born to lose | live to win

interesting sky sports retro™️ video @protect-daniel-james found that has jamie and franko interviewing antonio conte after chelsea won the league.

they don't say much--of course franko does mention chelsea is his club ("was my club!") and jamie just kind of stands there staring at thierry henry half the time (poor brainless jamie) BUT what was so interesting for lampardverse is that jamie and franko keep stealthily bumping into each other the whole interview:

they just keep doing this over and over. i just think they so clearly gravitate toward each other and uhhh clearly want to be close and touch each other. the level of comfort they always seem to have in each others' presence does a lot for the lampardverse brain 👀

lampardverse update: yesterday we watched this little series that Jamie, Uncle Harry (of course) and some Sports Pals did during lockdown, and there were many things to note (as always, Lampardverse people are in real life creepily exactly like we headcanon them), but Franko was a guest on one of the episodes, and well...

It was one of the rare times when we get to see Franko and Jamie interacting and they were so flirtatious with each other the whole time, and they started talking about their Lads' Vacations in Cyprus (!!!) and revealed that Franko started going with Jamie and his friends when he was 16, and he'd consume so much alcohol that they started calling him "Frank the Tank"...PLEASE...

(also he looked really good sitting in an unbuttoned shirt and spreading his legs Wide in some shorts, and looked so Happy...definitely came prepared to talk to Jamie Jamie Cousin Jamie after being stuck inside during lockdown!)

I love Lampardverse interactions!!! like I was watching christine on ALOTO on Cousin Jamie's team and Jamie was making sex jokes about Franko and I'm just like what's wrong with these people? I don't make sex jokes about my cousin with her partner looooool. These people are so delightfully weird

i can definitely do redders for ya! JT i don't know too much about. i know he has some controversies, but that ain't my business lol. i appreciate how he made franko feel and i'm intersted in how the 2 of them have taken different paths both about how they act toward each other and how they talk about roman abramovich post-ukraine war 😂 (would love to hear more about how he corrupted grealo.) BUT. jamie i've got a lot more to say about.

i feel like if you read jamie's odd autobiography and then think of him through that lens, he's a real diamond in the rough of a fascinating footballer. he seems kinda brainless and vapid but i think some of that is because he has too much going on in his brain to use it for that sort of thought. i don't even mean that as a diss. that's a real thing!!! but let's see...

favorite thing about them: well, he certainly seems unpretentious and easy to talk to, which i like. has some good taste in music, is still close to his parents, always takes franko's side and defends him 😂

so, this next part seems like a weird thing to list as a "favorite," as i'm sad he suffers or has suffered in this way, but out of all the things i've read about mental health, both fiction and non-fiction, jamie's book described some of my specific childhood/teenage Horrors so well it was like i wrote it and i was so surprised that he went through all that and admitted it so unselfconsciously. that combination of talented kid with an idyllic life (this was me, albeit in other ways than jamie lol) who lives in this private world of pure fear. some of the things he mentions, like having to paint his room cheerful yellow to ward off Bad Thoughts and Scary things, and being so afraid when he saw the exorcist as a teenager that he slept with the lights on and couldn't get the movie out of his head for weeks--the isolating strength of these kinds of fears is sooooo fuckin real man. he also describes needing to watch the same movie every day for comfort when he got home from school where he got bullied and teased for being a little different, and his attachments to his toys that he'd have to do little rituals with every day to help him feel Calm, and how he took them to school to try to make friends and kids stole them :( he also describes his older self as having something Dark inside him, like when his close friends would become occupied with a girlfriend, he'd kind of freak out and try to get in the way, because he was afraid of losing their support.

his book also describes very sinister perceptions of the external world too, a lot of kind of scary or just ominous scenarios drift through the book (a creep that tried to grab him in the park, the scary, dark corridors under dean court stadium when his Daddy was in charge of bournemouth--i related to that too--, rumors of some weird creep working at tottenham when they wanted to sign young him?)

i apologize if this is repetitive to anyone reading but i had some very particular Problems as a kid and i've just never seen some of them articulated the way jamie articulates them. and i just found all this so...fascinating. i think it explains a lot about his adult self and provides such a contrast between him and brainy franko (see headcanons section!)

least favorite thing about them: he cut his hair and has a beard! i'm predictable--if a footballer had long hair and now doesn't, this will be my response. otherwise, what's there really to dislike? he's kind of inoffensive imho

favorite line: uh a few

"Frank Lampard has a vision for seeing things." (i-hope he actually said that for real)

from his book:

and, for the "franko was too old when he was young" headcanons:

oookay then, anyway:

brotp: idk, who does he hang out with? i like his interactions with the guys on ALOTO even though his main feature is clearly to be the punching bag. maybe with stevie g? with Daddy-Uncle Harry? lmao

notp: his new wife. at first they didn't look as miserable together as he and poor Louise always did, but he just posted a video from their maldives vacation today, and woof--she looks miserable. well, i'm not here for blonde scandinavian models and i think jamie is too childish to do well in a Grownup Married Relationship. again, kind of like with franko, i don't mean childish like... "spoiled entitled manbrat" or "hasn't lost joie de vivre"--more like. is trapped as kid because of his own mind. i think if a therapist saw only jamie and franko as clients, and no one else, they'd be set for life

otp: well...there can be only one. i'd love for jamie & franko to give romeo + juliet their happy ending 😭 they are weirdly...made for each other. and hey--according to the internet it's legal! 🫡👮🏼

random headcanon: so many! lampardverse is sort of all about Jamie in a sense, and i think as a child Jamie so very much appreciated the solid steady presence of his younger cousin. franko's psychological issues are of a very different nature lol, plus we know he's a master of repression (can relate) and we imagine that he'd help jamie with his homework and read him chapters of the narnia book, and eat the food jamie refused to eat.

another one is that jamie is super dependent on his Well-Known Dad. they do a lot of stuff together and idk on ALOTO one of the main purposes seems to get jamie overwhelmed and stressed--because he gets like that very easily--so it feels like Uncle Harry's presence is just. very necessary for him.

fascin8ing! YMMV.

unpopular opinion: i don't think i have one? are there popular or unpopular opinions on jamie redknapp? hahaha

a song i associate with them: hmmm, not really any? i do have him singing shimmy shimmy ya by ODB at franko in "red red red" lol. but i don't really count that 😂

favorite picture of them: let's do a few!

gay af behaviors (affectionate)

whump tendencies

bougie gay cou-- (cousins? couple? choose your own adventure)

THANKS for coming along on this wild ride!