#cb matt

[kingofallgirls]

@rogersandclarke I found these

pt1

[kingofallgirls]

I know, I'll have it modified~! - NTBTSTM Deleted Scene

[kingofallgirls]

me when i have a band

[Michael Scott's insta]

[kingofallgirls]

cover band mattworld has opened up

[kingofallgirls]

I think that Matt's tattoo of Jay is, of course, crazy on so many levels but the way I've come to interpret it informs how I see and write cover band Matt which is, like, despite being obsessed with Jay because he's Jay, he really has relegated himself to a fan. Obviously, he sees himself as singular and special among Jay's fans, he really knows Jay, they have something no one else does. But over time, after so many rebuffs, I think Matt does "give up". I think he stops trying to contact Jay or interact with him in person. I think he sabotages his own attempts. Because Jay becomes his Rivoli even more explicitly than before.

Actually trying will lead to failure. Actually meeting Jay will reveal who Jay is now compared to who he was before. The changes are obvious enough through his public image, but with only public image to go on, the fantasy that Jay is secretly the same Jay can remain. If he gets Jay, then... what? There's an immense vulnerability at this point.

Never in a million years would Matt want Jay to see him with a tattoo of his face on him. And thats kind of why he got it, right? He settled, consciously or not. Keeping him with him always in this way is also a massive wall he has put up. He's a fan. He's not even the only one with the tatt. By age 40, I think Matt has all but conceded that he will be seperated this way forever. Of course he still hopes and yearns, he's Matt, but he has settled into this dynamic.

Which is why putting them in a room together at this point is so compelling.

[kingofallgirls]

I think what makes cover band Matt like truly peak to me is the fact he is in a cover band, which sounds asinine but it's truly such a real and desperate bid for connection from him. Like, he is never going to make music with Jay again. They will never ever riff together by a piano, that intimate thing they shared, both truly playing for an audience of one. So in order to grasp at that, Matt picked up an instrument, one that's so opposed to the piano's sensibilities and he decided that he will play music with Jay again, even if they're apart. He will follow Jay's lead for once and he will riff off of his prompts. And it won't sound good, for sure. But its a way to access a dim version of the connection they used to have. If Matt and Jay improvising music together is sex, cb Matt drumming his own version of Lazy Bones is masturbation and he cries when he's finished

[kingofallgirls]

he's never been more okay

[kingofallgirls]

thinking a lot about ethan being this terminally online zoomer that teaches cover band matt about awful internet rabbitholes and terminology and things and how he sort of represents the antithesis of jay and their life together. like with jay, matt can stay young and clositered and they're stuck in the 90s as 90s kids but ethan constantly updates matt about the world through the eyes of a zoomer mattling. like matt shouldn't know what cummaxxing is, its funny but truly the idea is so upsetting it feels like its taking his innocence away in a certain sense, not just because its such an overt sexual reference which feels out of place atp but because its so modern and gross, its a word from the pits of inceldom hell. like there's such a depraved cynicism that it opens up that I dunno, I dunno, its saddening. matts still surrounded by adult children but they don't get his jokes and he doesn't get their jokes. like its so bleak to me. ethan eng is at rehearsal like yo matt did you hear about what happened with clavicular. as if his life wasn't miserable enough