#patrick gates

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

Can't believe I almost missed the opportunity to make ridiculous valentines!

[lithiumseven]

Incorrect National Treasure (part II) (part I) (part III) (part IV) (part V)

[violetvoyd]

Patrick telling off Ben and being like "what do you have?! Him?!" And pointing at Riley will never stop being funny

[emmi-kat]

I hope it's okay to make a new post but I had a lot to say that I thought would get lost in the comments of this post and weren't really relevant to it, overall.

@arsenicalbronze said: "I had originally headcanoned that Ben was basically bounced back and forth between his parents in some kind of joint custody agreement because of Emily��s line in the second movie about “someone had to grow up and stay home and take care of Ben”, but your research brings up all kinds of new questions about Ben’s interactions with his parents in the second film!"

The novelization has a great line about how as a kid Ben thought his parents both gave him a lot of freedom but came to realize that they were both just neglecting him to do their own things.

Which I think makes perfect sense cause Ben and Patrick are a lot alike and Ben himself doesn't seem to care much about the personal goings on of those close to him (not going to Riley's book signing, or even bothering to open his book or believe in Riley enough to read the book without being pushed to, the whole fight with Abigail and the fact that he wasn't upset about losing her or ever tried to fix things, he just expected her to agree with him, skipping Sadusky's wake in favor of his dog (you're telling me that Ben Gates can't afford to hire a pet sitter for a day so he can pay his respects to a man who played such a significant role in the biggest moments of his life???  Charlotte wasn't implied to be in grave danger, just a little sick)).

And then Emily was a young mother taking care of Ben and building a career for herself in an academic field and time where she likely did not recieve much respect, so she had to work very hard to get that respect and probably had little time for Ben. If we're using Helen Mirren's age, she was 18/19 when Ben was born (whereas Jon V0ight was 26 but obvs their ages may not correspond to their characters) so she was only in her late 20s/early 30s when she and Patrick divorced.  Even if we bump her age up, it's definitely implied that Patrick was her senior and also somewhat of an authority figure in her education "that wasn't love, that was excitement, adrenaline, and tequila.  And I was just trying to get course credit!"....😬

Icky, imo.  But this could add to the tension between Ben and his father if Ben saw his mother as a victim under those circumstances.

Which I think explains why Ben is such a momma's boy and had to patch stuff up with his dad despite them both neglecting him. 🤷‍♀️

[slipperyskell]

Listen,,,, vampire spawn know how to spider climb and I am 1000000% convinced that Astarion would be an absolutely menace once he regains that ability after the tadpole is out

[leyleyley-45]

Emily-“Patrick what have you done”

Patrick- *I was literally trying to save us*

Me- it’s true love 🥹🥹

[evviejo]

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - S4E5 Remember Me

[overseer-picard]

From the episode commentary of "The First Duty" with writers Ron D. Moore and Naren Shankar.

[aenslem]

+bonus Yeah, Jean-Luc, your presence is not necessary anymore.

[amyspauldingart]

The Big Goodbye, (ST:TNG season 1, episode 12)

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

Patrick's House, A Headcanon

I mentioned that I have a headcanon the Patrick's house and the house we see young Ben exploring in the opening scene are one in the same.

It doesn't change the story in any fundamental way, but I think it adds a nice bit of texture to the Gates family.

The House

In the prologue, Ben explores the attic of house that belongs to his grandfather, John Adams Gates.

I suppose it's equally possible that Ben is searching around in his own attic for a scrapbook that his father hid away when he gave up treasure hunting, but couldn't quite bare to get rid of due to the family history element. That is until Patrick says

PATRICK Come on, son. Time to go. You can...say your goodbyes.

This makes it clear that he and Ben are the ones leaving his father's house, not the other way around.

The Money

The other thing Patrick makes very clear in the opening scene is that the Gates family doesn't have a lot of money.

PATRICK You know what that dollar represents? The entire Gates family fortune. Six generations of fools... chasing after fool's gold.

Not only do the Gates' not have a lot of money now, they never have since they're been putting their time and resources into treasure hunting--an activity that doesn't pay (until it does). Each individual Gates may have found some interesting historical items, like Ben's George Washington campaign button, or John discovering the Silence Dogood letters in a desk from The New England Courant, but not enough to make treasure hunting worth it to Patrick anymore.

If they had been able to make what Patrick considers a decent living, he might not be so resentful of it. And by in this moment in the attic he's clearly resentful of it. He's a single dad who regrets a lot of his choices. If he and Ben were headed home to the house Patrick lives in in story present, the resentment of treasure hunting could still be there for other reasons, but every time he brings up why it's such a waste of time, money is his first reason.

When Ben and co arrive after the gala Patrick says

PATRICK Sure, sure, I know, I'm the family kook. I have a job, a house, health insurance.

Which implies that not only does Ben not have these things, but Patrick may not have for a long time either. The way he's setting himself apart from the rest of the family with these makes it seem like it's been a normal part of Gates' family life to not have these things. Patrick likely didn't either until he became whole or partly responsible for taking care of Ben.

At the time of the prologue, Ben and Patrick probably live in an apartment, and possibly not a very nice one. Again, since so much of Patrick's resentment for treasure hunting is tied to money, it's likely that for a while he didn't have any. After giving up the hunt, Patrick would have been behind his peers in terms of career development, possibly significantly so. It's not a stretch to guess that he felt that sting pretty keenly.

It's also unclear what his present job is, or how long it would have taken him to get to the level of stability he has when we meet him in story present.

John Adams Gates

But if that's the case, that the Gates family has never had enough money for a house like that until Patrick leaves the treasure hunting world behind and gets a "real job," then why do I think the house was John's?

Well for one thing, the housing market even back in 1974, when the flashback takes place, was vastly different than today. Judging by the state of the attic, John has been there a decade or longer. There was a time, starting around 1950, where you could afford a single family home on one person's salary #postwareconomicboom. I mean look at these average housing prices going back to 1964. Oof. Ouch. It's ridiculous.

Hillcrest was built in 1937. John may or may not have been the original owner of that house (because I'm not sure he would have ever had built-a-house money) but it's possible that he was able to "get in on the ground floor" of the neighborhood.

After John died, the house would have passed to Patrick.

The Wives

There's another possibility for how John came by that house that I think is even more plausible: John inherited the house himself.

We don't hear much about the women of the Gates family. They're basically non-existent in the original film other than the vague ghost-of-a-dead-Disney-mother who haunts the narrative. But we have to presume there have been at least one in every generation, since we keep getting new Gates men.

My actual headcanon is that the house belonged to John's wife or her family. (Though I image a fair bit of tension there since she was almost certainly "marrying down" when she picked John.)

Legacy

Something about a house being in the Gates family for a few generations just feels right to me. In the three months later epilogue, the motivation Ben gives for choosing the house is a historical one. Riley put it, "someone did something in history and had fun."

It makes sense to me that the Gates family would cultivate a similar sense of history in their own home, even if they don't consciously realize that they're doing it. It's also just practical? In both the first and second movies, we see how much stuff each one of them has. Being a treasure hunter is, for the Gates family anyway, also being a collector. They need somewhere to keep all of that stuff, and a big old federal revival house in D.C. seems like just the thing.

Idk, I just like the idea.

What do you think?

[lithiumseven]

Incorrect National Treasure (part III) (part I) (part II) (part IV) (part V)

[fetch-those-damned-bolt-cutters]

You think you can hurt me? I write star trek fanfiction knowing absolutely nothing about the medical and scientific fields

[artsandantlers]

Couldn’t function until I drew this really stupid thing. She could do it though….

[itberice]

3.12/4.05

[veatomis]

hey, my partner and i saw you from across the ballroom and we hate your vibe so we're going to kill you (kyrtaar uses they/them)