#alison humphrey

[andthatscanon]

dair parallels (131/?)

Gossip Girl 1x09 // Gossip Girl 5x04 // Gossip Girl 5x03 // Gossip Girl 1x04 // Gossip Girl 5x05 // Gossip Girl 5x05

[strideofpride]

How do you feel about the Rufus-Dan parent-child relationship, particularly as it evolved throughout the show? I know there have been a lot of discussions about Rufus and Jenny, which makes sense given how overtly fucked that relationship became, but Rufus and Dan are equally fascinating to me in the way they start out with probably the strongest of parental bonds on the show, yet end up where they are post-Inside. At some point it feels like the show writers started writing the Dan-Rufus relationship as if they were friends or peers more than father and son, and the in-universe implications of that are really interesting I think.

Yeah! I think it's complicated by a lot of different things.

1) Rufus and Alison were clearly very young parents when they had kids, like early to mid 20s young. I personally have always headcanoned that they got married because Alison was pregnant with Dan and Rufus pretty much says at one point that he gave up his music career to be a dad. So I think the fact that the age difference between Dan & Rufus is pretty slim is definitely a contributing factor to how that dynamic operates.

2) I personally headcanon, and I think there's enough to go off in canon to support it, that Dan was closer to Alison than Rufus before she left. And I think Alison leaving put Dan into the mother role for Jenny, which makes Dan and Rufus almost seem like partners parenting Jenny rather than father & son. I think Dan taking on a more parental role towards Jenny after Alison left was entirely his choice, maybe one he didn't even consciously make, but Rufus certainly doesn't seem to do anything about it, and goes on treating Dan like a co-parent when issues with Jenny come up rather than treating him like he's her brother (how Breeland coded of them).

3) I think another big change in Dan & Rufus' dynamic occurs when Dan starts dating Serena, and Rufus starts reliving his past with Lily through Dan. Like I personally think Dan is more like Alison and Jenny takes after Rufus, but with this, Dan is now acting like Rufus (in Rufus' eyes at least).

Anyway all of that contributes to where they are in season 1. Throughout season 1, Rufus constantly gives Dan advice about Serena, but a lot of it feels less like father/son advice and more like advice from a peer. In the Thanksgiving episode, Dan makes a comment to Rufus about how finding out that he and Lily used to date has probably set Dan back months from having sex with Serena for the first time and it's so...It's just such a weird thing to say to your father. Like that feels like a comment Dan would make to Nate. So the fact that he feels comfortable being so blunt about his sex life like that with his own father is very telling of how their relationship is more like two friends.

Honestly, I feel like Rufus almost forgets he still needs to parent Dan until all the Rachel Carr stuff in s2. And the way the show handles that is uh, bad. And it paints Rufus as irrationally angry for being upset that his son is sleeping with a grown woman when he's really being the only sane one. (linking this fic now for reasons)

That might be the first moment when their relationship really starts to turn, because I think Rufus kinda has been going along like "Dan's gonna be fine, Dan's a good kid with no serious issues, the worst thing that ever happens to him is he's not popular at school, I don't need to worry about Dan" and then the Carr stuff happens and he realizes Dan is Not Fine, but at this point Dan is 18 and about to be off to college and Rufus is Too Late (he's not but you know...that's certainly how the show acts sometimes, that these kids don't need to be parented anymore once they're off at college).

And then all the Inside stuff...I think a lot of tension between Dan & Rufus, and also Jenny & Rufus, comes from the fact that Dan & Jenny grew up in a home where their parents' artistic dreams remained unfulfilled. Both Rufus and Alison gave up their dreams/careers to focus on being parents. And I think Jenny and Dan are both very conscious of that and while they love their parents, they both have big dreams and lots of ambition and don't want to see that squandered like their parents.

But while Rufus maybe isn't creatively fulfilled, I think he doesn't regret his decision of choosing being a dad over music. (I think his only real regret in life is not fighting for Lily back then) But when Dan implies in his book that all Rufus has amounted to is being Lily's house husband, I think he's rightfully insulted. He gave up his music career to be Dan's dad. He sold his art gallery to fund Dan's college tuition. He finally got to marry the love of his life, the one thing he's probably done that's entirely for him and not his kids in 20 years, and now Dan's publicly giving him shit for that? Fuck that.

And of course, Dan doesn't really see any of that. He might be ungenerous in his reading of his father, but he's not wrong either, that all Rufus is doing is being a house husband now (minus the whole brief thing with Panic, but the writers were entirely uninterested in exploring that anyway). To Dan, this is a cautionary tale. To Rufus, this is just how life goes sometimes.

Neither of them is wrong. But they're not on the same page anymore.

[fritextramole]

Gossip Girl as Reductress Headlines part 8

[lajeunefilleenfeu]

Rewatching season 1, it really seems like Rufas and Lily were together when he was already with Alison (who was waiting at home while he was on tour). That really puts Alison's affair in a different perspective, but also makes Rufly's struggles in getting together SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING (and make so much sense).

Like how can they trust each other when they're relationship started as an affair?

[terrainofheartfelt]

OH, OH, LIZ!!! any alison and dan hcs? both before and after she left?

stars I think you just get a kick out of putting me in my FEELINGS

(before we get too far along might I direct everyone to S's alison fic because it is IMPORTANT to me <333)

I think dan was a complete mama's boy in the beginning. rufus was still with the band when he was born so during his first few years alison was the parent who was always around. there's that throwaway line in one of the early season where rufus says he had to walk dan to school every day when he was seven -- I think two things happened then: 1) rufus had quit touring because he realized he was missing his kids growing up and 2) that age would have also been when jenny was going to school for an entire day, so that is when alison decided to go back to school, and so she was not around as much as she used to be, and dan was adjusting to that.

that big, oversized brown armchair in the loft living room? that was mom's chair, that's where she would curl up and sketch and listen to records in the evenings, and tiny dan would sit on her lap. she taught him how to read in that chair.

before rufus bought the gallery (with its attached studio space), alison did a lot of painting on the roof. it was a good place for the kids to paint too because making a mess didn't matter.

when the humphreys did buy the gallery and she moved into the studio upstairs, she still had the kids over there to make messes. that one scene in the princess diaries where they throw darts at water balloons that are full of paint? the humphreys soooooooo did that.

nads has put this in a fic and got me thinking about it, but I love the idea of bby dan being his mom's assistant, and taking pride in that, he loved helping her out with stuff.

both alison and rufus were big on letting their kids find their art and feeding it. alison was the first to clock that dan loved storytelling, so when he gravitated to writing she wasn't surprised. In middle school when he told his highschool/college prep counselor he wanted to be a writer, and she told him he should get an education degree instead. dan vented to his mom about it and she got so pissed she started researching prep schools that would make him more competitive in getting into college. and that's how the transfer to st jude's began.

after she left dan was cold for a WHILE. I rewatched the ep where she comes back just the other day and it always kills me how he tears into her because jenny needs her and dad needs her, but he never says what he needs (the eldest daughter jumped out), he tries for a long time not to need her, and finds out he doesn't really. (but, as I've said, the realization that he doesn't need her is one of the things that fuels her leaving. her baby is grown and who is she if she isn't a mom? she runs away to try and find that out)

so the show says dan actually spent his spring break in s1 hanging out with his mom, and jenny is taken to aspen with one of minions so it really is JUST them. so...I have to imagine that there was some sort of detente happening there.

And, canon says she stays the summer looking after the kids while rufus is touring, and I imagine that's the first prolonged time that they have to spend together, and dan is reeling from his breakup and so much has happened since she left that he doesn't really know how to be around her, and nothing is completely fixed by the end of the summer, but it's not as broken as it felt before. (it'll be a while before they find their footing, but this time is what really saves their relationship when things get tough later).

and then he and jenny go to hudson for christmas after jenny has been THROUGH it so she needs Mom more than he does and so dan the eldest daughter sort of just...lets that happen (even though he's broken up with serena like. two more times since he last saw his mom)

and then rufus and lily become a couple and that's AWKWARD bc the kids both really like lily but they know alison doesn't and once again dan doesn't know how to just talk to his mom. he used to have the easiest relationship with her and now he doesn't know what he can or can't say.

dan graduates from high school, and alison's ex-husband is dating his ex rock and roll sweetheart and her ex nemesis, but it's her son's graduation so she still goes, but sits in the back and leaves shortly after the ceremony.

the humphreys kick it in the hamptons at cece's house, but they spend a few days with their mom in hudson, and that's when she properly celebrates dan's graduation. but her kids have an impending rich stepmom, and like how vanessa reacts to the cash and the designer wallet and the hamptons summer plans alison feels WEIRD about it, but unlike vanessa she is not compelled to speak up because what could she even say?

dan we know goes to his mom's for christmas that year, and he's mopey about vanessa and jenny's further from him than ever and his dad just peaced out to telluride with the band? without lily? there was a time when he could talk through ANYTHING with his mom but he has no idea how to get back to that, and alison is too careful around dan now, so she never pushes anymore, but he keeps waiting for her to push :/

and then...the second half of s3 happens, and dan probably says something off hand about visiting jen after she settles in, but the whole summer passes and ~radio silence~ alison worries, but jenny needs her more right now, and she's focused on her.

this is the thing I WONDER about. how does alison hear the milo story? how does jenny? who tells them? certainly not dan. I would bet rufus gives her a call after it's all over, it happens to rufus so fast he probably hadn't worked out what alison did or didn't know until after georgina takes milo away, and then Dan is going through something COMPLETELY different.

interestingly enough, s4 is the first time dan doesn't see his mom at christmas. he decides to stay in new york. alone. maybe he's giving jenny space again? I like to think that alison takes jenny on a trip to florida to visit dan & jen's grandmother, so dan declines because, florida. but maybe also to avoid an interrogation about his summer as a teenage dad? all of 4a is basically about dan denying his grief, and if he had to tell his mom about it, he wouldn't be able to deny it anymore.

in the gap between s4 & s5, dan goes back to hudson mainly to help jenny pack to move to london. and once again, he can hide behind his sister pulling the attention, and mask all he's going through.

he sends her a copy of Inside, and she understands his work well enough not to take the off-handed, one-dimensional portrayal of Amy Hunter personally.

and since we all know canon ends 5 minutes into season 5 episode 22...let's go from there.

Jenny meets Dair the Couple before alison, they stop in in london on their way back from rome. when dan tells alison about his gf, alison calls jenny for the real scoop. jenny doesn't lie, but she tells alison that she should make up her own mind.

but, alison and blair are into like, many similar things. alison loves hitchcock, and art history, and debating the merits of the academy awards, so she starts to like blair almost in spite herself.

and it's that, combined with dan feeling settled in his life for the first time since she left, that lets them really connect again. it's gradual, at first, and never the same as it was, but he's comfortable telling her things now, and she's comfortable asking.

(the only thing they don't talk about is Dan's brother Scott, because that would just be rude. not that alison's the type to hate a kid for existing - she likes serena and eric as people after all, but it's just toooo awkward for all parties involved)

i waffle back and forth on this idea: alison goes back to her maiden name, because she doesn't want to share the same last name as lily. OR, on the other hand, she stubbornly holds on to humphrey even after lily marries rufus, because that's her kids' name damnit, and if it makes lily mad, that's just a bonus.

I don't think alison ever remarries. i think getting married sooo young and losing herself in that keeps her from ever wanting to do it again. (like this alex dude, i think he proposes and she says no). she gives jenny a speech once while she's living in hudson about not getting married too soon and staying in charge of her destiny (which jenny was already gonna but), but she knows that in this respect dan is too like his father to listen. her boy was destined to be a WIFE yk?

thanksgivings belong to the van der humphreys, but alison gets some event around the winter & summer holidays, usually planned around whenever jenny and her partner are in town.

alison makes all sorts of things for dan's babies when they're born (pettily she thinks she can't top lily's resources), but she makes print illustrations to hand and knits blankets and does those sorts of things.

she doesn't go to every book launch, but she's always at her local indie shop on dan's release days to buy a copy, even though he always sends her one anyway.

alison and harold and roman are besties. eleanor is team lily always and forever. but harold and roman find daniel's mother adorable, and she's a treat to talk to about art, even if her taste is, unfortunately, a lot like her son's. too modernist.

[callieyanderechan]

I hate this woman more than Satan himself

[lajeunefilleenfeu]

You see this dynamic when Alison briefly returns. She's the one to make the decisions and discipline, and Rufus just backs her up (or in the case of Dan going to the debutante ball, overrule her). And outside of that, he lacks parental boundaries with his kids in how he relates to them (ex, talking openly about his martial problems and his feelings about them) in contrast to how Alison relates to the kids as their primary parental figure (ex, never trying to explain "her side of the story" to the kids).

actually okay the more i think about it—rufus insisting jenny and dan go to private school as the only way to get a good education but then always judging them (especially jenny) when they try to fit in with their peers? actually MAJORLY lends itself to my theory/interpretation that rufus was used to being ‘the fun parent’ before alison left and is now having to pick up the slack and take on a more active role. not to say he didn’t support the decision or that they didn’t make it together, because i imagine that they did. but i do get the strong sense that she was to the one to bring it up and maybe push it a little bit, and that his inconsistency is reflective of some of his own values not aligning with what they decided together was best for the kids. he still keeps them in private school because that’s what they decided and i do think he generally agrees in the long run that it will be good for them, even if he sometimes struggles to remember why—but i think that’s where some of this tension comes from.

[froggieetmblr]

Quick one to celebrate the final season:“)

[mozzzz05]

I just had an upsetting thought - what if Alison constantly visited the Ghosts and knew - when she was old and grey and had lived a life - that she was going to die, so she made sure she was in Button House for it?

Mike accepts it and understands her want to go back to the Ghosts, they’re like family, they’re always there.

But then it’s Mike’s turn to go and he decides it must happen at Button House too. He’ll see his wife again! Spend a couple of hundred years together & hey he can actually meet/talk to the ghosts now!

Only when he dies and he meets all the Ghosts, who are all excited to actually talk to him etc, he asks where Alison is, only to find that she moved on straight away.

He finally gets to see a part of his life that was so bizarre for him, so secret and hidden, part of his life where he only ever had half a story. And now he has that half but his whole world is still gone and he doesn’t know when he’ll ever see her again.

[nortism]

bbc ghosts as “things to never say to someone who just came out”

[one-fancy-flapjack]

I've been making these and reading them with the character's voices for the last 30 minutes.

edit : You guys have no idea how heartwarming your reblogs are, seriously I had no clue that this shitpost would be so well received 😭love y'all, take care 👻🏠

[almondcroissantsandink]

*Brady Bunches your BBC Ghosts*

[strideofpride]

“I personally headcanon, and I think there's enough to go off in canon to support it, that Dan was closer to Alison than Rufus before she left.” Okay I love this take and it makes me sooo curious what the Humphrey family dynamic was actually like before Alison left and Dan stepped into a more parental role with Jenny!! The only Humphrey childhood anecdotes I can specifically remember are the one from 1x06 where Jenny tells Serena the story about 5 year old Dan being terrified of the Ice Capades, and the one from 1x15 that Rufus initially misremembers:

Rufus Humphrey:
[to Jenny] You used to cry when I didn't walk you to school.

Jenny Humphrey:
That wasn't me. That was Dan.

Dan Humphrey:
I was six. It was a very emotional time for me, post T-ball.

And the subtext of the 1x15 bit stands out to me, because in the show’s present it’s obviously Dan who’s afforded all of the autonomy and treated more like an equal by Rufus while Jenny’s just a kid in need of protection, yet in these few glimpses we’re given of the past Jenny’s the one who seems to have been the more independent and self-reliant kid, while Dan comes across as having been a lot more sensitive and delicate when he was a child.

I’m curious what the early/middle childhood sibling relationship was actually like between Dan and Jenny - were they parented more equally back then and did they therefore have a more equal relationship, or was Jenny always treated as the more problematic of the two? Were Rufus and Jenny ever afforded the easier going, buddy-buddyish type of bond that Dan and Rufus have when Alison was around to be The Mom™️, and is that why Rufus kind of sucks as a disciplinarian in the present even though he’s otherwise a decent dad? Or did Rufus and Dan only develop that type of relationship as a direct consequence of Alison’s departure? And at what point did Alison become so fed up with her marriage and her life that she decided moving away and giving up primary custody of her kids was the best thing for everyone, and how long did that tension simmer beneath the surface?

I've kind of always assumed that Alison was doing the bulk of the child rearing. I don't think Rufus was an absent father, but I do think it was the traditional gender role stuff of Rufus focuses on keeping the family afloat by running the gallery while Alison stays home with the kids. So when Alison leaves, Rufus has to become a lot more involved with the day-to-day of raising children than he ever was before.

With what I know of sibling dynamics, I kinda feel like Dan being the sensitive, needy one kinda pushed Jenny into being the more self-reliant one. Like all kids are sensitive and needy but the way they express it is formed by the dynamics of their home. But because Dan was the older one, he did mature first, and you know, being an eldest sibling myself, your parents do start to rely on you at a certain point to help with your younger sibling, which clearly is what happened with Dan.

I think Jenny probably only really became the "problematic" child when she started at Constance immediately prior to season 1. I think a lot of Rufus, Dan, and Alison's reactions to Jenny that season imply that they're not used to her acting like this/that they're seeing a new side to her. Which makes sense if this is Jenny's first year in the prep school system and the Humphrey sibs went to public school K-8.

Rufus does a lot of the typical dad double standard stuff when parenting his son vs his daughter, which makes me think that even though Dan and Rufus weren't as close before Alison left, they could still be buddy-buddy in a father-son way. While with Jenny, I could see her being a daddy's girl when she was younger, but her father didn't look at her like a "buddy" in the same way he did his son, if that makes sense? But like I said, I think Dan and Rufus truly became more like peers when Alison left and Dan stepped up into a parental role.

And then as for Alison...I mean, she gave up her artistic dreams to be a mom. Rufus at least had the gallery to go to during the day, while she was at home with the kids. I think she has a line somewhere about how her entire adult life has been about Rufus, so it sounds like it's the very typical thing that happens in a marriage where the woman kinda ends up giving up her identity to focus on being a wife and a mother and then she wakes up one day and doesn't know who she is anymore. I imagine it's the kind of thing that's "slowly, then all at once" where she slowly loses herself and becomes unhappier as the years go on and then she woke up one day in the spring of 2007 and said "that's it, I'm done" and decided then and there to leave for Hudson for the summer.

And part of me really gets it and another part of me really doesn't, because how could you just give up having custody of your kids like that? Like Rufus and Alison never seem to have a custody battle, my guess is that they have nothing in writing, Rufus has no qualms about her staying in the loft with the kids while he's on tour in between seasons 1 and 2, and it's initially his idea to send Jenny to Alison at the end of season 3. So it's fully her choice to stay in Hudson and rarely visit. Which I know is just cause of how TV production works, but in universe...yeah I don't really fully know how she was able to just...go months and months without seeing her kids like that. Especially because she seems very maternal when we do see her with them. Idk. In my Alison fic, I decided that it's because while she felt strongly she had to be in Hudson, she had moved around a lot herself when she was a kid and didn't want to uproot her own kids like that.

But yeah, the show never really takes the time to explore why she went all the way up to Hudson, instead of just getting her own place in the city, or write throwaway lines about her calling or visiting beyond season 1 so it's all just up to your own interpretation.

[fritextramole]

apparently the actress who played Alison in Gossip Girl is the first soloist in Cell Block Tango in Chicago (2002) ????

[lajeunefilleenfeu]

Alison Humphrey's painting (the one Lily's buyer bought) was totally about her issues with Rufus in their marriage.

[terrainofheartfelt]

Gossip Girl Appreciation Week | Day 4: A Favorite Quote:

Emotional affairs are necessary to keep a marriage alive.

And how many times have you been divorced?

1.08, “Blair Waldorf Must Pie”