Sometimes, Ouat gets it right, happy accident or intentional. With its history of queerbaiting (Mulan romantically tragic) and cash grab representation (Dorothy and Red underdeveloped), Once could have rehashed a bare bones version of “queer representation” with Robin and Alice’s love story. There was a likely chance considering Tiera was originally told she’d be slated for 3 eps, Rose for 5 eps, and their eventual characters’ storylines mainly played out in s7b.
Now, I’m going to play the Devil’s Advocate and be like but wait, wasn’t Robin and Alice’s kiss in season 7 episode 10, the mid-season finale, a coming out moment, shocking to the audience that Robin and Alice were lgbtq?
Okay, you’re right, if you only watched the season or overheard at face value that the episode built up to two females aka Alice and Robin kissing as the Dark Curse loomed. However, coming out implies that initial assumption that the two are straight and happened to realize who they wanted to be romantically with, showing that to the world, family, or in this case, the audience.
Author’s Note: Yes, while I do think any coming out story or queer representation is important, I feel that the media and Hollywood use that to pander with the bare minimum, doing what sells headlines, is dramatic, or can be easily pushed into the background. Sometimes, its inclusion is played out for laughs or as a flawed foil to put heterosexual ships on a pedestal. Ouat is no exception with its history and having two white attractive straight oriented blonde actresses play into an easily accessible trope of lesbian romance compared to the rarer gay/trans/non-binary category. That said, it’s a PG fairytale soap opera that aired domestically on Disney owned ABC and internationally elsewhere. Who needs reality to be the downer when we can live in a fluffy fantasy where love and hope is all that matters? Don’t get me started on the toxic fans or parts of the Ouat fandom. Rather than rioting a personal projected attack against a dislike, make verbalizing not liking something or a ship normal again. That out of the way, it may have taken 7 seasons to have a queer love story that’s taken seriously and might even be comparable to main ships, but it’s still something by having it canon and not end in ‘bury the gays’. I’m looking at you Supernatural.
That said, into the rabbit hole we go!
Alice, since the start of her centric ep, 7x04 Beauty, winked and teased at Rumple by asking, “Are you looking for a prince?” regarding the ball and as Tilly mentioned to Weaver, “I had an ex-girlfriend who worked for [Victoria Belfrey] once.” Unless considered a blink and miss moment instead of casual on the nose comments, it’s clear Alice is queer or lesbian, cursed or not. 7x10 continues laying it on as Alice worries about her love, saying to Killian, her dad, “But Papa, if it happens, I will lose her.” He’s unfazed and responds with comfort, “Don’t say that, love, don’t! True love can win out over so much more.” Even though an act of true love has only been seen in Ouat as a magical solution to a curse when two people, familial or romantic, love each other and believe in magic, it can be taken here to validate and uplift that Alice and Robin’s love is strong enough to connect and endure. He also knows who to deliver her letter addressed ‘My Love’ to, without a mention of a name.
At the start of the episode 7x10, Robin worries and says, “If [the coven of the eight] are here, I have to warn-” to which Zelena, her mom, comforts her, “Don’t worry. Look, darling, we’ll warn everyone. We’ll protect our loved ones,” and tells Regina, “She’s got a case of young love.” Although Robin was a baby prior to s7 and we don’t get a clear look into her as a person before 7x10, it’s certain that Zelena knows who Robin wants to warn and is in love with, enough to nearly run aimlessly around the New Enchanted Forest for.
Assuming the audience is cued in on the love storyline, Robin looking for her love and Alice already explicitly hinting at her sexuality, their parents both supportive to them, the shock value should come from not their sexual orientation but rather who they're in love with. Instead of being reduced to their labels, Alice and Robin’s love story is about two people who come to know and love each other, their differing sexualities being an added bonus.
So, elephant in the room out of the way, where does the coming of age come in?
Well, in the characters’ growth and relatability as Alice and Robin both strive to be more than their past of summed up parts and the people they come from. TLDR: It’s all about finding their place in the world and discovering who they want to be rather than letting their past and others’ views define them.
Girl in the Tower vs Tower Girl
You could say it means the same thing, but like hear me out. Double meaning, Great Gatsby style. Was it intentional? In Ouat fashion, it usually is.
Taken literally, the first represents a girl that happens to be in a tower while the latter emphasizes how a tower is a characteristic of the girl. In context, when Robin first meets a spy lurking to watch a papa with a poisoned heart, she puts two and two together and curiously remarks to Alice, “Wow. So you’re the Girl in the Tower.”
Just like how Alice is known for being in Wonderland, she’s also given names by strangers who know Killian, seen as “Nook’s kid” and the “Girl in the Tower”. Robin unintentionally gives away how interested she is in Alice, the referential girl in the phrase, caring about her enough to keep track of descriptive names and stories of someone she’s never met until then.
Despite being caged in Robin’s trap, Alice rebuttals uncomfortably, “I got out of that tower years ago.”
The phrase also gives way to the way Alice thinks and feels about herself. She took notice of the ‘in’ bit, probably gravitating on the word ‘tower’, and wanted to clear the air. Alice defends and distances herself in term, separating away from any connection or fondness to the tower. By saying she got out of ‘that tower’, she claims she’s no longer trapped inside the tower and feigns indifference, as if it's a tower out of many instead of the home and her world before the Troll helped her escape.
Later on, Robin nicknames Alice as Tower Girl, in fondness, awe, and sometimes disbelief at how Alice exists, seeing and going about the world as she does. Robin only says Alice’s name in moments of sensitivity and as a grounding basis, sarcasm and jokes out the window. To give a list of Robin’s usage of the nickname, it’s after Alice: claims the Troll is her friend instead of a monster flattening villages, is led by Robin through a humorous string of homonyms regarding riding a bug and having a whole life held in a smartphone, has differing views on goals, and tackles Robin upon her aim at the Troll.
From the starting flashback in 7x14 to the Troll destroying the Tower in frustration, the tower is a part of Alice as much as she was a part of it. Being physically free of the tower wasn’t enough as it haunted her, either on the lips of others or how much she wanted her freedom to be the solution to making reality okay, happiness attainable. When Alice was trapped, she had hope that things were better outside and could be sheltered in the bubble of love her papa gave her. Alice was the girl in the tower, away from the judgement of society, unhurt by the reality outside her scope despite her imprisoned situation seeming bleak.
Surprisingly, in the last time we hear “Tower Girl” being uttered in 7x14, it’s straight from Alice’s mouth after she says goodbye to the Troll in front of the tower, confronting the things she left behind and couldn’t be free of, coming to terms with her childhood and past. At the age of 18, Alice escaped the tower and ran away to multiple realms on tons of adventures to explore more while on her quest to find a cure. However, there was nowhere she wanted to be more than back home. In the end, she inadvertently did come home, say her honest truth, had someone by her side to hear her out, and realized that the tower didn’t have to be her enemy or her stopping point. By saying, “Goodbye, Tower Girl,” to the broken tower, we get the sense that she redefines herself as not one held back or prisoner to the tower, but one that keeps moving forward in spite of her original circumstances, staying true to herself.
Conforming to Expectations vs Accepting Themselves
Imagine growing up in a small town like Storybrooke where people are larger than life and everyone is intertwined with legends. If fairytales inspired joy, I doubt they did for Robin who had bigger shoes to fill than most. Robin Hood-Mills, daughter of the powerless Wicked Witch and the deceased Robin Hood who saved the world from a vengeful god. To be a powerful witch or leading archer? Both required skills and inadvertently influenced comparisons to be made.
Of course, although her mother had a lot of talent, Robin didn’t have much nor was she allowed to practice magic except in secret. Considering Zelena probably saw what power did to their family and her lack of magic to protect them both from danger, the forbidding of magic was an extreme safeguard.
So, with small minded people in a school where everyone ages K-12 went, the deck was stacked against her. It wouldn’t be surprising if Robin was a goody two shoes initially, but learned that doesn’t build street cred or help make friends. If she was to survive school, Robin would have to fit in or stand out. And how did she do that with peer pressure and expectations to conform to? By pretending to be someone she’s not, becoming popular and cool. With that, Robin could make a name for herself, gaining attention and acceptance from her peers, leaning towards while stepping away from her parents’ shadows.
What’s cool to high schoolers in Storybrooke might be being good at magic, making things look effortless, breaking rules, and not caring what anyone thinks. Thievery was frowned upon, but getting away with lockpicking, hotwiring, and stealing earned cool points and recognition in others. Robin might not have powerful magic, but in 7x11, she gets Regina to help her and her friends practice magic in the old vault via Cora’s spellbook. However, Robin doesn’t want to be popular per say; she wants to be accepted and loved for who she is, discover what she really wants with no pretenses.
If Storybrooke wasn’t the answer, anywhere else was. Throughout the season, Robin/Margot runs away to find and be themselves while longing to be home with supportive loved ones. In 7x11, Robin makes a potion to summon Mother Nature, which whisks her away to Gothel in another realm, claiming to have run away. Robin tells her mom upon shunning her away, “I am my own person, one you refuse to let me grow into,” and “I didn’t love magic. I just felt like I was supposed to… and there’s all these things I’m supposed to be good at,” after getting saved. In 7x14, Robin admits to Alice that she hotwired and stole Emma’s yellow bug, to be away from Storybrooke and only getting away for “eight glorious minutes”.
By the end of 7x11, Robin has reconciled with Zelena; Robin trusts her mother’s good intentions while Zelena vows to support Robin on any endeavor. However, her journey hasn’t ended, even in the New Enchanted Forest. In 7x14, Robin vows to honor her father’s legacy by killing the Troll and becoming the villagers’ hero. She retreads all her mistakes in medieval fashion until she wants to defend Alice from the mob, realizing that protecting those who need it matters most to her and connects her to her dad. Making peace with her parents and her insecure self, Robin decides to forge her own path and be more honest.
Margot has a similar arc of wanting to change and see change. While less of a jerk and more open to different viewpoints as a mature traveler compared to Robin, she regressed in terms of relationships with her mom, Kelly, and never feeling like she’s treated like an adult, being in the know as equals. In 7x10, Margot is mentioned to have had a job at the bar, a ticket to Amsterdam, turned away from college at Vassar, is currently in Phuket, and never coming back home out of her mom’s lack of coolness. Lots to unpack, but the point is Margot decides to come back after 7x11 when her mom calls saying she’s changed and wants to talk, only worrying about Margot’s safety. By 7x16, Margot fights with her mom, claiming that she left in the first place because they’ve “never been able to communicate”. Hurt, Margot spills, “I am done being patient with you. All I’ve ever done is wait for you to change. You know what? I never should have come back.”
Margot hates the lies and sinking feeling inside that her mom doesn’t trust her or might be in trouble. She doesn’t give her mom a chance until Tilly suggests that Margot seems amazing and wise, but her mom might be not avoiding the truth for a good reason. They make up, Margot giving her mom a bit more time and eventually chooses to stay in Hyperion Heights regardless of anyone else’s life choices or opinions on her.
Either way, Robin and Alice go through their own arcs, dealing with things we can relate to: feeling alone or unheard, being left in the dark, craving acceptance, doubting self, running away from problems, and worrying about people’s perceptions. Luckily, both women find their way on what they want and who they want to be; they become individuals that grow and adapt to their environments while learning to stay true to themselves, accidentally falling in love during the process.
so today i went to the bathroom in the middle of trig and when i came back, the teacher had already explained the problems and stuff and he came up to me and was like “do you have any questions” and i was like “no” and he was like “are you really sure” and i was like “uHhMM now that you mention it” and he was like “what’s your question” and i was like “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING”
So, I just started watching Russian Doll Season 2. I’m barely three minutes into the first episode, Nowhen, when Nadia says, “All right, what is the game plan around here? I mean, is Lenox Hill actually treating patients today, or are we putting on a Beckett play?”
For context, Nadia and Ruth are sitting in the lobby/waiting room of a New York hospital, Lenox Hill, filling out a patient information sheet for Ruth after a minor car accident. They’re cracking jokes, filling out whatever they feel like, and Nadia wishes the process would go along faster bc surely Ruth has been waiting longer than she has. No doubt she’s worried for her godmother to get care as soon as possible and impatient waiting for the doctor to call for them to be seen.
Back to the quote, “Is Lenox Hill actually treating patients today, or are we putting on a Beckett play?” I think Nadia is referencing Samuel Beckett’s famous play, Waiting for Godot, one of my favorite plays to read. In that play, the two main characters do whatever, complaining, telling jokes, all by the side of the road while waiting for someone named Godot to appear. By the end of that, Godot never does, but the characters continue waiting and it seems like the play never ends or loops on uncertainly. Nadia must see herself and Ruth paralleled there in the waiting room, waiting for a doctor that will never come or call in the long list of patients there.
Luckily, the doctor does call in Ruth not too long after the joke, but I thought this inside joke was too witty and humorous to pass up without context. Ngl, a similar reference to Oedipus and a different male doctor holding the door open to Nadia was also clever. Gosh, I love classic literature and comedies, so for Russian Doll to be playing into that makes me adore it more. XD
@wicked-storybrooke Going off of your thoughts, “One minute it seems we're meant to believe that even the great height of the tower isn't enough distance (otherwise he could have spoken to her from there) and the next he's merely a few feet away from her in the letter scene. It could be that physical obstructions hinder the curse's full effects (e.g. "fewer trees and walls in our way")”, I feel the exact same way on the latter.
@fairytalepsuedonym gonna reach and try to rationalize the passing of the letter
I wonder if Gothel amplified Alice’s screams for help that sounded like deafening echoes for Killian to hear after he got tossed out, another form of torment. Wouldn’t put it past her as I still think what young Alice screamed was a bit ooc. I remember reading an Ouat blueprint on the tower being around 80 ft, a scaled drawing of Alice, the Troll, and the tower somewhere. I know from playing with my brothers in a forest/national park once, that across about 24 ft, we could yell at each other and hear the sound, but not make out a word. I think it’s easier to hear a person from above yelling down than it is from below, although the accuracy with nature is a confounding variable (i.e. wind, animals, bug noises, tree density).
The radius of the poisoned heart curse is another thing to factor. I agree with your headcanon, having also thought the same myself, that time + distance apart loosens the poisonous barrier temporarily. We can document 7x08, 10, 13, 20, 21, and 22 as clear indicators. I got long food for thought about this so it’s going under the break.
7x08
Killian and Alice reunite for the first time in ages, him magically younger and her all grown up. They get up the closest they’ve been in ages, maybe about two or three arms length away for caution and he’s fine. *cue cute hug that turns into dramatic whump and sadness* Alice couldn’t even stand the same meters away from him, and even while running away, he was still clutching his chest and screaming out in pain, groaning as the poison ravaged through his heart, restarting what he hadn’t felt in ages.
We see Killian later on a cot of warm furs in a tent, still weak and needing to be watched over. Alice is nowhere near, entirely in another realm and yet we can see how much their short embrace had cost him. He’s unable to move and seemingly strained in his efforts of just putting his thoughts together, barely mustering whispers as he clutched the White Knight chess piece Ella handed to him. In typical Jones fashion, he tries to be a fortitude of strength, stating that he’d “go through that pain a thousand times over, just to see her again.” I’d assume he was in bedrest for a week, even with healing magic used on him, grumbling that he was fine while his heart was permanently closer to the end of its lifespan.
7x10
Alice stands nearby, hiding behind a tree as he draws near, Rumple making light to her presence. The father and daughter are close once more, our timeline being at least over eight years since he had the poison reinvigorated drawing him back. I reckon they are no more than eight feet apart, but it’s the least of their concerns with the notion of a casted dark curse looming over them. They’ve corresponded so much over paper that Alice is empty handed for him. Killian manages to talk to her without immediately screaming out in pain as she exchanges worries and he comforts her. Robin’s special letter from Alice is passed, one where she dropped and made more distance as he picked it up and they went back to a tree in the way, them as parallel lines seesaw. Even in the dark midst, they still manage to bring light to the situation, hoping that with the curse, they’ll be able to meet again as Alice puts it, “With fewer trees and walls in the way.”
7x13 and 19
Tilly is entranced in a spell, unable to get free of the world changing casting and nor does she want to. Rogers tries to pull her away from the circle, knowing she would never want anything to do with it, being part of the Witch’s schemes. He even uses the word himself, having seen unexplainable things in the slums of the theater. He’s safe, protected by being in a world without magic, that is until he touches Tilly, the magical barrier broken and seeping into him enough magical particles to revitalize the poison in his heart. Rogers is drenched in pain, barely able to walk himself out of there, and that’s how strong the volatile curse is, an example of how it worked in our world.
When Killian and Alice are first cursed, her branded and him marked by the green glow on his chest, he still feels extreme pain after being teleported to the base of the tower, a distance away too. Probably the nicest thing Gothel ever did for him, ironically saving his life bc I don’t think he could, mentally or physically, have scaled the wall well in his crumpled painful state, tirelessly focused on breathing. We see Killian is barely able to stand, propped on his knees, where we can only assume he hobbled away in pain, making promises to himself and Alice that he’d be back. Clearly impossible as he could never find her again until after she had escaped.
7x20
They’re all awake after Henry and Regina’s parental TLK, but Killian took a stand by holding Alice’s hand and being by her side during the magical showdown with Gothel. Much as the man said Alice was “making him stronger”, we can see him resisting the phenomenal pain to give her courage to fight her very real nightmare. The toll leads to him being wheeled onto a gurney to the hospital, dispatched after some time as the doctors surely couldn’t do more than stabilize what probably seemed like a heart attack. Killian goes through a lot...
7x21 and 22
Survivor he may be, but he can’t deny that Lady Luck was on his side. Killian’s time was ticking and he knew it. The whump in this made my heart soar and cry. Henry knocking him out with a candelabra and Captain Floor returns, nearly freezing to death, ah, where were we? Right, Poison Heart Curse detectives we are here. ;) At the grand table, strategy planning room, there was no doubt that there was enough distance between him and Alice for the finale episodes. Heck, he gets freed from a winter landscape/snow globe conundrum only to get hit with poison from her just stepping a foot closer in the wide library room span.
So umm, yeah, Killian stands a distance away from the round table. Alice eventually joins a mission of what should have been just a trio team of him, Robin, and Henry, failing to be “good at keeping far away enough for safety”, a grimace on his face. 😐 Oh boy, this cannot be good as he struggles to fight and stand with Robin by his side later, Alice being far away with Henry to save Regina (at a dungeon in the middle of a forest?). Killian is full of sweat and worry, happy to give his blessing at Robin’s proposal to marry Alice, but he fears his life is at its end, believing his heart will give out before walking his little girl down the aisle. The last straw and burst of poison takes hold the moment he risks his life in the dark book, portal sucking scene, grabbing hold of Alice and making sure she never has to suffer a lonely fate of towers again. (It might have been an ice biome/Arendelle from the props but I’m disregarding that as a worst fate).
Thankfully, our Rumple values them over his own life, seeing it as a win win since he was ready to either be with Belle or have to repent in hell for his crimes. Killian gets revived and hugs his Starfish, rocking her gently. (I will never get over that we were robbed of this being longer than two secs and that change in dress up of them at Granny’s.) The Poisoned Heart Curse can haunt them no more.
Right now, I could use a bit of hope as I’m in an unstable part of my life where nothing seems to be going right, where everything good comes too late, and it’s that time of night that I can’t stop thinking about the what ifs and buts. It’s been long enough where I rewatched another scene from “The Girl in the Tower” (an episode that keeps on giving years after airing) and came back with more, the idea to stick to my guns and that Margot had something going on with what she said below, whereas I remember other plot points like the Troll’s security camera eye, romance, or Margot’s “Yeah kinda. But all the best people are” line when Tilly’s sad and feeling ‘crazy’.
You know those lines of advice that Margot says after she saves Tilly from getting hit by a car and sees how lost Tilly feels, enough to not have watched where she was going or being self deprecating? That’s what I’m going on about.
“You’re running away.” It’s not a question, running away... of intrigue, confusion, or judgment. It’s a statement, a deduction Margot makes, having recognized all the signs that she once saw of herself in Tilly; doubt, fear, and hope that a new place would take all the troubles of the past away. Sure, she might not have ran away from Hyperion Heights due to being the most likely suspect of a murder case, but heck, no way was she gonna let someone else make the same mistake.
Especially not since she just came back from Tibet, where people religiously tell their hopes, prayers, and dreams to statues for good luck and blessings upon themselves and others. Of course Margot would take someone “saying goodbye” while talking to a statue like a friend seriously. She tells Tilly straight out, three words with a face full of regret, “I tried that.”
I think this regret come from the fact that on a moment’s notice, Margot booked a ticket so that she could come back as soon as possible, from the other side of the world after so much time away, just because her mom, Kelly, called saying she’s had a “big change'' and loved her. For all she knew, Margot left on bad terms with her mom being angry at her for wanting to explore the world, discover herself, and be a little rebellious, considering she ended up working at the bar, instead of going to college at Vassar first. The curse may have left Robin with cursed memories that paralleled what could have been if Zelena and Robin never made up or made room for one another, but Margot probably felt a genuine pull to return, wanting closure, change, the idea that if they both put in the effort to understand and reconnect with one another, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Running away didn’t diminish the problems or still the regrets, but rather it just lingered once the distractions faded. Similarly to how Alice came back to the tower, where all her problems and past were untouched, bringing a raw desire for everything to be bandaged and okay, after having gone anywhere but, Margot tried to go as far as she could before she was reminded of home.
As if giving advice to a best friend rather than a stranger, she admits to Tilly, “You know what I found out? Sometimes you just have to look up and face your problems.” Having finally come back to Hyperion Heights, knowledge of the lived outcome in her bones, her words have maturity etched in them. It’s not wrong to run away when things get overwhelming, but the way I took it was, that sometimes when possible, it takes strength, patience, and courage to come back to or stand your ground in a difficult situation, with complex things that can’t be fixed with a simple solution.
Margot implies that things will get better if they can get through the rough patches first rather than waiting and being riddled with the psychological toll it takes to be reminded of what’s being put off. It’s the same obstacle either way, but with time, people change and leaving something without resolution only makes it harder to move on. Sure, although Tilly was found to be innocent due to her literally looking up at the Troll with a security camera installed and Margot did eventually give her mom a second chance to tell the truth in her own time, the two had to face their problems head first and their happiness followed from there.
During my first year of college, there was a monopoly released in stores specifically at Walmart that was based on the city I stayed in for college. For context, I live in the United States and while I know state Monopolies existed, I had never heard of city versions in Monopoly. Does it happen anywhere else? Anyhow, I saw it, pointed to my friends about the cool novelty, wanted to buy it and just didn’t. “Why?”, you may ask? Because I was a poor college student (still technically am but even more so then) and saw that Monopoly edition as a want, not a need, a toy, a waste of space in a cramped dorm room (was in a room with three other gals), and I didn’t have the funds to buy it that day. Convinced it would appear again the next year or stay as a constant relic of the small city, I took one good look at it and didn’t spend more than that week thinking about it.
That is until I was walking through the toy aisle that was next to the pet supplies aisle (was getting a cat comb) at the local Target tonight. There was a whole half shelf dedicated to Monopoly and its various additions, most notably the Fortnight and Bridgerton ones being the newest. As I walked out to my car after checking out my items, I couldn’t stop racking my brain the whole way back home about wanting to buy a special Monopoly edition and thought back to the city’s specially made one. I went on an internet spree, hoping to catch one on eBay, but to no avail. I almost even thought it was a fever dream! A few site scrolls later, I found the city’s online newspaper had taken a photo and documented it just as I had remembered it, but dated 2019 and no mention of it was anywhere else on the whole wide web. My mental and emotional states are hurt, yearning for something that could have been and I will never have.
Was this pointless to type out? I think so, but I needed to say something about it or it will drive me nuts. I would love to know if you have ever spotted your own town’s, city’s, or country’s Monopoly set.
Let's see. I tried to make bacon in my toaster oven because I was too lazy to get a pan. The thing was set at 410° F and was in there for 13 minutes. I should have checked on it sooner but I didn't want to give myself food poisoning so I let it sit. You can guess what happened. Smoke! The house smelled of bacon. It's 1 am atm, so no way did I want the fire alarm to go off. So I chucked the bacon on a tray outside. As it cooled and I fanned out the kitchen... I heard a rustle and ran to where the bacon was.
I kid you not... Two cats grabbed a piece of bacon, Lady and the Tramp style, dashing away at the sight of me. The other two pieces were untouched, albeit slightly burnt. I left the extremely burnt bits of the two outside, waiting for a night critter or cat to come back. Lo and behold, an opossum did, a gigantic one as big as a small dog or big cat! They ate it up and left without a care. There are oily paw prints on the ground from the cats and opossum. Well, at least they ate what I could not. Lesson learned, do not leave bacon/food outside without watch unless you want something to take it.
I still can’t believe I went to a dodie concert. The first concert I’ve ever been to and although I couldn’t get close at all to the stage, the moment and energy in the theater was amazing! Los Angeles was bright lights and all but parking was hell and I have never been so stressed driving in my life. I loved the old songs mashup, Lizzie Alpine as the opener was *chef’s kiss*, and ahhh dodie was so sweet. Joining into clap or sing repeating lines with the crowd was the best moments for me, also having my brother there since we had planned to go there for over a year.
Some funny moments were when dodie started “If I’m Being Honest” and the crowd started at the right time on the word “I” but dodie didn’t, causing us all to chuckle, a group of girls in the back near me singing the bridge of the song instead the second verse when the audience was given a full song part, and how we were all vibing and grooving when “Monster” and “In The Middle” came on. The fact that this was also a Friday night as the latter of those songs started with “What are you doing Friday?”
This will surely be a night I won’t forget.
