#(ted: well! i did want trent to get closer to the team and the richmond fam! not who i would have expected

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

im not sure whats funnier. pre colin coming out to the team he just. doesn't hide his friendship with trent and everyones like aight weird friendship but sure trents cool ig?? or if like, they do keep it on the down-low but then once colin comes out hes like oh btw trents one of my best friends now. anyway. and they're all like hes wh--okay???

[polikszena]

Just because I had the idea of writing something Easter-related today, here, have AFC Richmond players painting eggs for charity:

Eggs and Flowers

When Trent Crimm walked into the press room of AFC Richmond’s headquarters, he experienced something he had never witnessed there before: silence. The entire team was sitting around the table on the stage, all of them so immersed in their work that none of them spoke a single word which was extremely rare with this amount of young men being together in the same room. For a moment Trent thought they were giving him the silent treatment again, just like during his first days with the team, but then he saw the painting kits in front of them.

“Hi there, Trent,” Ted Lasso flashed a smile at the former reporter and got up from his chair to shake his hand, but since all his fingers had some paint on, in the end he decided not to. “Do you want to join us?”

“Is this a seasonal group therapy?” Trent asked, noticing the eggs on the table.

“Kind of,” Ted said with a little laugh, “disguised as a charity egg painting. They will sell these later to raise some funds to the children in need. Come on, grab a brush and take a seat!”

An apologetic smile touched the ex-journalist’s lips and he shook his head.

“I’d rather just observe first,” he said.

“As you wish,” Ted nodded, then sat back down to finish the egg he was working on.

Trent’s gaze followed the mustached man and stopped at the egg he had painted with AFC Richmond’s colours, then he looked around the table. Next to the team’s manager was Coach Beard carefully sprinkling paint on his egg that was already coloured purple. Next to him there was Sam Obisanya who was happily showing him his egg that was painted like a fish bowl with a goldfish inside, and then Dani Rojas who decorated his with ethnographic patterns, then Jan Maas who painted his orange, and Isaac McAdoo painting Santa Claus on his egg.

“That way it doubles as a Christmas ornament,” he explained, noticing Trent’s brows rising. “Genius. Oh, look, that’s a cute bunny,” he said, turning to Colin Hughes who was coloring the rabbit white.

Next to Colin, there was Richard Montlaur who was painting a French flag on his egg while Thierry Zoreaux, well, Van Damme was drawing a football’s pattern on the egg, although it was a struggle since the shapes were different. Moe Bumbercatch was painting a little scarf on his egg, and even Will the kitman was there, idly drawing flowers on his.

“Fuck!” At the other end of the table, Roy Kent burst out, holding a broken egg in his hand trembling with anger. He threw it away, got up from his chair and stormed out of the room. Sitting next to him, Jamie Tartt pressed his lips together to hold back his laughter.

“He just needs some fresh air,” Ted said, seeing Trent looking at the door where Roy left. “It was his third egg.”

“Fourth,” Jamie said.

“He’ll get better,” Ted assured him.

“He already made one,” Leslie Higgins said, gesturing towards a side table where the already finished eggs were drying. He was adding the last strokes to a blue one with a little greyhound on it.

“The black one,” Richard said.

“I believe it’s dark heather charcoal,” Trent said, walking closer to the side table, with his eyes on an dark-coloured egg with zero patterns.

Glancing at the finished works of the players, Trent spotted a few with Zava’s name and number written on them with different colours.

“Those were made by Zava,” Ted told him.

“Except for the one with glitter,” Dani Rojas said. “That’s mine.”

Trent also saw an egg with the yellow ‘BELIEVE’ sign like the one they had in the locker room, wondering who could have made that one. Whoever did, he drew a smile on the former reporter’s face.

“So, Trent, are you joining us?” Ted asked. “We still have lots of eggs.”

“We have some pattern suggestions if you need it,” Higgins said, ponting at some printed examples in the middle.

“Why not?” he shrugged his shoulders, and taking off his blazer, he sat down to an empty chair then rolled up the sleeves of his gray shirt.

Silence fell onto the press room as the team members returned to their work, until someone started humming. It seemed to be an involuntary action as everyone was so focused on painting that they didn’t even notice someone was doing it. Trent couldn’t tell who it was; it could be anybody. However, no-one said a word about it, no-one tried to stop it. Instead, the others began to join in and Trent could finally recognise the song: it was Flowers by Miley Cyrus; he had heard it from his daughter several times.

It was Sam who started singing it and the rest of the team continued:

“I can buy myself flowers

Write my name in the sand

Talk to myself for hours

Say things you don’t understand

I can take myself dancing

And I can hold my own hand

Yeah, I can love me better than you can.”

[kalinara]

would you mind sharing with us those hopes/wishlist-type ideas for a Nate storyline in season 3? :D

I don't really have like a full storyline in mind or anything. I just have things that I'd really like to see. I think they're probably not all mutually compatible, but well, that's okay. It's a wishlist, not a checklist!

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I want Nate to redeem himself. I think most folks on tumblr are at least open to this idea, but I remember seeing quite a few folks on reddit and other places going on and on about how they think it'd be better and "more realistic" if Nate wasn't forgiven.

That irks me to no end. Because, first of all, what does "realism" even mean in the context of this show? Since when was that EVER a priority in this sweet little fable about a manic pixie dream girl who accidently materialized as a forty-five year old American man and saves everyone through kindness and love?

That's an oversimplification of course, because the show does and always did have its share of darkness and pain, trauma and abuse. But even then, the whole point is that people are people! They have layers and reasons for what they do.

Nate is motivated by pain and trauma, and he's been acting in terrible ways. But we know he's capable of better than that. And we know, at heart, that Nate wants to be better than that. So I'd be very disappointed if he wasn't given the opportunity.

"Cynicism" isn't the same as "realism", the show already has a few irredeemable monsters (Rupert and James Tartt, for example). We can afford to give Nate the chance to be better.

So now with that rant out of the way, here are some things/scenarios that I'd love to see, in no particular order:

1) I'd like to see Nate do well as the head coach of West Ham. I think it will be tough for him. Any screw up will be magnified, and Rupert will not be a pleasant boss if he doesn't get what he wants. Nate is also not a people person, and that's going to be a difficulty for him. But I'd like to see him rise to the occasion, now that he's in a place with less personal baggage.

It's not as satisfying to imagine a humiliated Nate crawling back to Richmond. I'd prefer to see a strong Nate, with a new understanding of Ted through his own relationships with his players, coming back as an ally and friend. (And if he does leave West Ham, I'd like it to be on his terms, or at least for his reasons.)

2) @hacash had a great scenario idea where Nate teams up with Trent to write an expose on Rupert. I love this. It'd be a perfect parallel/reversal to what he did at the end of this season, but for the right reasons this time.

3) Since Nate is presumably still a main character, we're probably going to get a closer look at Rupert's life in general. And particularly Bex. I would love to see Nate get to know Bex, see the real Rupert, and get her and baby Diane out of there.

4) I'd love to see Nate and Rebecca have a talk about Rupert. And maybe about Ted too. It occurs to me that, for all of Beard's protectiveness and anger, he never outright told Nate off for what he did. No one has. And maybe someone should. Ted certainly won't.

5) I want Nate to find out about the picture. Because knowing Ted as we do, I think the picture will still be up. Even after everything.

6) I kind of want/think we'll have a scene where Nate figuratively talks Ted off some kind of a ledge. Like Ted is on the verge of making some kind of dreadful decision, and Nate is the one who is able to keep that from happening.

I like this idea, because I mentioned in a previous post that I don't think Nate has any idea how much Ted is hurting. And I want him to be able to see his former mentor/surrogate father with clear eyes. And to do something to help.  

I especially like the idea that this happens BEFORE any kind of redemption arc for Nate.

7) I want to see the team annoy the shit out of pre-redeemed Nate through their enthusiasm and support. Because they love Nate. And probably, as far as they know, he just took a great professional opportunity.

8) I want truth and apologies to come out, all around. I want the team to apologize to Nate. I want Nate's own actions to come to light. I want Rebecca to apologize to everyone. All of that. Clear the air.

I'm sure if I think about it, I'll think of a few others, but this is my wishlist so far. :-)