#i am such an ed is good with kids truther

[natjennie]

when ed meets mary and doug and alma and louis it's OVER for me

[gottagobackintime]

I find it fascinating to witness the straight audience of any media not being able to pick up what the makers of the movie/show puts down.

It’s like when people reacted to the “You wear fine things well” scene in Our Flag Means Death with “aw, they’re such good friends” whereas the queer audience went “omg, this is happening”. We all had access to the same scene, we’d all watched the build up to that scene but the straight audience wrongly read it as friends/straight whereas the queer audience had suspected they were building up to a romance but this was the confirmation. Even the creator of the show was baffled that people were surprised that Ed and Stede fell in love. Because he thought they had made it obvious.

And as I said, we, the queer audience picked up on it. And I feel like the same thing is happening with Ted Lasso. Do I know that Ted and Trent will get together? No, I am unfortunately not a writer on Ted Lasso. But you can’t deny that there are clues pointing to it. But the straight audience barely pick up the fact that Ted and Trent like each other, be that in a platonic way or romantic way. I’ve seen several reactions to the last episode of season 2 and ONE of them included the scene where Ted reacts to Trent not being in the press room. All of them severely cut down the scene in the parking lot. One of the scenes most of us Ted/Trent truthers point to as a huge piece of evidence for it going canon. The parallel of them meeting in an empty parking lot, just like Ted and his ex-wife and Roy and Keeley. But because Ted and Trent are both men it couldn’t possibly mean anything. And Ted has an ex-wife and a kid so he can’t possibly be into men, as if there is no such thing as being bisexual. “But I’m pretty sure Trent has a family, he has a kid right?” So? He could be divorced, we also have no idea if his daughter has another dad or a mum. And the same thing applies to him, it doesn’t mean he can’t be into men (take also into account all of James Lance’s interviews, and his choice of shirt in one of them, friend of Dorothy anyone? He's the captain of this ship, we're just along for the ride tbh.)

Then we have the wonderful “I’m so not homophobic, in fact, you are homophobic because you think Ted is gay just because he likes musicals and has ‘feminine’ traits” um no… it’s the fact that he kind of acts in a way that an ally wouldn't. Yeah, he called himself an ally in that one episode. But every single person who is now out as queer who at one point considered themselves an ally because "I’m not one of them but I sure think they're neat" raise a hand 🖐️ (been there, done that. Was very into queer things before I realised I myself am one of them). What it always comes down to is "it's pandering", "it's tokenism" (having the main character on the show be queer wouldn't be fucking tokenism), "not everything has to be gay", "why can't men just be friends, there is a severe lack of male friendships on tv". And like the last one makes me go??? There are a MILLION friendships between men on TV. There are even multiple friendships between men in Ted Lasso. Beard and Ted, Ted and Higgins, Ted and Roy, the himbos and so on. Having Ted and Trent become a couple wouldn't really change anything because there are still friendships between men. They also claim that Ted is needed as the "straight without toxic masculinity" representation. As if Beard isn't right there. The man who has no problem going to an immersive show about the menstrual cycle. Has no problem with shrieking when he's surprised and so on.

I also like that if we'd get Ted and Trent together, we'd get two middle aged queer dads. Which isn't that common. It's not even super common to see people realising they're queer late in life on TV, and yet it happens every day. Because let's face it, most queer men on TV kind of look like Colin, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. And I'm looking forward to his storyline. But it's also nice seeing middle aged or old people finding themselves and being allowed to be who they are (see Ed and Stede from OFMD). Also would enjoy seeing people lose their minds when they realise they've been fooled this entire time. It'll be like Black Sails all over again.

I do not have any doubts about the fact that, had Trent or Ted been a woman and they saw Trent give up his career because of Ted's influence, they sure as hell wouldn't protest people thinking they'd become a couple. But because it's two men it's just delusional for some reason (homophobia).

What I'm saying is, it's clear that the straight audience has a hard time picking up subtext and clues that the makers are planting. Because they've never had to do that. Because they are always clearly represented. They don't have to look for minor side characters and hope that they might be queer. Because the main character is straight and most of the supporting cast too. When you've grown up with a lack of representation or with representation that is meant to be subtext, you'll learn to pick up on it. And you do look at media differently. I just wish that the straight audience could listen to us for once, without getting defensive and dancing around the fact that they are uncomfortable relating to a character that turned out to be queer.

[knowlesian]

quick indulging in some stede angst while i procrastinate on finishing my piece on e5

i’m consistently fucked up over the blacked out form that used to be stede in the family portrait, and the metaphor it provides about the way stede handled his life and trauma: everything’s pretend. he’s not truly there, he’s living a story in his head in ways both lovely and inadvertently cruel.

lovely: looking at the world and demanding it bend to his delusional belief things could ever be other than they are. that it could be better.

inadvertently cruel: leaving mary and the kids (leaving ed) to wonder: was it me? if i was better, if i had been kinder or a more supportive wife, a better behaved child or a co-captain with less baggage or a better man, would he have stayed? would i have been worth staying for?

stede’s got a whole basketful of reasons he leaves without explaining why in both cases. but he does leave, and he doesn’t explain: those actions ripple out and hurt the people he leaves.

but also, we know stede’s general self-worth is under the fucking ground!!! less than zero!!! he has absolutely no inkling that his absence might affect someone just as much as his presence. he thinks: i am a burden people suffer. when i remove myself from their lives, i am ultimately making those lives easier, in heartbreaking part because he cannot imagine a world in which somebody actually wants him around.

i know i’m a big old hippie and a reconciliation will come faster than we might think truther, but goddamn i just want ed and stede to have the mutual validation moment! because ed needs to hear “it was never about not wanting you or not wanting to be with you, it was a gross cocktail of trauma and old fears and chauncey being a walking nightmare in so, so many ways” from stede and stede needs to hear “you leaving me? fucked me up real good in ways we may need to do some work to overcome, but only because you are somebody i always want to be around, even when things are not pleasant and conflict-free, all forever-like” from ed asa-fucking-p.

[indecisive-v]

alright, people put translations for yonah and deep cover on youtube so i finally caved, here's thoughts i wrote as i listened

YONAH

now, in t1, it looked to me like kotoko felt it was a necessity to do what she did? like there was no other way to save the victims of those she hunted down, and that makes sense to me

but it's looking now like she's just gotten so used to it that she likes it, and i think she tries to reason for it by saying she's doing the dirty work so others don't have to

she's the one out here beating up the bad guys, partly because kind young es shouldn't have to and partly because comatose weakling es can't

jackalope in novel secret content: es is great at this. peak warden material, A+ 11/10

kotoko in yonah: you're kinda bad at this lol

oh no i just had a Thought. forgive me for what i'm about to say and never let me cook again

so kotoko mentions "karmic retribution" right

my stupid idiot brain that had an undertale phase back in the day thought about sans 💀💀💀

karma and lack of i-frames are what allow sans to hurt you extra bad despite him only having 1 atk

kotoko is the same color as karma's poison effect and the prisoners' "i-frames" are disabled when es is asleep. she thinks she's sans underta- (i am sent to the prison)

kotoko in yonah: what's next, are you gonna start forgiving prisoners just because they're hot?

jackalope at the VERY BEGINNING: vote em inno because they're hot, vote em inno because you just like their Vibes, idc do what you want lol

Deep Cover

HOLD UP WAIT THIS IS A BANGER HOLY GOD I'M ONLY LIKE 4 SECONDS IN

yall weren't kidding about her stealing es' "under" lmfao

OH NO THE DISS TRACK

ok. done listening. i'm normal now.

just kidding gonna listen again

either kotoko figured something out in regards to the 11th prisoner es theory or she is a believer in the theory herself, or both

yep still a banger

funny thing, harrow to me felt like an anime op, now deep cover feels like an ed

you were all saying this was instant guilty material but i don't think it's... THAT bad...? maybe i'm just a lil head empty

at the same time though, good luck kotoko inno truthers fr 💀

i have a little more hope now after listening that the mv will soften the inevitable guilty storm? they better be cooking good lol

kotoko's diss track felt like it was her lashing out in anger after what es told her in the vd, mixed with her thinking "hey, everyone's in here for murder, right? and it's about whether you forgive them as opposed to whether they're actually 'innocent'? well, i can't forgive a murderer, no matter what."

kotoko has already stated in her t1 interrogation that she at the very least hasn't been bullied in the past, and while that doesn't eliminate the possibility of her having another sort of tragic/traumatic backstory (or her having been bullied but not thinking it counted for some reason), it could also just be that she's really misguided due to being a lone wolf and having no one to work with, bounce off of, and validate her but herself. being alone like that does shit to a person

[bisluthq]

Yeah there are a bunch of them and they’re freaaaaaks. / why though? Why does every person who believes that Ed had feelings for Tay has to be a "freak"? I do believe that men and women can just be friends and I do believe that Taylor is friends with Jack, Ed... in a platonic way. But I also believe that there was a period where Ed had feelings for Tay. Those ideas can exist and there will be happiness you know. Stop calling people freaks, I'm not saying they are secretly married and had a kid

Because they denied it. Repeatedly. And Ed’s had girlfriends pretty consistently through the period of time he’s been friends with Taylor and has repeatedly talked about what a good wingwoman she is. Like they are friends. And there’re EQUAL ODDS of Kaylor and Sweeran happening. The odds for Swiftgron are HIGHER than for Sweeran since it has never been denied explicitly by either girl. And yet y’all luuuurve to go on about how that’s delulu. 

So I’m being consistent.

If people get called crazy for thinking Wonderland is about Dianna when literally Alice in Wonderland was her whole personality and Taylor has never ever explained the song, I am allowed to call Sweeran truthers delusional because y’all fucking are.