#because his reaction to them is “who the fuck is that guy”

[callmearcturus]

dottie lasso is the final boss of the show (and ted loses)

someone commented on my ted-is-a-feminine-junior-too post about recognizing dottie lasso and what she did, and i'm a Johnny-come-lately to this fandom so i missed all the discourse

but surely it's been discussed to death that Dottie Lasso is the Final Boss of Ted's life, right? like, she shows up on that bench and you should feel the opening of "MEGALOVANIA" in your soul because she's the villain of the story.

honestly, in Ted Lasso, the main villains are: Rupert Mannion, Twitter, Rupert Mannion again, cisnormativity/heteronormativity, and Dottie Lasso, kind of in that order IMO.

"Mom City" is kind of a genius episode with its thesis and punchline. Because Dottie shows up and derails Ted's entire life and not in a good way. She makes him palpably uncomfortable and all of his usual kindness and interest is just turned off around her.

This episode isn't shy about reminding the audience that Richmond has become Ted's home. From the most fish outta water who nearly gets killed looking the wrong way crossing the street, Ted knows his neighbors, knows the culture here, and is defensive with that knowledge because it's been hard-won over time.

No but really, look at how UNCOMFORTABLE Ted is EVERY MINUTE of this episode. It's so stark bc this charm offensive Dottie's doing on everyone at Richmond is so clearly a Lasso Thing. This is the exact tactic Ted used when he was new in town and completely at sea.

(fuck this got long, there's a lot more under the jump)

But he isn't charmed or permissive or entertained, he never once Yes, Ands what Dottie says. In fact, he corrects her all the time.

jesus fuck look at this specific moment!!!

who the fuck are you and where is ted

because Dottie being here is a nightmare. she's the person who knows the Ted Lasso Source Code and the way she maneuvers and nudges him, he seems helpless against it. So he continuously separates himself from her in what feels to me like a fearful reaction.

Like, when Dottie explains where she's staying, she does this trick

DOTTIE: An adorable little hostel. I've met so many Australians. They are backpacking through Europe. So much sex. TED: Mom. DOTTIE: Not me, the Australians. TED: No, no, I get it, okay. How about you stay here for the rest of your trip, all right? DOTTIE: Only if I'm not a hassle.

This is such a fucking move, you realize? She has been in London a fucking WEEK without telling him, then as soon as she tells him where she's staying, she, a midwestern mom to her open-minded but very romantically private son, invokes sex so he'll be uncomfortable with the situation and invite her to stay. This is a chess move they should call the Wichita Shuffle.

And Ted absolutely hates the way Dottie lies about him. The connection is pretty straightforward; Dottie deals with her trauma and pain by covering them up with pretty little lies and melting truths until they fit the shape she wants them to be in. Everything she says in this episode is bullshit.

(points up) THIS INCLUDED, BTW. This is the Ted that Dottie wants him to be, the guy who will fall on his sword at the first sign of someone else's discomfort.

But that isn't who Ted is anymore and Dottie saying this is vicious and cruel. It's disrespectful to Rebecca, to everyone at Richmond, and to the work Ted's done with Sharon.

which oooooooooh

hey, anyone else remember Ted's "I love meeting people's moms, it's like an instruction manual on why they're nuts" from S2? boy that's a brick joke

and this bit of dottie saying her anxiety re: ted's therapy out loud, that hissing sound is a fuse being lit in this moment

Ted calls her out directly. He knows how she operates because she raised him in her own image. As I noted in the other post, Leslie Higgins is not the only feminine junior at Richmond, so is Theodore Lasso, son of Dorothy Lasso.

THAT FUCKING DARK CHUCKLE, THE "YEAH OKAY" MOMENT this is the fuse finally reaching the dynamite

this is the moment, this moment of push-back, implicitly the first time Ted's ever pushed back in his life

this is the moment Dottie takes every single thing she knows about Ted, everything she put into him, and she destroys his fucking life with the exact four words it would take to make Ted give up everything he's worked for, all so he'll go back to being what she expects from him.

and hell if he doesn't know it.

everything he's done for himself, all the space he's finally allowed himself to fill, the progress and labor he's put into becoming a better person

mom shows up and tells him no, you're coming back.

(and the fact Dottie Lasso, a character who has not said five truthful things this entire episode, tells us how someone else feels should be questioned very fucking directly. i don't trust this woman to honestly report on Henry's opinion of peanut butter and jelly, let alone if he wants his father to give up his life and return to Kansas. i know every single fic has brought up the question of "hey why doesn't anyone ask Henry what he wants" but that's because SOMEONE needs to ask the question instead of taking Dorothy fucking Lasso's word for it, christ)

I don't know how tf you don't read this show as a tragedy. Dottie Lasso is incredible, she's so pitch-perfectly written and acted, and she's absolutely the final boss of the show. And Ted doesn't win that fight.

hell THE SHOW SAYS THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD, i would put the screencap here but I've run out of images, but THEY FUCK YOU UP, YOUR MUM AND DAD, THE SHOW SAYS IT this is a fantastic tragedy, i love it

[waywardmillennial]

Puppet History Trailer Breakdown

The PH season seven trailer dropped on Watcher TV today and I'm going to try to break it down New Rockstars style - so settle in because this is a long one!

disclaimer: I am an oxymoron of a human who notices lots of details and misses other clues - so I might not have caught everything but I tried!

[s7 trailer easter eggs and spoiler-y thoughts under the cut]

The trailer opens with the Professor looking at the billboard for Phorgedytol, the tagline of which reads "(something) WITH YOUR BRAIN"

[note: this is different to the Phorgedytol billboard we see at the end of the trailer that reads "FRENCH THE VOID!"]

the first shot of Ryan in the trailer is from the episode with Aria Inthavong

behind them on the bookshelf you can see what I think is a brachiosaurus (from the late Jurassic era), a pair of alpacas, and the Genie lamp very prominently displayed!

then we cut to this interaction Ryan: How long has it been since we've been in class? to which the Professor gives a very non-committal "Uhhhh...."

[Interesting, no? Possible side-effect of the Professor taking Phorgedytol maybe?]

then we cut to guest Alex Song-Xia with a possibly foreboding comment

[this probably has no lore implications but I like that there's a framed copy of this photo that Ryan tweeted in 2021 on the set]

the trailer continues with the Professor talking to the guests

then the trailer cuts to what could be a major lore drop with Ryan saying, "You keep my wife's name out of your god damn mouth!" as he marches to the theater to slap the Professor

[notice how this is in black and white -that's the trailer edit not mine- so perhaps this is a flashback of some kind? Maybe to something that happened to make the Professor want to take Phorgedytol?]

Remember in s6 Ryan and the Professor were friends (see: the JC Penney photoshoot) so seeing a moment like this in the trailer is, for lack of a better phrase, a slap in the face

Based on what all the guests are wearing in the trailer it looks like The Slap will happen in Claudia's episode, based on the shot right before Ryan gets out of the chair (their reaction face is gorgeous btw)

we get a great out of context line from Sara Rubin

and the Professor talking about his anatomy with Brennan

Then the Lore Drop Hits

[yeah the rest of this was just a drop in the bucket in this trailer tbh]

The cuts happen fairly fast with overlapping VO - I posted most of the main shots earlier and there are some shots of the history skits that I skipped to focus on the Lore. These shots also have some alt descriptions in this post of things I noticed on the rewatch

VO Script Mysterious Puppet: No, you louse. You sops. You absolute men. Ryan: Well, this is collusion. They clearly- Professor: That's not collusion. Ryan: It's collusion! You guys fucking figured it out before this. Brennan: Just get on his wavelength, man. Professor: Get on my level! Ryan: You're just not ready for the truth!

[First reactions: The Professor is wearing a party hat for a lot of this trailer, and so is the new puppet. So they must have been at the same party. Also, the Professor is standing in front of a sign that reads "Six Nasty Seasons" even though this is the trailer for season seven. Is that from the season six wrap party? Could it also point to Phorgedytol symptoms that we're 'missing' a season?

The horse puppet looking through the door has a moustache, so is very likely not Dorothy Ruth or Stanley Melvin Murphy. Maybe DR's fiancé? This same moustachio'd horse is in the pasta scene

Hard to say which horse is walking towards The Brown Derby but fun to note that was a real chain of restaurants in LA starting in 1926]

Then the Professor meets with the new Shane character - shall we call them Patch for now?

and that's the trailer in a nutshell!

*Roll End Credits*

Other reactions:

Delighted that we get canon confirmation that the Professor goes by Connie McNasty, at least some of the time

Love that Joyce and Garrett are back this season!

The noir, old Hollywood vibes of this trailer are gorgeous and overall it looks really well-made!

I hope we get some explanation for the slap that's not Ryan and the Professor becoming enemies again

the Liza Minelli* of it all

Not too sure on many theories at this point, but I'm sure it's going to be a great (but maybe nail-biting) season!

[haifoct]

let me kiss your brain, because, seriously, EVERY WORD in that post about LI Lun IS ON POINT!!!

Was Li Lun behaving like a murderous toddler throwing a temper tantrum? Yes! But he had some good reasons to do so!

Regardless of their "romantic" relationship, ZYZ and LL were first and foremost, friends, who spent 30k years together. Even though they disagreed and even though ZYZ always felt like being a demon wasn't good enough, he wanted to be human, LL still accepted that.

Did LL overreact by killing those people in the clinic? Yes. But, if I saw my people- including children- in cages, tortured, I'd probably snap too. Plus, it irked me to no end that ZYZ was too preoccupied with being outraged at Li Lun for killing guards instead of actually helping his fellow demons. "I will protect the Wilderness"- proceeds to do absolutely nothing crying over two killed torturers while LL does all the protecting.

Then ZYZ proceeded to touch the unknown burning thing and ended up mortally wounding Li Lun. And then sealed him in and deprived him of any choice. And did he go to talk to him after? Nope. No explanation, no "get well" card, nothing. Heck, I think even a shouting match would've been better.

Even if he never went to LL because he was spiraling into depression, that doesn't explain the whole "holier than thou" attitude he displayed throughout the show. Did LL kill humans? Yes, but so did ZYZ (example- that bureau guy whose heart he exploded to prove his point). And then had the audacity to taunt LL and call him names when in reality LL was right in most of his accusations- of ZYZ being a hypocrite, liar, traitor, etc. I'm sorry, but while LL is absolutely NOT free of fault, ZYZ has no right to pretend he is any better.

But the worst of all is that when he got a chance to make up with LL, he let his pettiness and anger get the best of him. He failed to say ONE SENTENCE (we will put your soul into a piece of wood and you will recultivate again in 100 years) that would've made a whole lot of difference, and in the end, he indirectly caused Ying Lei's, Li Lun's, and likely Bai Ju's deaths.

Literally, all they had to do to get LL to stop his antics and even become THEIR ally was for ZYZ to say "sorry I set you on perpetual fire, bro. I missed you". But the "hero demon" couldn't even do that...

If anything, Zhuo Yichen was the one who showed more compassion and kindness to Li Lun than his supposed friend ever did. No wonder Li Lun shifted his focus to him in the end.

It seems that ZYZ was inherently biased against being a demon and valued humans more than demons. Perhaps, it was because of him being the vessel of malicious energy, so he juxtaposed that unfair twist of fate onto all demons (as in, he would not be in that situation if he were a human). Perhaps, he also realized at some point that he could not have the same range of emotions as humans, so he perceived himself and other demons as less. And Li Lun was the personification of demon-ness and all that ZYZ hated about himself, and he couldn't overcome it. Plus, it seems that all demons have a problem with dealing with complex emotions like grief and rage; this is why, in the end, among all of them, ZYC is the most mature one even though he is only 24. If only ZYZ had one tenth of ZYC's maturity and compassion to his fellow demons, the whole story would've played out very, very differently.

And this is why I want to write fix it fics now

Thank you SO MUCH for your addition, especially for bringing up their very last chess match. It’s probably the only moment that makes me genuinely, fucking angry at Zhu Yan. I can even understand his reaction in the clinic—but this? He wanted to be human so badly that he put his pride above everything else, lmfao. How pathetic, how frustrating it was to see him so desperately refuse to call Li Lun his friend, refuse to say that he cared for him, that he didn’t want him dead, that he had a solution. It’s so sad that Li Lun was always open and clear about his grievances, he always used his words to explain why he’s angry.

I guess if Zhu Yan admitted that he cared for this unhinged one, it would show him in the bad light.

I don’t care; I don’t even think he "indirectly" caused Ying Lei’s death. He literally killed him, period. Xiao Zhuo and the rest of the gang were the ones who told Li Lun about the root thing, and the fact that we see Li Lun IMMEDIATELY stop struggling? He went, Oh… sure, I’ll go into the root, we can draw. (Also, if Zhu Yan cared for Li Lun, he would’ve put him in Cheng Huang’s sundial and grown him for 100 years as an apology for the pain. What is 100 years to a 30K-year-old demon? A mere blink.)

And YES, Xiao Zhuo was incredibly kind to Li Lun. Despite saying he never understood him and never would, we know damn well that’s not the case. Baby Zhuo Yichen spiraled into loneliness, bitterness, isolation, and hatred toward Zhu Yan and demons—until Wen Xiao’s words about snow eventually melting brought him back (the same way Xiao Zhuo’s words sobered Li Lun and left a mark on his soul). I’m forever grateful to our precious Zhuo Yichen for forming his own opinion about Li Lun. (Isn’t it fun that he never told the gang about his encounter with Li Lun by that river?) 

Zhu Yan’s hatred, his harsh words, never affected him. Zhuo Yichen understood Li Lun. His journey with Li Lun is one of the most fascinating and interesting. No wonder our director grabbed the two actors and put them in another series together — he’s one of us, a shipper.

I absolutely adore you pointing out Li Lun being everything Zhu Yan hated about himself. His harshness with his former friend comes from his self-pity and self-hatred.

His words, "Li Lun, you’re bitter I have everything, and you have nothing." Despite it being awfully annoying in the moment due to Zhu Yan literally not hearing what Li Lun was telling him, it made me think it’s Zhu Yan trying to convince himself.

And even worse, Li Lun is proud of being a demon. He loves the Wilderness, he loves his home, he loves his people. There’s nothing he loves more than being a demon. He even turned the human he liked the most into one as well.

Zhu Yan is not as broad minded as Wen Xiao claims him to be. He very clearly has his biases. Always thinking about Zhu Yan murdering Xiao Pagoda Ghost that played with them in Li Lun’s illusion. That was awfully cold blooded! 

They’re tragic, indeed, and my heart breaks for them both. However, it makes me incredibly happy that Zhu Yan learned from his experience with Li Lun and stood firmly by his new friends’ sides. And I’m happy Li Lun found one Zhuo Yichen and one little Ying Lei who cried for him and were kind to his pain.

[heich0e]

tetsuro owns 6 suits but only ever really wears 2 of them. he sends his laundry out to be done professionally because he keeps accidentally shrinking his shirts. his fridge is a wasteland because he can't seem to master cooking for one, but never manages to finish leftovers, so he eats out for most of his meals or survives off instant noodles and snack foods. he works ungodly hours. once a week he gets so drunk with his coworkers that he gets a hangover so bad he's nursing it for two full days.

and he swore, up and down, he would never be that guy who dates someone almost half his age.

but then he met you.

he has no idea what you see in him. honestly. truly. he's got a laundry list of flaws (that he'd probably also manage to shrink in the wash) and any one of them is sufficient grounds, he thinks, for you to avoid him.

but you don't.

you take him to restaurants in his neighbourhood he had no idea even existed. you can keep up with him drink for drink. you've got this bright, carefree laugh that reminds tetsurou of what it was like to be in his 20s—that makes him feel like he's there again—and you're so generous with it, even when his jokes don't warrant that reaction.

and fuck, the things you say to him. the things you do to him. it's obscene in an incredible, mouthwatering way. the unflinching way that you'll meet his gaze and tell him exactly what you want from him. tetsurou's been sporting a borderline permanent flush around you from the day you two met, because he just gets so flustered whenever you're together. you have him doing things that he would never have even dreamed about at his age before he met you.

then one night in the wee hours just before dawn, as he watches you wrap his bedsheet (the soft new one you picked out for him online from some shop that had them delivered to his door the next day) around your frame, tetsurou finds himself fighting back a plea for you to stay with him until morning—something you never do, and something he's never dared to ask.

and all at once he realizes just what a terrible, foolish mistake he's made.

because he doesn't just want you to stay the night. he just wants you to stay.

i wanna fuck middle-aged man kuroo so bad

[little-meowyao]

I really enjoy throwing some random guy with no significant connections to either NMJ or LXC into 3zun.

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[puppppppppy]

Atla live action 😐

[nicoscheer]

Via

“Met alex after today in Chicago, thanked him for the show yesterday, he was very kind and friendly, he also asked if we wanted a picture and I could not contain my shock. I saw Nick later on but just said hi and thanked for the show he was very kind as well”

“So funny to me that he walks around town wearing the same stuff he wears on stage. Dude is the epitome of cool”

“does he wear a nice aftershave?——yes”

“It was a dream, we also were eating next to each other, he was with Nick, and when we were leaving we said goodbye and he was smiling the whole time”

“I was telling him I love the last shadow puppets submarine and I pointed at my shirt and his eyes opened wide and said "oh nicee!" While looking at it and I said he thanked me when I said I liked his job on that record, I wish I had more time to ask a little bit more about his job in it”

———

Also just looked into the official site of 3arena in Dublin and I nearly cried when I saw this

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Via

“What did you guys talk about?

we didn't want to annoy him while he was on his own time, so it was a pretty short interaction. he was very sweet though!!!”

Via at Soho House Chicago

[djungleskogs]

.

[charting-phighting]

i crack myself up

[sonknuxadow]

jesus christttt im not surprised at all to hear that the knuckles series focuses on wade and other human characters a lot i saw this coming a mile away with how almost all the news we were getting before the trailer came out was about the human characters/actors and not about knuckles (or sonic or tails or any other animated characters) but the fact that somebody calculated how many minutes of screentime knuckles has and it came out as LESS THAN HALF OF THE ENTIRE SERIES' RUNTIME when the series is NAMED after him is ridiculous. after this show comes out wade will likely have more screentime and overall plot relevance in the entire scu than tails does. did they actually think wade is a popular enough character for people to be down with this. what the fuck

[the-dragonlich]

The weird thing about having a general sense of apathy and/or melancholy as your default emotion is that it makes you really slow to process the actual emotion you feel so by the time you realize what you’re feeling you’ve already been stewing in it for days to maybe months

[ratatatastic]

[red-red-spout]

imagine if Sylvester Lambridge met Lisa Wilbourn. No survivors

[vividbeast]

ok i need to. i literally Just reached lv 10 but i wuv my wol. his name's ciel de'luxe and hes so full of issues

[felidthing]

i just had a very long complicated dream about some very ooc homestuck kids. jade might be rooted in some form of fanon at least but i dunno