#txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

i just don't buy the argument that tashi never loved art or patrick bc she never verbally says the words "i love you." sorry like. people say i love you in soooo many ways. she says "what do i need to do to get you to play again?" and she's saying "i love you." she uses tennis tips as foreplay because tennis represents intimacy, so why shouldn't she share her expertise with her boyfriend to bring them closer? she says "with some adjustments, you could get your serve up" and she's saying "yeah i might have a crush on u or whatever🤭." she says "if you don't win tomorrow i'll leave you" as her heart breaks and then in the same night says to her husband's opponent "i need you to lose tomorrow." she shows love through encouragement (and at times tennis-related ultimatums), through acknowledging a person's potential and helping them achieve it. tennis is the lens with which she understands intimacy and affection. something we can ascertain was part of her childhood growing up in a close-knit family so supportive of her success in the sport.

tennis is a relationship, one that allows tashi to completely understand her partner, so it's only natural that the inverse would be true.

#tashi duncan #challengers #tashi i love you sm you're the character of all time #txt.t

[yeeh-aw]

why do they have to do something ugly to johnny every comeback? is it not enough that he has no lines, they have to put grunge beads in his hair too?

#justice for johnny! #nct #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

#challengers #tashi duncan #art donaldson #patrick zweig #but which one's which?? #spoiler: they're all all three #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

most intimate scenes in challengers (2024):

- gum spitting scene (present)

- “she died. stroke 😕” scene

- chair scooting scene

- sad, pathetic, groveling blond man nuzzles face into hot wife’s open hand while fighting back tears after she half-heartedly threatens to leave him scene

- gum spitting scene (13 years ago)

#challengers #challengers spoilers #tashi duncan #art donaldson #patrick zweig #the gum spitting scenes fundamentally changed me #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

"that's my wife" and it's mike faist as art donaldson in challengers (2024) with his full body waxed and his back arched in a pair of tiny blue panties on a bed

#wait who said that #challengers #art donaldson #mike faist #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

mike faist deserves an oscar for making me empathize with a blond man

#challengers #mike faist #art donaldson #give it to him your honor #luca is a visionary for seeing that mousy brunette and the power he could harness as a strawberry blond #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

no because tashi's "we're just talking about tennis right now" and lily's "you're always talking about tennis" vs patrick's "are we talking about tennis?" and tashi's "we're always talking about tennis" vs patrick's "we're not talking about tennis" and art's "what the fuck else do i have to talk to you about?" literally makes me nauseous

#bids for connection constantly shot down by tennis metaphor #challengers #tashi duncan #patrick zweig #art donaldson #anyway tennis is their only framework for an emotional relationship !!!!!! #honorable mention: patrick's 'that's what's been missing from your tennis' and art's '🤨what??' #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

patrick only takes tashi's "I TOLD YA" shirt after she pulls on his white undershirt mid fight. he wears her shirt when he seeks her out in Atlanta and she wears his? a white undershirt over her slip when she seeks him out the night before the challenger. something something they carry these pieces of each other over multiple years, clothing the other hasn't seen since before the injury, illustrating their inability to let each other (and the past) go and the inevitability of their moments of reconnection. or something like that.

#challengers #tashi duncan #patrick zweig #i'm being normal about this #patrick taking art's shirt in the hotel scene but the action is not reciprocated indicating art's years of icy silence #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

thinking about. the consistent thread in challengers (2024) of wanting your life to be about more than "hitting a ball with a racket."

how tashi is the first character to bring this up and whether or not she means it (she's really only planning to do a year of college) she knows inherently that being well rounded is practical. that she's not from the same place as the country club, tennis academy, daddy's money kids. this should be an unattainable dream for most, but it's hers and she has it and it's terribly ingrained into her life but "what if this doesn't work out?" and then it doesn't. she gets injured and she gets stuck in this loop of the past, in her own potential, in what could have been. when it feels like everyone is counting on you to do and succeed at one thing ("she's going to make her family millionaires"), the one thing that is the framework and catalyst for everything you know, how do you come back from that? her life could now, realistically, become about something else because she actually can't have her dream anymore, but she becomes obsessed, holding on with white knuckles and performing alterations because she can't let it go, until she admits sardonically in a mostly abandoned applebees that her life really has only been about one thing.

and patrick. who challenges tashi's original statement. who has no problem devoting his life to tennis because it's a "good way to avoid having a job." who never had any dreams beyond playing the sport he's always had a knack for, coasting by on natural talent, never having to try. realizing too late that what really made it worth it was tennis as a relationship, not the selfish ego stroke it had been when he was good enough to win tashi's number. and he's stuck in arrested development, just like her. he never grew up, he never let go of the past, of what it felt like to play doubles with his best friend, of what it felt like to watch tashi at the top of her game. but he's painfully aware. he's made his bed and he's tangled in the sheets and he loves it and he hates it and above all else, he misses the way it used to be.

then there's art. whose decision to go to stanford is never questioned because it's unspoken general knowledge that he couldn't have gone pro right away. he never expected to be this big time professional player, he was always just concerned with doing a "really good job." and because of this, art's life is the one that probably should have been about more, the foundation was laid for it. but he's stuck too, a passive actor in a life he chose and was probably never meant to have. the holder of and heir to tashi's and patrick's unrealized dreams. (was it ever his dream?) and after eight years, after attaining it and living it without a real passion for it, he's ready to give it up because, out of the three of them, he wants his life to be about more than "hitting a ball with a racket" because it's "embarrassing to be doing this shit when you're 40." but he's the one who bears the weight of success, alone at the top, where the people he loves can only dream of knocking him off. so shouldn't he be grateful for it?

#challengers #tashi duncan #patrick zweig #art donaldson #this is mostly incoherent i fear but i've been shaking these characters around in my mind for days #patrick and tashi have dedicated their lives to an unrealized or adjusted dream #art has attained said dream and wants to give it up #hitting a ball with a racket is all i know how to do #save me deeply tragic toxic challengers throuple save me #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

it's the art, tashi, patrick and the king arthur, guinevere, lancelot of it all, i'm afraid

#challengers #art donaldson #tashi duncan #patrick zweig #and when i say they can all fit all three archetypes at different times to varying degrees..... then what?? #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

challengers (2024) got that devastating homoerotic friendship breakup down to a science

#challengers #art's face in the sauna scene??? looking very familiar to me #art donaldson #patrick zweig #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

and when i mention the fact that art and tashi are wearing complimentary tennis outfits (all white head-to-toe branded adidas) in both of their winning junior us open matches before they even meet each other, acting as an invisible string connection to their future commercial success as a married couple, what then??

#the costuming in this movie is making me normal (insane) #and patrick's fits are rarely cohesive in their branding-mirroring his failed professional career #challengers #art donaldson #tashi duncan #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

i saw challengers (2024) and all i got was this involuntary bodily reaction to Uncle ACE by Blood Orange

#challengers #wish i could say this was the only thing i got tbh i have a worm in my brain like kennedy #tashi duncan #art donaldson #patrick zweig #txt.t #but anyway i literally get butterflies whenever that song plays in my playlist now

[tuesdaygray]

thanks guys i had a lot of fun but i think i need to go home (my local movie theater to see challengers (2024) for the seventh time)

#something's wrong with my legs. when i go like this and then i go like that i end up at the liquor store (challengers screening) #challengers #hey guys is there something mentally wrong with me #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

seeing challengers (2024) for the sixth (6th) time in a week they're gonna ban me from my local regal cinemas

#anyway. it's self care at this point #challengers #txt.t

[tuesdaygray]

u guys i'm gonna be really brave and not go see challengers (2024) for the fifth time in less than a week tonight (i'm going tomorrow)

#this is the first month i've really abused having a movie theater membership but..... may as well get my money's worth #challengers #anyway this movie is a drug to me #txt.t