#tashi is a throuple truther

[tarotofbadkitties]

I'm obsessed with Tashi's refusal to pretend she's changed her mind about wanting both Art and Patrick. At different times, Art and Patrick both come to her all insecure and passive-aggressive to demand she say they've got her forever and their bff is out of the running and she's really like lol nope every time. "My preference is both of you, but I'll trade you back and forth as needed if you two can't get along" is her final answer. I love that for her.

[cowboygideon]

I love so much how every time we see art and patrick before knee-gate, they're eating (or drinking) something "unhealthy." Like the hotdogs and the churros and the cigarettes, of course (which I'm now realizing are all phallic symbolism LMAO) plus the coca-colas and the beer. Because it just furthers this idea that Patrick is a kind of corrupting force to Art, who we know, as Ice, is a very controlled person. And then, during their final game, you have Art with his fuckass protein paste, or whatever, but Patrick with the banana, which obviously isn't unhealthy, but still something much more akin to the food of your average person—and he offers it to him! Jokingly, yeah, because he knows he's not going to take it, but also, like offering his hand, inviting Art to take part in his own corruption once again. Plus, a banana?? Could they have found a more dick-like food? Insanity.

Also I like that the one scene we have of the throuple in a room together (the party notwithstanding), Tashi is also drinking the beer. Because Patrick stokes the fire in her too, brings out a part of her that Art alone doesn't.

I was thinking about this because I saw a cut scene in the script, where Tashi and Art smoke a cigarette, and I found it really interesting. Because, for one, I understand why they'd cut it, since such a big part of the artashi dynamic is restraint, repression, both pushed further into the frigid parts of their personalities, so having them do something like that without Patrick around might remove some of that. But ALSO I think it was such a good scene because they both start coughing during it, and it sort of feels like their trying to make up for Patrick's absence with each other, but they fail. They need Patrick to push them completely out of their comfort zones—or else they'll just keep toeing that line between the familiar and the unfamiliar, safety and freedom.

Anyway, in conclusion, welcome back Adam and Eve and that fucking snake, enjoy your apple [polyamory].

[andwordsarefutiledevicess]

this song... THIS SONG. it's peak art + patrick angst — like patrick watching art grow up and grow out of their relationship while patrick never does

anyways don't mind me just listening to this on repeat and thinking about art's blonde curls

[diyasgarden]

How's she supposed to survive with no heart?

Someone figure out and tell me how because this concept has ripped out my heart and i don't know how to go on.

Best Friend - based on @diyasgarden's betting on loosing dogs cats and her cat headcanons. definitely go check them out if you haven't yet!!

the story of tashi and her childhood best friend (1.86k words)

tw: i have not seen the movie so all my knowledge is via osmosis. writing some of these scenes was cathartic. enjoy me working through my own grief and know my tears wet the keyboard. i may have forgotten about art a little bit but this is tashi centric so im just going to say whoops and move on

Tashi was a lonely child. It was just a fact. Even with siblings wrapped around her and hanging off her arms, she swept through her childhood with few permanent attachments.

She was vibrant, regardless of her seclusion. The bounce of her curls and the seemingly infinite energy she possessed endeared her to teachers and classmates. Bright, sparkling curiosity filled her eyes. The librarian saw the most of her, incidentally. With clumsy fingers and boosted toes, she tipped titles from higher and higher shelves, thicker and thicker books filling her arms and her Princess Aurora backpack.

After playdates, summer camps and schedules packed high with unfamiliar names, her parents finally acquiesced. There would be no friend for their daughter, not one she wanted.

Instead, that Christmas, she received two very special presents. An oddly shaped thing with one blunt, cylindrical end and, on the other side, a curved, flat plane; the other was a larger, rectangular box that mewled periodically, its princess wrapping paper massacred with pinholes. She anguishes when she sees a prick right over the left side of Aurora's shimmering pink dress.

Her parents initially direct her towards the oddly shaped gift, no matter how the mewling box draws her ears. Under the light of the rainbowed tree, the LEDs reflecting their colors over her full face, she unknowingly, and with youthful gusto, unwraps her future.

Her very own tennis racket. The gift included the promise of lessons, starting after her holiday break. She'd been curious about her parents' rackets, the handles much too big for her young, soft palms. Now, she can try it all on her own—emulating the fierce girls she revered on TV.

A whine from the larger box draws her attention again, and eyes shining with anticipation turn to her parents. A single nod, and little legs are scampering across the hardwood as she runs to delicately peel off the paper.

The cardboard box under it is as pricked as the wrapping paper, the top untaped. Reaching past the unassuming packaging, she's jolted when something touches her. Soft, with points as pokey as the needle that made the holes. She's nothing if not fearless, however.

As the cardboard flaps are peeled back one by one, the thing, no, paw that reached out to grab her tugs on the last one. It's small, orange, with tiny claws puncturing shallowly. Her fingers, larger and without as sharp nails, gently pries it off so she can finally open the box.

A kitten. A kitten sits, dwarfed by the size of the box. When she reaches for it, it retreats—sniffing her fingers before deciding her a worthy companion. It's all but eager now, pressing into her hands until she picks it up and cradles it to her chest. Its teensy chest starts to rumble with a crackly purr.

"She's yours." Startles her out of her revere, so absorbed in the little body against hers. Her mother's words are said with a smile. She finally found a friend, one that didn't live in pages. "All yours."

Her father chimes in not long after.

"What's her name, Natasha?"

A pause. Tashi blinks, contemplation in the set of her pout and in the subtle furrow in her brow. Her eyes don't stray from the yellows of her newest companion.

"Serena," comes, the resolve in her tone sounding odd in the heightened pitch of a six-year-old.

She'd grow into it.

She'd soon learned her two favorite sounds: the thwack of a tennis ball and the thundering of Serena's purr.

They were familiar, and borderline ordinary. She heard the first over and over, for hours at a time, multiple times a week. Serena's purr, in the same vein, was the thing that greeted her with the sun and lulled her into sleep. Yet, she thought them spectacular. Whenever they reached her ears, that golden smile appeared.

She was always good. Always spectacular at tennis. Sweeping through matches flooded her veins with sweet adrenaline, sweat that dropped to the court marking her path to the stars. Even when she'd left them all behind, flown far away and was weightless in her tennis shoes, it'd say: I, Tashi Duncan, was here. I won.

The thing that brought her back to Earth was simple. Even with the lure of the stars, the rumbling, crackling purr and sweet meows, like the quake she experienced at eleven and the cracking boom of thunder she'd once feared, grounded her in her emotions. Her feelings, not for boys but for Serena overflowed from her heart and spilled out like a split dam, widening her smiles and filling her mind, motivating her game and keeping her present.

At seventeen she was up-and-coming. Her birthday fell a few days after the US Open, so on her last few days as a child, she bundled up with her familiar friend and boarded the metal plane. It would be her wings, giving her that taste of future freedom, of the sky she reached for.

Her transcendence faded in sleep, leaving just a girl and her cat, sleepy and covered in shed hair and so, so young.

She won. She won the Junior Open.

Everything's set in stone now. She can see her future playing out—at Stanford, tearing through the competition and tearing through the pages of novels (she never quite lost her love for words; instead it evolved from Junie B. Jones to Mary Shelley.) Then, she'd go pro, breaking out into the Grand Slams like a comet blazing by.

Art and Patrick were the unexpected twist.

Zweig and Donaldson. Fire and Ice. The perfect duo. One would be joining her at Stanford. The other? Leaving for the intense performance of the pros with her number stashed in his mobile—left sweating under the stage lights of expectations states away.

Whether he'd buckle under the intensity was to be seen. At least his green crash pad was well in place, waiting to be fallen back on.

Practice was routine.

Art was routine.

Serena was at home, with her parents.

The separation was killing her. Some days, especially hearing the thwack of the ball, she felt the ache of her halved heart. She knew she wouldn't go home to her second (first) favorite sound.

Red. There's a lot of red at Stanford, Tashi noticed. Even in her dorm room, the banner on her wall and poster above her bed, the jacket strewn over her chair and the sweaty shorts discarded on her floor. The red apples of Patrick's cheeks and the pinkening to his lips. She let her eyes close and welcomed their press and the darkness behind her eyelids.

They were good. They were fine. He was fine. Then they weren't.

Tashi always knew her heart was fragmented. Tennis, Serena, Patrick. Each one beat independent, for the most part. When they synced was euphoric.

One of her best memories was during her spring break. Patrick had a break before his next tournament, and they packed up in his dingy car to putter back to her parents'. Spending the week there, lounging like house cats, lobbing lazy forehands back and forth and falling asleep every night to Serena's crackling purr and Patrick's heavy arm over her.

It was the most alive she'd every felt.

The game. The game was all that mattered. Not Patrick flaking. Not the absence of her friend. Just the game. That was the piece of her heart still intact.

Then her knee pops sickeningly, releasing out from under her and all she could see was red.

Stanford fans in the stands and her opponent's flushed cheeks, Art's crimson shirt and the pain red-hot behind her eyelids.

The darkness when her eyes shut was a comfort once again. It hides the sight of her swelling, purpling knee. It doesn't stop the pain.

Maybe she'd slip into a blessed unconsciousness.

100 years, Maleficent proclaimed. The princess shall sleep.

She'd never play tennis again, that much was clear. The doctor been almost certain.

Art tried to make her feel better. All she could think of was a familiar rumble she ached for.

She was released to spend a few weeks at her parents, away from the worry of school and her emotional turmoil. A few weeks with Serena, to get back to their routine, to the purrs on her chest and the weaving beneath her feet.

Serena was a bit more careful staying underfoot after her first smell of her braced knee and the sight of her white crutches.

Maybe she'd log her as an emotional support pet, just so she wouldn't loose her whole heart when she went back.

She didn't get that far. She didn't even have the time to get the paper.

Serena fell from Tashi's bed and broke her pelvis a week in. The howl she made was a new noise. One she never should have made.

They spent the whole day at the emergency vet. Tashi's eyes had never been so red-rimmed. She cried, in that sterile waiting room, as they took Serena back and cooed sadly.

She fell into an exhausted sleep, buried in her mother's side with her lip still caught between her teeth.

The doctor's thought the break was suspicious. Cats are usually springier, the vet had said. Even the older ones, like her. She was kind, and caring. Her green scrubs, pattered with paw prints, slowly became orange with Serena's fur. Her hands were warm when they handed her the lab papers.

Bone cancer, the plain black text said, in it's painfully ordinary font. The type that, apparently, had crept through Serena's body and made itself a home in her lungs. It burrowed, unwanted, in the place that held her life. It infected the space right above her heart. Waiting longer, says the vet, would be cruel.

She didn't even look at the amount of tumors they found. Once she saw the double digits she shattered, just that bit more.

The vet gave her time to say her goodbyes. It was all they really could do.

Thirteen years. Thirteen years they'd grown together.

Serena was once bundled in too-big cardboard, clawing energetically at the walls and sinking pinprick claws into her shirt.

Now, she's swaddled in a soft blanket, looking fat and warm but so, so tired.

Tashi holds her on her aching knee and weeps. She presses warm lips press to the forehead of her first friend, her favorite thing. Slender arms cradle this beautiful baby cat to her chest. Serena is sedated, a little medicine for the pain. Her purr's crackling now, muted and rattling. A soft, small paw presses to Tashi's tear-streaked, tawny cheek.

It's time to go, she hears faintly. It feels like she has her head underwater. Her throat and lungs and fingers squeeze as the needle slides in, past fluffed, orange fur. Serena doesn't even flinch. Yet, Tashi feels like she's drowning.

Her form (little, so little. Her baby—) goes limp in her lap.

How's she supposed to survive with no heart?

The next morning arrives with silence. Not even the chirping of the birds.

She curls tight in a too-empty bed and feels her heart wither in her chest.

[coldblooded-angel]

As a tennis throuple truther, I generally don’t believe Patrick loves Art more than Tashi. I definitely believe he’s loved him for much longer but I think it is more obvious in the latter part of the movie how much Patrick loves Art because he spent so long hiding it behind jokes and intimate touches that could be interpreted any which way. There was no way he would jeopardize the most important relationship in his life. He was assured that their friendship would last, he was content… until it falls apart.

Art is ice. He’s reserved and quiet, and though that balances out Patrick, it also makes him harder to understand (especially after the falling out). Patrick used to be able to read him but they’ve spent too long apart and now Patrick doesn’t know what to do except be more forward, more obvious.

In a way, Patrick is more sure of how Tashi feels about him than how Art feels. (He used to know, or he thinks he used to know but not quite).

There’s too much history there, too much yearning, too much heartbreak. Their relationship is loaded and while Patrick is sure of how much Tashi wants him and what she wants from him, he has no fucking idea what Art wants (mostly cuz Art doesn’t know either).

[jeanjamesb]

not revenge being a tashi/ patrick truther I thought we was all for the throuple

@revengemode what is your stance🎤

[bigtiddydumbass420]

Challengers rlly introduced me to tropes and stuff tht i previously thought I hated but some reason, i think my fav dyanmic is dom! Tashi and sub! Art . Like dont get me wrong i am a throuple TRUTHER but that dyanmic is tew good . One thing i will say regarding fics showing dom! Tashi and sub! Art is that I slighly disagree with how subby Art is? Like i can totally see having dom moments? Like after a gane where he wins i can def see him man handling Tashi and her being pleasntly surpised y'know

[artdcnaldson]

Yeah but like after. Did he lowkey tell her i know you fucked him or does he just stay silent and move on as if nothing happened (not only the affair, but also the mometary "relationship" they had on the court)

I think he would tell Tashi he knows, and I think he’d be really hurt by it. I think he’d want to try counseling to fix things, but he’s so insecure I think it would lead to divorce eventually.

As u know I am not a throuple truther even though it’s fun.

[tarotofbadkitties]

The real answer to why the only possible outcome in Challengers is the throuple is that if they paired off in any fashion, the third person left out would work ceaselessly to break them up out of unquenchable rage at being abandoned. The movie was legit them repeatedly home-wrecking one another until all three had to come together, just like they did in the first night.

[tarotofbadkitties]

It seemed pretty clear to me that Patrick's plan was to get all three of them in that bed lol. His reaction to Art expressing concern Tashi was going to think they want to fuck her was to remind Art they DO want to fuck her lol. Art made it apparent when he expressed concerns about logistics that he had not added up that Patrick meant "we" in a literal sense. When Patrick said "if it comes to that" in reference to one of them making themselves scarce, it was clear to me that Patrick was already seeing this as a threesome scenario and didn't have the energy to attempt to explain this to Art when he was so determined to be dense about it. Tashi made it clear that she was also seeing the OT3 vision when she asked if anything had happened between the two guys, and even neck-deep into this situation, poor Art's brain block was preventing him from figuring out what sort of situation he was in until she literally invited them both onto the bed.

I suspect whether failed attempts to reach out were made was left an intentional mystery. You can get very different interpretations of not just the events in the film, but the characters as people based on whether you think they happened or not and what events coming to pass motivated them to reach out to one another.

Challengers brain rot. But Thinking in why Patrick was so interested in Art going to that party to met Tashi ?Telling him how she was the sexiest woman alive,why would Patrick want Art to find her sexy and be in the party when Art could be a competition. It won't be better to be alone in that party to have bigger chances with Tashi,and it's interesting because in the original screenplay was like this,he wanted to be the only one in the party ,so they decided to change it when they changed Patrick and Art's dynamic. Also he didn't have problems in inviting her to their room and didn't care about the logistics of both being there at all, contrary to Art.

Also how much did he try to reach Tashi and Art during those 3 years? very interesting he only could reach and find them when Tashi and Art were together and not before. I need fics exploring those years....Ahh

[cowboygideon]

seven year homoerotic friendship with a guy so traumatic you have to steal his girlfriend, marry her, and have a child together just to stave off the gay thoughts

[myladybelle]

Fuck it

I’m on team Patrick, I understand the art girlies, and their love story but I feel like if they didn’t thrive without Patrick and Tashi first they won’t the second time - also whatever happened in Paris seems like, serious and upsetting for the reader.

Even though the breakup reader and Patrick had was serious and upsetting, and crazy of Patrick- I just don’t see a proper future with art and reader after the match. Andddd even though art was still in love with the reader after all these years, I still see him heartbroken if he broke up with Tashi just to be with reader - and that just isn’t going to work.

These may be weird excuses just to see more of Patrick and reader… who knows

first of all, i absolutely love this energy!!! drag art through the mud for what he did in paris (even though you guys don’t know yet lmao) 🗣️🗣️

i personally think that the throuple is solution that would make the most sense, given that both patrick and art have a lot of homoerotic tension in the film and in my fic too tbh. i also think that both art and patrick have done things to hurt the reader, but they happened years ago and there’s always room for forgiveness and choosing love despite all the shit that went down 🩷

your feelings are still valid though, i usually only see people who want the reader with art showing this much enthusiasm so i appreciate this energy from a patrick truther 🥰🥰

[ghostgirl-22]

Would you ever write x reader or is thst not ur thing

I would! I have lol. I don’t think I’m very good at it (second person is difficult so kudos to you guys who can do it so effortlessly!). Some people write x reader and it’s just… so delicious 🤤 I make the mistake of trying to overdo it with reader!backstory I fear 😭 (that and I’m such a throuple truther I’m always thinking about where Tashi comes in)

But feel free to share x reader prompts with me if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to get better <3

[senseofnewness]

Controversial challengers take: Just based on what I gathered from the movie alone, without any fanon interpretation, I don’t think the trio would actually work as a healthy throuple. Imo I don’t think Tashi really needs either one of them. I think she has a sexual attraction to Patrick and has built a life with Art and lives vicariously through his tennis career, but I wasn’t convinced she was genuinely in love with either one. I also see them getting divorced after the events of the movie. :/ I think if she never got injured, she probably would’ve moved on from both.

Also, despite Tashi clearly wanting both Art and Patrick at different times, I never really got the feeling that she actually wanted a relationship with the both of them that also included them being together. If anything, Tashi seemed just as intent on diminishing their relationship as Art was. I think that’s why they lasted so long as a married couple. Tashi provided a way for Art to repress and ignore his bisexuality and specifically his feelings for Patrick. Like at the hotel, she tells Patrick to stay away from them. For me, that behavior doesn’t coincide with the way fans describe Tashi: a woman who loves both men and wants them to be together.

Now. When it comes to my fictional headcanon, I say anything is possible lol but just looking at it from the way I interpreted the subject matter, I don’t get strong throuple vibes here. I think it’s wishful thinking along with people taking the director’s interview comments as gospel.

(staying on anon because I know how some of the girlies like to tussle lmao)

Thank you for your message! You're totally free to your own opinion but I will try to answer with my own thoughts. I still do respect your opinion, I'm very thankful that some people do share their controversial take.

Tbh I never thought they would work as a throuple either but I disagree about Tashi not needing them. She does need them for, as you said, sex with Patrick and tennis for Art. But yeah, I never thought Tashi was really in love with Art. And as for Patrick, I think there is some kind of feelings there. I know I'm a Patashi truther so my words have little value but I always thought her relationship with Patrick was very passionate and what looked the closest to love.

While she was obviously physically attracted to Art at first, I think it was a good thing that it was Patrick who got her number. They do get each others more than anyone else (but I think that's more of a Patrick thing to read people SO WELL).

Without the injury, you are right, they would have been long forgotten. Like Patashi wasn't meant to be for the long run, they both have too much pride. But I don't think Tashi would have even looked at Art. Her career would have been her focus.

As for Tashi diminishing the feelings Art has for Patrick, I agree to a certain extent because she seems to be very open to Patrick's feelings for Art. It's like Patashi would have willingly welcomed a third but Artashi would never include a third. Which makes me often think, Art and his repressed feelings are the part of the throuple that is stopping it from happening.

Thank you for your opinion!

[tarotofbadkitties]

Tashi's really not a manipulative person, in my opinion. She makes it clear out of the gate what she wants, and they get to decide to go with it or not. I think Tashi gets accused of being manipulative in some of this is because people project how they would feel about the situation onto the characters. I wouldn't want to be with someone who was also interested in my best friend, but obviously the male protagonists of that film aren't that bothered by that. Sometimes they enjoy the competitive aspect of that, sometimes they get stressed about it, sometimes they encourage it, and sometimes they think it's hot. That dynamic is what they want, and that's why they have it. Both guys had over a decade to find a woman with eyes only for them and go be with her and elected not to. It's not because of her endlessly manipulative wiles, it's because they actually like sharing sexual situations with each other, they like having someone who sees what they see in their friend and they're highly competitive people who find competing fun (unless they feel like they're losing, in which case they're sore losers. Like most competitive people are.)

They all have big egos. Including Art. The quiet, unassuming man with his face all over ad campaigns and on more than one line of products lol. The main conflict of the film is that Art finds the ego damage of having a bad season following an injury nearly life-threatening, and it takes down his hopes of the future, his marriage, his sense of self and basically everything in a swallowing vortex. And Art didn't ask Tashi to be his cheerleader, he asked her to be his coach. And in the hotel scene where she is attempting to cheerlead for him and say she'd look at him the same if he lost, but she thinks he can win, he doesn't like that. He's still pacing and he's restless and frustrated. He doesn't actually relax at all until she threatens him lol.

I'm sure there were plenty of women who wouldn't push Art the way Tashi does who he could have chosen, and I'm sure he dated some of them in college and some of them during the few years between that and when they run into each other in Chicago. He WANTED someone to push him relentlessly the way Tashi does. Like he said to her at Applebee's, he asked her to be his coach because he wanted to WIN. What Art lacks in intensity on his own, he finds in Tashi and he wouldn't consider that a character flaw or something he puts up with.

The same goes for Patrick. Yeah, he pitches a fit in the dorm room, but he was emotional. He was feeling insecure both because of his conversation with Art and also because going pro prematurely was a bad decision (not that he would admit that, because that would make both Art and Tashi right, and he'd been SUCH a jerk about it) and he was bombing. When he's not freaking out, he clearly likes the way she interacts with him. That's why he's smiling so much, even when she's yelling at him in 2019. He's happy to have her attention, and he knows she's worked up like that because she cares about him. He (finally) asks her to be his coach. He high-key wants what Art has, mean coach wife most of all. If he wanted to marry a nice lady who doesn't know who Art is, like Helen, I assure you he's had the opportunity. As Art and Patrick told us, they don't even usually have the same taste in women. It was a feature of their relationships, not a bug, that Tashi wanted them both.

Everytime I read a take about Tashi I'm mostly sure that people cant handle she is a woman ,a woman that isn't tender all the time,or love her craft so much or is sure about herself ,although Tashi also shows being insecure many times. The times that I have to read things like "Tashi is the problem she had a big ego and treated the guys so horribly". People acting as if Tashi is the only character with a big ego from the trio or the only one that insult or treats badly one of them.But you know a guy had rights to do that and being real and not a bitch. The focus people have in her fight scenes with Patrick is most of the time about Patrick" humbling" her and that he is always completely right. People can't forgive she isn't this tender woman that is always saying I love you and praising her boyfriends,although she is shown being tender and caring and believing in them many times ,but not,even Art isn't complaining about it, they knew how she was and still wanted to be with her ,why do you care so much? May be that is one of the reasons he liked her. They even criticize her for not sitting close to Art in the beginning of the couch scene.

Even for the cheating,like I won't excuse cheating but the most popular take is people criticizing her for that or saying "look at she didn't love Art "but at the same time the same people saying "That is why Patrick was better for Art" as if Patrick isn't the one Tashi is cheating with or Patrick can still love Art after those actions and is the popular take and consensus with viewers,that he loved Art the most, but Tashi is a villain and the worst woman alive and never cared for him,Patrick was right she hated him. Tashi talking with Patrick and Art,always manipulation from her side. Patrick or Art talking with Tashi even when they are trying to search something from her or trying to patronize her about her own feelings,decisions and what is better for her or not,what is she really thinking,trying to say they are the only ones that know the real reason what she is really doing something or not ,no manipulation,Tashi is always the bitch and manipulative one,no rights to be angry,she must be always smiling and understanding.

Even the way that Art sleeping with lily is enough to sell him as better parent than Tashi as if Tashi isn't shown interacting with her in all lily' scenes,but you know Art is the only one trying while Tashi isn't at all,people even implying Tashi is the one not letting him interact with his daughter(because tennis) and that is why he just interacted with her when Tashi isn't looking. May be that is the problem for Art that he had even less time than Tashi to interact with her daughter and that he just could when she is sleeping but how Tashi is the worst here ?

I m tired 😭. Why I have to read the same things over and over ?

[tarotofbadkitties]

I really like them and I think if not for the injury they would have made it much longer. Hot take, but I really do. Patrick and Tashi clearly demonstrated both a lasting interest in one another and inability to stay mad long enough to keep their hands off each other if the option to get all over each other presented itself. A lot of people think they would have flamed out quickly, but I think they would have been one of those nightmare couples that get in huge fights and then are next seen making out somewhere two days later.

I think that had things really gone south with that match, and Art just gave up out there, symbolizing just giving up on their union, Tashi actually would have gotten back with Patrick. Patrick dropped a joking-but-serious comment to Art about marriage back at Stanford and was quite serious in the sauna about wanting to be married. I think that was the energy he was coming back with, and Tashi both picked up on it and it was tempting her in a real way.

I’m a throuple truther, so I’ll concede given time it would wind up as unhappy as any of the other pairings, but I think it would wind up unhappy in that way people who always fight and resolve things with sex get unhappy, not that they would have actually broken up and stayed apart for good. Chaos would rein in a Patrick/Tashi home without Art there to smooth things over and help them clear up misunderstandings. Art recognizing at Stanford their problem was a failure to communicate their feelings was making them both insecure demonstrated he absolutely could help in that way, he just chose not to be helpful for selfish reasons in that instance.

Tashi and Patrick are lowkey a underrated duo.