#Because EVERYONE DOES IT and then they think that they've made a completely unique characterization of Amy

[itsclydebitches]

I'm angry about Ted leaving to go back to Kansas but thinking about it, it is in character? Ted is not a person that would ask his ex wife and son to uproot their entire lives to go to London for him he is however, the type of person to put his own wishes and happiness on the back burner to make his loved ones happy. Also, realistically coaches usually don't stay coaches long, so it doesn't make since to ask his family to move to London when he might not have that job forever? So yeah Ted leaving sucks but it does make since if you think about it. Perhaps we will get a special with him coming back to Richmond one day? I can't wait for all the fix it's that are coming tho!

You and me both, anon!!! I fully plan to immerse myself in fic this weekend, as I know the speedy writers will have gotten at least some stuff up by then :D And I never thought about a special... Honestly, I've been praying for a Season Four after that ending (even though it would feel weird after the show "finished") but hell yeah, I'd take a short, canonical special to patch at least some of this up.

Regarding his characterization, I do think Ted has made great strides when it comes to speaking up for his own wants and needs. Just this season I'd point to things like his judicious use of the Diamond Dogs (turning to others for advice before making big decisions, something he notably didn't do with Kansas), his playful "You know how I feel about winning and losing, Trent" (acknowledging his newfound balance between striving for professional goals and people pleasing), and his entire speech to his mom, complete with cursing her out multiple times (recognizing when he hasn't been treated well and acknowledging that with full emotion behind it, rather than trying to bury it all behind a smile). I think that last one is nicely paralleled with what Beard and the others think is happening with Ted and Nate. Meaning, they believe Ted is once again burying his anger and feelings of betrayal, not realizing that he's already worked through his disappointment and come out on the side of forgiveness. The point though is that until Beard realizes that Nate is simply him X number of years ago -- a friend of Ted's who betrayed him and now needs a second chance -- he continually calls Ted out on (supposedly) burying those emotions and the need to acknowledge them.

All of which is to say that one of the (smaller) reasons why the Kansas ending hurts is because it does feel like Ted has gone backwards in terms of his growth... but I do get where you're coming from. 100%. Ted remains an incredibly self-sacrificial person, even after all the work he's done, so I think we could make a case for him being averse to putting Michelle and Henry out like that, or even putting them in the position of making a choice by saying, "I've decided to stay, you decide whether you'll move here or we'll keep this long distance." So yes, it's potentially in character for Ted -- or at least a Season One/Two version of Ted -- but that still leaves the rest of the cast OOC as a result. If Kansas was meant to stem from the flaw we've seen Ted embodying since day one -- AKA putting aside his own happiness to make it easier on someone else -- then EVERYONE should be calling him out on it. He has a support system now that is tailor-made to spot Ted's unique pitfalls and, like they've done in the past, gently and even not-so-gently correct him. If this was Ted's line of thinking, I would expect the writing to have him verbally acknowledge that at some point, leading to one of Rebecca's exclamations of "Bullshit!" Roy going, "That's fucking stupid." Beard muttering an "Oh my god" and looking like he's reading to kill him, a la the Paris assumption. Higgins shaking his head, Trent hesitantly raising a hand with a pointed correction, Keeley coming in with a bucket-load of concern, the team all sharing confused mutterings as they try to work through this ridiculous perspective, Ted's actual therapist getting to talk to him for the first time in an age and providing professional insight.

It might be in character for Ted to self-sacrifice like that, but it's out of character for everyone else to just let him do it. So we're left with this strange, dual reading of a) Ted is Totally Happy about going back to Kansas... he just doesn't look or sound or act like it. Funny that! or b) Ted is Very Unhappy about going back to Kansas and everyone around him (with the exception of Rebecca a bit) just shrugs and accepts that when they've never let Ted wallow in his self-damaging decisions before.

As for the other bit, I don't know anything about coaching, but I do know that Ted Lasso has played too fast and loose with those rules for it to really matter. I don't think we can argue for realism now when we started this whole story with a totally unqualified American football coach getting hired, the kitman is made a coach in like a year, Roy accepts his job by dramatically walking onto the pitch in the middle of a game... Even if coaches don't last very long irl, it's not like the show has ever adhered to such real world rules before, so there's no reason for them to start informing our reading of the story now.

[childofaura]

I guess I’m just gonna be filled with bad takes this December but I’m putting out one more while I work on my Sonic Forces comic:

I get kind of bugged about the fact that a lot of the Sonic characters are moving away from their original core personalities, and not in a “the character is growing” sort of way like Shadow when he hit peak character writing in 06 (Yes I said it, I’ll write an essay on why 06 was Shadow’s highest point as a character). But more in a “These characters are slowly losing the aspects of their personality that defines them, either by the franchise writing their characters to fill roles that don’t show those traits or sometimes by well-meaning fans.” I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been around (kind of) long enough to know how the characters were or if I’m just slowly becoming grouchy about it, but let me start:

1. Knuckles. Knuckles is starting to slip from his “rough and tumble and ready to fight” personality. Most of the portrayals I’ve seen from him are starting to slip more into the “cocky overconfident butt-of-the-joke” scenes, or in the case of Forces where he had absolutely no personality at all. Knuckles is supposed to be confident, yeah, but he’s also ASSURED in his might. The most cocky he’s gonna get is when he knows he can take a good swing at someone or something. And he’s stubborn.

2. Silver. For some of the most part, Silver’s thankfully stayed kind of the same, but he too is tripping into OOC portrayals (like that awful line in  Forces “I’m an optimist but I’m also a realist”. I swear that line was written by someone who read a summarized bio of Silver and said “Okay I think I’ve got this”). A lot of the time I’ve seen him get put into the “anxious nervous baby uwu” camp, though mainly that’s been from a few comic panels and the fandom that I’ve seen (and honestly I haven’t read enough of the comics so I’ll be happy if I get proved wrong); everyone forgets that Silver’s anxiety wasn’t in the form of “literal baby” but more “I’m so fucking sick of seeing everything in my life get destroyed” to where he has bursts of temper. His intro in 06 shows him floating through Soleanna and when he sees an Iblis flare, he very angrily backhands it psychokinetically. I’ll grant that Forces gave us a brief moment of Silver’s true personality when he rushes into a fight against Infinite (that should have lasted WAY longer and the fact that they crippled my boy’s power level for that scene still peeves me), but that was it.

3. Tails. Not a whole lot to say on this one but this kid is slowly losing his bravery.

4. Amy. Surprisingly, this one actually irritates me the most. For some reason, everyone loves changing Amy the most despite the fact that she hits a very nice medium of personality with her character that most people don’t realize. People don’t allow Amy to be cutesy anymore, and almost every time I’ve seen someone re-draw her or whatever, they aggressively squash out her crush on Sonic and they say, “Well now she’s gonna be more INDEPENDENT and HEAD-STRONG!”

NEWSFLASH.

AMY WAS ALWAYS INDEPENDENT AND HEADSTRONG. YOU GUYS DON’T LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE’S A CUTE FEMININE GIRL WHO DREAMS ABOUT LOVE.

In Sonic Heroes, she rallies up Cream and Big to go save Chocola and Froggy while also wanting to look for Sonic, taking the role of leader in Team ROSE. In Sonic 06, she manages to break into Eggman’s base somehow by accident without being detected and singlehandedly rescues Elise. She also apologizes to Silver and promises to help him find who he’s looking for, and she throws herself in harm’s way to help Sonic. In Riders Zero Gravity, she gets Storm under her boot just by being intimidating. A twelve year old girl!

Let her be head over heels for Sonic. Let her be a cutesy girl who ends up being the damsel in distress sometimes (because a good chunk of the time she also saves herself and scares the shit out of whoever treats her badly). Let her be that compassionate “I pray for peace” character she always was.

And honestly that covers MOST of the characters I’ve had issues with (There’s also Team Chaotix, but the one who gets the shit end of the stick the most is my man Vector). There’s some characters like Shadow, Blaze, Omega, Rouge (Though she’s kind of slipping too), Cream etc, who are staying relatively true to their characters but they’re also kind of slowly being lost.