#dynamic → rory & lorelai.

[stellaluna33]

There's something about Lorelai, Luke, Rory, and Jess all having to "be the adult" as teens.

[sageandred]

The uncommunicative messes REAL love languages are

Being clingy af

Downplaying your sappy feelings

Being stupid together

Showing up nonchalantly to important events or meetups

Taking the admission of your nice gestures to the grave

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

lorelai and rory gilmore are how i imagine older debbie and franny gallagher to be

[folkloregirlfriend]

saumya ye kaisa unrealistic show hai apni mummy ko kaun hug karta hai kuch bhi dikhate hai isse real to jjk hai

LORELAI IS SO COOL IM JEALOUS ikr

[thecryptidbard]

The Gilmore Girls episode Rory’s Birthday Parties is one of the television episodes of all time, and the fact that it comes only six episodes into the first season never ceases to amaze me.

[buffyspeak]

i’m sorry but if they wanted me to seriously root for any other lorelai love interest, tney shouldn’t have invented max medina

[cowboycereal]

sorry for the rest of you cat owners but my girl is actually the best princess in the whole world and also the most entitled and also also the bitchiest so no other cat will ever stand a chance… yeah she’s better than u too sorry. if it makes you feel better nobody could love anything on earth more than i love her and she loves exploiting me so like… you will never be best friends like us

[yououghtaknow]

normal isaac (started full crying because of a scene i was writing)

[areyouwho-ithinkyouare]

gilmore girls season 6 is so infuriating bcus it’s simultaneously the least watchable block of episodes across the whole show but also i think it’s the most important narratively. it’s like. THIS is the story arc we’ve been building up to for years. THIS is what we’ve been laying the groundwork for. it’s honestly the climax of the show’s overarching plot, even though there’s a whole seventh season afterwards. When you rewatch gilmore girls THATS what you’re waiting for, that’s what it feels like it’s all leading towards. And it is. fucking unbearable.

[the-overreactress]

I also think that the reason Jess never gets described as beautiful on the show is that Lorelai won't say it because she doesn't like Jess or want Rory to like him, so she's not going to acknowledge any attractive qualities, and Rory herself spent all her time either in denial or defensive/half-ashamed of het attraction to him, so SHE wasn't going to say it. And nobody in town liked him, so Rory knows that if she called him "beautiful," everybody would just say, "Ahh, Rory was just seduced by a pretty face," and that's the LAST THING she wants people to think. I AM surprised it never came up with Lane, though. Well, she called him "so cute" in Season 4, I guess, and Paris actually called him "UNBELIEVABLY cute" in a deleted scene from There's the Rub (where she told Rory, "Well, if you ever decide you do like him, I wouldn't blame you," haha) but "cute" seems like kind of an understatement compared to the "beautiful" the other guys get. 😂 I don't know.

Yes! This is precisely what I meant with “intentional,” because so much of Rory’s approach to dating and relationships stems directly from Lorelai’s perception of the boys Rory dates/likes. Lorelai won’t even let her have it, even after they start dating. There is such an air of shame and betrayal around their relationship in the *eyes of other people* around them. And yet, they arguably have the best chemistry. There’s acknowledgment that Rory is ready to have sex with Jess because of the intensity of their physical AND emotional connection, which never came up with Dean until…well, we know. The shame Rory associates with being attracted to Jess shows up a ton, and it really affects their entire dynamic. I think it even spills over into season 6 with Logan.

Another thought I had is 1. Rory’s association of sex with shame generally and 2. The perception of Jess as a “dangerous,” albeit attractive, bad boy and therefore a threat to her virginity, purity, what have you. I’d have to go back into the series to be sure about this, but these points also show up a TON. Jess and his motivations are always suspect (even to Luke and Liz). Together, they are even more suspect (Rory cheating, going to NYC, not telling Lorelai about seeing him in season 6, etc.)

So, while it’s obvious Jess (and by extension Milo) is attractive, particularly to Rory, no one will acknowledge it outside of MAYBE Miss Patty or Lane or Paris in that deleted scene. The danger aspect of it really alters the way people see him that drastically.

[stellaluna33]

Another way in which the Diner Dudes mirror the Gilmore Girls is that Lorelai's Older Sister energy with Rory is matched by Luke's Older Brother energy with Jess. Like, he cares about him and looks out for him, obviously... gives advice when he can... but there's also the nonstop ribbing and mockery (and it's mutual as well). In all ways but literally, he is giving Jess a noogie, and that cheek pinch at the Employee of the Month ceremony was pretty darn close. 😂😭

[teddypickerry]

CHARACTERS I THINK WOULD BE 100x BETTER WITH JESS THAN RORY EVER WAS.

before the literati army comes for me, i don’t dislike them with passion like those fuckass dean fans. when i watch the show i enjoy them the most by far. i enjoy any scene jess is in. however, when i step back, yeah there was no way in hell they were gonna work out in the long run. the writers wouldn’t let that happen, nor should it have. they’re cute; but i’d prefer better for both of them in their own ways.

aka team rory gets therapy, jess gets bitches.

oo. serena van der woodsen (i know, i know. just stick with me!!!)

just hear me out for two seconds. do i think they’d last a lifetime? no, no the fuck i don’t. would they be fun to watch? oh, hell yeah. jess thinks she’s what she is, an annoying girl raised by a billionaire. but she somehow woos him with her long legs and careless attitude. do they break up after she graduates and does nothing with her life while he’s busting his ass off to make a couple hundred a week? um, yeah. but that’s probably already their third breakup because lily hated him at first (hiiii lorelai), blair was a bitch to him, chuck set him up, and gossip girl made a blast about his past. side note: what would jess’s gossip girl name be? i’m leaning toward a catcher in the rye reference. and would he probably be better fit for blair? mmm, yeah. but would that happen, mmm no. but that’s for another time.

oo. spencer hastings (here’s where we’re getting into it)

spencer is one of the few characters that challenges jess’s family dynamic. yeah, he dated his now step-cousin but her sister made out with her half-sister’s half-brother who share a dad that she technically shares sooooo. not to mention her mom’s not even her mom and she has an evil twin sister. so crazy family dynamic no one else understands? yeah they got that covered. i like to call spencer the better rory on speed. because well… spencer was on speed. she definitely fits the academic type who can not only match but challenge his literary references. she just gets it without trying and she’d sure as hell hold a grudge against liz. they’re both strong as hell but they need someone to lean on, they are kids.

oo. marissa cooper (you knew it was coming)

i don’t need to remind you guys of my absolute devotion toward this crossover ship. but hey i’m doing it anyways. let’s make a list, shall we? psycho mom who never took accountability for her actions and *borderline* abused them? check. dad who left? check. running off ‘cause life sucks x2? checcckkkkk. i mean the list could go on and on. my punk loving babies who mentioned the same book and bands, awwwww. i think the great thing about them is they both need to be protected whether they realize it or not. i think they’d be one of those couples that can speak with one look - no words necessary. she glances at him once and he’s holding onto her for dear life. have i imagined their entire relationship in my head? yes, yes i have. is that fic coming? it was supposed to but i suck. anyways, these two were doomed from their start. they really weren’t given a fair chance. but they got past it (or at least they were both *going* to). le sigh.

oo. literally anyone.

<3

[anxiouspotatorants]

Actually you know what I need to rant about this: while literati is technically a good girl x bad boy dynamic it is written so incredibly well and avoids so many pitfalls and stereotypes that it makes a good girl x bad boy hater like myself (I’m only half joking — I don’t think any trope is inherently good or bad but I tend to dislike most pairings with this dynamic) fall head over heels for their story and relationship.

So much of what makes the two of them work is the contrast between how others perceive them and how they truly are. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who understand who Rory is as a person (Lorelai, Lane, Paris, Richard and Emily to a certain degree for starters), but she's constantly met with the expectation that she just does good and is supposed to make everyone proud 24/7. Stars Hollow as a group especially are big on this, as seen f. ex. through how Taylor takes Rory's one comment about an inappropriate DVD and twists the whole thing into a censorship crusade and makes Rory its poster-child even though she wants nothing to do with it and tells him so repeatedly. But instead of hearing Rory disagree with him (like he would Lorelai and Luke) he assumes that she actually agrees with him - and why shouldn't she when she's the perfect sunshine paragon of good who would never disagree with her elders? Also her grandparents treat her as incredibly fragile and childlike, like she must be too innocent to ever do anything wrong and so whenever she does something it has to be somebody else's fault (usually Lorelai, but occasionally Jess or whoever else was present). Time and time again Rory is treated like something innocent and naive and weak — but not by Jess. He sees her as a person.

And it obviously goes the other way too. Jess is treated like shit by pretty much everyone else. Either people hate him unprovoked or very much provoked (he did do a lot of pranks in his first few weeks and while I'm a Dean-hater I'm not blind to how much Jess picked fights with him), or they’ve simply given up on him. He tells Rory himself that every authority figure he had back in New York gave up on him too, from teachers to principals to his very own mother. But Rory doesn’t treat him like a lost cause, she treats him like the smart, brilliant and asshole-ish teen that he is. By having faith in him she also often holds him more accountable than others. Where f. ex. Lorelai or the other adults just roll their eyes, Rory physically drags Jess into doing his shifts at the diner. While others write him off, Rory chews Jess’ ear out for not helping Luke more and for willfully making enemies out of the Stars Hollow adults.

They don't put each other on pedestals or below each other. Jess doesn’t try to make a sinner out of Rory and she doesn’t try to make a saint out of him. There’s genuine respect between them. They expect each other to have integrity and treat others with kindness and honesty, and the rest is good old chemistry and common interests.

I particularly love how in so many of their scenes (especially pre-relationship) when they spend time alone they just get to be these goofy nerdy kids. They argue about controversial authors and dig through records shops and eat hot dogs and make fun of each other and try to make each other laugh. It’s not just sexual chemistry as it too often is in a dynamic like this (and often uncomfortably sexual when writing teenagers - looking at you Gossip Girl), and not just well written intellectual chemistry — they have platonic chemistry too. A hell of a lot of it actually.

While I don’t think ASP wrote them through a purely deconstructionist lens on the good girl x bad boy dynamic (if she did plan on writing the dynamic at all), there is something to be said about how where many around them treat them like stereotypes they treat each other like people. To so many people, Rory is a perfect small town princess, a little miss sunshine with booksmarts for days but too delicate and sweet for anything with grit and weight. To a lot of the same people and many more Jess is a pathetic brutish and maniacal lost cause, hell personified in a chainsmoking leather-wearing teenager. But to each other they are actual human beings. Kind and mean and flirtatious and scared and reckless and smart. Rory really thinks that with the right motivation and mindset Jess can be the kind who does (and at the end wrote) incredible things. Jess really believes that with a little more practice and support to step out of her comfort zone she can be the amazing journalist she wishes to be.

They don’t have this stupid «we’re so bad for each other but we can’t stay away» thing that too many trope users rely on and don’t even justify in the plot. Everyone else might think they’re not fit for each other, but they knew they were each other’s person from the very first day.

[mystic-writings]

almost perfect | jess mariano

PAIRING — jess mariano x fem!gilmore!reader

REQUEST — Anon - Where Emily and Richard have a kid a year older than Rory (they had her before Lorelai got pregnant with her) and she’s sent to love with Lorelai around the same the same time jess moves to town? And they meet all cutesy and shit 🤭

SUMMARY — you move to stars hollow to live with your sister, lorelai, and end up falling for the one person who understands you - and the one person your sister doesn't like

WARNINGS — angst, familiy arguments, odd family dynamics, confessions, fluff

WORD COUNT — 3,461

NOTES — this idea has had me in a chokehold fr thank you anon

masterlist | navigation

Moving to a new town and starting your life at a new high school with only two years left before graduation was difficult. But moving into your sister’s town, and going to a school where her daughter was a former student, and everyone already knows who you are, is infinitely worse. 

You supposed that being semi-close to Rory as kids was a good thing, because if it weren’t for knowing her and, by extension, knowing Lane, you’d be wandering these halls completely alone, and doubly more confused. 

Dean and Lane were angels, helping you with every piece of much needed information on what teachers were good or bad, who to avoid at every chance, and where to not sit during lunch. They promised to do their best to help, but Lane’s mother was as strict as a dictator, and Dean often worked after school, so beyond sitting with them in the classes you happened to share, there wasn’t much they could do. 

Still, Rory walked you to the doors before heading off to catch the bus to Chilton, taking extra care to make sure you were okay before leaving. It was nice, the relationship you had with her despite everything. 

Lorelai wasn’t too happy that you were staying at theirs, but she understood why you had to leave your parents behind. Or, more realistically, why you were forced to walk out. It’s why she left them 17 years ago. 

Despite the age gap between you and your sister, Lorelai was all too aware of why you were born. Of how your parents treated the both of you, and the fact that no child should’ve been raised under the Gilmore name. She was never really close with you, considering you were only a few months older than Rory, but you understood. No 16 year old should be raising a kid while her parents are raising a baby themselves. 

But, she was kind enough to open her arms, and redecorate her spare bedroom, to fit you in. She got you a place at Stars Hollow High, settled you in with the townspeople, and did anything in her power to help. 

However, there was no helping the bundle of anxiety in your chest as you headed from your locker to homeroom. The school was small, of course. Not small enough to have a graduating class size of under 70 kids, but small enough that people knew who was attached to your last name. Small enough for people to start asking questions. 

Homeroom itself was fine. Lane and Dean had different homeroom classes, and people whispered when your name was called during attendance, but everything else was fine. The boy you sat next to seemed entirely unbothered by the environment around him, clutching a pen as he wrote in the margins of the book he carried - On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. Rory had lent the book to you not even two weeks ago, and you mentally appraised him for his literary taste. 

Of course, you should’ve known that trouble would’ve found you not long after your first day. 

Between second and third period, you’d been standing at your locker, supposedly the one Rory used to inhabit - and one you’d already decorated with stickers of bands and movie references - switching out your books when three girls approached you. You were already not prepared for any unexpected interactions, but these girls spelled trouble, just from the way they were all blonde, pretty and primped at 9am, in a small town high school. You expected it from the Chilton girls, sure, but not here. 

“You’re Y/n Gilmore, right?” The one in the middle said, her mouth upturned in something like a grimace. 

“Yeah, why?”

“Well we saw you during homeroom and we were wondering,” the girl on the left spoke, her gum popping annoyingly as she chewed on it. “If you’re, like, a Gilmore, does that make you Rory’s sister?”

“Yeah, we didn’t know Rory had a sister.” 

“How come we’ve never seen you before? I mean, you both should’ve gone to the same school, right?”

“Oh, my God, are you not her sister? Or were you just like, in rehab or something?”

“Oh my God, are you a drug addict?”

The girls continued to chirp at you, and among themselves, endlessly thinking up possibilities of how you could be Rory’s sister and still not go to Stars Hollow High until now. You didn’t even know they had that much brain power, let alone that they could jump to that far of a conclusion so fast. 

Suddenly, from behind you, someone spoke. “Why don’t you girls leave her alone, huh?” 

They stopped, almost freakishly in sync, and grimaced at the person behind you. 

“Seriously, Barbie, why don’t you go fix your makeup or something.” He scoffed, stepping up to stand beside you. “And honestly, if she was a tweaker, do you really think she’d even be allowed in the school?”

“I-”

“Just go away,” he complained, and the girl in the middle scoffed. 

“Whatever, Jess. Just trying to get to know the new girl.” She rolled her eyes.

You didn’t stop yourself from looking at the trio in disbelief. “You sure have a funny way of doing it, then. Why don’t you make up rumours about someone else and leave me the hell out of it. Or have you gotten bored of doing it to everyone else?”

It was amusing, watching the shock make their jaws drop before they managed to saunter away. When you turned to look at the boy who helped save you from that awful experience, you found the person who sat next to you in homeroom. 

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” he shrugged, a slight smirk playing on his lips, and you noticed that his hands were shoved in his front pockets. “Trust me, those girls do that to everyone. Y/n, right?”

“That’s me. And you’re Jess.” 

“Yep.” 

You stood silently for a few moments, staring awkwardly at one another. Just as you opened your mouth to speak, the warning bell rang, and the noise level around you picked up as students rushed to their next classes. 

“See you around, Y/n.” And just like that, Jess disappeared into the crowd of students, leaving you to gather your things and head to calculus, one of the few classes you shared with Lane. 

It’s been almost two months since you moved to Stars Hollow, and you found that adjusting was a lot easier than you first thought it would be. Despite having Lane and Dean at your side, you also seemed to be one of the lucky few to catch and retain Jess Mariano’s attention. He was, to everyone else, the loner who barely came to class and had no interest in being in the town in the first place; but he seemed to take a liking to you, the reason for which was still unknown to everyone but him. 

He was quick to become your best friend, and the only person in town who you gave a detailed description of your family background to. Somehow, the rumours that the girls who forced you into conversation never made it outside of their circle, but at some point the truth about your relationship with the Gilmore girls was spread around town, as you assumed would happen at some point. 

Still, no one minded that much, and found that your closeness to Rory and Lorelai meant that you were close to everyone in Stars Hollow. The welcoming warmth and sense of community was something that you had never felt in Hartford. 

Jess, of course, found it annoying, but you liked to tease him about it, and you knew he meant well. No one else seemed to want to care about him like you did, like Luke did. Including Lorelai, who was less than pleased that you chose to befriend him out of all the other supposedly stand-up kids in town. 

It wasn’t uncommon for you to have Jess over while Lorelai and Rory went to Hartford for Friday night dinners. In fact, it was what you had in mind for your plans as you watched the mother-daughter duo scramble around the house to get ready. 

Rory was, as usual, ready to leave exceptionally early, and had bid you a cheerful goodbye as she headed out to the car to wait for her mom, who was marching her way down the stairs while struggling to put in earrings. 

Lorelai caught sight of you on the couch, curled up and channel surfing, and smiled. “So, what are your plans for tonight? Partying hard, I hope. Remember my rule, no bikers and no drugs past 8pm.”

“Funny, Lorelai,” you smiled, craning your neck to look at her as she shoved items from the side table into her purse. “I’ll probably just order in and call Jess. He’s never doing anything on Fridays, and it’s better than being alone all night.” 

Your sister paused in the hallway, fidgeting movements indicating that she was contemplating something. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

Lorelai turned fully, and took a few tentative steps toward you. Her iconic awkwardly polite smile stretched across her features, and you looked her up and down. “Why do you hang out with Jess so much? Sweetie, I mean, you’ve gotta see how bad of an influence he is.” 

“He’s not a bad influence, Lor. If anything, I’m being a good influence on him.” You said, sitting up straighter, leaning on the arm of the couch to properly face your sister. “Besides, he’s nice. He just doesn’t like a lot of other people in town.” 

“So you’re trying to tell me that he’s nice to everyone but you?”

“Yes, and I don’t exactly see what’s wrong with that.” 

“Well, hon, I mean, don’t you think that maybe that’s a little, I dunno, odd?” Lorelai suggested, her fluster clearly underlining her tone. 

You shrugged. “I don’t think so, no. He’s my best friend.” 

“Yes, I know that, but-” Lorelai tapped her foot, trying to find the right words to say. “I think you’re spending too much time with him, Y/n, and I just think it’s gonna end up with you getting hurt somehow.” 

“Hurt?” You scoffed. “Lorelai, how in the world would Jess be able to hurt me?”

Lorelai sighed, stepping closer to you. “I think you like him, Y/n. I think you have a crush on him, and I don’t think he likes you back. I just don’t want you to do anything and then end up being heartbroken and losing Jess as a friend.” 

You? Having feelings for Jess? It was something you could barely wrap your mind around. Lorelai’s accusations, even if out of some sort of motherly-type concern, were out of line. There was no way you liked Jess like that, right? And besides, even if you did, she didn’t have the right to try to stop you from doing or not doing anything about it. 

“Why are you so concerned about this all of a sudden?” You asked, furrowing your brow. “I mean, I’ve been hanging out with Jess one on one for a while, it’s not like all of a sudden I’ll catch feelings for him or something.”

“I understand that, but I’m saying that it seems like you caught feelings a while ago, Y/n.” Lorelai said, exasperation clear in the speed at which she was talking. 

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Why won’t she just drop it? “I’ve got it handled, Lorelai, please, just leave it be and go to dinner. You’re gonna be late, and you know how much mom hates that. Especially when you’re late.”

Lorelai scoffed. “I have plenty of time before we have to go. Now will you please tell me why you have such an attitude about this? I’m just trying to look out for you. Jess isn’t good for you, and I just want to-” 

“I get that Lorelai but I don’t need you to.” You snapped, swiftly getting to your feet. “I don’t need you to protect me, or look out for my best interest, or be motherly toward me. I get that you’re trying to make up for the fact that you couldn’t protect me as a kid and I ended up getting kicked out or whatever, but you’re not my mother.” Your blood was boiling. You didn’t know why, but it seemed that something within you just… snapped. “I don’t need you, Lorelai.” Your words pierced Lorelai’s heart with every bit of enunciation you placed on them. 

“And it doesn’t matter what kind of influence Jess is on me, because our mother made sure to ruin me beforehand. You of all people should understand that.” 

Lorelai stood, shocked at your outburst. She’d never seen more of herself in someone before, and still, she was heartbroken. Tears brimmed her eyes as she realized that, despite what you just said was more than likely teenage hormones kicking into gear, it was the truth. She tried, as hard as she could, to protect you as a kid. Harder than she tried to get herself out of that house. But she failed, because Rory came first, always. You didn’t need her anymore, not to raise or protect you. 

“You’re right,” Lorelai nodded, clearing her throat before blinking away her tears. “You’re too grown up to need me anymore. I just… wanted to make sure you knew I cared. That I was worried. But you don’t need me, so go ahead and make whatever decisions you want to. It’s not on me.” 

You watched Lorelai turn and walk out of the house, the door rattling the house as it swung shut. And suddenly, the silence pressed in on you, weighted with the realization of what you’d just done. Months of trying desperately to repair your relationship with Lorelai, of further building your relationship with Rory, only to have it torn down in seconds by your stupid teenage denial and anger. 

The weight of your actions came crashing down, and soon you were sitting back on the couch, sobbing into your hands. 

You don’t know how long you spent stuck in that spot until the house rattled again, and Jess was calling out to you, telling you what he forced Luke to make for the both of you to eat during your hangout tonight. 

Jess barely heard you crying on the couch until the food was on the table and he turned to find you there, back to him, curled into yourself as you sobbed. His voice faded instantly, his legs making long, quick strides in order to reach you as fast as he could. Jess’ mind was a flurry of confusion and worry - you sounded fine when he called you an hour ago. 

As soon as you were within reach, Jess’ hand gripped your shoulder, refusing to let himself lose the grasp he had on you even after he manoeuvred himself to sit next to you. He shuffled as close as he could get, and it was those movements that forced your head up from where it rested on your knees, enclosed by your arms wrapping around your legs. 

“Hey,” he said, trying his best to soothe you, but Jess wasn’t one to do that sort of thing often. “What’s wrong?”

“I am,” you croaked, followed by a sniffle and a shaking breath. “I’m so stupid, Jess.” 

Jess’ hand moved down your shoulder, until it squeezed your forearm comfortingly. “No, you’re not. And you’re obviously not okay. Tell me what happened.” 

As soon as the words left his mouth, you shook your head. Telling Jess that you argued with Lorelai over him would just make things worse with her, and telling him it was about your feelings for him would ruin things altogether.

“I can’t.” You said quietly. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, okay, Jess? I was just stupid and it’s my fault, I don’t wanna drag you into this.”

“No, I do have to worry about it, Y/n.” Jess said, his words firm. You could see his brows furrowing, eyes darkening. His emotions were brewing, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to stop it. “You’re my best friend. Hell, you’re my only friend, and I don’t know how you managed to do it, but I care about you. I actually care about someone for once in my life, and it’s you. So tell me what happened, drag me into it, because I… I care.” 

You couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit. Sniffling once again, you moved yourself to wipe some tears from your cheeks and put your hand on top of the hand Jess laid on your forearm. You stared at your hands and soaked in his warmth as you spoke. “It was Lorelai, we fought and-”

“Of course it was,” Jess scoffed.

You rolled your eyes. “Jess, just let me-” 

“No, she always has something to say about- about everything.” He said.

“Let me finish, please.” When Jess didn’t speak again, you continued. “I told her you and I were gonna hang out for the night and she sort of… well, she mentioned a few things and I got angry and we fought. I was an idiot and I yelled at her for trying to be my mother because she didn’t protect me as a kid and it just… it was a disaster.” 

Jess scoffed again, pulling his hand back and scrubbing his face, leaning into the couch. “Of course, she had to say something about you being with me. What, does she think we’re gonna rob a bank as a fun casual activity? I mean, seriously, she’s had it out for me since day one.”

You leaned forward, re-initiating the touch by resting your arm on his shoulder, your hand just barely grazing the back of his neck. “She doesn’t think we’re good for each other. At all. But she’s wrong, I know she is.” 

“Me too,” Jess sighed, looking over at you. 

The silence that filled the space between you, and your stomach was churning. Lorelai’s words came back to you, and as much as you didn’t want her in your head right now, you knew, deep down, that what she’d said about your feelings for Jess were true. 

Before you could stop yourself, you pulled away and the words came tumbling out, awkward and choppy and full of anxiety. “She was right about one thing, though.” 

Again, Jess scoffed an almost playful smirk lifting the corners of his lips. “Oh yeah, and what was that?”

“That I… have feelings for you.” You said, following it with an awkward and bashful smile. It was now or never, you supposed. “I mean, I didn’t even realize it until just now so don’t yell at me for keeping it a secret or something but she is right. You’re the only other person besides her and Rory and Luke that I care about and even then I care more about you than them and all I almost ever think or talk about is you and it sucks and I don’t want to keep it to myself. If you don’t want to be friends anymore I understand because it’s weird to have a friend who has feelings for you, trust me, so you can just leave now if you want-”

Jess’ lips crashing onto your own cut off the breathless ramble you had found yourself in. Your brain nearly completely shut down, complete peace silencing all the anxious thoughts in your head as you closed your eyes. By the time you registered that you needed to kiss back, Jess was pulling away, but you refused to let the moment end. He barely made it inches away before you were chasing his lips, placing a hand on his jaw to guide him back to you. 

The kiss was simple, but it was as if it sparked something within you, and every nerve in your body felt the emotion within you. You never imagined you’d be kissing a guy like Jess. Hell, you never imagined you’d find someone like him, someone so damn near perfect for you, in your lifetime. But you did, and he was kissing you, and you couldn’t give a damn about what anyone else would think when they found out. Because right now, it was just you and Jess, and no one else knew, and things were almost perfect, and that was what was important. 

You’d fix things with Lorelai tomorrow, and you weren’t sure you’d ever truly fix things with your parents; one day you’d try, just not yet. But for right now, all that mattered was yourself and Jess.

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[evelhak]

Aaaaa, this!!! I literally cried, I am so happy to see some actual common sense!! I am so, SO tired of this trend, it's not just Rory either, there's a really unfair pattern going on where the "renaissance" on a piece of media is basically just fans ripping a protagonist to pieces for things that these fans do not hold other characters, particularly beloved antagonists and rivals, accountable for.

This video perfectly illustrates the dynamic: Rory, who tries her best to both achieve her goals and be a decent human being while doing it, who never was a perfect human if you paid attention, gets held to the standard of an angel, so every time she makes a mistake that mistake is treated as disproportionately horrible and irredeemable. Meanwhile, as a good example, Paris, who consistently treats other people horribly, gets downright babied, and how she deserved better is repeated, her own responsibility over her actions downplayed or completely ignored. Only her good qualities are remembered, and highlighted.

There's an excellent quote in the video:

"The audience loves Paris because she is so over the top that she becomes a non-character. But when you take her as a real person and judge her with the same standards as you would Lorelai and Rory, she is pretty terrible."

This. This happens with so many characters whose traits are so much that they are viewed as inherently comedic or unbelievable, so they don't count in people's eyes. Paris having a fit in her college entrance interview, yelling over the interviewers and defending eugenics, gets brushed off as "poor baby, she's clearly mentally ill, she just deserves better, she should have gotten in", while Rory, who got manipulated into an internship by the BIGGEST journalism figure just so he could tell her "she didn't have it" was JUST weak and entitled for getting upset and discouraged over it.

Paris cheating on her boyfriend for months with a college professor gets pushed under the rug because people are too uncomfortable to even acknowledge the whole thing, meanwhile Rory is THE WORST for sleeping with a married guy after she repeatedly asked him if both him and his wife agreed their marriage was over, suggested they could try counselling, and was lied to by said guy that both he and his wife knew things were over between them.

Yeah, Rory made mistakes, and definitely didn't act perfectly after either of the situations I mentioned. She was emotional and people generally make mistakes when they are. But for some reason certain characters get a free pass all the time, while it feels almost like Rory gets punished for even trying to be a good person. Like "See, I caught her making a mistake, that means she's the worst." As if trying to have morals and be decent is inherently arrogant and hypocritical. Like trying and failing is worse than not even trying. It's like, her mom and grandparents and home town expect her to be perfect, so fans did too, and now they're mad at her for being human because they put her on a pedestal. Meanwhile characters who consistently don't care about their impact on others don't get scrutinized, their actually horrible behaviour is just taken as comedy or proof of their victimhood.

Basically, people are desensitized to horrible things from certain characters, they expect it, so they don't react to it, but when Rory who is "supposed to be good" makes a mistake, it's suddenly the core of her character and all she is. Geez.

And don't get me wrong, I love both Paris and Rory. I love every character in the show. But this double standard drives me nuts. So many characters in the show have done very similar things as Rory gets accused of, some of them while feeling no remorse. Some of them have done a lot worse things that get forgiven easily.

And don't even get me started on what a hot guy with a tragic backstory gets excused for. Yeah, some things are understandable when you know the backstory. That doesn't make those things not wrong.

It's like people are obsessed with the idea that someone who appears good on the surface must be bad, and vice versa. Nuance be damned.

[butchjess]

Well. hrm. the way they all connect to each other. like it’s all starting to look like a circle of some sort. jess as rory’s mirror/reflection/narrative foil but also jess as he pertains to luke and jess as he pertains to lorelai. luke breaking the church bells luke who says he was troubled but they gave him a chance and just bc a kid has issues doesnt mean they don’t deserve that. luke who is a figure placed against the rest of the town, just in the sense that he is not like them, he does not hold their values, he doesn’t even sound like them. which is of course a result of scott patterson’s new york accent, but adds to this theme anyway. and they use jess to build this picture, because they walk the same and talk the same and they’re stubborn—independent to a near self-endangering degree—and emotionally repressed in the same way and luke himself admits that he spent more time working at his dad’s shop than he did at school, which jess also does. but jess and luke are also. very very different when you get past these similar values that are maybe ingrained into them through different circumstances and same genetic makeup. and in their differences you get a lot of jess and lorelai’s similarities. when it comes to their family dynamics and how it’s affected them in particular. it’s made them independent yes, but it’s also made them hypervigilant, almost paranoid in the way they are allergic to accepting help and especially accepting help from the people who hurt them. jess only goes to his mother’s wedding because luke asks him to, lorelai only asks her parents for money because rory needs it for school. and they, and this is where they differ from luke, don’t know how to trust people and so they don’t know how to talk to people. where luke’s particular brand of emotional constipation comes from a general cluelessness as to how to do it—which is why the tapes helped him so much—lorelai and jess’ come from emotional responses to the situations they grew up in. while it was different—lorelai growing up rich, jess growing up poor—the effect it had on them still resulted in something similar. lorelai with her overbearing manipulative mother and (emotionally) absent father, and jess with his neglecting manipulative mother and (in all senses of the word) absent father. the ways that, despite their effort to distance themselves, they still end up with similar mannerisms to the parent they have the most conflict with (lorelai and her controlling nature + that scene where they have the same nighttime routine, jess and his love for books + tendency to run away). and of course, their romanticism. their big confessions and period drama-esque speeches and, yeah, i do think in a way jess was asking rory to marry him in 4x21. come with me. let’s get married. luke and rory both being the most important people in their lives. literati+javajunkie where they are all melding into each other, and luke is rory and lorelai is jess but on the surface level dynamic luke is jess and lorelai is rory and they are all each other. on accident. by sheer nature of making jess as a character for the sole purpose of interfering with luke and lorelai’s relationship (which means he is important narratively to them both) and by making him rory’s love interest/foil (because ASP casted him before she even had the idea for the character) you have now made an accidental blending of them all together. he is like a skeleton key of a character. Okay. okay.