#and i'm sorry it's a lot of incoherent and jumbled thoughts about hummelberry which could contain so many more thoughts lol

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Do you think some of the Hummelberry friendship could be attributed to survival mode and later trauma-bonding because of the break-ups and later Finn dying?

this is such an interesting question nonny! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to it! I mean, yes-ish? The break ups -- not really but Finn dying definitely.

Sometimes I find it hard to analyze Hummelberry because I'm always coming from the writers' perspective of they needed Rachel Berry to have a best friend and Kurt was popular so they made it happen.

I know they were planting seeds of Hummelberry in Season 2, and namely BTW and New York they kind of started this whole thing about the two of them bonding over having a shared dream of Broadway but I think Season 3 is where the deconstructing really becomes beneficial.

And an interesting take - more so than the shared dream - is this idea that Kurt now has a (literal) brother in Finn and Finn's girlfriend is Rachel Berry. And by proxy, by the fact that they have to share the same space not only at school but now at home leads to a sibling dynamic between the two of them.

I don't know if I'll ever fully buy the gay bff angle they were trying to push in Season 3 -- because Kurt Hummel just will not stand for being someone's gay bff - but because also siblings seems more apt to their personalities.

So getting back to the thoughts above...

The thing about moving to a place you've never really been before and going to college on your own, you kind of latch onto the only familiarity you might have. And for Kurt it's Rachel. Rachel, in turn, doesn't need that sense of stability in the same way -- she's busy reinventing herself anyway. But while that change is happening at that time in your life, you do hold on to things you know before spreading out and latching onto the things that make more sense.

So in that way - I buy Kurt and Rachel sticking with each other -- the same way Santana coming into the dynamic works, even if it doesn't. The familiarity and past experiences is what binds them together.

As for the break ups... this is such an interesting thought.

I think, first of all, their break ups were very much different. Because those particular relationships were very much different. Beyond the fact that I think Finn and Rachel, while always being tied together in a way for being a connection in high school, were always destined to be on different paths, Rachel was the one who broke it off. She needed space to grow up and find herself and learn who she was without defining herself with Finn. It's why she pushes Kurt to go out and date and experience the world because she wants him to be where she is.

And Kurt isn't. Kurt, when it comes to relationships, very deep relationships -- with his dad and with Blaine, is very closed off. He always guards his heart very closely. And Blaine (like his dad) was supposed to be a constant he always relied on. It's kind of insane that Blaine did what he did because Kurt just figured that he would always just be there and fixed and that's it. (Kurt and Blaine's issues aside - that's a full different conversation.) And when Blaine wasn't there anymore, his world shattered a bit - and he went inward. It was much easier to let Rachel lead him through the world because he didn't want to deal with his. But I don't really think Kurt let her in to the subtleties and realities of how deeply he was hurt. He kept his feelings buried for himself.

But I don't really think that made them closer. Once Kurt starts to be okay with himself, and his relationship with Blaine, and his relationship with New York - he starts to pull away from Rachel and be his own person and they kind of start their journeys of going through life in different directions.

Finn's death, though, did give them a bond that is permanent. It goes back to what I was saying about Finn being Kurt's brother and Finn being Rachel's partner. They shared a valued connection with this person who is no longer there, and they have a different grief from others that they can share between them.

I think that long after Kurt (and Blaine) have moved out of the city proper and are busy with their own lives and long after Rachel Berry has been happily married to someone else, there will be moments and times when they look to each other to remember this person who once meant so much to them.