true feeling throughout the autumn had been awful.

Speaking of caring… “You catch any of the Richmond game?” she asked.

He grunted. “We didn’t really cover any of the Championship games, but yeah, saw some of the highlights.”

“Jamie played well, didn’t he? Seemed a little more aggressive than he’s been lately.”

Roy grunted again, but kept his mouth stubbornly shut. Not ready to talk about the advice he’d given Jamie last night, then. Fair enough; it’d keep.  

Roy kept on saying nothing, though, when normally he would have tried to move on by changing the subject or asking her about her day. When Keeley glanced over at the screen she saw that he was looking unhappy, dark eyebrows furrowed.

Keeley cocked her head to the side. “You all right, babe? Something on your mind?”

“No, it’s… “ He paused, and she waited, until finally he let out a frustrated huff. “It’s just Jamie’s fucking dad, right?” His lips curled. “I can’t stop thinking— Jamie was in a right fucking mess when I walked in on them. Not physically, it was just scrapes, but he was so fucking quiet. It wasn’t natural, not having the little muppet run his mouth like he was getting paid for it.”

“He seemed all right after,” Keeley said hesitantly, because Jamie had, when he left them on the morning of Christmas Eve and when they talked to him yesterday. Happier than normally, even. But Roy was right, it seemed a little strange in retrospect, that he had shaken it off so completely, given the state of him when she first arrived at Roy’s three nights ago. “You think he’s used to it,” she realised aloud. “That’s why he bounced back so quickly.”

“I know arseholes like that, okay? My sister fucking married one. So yeah, I don’t think it’s the first time it happened, and it probably won’t be the last either, and I keep on fucking wondering if his dad’s the reason he walked out on City, and City’s playing Chelsea in a couple of week s and I—“ He paused again. “I know it’s fucking stupid, it’s none of my business. I don’t even like the prick.”

Keeley had a sneaking suspicion that that wasn’t quite as true as it once had been, but she didn’t mention that. Let Roy reach that conclusion when he was ready to. “I think it’s sweet,” she said instead. “The way you stepped in when he needed you to, and took care of him. I mean it,” she added off his predictable eye-roll. “I’m really proud of you, babe. And,” she pressed on, because it was true and because she knew he tended to get a little uncomfortable when things got too earnest, “it was kind of sexy, too.”

Roy’s eyebrows rose at that. “You thought me taking care of Jamie was sexy? What happened to your thing being me crying pathetically?”

“Girls have deep and complex tastes, Royo. So yeah, you being vulnerable and passionate is really hot, but as it turns out, you being all caring and protective and fetching tea really gets me going as well.” She smiled at him and he scoffed, but smiled back. “Seriously, though,” she continued, “I was thinking we should ask Jamie over some day. Just hang out a little, make sure he’s all right.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “You better not be suggesting we invite him to Sexy Christmas.”

“No,” Keeley said with a small a laugh, even as the thought of it sent a pleasant shiver through her. Sex with Roy was fantastic. Sex with Jamie had always been amazing. Both of them, and with the way she suspected their tastes would run exceedingly compatible, with her and with each other… Well. A girl could dream (and maybe have a wank once she got of the phone with Roy). “But dinner sometime soon, yeah?

“Fine,” Roy said, sounding like he was only reluctantly agreeing to do her a favour, but she knew him well enough to see the relief in his dark eyes.

Fuck, but she loved him. The way he cared so deeply, even when he didn’t want to, and even when he would sneer at the assertion.

“You’re so fucking hot,” she told him. “I can’t wait for the 28:th.”

He smiled for real then, that wide grin he reserved for just her and sometimes Phoebe and his sister. “Me neither,” he agreed. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, see you then. Love you.”

“Love you.”

They hung up, and Keeley yawned. It was getting late, and she had to be up early tomorrow, for an entire day of what was supposedly just a bit of informal mingling for publicists, a little holiday get together on Jace Asthon’s country house, but which was in actuality the networking opportunity of the year for people in her line of business. She needed to be well-rested and looking ready to slay for this one, and had a bunch of people and business to read up on, potential sponsors and partners for Richmond.

She still took the time to send a couple of texts before turning out the lights.

hey jamie

got any plans for new year’s eve?

She hardly had time to set the phone down before it pinged with his reply.

Doesn’t really give a shit if I’m not playing for City.

Something slid into place then. “Is that why you did Lust Conquers All?” Roy asked. “To get away from you dad?”

Jamie didn’t answer, but that just said it all, didn’t it?

[imtheiliad]

SEVEN SENTENCE SUNDAY tagged by @panbuckley @prince-buck-diaz and @911onabc have some michael and eddie 🥰

...Now enough business -- let's get back to you. I know you were avoiding it. I did win the office pool on if you would cause another spectacle.” “Can't believe I trusted you?” Eddie gasps melodramatically. “What is really going on here?” “Nothing.” Eddie shrugs, “Evan is just someone I know. There was an unfortunate incident involving the both of us. We fixed it. It's fine.” Michael fixes him with a look, not entirely convinced, ”Well I think that we can both agree that he's pretty handsome can't we?“ ”I mean, if you like, you know, fairy tale princes and shit.“ ”You're telling me that you don’t want that?” “I don't believe that it's real, you know in this reality. Or I had my chance and lost it.” Michael looks at him skeptically again. He looks indignant right back. “Just remembering your little prince evan voodoo doll last summer. ”I had one magazine with one picture of him in it. There were far more pictures of me-- I was also on the cover so,“ ”I caught you staring at that singular picture more than once Eddie.“ Eddie rolls his eyes, sighing as he leans forward. ”It seemed like if you tried hard enough maybe he would spring to life from the page and you could then--“ ”What is the point of this exaggeration?“ ”I just find it interesting how fast things have shifted.“ ”It was either that or fake my death,“ he laughs lightly, ”And it's politics. You know how I love that.“ The look comes back, and Eddie isn't sure why he didn't expect it. ”I came here with a political agenda from Athena, not to discuss my own fuck ups.“ ”I thought you wanted to say hi to an old family friend?“ ”Right.“   ”Don't you have something better to do with precious baby-free time Eddie? Isn't there something else you would want to do with that, you're twenty-one. You have a kid, you didn't join a seminary. You should be going out and doing whatever people your age do.” “I do! Sometimes. Occasionally. Rarely.” “And you should have friends!” “I have friends.” “That are not Karen or related to you.” Eddie huffs. “You need to take breaks, kid. Use your support system. I know you have very legitimate reasons for taking on parenting on your own, and I commend you for it. But use the people you have so you don't wear yourself thin too fast.” Eddie rubs his face and sighs, “I know. I am trying.” “As long as you are trying,“ he smiles gently, “Now I have some real work to do here, so go,” he shoos Eddie toward the door, “Take this precious time. Enjoying it doesn't mean you don't love him any less. And don't forget to make me that list!“

tagging @useramor @roy-kents @queertartt @heartbeatdiaz @bucks118 @cowboydiazes @alyxmastershipper and anyone who wants to share! <3

[kittythelitter]

Ted Lasso finale AU where most things are the same but we encourage cutting out the toxic people in our beloved characters' lives.

Jamie gets a restraining order against his dad and they never speak again. Maybe his dad gets sober and supports him from afar. But it's both a bad writing decision for Jamie's arc and a bad message* for the show for them to reconcile without at the very least having Jamie's dad make some kind of reparations in the show.

Beard gets away from Jane even if he doesn't want to because she's so fucking bad for him and dating her is self destructive. Maybe Jane pulls some bullshit that requires the club to get a restraining order against her and then Beard has to choose between her and the club and Higgins puts his fucking foot down and insists that if Beard chooses Jane over the club he at the very least talks to Doc Sharon about it first because Higgins loves Beard, everyone at Richmond loves Beard, but if he leaves for Jane he can't come to games or be in their lives which would tear away his whole support system in England and make him entirely dependent on Jane. Which would be really bad for him. And it's not an ultimatum. But legally Beard can't be a part of Richmond if he's with her. Higgins would try to be there for Beard but the Diamond Dogs aren't the Diamond Dogs if one of them can't legally come to Richmond. It's very fraught but Beard hugs Higgins and talks to Doc Sharon and tells Jane that he needs the club more than he needs her and Higgins helps him block and delete her numbers and email and shit when she flips out.

Maybe she does something unhinged and breaks the restraining order and gets arrested. Maybe Beard spends a few nights sleeping at the club to keep himself safe from her. Maybe Higgins puts him up in his house to keep him safe because Jane burned down his fucking apartment.

No matter what, it's important to me that Beard gets away from Jane and Higgins helps him. Because that was such a good storyline that was totally abandoned and it would be a much better message* for the show to have than Jane and Beard getting married without Ted there and having a baby because that's fucking stupid.

As an aside I don't love Rebecca with the random Dutch man. Like I want her to be happy and if he makes her happy more power to her, buuuut it seems less like she likes him and more like she likes the idea of him so maybe instead.

And this is absolutely unhinged but it crawled into my brain and I kind of love it?

Beard and Rebecca have an incredibly ill-advised hookup exactly once right as he breaks up with Jane and she's grieving her friendship with Ted and retroactively like. Maybe I did love Ted romantically? But now it's too late? And like. Whether she did love Ted romantically, or is just grieving and in a culture that values romance over friendship and the power of her feelings are overwhelming her sense is up to interpretation. But either way. She's having big feelings and Beard is the closest thing to Ted she's got and he's having a melt down over Jane so. Exactly 1 hookup that defies every possible odd and they're platonically Co-parenting a child.

Ted loves this kid more than anything and visits way more often because of it, though. To be clear. I agree with Ted going back to the states because this story is an Odyssey and just like Dorothy no matter how much he loves Oz and his friends he needs to return to Kansas. And I could make a whole separate post on that. But anyway. BeardBecca baby that baffles and confuses everyone but somehow works. They're good friends who bond over their baby, their unexpected love of football/Richmond, and their love of Ted and have a very bizarre friendship that involves co-parenting a fucking brilliant chaotic child.

Also. I am a Roy/Keeley/Jamie truther so. I love Keeley choosing herself and I definitely want her to figure out who she is outside of a relationship for a while. But she and the boys eventually start all dating.

*To clarify: normally I'm not one to double down on the message that a show sends unless it's literally something that is educational and/or designed to teach children about their feelings, but Ted Lasso very much tries to teach the average American viewer about healthy ways to process emotions and non-toxic masculinity etc. So the messages it sends about relationships and forgiveness are very much part of the show and its purpose so having these shitty messages kind of undermines the purpose.

[succession-meta]

Under OP's cut:

Nonspecific References

Most importantly, the whole reason why I think Rome is such an apt metaphor is because of where it is in history. Rome reigned for over 1000 years, it was founded in 625 BC and fell in AD 476. If you told an average Roman that it would fall, it would seem literally unthinkable. That is kind of how the kids view Waystar, and by extension Logan; especially Roman, who can’t even see his clearly aging father’s health as fallible. It’s also how Logan views himself in my opinion, not as a person, but as an empire. I could talk more about this but I’ll cap it here.

Very obviously, we have Romulus “Roman” Roy. Romulus and Remus are the mythical twin founders of Rome who were raised by a she-wolf. The versions vary, but most tellings say that Romulus wanted to build the city on one hill, Remus on another. Romulus kills Remus and thus, Rome was founded on an act of fratricide. Now what does this actually mean for Roman? So there’s two things I personally think. One, I find it very interesting that Logan named him Romulus, the twin that killed his brother and founded arguably the most powerful empire in history. It is completely in line with Logan’s seriously fucked up value system. But he rarely calls him by his given name. He calls him Roman, indicating like just a normal everyday soldier, not the illustrious founder of Rome. The second thing it makes me think of is the whole conversation around who is a “killer”. Roman isn’t really the type who would kill his sibling to rule. He refuses to sign Shiv’s letter, he doesn’t take the out in “All the Bells”, sure, he does terrible awful things to his siblings, but he is not a killer. I find this contrast with his namesake very interesting. Particularly with how this does make Kendall defacto Remus, always the sacrifice, never the ruler.

Full credit to @greggsandham for pointing this out to me, but there are 3 kids in contention here (sorry Connor). Very famously, Rome had two triumvirates. The First Triumvirate made up of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. They worked together to consolidate power in Rome, despite their personal dislike of each other because working together was the only way they could get what they all wanted. It actually worked for a little bit until Crassus died and Caesar became a dictator and then got stabbed by all his coworkers. The Second Triumvirate was actually legally sanctioned and consisted of Marc Antony, Augustus (Caesar’s adopted son), and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. It was formed in response to the assassination of Caesar. This alliance also fell, and Augustus killed Marc Antony, who very famously died with his lover Cleopatra. But that threeway power deal sure does sound an awful lot like the three way power deal that the kids wanted to form…

Additionally, Rome was ruled by two consuls who were supposed to keep each other in check. Rome and Kendall are co-COOs! Designed to balance eachother out/check each other’s power just like the consulship.

The treatment of Shiv as a character is generally misogynistic, but is in line with how the Romans viewed women. They could not vote or hold public office and were generally viewed as extensions of their husbands and fathers; even the daughters of emperors. Their primary function was to be a wife and mother. Mirroring Logan’s comment to Tom about producing a grandson, that is the best thing that Shiv can actually do for her dad in his eyes/her primary. He doesn’t say grandchild, he says grandson. He clearly doesn’t view Iverson as suitable, so he needs Shiv to give him another option.

Another much discussed reference that could be its whole own post is the staggering amount of Kendall/Jesus imagery and connections. Jesus lived during the time of the Roman Empire for anyone not familiar with the Christian canon. Just to name a few, we have the literal cross in “Too Much Birthday”, laying in Naomi’s lap like the Pieta, and Roman pushing him down (Jesus fell 3 times during the Way of the Cross). Kendall in the crucifixion pose in the S2 finale + the reference to Judas when he kisses Logan on the cheek before betraying him.

Please stay tuned for part two! I’m currently watching season 1 again, and already have noticed quite a few that I didn’t catch the first time around. Let me know what you think and if you made it this far, thanks for listening to my silly little rambles about my fav show ever :)

every reference to greek and roman history in succession (part 1)

This has been an obscene amount of work and I actually am rewatching the entire show to ensure that I don't miss anything. If I did, please let me know! I’m not a historian by any means, I just did this for fun. As a background on why I think this is important, there have been so many intentional allusions to the Greeks and Romans throughout the series; often as foreshadowing. Most obviously, Nero and Sporus, but there have been ones that are much more subtle! It leans predominantly towards Roman references, but there are a few Greek ones in there. Anyway, please enjoy. I am going to break it down by episode/general things I have noticed. I will link any outside sources I used but most of this will come from my own knowledge. This first part will cover non episode specific references.

Nonspecific References

Most importantly, the whole reason why I think Rome is such an apt metaphor is because of where it is in history. Rome reigned for over 1000 years, it was founded in 625 BC and fell in AD 476. If you told an average Roman that it would fall, it would seem literally unthinkable. That is kind of how the kids view Waystar, and by extension Logan; especially Roman, who can’t even see his clearly aging father’s health as fallible. It’s also how Logan views himself in my opinion, not as a person, but as an empire. I could talk more about this but I’ll cap it here.

Very obviously, we have Romulus “Roman” Roy. Romulus and Remus are the mythical twin founders of Rome who were raised by a she-wolf. The versions vary, but most tellings say that Romulus wanted to build the city on one hill, Remus on another. Romulus kills Remus and thus, Rome was founded on an act of fratricide. Now what does this actually mean for Roman? So there’s two things I personally think. One, I find it very interesting that Logan named him Romulus, the twin that killed his brother and founded arguably the most powerful empire in history. It is completely in line with Logan’s seriously fucked up value system. But he rarely calls him by his given name. He calls him Roman, indicating like just a normal everyday soldier, not the illustrious founder of Rome. The second thing it makes me think of is the whole conversation around who is a “killer”. Roman isn’t really the type who would kill his sibling to rule. He refuses to sign Shiv’s letter, he doesn’t take the out in “All the Bells”, sure, he does terrible awful things to his siblings, but he is not a killer. I find this contrast with his namesake very interesting. Particularly with how this does make Kendall defacto Remus, always the sacrifice, never the ruler. 

Full credit to @greggsandham for pointing this out to me, but there are 3 kids in contention here (sorry Connor). Very famously, Rome had two triumvirates. The First Triumvirate made up of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. They worked together to consolidate power in Rome, despite their personal dislike of each other because working together was the only way they could get what they all wanted. It actually worked for a little bit until Crassus died and Caesar became a dictator and then got stabbed by all his coworkers. The Second Triumvirate was actually legally sanctioned and consisted of Marc Antony, Augustus (Caesar's adopted son), and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. It was formed in response to the assassination of Caesar. This alliance also fell, and Augustus killed Marc Antony, who very famously died with his lover Cleopatra. But that threeway power deal sure does sound an awful lot like the three way power deal that the kids wanted to form…

Additionally, Rome was ruled by two consuls who were supposed to keep each other in check. Rome and Kendall are co-COOs! Designed to balance eachother out/check each other's power just like the consulship.

The treatment of Shiv as a character is generally misogynistic, but is in line with how the Romans viewed women. They could not vote or hold public office and were generally viewed as extensions of their husbands and fathers; even the daughters of emperors. Their primary function was to be a wife and mother. Mirroring Logan’s comment to Tom about producing a grandson, that is the best thing that Shiv can actually do for her dad in his eyes/her primary. He doesn’t say grandchild, he says grandson. He clearly doesn’t view Iverson as suitable, so he needs Shiv to give him another option. 

Another much discussed reference that could be its whole own post is the staggering amount of Kendall/Jesus imagery and connections. Jesus lived during the time of the Roman Empire for anyone not familiar with the Christian canon. Just to name a few, we have the literal cross in “Too Much Birthday”, laying in Naomi's lap like the Pieta, and Roman pushing him down (Jesus fell 3 times during the Way of the Cross). Kendall in the crucifixion pose in the S2 finale + the reference to Judas when he kisses Logan on the cheek before betraying him.

Please stay tuned for part two! I'm currently watching season 1 again, and already have noticed quite a few that I didn't catch the first time around. Let me know what you think and if you made it this far, thanks for listening to my silly little rambles about my fav show ever :)

[chainofclovers]

Nate the Great

Hello, I am here because I cannot stop thinking about Nathan Shelley and the many things that are Happening with him. Spoiler-cut for spoilers through Ted Lasso 2x8 and speculation based on conversations w/@bristler, other people in the fandom, a really great interview with Nick Mohammed, and the endless barrage of thoughts in my head!

In 1x7, when Nate gets his chance to roast the players before their match in Liverpool, I both delighted and cringed at the moment. Nate's big moment gets the intended results--he riles up the players by hitting them where it hurts, and that energy nets Ted and the team a much-needed win. But I've always felt that part of why Nate is allowed to deliver his speech in such an uncensored way has a lot to do with Ted's shame that he got drunk and snapped at Nate the night before. It took vulnerability for Nate to decide to slip his thoughts about the team underneath Ted's door, and Ted wasn't in a position to recognize that act for what it was; Ted makes Nate feel weak, and that's got to be crushing coming from someone who's become a mentor and friend. At the same time, Ted is starting to evolve into a person who understands winning is important, so he makes the call that's going to help the team win...and ends up unwittingly rewarding the crueler parts of Nate in the process.

Fast forward to season 2, and Nate still hasn't learned the difference between vulnerability and weakness. The people in his life who understand the difference haven't fully comprehended how much Nate needs to learn it, and they haven't taught him, and Nate's own feelings of self-worth are so bound up in external factors that he's not able to pick it up by osmosis, either.

So now I can't stop thinking about the moment in 2x8 when Higgins and the coaches huddle before the big match and Ted tells everyone he's been having panic attacks. Everyone goes around and spontaneously shares something they've been keeping to themselves, and each person's admission feels like an act of solidarity. Vulnerability. But Nate sees weakness, and his own admission is actually about his ability to be calculating--his ability to make an idea feel spontaneous.

I keep imagining a moment when fame- and power-hungry Nate gets an opportunity to be in the spotlight, and I imagine another moment like the locker room scene in 1x7. A moment with spontaneous-feeling energy that's actually totally calculated. And this time, instead of a cringe-y moment easily forgotten because it brought victory, this moment could be devastating and profoundly regrettable.

Because what if Nate tells the press his own version of the vulnerable stories his friends and colleagues shared in confidence. The weak versions of their vulnerability.

In my imagined version of Nate's words to the press, Ted isn't a man seeking treatment for his panic disorder; he's unfit to coach due to untreated mental illness. Roy isn't an impatient person who doesn't bother to read the coaching reports Ted, Beard, and Nate put together; he's a star whose ego allows him to coast on fame without having to bother with the details of the team. Higgins isn't a harried, office-less professional who messed up a timezone; he's inept and in over his head and sabotaged the roster of the team. Beard isn't a normally-perceptive coach who made a mistake with the mushroom tea because he's being abused by his girlfriend and lacks his usual support system; he's a drug user who lets his personal relationships get in the way of his professional responsibilities.

There's a grain of truth to everything Nate says, but he's lacking the spirit of why he has this information, the context of vulnerability, the preciousness of this one oasis of connection between coaches who are currently disjointed.

I know there's a lot of talk about the relationship between Sam and Rebecca and the Dubai Air and Bantr sponsorships and how those could be a big issue in the press. I definitely think that's a big possibility, but everyone involved in that subplot has a support system. They have a place to land no matter how bad things get, and the show already does a great job depicting how incredibly cruel and unfair the British press can be about personal matters.

This stuff with Nate, though...while the coaches do have a support system and people they can trust, all those connections seem so much more tenuous. And Nate isn't able to trust anyone right now, least of all himself. So the more abusive he gets, he could really fuck a lot of people over, and he might be the one who gets the most hurt in the end.

There's a lot to appreciate about the interview with Nick Mohammed linked above, but I want to particularly call out the fact that he points out that in s1, when he's angry with Rebecca, he calls her a "shrew." I knew that wasn't just a throwaway line, a moment of casual misogyny overlooked, somehow, by the multi-gender writers' room. It was absolutely intentional, absolutely a sign of how far he can go even on a dime when he's upset. He also points out the importance of Rebecca telling him early in s2 that he deserves what he wants. Imagine the irony of that coming back to haunt her if Nate betrays the team (and Rebecca by extension), or if he hurts Rebecca again more personally. I also appreciate that Mohammed lets us know that he's not going to die in season 2 and that he has a storyline in season 3.

I just think there's going to be a lot of pain on the way there.

(This show is so good. Even if it goes nothing like what I'm predicting here, I have every confidence that the betrayal arc is going to be intense and earned.)

[masterthespianduchovny]

I’m going to be honest: I dislike Nate right now.

And that’s perfectly fine.

I understand that this show loves to redeem people, however, as I said in another post, you can only redeem someone if there are negative feelings and/or you believe that person wronged someone or whatever. If you have positive feelings and excuse what they did, what exactly are they being redeemed for?

Despite loving Rebecca’s character, when I rewatch season one, I don’t like her at times. I dislike a lot of what she did back then. It doesn’t matter that I know she tells the truth eventually, the stuff she did was still fucked up. I’m not going to preemptively excuse her actions because I know the end goal.

Take Jamie for instance, his behavior was not okay. We know why he behaves that way, but it still wasn’t justified. We are still allowed to dislike him and what he did then. We talk about the negative effects of the bullying Nate received from the players, yet some try to excuse Nate’s bullying and his actions?

Wrong is wrong. Jamie being verbally abused by his dad didn’t justify how he treated others just like how Nate’s father (and bullying by others) is emotionally abusive doesn’t justify Nate’s behavior.

Although we understand the context, Nate IS being a fucking backstabbing asshole right now. Some may hate to hear that, but this isn’t an unfair opinion or unflattering light of him. This is exactly how he’s behaving.

There are some who has a ton of sympathy for Nate, but I’m not one of them. Please believe, I do hold some sympathy for him, but I have a limit.

So here’s reasons why Nate is on my shitlist and I’ll wait until he’s actually redeemed to forgive him.

1. Calling Rebecca a shrew. It’s not the fact that he literally called Rebecca this, but that he immediately verbally attacked the woman. We can say, “oh no, she’s the owner so he had reasons to think…”

No, Nate literally attacked Rebecca for no reason at all. She had little to no interaction with him and has never disrespected or harmed him in anyway, yet he has these intense feelings of dislike in the moment based off what exactly?

Nate attacked Rebecca because she is a woman. If you disagree, what other reason it might be? The reason I believe it was due to her gender is because she’s been defanged so to speak. So he doesn’t fear her like he used to. But Nate also practices in casual misogyny ie his shoe remark to Rebecca and Keeley. That may not seem like a big thing, but how is that an involuntary response??? With him believing he got fired, he doesn’t wait for answers, he immediately attacks her. And I had to ask myself, would he have done this with a man? With someone like Rupert? No fucking way. Nate can’t even directly challenge Ted who is a ray of sunshine, but attacks someone who he literally ran away from in fear in the pilot. Although Nate respects power, he respects male power the most. He skipped over Ted and Beard and went straight towards Rebecca. The fact that this even happened has always been disturbing to me. And Nate is fucking lucky that he hasn’t said any of his comments to old Rebecca (not age, but personality. 🥺) because she would have fired him. Only due to her relationship with Ted and him getting to let her guard down and find her old self that she frowned and shrugged Nate’s comments off. Most bosses at the very least would’ve talked to Nate and he didn’t get even that.

2. Projecting his daddy issues onto Ted. I understand that nate is going through some tough shit and has been for literally decades, however, that doesn’t mean make someone your stand in dad because they were nice and kind. Ted treats Nate like he does the other coaches, but Nate wants a special and unique relationship that will never exist. Ted is not his father and he didn’t ask for the job or the responsibilities.

I understand that people go through shit and latch onto those who made the rough times easier. I get that. However, all this animosity, scheming, and resentment because Ted isn’t giving the attention he wants. That fucking unfair to Ted. He didn’t ask or sign up to be Nate’s father figure. Yet he’s being punished for not being something he never wanted to be. Never even thought about it.

And because I’ve seen/partially experienced this shit, people getting mad at you for not being who they projected onto, it makes me upset at Nate. Because people like this really do become resentful and manipulative and that is not okay despite their own hurt that they’re dealing with. Why does the person you projected on have to suffer for something they’re unaware of and have no obligation to fulfill?

Nate isn’t just trying to blow up Ted’s professional career, he’s doing it via one of the cruelest ways: using his mental health against him. Thereby exploiting Ted’s trust in him.

Ted has literally changed Nate’s life for the better and rather than have a man to man talk with him, he cowardly tries to sabotage Ted in one of the worst ways imaginable.

3. His cognitive dissonance about how coaching works!!!

This seriously irritates me because, on some level, Nate knows that the very system he’s criticizing is how it works across ALL team sports and with reason.

He wants to be a damn head coach soooo bad—does he think ideas, plans, plays, etc only comes from head coaches???

What does he think assistants are there for?

For those who aren’t familiar with sports and coaching, literally every team sport has a head coach and then assistants under them. These assistant typically specialize in a given thing.

In American football, I believe there are like defensive coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, etc. there are coaches who watch a lot of tapes to learn the opposition and how to make plays to hold them exploit their weakness and tailor plays around that.

Like on the professional level there are so many types of coaches and, hell, not all of them want to be head coaches. Some of the greatest coaching minds aren’t head coaches.

For example, the American basketball team the Chicago bulls fired their coach Doug Collins in like 1989, I think. He was a good coach, but one of his assistant coaches had a basketball IQ out of this world. Doug refused to listen to him, but management fully supported this assistant coach. Now the other assistant coach they were grooming to take over, Phil Jackson, if you’ve heard of him, DID listen to this basketball genius. So much so that when he became head coach after Doug was fired, he continued to implement The Triangle offense that came from this basketball genius, which Phil was known for until he retired.

Nate’s upset that Ted gets all the credit for if they win, he does realize that Ted also gets all the blame for if they lose. Ted has always highlighted his coaching staff and everyone who helped him. He has always stressed that he wouldn’t be where he is without them. And when he loses, he takes full ownership. He doesn’t pass the blame at all.

Does Nate seem like someone who’d take ownership for losing?

Does Nate seem like someone, at this moment, who’d appropriately give credit to assistant or anyone else who helped him?

Would he even listen?

What makes Ted a great coach is that he gives others opportunities to step up to the plate and if/when they succeed, he allows them to shine.

Ted sees the fuller picture, for the most part, and knows how to address his weaknesses and who’s stronger than him in what area. He realized that the team needed a presence like Roy on the team. He knew he needed someone like beard who could absorb insane amounts of knowledge. He saw that Nate had potential coaching ability.

But Nate doesn’t understand the importance or value of this. He also doesn’t understand how instrumental Ted’s philosophy has been in transforming the culture of the team. That this is also a reason why the team is playing better.

So like, yeah, I’ll forgive Nate when he’s redeemed. But these three things are what really irks me about him. Just because I understand why he is acting this way doesn’t mean I have to excuse it when he’s being a dick to others, complaining about shit only due to his ego, and doing fucked up shit like leaking someone’s mental health struggles so he can gain an advantage over them.

Does he think that if Ted leaves/gets fired that he’s getting the job??? I mean hopefully whatever he has going on with Rupert works out (before it inevitably goes wrong) because this isn’t going to turn out how he thinks it will.

[thetriggeredhappy]

day 1 let’s fuckin’ go. everyone listen to butterflies by samsa

Day 1: Pursuit

“You seriously don’t have any better games than this?” Scout complained, looking back down at the board, doubtful. “Not even, like, a deck of cards? To play poker or somethin’?”

“Rather not play two-person poker, and I don’t like gambling anyways,” was Sniper’s reply, not glancing up from shuffling the cards.

“I mean, maybe Go Fish then, or Old Maid, or—or somethin’, not fuckin’… Trivial Pursuit.”

Sniper seemed to mull that over for a moment. “If you don’t want to play,” he started to say, hesitant, and Scout sputtered to cut him off before he could finish that thought.

“I, I mean, I didn’t say that,” he managed, still half-glaring down at the board. “Just, y’know.”

Sniper probably didn’t know, actually. Truthfully, Scout wasn’t much for… book smarts type games. Games that needed quick reflexes, talking quickly, theatrics, those he was a champion at besides his eternally bad luck, but facts and numbers and geography? Those he tended to sort of… fuck up beyond recognition. And he really, really didn’t want to look like a complete idiot in front of Sniper.

Kind of the worst case scenario, actually. But the worse worst case scenario was driving the guy away before even getting to hang out with him, here, the first time he’d ever agreed to one of Scout’s dozens of proposed hangouts.

Hell, he’d honestly gotten used to Sniper always saying no. ‘Nah’ and ‘Not this time’ and ‘Afraid not, sorry mate’ were three phrases Scout had heard at least three and four times a week for months, now. He’d started brushing right through it, stopped letting it hurt his feelings even, although he couldn’t help but get his hopes up, still. Invitations to team drinking nights and poker parties and carpooling with the guys to the movies or a bar or a casino, or more overt invitations to listen to new albums or go out to get fast food or to fairs or to concerts, he’d long since gotten used to those standard, polite rejections.

So he was surprised, then, when he’d delivered his offhanded invitation—“Hey, Snipes, all the other guys bailed on the rec room game night tonight, you wanna be there anyways?”—he hadn���t expected Sniper to hesitate for a few seconds before shrugging and saying sure.

Hell, he was halfway through his ‘yeah no problem no worries man’ before he even realized Sniper said yes, then it was fumbling the whole rest of the way.

Better to be an idiot friend than a distant acquaintance, maybe. That’s what he told himself.

A brief mumbled rundown of the rules went in one ear and out the other as he got preoccupied with looking over one of the cards, mind boggled by what the hell the letters and colors were supposed to mean. A short summary was nodded at vaguely, and apparently his poker face had been terrible all along, because Sniper shrugged and said that they could just play first to six questions right and tally up wins from there. Then they rolled a dice and Sniper, apparently, would go first.

“Alright, uh,” Scout said, squinting down at the little card. “What does a… he-leo-logist, study?”

Sniper thought about it for a second. “Er… the sun,” he replied.

“Yep,” Scout nodded, nudged a piece towards him. Sniper took it. “So, uh, you go again?”

“Yeah. Er… geography, this time,” Sniper mumbled, shuffling some pieces around in a way that probably made sense to people who actually knew how this board game worked.

“Sure. What’s… the country that has South America’s highest and lowest points?”

Another pause. “Bloody… Argentina, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Damn. Okay, next one,” Scout said, less concerned about the fact that Sniper was doing well and more worried at the fact that he was gonna do awful.

“Geography again,” Sniper determined.

“What natural… breakwater, is off the north… eastern, part of Australia?” he read, a little stilted, squinting at the letters, like that would help, for once. Silence, for a pause, then for longer. Scout breathed an internal sigh of relief, smiling a little. “C’mon, it’s your own fuckin’, uh… country, continent, thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s both,” Sniper said, and paused. “It… it’s not talking about the bloody, er… Solomon Islands, is it?”

“Great Barrier Reef,” Scout replied.

Sniper muttered a swear. “Overthought it,” he sighed, nudging the dice over to Scout, who rolled it. Sniper glanced at the number, moved the pieces, looked at a card. “Right. What craft uses a… kiln, and a kick wheel?”

Scout could’ve cried. “That’s, uh, pottery, sculpting,” he said, relieved.

A nod from Sniper, a piece scooped onto his side of the table, the dice rolled a few seconds later when he realized he was supposed to do that. “How many colors are in the rainbow?” he asked next.

Scout had to count off on his fingers for a second. “Uh, seven,” he said, and fist-pumped when Sniper nodded, scooping up another piece. “Even though it’s, uh, kinda bullishit. There should be six.”

Sniper’s eyebrows ticking up in confusion probably was a sign he should drop it, but instead he found himself spouting off.

“Because, uh, like, y’know, there’s—there’s the kinds of colors, right?” he said, backpedaling at his response of furrowed eyebrows. “Like, the basic ones, the, uh, primary colors, that’s red and yellow and blue, y’know? And then the other three, that you get from mixing those, like, uh, red and yellow is, uh… is orange, and then like, green, and purple, you combine ‘em, right?”

Sniper nodded slowly after a moment.

“But then you got, uh, fuckin’… indigo. In the, uh, in the list of colors, fuckin’, Roy G. Biv? Red orange yellow, green, blue indigo violet? And I know it’s, like, blue and dark blue, but I think that still sucks. If we’ve got indigo we’ve gotta have like, the other in- between guys. Know what I mean?”

“Don’t have much of an opinion on it, but, sounds like you’re making points,” Sniper said, and Scout shrugged, glanced down at the table, tapped his fingertips against his knees out of sight to try and let out some nervous energy. “Bloody, er… your turn, or mine?”

“Uh, mine,” Scout said, scrambling to roll the dice.

“Right. Sorry. Er…” Sniper read over the card. “Patron saint of Scotland?”

Scout swore under his breath, deflating a little, coming up blank. “Uh… hey, Demo!” he called, and heard a vague ‘aye’ from the kitchen. “Who’s the patron saint of Scotland?”

“My mum,” Demo called back, and Sniper snickered, at least, which softened the blow to Scout’s confidence considerably.

“Ah, fuck off,” Scout called back, and looked back at Sniper, smiling. “Saint Scrumpy, fuck, I dunno.”

“Saint Andrew, apparently,” Sniper shrugged, rolling the dice. “Sports question. The orange one.”

Scout tried to read the question before starting to say anything out loud, and found himself completely lost anyways. “Who was the first… Ch—Check-uh-slavarian… to win, the… Wimbleton…”

“No idea,” Sniper said outright, shaking his head at himself. “Don’t follow, er… what, the Olympics?”

“Tennis, I guess,” Scout shrugged, rolling the dice.

“Sports for you too. What did… bloody hell. What did second baseman Bill… Wambsganss, do all by himself in the, er… 1920 World Series game?”

“Oh, shit,” Scout laughed, “guy did, like, a triple play, and then hit into a double later that same game. That was the year some guy got hit in the head with a ball and fuckin’ died.”

Sniper was staring at him, clearly shocked.

“What?” Scout asked, rolling the dice. “I know baseball. And it was a whole thing.”

Sniper seemed to shrug it off, shaking his head. “What’s the Taj Mahal made of?”

“Fuckin’, I dunno, chocolate? What, that some kinda dessert? What’s that?” Scout scoffed, trying to play it off.

“It’s… it’s a place. Looks a bit like a castle? Like, er, like the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, tourist sort of thing?” Sniper tried, and Scout shrugged, and he shrugged back, rolling the dice. “Fair enough. One of the, er, Science ones. Green one.”

Scout looked at the card for a few seconds. “I… dunno how to say this word. Glue… glay… what’s that?”

Sniper leaned over, and Scout turned it towards him. “Glaucoma. Hits your eyes,” he said, and Scout nodded, and he took a piece, rolled again. “Brown one.”

“What are… catalogued, under the Dewey decimal system?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“Books, library books,” Sniper mumbled.

“Jesus, are you—where’s the mirrors, seriously? How are you doing that?” Scout asked, and Sniper huffed something like a laugh, taking the piece, rolling again. “No, no, seriously. How the hell do you know half of these?”

“Geography, blue,” he prompted.

“Alright, I swear to god.” Scout held the card close as he read it, first to himself, then out loud. “What national capital is heated by underground hot springs?”

Sniper, to his credit, paused for a moment before answering. “Iceland’s. Reykjavik, it’s called.”

“I swear to god.” Scout flipped over the card, read the answer. “Oh, what the fuck!”

“I’ve bloody been there!” Sniper defended.

“Nah, fuck off, hold on—“ Scout picked up another card, reading another question. “Where in a tree does photosynthesis happen?”

“Leaves.”

“How do you know that so fast!” Scout demanded.

“That’s just science class in school!”

“Fuckin’—who, fuckin’, rode on the raft with Huck Finn?” Scout asked next.

“The, er… runaway, Jim.”

“Oh, what!” Scout all but shouted.

“Scout, I read.”

“Nah, nah, you’re way too good at this game, either you’re like, cheating, or you on purpose picked this game because you’re, like, weirdly crazy good at it or something!”

Sniper’s expression went from amusement to that blankness again, and it only made Scout even more infuriated.

“I mean, seriously, did you pick this game on purpose because you just know all the cards? Did you just wanna do the game where you’d for sure win?” he demanded.

Sniper was fidgeting with his glasses, now, and to be honest, Scout wasn’t even particularly mad, just confused.

“I mean, shit, you’d think you just wanted too play this one so you could look smart and cool and shit like that,” he said. and saw the way Sniper shrank a little, and the lightbulb went off way too late.

A pause.

“Dude,” Scout said, fighting down a laugh.

Sniper mumbled something he didn’t quite hear, sinking in his chair.

“Alright, seriously, if you wanna look smarter than me, you really don’t gotta pull out the trivia questions. Pretty much any game works, you know that, right? I’ll make an idiot of myself playing, like… Uno,” Scout said. Sniper shrugged, still not looking him in the eye. “Okay. Here’s an idea. How about we play, uh… I dunno, Crazy Eights. And while we play I’m gonna keep grilling you on this random trivia shit because seriously, that’s totally nuts, man.”

Sniper hesitated for a few seconds before he finally nodded and straightened up, and in a way, they both won. Scout because he now at least knew he wasn’t the only one who was a total mess and way too worried about what other people thought, and Sniper because he could keep being impressive about random trivia knowledge. Apparently, he knew a bunch about geography and books and nature, and not a single thing about sports.

Scout accused him of trying to memorize the cards. Sniper laughed, properly, for the first time all night.

[envythepalmtree]

fma blogs to follow?

Ooh I've actually been planning on making this post for a while too!

Art blogs that ID their own posts that you should follow

@morningsaidthemoon - does ids in alt text! I really love their pieces - they're kinda soft in like. color and lines? and tender if that makes sense. Multifandom, they tag fandoms.

@mildly-artsy - @mildly-nerdy's new art blog! also does them in alt text. Her lines are so clean and I love how people look in her style. Mostly FMA.

Other blogs that write IDs and/or look through the notes for IDs (that you should follow and reblog the IDed version of posts)

@liathgray - they're the author of Blackwell Springs, an extremely popular fic I have not read yet, and the A Hop, Skip, and a Jump series that I'm very much obsessed with. Multifandom, they tag fandoms.

@nerdywriiterchild - bro I love their xerxes fics so much 😔 Multifandom.

@xingeseprince - IDs almost everything. Good descriptions! Sideblog, all FMA.

@princess-of-purple-prose - the meme ID person! (They're one of the people who started a huge doc of ID templates for memes to save people spoons, which is cool.) Multifandom, tags fandoms, mostly not FMA.

Other art blogs I love

I wish I could tag like. every one of my art mutuals but alas I'd be making color of the sky 2.0 😔 So sorry if I didn't tag you, I'm kinda just scrolling through my following list and picking urls at random here, all of you guys are amazing!

@chewytran - their royai college au!! is so cute!! All their royai stuff is just. chef's kiss. Art sideblog, mostly FMA. Other fandoms are tagged.

@wawayu - their use of light and colors man!! Art sideblog, majority FMA. (Also. check their notes when rbing their art because I rb and ID like. everything they post lol)

@neorei - their homunculi art!! Wish I had art-critic-training (is that a thing) so I could properly express the emotions that their art invokes. but. ahh it's so melancholy and kinda abstract, the kind of art that you could find different meanings in. Sideblog, all FMA.

@fmamangacaps - Photoshop counts as art. Their cleaning up of manga panels and tagging system is a godsend.

@humming-fly - you probably already follow them but their team greed comics are just so funny!! I always have at least one of their pieces in my drafts that I'm procrastinating on IDing lol. Multifandom.

@pumi-envy - just. lots of art of Envy. Sometimes I'm looking through the Envy tag and the majority of it is me and this artist. I love that for us. Their style's super cute. All FMA. (again. check the notes on their art 'cause I reblog and ID everything they put on my dash)

One of those Royai writers whom posts from me and my positivity blog mutuals always seem to make it to

Don't ask me why this is a category, it's just funny to me when my positivity blog posts or posts from my positivity moots make it to Royai tumblr.

@firewoodfigs - Xingese squad!! Her prose is beautiful. So poetic and meaningful. And her poetry?? is gorgeous. Ownvoices Xingese Roy content 💚 Mostly FMA.

@lantur - wrote delicate. Go read it right now if you haven't (but also tw for parental abuse and older military officers taking advantage of mentally ill young women while they commit genocide together) Multifandom, fandoms are tagged.

@hanamuri / @royriza - literally the sweetest person and runs like 4 blogs which is iconic. Her psychoanalysis of FMA characters is super interesting. All FMA.

Other writers I love

I have a habit of reserving way too many books from the library meaning that I haven't gotten around to reading most fanfics yet, oops. That's on me.

@ta1k-less - I adore her writing style!! Fun fact, one of her atla fics was probably the first multichap fic I had finished in roughly five years. She's very funny. Love how she fleshes out Ishvalan culture. Also draws sometimes and has started IDing her own art. Mostly FMA, multifandoms, tags fandoms.

@edisacornball - boomer he knows Edward very well, if that makes sense. Like, reading his fics I can tell that he understands Edward as a character very well. His Edwin fics are great. Has been in the FMA fandom for 15 years or something, which is crazy to me. Multifandom, mostly FMA.

@calangkoh - metas count as writing. So not a fic writer, but their 03 metas are wonderful. Obvious spoilers for 03 if you haven't seen it yet. Sideblog, all FMA.

Well fuck, now I'm realizing that I haven't gotten around to reading any fics from the vast majority of the writers I follow. Y'all are such lovely people sorry I still need to read your fics!! I gotta update this list once I get my act together and clean up my AO3 marked for later list, lol.

[primasveraas-writing]

“Kent v The Shitty Knee Itself”- Ted Lasso

A sort-of-sequel to "Kent v Linebacker," but this can still be read on its own. Part 2 of 3 of my fics about Roy Kent's shitty knee.

Part 1 // Accompanying AU

WORDS: 1649

XXX

Roy Kent is old as shit.

His daughter is a fucking toddler. His son is in preschool.

And he has fucking arthritis.

“What the fuck do you mean I’ve got fucking arthritis?” Roy Kent explodes at the doctor, who waits patiently for his outburst to finish. “I’m in my fucking forties! I’ve got two fucking babies at home! What the fuck am I supposed to do when my fucking daughter needs to piss and we’re all sprinting into the bathroom? I can’t fucking potty train on a shit leg.”

His wife rubs his shoulders comfortingly; the news is less surprising to Keeley, who gave a damn when the doctors mentioned arthritis could develop, and who is also extremely endeared by her husband’s priorities, which apparently lie very firmly with teaching their daughter to pee in the toilet.

Roy shouldn’t be shocked either; he’s had a limp for a long time now, and progressively worsening pain. He’s been elevating his leg whenever possible, to the point where Ted pulls chairs up for him or sits down first so Roy doesn’t feel awkward (on good days, Roy scowls at Ted and stays standing, but these occurrences are increasingly few and far between). It’s been a long time coming, and as much as the great Roy Kent hates to admit weakness, his shit knee is getting shittier.

Keeley had forced him to go to the doctor when Roy scooped up both their children, one in each arm, and proceeded to fall on the floor in a heap of small limbs and curses. He again made the case that he was fine, but there’s a limit on how much Tylenol one person can take in a day, and Roy’s exceeded that limit for weeks.

He walks like he’s on a hill, wobbling as he drags his right leg behind him. Keeley remarks on how uneven his gait is, and Lily, his precious fucking baby, demonstrates just how wonky Roy is by limping around too. It makes him laugh, but then his gaze meets Keeley’s, and he realizes there’s not much he can do aside from accept his fate and ask Dr. Patel why his knee is failing him (again, the fucking thing).

Arthritis. Fucking hell.

“The majority of your symptoms can be mitigated by limiting any strain on your leg. This includes walking, lifting, twisting, standing, stairs-”

“-breathing, blinking, fucking doing any shit worthwhile-”

“We can also prescribe medication, but given the amount of pain you reported, I think the best option to look at is a walking assistant.”

“What, like a cane?” Roy snorts. He feels Keeley still behind him, then he looks up at Dr. Patel, who’s gazing back at him, entirely serious.

“A fucking cane.”

“It’ll alleviate the weight on your leg. Ideally, you won’t need it every day, but it’ll make a difference when discomfort gets too high.”

“Fuck no.” Keeley squeezes his shoulder. “Fine. Fucking hell.”

-

It’s an adjustment. Roy walks back to their car, cane-less for the time being, limping, and imagines a cane in his hand. Imagines being able to straighten up, and not going to bed in fucking agony after a long day.

He also imagines showing up to the football club with a cane in his hand and Jaime fucking Tartt the fucking muppet smirking at him with his stupid fucking face, and he wants to turn around and tell Dr. Patel he’ll never use a fucking cane in his fucking life. Then he imagines having a stick to beat Jaime with when he’s being a prick, and Roy grins to himself at the thought.

That’s what he tells Keeley on the way home: he’s on the fence. That there’s a stigma he doesn’t want, that he remembers this the pitiful looks he received after his first injury and after surgery. It’s fucking bullshit, that he’d be looked at differently just because of a fucking rod in his hand, or because his stupid knee is fucked.

“Since when does Roy Kent care about what other people think of him? I mean really,” Keeley tells him, patting his thigh. “Everyone decent won’t bat an eye, and anyone who does is a prat.” She shrugs. “It’s a flawless system, really. Good way to sort people out.”

Roy grunts in agreement and drums his fingers on the door. He sighs, leaning his head back.

“What if I can’t keep up with Lily and Ollie? What the fuck am I supposed to do with little kids?”

“We’ll adapt,” Keeley promises, offering her hand. Roy takes it and presses it to his lips. “They already know they can’t run from you, or bowl into you at full speed-” Roy snorts at this. “-so now we tell ‘em that they gotta be patient.”

“They’re gonna be the most patient kids on the planet,” Roy muses, but his chest feels lighter. His wife is fucking amazing.

“They’re fucking perfect, they are. And besides- they don’t love you cause you can lift them or up throw them around or run around after them.” She squeezes his hand. “They love you ‘cause you’re you, Roy. You’re their dad.”

Roy nods silently. She’s right, as always. His heart is warm, much lighter against his ribs. “Thanks, babe,” he tells her, and Keeley beams at him.

-

They adapt. Roy remains in awe of the resilience of children- Lily and Oliver don’t give a damn that he uses a cane, except they quickly have to delineate that it’s not a toy, so Oliver doesn’t hit anyone with it, and so that Lily doesn’t hit Oliver with it. Because of this, Roy has to be careful not to threaten anyone at Richmond with his cane while his children are around. One day, his kids will learn to do as their dad says, not as he does, but for now, his babies swear and scowl, and pick up on every bad habit Roy shows them. It’s fucking adorable.

The first month is the hardest. Roy and Keeley decide to grant him some grace- he doesn’t have to do shit like garden or mow the lawn, or anything too strenuous. It’s uneven, in the beginning, and Roy goes to bed every night feeling like a shit husband for everything that’s unloaded on Keeley. They fight about it, eventually, and Roy apologizes to Keeley with tears in his eyes. They find a balance, which involves a chair in every room in their house and somebody hired to do the lawn. Their roles have shifted, but it’s a pattern he’s familiar with by now. He’s gone through so many major changes with Keeley: switching careers and marriage and injury and parenthood twice over. And using a cane isn’t any harder than having a newborn and a toddler, so they manage. After all, they’re unstoppable together.

Nobody on the team makes a comment on the cane, except Ted leaves sticky notes on it whenever Roy isn’t paying attention, and Roy wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t positive fucking affirmations, the corny twat. Then the rest of the team follows suit, and they sign it and put stickers on it and all sorts of supportive shit, and Roy tells only one person this, but he kind of fucking likes it (against his better judgment, of course).

Commentators and the press are not nearly as kind. There’s any number of articles written about him and how old it makes the football world seem. Roy wants to fucking kill all of them, but Keeley reminds him that all the pricks have shown their true colors, and one day he finds a picture of a particularly insensitive reporter that has been utterly defiled and left out in the locker room. Roy tucks this away in a drawer in his office, and he’s almost nicer at practice that day.

Beard and Ted match his slower pace as they walk out to every match, which isn’t subtle even from the offset, but they don’t say anything about it and neither does Roy. He also realizes that he’s never the only one sitting in a group of his friends, even if it’s just him and Ted, or Keeley, or Rebecca, or Nate.

Yoga gets much harder, then he and the yoga moms spend a night researching yoga for people with shit legs, and yoga gets easier again. If they want to do a challenge night, Roy shifts into the role of yoga instructor, which he’s fucking great at, thank you, and so what if he gets to drink more wine because of it.

And his fucking knee feels better. His medication works, but the cane helps the most. Ted and Keeley had told him ever since his initial injury to be kind to himself, to rest when needed, and to not be a stupid stubborn prick about his health. This mindset turns out to have a few merits, and maybe it’s even a good habit he can teach his kids.

It says a lot about him, this cane that accompanies a man in his forties. He needs it because he was a professional footballer who injured himself preventing a goal in one last game. Who needed surgery cause his energetic maniac of a son ran into him. Whose wife told him to use it with pride, because he’s Roy fucking Kent and his family and friends love him so screw everyone else. Whose coach used it as a tool to force positivity onto Roy, whose team and kids decorated it with messages of love and smiley faces and the two worst signatures he’s ever seen (though he credits Oliver and Lily for trying). It’s a symbol of persistence, of the pain he’s endured, of those who rallied behind him.

Roy Kent. Married to Keeley Jones. Father of Oliver and Lily. Coach at Richmond AFC.

And he happens to use a cane.

[andromedia5]

I love your writing!! Can I request 7 for jaytemis from the swifter writing prompts

A little bit of a self harm trigger warning, nothing graphic, no one’s actually cutting just discussion of it. That’s kinda why it took me a sec to write this, I kinda Victor Zsaszed again this week and idk . . . But I enjoyed this prompt and I hope you guys like it, kinda healing vicariously through them. Also wrote this for @theperfection who requested more jaytemis.

She hadn’t expected anyone to find them. Artemis was no stranger to hiding scars and she usually didn’t around Jason and Bizzaro. They had seen them, trailing up her arms and back, the graveyards of battles long over. They wouldn’t have questioned any of them. She still preferred to keep her legs covered.

Those carefully hidden scars on the inside of her calves, all about an inch in length, covered by her suit, jeans, boots, and when absolutely necessary, she would simply keep her legs pressed firmly together and let the scars hide themselves. She didn’t like seeing them; that was why they were so bad, she had never been able to look at the cuts long enough to bandage them. Each scar was precise and careful, never impulsive or messy because Artemis had meant them all. Everytime she had missed Akila, every moment when she would have killed for her to bump her shoulder against her own, tease her about how seriously she was taking something. She didn’t deserve to mourn someone she could have saved.

Artemis had been curled up on the couch of the woman who might have been the personification of the failings of the American foster care system dressed in frills and lace when she had felt rough fingers brushing at her ankle. Her eyes had snapped open as she shot up, pulling up her feet on instinct. The book Jason had been reading when she had drifted off was propped open on his thigh and he had been pushing up the ankle of her sweatpants. A dusty rose color spread across his cheeks at having been caught. “Sorry, sorry, I just,” he pulled her ankle towards him again and she kicked out, scrambling backwards to the other end of the couch. He dodged her attack, rolling off the couch and looking up at her, puzzled.

“What in the Goddesses's name are you doing?” she hissed at him. Everytime, every single time she was beginning to think he might have been tolerable, every moment he was quiet enough to be at least moderately ignorable he had to go and ruin it.

“I’m sorry, Art. I’m just, shit I didn’t know,”

Something in her stomach dropped, “Know what?”

He tilted his head, brown curls falling over his forehead as he gave her a look. “C’mon, Princess don’t give me that. I’m not that stupid,”

“And yet you could’ve fooled me,” she muttered, taking her typical route out of conversations with him, using her longer legs to walk away.

He jogged a little to keep up with her. “Art. Hey, Artemis, will you just hang on a sec?” his hand wrapped around her wrist and she spun around to face him.

“Do you have a death wish, little one?”

Jason smirked up at her, “Yeah, clearly, have you not been paying attention? Listen, I'm sorry, Red. I just didn’t realize,”

“You don’t know what your talking about,”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t. In most situations and this one is no exception,”

“You know you’re really self absorbed, right?”

“I beg your pardon, I’m self absorbed? Do you have any-” Jason pulled his sweatshirt over his head in one swift motion, revealing rumpled hair and narrowed eyes. His gray t-shirt was around the same shade as the Red Hood suit and almost seemed to be a lounge version of his uniform. It wasn’t until he rotated his arms slightly, exposing his forearms and a series of scars she could recognize as easily as ones caused by a certain type of blade. The angle, the length, the depth, it was all the same albeit a little more erratic. Artemis felt her mouth open into a small o. Jason looked uncomfortable but still determined.

“I’d, uh get really angry when I was a kid. I mean I still do but,” he ran a hand through his hair and she felt her eyes following a particularly dark scar (indicating it was more recent) that was exposed by the movement.“They were almost like panic attacks and I’d just need to,” he punched his fist into his palm “Bru-Batman would never spar with me when I was like that. Said if I was angry I wasn’t gonna learn anything so what the hell was the point. First time it was an accident, I was thirteen and had smashed a glass, was kinda having a tantrum. But I got cut on the edge of it and . . . it was like I could breathe again. I broke a razor apart about a week later,”

“And no one stopped you?” she demanded, momentarily forgetting her annoyance, rage boiling in her stomach at the thought of this child; Jason.

“That’s the thing, Arty,” he said, shooting her a sardonic smile “I’d already gotten pretty damn good at hiding scars before I ever got one on purpose”

The silence filled the room for a second, neither one meeting the other’s eyes. “Look, Artemis, I’m not gonna do that whole ‘you shouldn’t do that to yourself’ shit. I know it’s fucking annoying but . . . just, you’re not alone, okay?”

Mercifully Bizzaro chose that moment to walk in causing Jason to scramble back into his sweatshirt and begin to plan tonight's mission.

It was late when they returned. Bizzaro had left as soon as they had gotten back as he had been doing recently, leaving the two of them alone as they put away their respective weapons and armor. She didn’t know what it was that made her decide to say what she did but for some reason after she had removed the cuffs on her arms she heard her own voice.

“I’ve been clean for a few weeks,”

Jason turned to her, seeming as surprised as she was but pulling his mask off and shaking his sweaty hair out of his face. “I’ve got about a month and a half,”

“So not since you’ve met Bizzaro and I?”

He shook his head, switching out the magazines on his guns and folding up his holster.

“Say what you want about our whole team but it’s hard to find the time to . . . that, when you’ve been busy raising hell with a missing amazon and a kidnapped clone.” He pulled out a knife, seemingly out of nowhere, reminding her once again that he was a lot better at this than she gave him credit for. “You know um, Roy told me about this thing they do in rehab for anniversaries. They pick like a symbol or a tracker and use it to celebrate their progress,”

“I see,” Artemis reached for a stray pen, pulling the cap off with her teeth and took his hand in hers. She held his wrist steady, thumb over his pulse point, his heartbeat a steady rhythm through her own hand. The star she drew smudged a bit and bumped over the vein on his forearm but it was there.

He traced the star, looking strangely at peace considering how much they had blown up that night.“Why are we doing your symbol?”

“Because it was your idea,”

“Fair,” he took the marker from her hands, fingers brushing against her own in a way that made her stomach twist embarrassingly. He reached for her leg, pausing about an inch away at meeting her eyes as if for confirmation that this was okay. She nodded and he wrapped his hand gently around her ankle, eliciting a radius of goosebumps as he carefully drew a lopsided star. Jason put the cap back on the marker and looked back up at her, smiling as he raised his arm, “Scar bump?”

Artemis pulled away and got up. “We’re not doing that,”

“C’mon, Red,” he called after her, throwing the pen at her retreating back playfully. “You know there’s also this great Taylor Swift song? You ever listened to 1989?”