#could say the same for patrick tbh

[tashisversion]

“art’s a top” “art’s a bottom” “art’s this” “art’s that” art does what he’s told 🤗

[curfewplugs]

Kind of a shame Alison Lohman didn't get more voice work after doing the English dub of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and knocking that into the stratosphere.

[neyafromfrance95]

everyone always says they want complex female characters but then they altogether dismiss any complexity and nuance of female characters.

yes, tashi loved tennis the most but why? why was she unable to show vulnerability and the human underneath the tennis player/coach?

did you all forget tashi saying that her family didn't have money when she was young? she single handedly got her family out of poverty through tennis. her whole family depended on her as a tennis prodigy. it was her only skill, only passion, only source of security and pride, it was her entire identity.

remember how art basically lied to tashi that patrick was hooking up with other girls and didn't love her after tashi told him that she thought she could take her relationship with patrick to the next level?

this lie triggered tashi's insecurity/fears that she was only enough as a tennis player/coach. this is why she wanted patrick to depend on her as on a tennis coach. she thought that was the only reason he (or anybody) would need and value her.

art understood that tashi needed tennis and was reducing her own value to her job and basically used this by asking tashi to coach him. he became smn who'd depend on tashi the tennis coach. he wanted her and would do anything to get her, including lying to her and exploiting her fears. he even used her trauma as a reason why she should have chosen him instead of patrick. also, it's interesting choice that art gave tashi his grandma's ring. it's like he used his dead grandma tactic on her almost the same way he did on patrick. except for patrick *knew* art was low-key a snake. then when art became dead set on winning after learning that tashi slept with patrick and was probably gonna keep her word about leaving him if he lost? tbh, it felt like art was trying to encage tashi throughout the entire movie.

tennis was tashi's everything, the love of her life, but she loved art and patrick too. however, i feel like she needed art bc he made her feel like she was alright, she was still needed as a tennis expert. patrick, on the other hand, i think she genuinely loved him in a romantic way and was afraid of losing him. the fact that she got injured after their fight only shows how distressed she was about him leaving her and how far from indifferent she was about him.

[t1ts-4-donaldson]

Okayy what do u think something each of the three(tash art pat, individually) are secretly into.. could be sexual or not

Guilty pleasures ig

Oooo I had to think hard about this it never crossed my mind surprisingly I got carried away too NSFW:

Patrick: hate fucking for the win is generally into feral sex, ripping into each other, cussing one another out likes to antagonize you and wants the same energy back. I think he likes a brat someone to dominate until they can’t form coherent sentences “my fucked out slut” ramming his hips into your core you can barely think squeezing your mouth open and spitting on your tongue and tbh will just do it on your face smearing it across your mouth and cheek, face fucking till your choking on his dick squeezing his thighs trying not to tap out.

Patrick is aloof but adores you. I don’t think he’s ever tried to be the best boyfriend before you, strictly into one night stands and month long situationships also giving into whatever woman his parents want him to date next until he fucks them over out of spite but he wants to do better when he meets you, is in your space all the time, he’s messy, always in your space, he ends up desiring intimacy calling you late at night aching for comfort only you can provide

Art: I think he’s a sweetheart in every sense of the word, gifts and flowers before most dates, dotes on you whenever you feel like shit (massages, cuddles, will happily validate your feelings agreeing to everything you’re saying even if you’re wrong) craves pleasing you wants to be your good boy.. and I think he is kind of a switch sexually in the sense of wanting to care for his partner fulfill their needs and not feeling satisfied until they’re met but also likes to be babied wanting you to love him until he’s brought to tears.

Then the other side of the coin wanting to wreck them fucking them like no tomorrow especially when shit hits the fan, he’s on the verge of snapping after terrible tennis tournament or feels emasculated especially around Patrick and wants to be dominated he’s your dumb baby that needs to be used and humbled (breeding kink too that man wants a big family).

Tashi: hard dom all the way, you’ve seen her dictating Art she’s does the same to you, setting schedules and specific regimens for you to follow (meals you should eat, when to exercise, time to focus on your goals) insisting that she knows what’s best for you, punishments inside when you don’t reach her standards but absolutely amazing at aftercare she needs you to know how much she appreciates you even if you step out of line in her eyes. Will give you anything you want, you make a comment about how beautiful an Hermes bag is while passing the store she’s automatically buying it for you, notices you scrolling through your favorite fast food restaurant menu she already knows your order delivering it asap.

I feel like she gets off on watching you fuck someone else, controlling the entire situation who does what and when to cum. She’s possessive but isn’t opposed to group sex as long as she’s in charge

[johnnycakesb14de]

the outsiders with a reader who is very extroverted? i feel like i always see like shy s/o or something but never someone who actually likes talking 😭😭!!

YESSS FINALLY MY KIND OF PEOPLE!! #extravorted and proud

THE OUTSIDERS X A EXTROVERTED READER

DARRY

He'd love a extravorted reader

Like he wouldn't be soooo crazy about it but it's one of your traits he loves

Like I don't see him being a super extroverted or social

But he isn't anti social???

So y'all would be good for each other

He'd also like it because you could talk to the gang you know?

Y'all are literally the same

He's outgoing and so are you so it works out perfectly

He talks to people at the DX and you talk to people wherever you work !!(if you do)

He'd probably very much prefer a extravorted S/O because that's just how he is as a person

He loves people who just like to talk and aren't afraid to talk

Steve probably gets annoyed with y'all yapping all day

PONYBOY

He isn't extravorted really so you know guys work out nice

Your giggling with everyone and he's just sitting next to you watching how happy you are

He does get a little jealous though when your walking at school and people keep going

"hey Y/N!" Because you talk to everyone

But it's not because he's jealous that your talking to other people he just isn't that type of jealous

He just wants to finish talking about the book he read or what happened when him Dally and Johnny were out the night before

BEST COUPLE DYNAMIC FOR HIM OMG

I see a lot of people say he'd be best with a shy reader but I feel like he needs a extravorted S/O

Like he'd adore how you just so easily you talked and didn't get scared or just listen to the conversation

You would most definitely even each other out too

Like you make him actually talk ...sometimes

And when y'all are alone he would talk a lot with you but you'd still talk more because he just lovessss your voice

Long story short, Johnny Cade NEEDS a extroverted S/O

BRO IS NOT EXTROVERTED HE JUST IS NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING

Would prefer not to talk though (unless with the gang, Tim Shepard, and you obviously)

He definitely makes fun of you for it

"Do you ever stfu? Like genuine question."

But he does enjoy listening to your rambles about things and stuff

Would have you talk to store employees so he can steal things

If you have a charm to you then he would probably try to get you to sweet talk the police so they let him not go to jail

Never works obviously

Gets really jealous though

Like if your talking to Tim for too long (5 minutes or longer) he'll get pissy about it

Wouldn't care tbh

Like he listens to your rambles or just talk

It just doesn't faze him

Why?

Mr Sodapop Patrick Curtis is why

He'd be used to the extravorted sunny type of person

It's nothing new so he just automatically goes for people like that and just doesn't notice

He just prefers extravorted people and doesn't realize it

I don't make the rules 🤷🏻

YESS YESS YESSSS

See the thing is social anxiety is afraid of him like he is the definition of that saying or phrase yk

Literally y'all are like so funny together like always laughing and making other people laugh

Y'all would be at bucks and just yap to the other people there

Hed really love a extravorted reader

Just don't interfere with Mickey

It will get messy

[verysium]

need more of your sae for scientific reasons. very important

here you go lovely:

sae has zero taste in fashion unfortunately. if it covers his body and does not get in the way of football, then it works for him. that's also the reason why he accepts christmas sweaters with the most atrocious color combinations. he genuinely doesn't know that they're ugly (and also doesn't want to upset his mother and elderly aunties.) still has a pair of bright turquoise swim trunks from when he was a preteen with "i ♡ seagulls" printed all over them. he never threw them out and still wears them on summer trips. did not understand why half the beachgoers were side-eyeing him.

sae cannot comprehend internet slang. if you send him any acronym, he will read it out loud in the literal sense. would flick you on the forehead if you said he was becoming too millennial. he was born in the 2000s but cannot relate to anyone in the same generation.

sae would adopt a cat, but it would be a reverse adoption. the cat would choose him and not the other way around. he would not bother with it other than the required feeding and grooming. tried to play with it once, but it hissed and scratched at him. both of them just exist simultaneously in the same residence. sometimes the kitty jumps on his bed at midnight in order to cuddle. he would also name it something like "neko" or "el gato" or literally "the cat" because he is so unoriginal.

sae gives himself the whole patrick bateman monologue every morning when he does his skincare routine. he peels his face mask off in slow motion too. when you pointed out the similarities, he got mildly upset because he does not like being compared to anyone.

sae secretly hates the fact that rin is taller than him. he thinks about it a lot when he sees the family photos. sometimes wishes he grew just a little more during puberty. that way he would be taller than 180 cm.

sae cannot sing for the life of him. but if you are sick or having nightmares, he will hum you the lullaby his mother used to sing for him. gets shy when you compliment his voice, but his emotions do not manifest physically on his facial features. sometimes when he thinks you're finally asleep in his lap, he will brush your hair back and kiss your forehead.

sae sometimes feels a stirring in his chest whenever he spots a child in the park or an old couple on the benches near the boardwalk. he left for spain at a young age, so he inevitably gets the feeling that his childhood was stolen from him. if he ever matured to the point where he could see beyond his own ambitions, he would want to start a family.

sae loves it when he comes home from practice and sees you dancing around in the kitchen. he will watch silently as you prance around with a spatula and belt out the lyrics. sometimes he just wants to capture the moment and tuck it into his breast pocket and treasure it forever.

sae feels touched when you actually listen to what he says. because he is a man of few words, he usually has to be the one who listens, digests information, and offers sound advice. however, if you grant him the time of day to hear him out or gift him something that he once mentioned off-hand, he will feel strange tingles of the emotion he tries so desperately to deny.

sae is a skeptic. no scam, ploy, or false pretense will ever make it past him. he despises people-pleasers and does not understand why he has to conform to other people's standards. will not trust news outlets unless he personally was there as an eyewitness account or there is sufficient research backing up the claims.

sae is rather extreme when it comes to getting hurt. it is all or nothing with him. if he feels like you somehow penetrated through his walls and hurt him even in the slightest way, he will make the situation worse by hurting you back tenfold. usually he tries to justify pushing you away, and that just ends up driving him even further from you. tbh he really needs to work on his communication skills. rather than shutting down after an issue arises, he has to learn to put his own opinions aside and hear out the other party.

sae gets bored easily, but he is hesitant to try out new things in fear of not being immediately good at them. as the eldest child of his family and a hailed prodigy in his nation, there is the expectation that he must naturally excel at everything to set a good example. football is where he first found his talent and where he feels the most comfortable even if it isn't as inspiring and exciting as it once was. unfortunately, it leads to the onset of burnt-out-gifted-kid syndrome. that's also why he is seeking out a strong striker who can meet his demands and generate the impossible plays he is looking for. essentially sae needs someone to rekindle his original love for the sport.

sae gets defensive when he lets other people down, except this isn't immediately apparent. usually you would have to read between the lines with him. he bases his self-worth off both his own ambitions and the people close to him. if he disappoints someone important to him, he will be stuck in this sinkhole of internal turmoil. that's also why he lashes out at rin when rin reminds him of their shared dream he gave up on. he doesn't like his mistakes being pointed out, much less when his stoic image crumbles. he might also push you away and try to convince himself that you aren't worth that much to him in order to lessen his guilt.

sae needs someone highly intuitive and patient in his life. you need to be able to understand his emotions intrinsically because even he cannot grasp his own feelings. you also need to teach him how to connect himself with the outside world. because sae has primarily fended for himself ever since he was born, you have to convince him that it is okay to rely on others. his mentality is that if he reaches the top, no one will be able to touch him, much less hurt him. however, he sometimes fails to see how that simultaneously isolates himself from others.

sae is relatively straightforward when it comes to getting what he wants. if he somehow miraculously realizes and comes to terms with the fact that he loves you, he will confess it directly to your face. "date me or don't." it's not even a question. it's a factual statement.

sae is not as emotionally mature as the rest of the fandom makes him out to be. just because he does not show emotions in a traditional sense doesn't mean he necessarily has better control or understanding over them. for example, he gets jealous but would not know that the emotion he is feeling is actually called jealousy. rather than tease him about it, i think he would sincerely appreciate if you reassured him both verbally and physically through your actions. he is a man who relies on substance, so you need to prove that you'll be the one who stays with him through thick and thin.

sae oscillates between caring too little about others and caring too much. on one hand, he is more than willing to drop someone or something if his end goal has already been met. the ends always justify the means in his mind. however, he also feels doubt and uncertainty at times. like rin said, he hates losing. he objects to the blue lock program at first largely because he doesn't like the idea of a newcomer. he's already written off japan as a substandard country for football, so the idea of it being changed essentially challenges him directly. but again, this is a delicate line of balance. he is alright when it comes to being challenged mentally in football and seeking out a creative out-of-box solution. for instance, he is more than willing to accept rin's progress, shidou's unpredictability, and isagi's breakthrough talent. however, he is not okay with having his preconceptions destroyed as evidenced by his disillusionment in spain.

sae and ego would actually get along pretty well because they both have this one-track mind when it comes to football. players are reduced to numbers and metrics, and everything is evaluated as an advantage or disadvantage. ego is also ruthless when it comes to the elimination of the weak, and sae wouldn't disagree with that.

sae sometimes wakes up on the weekends and sees you in his bed, the sunlight raining down on your face. it is in this sort of domesticity that he wonders what life would be like if he wasn't a football prodigy. he craves normality not in the sense that he wants to be like everyone else but rather the idea that he needs to feel some sort of attachment or sense of belonging between you two. he could care less about the rest of the world but so long as you accept him, he would feel validated.

sae gives you free reign over his heart when he finally gives out and you're still there to pick him up. in his mind, he is worth nothing if he fails. if you're still there to reassure him and put him back together, he will first look at you like you're stupid for even wanting to stay with him. but once he realizes you stay only because you love him, you have his unconditional commitment. he would put a ring on your finger right then and there.

lmao that was long but that concludes my psychoanalysis on sae. hope that cures your insatiable need.

[txttletale]

(Other than the really weird bit about "Male presenting Doctor") what were your thoughts about the specials?

pretty mixed bag, pretty messy, but good overall. i think they were very obviously a nostalgia trip for people around my age lol and it worked! i loved seeing tennant and tate back onscreen together, their chemistry hasn't aged a bit, and honestly just watching doctor who that wasn't written by chris chibnall was a breath of fresh air. they weren't boring, like seasons 11 and 12 were, and they didn't go too far off the other end into nonsense like flux did. characters want things again! the show can let itself just be silly! i was literally cheering out loud when donna and the doctor were just saying random scifi gobbledegook at each other for like a solid several minutes during the star beast.

the structure of the specials kind of baffles me. i love wild blue yonder--i think it's definitively the best of the specials as a standalone, it's absolutely fantastic, creepy and atmospheric and bringing things around to RTD's strength, which is well-written characters interacting with each other and letting good actors just act. but at the same time i dont understand why it exists? it feels like...idk. imagine if you watched the star wars original trilogy but instead of the empire strikes back the middle film was just a feature length film about luke and han surviving on an ice planet with no reference to anything that happens in the last film except the two characters' relationship. and then the next film was still return of the jedi, unchanged. it felt like that

i liked all the weird campy silliness of the star beast and the giggle, and they were both very fun! neil patrick harris gave a fantastic performance, there are a lot of very memorable sequences from the giggle, but it's very very all over the place. so many threads get kind of picked up and go nowhere. the toymaker's haunted house dimension goes nowhere. RTD's eyerolling social media commetnary goes nowhere (thank god tbh but yknow im illustrating something here). even the toymaker kind of goes nowhere, after ncuti gatwa shows up he's bascially an afterthought who loses by dropping a ball. obvious parallels to david tennant's first episode with that ball scene could be made, but just... aren't. it feels like load-bearing sectikons of the plot and themes were cut out to make room for a backdoor pilot for the stupid fucking UNIT spinoff

oh and it goes without saying i fucking hate all the UNIT wank in the star beast and the giggle. i hope space nine eleven 2 happens to their stupid fucking avengers tower i cannot stand kate stewart who is constantly a murderous bonehead (in the giggle alone she gets two pepole killed by not listening to the doctor and assuming that this teleporting godlike entity could be restrainted by Two Guys) who is both in and out of universe just a boring nepo baby with no merit of her own

um. i still dont know what happened with the regeneration. i think the implication is that when david tennant dies hell time travel back to become ncuti gatwa inside himself--at least the rehab dialogue seems to make that implication. but it's not really explained or explored? baffling. i do think that fourteen getting to settle down and live a peaceful life with his friends is cute.

oh yeah and the ask said other than that but goddd there was some good stuff in the star beast and honestly with the state of the UK media i will take any perspective on trans people that includes baseline human erespect but some of those lines made me cringe so bad. anyway overall i am cautiously optimistic for the future of the show--oh ncuti was fucking great did i mention that i instantly bnought him as the doctor he owned the scene, the moment he was there it was clear he was the protagonist, and i liked the church on ruby road well enough too--i am cautiously optimistic but i worry that a big UNIT-shaped tumor will devour huge chunks of it and it'll be annoying. also russel t davies is like 60 and i just dont want to hear what he has to say about twitter so im not looking forward to dot and bubble

[milligramspoison]

Welcome to the FOB edition of this list! I originally did this with MCR :)

North America

LIVE DEBUT OF G.I.N.A.S.F.S. (Chicago)

CHRIS LIVESTREAMED THE SHOW

Live debut Heaven, lowa!!

Live debut of Baby Annihilation!

A cover of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne!

The Take Over, the Breaks Over for the first time since 2017!

GIANT DOG HEAD BEHIND PATRICK

Someone wore a Mikey Fuckin' Way shirt to the show (he's already somehow made his way into this list and it's only night one)

Someone else wore a Hey Chris shirt

The Pink Seashell was the intro!

They opened up the tour with LFTOS (it's called Otherside on the official setlist!)

GINASFS being labeled GOLF on the setlist

William Beckett and a handkerchief

They played Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey!

They played Fake Out for the first time with Joe!

New merch tour merch!

CLANDESTINE MERCH

Security/ushers going hard during Centuries!

Pete straight up disappearing off the face of the earth before Crazy Train

Setlist got leaked (very reminiscent of one of MCR hometown shows lol)

Not tour content but Pavlove has randomly appeared on Spotify but is currently unplayable (Maryland Heights)

Patrick was spotted watching the openers!

A paper had to be made for presumably security to not mistake the guys as a concert goer (fucking hilarious)

Andy was also spotted watching the openers!

THEY'RE PLAYING RAY'S ICONIC SPOKEN WORD PART OF I'M NOT OKAY BETWEEN SETS

Each city is getting its own special shirt!! (This was revealed during the Missouri show!)

Setlistfm user mommymilkers live updating the setlist for us (icon)

LIVE DEBUT OF WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

GIN JOINTS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2008

JOE SINGING DURING CHICAGO

No one could tell if they either played Gin Joints or Tell That Mick at first

Setlistfm saying they covered Super Bass by Nicki Minaj (it was a troll but a funny one)

Patrick saying he wants to talk to the dog during This Ain't a Scene

Pete petting the dog

Pete giving his pick to a young fan <3

Stardust Funhouse! (Bonner Springs)

Fans with vip packages get their own magic 8 ball! (This has been happening since Chicago but wasn't revealed until night 3 of the tour!)

Patrick and Andy were watching Alkaline Trio together :)

PATRICK IS WEARING THE FEDORA

TOUR DEBUT OF HUM HALLELUJAH

I’M LIKE A LAWYER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2014

SOPHOMORE SLUMP ALSO FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2014

More trolls saying they covered ME! by Taylor Swift

“Fall Out Boy is my favorite fucking band”

New (I think) BMTH merch! (Woodlands)

BMTH joining the tour! (Been waiting for them since the announcement lol)

FOB SETLIST GOT LEAKED AGAIN

BMTH fans exploding over the fact that Kingslayer wasn't on BMTH's setlist

FOB fans being sad over the fact Pete isn't wearing his skirt (I think someone lied about this so understandable tbh)

THEY COVERED SOMEBODY TO LOVE BY QUEEN

THEY ALSO COVERED TAKE ON ME BY A-HA

Someone on setlistfm trolling everyone by saying they performed Golden for the first time since 2007

Someone else also trolling on setlistfm saying they covered Princess Diana by Ice Spice

Same troll mentioned above saying Ice Spice was there

More trolls saying they did WAP by Cardi B

LIVE DEBUT OF KINTSUGI KID

MORE trolls saying they did I Write Sins and Viva Las Vengeance by P!ATD (the trolls were really annoying tonight tbh)

What a surprise more trolls saying they covered Dear John by Taylor Swift

“I DRESS THIS WAY BC IF THE CROWD IS FEELING HOT AND MISERABLE THEN IM GONNA BE HOT AND MISERABLE WITH YOU GUYS WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER”

Patrick getting a friendship bracelet and having some banter with Pete <3

The lovely @andoutofharm leaking the setlist for us that says Kansas City even though they're in Dallas (Dallas is proving to be chaos) (wasn’t actually tonight’s setlist but funny it was there)

Joe is hiding his book for fans similar to how MCR hid drumsticks for fans!

Clandestine merch returns in Dallas!

Oli giving FOB a brief shoutout before MANTRA!

PETE IS IN THE SKIRT

Speech about support staff!

Speech about TTTYG’s anniversary!!!

WHAT A CATCH DONNIE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2013

THE (AFTER) LIFE OF THE PARTY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2007

Pete walked around in the audience!

“Trying to keep it cool in Texas”

Patrick’s speech about imposter syndrome <3 (whole thing is very sweet and nice)

BMTH not performing in Phoenix :( (sad times)

PETE IS IN A SKIRT AGAIN

Patrick is wearing the black button up again but tucked in!

TAKE OVER AND HUM HALLELUJAH IN THE SAME NIGHT

Pete talking about prioritizing love <3

SPOTLIGHT BY PATRICK WAS FUCKING PLAYED HOLY SHIT

ALSO PATRICK’S FIRST TIME PLAYING SPOTLIGHT SINCE 2011

SPACE CAMP FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2013

They played one extra song tonight! (They usually play 27 songs a night)

Played the instrumental version of Stardust at the end of the show!

Patrick’s speech before Spotlight <3

Pete got Grimaced but Patrick lives on in peace lol

MIKEY FUCKIN WAY IS AT THE FUCKING SHOW (Chula Vista)

A COVER OF NOTHING COMPARES 2 U BY PRINCE

(COFFEE’S FOR CLOSERS) FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2009

Patrick and Pete didn’t do the waltz :(

MIKEY PLAYED FUCKING SATURDAY WITH THEM

MIKEY WITH PETE WHILE PLAYING SATURDAY

MIKEY RUNNING TO THE STAGE TO PLAY

Mikey posting Andy on his story <3333

PATRICK AND MIKEY HUGGING <33333333

Mikey with the entire band <3333333

I nearly spread an entire rumor that Mikey posted sim versions of FOB on his story (oops)

Pete doing this weird/messed up bow thing towards Patrick

“Love you dudes!” on Mikey’s story <33333

“My two dads” on Gabe’s story (never change Gabe)

Patrick stopping the show to make sure a fan is okay <3

Kristin reposting Mikey playing with FOB on her story <3

The pit during BMTH’s set

Oli is missing a fucking shoe

I predicted Mikey performing with FOB :3

Mr. Blue Sky cover! (LA night one)

GOLDEN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2007

G.I.N.A.S.F.S. IS MAGIC 8 BALL ONCE AGAIN

AMERICA’S SUITEHEARTS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2009

TWO MAGIC 8 BALL SONGS AS YOU CAN SEE ABOVE

They played 29 songs tonight!! (They usually about 27 songs a night)

PETE AND PATRICK HARMONIZED DURING SRAR

Pete spotting his trainer in the crowd (literally the equivalent of Gerard from MCR talking about their mailman during a show)

Patrick’s speech before medley <3

“New car smell stadium”

Demi Lovato was at the show and performed with Royal & the Serpent, one of the openers!

Pete being shipped to the audience (Amazon same day delivery)

America’s Suitehearts being labeled as ASS on the official setlist

Oli in a cult leader tank top (literally just says cult leader)

The band had a secret show earlier on in the day! (LA night two)

Technically tour stuff, but Pete possibly hinting at an MCR x FOB tour for 2024!

Someone on setlistfm deleting the entire setlist

LIVE DEBUT OF I’VE GOT ALL THIS RINGING IN MY EARS

A COVER OF EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

SOPHOMORE SLUMP WITH WILLIAM BECKETT OF THE ACADEMY IS

THE (AFTER) LIFE OF THE PARTY ONCE AGAIN

LIVE FUCKING DEBUT OF BANG THE DOLDRUMS

Pete’s speech <3

Pete has a new jacket!

Saturday with Adam T. Siska!

“It looks like there's a lot of you, it's a little intimidating” ~ Patrick (Mountain View)

What A Catch Donnie once again!

A cover of Alison by Elvis Costello!

THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS AND FAKES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2013

Pete and Andy briefly turning the show into comedy hour

Pete stood on the piano (thanks piano)

Random guy checking his emails during BMTH’s set (lowkey pretty funny, shoutout to this iconic guy)

Not tour stuff but Electric Touch by Taylor Swift featuring FOB came out today! (July 7th) (West Valley City)

Patrick telling everyone to sing along to Grand Theft Autumn

Cover of Hold The Line by Toto!

THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2018

Someone having a Frerard license plate (honestly super funny)

Patrick saving a bug

Pete broke up a fight (pls don’t fight at concerts that’s not fucking cool) (Greenwood Village)

THEY DID FUCKING BANG THE DOLDRUMS AGAIN AND IT WASN’T EVEN MAGIC 8 BALL TIME

ACOUSTIC GUITAR FOR MEDLEY

PATRICK PLAYED AN ORIGINAL SONG BY HIS DAD <33333

Patrick’s dad is at the show! <3

NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2014

“The party tonight is awesome” ~ Pete

“The last thing you want to do is go and brag tomorrow that you got into a fight at a fucking Fall Out Boy show. And it wasn’t even with Bring Me The Horizon, y’know what I mean?” ~ also Pete

The song Patrick played from his dad is called Goin’ North!

There’s bubbles during Disloyal!! (This has been happening the entire tour but I haven’t seen anyone bring it up until the Colorado show!)

Cover of Peace Love and Understanding by Elvis Costello & The Attractions! (Rodgers)

I SLEPT WITH SOMEONE IN FOB FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2015

A speech about Stardust!

Patrick during Saturday <3

“I’m gonna go play Super Mario Brothers”

Pete chatted with a kid during the show <3

Storm delay just before FOB’s set, thankfully everyone was safe!! (Somerset)

Oli has lost his fucking shoe once again

Drunk guy took his pants off and had security chase him (hope they caught him)

THEY SOUNDCHECKED BANG THE DOLDRUMS

The venue is apparently in a cornfield

Only half the stage got set up :(

The dog is named Blitz (yes it took me till Wisconsin to learn it’s fucking name)

THE EYES ALSO FUCKING GLOW

“People ask us what it was like at old fob shows and the answer is that it was kind of like this, we would just play until the police kicked us out” ~ Pete lol

LIVE DEBUT OF FAME < INFAMY CONGRATS WISCONSIN YOU FUCKING DESERVE IT

No medley tonight (storm delay and strict curfew)

Also the shortest show of the tour so far! They played only 16 songs when they usually play about 27-28 songs (again storm delay and strict curfew)

One of the openers wore a cheesehead apparently!

BMTH’s drumhead says Steve for some reason??

Oli hugged a fan <3

OLI RAN THROUGH THE FUCKING MERCH STANDS

Double rainbow!! (Cincinnati)

LIVE DEBUT OF FAVORITE RECORD

Patrick being proud of himself after performing Favorite Record <3

Joe got a new tattoo entitled Z-Bone for his youngest daughter Zayda! <3

Troll on setlistfm saying they covered Harder, Better, Faster Stronger by Daft Punk lol (Noblesville)

Same troll saying they covered Mr. Brightside by The Killers and I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas

Same troll saying they covered Peaches by Jack Black

Patrick skipping around <3

WHERE DID THE PARTY GO FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2014

Patrick randomly became a wizard during the show and made Pete disappear :3

Pete being a gamer boy on his ig and playing Fortnite <3

The same troll from the other night saying they covered Daft Punk (again) and fucking Nintendo (Cuyahoga Falls)

“I have like, 3 brain cells left” ~ Pete

MEDLEY HAD I’M LIKE LAWYER

Cover of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen!

LIVE DEBUT OF 27

Pete smiling and waving to his two youngest kiddos, Saint and Marvel during Dance Dance <3

A fan also gave Meagan and the kiddos friendship bracelets! (Revealed in the tags in the link above!)

PETE’S IN A SKIRT (Bristow)

NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER ACCOUSTIC

TOUR DEBUT OF SHE’S MY WINONA

SHE’S MY WINONA FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2009

I FUCKING PREDICTED SHE’S MY WINONA

New merch for the magic 8 ball! (Charlotte)

Someone the day before the show put an entire fake setlist on setlistfm lol

A Jehovah’s Witness is at the show (slay ig)

And apparently another person randomly preached at the show??

Someone is also barking in the pit??

Lean On Me by Bill Withers cover!!

DEAD ON ARRIVAL FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2013

S’mores after the show is over on Pete’s story

Oli dedicated Can You Feel My Heart to FOB!

POSSIBLE 7 MINUTES SOUNDCHECK?? (Virginia Beach)

7 MINUTES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2007

PATRICK PLAYED THE DRUMS

“Sing it with me, honey!” Patrick to Blitz during This Ain’t a Scene

In typical Florida fashion…severe thunderstorm warning to start off the night (West Palm Beach)

Karaoke by the merch stand!

Setlist got leaked!

8 ball hint is gator bites…

Andy is back!!!

PETE’S IN THE SKIRT

THEY COVERED DANCING QUEEN BY ABBA

TELL MICK FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2013

ACCIDENTALLY PREDICTED TELL MICK IN MY DMS WITH @frankierosbackbends

DEAD ON ARRIVAL IN PLACE OF CHICAGO TONIGHT (Tampa)

MISS MISSING YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2015

ALSO THE TOUR DEBUT OF MISS MISSING YOU

Facebook completely simping for Pete on instagram

Oli dedicated Can You Feel My Heart to FOB again!!

PATRICK MAY HAVE SANG FRICTION IN HIS JEANS (Atlanta)

Played Nothing Compares 2 U in honor of Sinead O’Conner as she passed away </3

LIVE DEBUT OF FROM NOW ON WE ARE ENEMIES

FOB (kinda) ARE IN THE FUCKING BARBIE MOVIE

Pete revealed in the RATS podcast that Saint (his youngest son) drew the backdrop for Blitz! (Clarkston)

William Beckett is at the show for whatever reason??

He also performed Chicago with FOB!

Trolls on setlistfm saying they covered Blood by MCR

Pete falling into the box during Crazy Train

DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I THINK I AM FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2007

Cover of Coffee Mug by Descendents as a tribute to Milo Auckerman

The crowd booing people who were fighting (Toronto)

Pete also mocking the people that were fighting

THEY CUT LAST OF THE REAL ONES

LIVE DEBUT OF WEST COAST SMOKER

I PREDICTED WEST COAST SMOKER

THE RETURN OF DOUBLE 8 BALL

Oli taking someone’s drink and BMTH posting the person’s reaction on their story (op got a good laugh out of it, I saw the video from their pov!)

Pete playing tennis at the venue just before tonight’s show! (Forest Hills)

PETE IS AIRDROPPING THE NEW GAMES WE PLAY SONG TO FANS

JUST ONE YESTERDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2014 FOR MEDLEY

STEREO HEARTS AND CUPIDS CHOKEHOLD FOR MEDLEY AS WELL

TRAVIE FUCKING MCCOY PERFORMED WITH THEM

COVER OF ENTER SANDMAN BY METALLICA

LIVE DEBUT OF I AM MY OWN MUSE

DOUBLE FUCKING 8 BALL AGAIN

TRAVIE SAID GYM CLASS HEROES IS COMING BACK

Oli down in the pit saying “don’t tell Patrick” for whatever reason lol (Boston)

Joe posting a bunch before tonight’s show!!

I’m Shipping up to Boston cover by the Dropkick Murphys!

Cover of Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond!

LIVE DEBUT OF WAMS DURING MEDLEY

XO FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2007

THIRD DOUBLE 8 BALL IN A ROW

“I’m standing in your spotlight now” Patrick to Pete during riff banter!!

“I like it, I like it” Pete to Patrick also during riff banter!!

GET BUSY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2006 FOR MEDLEY (Darien)

Pete saying Patrick has a “teddy bear vibe but he gets the job done”

Patrick also blushed when Pete said that

LIVE FUCKING DEBUT OF YOU’RE CRASHING

FOURTH DOUBLE 8 BALL IN A ROW

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’ AND ENTER SANDMAN IN THE SAME NIGHT

Pete saying Patrick reminds him of Josh Allen, the Buffalo Bills quarterback

Patrick also being incredibly confused by the bullet point above lol

Oli dedicated DiE4u to Snooki (Holmdel)

Pete’s bass very briefly caught on fire after The Phoenix…Pete is VERY THANKFULLY okay (this apparently happened at another recent show too)

Dead on Arrival was dedicated to RATS aka Royal & the Serpent!!

“We’re very happy you're part of our family” Pete to someone at their very first FOB show!!! <3

LIVE FUCKING DEBUT OF I’VE GOT A DARK ALLEY FOR MEDLEY

A mini stage was set up on the lawn for Pete for Dance, Dance!

LIVE DEBUT OF BOB DYLAN

FIFTH DOUBLE 8 BALL IN A ROW

Games We Play played bass for Pete during Saturday!!

Bob Dylan and I Am My Own Muse being labeled as Willie Nelson and Super Smash Bros on the setlist

They randomly played the national anthem at the show?? (It’s apparently a venue thing??)

Gabe Saporta trying to make it to the last show of the NA tour but LAX keeps delaying his flight :( (Camden)

Pete posting food onto his story that is presumably on Patrick’s piano to practice for medley lol

DEAD ON ARRIVAL WITH RATS!!!

Rats requested Dead On Arrival a bunch of times!!

“Awww :(” Patrick after Pete said that this is the last night of the us leg of the tour

JET PACK BLUES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2018 FOR MEDLEY

Jet Pack Blues into I’ve Got a Dark Alley into Golden for medley </3

LIVE FUCKING DEBUT OF FUCKING PAVLOVE

TRIPLE FUCKING 8 BALL

Somehow fucking predicted a triple 8 ball a couple of days ago 0.0

manicpixiefinalgirl on tiktok started a Joe chant in the pit!!

Hello if you’ve made it this far!! Ty for taking the time to check this out and go through it all!

This will be back for FOB’s Japan shows later this month and for their shows in Europe in October and November, so stay tuned for that!

I had a fantastic time following the North American tour with everyone, can’t wait to do it again with you all soon! :)

[ophiespeaks]

i am, once again, crawling back to gravity falls. i’ve stayed out of the loop so i could explore thisisnotawebsitedotcom by myself, and here are some of my authentic discoveries: (I don’t know if any of these are even new, knowing the fandom you probably figured all of these out the day it dropped tbh)

-“SOOS” gives a document of how he and his gf are doing running the mystery shack, including a goat train that runs through the forest (i love them)

-“TADSTRANGE” gives an erotic bread montage, because why not

-“PINATA” gives an irl video narrated by bill of a little girl beating the shit out of a bill cipher pinata

-“EVENHISLIESARELIES” i was spoonfed this one but bill is astronomically down bad for ford and it’s literally canon??? “because winning made him feel special. and good god, did he want to feel special” bill cipher your gay is showing.

-“WADDLES” leads to a pig adoption website

-“SEASONTHREE” says season 2, “SEASONTWO” says season 1, and “SEASONONE” says season -1: anti-gravity falls.

-“PACIFICA” tells us that the northwests still keep tapestries of bill, perhaps they could/would have something to do with his return??? pacifica and a “friend” destroyed everything with bill’s triangle symbol on it though, she’s a real one.

-“PLATINUMPAZ” is a code you’re given discreetly upon entering the aforementioned “PACIFICA.” This document is written like fan fiction, but obviously it’s canon, and details pacifica’s experience following northwest mansion mystery. It’s a longer document but essentially pacifica SIKES bill cipher like the girlboss she is when he tries to make a dream deal with her.

-“PINES” just says “a good family tree” lmao

-“SIXER” case file on Ford’s hand, written by (?) someone in the us government, apparently even as far back as when the Stans were 18, the government was working on cloning, so there’s that. Also, Ford is a finger donor!

-“BLINDEYE” gives one of those eye doctor letter tests, VERY blurry. if there’s a code here my blind ass hasn’t been able to decipher it. EDIT: it’s not blurry when you first try it!!! if you click on it it becomes blurry and i no longer know what the letters are.

-“MATPAT” and “GAMETHEORY” matthew patrick i am in your walls. it’s a video of beloved internet dad, Matpat from the Theory channels, saying we’re on our own for this one. Mathew if you don’t make a retirement special when this is all over, spoon-feeding me the answers i will do something illegal. Also, one of the notes on his board seems to read “abigail northwest,” but it’s not a code you can enter, so i’m not sure what it means.

-“GRAVITYFALLS” says ‘never heard of it’, alex hirsch when i catch you alex hirsch

-“MABEL” adds stickers and stars to the screen, eventually saying ‘lab now fully mabelized’ they stay there forever even if you relog the website.

-“DIPPER” tells pine tree to stare at the page for thirteen hours. spamming it changes the note, telling dipper he’s getting closer, but eventually the whole thing blacks out.

-“STANFORD” and “FORD” brings up the same page as “SIXER”, they are one and the same after all.

-“MCGUCKET” and “FIDDLEFORD” link to Cotton Eyed Joe by Rednex

-“STANLEY” and “STAN” links to ebay listings of brass knuckles

-“BILL” links to a sesame street video from 1969, jazzy triangle meets a square square. BillFord canon??? meanwhile, “CIPHER” and “BILLCIPHER”leads to the wikipedia page for the Eye of Providence, or the eye that watches the work of mankind.

-“GIDEON” leads to a google search of sweat-resistant bolo ties

-“LOVE” opens a book called ‘the love triangle”, tapping on it starts an audiobook of the first page of this book, detailing the narrator falling in love with bill cipher in a romantic period-piece. 10/10, but too short. give me the whole book.

-“GOD” links to a video of an Axolotl swimming in front of a submerged bill cipher statue. upon entering “GOD” again, the video does not play, some of the other videos behave in the same way such as “MATPAT.”

-“BLENDIN” responds with ‘time agent lost and presumed incompetent’

-“WEIRD” plays a video of Weird Al Yankovic yelling about how he’s trapped inside of the computer, and he calls for bill to help him. imagine my shock and horror coming across this the vanilla way, by just trying codes until something happens.

-“WEIRDMAGEDDON” is a newspaper clipping that shows nothing happened yesterday, soos got his head stuck in a honey pot and promptly said ‘and i’d do it again.”

-“TOBYDETERMINED” leads to a google search of ‘restraining order’

-“ROBBIE” pulls up AIM messages between him and thomson, detailing their experience ghost hunting for bill because robbie thinks bill will have to grant them three wishes. included is a great drawing in camcorder style of them running away from an eldritch-looking bill. included, but seemingly not sent, are messages in the text box, and it seems we’re reading from thompson’s perspective. it vaguely alludes that bill may be operating inside of thompson??? erm what the sigma?

-“SKIBIDI” “RIZZ” “FORTNITE” and “GYATT” revokes ur life privileges, but “SIGMA” does nothing.

-“QUESTION” responds with ‘answer’ and vice versa.

-“SCIENTOLOGY” responds with ‘suppressive person detected,” don’t ask why i tried scientology, i was going through science-themed inputs and it came to me like a vision.

-“ALEX” and “ALEXHIRSCH” link to a google search of ‘flannel.’ alex hirsch is lumberjack???

-“JOURNAL 3” responds with ‘the journal for me.’

-“JOURNAL 2” responds with ‘the journal for you’

-“JOURNAL 1” responds with “the journal of fun”

-“SEX” “FUCK” “SHIT” and other curses gives a pop-up that says “not S&P approved, wash your mouth out with soap.”

-“WHOAREYOU” responds with ‘i could ask you the same question’

-“REALITY” responds with ‘is an illusion’

-“FBI” and “CIA” responds with ‘your webcam is on. we are watching.’

-“HOLOGRAM” responds with ‘universe’ and vice versa.

-“SCARY” gives a R.L Stine goosebumps knockoff called The Book Of Bill, with the tagline ‘can you survive the tri-strangler?’ and it seems like it should be an audiobook like the “LOVE” entry, but i can’t hear any audio.

-“THEBOOKOFBILL” responds with ‘hide it under shirt during pledge of allegiance’ ???WHAT???

-“MASON” brings up a note about anagrams, assuredly written in-part by Dipper. idk if mason is even canon i always just assumed it was tbh.

-“LIFE” responds with ‘life:72% complete. now loading death.’

-“DEATH” responds with ‘life’s goth cousin’

-“DADDY” “BABY” and “MOMMY” (listen i was trying anything that came to mind) responds with a pop-up of a baby-bill cipher in an ultrasound, and a message that says ‘congrats! guess what’s growing inside you right now? see you in nine months, papa!’ NEW SEASON IN NINE MONTHS CONFIRMED???? (/j) also— mpreg is gravity falls canon???

———

if i was alex hirsch, these are inputs i would add because i was SHOCKED they WEREN’T there:

-“4 8 15 16 23 42” inputting that into an old-style computer should yield some kind of easter egg. LOST was too big of a cultural phenomena for it to not be a secret code here.

-“CANDY” and “GRENDA.” alex you thought of skibidi but not MABELS ONLY TWO FRIENDS???

-“TWINS” seriously this is like the main thing that keeps repeating, even just linking to a wiki page would be rewarding.

-typing in cryptids should link to pages for them, at least. imagine my shock when i typed in “BIGFOOT” to no avail.

-“SEEYOUNEXTSUMMER” should’ve been an easy one tbh

-“PINETREE” “SHOOTINGSTAR” etc. could just link to the same thing as entering their respective names, like “DIPPER” and “MABEL” respectively.

-“HINT” should do something, even if it just tells you no.

-“?” having no results is bonkers

-“SANSUNDERTALE” would be really funny i think

-“THETRUTH” should respond with ‘is out there’

[artdcnaldson]

lord………

thinking they don’t want you and only reciprocated cause they were under the influence…………. U start wondering if you’ve been imagining everything. all the glances. the touches. even hearing your name from outside the door while they jerk each other off!!! maybe it’s someone else with your name!!!!!!! you feel like such a child. like. how could you ever think that they’d want you?????!!!!

when patrick knocks on your window at like 1am one night you almost have a heart attack……. can’t a girl just snuggle in bed with her stuffed bunny and mope in peace?!!?? when he opens it and comes in…… asking you if he crossed a line etc etc……….. you don’t know what to do. you just want your boys. esp when you’re sad:(

also was thinking……….. if patrick’s dad pulled him aside to talk to him later too…. telling him he needs to get serious. needs to be a gentleman and find a respectable nice young lady to settle down with. no more running around with the two of you. it could ruin his future!!! his moms social status!!! his brothers political career!!! etc!!! of course patrick is like IDGAF😝 cuz. when has he ever listened or cared about what his parents say. it just makes him want you and art even more

Exactly, like. You drop something in the conversation like, “maybe I’m a bad influence on you.” And Patrick just laughs. Because you? You were the bad influence? He knows immediately that it’s his parents feeding you this shit, that they’re on you the same way they’re on him.

And IDFK!!! Deviating from Established Sex Lessons AU canon bc maybe this should be its own canon tbh!!!! IDFC!!!!

But I think Patrick would confess his feelings, be all sweet about it, kiss you again if you’ll let him. And he brings up Art, because he knows you’re all a package deal— he’s not going to just let Art get left behind. He knows Art wants you too, that you want Art, that Patrick wants him too.

Fuck his family’s social status. Fuck his family’s political aspirations. There are very few areas in his life where he gets to be happy, shouldn’t he take what he can?

Maybe you just have to be a little subtle— maybe you just have to keep things secret until the fall, when it’ll be the three of you at Stanford. <3

[buildarocketboys]

ooh for the nsfw prompts, joetrick and #25 maybe?

Thanks for sending this! Tbh I don't really ship Joetrick (I see the appeal, I just have a one-track mind when it comes to Peterick) so this is more of a platonic Joetrick fic with an nsfw background, hope you enjoy anyway!

25. "You won't stop shaking"

Patrick's first time with a guy doesn't exactly go as planned. Afterwards, the guy leaves to go back downstairs to the party and Patrick sits in bed, covers pulled up to his chest, shivering. After a while, he scrounges around on the floor and retrieves his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans. He can't call Pete. Mostly he wants his mom, but he doesn't want to face the lecture she'll give him. Plus, being picked up by his mom from a party like this would be super embarrassing. He texts Joe, asking him to come and collect him. Joe arrives surprisingly quickly. Patrick had told him he was in the bedroom, but he hadn't specified which one, so the first he hears of Joe is him yelling Patrick's name out in the corridor. "Patrick, where the fuck are you?" "I'm in here!" he yells. Then his teeth start chattering again. He can't seem to get them to stop. Putting some clothes on would probably help, but he seems to be incapable of doing anything much right now. Joe edges the door open hesitantly. Once he sees Patrick is fully beneath the covers, he pushes it fully open and comes in, breathing a sigh of relief. "You OK, dude?" he asks. "What happened?" Patrick shrugs. "Had sex with a guy," he mutters. Joe's eyebrows rise up into his hairline. "WHAT?" "Shhh," Patrick hisses. "Close the door, someone'll hear you." Joe does, reluctantly. "They probably already heard you," he says, causing Patrick's cheeks to go pink. "Was it Pete?" Patrick chokes on his own spit. "What? No!" he splutters. "'Cause if it was, I'll kill him," Joe says. The tone of his voice makes Patrick shiver, and then there he is, trembling uncontrollably again. "It wasn't Pete. Although I guess you could say it's kind of Pete's fault." He knows he's not making much sense. Whatever. "I wanted to check if I was attracted to men," he says slowly, hoping Joe doesn't put that statement together with the previous one, seeing from the way his brow knits together that he has. He presses his eyes closed. He'll never live this down. "And?" Joe asks, thankfully not bringing up Patrick's huge and obvious crush on Pete.  Patrick shrugs and shakes his head at the same time. "No, I guess. It sucked. Men suck." His teeth are knocking together so hard that he can barely get the words out. He pulls the blanket further up over himself. Joe frowns. "You won't stop shaking." Patrick shrugs again, though it probably gets lost in the shivers. "Cold," he says, apologetically. He's not sure that's quite it, but it's not not it. Joe's frown deepens. "What does he look like? Want me to go punch him in the face for you?" Patrick shakes his head, but suddenly tears are rolling from his eyes. "He didn't even kiss me," he snivels, feeling like the lamest guy in the world. Joe's face turns serious. He sits down on the edge of the bed, next to Patrick, and reaches for his face, tilts his chin up. Patrick looks at him through a film of tears, lip quivering. "Want me to?" he asks, looking at Patrick's lips. Patrick swallows. He should probably say no. Maybe he likes men, maybe he doesn't. But he definitely doesn't like Joe like that. Joe is his friend. But he is offering. "Promise you won't fall in love with me or anything?" Patrick says tentatively. Joe snorts. "What? No way, dude, you're my friend. Plus, I think Pete would kill me if I did." Patrick files that information away for later. Then he nods. "OK," he says. "That would be nice." Joe leans forward and kisses him. It's a good kiss, long and soft and wet but not too wet. Patrick has a good time. It feels nice. And then Joe pulls away and he's still Joe. Patrick can't help but feel relieved. "Anyway," Joe says, clearing his throat awkwardly. "You should probably get some clothes on." Patrick can't help beaming as his friend picks up his clothes from the floor. "Oh God," says Joe, catching sight of his expression. "You're not in love with me now, are you?" Patrick slaps his arm. "No," he says, very emphatically. "Give me my t-shirt." Joe rolls his eyes but does so. Joe is a good friend.

[fandomlurker333]

My Argument for Homosexual but Panromantic Art and Aromantic but (Something)sexual Tashi

@seek--rest I AM SO SORRY BECAUSE THIS IS A BOOK. That's why I didn't put it in your asks, so I could put it under a cut.

Okay, so I think it should be acknowledged before I get into my thinky thoughts that art is up to interpretation and I am not really trying to convince anyone of my perspective. There's a certain amount of bias that anyone comes into any experience with and it's going to color their perception no matter what. And that bias could be anything.

It could be the experience of having been cheated on and really loathing any kind of infidelity, emotional, sexual or otherwise. It could be being queer and therefore more fluent in queer subtext (though, of course, this movie was pretty blatant -- bananas and churros and boners abound lol) or being a black woman and sympathizing with Tashi's experience (which I am and do), or having been homeless/hungry and sympathizing with Patrick or any number of other life experiences that lends us to partiality toward one character or another, or more aversion to/disidentification with one or another character's plight.

So, I just wanted to start with that universal acknowledgement first. And then also say that I love each of these characters in their own ways and so when I say something that could be perceived as negative, like Art is petty or Tashi is cold, or Patrick is trash, I mean it in the most loving of ways. lol Because I enjoy seeing complex characters come to life. I don't need them to be right all the time, or for their motivations to be simple. I prefer the more complicated motivations and relationships, tbh, which also plays a part, I think, in how I see them. My take on these characters is the least kind. I see them all as their worst selves lol

So my point is that some of this is just down to what we think. And we won't ever be on the same page, because we're different people. With all that said...this is why Art's feelings for Tashi are ambiguous to me and why I think Tashi could be read as aromantic (not just not in love with Art, but not in love with Patrick either. Not in love with anyone, just in love with tennis.)

It's been clearly stated by the director himself that the movie is queer, which is, in large part, a reference to Art and Patrick's non-platonic relationship to one another. Poly relationships could be argued to be inherently queer, even if the relationships are all hetero-romantic, but I don't think that's how it was being used. Everyone, down to the actors themselves and the people who made the soundtrack are aware of the movie being about "Unending Homoerotic Desire". That's gay. lol It's not JUST gay, but it is gay.

And to me, this desire is seen to be mutual from pretty early in the film, both by how they look at each other and interact with each other and through Tashi's recognition of their intimacy. i.e. working deliberately to get them kissing (not holding hands, not hugging, kissing, something romantic/sexual) -- Tashi, to whom tennis is a relationship. Who noted that they are Fire&Ice and was drawn to them (Both of them together, not separately!) enough to come into their space and fuck around. lol

We learn quickly that they've shared bunks since they were around 12 years old, that Patrick was essentially Art's first sexual experience, that they're incredibly tactile, attached at the hip, and that they move in unison.

My read of Tashi here is that she's young and having fun, and she has her whole life of tennis stardom ahead of her. And she's an enigma to them. I would argue that much of both their attraction to Tashi has much to do with her dominance on the court, her ferocity, her skill, and her take no bullshit attitude. I think it has as little to do with her gender and her physical makeup as it has to do with her race or whether she's left-handed. Tashi OWNS the Tennis court and that's hot.

But if we're going to talk just about physical attraction and sexual desire, I'd argue Patrick's desire is put front and center. Art's is....more questionable. Patrick is the one who shows Tashi to Art. He's the one who has been following her game, knows who she is. Has watched her play. It's established right away that Patrick finds her "hot". Art asks why he's into her "Is it her game?" (his first thought is her skill, not whether she's pretty), and Patrick clarifies, no, she's the hottest woman he's ever seen.

Small, yes. And something I can see a lot of people disregarding, but since it's already been established this is a queer film, and we have little dialogue to go off of, I think it's significant that Art's frame of reference, or the way he relates to women is immediately presented as non-sexual. For a horny 18-year old this is notable.

Then we have Art say, "Look at that Backhand" in a dreamy voice. Not, look at those legs, or look at that ass. Patrick grabs his leg in excitement, eyes only on Tashi. And then we have two boners. lol Okay, yes, Tashi is without a doubt a part of this, but the camera didn't show that touch for no reason. Patrick is not outside of the bubble of desire for Art, even here. He's adding to it. And later we get something along the lines of Art saying, "that scream". Okay, so Art's drawn in by her, yes. He seems to be mesmerized and in awe of her power and skill, how wild she is on the court.

Later at the party, again, Patrick is the one to articulate sexual feelings tied to whatever makes him mesmerized about Tashi Duncan, "I'd let her fuck me with a racket," visceral, physical, sexual, tangible.

They both watch her on the dance floor, again, there IS desire, but that desire for Art is not articulated, and STILL Patrick is present, being very vocal about his. So, for me, it's all tied together -- there is no separating Art's desire for Tashi from Patrick's desire. We only see it with Patrick present. (Throughout the whole film! Because scenes with just Tashi and Art, throughout the entire film, are without the evident heat, fire, and urgency that is very much present with Patrick and Tashi. I'll get to Art's ahem performance issues in a bit, but yeah )

Then the introduction, Okay. There's this kinda immediate back-and-forth with Patrick and Tashi. And Art's quieter, almost left out of the conversation until he inserts himself. Then she leaves them dizzy in her wake. And Art says they should go. Some might say, "oh poor doggo just didn't think he'd have a chance." Maybe! Or maybe he really was just going to leave without shooting his shot because he wasn't running this show, flirting with her wasn't driven by his desire. It was driven by Patrick's. It was enough for him to meet the future Queen of Tennis, may she forever reign. And they could go back to the room and jerk off in separate beds thinking about her, just like they had that other girl.

He said, "okay let's go". and Patrick just sat there, and Art smiled knowingly, seeing he very clearly was not getting up to walk away. It was Patrick who pushed this. And then again, in the room, Patrick who was STILL talking about her. And Art said, offhandedly, not sounding miserable or even all that hurt, just kind of knowing and teasing, "she's not coming man." Patrick is obsessed, the way you are when you're really into someone. Art is...neutral. Did he find her magnetic? Hell yes. But does he see her as a person who he wants to pursue and further connect to? Not sure.

Okay, and then we have the lovely scene where Tashi asks if they've ever.....and Art get all flustered and No No NO, and Patrick is the one to let slip. And we're also given this lil tidbit that Patrick has dated girls, is apparently somewhat of a player, and Art is...what? Said to be dating no one, possibly having dated no one? Patrick jokes "of course he cleans up with that face", but it's pretty much implied that Art hasn't dated. Again, small things. But now they're starting to add up for me.

Between Patrick being his first sexual experience, Art apparently not being all that into girls in general, and the already established intimacy that they share, I'm thinking hmmm, maybe Art is in the closet. First thought, right out the gate. But maybe not enough for some people. Cool.

Then we get the game. And one could argue Art wanted to win to date Tashi. OR one could argue Art wanted to win so that Patrick wouldn't date Tashi. Hold my beer. lol

Lbr, do you know any 20-year old lad that, had they lost a bet or a game, and promised they wouldn't try and talk to some girl because they'd lost, wouldn't try to slide into the DMs anyway? Like, be for real. Art is quieter than Patrick, but he's smart, talented, cute, he is the one who makes calls during their double's games. He isn't some delicate flower who can't have a conversation. He can hold his own when he wants to.

He does just fine telling Tashi he wants to kiss her when he's good and ready, so if he wanted her, why not go after her? Or at the very least, why not attend her games at Stanford? Why not ask her out to lunch? Why not get close to her under the guise of exchanging messages for Patrick? Folks seem to want to paint him as a saint. He's a teenaged boy. No one takes dating all that seriously at that age, especially not in college, when everyone is hooking up. I'm not saying he isn't loyal to Patrick, but the occasional conversation? Or just being friends to be in her space, since he had so many feelings? Nothing?

And then the FIRST time in a year -- a year of Tashi and Patrick dating -- Art sits down with Tashi and he doesn't talk about her game. He doesn't talk about how beautiful she looks. He doesn't talk about how much he's missed her or what he'd love to do with her (or have her do to him), he talks about.....Patrick. lol wtf.

When Tashi asks him if he's in love with her, what does he say? He doesn't say yes. He doesn't even jokingly say yes, in a flirty, teasing way. He says "who wouldn't be." Think about how carefully that sidesteps her question. Not "of course I am". "Who wouldn't be?" That is not a yes, fam. That's a general, anyone would be in love with you because you're Tashi Fucking Duncan. Thanks, she knows, that's not what she asked. She asked if You love her, and we know how perceptive Tashi is, how astute.

She knows what she's not hearing. That's why she asks again 3 years later, slyly, "you still in love with me, Art?" knowing damn well that man never said he was. (This isn't just about what's being said, this is tone, body language. We speak with more than our words, you know? Anyway...)

So, Patrick comes in to visit. And Art is visibly happy to see him. And then Patrick says it's for Tashi, "Why do you think I'm here?" and look at Art's face. The man is NOT happy. Why? Because Patrick wants to see his girlfriend of a year? Who he talks to weekly? (Who Art already knows he talks to, because they've been dating?) Maybe. Or maybe because Art and Patrick have literally lived in one another's back pockets for 7 years and they've been separated, and the one time in however long Patrick comes back to visit and it's for Tashi. Might that bother him? No?

Okay. Then the fight, then the accident. And now suddenly Art doesn't talk to Patrick for YEARS. YEARS??? Someone explain this to me. Your here-to-fore best friend's girlfriend gets hurt, (and yes that's what I'm arguing Tashi was to him at this point, because aside from one awkward lunch that's all we have of their interaction) and you see it. And she's understandably mad, because she has to blame someone. And you're....Also mad??? Why, again?

Because she's the love of your life? Hmmm, reaching imo, Art barely knew her. They hadn't spent any TIME together. And this is where the realist in me comes out. Very romantic to imagine one night on the beach (with Patrick present) and a snog in a dank hotel room (again with Patrick present) made him fall in love with this woman, but I'm not buying it.

No, his longest lasting and most intimate relationship to that point is Patrick. And that's why the silent treatment is so peculiar. Even Patrick doesn't understand why Art stopped talking to him, and it's not because he's an oblivious dick. Patrick knows Art. He knows Art's patterns, his habits. And he knows Art's years-long freeze out just did not make sense, especially since Tashi had likely stopped blaming him years ago. I mean, Tashi clearly didn't blame Patrick for her injury when she and Art met up 3 years after college. So, if Tashi's not mad anymore (at him, specifically. she's mad in general at the world -- she's bitter and angry and in lots of pain. but she's not holding a grudge at him.), if she wants to move on, why are YOU still mad Art?

Make it make sense.

I argue Art was mad at Patrick for all of it. For leaving him at Stanford, for choosing Tashi, for taking their friendship for granted, for not prioritizing him. And then, somehow, for Tashi's injury too, because Patrick had the nerve to choose her and then be so insecure he couldn't go one day without fucking it up. And then Tashi got hurt and that somehow made it Art's fault (in his mind) and he resented that too. I think Art's resentment and anger was real and intense and I think even he didn't completely understand that this level of betrayal wasn't appropriate for a friend. But that's my take. lol

Anyway, then we get into Tashi and Art. And we see that it's been 3 years since college when they meet up again. So, Tashi had time to fully understand that the career she thought she'd have is never going to happen. And Art says she should be his coach. And she's a better coach than anyone could be, and Art, Art is good at flattery, and he's good at saying the right things and showing her that he'll basically be the anti-Patrick. He will listen to her, he will do as she says, he won't try to take anything she doesn't want to give, and he'll let her lead, he'll let her take him to his wins.

And Tashi, god Tashi needs that. Not a dick inside her. Not a tongue in her mouth. A body. A healthy, working body to mold and shape and make a winner. That's what she needs.

And so let's come back to the opening scenes. I saw someone say it was so crazy to see Art go from getting dragged out of bed to a physical therapist who stretches him out, to a nutritionist who feeds him and gives him his meals, to Tashi who instructs him and trains him. The man doesn't own his own body. He barely has autonomy. He's given it all over.

And if they love each other so much, they should happy with their arrangement right? But look at them. They sit on couches and benches five feet apart. They don't talk about anything but tennis. There's two scenes in the script (only one in the movie) where Art can't get it up for sex and Tashi is trying to coach him into an erection. Literally coach him through sex.

Not like...he has E.D. or he's depressed; then she wouldn't be trying to Jedi-mind trick him into getting hard. In the scene as written, she says something like "come on, you can get there. We always do" Always. As in every time they are trying for sexual intimacy -- which Tashi clearly wants, or she wouldn't be trying to get him there -- this is what they're doing. Working to get him hard enough. Yikes.

At their age, this is pretty confusing. So, this goes into my pile labeled, "things that make me think Art is not sexually attracted to women".

And then we have Art saying "I love you" and Tashi saying "I know." Art saying "I just need to know you'll still love me" and Tashi refusing to give that to him. Art having to beg for affection "just hold me?" and Tashi literally looking dead in the eyes as she acquiesces. This is not a couple that is happily married, if they ever were.

I think they've always had these issues, this mismatch in their needs. But Tashi needs to win so bad and Art needs so badly to give that to her, and to be something other than what he fears he is (nothing, no one). That, I think, is his biggest fear. That Patrick leaves him -- as he did -- and he's got no identity, no function. (This is where that part about co-dependcy the director talks about comes in. The codependency is not just between Tashi and Art). He needs to be able to be something without him. So he sets out to prove that and in the process what he becomes is hollow -- a machine. A body to be used for Tashi's win (HOT! okay, moving on lol).

I do feel there is love between them. You don't maintain a relationship, even a very broken one, for 13 years without loving the person in some way, somehow. I believe that Art has a lot of respect, admiration and affection for Tashi. I believe he loves her, truly. He might even be in love with her, but, from what I'm seeing in the "text" as you say (lol fancy term), I don't think he wants her. I don't think he's sexually attracted to her. Does he need that in a relationship? Maybe not, but he certainly needs a level of physical affection that Tashi does not seem very wiling to give him. Not if he has to beg for it.

Meanwhile, Patrick says Tashi hates Art, a little. And I think he's right. I don't think she wants to hate him, but Art is healthy. More than that he's recovered from an injury and she didn't! And even though he's well enough and good enough to win it all, he'll never want it like she wants it. He'll never eat, sleep, breathe, fuck, die for tennis. He wants to be good, he wants to play well, and he does. But that hunger? That drive that Tashi had (that Patrick also has) to be the best, to dominate on the court, that crazy, insane love with the game of tennis? That's not Art. Art is tired. And he wants to retire. And that makes Tashi hate him a bit.

Now, I don't think he's just a "dick and a racket" to her, but I do think it's interesting that she said it that way. We can't take dialogue just at face value. Dialogue is always doing more than one thing, especially in film, where screenplays are just dialogue and sparse action. She says it, not Patrick. And she's defensive about it.

This is another little clue on the pile of "signs Tashi loves Art but is probably incapable of being IN love with him". lol He isn't just a dick and a racket. He's the father of her kid (maybe! o__o), and the man who gives her what she needs to survive (the wins). But that's...pretty close to being a dick and a racket. lol And well, being a racket is a pretty big deal for Tashi.

Now their engagement didn't seem to be a particularly joyous affair. Tashi was drinking a scotch pretty moodily with that ring on her finger. You say you can't see her marrying without loving him romantically. And that's, again, a very sweet sentiment. But people get married for all kinds of reasons.

Art was already hers in the most important of ways. He'd given her his body. If he wanted her to marry him, why wouldn't she give him that? Who else was she going to marry? She'd gotten into bed with him (figuratively) for his entire career. Her life is getting him to win the grand slam. Her ultimate romance is winning that.

Tennis is her love affair. Why wouldn't she marry the only person who could possibly get her as close to her dream as she would ever get? They get the tax breaks, he binds himself to her even tighter. What's the downside?

And as far as the kid, I have theories (look at her hair!), but suffice it to say even If that's Art's kid, people choose to have/keep kids for all kinds of reasons, no? And it's not always "I love this person, I want to make a baby". Again, very sweet, but sometimes people decide to keep kids cause they hope that shared purpose brings them closer together. And I can see Art wanting the child and Tashi agreeing very practically, because why not? It's what families do, right? They could afford it -- they had present parents, and their kid would be the best tennis player this world has ever seen.

For all her passion and fire with Patrick, for all the sex and good feeling there, she doesn't seem to be particularly enamored of him. He's arguably, the person whose gotten the most from her, the biggest rise out of her, seen her underbelly, and he's the only other person in life she's gotten into bed with repeatedly (presumably). But she's not overly concerned with keeping him for herself. Or getting anything else from him. Monogamy. A confession of love. Affection. She even says it herself,

"Did I say I wanted anyone to be in love with me?"

Maybe she doesn't because she can't give that back.

Sex is shown to be something she wants and participates in with gusto. Romance? Mmmm. Not so much.

The most romantic thing she's ever said has been about tennis. Falling in love across the net. THAT is her romance. It's why she was drawn to Art and Patrick in the first place, Fire&Ice. She saw their intimacy and wanted to see it play out in another way. But ultimately she didn't even stay to watch them fuck -- she just wanted to see some good fucking tennis. And the most alive she looks in her adult life is after their match.

To me, you can see she's unhappy -- that she only feels satisfied when Art plays good fucking tennis, but Art only plays that way with Patrick, and Art was determined to freeze him out, so they were both miserable. Art without romantic love and affection, Tashi in a sexless, unsatisfying marriage. It takes Patrick coming back in to give them both what they need. They don't work without him, love him or hate him.

So yeah....that's my take on Art and Tashi. I think there is so much there, comfort and partnership and mutual need, but.....the romance people are seeing I'm just....I'm not seeing it.

And I didn’t really get to Patrick/Tashi, but THIS is part of it too.🤣

[earlgreytea68]

Hello there! I hope you don't mind me bothering you, but I was just pondering a line from GINASFS:

"It's a strange way of saying that I know I'm supposed to love you"

At first, I took it to be a purely romantic line, that Pete feels he was always destined to be with the person in every universe, and that it was only a matter of time until they found each other. But then again, it also feels like it's sort of talking about a relationship built purely out of obligation. Everyone thinks we're supposed to be together, so I guess I have no choice but to stay with this person, even if it makes me unhappy.

Maybe a bit of both?

You're way more eloquent than I am when it comes to analyzing FOB lyrics, so if you'd be willing, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Okay, I am always saying that Pete Wentz is a genius with packing simple words with multiple meanings, like, every time you turn around you uncover a new meaning to what he's saying, I totally get why Patrick says he's still discovering them even years later. He is seriously SO GOOD at this and he's got SUCH a light touch, like, it's hard to do and he really does make it look so easy (doing something so hard, etc.) and I think that's why he seldom gets the credit for how smart he is as a writer, because he's SO good at it that it's easy to dismiss it as an accident, a mistake, unintentional, he didn't see all those meanings, he didn't mean to do that, he just happened into it.

Except nobody happens into so much poetry so consistently.

(and it's true he cultivates the impression by always being so "aw shucks does this even make any sense I have no idea what they're about" about his own lyrics)

ANYWAY. That introduction is my way of saying that yessssss, this is one of my favorite examples of how brilliant Pete is at saying two things at once (or more than two even).

Like, it's funny, this is like a Rorshach test, I always read the line as: "I know I'm SUPPOSED to love you, so I guess I'll pretend that I do," like, to me this is a line all about, tbh, not fitting into a heteronormative role, knowing that you're SUPPOSED to love this other person but it doesn't feel right. And it was only later that I realized the reading that you had first: Ohhhhh, it could also be I'm supposed to love you, like, you're my destiny.

And I just love so much that it works perfectly on both levels at the same time, like, this song is about what you think it's about, basically, and that is just such genius of Pete Wentz packing in those layers. I think you can listen to G.I.N.A.S.F.S. and think, "Oh, this is about a guy falling in love with a girl who's his destiny, how sweet," like, certainly that would be the reading of the guy who wrote the Fall Out Boy autobiography.

Or you could listen to G.I.N.A.S.F.S. and be like, Oh, this is about a guy who's in love with his best friend and actually can't get himself to fit into the expectations of the world at large. He's SUPPOSED (expected) to love the girl. But, wait, he's SUPPOSED (destined) to love the guy. IT'S BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. IT'S JUST SO SMART THIS WAY hahahaha. I will just cherish this reading for all time because it's just so good. And the ambiguity is in the entire song. There is literally nothing in that song that would lead you to believe in any way that it's about a heterosexual relationship. To be fair, there's also nothing that flashes it's about a homosexual relationship (other than maybe the title being a hint tbh). But Pete's songs are always like that. They're only about heterosexual relationships if that's what you bring to them, because he usually writes too ambiguously for that (or Patrick adds a hetero detail in). He walks through the house in your shoes -- that's a line that actually makes more sense if you think the song is addressed to a guy, because probably he's not the same size foot as a woman, although maybe.

But anyway: yeah. That line is honestly everything.

[oumaheroes]

ok ok I know you're probably busy and all and you just wrote something for an anon buuuuut im begging for some ireland and north bonding, i loved reading your england and north fic seeing england telling north no but north saying ireland would let him was hilarious tbh. need some irish bois being nice to eachother pls

All for you, Anon

------

Bog Bodies

On his haunches, North took a sip of water from his bottle with one hand and rummaged about his rucksack with the other. The findings were poor: some sandwiches at the bottom under his jacket, now partially squashed, a packet of crisps that had miraculously not popped after he’d sat on the bag forgetting that they were in there, and one lone chunk of Yellowman. Abysmal. He should have thought to pack more, he knew that this wasn’t going to be a short adventure. A Jammey Joey at least.

‘How long do you think they’ll be till they’re done?’ He asked his brother, glancing up at him and jerking his head towards the action they’d spent most of the day secretly watching. ‘Till they finish up here, like.’

Ireland shrugged lazily, ‘Until they’re done finding things, I expect. There’s a lot of peat to cover.’

‘Okay, how long till we’re done.’

‘Till it feels time to go.’

In comparison to North squatting on the floor like a grubby troll- he’d been standing for hours and he was tired- his older brother was leant against a wide, fat oak, his long arms crossed over his chest. He was looking at the happily buzzing archaeologists in the distance carefully, watching for their discoveries or any misbehaviour North couldn’t quite tell. The humans been there ever since the news of the headless corpse the day before, having swarmed the old bog as soon as they’d been alerted, and had been ferrying their equipment to and fro and generally making a big mess of the place ever since. Ireland and North had come to join them not long after, watching them map out the area and begin to excavate whilst the land owners waited on the sidelines.

North eyed Ireland’s own much fatter and well-stocked bag enviously, ‘They’ve already found the most important thing, though.’

Ireland snorted and grinned, ‘That’s subjective.’

‘Not really. Headless ancient corpse versus...?’

Ireland rolled his eyes but didn’t reply.

‘Could always be another in there, I suppose.’ North stood and shook out his feet.

‘Might well be. That sort of thing was common.’

‘They seem to be popping up all the time now.’

‘More in Denmark.’ Ireland ruffled his floppy hair off his forehead and recrossed his arms, ‘But different thing, obviously.’

A bog body was a bog body, as far as North could see. Tanned, leathery skin, well preserved nails and hair. Facial features which looked more lifelike than North would like if he were honest with himself, younger and closer to the modern day than could first be perceived considering the age of some of the finds. Many hundreds, sometimes thousands of years old. Where they came from and how they came to be in the bog in the first place was generally as unknown from one case to another, but the morbid curiosity about them was the same. Quick peeks into the past always held a draw.

This was different though, as Ireland had said. This was theirs. Or rather, the man they had found this time around chopped in half in the peat was Ireland’s.

More than even that, North realised. The discovery of this ancient person was more Patrick’s the person than anyone other than their close family would ever know. Someone he might once have known personally and things he might have owned, a culture he had once shared and understood and encompassed. His personal history as well as his people’s, depending on how old this particular find was.

‘You hoping they find something that you once dumped in there?’ North asked him, trying to sound nonchalant about the question.

Ireland let out a bark of laughter, ‘Not here. Might not look like much now but this place was special. Too special to piss about around.’

‘But you dumped stuff in other places, then.’

‘Not dumped.’ Ireland corrected, ‘I used to leave little wooden figures about here and there.’ He held up his hands about a foot apart, ‘Maybe this big. Added along to ceremonies people held or whenever I passed by alone.’

‘What for?’

‘What for is a question.’ Ireland frowned thoughtfully and glanced back out to the archaeologists. ‘Several reasons. Luck, offerings, promises. Can’t remember all of them. Copied what Mama used to do.’

Several branches of questions opened up at once. His brothers didn’t talk about their mother or childhood often- topics easily brushed off or for some reason hard to bring up in the first place- and North always felt uncomfortable poking at the former. Mama was a parent who was potentially his, but wasn’t, someone he felt that he should love and respect when she was as distant to him as a God was.

Sensing that this was an opportunity he shouldn’t waste, North carefully chose the avenue he felt would yield the most answers.

‘What were the idols of?’

‘People, Gods, us, animals.’ Ireland waved a hand, ‘I’ll make you one sometime. Been a while since I practiced. Or Alisdair can, his used to be half decent. Don’t ask Rhys though, his are shit.’

‘They might find one.’

‘Might do. Wood rots though.’

‘So does skin, and look what happened.’

A scurrying of men and women along their walkway and back to far afield cars made them both pause, something small and wrapped carried amongst them. The spiked edges of their talk floated back to their spot in the trees, high and excited. It was empty landscape, no human activity apart from the archaeology dig, but North could feel a thrum in the air, the last notes of what first called him and his brother to this place. Something he couldn’t name but which connected him to everything.

Stay, stay. Watch, and remember.

North wasn’t really too sure why he was here. This was his brother’s land after all, his brother’s ancient people and lost ways, not his, but still this was connected to him somehow. Or, it was better to say that it was something he was connected to, something that was apparently important for him to witness for his people’s benefit- the circle of time connecting him to his siblings’ past to fill him in on what he had missed.

There was so much of his brothers’ lives which came before him. North felt Croghan Hill at his back, heavy and looming in the summer sun. How many different peoples had that hill seen? How many of North’s own family, past his sibling’s mother and beyond? So many mortal lives caught in its shade, so many centuries before he’d even been thought of. What had any of this got to do with him, he who couldn’t understand the significance of what was being found.

‘This is for you too, you know.’ Ireland seemed to sense something of what North was thinking. He tilted his head to one side, his eyes still on the dig site and the treasures within, ‘All connects back to a point we’re both a part of.’

‘The bog bodies?’

‘Not just them, or any of what they find like this. What they represent.’ He turned to North, the usual jokey expression in his eyes replaced with something more serious, ‘It’s a culture that’s not here anymore but that is still a part of us, even if we can't see it. It matters the same to both of us.’

‘But it wasn’t mine is it.’ North dug his hands into his jean pockets, ‘I wasn’t alive to experience it. I don’t even know what any of that was for.’

Ireland looked at him, face unreadable, then looked away. ‘If you say so.’

North looked at him. ‘What?’

Ireland shrugged, ‘If you say so.’

‘What do you mean, if I say so?’

‘If you think this has nothing to do with you, then who am I to tell you any different.’

‘Wh- I don’t..’ North clicked his tongue, ‘What the fuck does that mean.’

‘What? You wanted me to tell you something different?’

‘No-‘

‘You want me to sit here and hold your hand and tell you there there babby, everything’ll be grand?’

‘No! Christ, fuck off, then.’

Ireland shrugged again, one armed and apathetic, and turned away. North felt his cheeks heat up.

‘It’s true, isn’t it? That out there’s for you, that’s your old people.’

‘Sure.’

‘Well then. Then, what’s it got to do with me?’

Ireland shook his head, his mouth downturned in disappointment or frustration. ‘Why are you asking me? You seem to have your own opinion.’

‘Why’d you have to be a cunt about it.’

Ireland snorted, ‘Being a cunt am I-‘

‘You are. You’re-‘

‘Rather that than a thick-headed child.’

‘-brushing me off, it was a valid fucking question.’

‘It wasn’t a question; you were simpering for something.’

North recoiled, ‘Simpering-!’

‘Aye, you were.’ Ireland’s cheeks were ruddy in the high way they did only when he got truly annoyed about something, ‘You wanted me to convince you that this does matter to you, give you a clean old line of evidence that you can take away and make yourself feel better with. I already did that enough and I ain’t arguing my point. You either take what I said and try to make sense of it, or you don’t. I’m not going to stand here and put up with you begging for validation.’

North clenched his jaw, his teeth aching with the pressure of not immediately shouting back.

‘People will take voiced doubt as truth.’ Ireland continued, stepping closer. He was still taller than North, still holding the upper ground, and North had for remind himself not to take the automatic instinct to step back, ‘Makes them question and think when they might not have done before. And you feeding into self-pity is pissing annoying. It’s pathetic; I don’t want to hear it.’

‘It was a question.’ North felt a shameful sting in his eyes. He pushed away the knowledge that his brother had hit on a truth he hadn’t him to voice, ‘I-‘

‘It wasn’t a question, don’t give me that. You wanted me to tell you why any of that-‘ a sharp wave of Ireland’s hand towards the humans on the bog, ‘-is for you.’

North swallowed, the core of it too cleanly said to deny, ‘Yes.’

Ireland shook his head, ‘Think for yourself, boy. Did you feel a need to come here?’

‘Yeah.’

‘If I hadn’t called you, if I hadn’t come, would you have anyway?’

North nodded. He would have, it wasn’t a feeling that could be ignored.

‘Then that’s your confirmation. That’s important for you and yours too, that’s it.’

‘But why.’

‘How the fuck should I know. I don’t have it all written down here in rules, now do I.’ Ireland moved back to his spot against the tree, standing there stiff, ‘You’re supposed to have a brain, you tell me.’

North shrugged helplessly, ‘Because my people are interested? Because it’s news. Because it’s an older culture of this island and people want to look for something recognisable that they’ve kept?’

Ireland’s expression didn’t change, ‘And what do you think is true?’

‘I dunno, all of them?’ North let out a breath, ‘A little bit of all of them for different people.’

As he said it, he felt that it was probably true. There wasn’t one good answer but the fact was that he was here to watch anyway. Ireland was right, that meant something, even if North didn’t know exactly what.

Ireland waited a while before speaking, as if he was waiting for North to say something more or question him again. When neither were forthcoming, he nodded and leant back more easily against the tree trunk, crossing his feet and the ankles to rest on his heels, ‘I’m not here because all in that there bog was a culture I was part of. I’m here to watch it dragged out of the dirt because it’s something that will mark the people today. Look for what’s the same and not what’s different, you’ll never get anywhere otherwise.’

The ancient hill and the shiny metal cars that now drove around it, small and modern under forgotten giants. The same could be said about them and the archaeologists: Ireland watching the return of something he’d lost, and North watching it unfold to learn what would become a part of him, as the humans picked it all from the peat. The old and new, two sides of the same coin used for any purpose humans chose.

North pressed his lips together, his throat feeling tight. ‘Yeah. I get it.’ He paused, ‘Thanks.’

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ireland shake his head with a small smile, ‘You called me a cunt.’

‘You are a cunt.’

‘Ouch.’ Ireland held a hand to his chest in mock injury, ‘That hurt my feelings.’

‘You don’t have any feelings.’

‘In that case, I won’t share what’s in my bag.’

North looked to it, then back to his brother. His stomach rumbled, ‘I was wrong.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re not a cunt.’

‘I know, I’m so lovely.’

‘What’s in the bag?’

Ireland toed it with his shoe and grinned, ‘Just cheese sandwiches.’

‘I take it back; you are a cunt.’

‘Your loss.’

--------

AN:

Bog Bodies are human remains found in old peat bogs. The make up of the soil- the lack of oxygen and the particular mineral make up- is wonderful for preserving organic material by tanning it to almost leather. The result is perfectly preserved people, down to the hair on their heads or the pores of their skin

This story is set in 2003 and the discovery of Old Croghan Man, noted in different sources to have been found in May or June near Croghan Hill which the man was named after. The hill is very old and part of ancient and surviving modern local mythology, but the area itself was also regarded as something very special, a portal from our world to another beyond

Bog bodies ended up where they did for a variety of reasons: murder, accident, or even sacrifice. The old Irish Kings, as is one theory suspected for Old Croghan Man, could be held responsible for bad weather, or a bad harvest, and sacrificed to appease the Gods in the bog

More sources, if you're interested:

Thanks for reading!

[pixelplayground]

Hello! I just want to say I really love all your builds and interiors and your design sense. Could recommend some of your favorite places to get inspiration, if you look at anything or save pictures? (social media, magazines, etc)

Hello @suneesims,

Thank you! I tend to prefer using Instagram these days compared to Pinterest. During my remodel IRL (which TBH is still on-going, and I feel like it will never be done, lol) I found Instagram to be very useful in terms of sourcing local vendors, landscapers, architects, etc. They will usually have their own Instagram pages and websites showcasing their portfolios.

I have also been visiting a lot of local home parades from the luxury custom builders in my area which is always great for inspiration. I will take pictures in person to refer to later.

I have been collecting architectural books too. Patrick Ahearn is the architect of most of the Dutch Colonial and Cape Cod builds that are popular on Pinterest and then by default, simblr. Historical Concepts is another prevalent firm. McAlpine, Charles Hilton, Olson Kundig, Eric Olsen, Amber Lewis, Studio McGee/McGee&Co, etc. are all very popular. I have always loved RH and the designers that they collaborate with. One of the nice things about referring to the actual firms behind these builds is that on their Instagram they will link every firm that was involved in creating the project, such as their interior designer, the contracted builder, the landscape firm, etc. You can go down the rabbit hole and expose yourself to new and less “popular” accounts so you're absorbing a broader range of influences versus the same derivative content over and over again.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2022 MOVIE OF THE WEEK #33

disenchanted. i......have been avoiding this review since literally months ago because just thinking about reviewing this movie makes me sad and tired. if you loved this movie, which i think some people must have because i’ve seen the occasional gifs from it on my dash, feel free to skip this. it’ll go behind a cut, because i suspect it’s gonna get long.

(spoiler alert: it got ridiculously long. how did i have five thousand words to say about this? and if anyone besides leander reads this i’ll be shocked but that’s fine cuz they were the one encouraging me to make it through this rant and if they hadn’t i definitely would have given up even trying a long time ago.)

and it is pretty much universally negative, because i could not have been more looking forward to this sequel featuring literally my favorite disney (noncanon but still mine) princess and it not only let me down (as sequels tbh do a lot so that’s not even surprising) but it sincerely broke my heart. 

in a ‘wow i’m being really overdramatic about a disney movie’ sort of way, but it’ll make more sense after i explain it, i promise. you had to be there, i think, to care as much as i do, and only @actuallylukedanes was, so it was also pretty convenient that i ended up watching this with them when they were gonna watch it with their partner and invited me to join. cuz they felt the same way i did about the sequel, which is how i knew i was not overreacting. 

it was also leander who advised me to start posting completed reviews of other 2022 movies since i was stuck on this one, even though i never posted them out of order before. (i ended up realizing in january that i totally forgot a movie from 2022, so it’s good i wasn’t as obsessed with perfect chronology anyway.)

the first warning sign i had with this movie was honestly its release. they had been talking about an enchanted sequel for so long that i had stopped hoping for one, and then when it was really happening they wouldn’t even put it in theaters!! i was so pissed off about that, because enchanted felt like a magical (pun intended) experience for me in 2007. 

it came out exactly on my birthday, when i turned 23, and @actuallylukedanes​ and i saw it in the theater to celebrate. we lived in utah then, and were happy rather than homeless, and we paid for the movie using a card that had a ‘reward’ system like a lottery where they told you they would at some random time choose a single purchase you made, and reimburse you for it. out of everything we paid for with that card, it was the tickets to enchanted that they made free.

and i couldn’t have been more excited to see enchanted back then, because it was a real live musical, and those have always been rarer than i wish they were, and the cast was ridiculously great. long before amy adams was making bigger movies, she had played tara’s cousin on buffy and a memorable one-episode character on charmed, and i had just always loved her an unreasonable amount like i had been waiting for her to be a movie star. plus i had discovered wicked in college and dove deep into other idina menzel musicals as well as every one of her solo albums (and singles that weren’t sold anywhere, which i downloaded illegally because that is called devotion) and was just generally obsessed with her for years. 

and then there was patrick dempsey, reliable dreamy star of grey’s anatomy (which i gave up on quickly but he was good in) and james marsden of the x-men trilogy i had watched a zillion times. (his character was not one i liked in that, but he was great as a comedic part of this.) i had grown up with susan sarandon and wasn’t used to her as a villain but she brought just the right level of Too Much, and her henchman was perfectly cast. they somehow managed to even make the child in the story not annoying, which can be really rare, especially when she has an actual role--but she’s great. 

the mix of animation and live-action was really fun, and when giselle’s dress goes from cartoon to sparkly 3d it was so swoony. truly like a disney fantasy sort of moment, they brought so much to life. and they did so even where it shouldn’t have worked! the basic plot of ‘two couples aren’t meant to be so they switch partners amongst themselves and then it’s perfect’ is not one i like in other movies, but here i’m just like, yeah absolutely, dance with patrick dempsey in your pretty dress, and let idina menzel go live in a fairy tale. 

but in addition to all of that, and the catchy, catchy music, what i really, truly loved about enchanted, and why it was one of my all time favorite movies to put on that i never got sick of (along with mamma mia and a few others, i really like musicals okay), is how much it turned out that i identified with giselle. how much she not only made sense to me, even as she was supposed to be this wide-eyed disney princess, but how she gave me language for things i was still figuring out, and i got so attached to that.

i was 23 years old. i had left home less than two years earlier, and i didn’t know i was autistic yet, let alone bipolar/anxious/adhd/disordered eating all knotted together. i hadn’t begun thinking about what it meant to be ‘developmentally disabled,’ and how unprepared that made me for adulthood, independence or being in a relationship. I had just leaped into all those things, and i wasn’t necessarily all that good at any of them. 

but there was giselle, singing her way through a world she didn’t understand how to navigate either, and it was okay because there was somebody who loved her for her exact weird self and a child who needed her. (substitute cats for child and you see where i’m coming from.) she was relentlessly optimistic but also cursed by forces outside her control, and she was full of creativity. 

my absolute favorite moment that giselle has in the whole movie, when it comes to why it was important to me, is when she experiences anger. at first she can’t even name it, and then there’s a kind of joy she finds in it, in having a new feeling...in having the FREEDOM to feel that difficult feeling, and not need things to be perfect all the time. until i saw that scene, i had never realized that my childhood had trained me to not be angry--before i was even conscious that had happened. and once i saw that scene, i started to wonder if maybe anger was something i was allowed to feel, after all. 

i think if you’re not me, or you didn’t know me at 21 (a fragile adorable unstable bby desperate to be rescued from my life), it might be hard to understand that, how i didn’t just love giselle for being giselle, but loved her for being the most me a character played by amy adams could be. 

up until i fell in love, and was loved in return (my only real wish thanks to moulin rouge), i collected tv and movie characters, made little lists of them, and they were always the ones i wanted to be like, ones i wanted to grow into. usually the snarky best friends, the deadpan wits, the ones who pined but never got the guy. (bby me didn’t think anything but ‘guy’ was an option.) i didn’t spend time claiming characters that were like me, that made me feel seen, until i was older. (i couldn’t, when i didn’t know who ‘me’ was.) so giselle felt like one of the first ones, with her autistic literalism and trust in humanity and her joy in everything. 

then flash forward fifteen years and they’re continuing the story. even more amazingly, they’ve brought back the whole central cast (minus the child actor, who i assumed they replaced because New Morgan sings and dances, but i didn’t look it up or anything). idina is much more famous now thanks to her frozen work and of course amy adams is amy freaking adams now, nominated but never oscared, but they both came back. the direct-to-streaming release worried me, but i saw a trailer and the movie looked way better than i kind of expected, so i was excited after all. and as mentioned above, i settled in to watch it with my family. 

^^^^and that is where this review left off, almost a year ago--because it was still so hard for me to wrap my brain and my heart around writing it. but at this point i’ve reviewed all the other movies i watched in 2022, AND i’ve watched almost 20 movies this year and reviewed most of them, and those reviews are just sitting in my drafts waiting for me to post them once i finish this. so here goes:

this movie was bad. obviously that’s a personal opinion or value judgement or whatever, but like...it was really, really bad. it bore no resemblance to the original and painfully reminded me how disney’s moviemaking these days is so soulless when it comes to trying to squeeze more money out of its existing IP. and i can handle fairy tale/princess modernizations that aren’t all that impressive (idina was in one of those as well, cinderella), but even those had parts that i liked or that were fun once i was grading on a curve for the whole movie. i can’t say the same for this one.

first of all, we’ve skipped time since the original, which makes sense, since everybody’s older. but nothing about the time progression makes sense, because offscreen fifteen years have passed, making amy adams 48 when this movie came out. giselle and robert have just had a newborn whose royal inheritance is what leads to the movie’s plot--at best, i guess we can assume amy was supposed to be playing giselle a lot younger than she, the actress, was. or maybe her andalasian genes make her immune to fertility averages? 

either way, though, that still doesn’t explain morgan. who in addition to becoming literally a different person (and i hope they only replaced her because the original actress opted out, because she was so great in the first movie i’d resent disney for dumping her just to make the new one sing and dance, or whatever other justifications they might have) is a teenager now. Original Morgan was nine years old in enchanted, or the actress was, anyway. if we assume they meant for Original Morgan to be only seven or eight as a character, that still doesn’t explain a now-high-schooler morgan in this movie. it has been literally twice as many years in real time as it would have to have been in this movie world for morgan to be this age! and unfortunately for the movie, it’s mainly about adults, who have aged the fifteen years you would expect. so that’s ridiculous.

but anyway. somehow, all the adults from enchanted look fifteen years older but morgan’s a teen, and her parents have had a shiny new baby. idina’s character moved with prince james marsden to his world, and literally everyone is depressed now except prince james marsden (and presumably the baby). giselle sees a billboard and decides that’s a plausible reason to uproot her whole family from the city she fell in love with and that the others were from even before meeting her...to move to the suburbs. 

at first, because of the impression i got from the trailer, i thought she would be moving to a perfect-seeming little enclave that was secretly evil, like a magical stepford or something, and that it would turn her evil and throw her family into peril. but the real plot is not that creative. it’s literally just the three of them moving to an ordinary suburb that (gasp!) doesn’t automatically fix their lives. instead, robert has a slog of a commute now, and in their own ways, giselle and morgan both struggle to fit in with their new local peers.

everything establishing this movie’s setup baffled me because it felt so random and flimsy, when the original was a beautiful sendup of classic disney tropes that managed to be subversive but still magical. i referred earlier to giselle deciding on a plausible reason, and i felt the same way about disney and this sequel: it felt like they decided this concept was a plausible reason to bring the cast back together, mix in a few new actors, and try to make money off the result (in this case by locking it inside their streaming service as though that would force new subscribers to disney+ instead of what i’m guessing actually happened, having less viewers for the movie than they would’ve gotten in theaters--cuz even i, the biggest fan of the original, wouldn’t have subscribed just to watch it).

but their ‘plausible’ setup is therefore that everybody’s feeling a bit meh in new york city. robert’s not excited about his job, morgan’s a sullen teenager, and giselle misses the days when everything felt magical and new and perfect. instead of recognizing that they have a freaking newborn, which i may not have experienced personally but have certainly heard is a difficult phase of life (especially the first time, for giselle), and that they simultaneously have a teenager, which anybody who’s ever been or met a teenager can tell you is a difficult phase of life for both the teen and their parents--heck, instead of just going to THERAPY when new york city is one of the few places it may still be easier to find access than everywhere else these days--they move to a random place where they know no one for truly no reason.

the movie wants us to believe that the reason is giselle seeing a billboard and believing its promise (or still being unusually literal?) but neither of those makes any sense because even if we had reason to believe that giselle hadn’t learned anything or grown in the last mysterious number of years and would truly treat a billboard like a promise rather than an advertisement (and i don’t think what we see of her in the sequel supports that idea) it’s still robert she’s married to now, and we know he’s always been someone who lovingly but firmly points that stuff out. 

morgan’s unhappy because she’s a teenager, she doesn’t actually want to move, and as much as robert loves giselle, i don’t believe at all that he would just let her have her fantasy of a fresh start without injecting reality into the situation--so i think the real explanation is that both robert and giselle, for their own reasons, are desperate enough to try it despite knowing it won’t be a magic fix. but then idina menzel and prince james marsden (i should remember their character names but i really don’t at the moment) pop into their new, still-unhappy-just-in-a-different-time-zone, lives and make everything even worse. way to go guys!

continuing the flimsy plot setups, they’re visiting to give a gift to the new baby, to basically proclaim how special she is and make morgan feel like she’s neither special nor giselle’s ‘real’ daughter. giselle is thrilled by the gift from her childhood home and her former prince remains as hilarious as ever (the acting in this movie is good, they’re just not given as much to work with; ‘campy humor’ was the only element they could successfully recreate for some reason). but nancy is clearly already Over It, the former new yorker not exactly as enchanted with prince james marsden as she used to be now that she has to live with his personality 24/7. 

you might expect this to be woven in with the central family’s ennui in some way, but you would be disappointed--that general intermittent eyerolly energy is never directly addressed and as far as we know by the end of the movie, she’s still with him. and i guess will remain so forever? because that’s the rule when you choose a fairy tale life?? even though giselle’s story was entirely about leaving fairy tales behind when they weren’t what she wanted???

maybe we’re supposed to read nancy’s reactions as like, lovable occasional annoyance at How Very Much her guy can be sometimes. but it didn’t come across that way to me; it seemed intentionally to mirror the dissatisfaction giselle and robert were struggling with. i could have been giving them too much credit there, i guess, in assuming deliberate parallels. 

but the real point is that the adults were unhappy in the city, and now, in the suburbs, they’re still not very happy. after the gift-givers go back to andalasia, giselle makes a wish using her baby’s magic present, wanting to make their family into a fairy tale...and she gets her wish. morgan goes from a strugglng teen to a cheerful girl again, running around singing and eventually having to be the savior of her family. robert goes from a commuting lawyer to a wannabe monster slayer, and giselle slowly transforms into an evil stepmother--while the women in town who’ve been snubbing her turn into an actual villain with henchwomen in tow.

from then on, it only gets more ridiculous. amy adams is an immensely talented actor, and like i said, i’ve loved her since she was on tv. but she is not doing her best work here, switching between normal giselle and evil stepmother giselle in response to a chiming clock in a way that reminded me of one of those over-the-top acts where a guy hypnotizes people and then can trigger them to be a chicken or something. it was just so over the top, and lacked any of the emotional depth the original movie brought to her character that made me care.

and poor robert, it was clear, they did not know what to do with. a convoluted exchange with prince james marsden before the wish created circumstances where he was carrying a sword around on his commute. that, i’m sure, was supposed to help make it seem like it made sense for him to become a giant fighter or whatever. but really, they had a sequel to make in which he had to be there because he was her happily ever after in the first one, except now robert isn’t a love interest anymore, there’s no drama between them--and the actor was never meant to be a major contributor to the musical part of these movies, so what’s the point of his story? to run around looking for monsters, totally separate, and mostly unnecessary, it turns out.

the fairy tale transformations mean that we go from watching giselle being sad and hurt in response to morgan’s attitude to morgan’s being mistreated by her now-evil stepmother--neither of which is fun. in giselle’s intermittent ‘good’ moments, she tries to encourage morgan to be free of her and get help, and eventually morgan does end up in andalasia with nancy (she’s also a cartoon at that point, i think). nancy helps her understand what might fix things, and the fact that it’s up to their teenage daughter (whose complaints the whole time have honestly seemed the most reasonable to me compared to her parents’ vague ennui) to save not just her own family but both worlds from doom...it doesn’t seem at all fair. but okay. 

the solution for making giselle good again involves morgan’s memories and singing and the idea that with the power of love it’ll all be fine, but what i remember most about it is that the scene is really just a vehicle for idina menzel to get her own song. which, duh--i was very disappointed that she didn’t sing in the original, and given the success of frozen, it would’ve been crazy for them not to showcase her more this time. 

but the song she’s given? it’s so bad. so very bad. the others i was watching this movie with spent a significant portion of the song time mocking it, and i couldn’t blame them. at a certain point, it just devolves into idina belting the words ‘love power’ over and over and over. you know how some words or phrases become completely meaningless if you say them too much? this definitely felt like that, like the big drama’s ‘solution’ was flimsy to begin with, and then they forced a song into it that wasn’t even a good song, and got idina to sing it. she’s so much better than that! it genuinely made me wonder if she has some kind of disney contract that left her stuck dealing with this.

somehow thanks to morgan, though, giselle does stop being evil by the end--i don’t remember exactly how that scene plays out so i doubt it matters too much--and ending the sort of wish curse she inflicted on everybody means they go back to living in a normal suburb. the woman who briefly became her villain nemesis apologizes in a ‘sometimes i’m a lot oops’ way, and giselle is just like ‘hey, me too, no big deal.’ 

and this brings me to my two biggest problems with the movie, outside of how much it felt like it was trying to destroy any love i still held for the original. 

this movie has no real villain. unlike the first one, where susan sarandon was camping it up in a delightfully appropriate way, and was defeated in the end...this movie falls into the same hole that so many New Disney Movies are determined to, for unknown reasons. we can’t have classic straight-up evil anymore; our heroes have to instead be facing antagonists that are less specific or even less corporeal. it’s family! who of course will no longer be in conflict by the end, and don’t actually need to be ‘defeated.’ or it’s emotions! and once they can be accepted rather than avoided then things will be okay again. 

i’m not saying that’s a bad thing, in general. i love encanto, and i thought turning red and inside out were great. but when you’re dealing with a now-franchise whose original style was to reference and gently mock and lovingly rework classic disney tropes...why would you toss that out completely and make a sequel that feels like the other movies disney makes now? why can’t people appreciate that beloved movies are beloved for a reason and you can’t just slap the ‘brand name’ on whatever you want and act like it’s just as good?

but yeah. this movie decided to have no villain by way of having two villains, both of whom were only temporarily villainous due to indirect magic and who became normal again once it stopped. they bear no real responsibility for being villains, because after all, they aren’t really. post-movie, it seems like they may even become friends! all’s well that ends well. 

which really annoyed me, lol, because it felt so incredibly pointless once i knew that was how it ended. our main character accidentally makes herself evil, makes somebody else evil, has to be saved from being evil while fighting the other evil, and the grand conclusion is that they just finish back where they started? how is that a story that moves forward, let alone a good story with some kind of point or even just a good-versus-evil win, fairy tale style? 

it’s like the main conflict of the movie is created by them having problems, but then the problems they were having...are solved because they’re no longer in conflict. which brings me to my second issue with the movie’s ending: apparently the ultimate lesson of this follow up to enchanted is that growing up means learning to settle, rather than believing in happily ever afters.

despite the cheerful singing at the end of the movie that tries to make us believe it’s just as great an ending as enchanted got, i was so underwhelmed and disappointed and tbh freaked out, that they reached that conclusion. the story we were given was giselle and robert and morgan are a family now just like they wanted but they’re all unhappy, so they move out of the city to seek happiness elsewhere. and it fixes nothing which instead spirals giselle into cursing the town but in the end everybody’s okay and there are no consequences and nobody’s mad at giselle cuz she didn’t mean to do it...so she and robert and morgan commit to trying even harder to be happy in their new suburban life.

and all i can wonder is, why is that the lesson? why is that the right place to end up? why couldn’t they go back to the city and figure out their problems there, since clearly suburbia wasn’t a fix on its own? there didn’t seem to be a real reason for requiring giselle, who loved the sparkly harsh city she landed in years ago, to become a suburban mom--or for uprooting morgan, or making robert become a ‘small town practice’ kind of guy. 

i guess what grates on me about it is that it has such a hallmark christmas movie vibe of just assuming their real happy ending would naturally be escaping the city, no matter how central it was to their original story and lives. whatever their deeper issues were that made them unhappy in the city, they haven’t addressed those by the end of the movie; they’ve just somewhat improved the issues that moving TO this new place piled on. 

therefore my logical brain goes, you were unhappy and tried to fix it by moving but that only made things worse. why wouldn’t you reverse the making-it-worse part by going back, and then continue trying to figure out how to fix it? i just don’t get it. and i may be kind of offended by it, because the giselle who i have always adored is a completely different person in this movie, and not because of some wish curse.

she’s older, and sad, and it’s like nothing about her life is fun anymore...and maybe there could’ve been a way to craft an interesting story out of that, though i don’t know what it would be off the top of my head. but we don’t get whatever that could’ve been. and we don’t get a sequel about our faves from enchanted having more hijinks and having a to fight a new tropey villain, in the style of the first one. what we get is a story about everybody from the first one not liking their lives and having to fight the fallout from that and then concluding that hey, at least the world didn’t end so they must be better off than they thought, time to make the best of it. it deeply depressed me.

and look--i’m not saying i demand happy endings always. i don’t even require happy endings mostly! but unless there is some requirement i’m not aware of that post-pandemic we are no longer allowed happy endings at all, this was not the movie world to bring back just to say ‘the best you can hope for is meh. good luck.’ giselle and everybody else deserved better.

i will say that there was one thing about this movie that i liked. exactly one thing, sadly, or at least only one i clearly remember. i was really excited about the casting before this came out, because i love jayma mays, and maya rudolph is reliably good always. once i actually saw the movie, i was bummed that jayma mays and the other henchwoman didn’t have roles worth including, but maya rudolph was as good as i expected. 

and since this movie was such a mess, she also just really stood out. she’s a ‘can do it all’ kind of performer, in a way that makes it look easy, and i feel like that’s the difference between amy adam’s background in a lot of dramatic roles and maya rudolph’s background in snl. they’re both super talented and both have range, but are a good fit for different things because of that. 

so there is one song in this movie and one performance (cuz it’s the performance of it that makes it good) that i genuinely enjoyed. it’s basically a face off between the two not-actually-villains, kind of like ‘anything you can do i can do better’ but sillier and maximum camp. it’s the only part where it felt like that was what the movie was deliberately aiming for, and both actresses are fully going for it while sometimes we’re watching them parallel on splitscreen...it was ridiculous but in an entertaining rather than cringe-inducing way. 

so that part is great, but also highlights even more what this movie could have been. if only they had let maya rudolph be a proper villain, the leader of a trio of new antagonists for our faves to face, that would’ve been potentially a great movie. she could have gone evil after getting her hands on the baby’s wand, then gone down fighting after the family consulted with their andalasian friends on how to deal with magically corrupted humans. the ending could have been more interesting with bigger stakes than ‘everyone survives and decides to play nice.’ 

heck, i could write that version of that movie! lol. but i won’t. because it would probably necessitate rewatching disenchanted and that is something i never ever want to do. that was a piece of my heart you fucked with, you jerks. and i’m gonna stay mad.