just listening to the jatp soundtrack for the first time in a while, cause y'know the brainrot is real
and when i got to stand tall and julie starts the opening and it's just her and her keyboard and everyone's confused and wondering where the boys are. while julie is onstage, silently grieving not only her mother but her boys as well because she's so sure they're gone.
what if they had never come back. what if julie played stand tall all by herself and by the end everyone's sort of forgotten the boys because julie smashed it. she makes it big and everyone either thinks she simply made up the phantoms or only had them to catapult herself into fame or they simply forgot about the phantoms. and no one (except flynn) understands why she cries in class, why she has to look up towards the sky before every performance, and why the music is never the same. it's still amazing but there's a piece missing in julie's song that can only be filled by her phantoms and it never will be again.