Fanfic / The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant is a Ted Lasso fanfic by Frithgeard.

One night, Jamie Tartt gets a midnight call from the Manchester Municipal Police, and goes along expecting to bail out his father like he has a dozen times before. Instead he discovers a little brother he was never told about, things about himself and his family he never knew, and a whole lot of trouble.

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The Iron Giant contains examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating: Edwin Gearhart. George Cartrick, a character in the series best known as Ted's chauvinistic, incompetent predecessor at Richmond, says he went to the funeral to make sure he was dead.
• Abusive Parents:
  • James Sr. is actually worse here than in canon.
  • ZeeJay is implied to have had one hell of an upbringing. Emphasis on the hell.
• Affectionate Nickname: Much to Jamie's confusion, Taylor calls him 'Jamiedeet'.
• Alas, Poor Villain: James Tartt Sr. No, really.
• All-Loving Hero: Taylor, although he tries very hard to hide it.
• Arc Words:
  • "So, it's like this."
  • Fucking sinks it. Fucking sells it. Gold. Fucking. Fish.
  • "I am my brother's keeper."
  • Assume every mistake is deliberate.
• The Atoner: Orrie.
• Berserk Button:
  • Roy's baseline is angry, but his rage when dealing with cases of historical child abuse is on another level. Just ask Gerald Mason.
  • Jamie when he was accidentally outed at the Academy.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Taylor is a great kid. He can also be absolutely terrifying when he wants to be.
• Big Brother Instinct: Jamie discovers his in Chapter 1.
• Break the Cutie: Taylor's entire arc, at this point.
• The Chessmaster: Martin Baeleigh.
• Children as Pawns: Nearly every single evil in Jamie and Taylor's lives is a result of this.
• Comically Missing the Point: Jamie, all the time.
  Jamie: [after having seen Taylor's bare chest] Jesus Christ, mate. Nobody gives a toss about your fucking boy-tits, Taylor. It's like, cut the candy, lose some weight, I'll take you 'round the gym and show you me lifting routine.
• Cool Car: The eponymous Iron Giant.
• Did Not Think This Through: Everyone suffers from this at some point. Everyone.
• Dirty Cop: James Sr., Denbo Cullens, and Taylor's rapist.
• The Ditz: Deconstructed. Jamie's still got his malapropisms from canon, and has a very non-standard way of looking at his life and the world he inhabits, but it's obvious he's not as dumb as people think he is.
  Taylor: I told them you weren’t dumb. Like you really ought to be evaluated for learning differences—and um, post-concussive syndrome, probably?—but you’re not stupid. You keep up with me alright, even if you don’t always have all the words you need to say what you mean.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Taylor turns a collection of Mars Bars and half a bottle of adderall into a six-week course of Clozapine in the space of a single afternoon at a public library, via a very complex barter system.
  • Father Lindsay's main concern, after being trapped inside the Dogtrack after a football riot, is explaining to his mother that he's relapsed into his Candy Crush addiction again.
• Found Family: Jamie and Taylor are blood, but ZeeJay, Connie, Lady Cressida, Roy, Keeley and Sam are all explicitly stated to be their family as well at different points, and it seems very likely there will be further additions.
• The Ghost: Connie, who passed away before the story began.
• Guile Hero: Taylor.
• Happily Married: John and Flora Jones. Also Connie and his wife, before his passing.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Colin: [after having run back and forth for an entire chapter] Coach says I need the exercise.
  • ZeeJay: I've been looking after Jamie here since he was a biscuit older than you are now.
  • James Sr.: In me whole entire life, I’ve only ever heard one story worth shedding tears over. Ask me how me father died. [How?] He never did.
• Haunted Headquarters: Deconstructed. Whilst in the show the superstition that the therapy room was haunted seemed to be several decades old, here it was Jamie who started it in an attempt to keep young players away from areas in the club where they could be easily taken advantage of.
  It didn't matter so much that it was the therapy room at all; just that it was narrow, and crowded, and easy to get trapped in. Had a door that locked from the inside and not even the coaches had the key. And well... noises aren't exactly uncommon once a masseuse gets down to business on your fascia.
• Jerkass Has a Point: John Jones initially doesn't want Keeley to have anything to do with Jamie or Taylor, because being around them (specifically, being around Martin Baeleigh's grandsons) is dangerous. Objectively, he's right.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Edwin Gearhart died alone and in incredible pain.
• Meaningful Echo:
  James Tartt Sr: I am me brother's keeper.
• Missing Mom: Jamie's mother, who is in a coma after a stroke.
• Odd Friendship: On paper, ZeeJay and Jamie don't make sense. Until you find out that xie basically raised him.
• Only Sane Man: Father Lindsay.
• Out of Focus: Ted, far from being a main character like he is in the series, is very much part of the supporting cast, although he is obviously still somebody that Jamie loves and respects very much.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Lady Cressida, Jamie, Keeley and Roy to Taylor.
  • ZeeJay and Connie to Jamie.
  • Roy to Phoebe.
• Parents as People:
  • Ada is unable to be the mother that Phoebe needs most of the time, but loves her dearly.
  • Keeley's supremely normal parents, John and Flora, turn out to have been in Witness Protection for the past few decades and aren't actually very normal at all.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Jamie telling Taylor that he's his brother, even before he knows why that means so much to him.
  • Dani spending a whole day scoring goals with Jamie when Jamie's on the verge of a breakdown, because he knew he needed a friend.
  • Taylor and AFC Richmond smuggling Colin's dog in to see him on the hospital ward.
  • Lady Cressida and Taylor's reunion.
• Polyamory: Keeley, Roy and Jamie (eventually).
  Roy: [to Keeley] We could do it together. You know, all of us. As a family.
  Jamie: Um, Coach?
  Roy: [still looking adoringly at Keeley] Of course you're fucking invited, Jamie.
  Richard: Excuse me, I am very confused. Did you just get invited to a threesome or a murder spree?
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: James Tartt Sr. He was amoral and fundamentally dangerous even before he went to war, but after he lost an eye and suffered a brain injury in Kosovo, he became a whole new kind of unstable.
• Training from Hell: Jamie's time at the Academy.
  Orrie: I thought he was going to kill you.
  Jamie: No, mate, you didn't. You fucking didn't. You don't just stand around listening if you think someone's about to die.
  Orrie: He wouldn't let you eat, Jamie.
• Trauma Button: Jamie has a lot of these.
• Undying Loyalty: Jamie and Taylor to each other.
• The Un Favourite: When he first meets Taylor, Jamie is very surprised that Taylor thinks James doesn't drink. Later, when he's dressing Taylor's wounds, he says that it's "actually not that bad", compared to what he used to get from James Sr. Both Roy and Taylor are horrified at what that implies.
• Unreliable Narrator: Jamie.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jamie and Taylor. They get over it.
• We Used to Be Friends: Jamie and Mikey. Both of them thought the other hated them for something that happened at the Academy, but Jamie still considers Mikey to have been the best friend he ever had, and Mikey watches all of Jamie's matches a decade after they last spoke.
• Wham Line:
  “What were you playing, Jamie?” ZeeJay asks.
  Football, he tells [hir]. Fucking football.
• Would Hurt a Child: James Sr. and the rest of Martin Baeleigh's criminal empire.